“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.”
Braith was frozen, he couldn’t move through the shock that gripped him. “Where were you all that time?” Arianna asked softly.
“Hiding with our servants. It was dumb luck that I was caught, that I was forced back to that hellhole. They had presumed me dead, though the guards had been honest with father and told them 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 softly. Arianna shuddered.
“He’s the reason I’m still alive.”
“Does he know what happened to our mother?”