Braith shrugged, disliking the feel of the coat he wore. “No matter the orders, there are always casualties in war,” he murmured. He expected Caleb to leave after delivering the news. Even twisted, brutal Caleb didn’t like to be around him for any length of time anymore. No one did. Braith’s temper had become volatile, his fury and paths of destruction were well known, and feared, amongst the residents of the palace.
A lot of blood had stained his hands over the past two months; he had consumed more blood in the past eight weeks than he had in the past eight years. But it was not enough, it would never be enough to bury the hatred and anger festering inside of him. His murderous rampage had died down, but only because he had calmed enough to realize that the deaths of innocent people did not ease his rage as much as he had hoped it would. Now he just consumed mass quantities of blood, but most of the time the people survived his attack now.
“Is there more?” he demanded impatiently of his brother.
Caleb cleared his throat. “She was not amongst the dead, and she was not amongst the captured, but she was there.”
Braith’s head came slowly up, he turned toward his brother. He could not see Caleb, darkness ruled Braith’s life once more, but he could smell the faint hint of fear and excitement that rolled off of him. Braith stood for a long moment, stunned by Caleb’s words. There had been no sign of her since she’d left here, and though he could have found her at a moment’s notice, he refused to lower himself by going after her, by making her think that he wanted her back, because he didn’t. She had betrayed him after all; he wanted nothing more to do with the traitorous bitch.
And yet he felt a moment of fear rock through him. He wanted her punished for her treachery, wanted her to suffer for what she had done to him, but did he truly want her dead? Did he truly want her back here where she would be tortured and punished for her treachery? He had believed so, he had wanted it to be so, but now that his troops had stumbled across her, now that they were hot on her heels, he wondered what he would do if she was recaptured. She would be tormented, beaten, and eventually killed. She would be punished for being a traitor, and it would be a brutal punishment.
If he really wanted her back, then he would have gone after her himself and brought her back here by now. But even though he hated her, even though she had sliced him deeply, he had to admit that he did not want her dead. He wanted her to hurt as badly as he had upon first discovering that she was gone, but he did not want her dead.
In all the time since she had been gone, it was the first time that he actually realized this fact. He wanted her blood, he wanted to taste her and see her again, and he wanted to make her pay for what she had done. But he wanted to be the one that made her pay, not his brother or his father, and he did not want her dead. His jaw clenched tight as he grasped the lapels on the jacket he wore. The hated jacket. The tailor made a soft sound of protest as he stepped down from the dais he had been standing upon, ignoring the annoying gnat of a man.
“How do you know she was there?” he growled.
“One of our people spotted her; it was why they went in when they did. They were hoping to capture her.”
“Went in?”
“They were in a group of caves, apparently well engineered caves with a series of tunnels and gates throughout them. The caves were discovered last week, but they were going to wait until they knew where all of the exits were before raiding them. Our guards got a little overexcited when they spotted her though, and jumped the gun early.”
Caves, she was living in caves. She had spoken about her woods, and her forest, with such reverence that he had assumed she’d returned to the trees and plants that had brought a small smile to her face when she spoke of them. That she had returned to the world of freedom and wilderness that she had so openly craved. Instead, she was living in caves, hidden beneath the earth, trapped beneath mounds of dirt and rock. It made no sense to him, but what made even less sense was the fact that he even remotely cared where she was living. What she was doing.
He had moved on with his life, he now owned several blood slaves, and though none of them were her, he found he did enjoy them. They made him forget for a little bit, they made it not so hard to get through the days. And unlike Arianna, these ones were more pliant and less defiant. He was getting married in a matter of months, granted he couldn’t stand the woman, but he need only have a male heir with her and then he wouldn’t have to have anything to do with her again. It was just a matter of time, and his wife’s family would help to strengthen his own. He had not planned on marrying the woman, no matter what his father wanted, but he was resigned to it now. He had never intended to do his duty as the eldest son. Not until Arianna had abandoned him, not until she had fled here with his brother and another blood slave.
After that, all he had wanted was vengeance, and to forget. All he had wanted was not to think about her soft smile, bright eyes, delightful innocence, and sweet blood. And there were even times during the day when he almost did forget, brief moments when he found a little reprieve from his memories in the copious amounts of blood. Those moments never lasted long, and there was a part of him that hated himself for what he was doing, but he knew that with enough blood, and enough time, he would eventually forget her. And eventually Arianna would die, she was human, and she lived a dangerous life. It was only a matter of time before it happened, he would know when that time came, and he had thought that he would feel relief when it did.
He wasn’t so sure now.
“Was there any sign of Jericho?”
Resentment boiled through him at the thought of his younger brother, the sibling he had trusted and liked the most, and the one that had betrayed him the deepest. The one that had taken Aria from him. Though he doubted she had put up any fight. In fact, he was fairly certain that despite her vows of love, and her promises to never leave him, that she had probably run eagerly through the tunnel once it had been revealed to her. She was a fickle bitch after all, or at least that’s what he had come to believe. Why else would she vow to love him forever and then leave him the very next morning?
And Jericho had become enemy number one now. Braith may not personally destroy Arianna, but he thought he would have a try at Jericho.
“They did not see Jericho there, but I’m sure he was nearby. He betrayed us for her after all; she must mean something to him.”
Jericho had said that he was here to rescue Arianna because her father was the leader of the rebels. Jericho had come here for her because he was one of the few that could get her free. That was what he had said, but Braith had a hard time believing anything that had come out of his brother’s mouth during those days. His brother had also said that he would not do anything without consulting Braith first, and then he had disappeared the next day.