"If I have to."
Ashby shook his head; he leaned back against the wall. The young vampire girl remained silent; she'd offered no further protests to her restraints. She was sullen, resigned to remaining tied up for now. "You're only in the beginning stages of this Braith." Ashby folded his hands before him as he stared unflinchingly at Braith. "Do you think it's going to get easier as the years go on? It grows and intensifies; the bond between you will become something so intense that it will take everything you have to get through one second without her. You asked me earlier who I was expecting; do you think it was this girl?" He gestured sharply at the young vampire girl.
"No, I thought it was Melinda at the door. Do you know how difficult it is to see her go back there? I hate myself every time she leaves here, every time she returns to that depraved shit hole. If there was ever a time she didn't return from the palace, I would be there in a heartbeat, killing everyone in my way until they finally took me down. I would welcome the death they would finally deliver to me. She's human Braith; you will live with her mortality every second of your life together. You won't be able to handle it, I can promise you that."
Braith glowered at him. "I'm stronger than you."
Ashby snorted as he sat back. "Bull. You're physically stronger than all of us, but you are by far the weakest amongst us right now. Your Achilles heel is lying on your lap, and if any of your enemies get a hold of her, they will control you completely. If they kill her, you are done for. Smarten up Braith. Yes, you are stronger with her in your life, but you are also far weaker. Especially if she stays human."
"I don't have much of a choice on that front."
"Keep her human until you figure out what you mean to do. Though, I'm beginning to suspect that might be taking your father down, am I right?"
Melinda's eyes widened, her delicate mouth parted. "No," she breathed.
Ashby squeezed her hand as his bright eyes gleamed eagerly. "Yes love, I believe that Braith has finally realized that there is something more important than duty, honor, and obedience. Right?"
"I will not kill my father," he grated.
"No, I'm not even sure you could, but you do have the advantage of sight again, and I'm assuming he doesn't know that."
"He doesn't," Melinda confirmed when Braith didn't.
Ashby nodded, his fingers twirled idly, Braith could almost see the gears churning within his devious mind. "You wouldn't kill Caleb either. But if you could take them down, overthrow their rule, wrest control from them, you would. If you can get enough help to do it. It's why you came here."
Braith had forgotten how perceptive Ashby was. It was annoying the hell out of him right now. "You're hoping that I may still have ties to the rebellious families that fought with mine, and somehow managed to avoid capture. You're hoping that I may still know some vampires that might be willing to help you, and the only reason you would like to know those things was if you intended to oust the king. Am I wrong Braith?"
Braith turned his attention to the window. He wouldn't deny Ashby's words, nor would he confirm them. He hadn't left the palace with the objective of ousting his father from power. He hadn't gone after Arianna in those caverns because he had decided that he was going to fight, he hadn't pulled her free of there with the intention of one day claiming the throne (he still wasn't sure he would do that, it depended on Arianna). He had just planned to get her somewhere safe, get her to people that might be able to shelter her, and to try and live a peaceful life with her.
Somewhere along the way though, he had realized that there was nowhere safe for her, and no one that could protect her, except for him. And if he was going to keep her safe, then his father would have to be removed. A new power, and a new world system, would have to be established.
"This will be interesting, a civil war," Ashby pondered. "A civil war involving the most powerful regime to ever rule us, a war between the murderous, vicious father, and the son who hates him; imagine the consequences of such a thing, imagine the horror."
Braith stiffened as he turned back to them. Relief radiated from Melinda, hope gleaming in her eyes. "Or imagine the wonder of it," she whispered. "Imagine the freedom that would come if such a tyrannical, ruthless ruler 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 allowed him to spend too much time with a woman he was worried 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 king had cared nothing for the youngest child that had left with the woman.
"No Braith, that isn't the reason. I have always hated him."
"I didn't realize that."
"You wouldn't." Braith stared ferociously at her for a moment, but Melinda didn't 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 vision 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 years outside of the palace walls. I understood my circumstances were 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 tried to make you. No matter how badly he treated you, no matter how often he beat you. Caleb should have been the first born son. He's the only one father even remotely approved of."
"It would have made things easier, and father happier," Braith agreed without sorrow.
"Caleb may be harder to overthrow than father. If he hasn't already realized it, 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 appalled as Melinda. Even the vampire girl was watching them with protruding, frantic eyes. 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 fight that had claimed their mother.
Melinda closed her eyes, her hands fisted in her lap. Pain flickered briefly across her features as her lip trembled. 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 eyes were slightly swollen with sleep, but they were dark and swirling with pain as she sat up. 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 filled with sadness as she rested her small hand upon his face. However, the sorrow was not for her, or even for Melinda, it was for him. Braith was stunned by the grief he saw there, he didn't understand it. "Your mother sacrificed herself for Melinda."
Braith started, he frowned at Arianna as he seized hold of her hand and pulled 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's how William and I survived."
Braith was taken aback. He turned toward Melinda, surprised to find his sister watching Arianna with compassion. "Is that true?" he demanded. "Did our mother sac
rifice herself for you?"
"Yes," Melinda confirmed.
Braith slowly digested this information. He hadn't really known his mother; she'd been kind to him during their brief time together, but he hadn't 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, what it was to die for someone else, because he would die for her. A few months ago, before he had met her, he 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, and then slid 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.
"My father had built a small room for all of us to hide in just in case that ever happened. It was a panic room of sorts, 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 together sharply. Her lips were pursed; the awfulness of the memory was etched onto her features and beautiful eyes.
"But you didn't?"
She focused on him, blinking as she seemed to come back to the present. "No, we didn't." 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 remain silent 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 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 told 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 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 he would have done anything to take from her, but there was nothing that he could do. There was no way to right her past, no way to ease her sorrow; all he could do was give her a better future.
He pulled her close, rubbing the nape of her neck as he tenderly kissed her forehead. She grasped each of his forearms, 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 assured her.
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.
"Because the soldiers would have torn the house apart looking for the three of them so she sacrificed herself, she allowed them to torture her until they were satisfied that her children really weren't there. Right?" Melinda inquired.
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; he guessed 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.
"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 and shoving the furniture aside to get at her. She fought them off in order to buy me more time to escape.
"I tried to go back in 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 became more like a family. I was young, and though they were not strong vampires, the four of them overwhelmed me. They forced me 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 rubbed her thumbs leisurely over his hand. 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, that she'd known only terror at the end. But there was something else 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 required answers.
"Where were you all those years Melinda?" he grated out. Arianna shifted nervously, she sensed his escalating tension and ire.
Melinda swallowed nervously, Ashby patted her hand reassuringly. "It's ok Melinda, tell him."
"Tell me what?" When she continued to stay silent, he rose to his feet. "Tell me what?" he grated.
"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 to her feet beside him. He could hear the furious beat of her heart; she was already looking at him with concern. 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, he 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 planned to return, I hated the man, and I was certain he would kill me too."
Braith was frozen, he couldn't move through the outrage that gripped him. "Where were you all that time?" Arianna wondered.
"Hiding with our servants. It was dumb luck that I was caught, that I was forced back there. They had presumed me dead, though th
e guards had been honest with father and told him that they had not seen me. They assumed that I had either died before the raid, or that I had been somewhere else and died later; they felt it unlikely that I was able to survive and stay hidden on my own. I was in a village that had been deemed a possible traitorous threat when it was raided, my servants, my family was killed. If Jericho hadn't been with them I probably would have been killed also, but even after all our years apart, he recognized me."
"Blood knows blood," Braith said. Arianna shuddered.
"He's the reason I'm still alive."
"Does he know what happened to our mother?"
Melinda swallowed heavily, Ashby was becoming edgier. "I hid it from him at first, but when he wanted to bring me back to the palace I refused to go. I was afraid of father, of what he would do to me. I became hysterical when he insisted that I was to return, when he tried to force me back I spilled the story and told him why I couldn't return. He is the only other one that knows the truth.
"He told me to tell father that I had seen nothing the day our mother was killed; that the servants had taken me out shopping that day, and only found mother's body that night. I was to tell him that I hadn't returned to the palace because I was uncertain of how to get there, and fearful of wandering too far from the only home I'd ever known. He told me not to say anything, but that he had to take me back. The other guards had seen me; there was no way that he could let me go without looking suspicious. Father would continue to hunt me until I was uncovered again, and he would probably kill me when he did find me. But if I went back on my own I would be able to keep my knowledge of events to myself. No matter how outraged and resentful I was, I had no choice but to return. All I could do was hope to escape one day."
"Jack knew about this," Braith grated. "The whole time."
"Jack?" Ashby asked in surprise.
"Jericho," Arianna answered when Braith remained silent. He was furious that his father had done this and that his siblings had kept him in the dark, furious that he had stood by his father's side, and been a pawn in all of their lies and deceit. He understood their reasons why they hadn't told him, but he would like to throttle them all for their duplicity. It wouldn't continue. He may not be his father's heir anymore, but he was still a prince, he was still the next in line. He would set right all of the wrongs that he had so blindly followed. "When Jericho came to live with us in the forest, he changed his name to Jack. It's what we know him as."