***
Braith was shaking; fury consumed him, it boiled through his blood and caused his eternal darkness to turn a violent shade of red. She was gone. He had known it the moment he stepped back into his apartment. He had sensed her absence when he’d been downstairs, but it wasn’t until he had returned that the lack of radiance, and her beauty, confirmed his fear.
Keegan whimpered as he crept away from Braith’s leg, slinking into the shattered debris that littered the room. To say he had lost his temper would be an understatement; he had been in a rage, furious at himself, furious with Jericho, and furious with her. He knew that his youngest brother was behind this, there was no one else that could have taken her from these rooms without being seen. There was no one else that would have known that Braith hadn’t been present, and where the tunnel within his apartment was located.
“Your Highness.” He turned at the sound of the wavering voice. His hands clenched on the head of his cane, it was essential now that he had destroyed the room. There were obstacles in his way that hadn’t been there before, and she was no longer present to light the darkness. “There is no sign of them outside of the palace walls.”
“Of course there isn’t,” Braith sneered. Jericho was smart, he was quick, and he would be far from here by now. Using his cane, Braith maneuvered his way through the shattered remains of his furniture. His display of temper and destruction could be blamed on the fact that his brother had stolen his blood slave; all of his kind would understand the betrayal, the insult to his pride, and the denial of his toy. But as he stopped in the doorway of his bedroom, he knew that it was far more than that.
The scent of her blood assailed him; it burned into his nostrils, flared through his body, and caused an aching hunger to explode throughout him. She had been so magnificent, so free and giving last night and so delectably satisfying. Her blood was delicious, it had filled him and nourished him in a way that he had never felt before. In fact, he had been so swept away by it that he had nearly destroyed them both. He had wanted her with him, forever; he had been consumed with the compulsion to change her, to have her for eternity. It was an insane idea, and thankfully he had regained control of himself before he had pushed her into a place that few ever came back from. Very few humans had ever survived the change. He had been so consumed by her that he’d nearly ended her life. In all of his many years he had never been so careless, never been so out of control with his thirst.
But even more potent than her blood, had been her words. Whispered words of love repeated over and over again as she had embraced him. Words he had never heard before, but had relished and believed in them. Just as he had believed her vow to never leave him, to stay with him always.
Lies, it had all been lies, and he’d been the fool that believed them. Now he almost wished that he had killed her; he wished that he had never given her the opportunity to betray him like this. He fought the urge to smash his cane off the wall. He wanted to rip his brother limb from limb, he wanted to grab her and shake her, make her tell him why she had offered her blood to him, why she had told him she loved him, and then left him the very next morning. It was the treachery that made him angriest, the treachery that made him yearn to hunt them down and destroy them. And he could, he could find her so easily.
He could track her through her precious woods, seize hold of her, drag her back here, and lock her away for the rest of her miserable life. He could make her pay dearly for her betrayal, make his brother pay. He could make both of their lives a living hell if he chose to. He could destroy them, ruin them completely. Arianna may not have realized that due to his blood in her veins he could now find her whenever he chose, but his brother should have known better. Jericho should have known that Braith would come after them, and that he would make Jericho pay for helping her, and make her pay for her lies.
“The other blood slave?” he demanded as he turned back to the servant.
He could hear the man shifting nervously; feel the panic coming off of him. “Is also gone your majesty.”
Rage suffused him once more; he couldn’t stop himself from smashing his cane off the wall. The impact jarred through his hand, the cane shattered, sending pieces of debris flying. He wasn’t sure if it was Keegan, or the servant that yelped in response. Braith stood for a moment, shaking with anger, barely able to keep his fury under control.
“Get me a new cane,” he snarled.
The servant scrambled away, his feet cluttered over the debris. Braith stood for awhile, trying to regain control of himself and his wildly swinging emotions. It was awhile before he felt calm enough to move again without ripping something to shreds. It took even longer before he could take a new cane from the servant, without being worried that he might kill the innocent man.
“We’ll go after them, we’ll make them pay.” Braith turned at the sound of Caleb’s voice. It was funny that just yesterday Jericho had been his favorite, now he despised him even more than he ever could have disliked Caleb. “There are already men gathering to hunt them down.”
Braith remained silent for a moment, he could find her in a matter of hours, but he found himself remaining where he was. He didn’t want that traitorous bitch back in his life, didn’t ever want to see her again. He preferred his world of blackness to the sight of her disloyal, hideous face. She had wanted her freedom so badly that she had lied and manipulated for it, as far as he was concerned she could have it. She could have her starvation and cold, her misery and dirt; she could have everything that she craved.
He wanted nothing to do with her anymore, and wouldn’t stand in her way.
“Jericho has been labeled a traitor.”
“He is,” Braith growled.
“There is a large bounty on his head; it shouldn’t be long before one of the starving masses turns him in. I am sure that the other two slaves will be in his vicinity, and I am also certain that he will turn on them as swiftly as he turned on us when we find him.”
Braith nodded, he wrapped both his hands around the head of his new cane. “If he is found, he will be brought to me, alive. All of them are to be brought to me.”
“Of course,” Caleb murmured in assent.
Braith leaned back, closing his eyes as he tried not to think about the depth of her betrayal. He wouldn’t hunt them down, he wouldn’t go into the woods after the two people he had come to rely on, and trust, the most. But if they were captured and brought back here, he would be the one to make sure that Jericho was destroyed, and he would be the one to personally hand her over to Caleb. Then he would sit back, and relish in the sounds of her screams as Caleb did what he did best.
Until then, he was going to gorge himself on as much blood as it took to help him forget this horrendous mess. He moved toward Caleb, finally beginning to understand his brother’s cruelty and hatred as those emotions took root in his gut, spread through his chest, and buried him beneath their crushing weight. He had never experienced these emotions to this degree before, never knew that it was possible to do so until now. But he relished in the hatred and bloodlust consuming him, they were the only things that helped to bury his betrayal and hurt. “Clean this mess up,” he barked at the servant.
Keegan padded after Braith, following him down to the dungeons. The wolf had never been here, it had been years since Braith had been down here, mainly because he despised it. Now he found himself craving it, needing it, desiring it with a ferocity that left him shaken. He threw the doors to the dungeons open, the scent of humans and dread assaulted him. These were the blood slaves of the royal family, at least until they were drained dry, and discarded to make room for others.
He moved quickly through, stopping only briefly to pick out three women from behind the bars. He didn’t know what they looked like, but the scent of their blood was not as repulsive to him as some of the others. “Have them cleaned and brought to me,” he commanded the guards.
He may not have Arianna now, but he was going to satisfy himself, and attempt to e
ase some of his pulsating bloodlust. It was not lost on him that a skinny wisp of a girl had managed to do in one month what his father had failed for over nine hundred years to accomplish. She had succeeded in turning him into a coldhearted, blood thirsty monster.
The End
Book 2 in the series, Renegade, is now available!
Stay in touch on updates and new releases from the author by joining the mailing list!
Mailing list for Erica Stevens & Brenda K. Davies Updates: https://bit.ly/ESBKDNews
Where to find the author
Erica Stevens/Brenda K. Davies Mailing List: https://bit.ly/ESBKDNews
Facebook page: https://bit.ly/ESFBpage
Facebook friend: https://bit.ly/EASFrd
Erica Stevens/Brenda K. Davies Book Club: https://bit.ly/ESBDbc
Instagram: https://bit.ly/ErStInsta
Twitter: https://bit.ly/ErStTw
Website: https://bit.ly/ESWbst
Blog: https://bit.ly/ErStBl
About the author
Erica Stevens is the author of the Captive Series, Kindred Series, Fire & Ice Series, Ravening Series, and the Survivor Chronicles. She enjoys writing young adult, new adult, romance, horror, and science fiction. She also writes adult paranormal romance and historical romance under the pen name, Brenda K. Davies. When not out with friends and family, she is at home with her husband, dog, and horse.
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends