His cocky grin widened as he ran a hand through his wet hair. “Quietly usually works.”
“When it’s us, it always works, but first we have to meet with more rebels.” She looked to Mary. “Can you bring more here for us to talk with tomorrow? If they don’t want to come, I understand, but this new vampire trying to take control has no sympathy for humans. She’ll make Atticus look like he was a friend to them.”
“She locked the humans away in Badwin,” Tempest said. “After she arrived, we never saw them again.”
“I don’t think that will change as time goes on,” Aria said.
Mary paled at their words; she took hold of John’s hand. “We will all fight to keep the peace,” she said. “We’ve worked our entire lives to build a future of peace and safety for our children. We won’t let it be taken from us without a fight.”
“We will also gather vampires as we go. I’m sure there are a fair amount of them who won’t want to be enslaved to her, and some who have already escaped her clutches,” Aria said.
“Will it really matter to them if she wins?” John asked.
“Yes. There are many vampires who only want to live in peace with the humans and who aren’t cruel. Also, she killed the vampire children in the other towns she took over. Maybe she’ll stop doing that now, instead of taking the risk of turning some of the vamps against her by continuing to kill them, but I’m not sure she will,” William said.
“Why would she do that to the children?” Mary gasped.
“Because the children can’t fight for her,” William answered. “They are a hindrance, and she couldn’t allow one of them to get free and warn someone of what she was trying to do. She slaughtered or imprisoned any who disagreed with her. The vampires she doesn’t kill outright for standing against her, she imprisons and starves until they become mindless killing machines. She didn’t bother to do that with the children.”
“Monster,” Mary whispered.
Aren’t we all? Aria’s gaze went to the wall once more. She certainly no longer knew of what she was capable. She felt as if she were unraveling, becoming completely unbound from all the rules once governing her, from everything she’d always known and believed. Now she was adrift in a world she could barely make sense of, but she would protect it.
“She is,” Tempest confirmed.
“How will we know which vampires we can trust and which have already been turned to her side?” Mary asked.
“We will have to be cautious,” Aria replied. “But we always have been, and I’m sure the rebels already have some they trust. After we speak with the rebels here, we will move onto the next safe house and talk with the ones there.”
“I will bring as many rebels as I can to you tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Aria said and settled onto the chair once more.
“You can use one of the rooms to sleep,” Mary offered her.
Aria focused on the wall across from her once more. “I’m fine here, but please, all of you, rest.”
She required sleep in order to be at her best, but the idea of sleeping without Braith beside her wasn’t something she could handle right now. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to sleep again. Mary and John rose from the table; they spoke with William and Tempest before their footsteps retreated down the hall. Two doors opened and closed and she knew only William remained behind with her.
“Go, Tempest needs you,” Aria said without turning to look at her brother.
He didn’t say anything, just walked over to the table and pulled out another chair. He settled into it and folded his arms over his chest as he stared at the wall across from him. “I hate walls. They make me feel trapped,” he murmured.
“I know. Tempest has made it better for you though.”
“She has,” he admitted.
Aria bowed her head and stared at her hands clasped before her. Her beautiful, delicate emerald ring and her simple white gold wedding band mocked her with the broken promise of eternity. She grabbed the bands with the fingers of her right hand, intending to rip them off and heave them across the room, but instead she brought her hands together and clasped them tightly to her chest.
She bit her lip and struggled to regain her composure before she did something she would regret. Lifting her head, she found William’s gaze upon her. There was no sympathy in his eyes. He knew she’d hate to see that from him as much as he would hate to see it from her. Instead, there was only understanding.
“Things were so simple before I was captured,” she said. “They were hard, but they were simple. Father loved us, we hunted, we avoided vampires, when we couldn’t avoid them, we killed them, and we had our woods.”
“Then it all changed.”
“Then it all changed, yet now I feel as if we’ve returned to the beginning. We’re without Dad, but back to avoiding vampires and hiding out within our woods once more. Actually, beneath our woods.”
He glanced at the ceiling. “We survived then.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll survive now.”