Renegade (The Captive Series Book 2) (25 page)

Braith stiffened as he turned slowly
back to them. Relief radiated from Melinda, hope and desire gleamed
in her eyes. “Or imagine the wonder of it,” she whispered. “Imagine
the freedom that would come if such a tyrannical, ruthless rule
could be broken.”

“Is it your love for Ashby that has so
turned you against our father?” Braith inquired.

She tilted her head as she quirked a
dark eyebrow at him. In that moment it struck him how very much she
looked like their mother. He had never thought much of it; he
hadn’t really thought much of his mother, as he had been taken from
her at a young age. His father hadn’t wanted him to spend too much
time with a woman he was afraid might coddle Braith, and weaken
him. The same thing had happened with Caleb and Jericho. He wasn’t
sure when Natasha had been taken away, and Melinda had still been a
toddler when their mother was banished from the castle.

The woman had done nothing to deserve
being banished, she had given the king five children. Though Braith
speculated that his mother probably would have been content to just
have him, his father had not been. His mother had been banished
simply because the king had decided that it would be more
convenient for him to no longer have a wife living under the same
roof as his mistresses. He cared nothing for the youngest child
that would be leaving with the woman.

“No Braith, that isn’t the reason. I
have always hated him.”

“I did not realize that.”

“You wouldn’t.” Braith stared hard at
her for a moment, but Melinda did not back down from him. “You were
in your own world Braith. You were the prince, the future king; you
thought nothing of the young sister who suddenly reappeared in your
home. And once you lost your sight I was even further from your
mind, from everyone’s mind. No one noticed when I disappeared for a
day or two, sometimes even a week at a time. I am a nonentity in
that place, I always have been, and that is just fine by me. You
had it far worse than I ever did, even with my early life outside
of the palace walls. I understood my circumstances were far better
than the scrutiny, and constant cloud of hatred and disappointment
you had to live under. You were never going to be the monster that
father wanted you to be. No matter how badly he treated you, no
matter how often he beat you.

“Caleb should have been first
born.”

“It would have made things easier, and
father happier,” Braith agreed without sorrow.

“Caleb may be harder to overthrow than
father. If he doesn’t already, he soon will know that he is the new
heir apparent. He won’t give that up easily, and the things he will
do with that power…”

Melinda shuddered; her hand tightened
on Ashby’s, who looked just as disgusted as Melinda. Even the
vampire girl was watching them with wide eyed horror. What Caleb
would do with that power would make everything his father had done
seem petty and small. Blood would spill freely through the palace
streets. Debauchery and death would rule.

“How were you able to survive the day
that mother was killed?” Braith inquired. He had never asked
before, never even thought to, or even given much thought to the
fact that his sister had survived the slaughter that claimed their
mother.

Melinda closed her eyes, her hands
fisted in her lap. Pain flickered briefly across her features as
her lip trembled briefly. Ashby rested his hand on her shoulder,
squeezing it reassuringly. “Isn’t that obvious?” Braith tensed, he
hadn’t realized that Arianna had awakened until she spoke. Her hand
tightened upon his thigh, and then she sat slowly up. Her eyes were
slightly swollen with sleep, but they were dark and swirling with
pain. Her question hung in the air; she waited expectantly for him
to say something.

“No,” he admitted, feeling as if he
were somehow disappointing her by not knowing the
answer.

Her eyes were soft, understanding, but
the sadness within them grew as she rested her small hand lightly
upon his face. However, the sorrow was not for herself, or even for
Melinda, it was for him. Braith was stunned by the grief he saw
there, he did not understand it. Did not see why she sought to
comfort him right now. “Your mother sacrificed herself for
Melinda.”

Braith started, he frowned at Arianna
as he seized hold of her hand, pulling it away from his cheek. “How
could you possibly know that?” he demanded.

Her full mouth was tremulous, tears
burned in her beautiful sapphire eyes. “Because it is how William
and I survived.”

Braith was taken aback, his hand
tightened on hers. He turned toward Melinda, surprised to find his
sister watching Arianna with compassion, and understanding. “Is
that true?” he demanded. “Did our mother sacrifice herself for
you?”

“Yes,” Melinda confirmed.

Braith sat silently for a long moment,
trying to digest this information. He had not really known his
mother; she had been kind to him during their brief time together.
He had not known what life had been like for her within the palace,
or outside of it.

“Why would she do that?”

It was not Melinda that answered, but
Arianna. “Love. Simple, unconditional love.”

He watched Arianna, saw the need in her
eyes, the burning desire for him to understand. And he did
understand. He understood the kind of love that she was talking
about, understood what it was to die for someone because he would
die for her. Two months ago, before he had met her, he never would
have understood, never would have fathomed doing such a thing for
someone else. Now there was nothing that could stop him from saving
her life.

“I understand,” he assured her. Her
smile was tremulous, a single tear slipped free. He wiped it gently
away. “What happened?”

Arianna shied away from him, her eyes
darkened, darted away, then slid slowly back to him. Her jaw
clenched, her chin jutted proudly out. “Our father thought it would
be best to hide us, not in the forest, but in a home. He felt if we
were out of the woods, if we were living an almost normal life we
would be safe, and we would blend in. We lived there for about a
year, and then one day the troops came to raid the village for
prisoners and victims.

“My father had built a small room for
all of us to hide in just in case this ever happened. It was a
panic room of sorts I guess, there was food, air, water to survive
for days. We could have stayed in there until the soldiers left,
until my father came back. We could have all stayed in that
room.”

Arianna’s dark eyebrows drew tightly
together. Her lips were pursed, the horror was etched onto her
features, pain swelled within her beautiful eyes. “But you
didn’t?”

She focused on him, blinking slightly
as she seemed to recall that he was there. As she seemed to come
back to the present, and leave the horror of her past behind. “No,
we did not.” Her tone was clipped, harsh, her voice
ragged.

“Why?”

She licked her lips, her forehead
furrowed; she appeared confused by this question. “I didn’t
understand that at the time either. She put William and I in that
room, told us to be quiet, told us to stay quiet no matter what
happened, no matter what we heard, and then she closed the
door.”

Braith took hold of her hand as she
shuddered. “And what did you do?”

She looked helplessly at him. “Nothing,
we did nothing. There was nothing that we could do. We were four
years old, we were terrified, and we didn’t know how to get out of
that damn room. We tried, but we couldn’t find the way out, and
then they came into that house. We sat in a corner, and we held
each other, and we cried. We did what our mother wanted us to do,
and we listened in silence as they tortured and killed her. The
entire time she swore that we had gone out with our father, that we
were not present.”

He didn’t think she was aware of the
tears sliding silently down her cheeks. He didn’t think she was
aware of anything outside of the past that she seemed to be trapped
within. A past, and horror, he would have done anything to take
from her, said anything to make her feel better, but there was
nothing that he could say. There was no way to right her past, no
way to ease her pain; all he could do was give her a better
future.

He pulled her close, caressing the nape
of her neck as he lightly kissed her forehead. She grasped each of
his forearms tightly, clinging to him as if he were a life raft in
the sea of her agony. “There was nothing else you could have done,”
he said softly.

A small smile curved Arianna’s mouth,
but there was no humor in it. “That may be true, but I’ll never
believe it.”

He closed his eyes, savoring in the
amazing scent of her. She engulfed him, filled him, she eased every
awful thing inside of him. He trusted that he did the same for her.
“Why didn’t she go in the room?” Ashby asked softly.

“Because then they would have torn the
house apart looking for them, ripped it to shreds until they were
finally found. She sacrificed herself, she allowed them to torture
her until they were satisfied that her children really weren’t
there. Right?” Melinda asked softly.

Arianna nodded. “Yes. I believe that is
why.”

Braith thought about the woman that had
given life to Arianna, the one that had helped create it, and in
the end saved it. He gave a silent thanks to her, wishing that he
could have thanked her in person. Wishing that he could have met
her. But he supposed that the proud, brave, giving, and strong
person before him was exactly as her mother had been.

“Is that what your mother did?” Arianna
asked softly.

“I was older, not quite a child
anymore, barely a teen when they came,” Melinda confirmed. “My
mother managed to get us upstairs before they invaded our house.
She pulled us into one of the backrooms, and using furniture she
blocked the door to the best of her ability. She helped me out the
window, pushing me down the small roof before helping me slip over
the side. She promised me that she would follow before I dropped to
the ground. Instead, she scurried back up the roof, slid the window
shut, and locked it. By then I could hear them breaking down the
door, shoving the furniture aside to get at her. She tried to fight
them off in order to buy me more time to escape.

“I wanted to go back in, wanted to go
after her. But I was stopped by four of the servants we had. Mother
had always been good to them; she had always treated them with
respect and kindness. She had taught me to do the same, and over
the years we become more like a family. I was young, and though
they were not strong vampires, the four of them overwhelmed me.
They pulled me back, led me away, forced me through the woods, and
away from that awful place. One of them went back the next day for
mother’s body.

“We buried her in the woods beneath her
favorite willow, and marked her grave with a simple
stone.”

Arianna held tight to Braith’s hands,
she sought to soothe him by stroking her thumbs slowly over his
hands. He was sorry that Melinda had suffered through such a loss;
sorry she’d had to witness it. He hated the fact that his mother
had been killed in such a way, that she had known only terror at
the end. But there was something that Melinda said that had
ensnared his attention.

“You didn’t come back to the palace
until you were in your twenties.”

Melinda frowned at him. “I
know.”

“Then you weren’t a young teen when she
died.”

“I was fourteen when she was killed
Braith.”

A strange tension was growing inside of
him. He had never asked Melinda her story, had never thought much
about it. Their mother, a woman he had barely seen in the eight
hundred years before her death, hadn’t meant much to him. But, she
had still been his mother, and Melinda was still his sister. He
wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

“Where were you all those years
Melinda?” he grated out. Arianna shifted nervously, she sensed his
rising anger, his escalating tension and ire.

Melinda swallowed nervously, Ashby’s
hand tightened on hers as he patted it reassuringly. “It’s ok
Melinda, tell him.”

“Tell me what?” When she continued to
stay silent, he rose slowly to his feet. “Tell me what?” he
hissed.

“Braith, give her time,” Arianna
urged.

“Were you with the rebels? Did they
capture you after you buried her?” he demanded.

“The rebels?” Melinda inquired her
confusion evident.

“The rebels that killed her,” he
snarled impatiently.

Melinda bit on her lip, Arianna rose
slowly to her feet beside him. He could hear the fierce beat of her
heart; she was already looking at him in wide eyed, knowing horror.
Her hand began to tremble within his. “I never said that she was
killed by rebels Braith,” Melinda whispered.

Something stirred at the far edges of
his mind; something dark and sinister began to make its way through
him. Braith straightened his shoulders, taking strength in
Arianna’s presence at his side. “Then who?” he demanded.

Melinda’s lip was trembling; Ashby had
risen to his feet. Ashby stepped forward, placing his body in front
of Melinda’s, but Braith had no intention of going after his
sister. It was the last thing in the world that he was going to do.
“They were father’s men Braith. It was father’s guards that came
into that house. It was father that had her killed. I didn’t return
to the palace until I was accidentally discovered ten years later.
I never wanted to return, I hated the man, and I was certain he
would kill me too.”