Vengeance

by Erica Stevens

  Removing the last of the documents from the box, Braith rested his hand on top of them and turned to face his brother and sister. “Aria discovered them in a secret room of father’s.”

  Jack folded his arms over his chest. “Father, is it?”

  “Read them,” Braith said.

  “I’d rather take a stake to the heart.”

  “Jack,” Hannah whispered and slid her hand into his.

  “There was a time I would have too.” Braith’s gaze slid to Aria before he continued speaking, “But there are details and facts in here you need to know. Answers you never even knew there were questions to.” Those words had been the ones she’d uttered to him when she’d first brought him the box of journals and letters. His gaze fixed on Melinda. “You, especially, will find something extremely interesting within these pages.”

  Melinda still looked like she would prefer to run barefoot over a field of glass, but she reluctantly approached the table. Her brow furrowed as she stared at the yellowed pages and faded handwriting. “Who is Genny?” she inquired.

  Xavier took a step forward; his curiosity piqued by the old books and Melinda’s question. “A vampire,” Braith replied.

  Melinda glanced at him, but she finally settled into the seat. Her fingers lingered on the first page of the journal before she finally began to flip through the pages. Ashby stood over her shoulder, reading along with her. At first, Melinda flipped speedily through the pages, but her hand slowed, and her brow cleared as her attention became riveted on the words.

  Jack stepped forward but Braith stopped him from grabbing a different book. “They should be read in order.”

  Melinda handed the first journal over to him when she finished reading through it. Jack and Hannah read it together before passing it on. Daniel, Max and Timber weren’t as good at reading as Jack, Hannah, Melinda, Ashby and Xavier, but they steadily made their way through the books.

  Aria stood by watching all of them for a good hour or so before roaming out of the room to stare out the front windows of the house. She paced through the confines of the home before wandering back to the room to rejoin the others. Braith remained unmoving in the corner of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes burned into hers when she walked over to stand beside him.

  Melinda’s face had taken on an ashen hue. Tears brimmed in her eyes when she finished with the last journal. She remained unmoving, her hands folded in her lap as she stared at the far wall.

  “Are you all right?” Aria asked nervously. Out of them all, Melinda would have gotten the biggest shock from the journals.

  Ashby rested his hands on her shoulders; he pulled her back against his chest, as she remained lost in her own thoughts for a few minutes. Finally, she relaxed beneath his touch. “Yes, I’m fine. It’s just not what I expected.”

  “It’s not what I expected either,” Braith said. “The fact he wasn’t your father changes nothing, between us.”

  She hastily wiped away the tear sliding down her cheek. “Are you sure?” she whispered.

  “I always am,” Braith replied with a smile. He walked over to squeeze his sister’s hand reassuringly.

  Jack closed the last book and handed it over to Xavier; he pulled Hannah up against his chest and hugged her close. “We’re both sure,” Jack said to Melinda. “It changes nothing.”

  Another tear slipped free of Melinda’s gray eyes; she smiled at both of her brothers before squeezing Ashby’s hand. “Who knew we would ever have a small understanding of that man,” she murmured.

  “Certainly not me,” Jack said.

  “Amazing,” Xavier murmured. “There’s so much history within these pages I never knew of, lives I’d never heard of. I always suspected Atticus had something to do with my father’s death, but there was no way to prove it.” He didn’t sound angry over this new bit of information, only somewhat distracted and awed as he reclaimed the first book and opened the pages again. She knew well how riveted he could become in anything pertaining to history. “May I look through these again?” he inquired of Braith.

  “Yes,” he replied as Daniel finished with the last book and handed it to Timber.

  Aria stood within the doorway and waited until Max had read the last page also. Closing the book, he lifted his head and looked at her and Braith, before the others. “So that could happen to you?” he asked of Braith.

  “No!” Aria blurted. She stepped forward and wrapped her hand firmly around Braith’s arm. Beneath her touch, his muscles rippled, and his body remained rigid. She knew his biggest fear was becoming his father; no matter what she said, he believed it to be a possibility. “No, they are two completely different men. That could never happen to Braith.”

  Max’s gaze darted between the two of them. She knew he didn’t completely believe her, but he bowed his head in acceptance anyway. Stepping forward, he rested the book on the table and lifted it to look around the room again. “Where is William?” he demanded.

  Aria’s shoulders slumped; she’d known it would only be a matter of time before they noticed he was missing. “He’d said he was going hunting again today,” Daniel answered.

  Aria forced a smile when they all looked at her. “He is hunting,” she replied far more cheerfully than she believed possible. “Just not for animals.”

  They all stared at her for a minute before realization settled in. “He shouldn’t have gone alone,” Daniel hissed.

  “I know, but it was his choice to make.”

  “Stubborn, twin fools,” Max muttered. “Always determined to get yourselves killed.”

  Aria scowled at him, but this time she couldn’t argue.

  CHAPTER 5

  Tempest stood at the window with Abbott and the children gathered by her side. Gazing out at the street, she felt as if she were looking at a completely different town. She recognized only a few of the vampires prowling up and down the road. Her mind spun as she tried to figure out why a handful of vampires had been locked into the stocks overnight, while others had been imprisoned inside the jail. She didn’t see any humans amongst the vampires on the street and suspected they’d all been rounded up and placed inside the blood bank.

  Confusion swirled through her, she didn’t understand why the king had been fighting to make everything so equal between humans and vampires, yet his wife, who had once been a human, was tearing it all apart. None of it made any sense. The more she tried to figure it out, the more it made her head pound, and the colder she felt.

  The men must have been lying to her last night. They must have been telling everyone they were here for the queen so there would be less of a fight, but then her gaze drifted to the heavily guarded hotel at the end of the street. The woman she’d seen last night had yet to reemerge from inside the building, and they were protecting her as if she were the actual queen. All of it made her want to bang her head against the window in frustration.

  She looked back at the five vampires locked into the stocks. Four of them were men, but one was a woman. She knew them all; she hadn’t grown up in a town this small without getting to know everyone. She may not know them well, but her heart still ached for their position and the unnecessary humiliation they were enduring. Almost two inches of snow coated their hair and clothes. The woman’s brown hair dangled into the snow building up on the ground.

  She glanced at the children surrounding her. Pressed close against her side, a small tremor rocked Agnes’s delicate frame. Her brown eyes were troubled as she slid her hand into Tempest’s. Nora stood with her shoulders thrown back and her blue eyes on the street. Claude, who was only eight, stood beside Nora, and nine-year-old Dane stood beside him.

  “What are they doing?” Abbott inquired.

  “I don’t know,” Tempest replied.

  Her gaze returned to the road as more of the vampires dressed in the white cloaks, patrolled back and forth. They all looked as if they were on a mission or in the middle of a war zone, but even before the old king was ousted from his throne t
heir town had always been one of relative peace. The humans hadn’t been treated as well as they were now, but they hadn’t been as abused and mishandled here as they had in other areas.

  As an orphan she’d never had a blood slave, never could have afforded one, but she’d relied on the blood of the humans sentenced to death. It wasn’t something she was ashamed of, or proud of, it was simply a fact. She’d had to survive, all the orphans had, and they’d been lucky enough to get the scraps offered to them before the fairer laws of the new king had been set forth.

  Before the most recent war, it had never been one established vampire caring for them for long, but many who came and went as they pleased. None of the caretakers had given much attention to the forgotten children, and why should they? Their own parents had given them little consideration when they’d abandoned them. The caretakers back then had simply wanted their pay.

  When she’d gotten old enough to do so, she’d gone into the surrounding mountains to supplement the little blood they received from humans with that of animals. She’d always brought it back to share with the younger children. Before she’d been able to go into the mountains on her own, the older children of the home had done the same for her and the others who had lived here. It had always been the older children, taking care of the younger, that had made it possible for them to survive. As the older kids aged and moved on, a new set rose up to take their place.

  For years she’d never spared a thought for how the humans were treated in their town. She’d been too focused on her own plight to consider theirs. However, she’d gotten to know the humans of the town better over the last year and a half, and she didn’t like the idea of any of them being mistreated. Never mind being locked within the blood bank going through tortures or something else she didn’t like to imagine. The humans hadn’t been taken away because they were going to be treated well, of that much she was certain.

  The queen who had once been human wouldn’t lock them all away, would she?

  There was that urge to bang her head against the window again as she fought the tremor working its way through her body. She didn’t know who the woman she’d seen was, who these vampires were in her town, but she doubted they were what they claimed to be. She had to find a way to learn what they were doing here.

  Amongst the white cloaks, she spotted varied colors of clothing, plus a few familiar faces from town. The men who had stayed here last night had never said they couldn’t go outside. If she was stopped on the street, she could always claim she was going to her home to retrieve some of her things.

  “I’m going to go and see if I can find out what is happening.” Turning, she rested her free hand on Agnes’s shoulder before prying the three year old’s bone crushing grip from her other hand.

  “Wait!” Agnes cried and grabbed for her, but she kept her held back and nudged her toward Abbott.

  He bent and lifted Agnes into his arms. Tempest walked into the hall, grabbed her black wool cloak, and secured it around her shoulders. The men who had invaded their home last night had gone out this morning, but the ugly one with the scar had told her they would be returning tonight.

  She tugged the hood up over her head, opened the door, and stepped into the swirling snow. No flakes fell from the sky, but the wind whipping down from the peaks surrounding their valley caused the snow on the ground to swirl about her feet. She’d always loved the remoteness of their village, their lack of contact with the outside world, but she now feared what she’d always cherished about her town may now be its downfall.

  Standing in the light of day, she realized her earlier estimates about how many vampires had arrived were way off. There were at least a thousand strangers patrolling the streets. All of them were wearing white cloaks and clothes that blended in with the landscape around them. Glancing at the mountains on all sides of them, some less than a half a mile away, she could see more vampires walking amongst the trails and outside of the caves carved into the faces of the cliffs.

  She’d spent most of her childhood exploring these mountains; she knew how treacherous and capricious they could be. There were many hiding places within them. Places where the invading vampires could lay in wait and places where those fleeing this village may be able to hide. Trails out of the mountains that these strangers might uncover, but they would never be able to discover the exact pathways to freedom.

  She knew the nooks and crannies of these mountains like the back of her hand. She knew their trails and peaks and had once wandered over the side of a cliff that dropped off suddenly around the corner of a trail. She’d suffered two broken legs and numerous broken ribs from the fall, but she’d healed and returned to exploring again two weeks later.

  The shudder running through her had nothing to do with the chill in the air, and everything to do with the pit in her stomach as she stared at the intruders now patrolling her mountains. Few, if any, knew these mountains as well as she did. While others had casually explored them, she’d lived and breathed them. There’d also been many places to hide from the beatings that at times had been commonplace within the orphanage.

  Perhaps, if she’d been more daring, she would have fled into the mountains and never looked back, but she’d only seen the world outside of this valley a handful of times before. It had been far too large and imposing for her liking. Besides if she had taken off, it would have been one less vampire to help take care of the younger children.

  Despite the warmth of her cloak, she felt like ice as she placed one foot in front of the other. Her black cloak stood out starkly amongst the sea of white surrounding her. Some turned to look at her, most ignored her. Making her way toward the stocks, she was finally rewarded with a reaction as three of the invaders stepped in front of the vampires locked within them.

  “What do you want?” one of them demanded.

  Tempest glanced at the men and woman locked into the wooden stands. She tried, but she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen anyone bound in these stocks. Two of the men lifted their heads to look at her; she recognized them instantly as the magistrates of the town. The positions they held were appointed by the new king when his troops had come into town after the war.

  Another man lifted his head. Tempest’s eyes widened when she saw the insignia of the king on his cloak. Every once in a while, a passing member of the king’s troops would travel through here to make sure the new laws were being followed. They never stayed long, but they’d always worn the wolf insignia upon their cloaks. Tempest kept her eyes on the prisoner; she didn’t look at the three men standing guard before her closely enough to see if they were also wearing the king’s wolf insignia.

  She already knew they weren’t. She hadn’t seen it on any of the men who had entered the orphanage; she just hadn’t realized it until now. If these men had been willing to do this to one of the king’s men, what would they do to any member of this village? And who had sent them all here if it hadn’t been the king? Had it been the queen? Had something happened between the two of them that had turned one against the other?

  “Get out of here,” another one of the men in white told her. “Unless you plan to join them.”

  Tempest took a step away as the other two heads in the stocks looked up at her. They were residents she recognized from town, she didn’t know what they’d done to deserve this, but she didn’t want to join them. She’d never been one to make waves. If she had as a child, she would have been killed, as an adult she’d retained the air of invisibility and compliance that had allowed her to survive, until now.

  Making her way down the street, she glanced at the gingerbread houses, chalets, and log cabins lining the snow covered roadway. Normally the homes had a quaint, warm air about them that always made her smile. Now the homes felt cold and lifeless; sadness and uncertainty enshrouded the buildings. The strangers who had inserted themselves into their world had stifled the life and laughter once filling them.

  Turning onto the next road, she made her way past the shops on th
e sides of the street. Most of them had more men and women in white standing outside of their doorways. She walked until she arrived at the small red and white gingerbread house she shared with her best friend and fellow ex-orphan, Pallas. They had both aged out of the orphanage three years ago, when they’d turned seventeen.

  Tempest hurried toward the door. Her hand shook when she turned the knob and cautiously poked her head inside. Shadows slid over the walls as the trees outside swayed in the howling wind. Tempest stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She pulled back the hood of her cloak as she moved further into the home.

  Glancing into the living room, her gaze traveled over the couch and scratched wooden table within. Pallas’s pay from working at the blood bank, and her meager wages from the orphanage didn’t allow them to be able to afford much, but they were both happy here. It was the first secure house either of them had ever known, and they’d spent a lot of time turning it into a home with their assorted snow globe collection, Pallas’s beautifully sewn baby blue curtains, and the numerous green ferns Tempest had gathered and planted in the summer.

  “Pallas!” she called nervously into the home.

  Silence greeted her. Walking further into the home, she peered into Pallas’s room before her own. Everything was as she’d left it, except her clover green comforter had been tossed back, and an indent of someone’s head was still in her pillow. They’d come here too, Tempest realized as she moved into the room to fix the comforter. Her fingers ran over the soft material as she pulled it into place. She’d throw the pillow out if she ever got a chance to return home, but she doubted that would happen.

  Glancing up, she caught her pale reflection in the mirror across the way. She wasn’t astonished to find shadows encircling her deep brown eyes. Turning away, she walked to her trunk and pulled a few articles of clothing free. She had a feeling they wouldn’t be allowed to roam the town for much longer and wanted to gather some more of her things while she still could. She placed the clothes into a sack and tugged the drawstring closed.