Melinda took a minute to gather herself as she watched them all saddle their horses. They were doing as she and Ashby had instructed. Now they had to get them all to safety. Ashby claimed a horse from one of the king’s men and lifted her into the saddle.
“I can get up on my own,” she said.
“Nope,” he said as he swung onto the saddle to settle himself behind her. “Get used to being pampered and not lifting a finger. I intend to spoil you.”
“More than you already do?”
His smile was strained; his normally lively eyes didn’t dance, but she still saw the joy in his gaze as he stared at her belly then her. “Far more.”
She settled back against him when he nudged the horse in the side and they took off at a brisk trot through the woods. They weren’t as familiar with this area of the forest as Aria and her brothers were, but Melinda had been through here enough to know at least three ways back to the palace.
“We can’t take the main road,” she said.
“No, we can’t,” Ashby agreed as he steered them toward a rocky ledge and two side roads.
One side road ran parallel to the main road, about three miles away from it, but still too close to the main for her liking. The other was a convoluted pathway that meandered through the woods, over a mountain and down into a valley. It was a little known road and rarely traveled, but it would add hours onto their trip, and if they were cornered in the valley, there would be no escape.
“We’re going to have to stay in the woods,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed and rested her hands on top of the lean muscles of his forearms. “Let’s hope we don’t get lost.”
“I’m like a compass. I always know the way,” he replied.
“I feel like your compass might have us going in circles.”
“Then it’s a good thing I have you to help guide the way.”
“I hope so.”
He led the horse down a steep embankment and into a gully; she didn’t think it was the same gully from earlier today—had that really only been today? It felt as if days had passed since they’d first been attacked. Looking out at the landscape before them, her stomach turned at the reminder of her brother’s death.
CHAPTER 11
Aria
“I know you’re there! Show yourself!” Aria commanded.
“Don’t shoot,” a woman replied from the shadows. “I’m coming out now, and I mean no harm.”
The woman stepped out of the tunnel where she’d been hiding. Her hands were raised in the air. Gray speckled the brown hair tumbling around her thin shoulders and weathered face. She was probably only in her late thirties, but life had etched lines around her brown eyes and mouth.
Something about the woman tugged at Aria’s memory, but she didn’t lower her bow. Even if this woman had known where the keys were and how to traverse these tunnels, she trusted no one right now.
“Your Highness,” the woman said and kept her hands raised as she gave a small curtsy. “It has been a while.”
That voice, she’d heard it before, but where? If her heart wasn’t so badly shattered and her mind could grasp at anything other than death and destruction, she was sure she would know who this woman was, but the answer continued to elude her.
Her gaze ran over the woman again as her voice tickled at the back edges of Aria’s mind. Then, recognition burst to life within her. “Mary?” she inquired.
Her voice hitched as the memory of being trapped within the king’s dungeon slithered through her mind. Mary had been in the dungeon with her.
The woman smiled and dropped her hands to fold them into her skirt. “It is me,” she confirmed.
Aria finally lowered her bow. She may not trust Mary completely yet, but she sensed no one else standing behind the woman, and she’d be able to kill a human easily enough if it became necessary. “What are you doing here?”
“My son, John, said he saw you coming into the caves,” Mary said.
“You found him?”
“It took some time, but yes, I found him after I was set free of the dungeon.”
John was the reason Aria had been captured and brought to the palace to be auctioned off to the highest vampire bidder in the first place. Braith had stepped forward to claim her from the man who had originally bought her and taken her with him to the palace. At the time, she hadn’t known why Braith had done it, but eventually he’d told her it was because she was the first thing he’d actually been able to see in a hundred years.
Aria had sacrificed herself, allowed herself to be captured in place of John, and everything in her life had changed for the better. Even now, when she felt at her bleakest, she had to remember that. Mary had been taken with her on that long ago day, imprisoned in the dungeon and freed when Braith had come to rescue Aria. Mary had had no idea where her son was when she’d left the palace, but she’d found him once again. A small beacon of hope swelled within Aria at the realization.
Aria’s capture had been the beginning for her and Braith, and they had already come to their end. No matter what happened from here on out, no matter the heartache she endured now, it had all been worth it.