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Chapter 1

Braith’s shoulders were heaving, his chest was tense, and his are he’d just rendered His vision was blurred by a hazy cloud of red that coated his eyes and made it nearly i like it When he’d lost his vision, the world around him had consisted entirely of blackness Then Aria had coht color back and given hiain

Now the blackness had beco coh, shadows still moved across his field of vision and he could

He couldn’t see them clearly but he knew that Gideon and Ashby had retreated far fro solid, perhaps a rock, h to remain anywhere nearby He didn’t knohat had caused this shadowed haze, he’d never been able to keep his vision this far fro when he ay fro athened him, and he’d let her down He’d lost her

He never should have agreed to her going into that town, never should have let her go However, there was no letting Aria do anything One way or another she was going to go, and he’d vowed to let her have the freedo so hard not to squash her wild and beautiful spirit with his heavy handed, overbearing manner

He’d been concerned about her safety, but he hadn’t actually thought that it would be overly risky for her in the town The weather had driven most people inside, the dark servant’s cloak would cover her, and though she’d been his blood slave few people within that town had ever seen her, and even feould reht

He’d been an idiot

His entire body shuddered as he grasped hold of a sround and hurled it through the air Gideon and Ashby scraet out of the way as it bounced in their direction Braith stood, shaking as he tried to gather so toward soerous

This dark spiral orse than when he’d fed from his own kind, worse than when Aria had first left hi on was the fact that he knew she was still alive, and that he could find her Soon Now He spun on his heel as he stor toward the town

Jack moved to intercept him "Braith you have to calm down, think about this rationally We don’t knohere she is…"

"I can find her," he grated

"Yes, yes you can, but if you go charging after her you’ll ruin every aspect of surprise we have Until we knoho has her, and where they have taken her, you have to stay in control, you’re our leader…"

Jack broke off an to move toward him Apparently Jack’s survival instinct was firmly intact as he held up his hands and took a couple of steps back A muffled sound in the woods whipped Braith’s head around He strained tofro htened sense of s hi wrath and worry consu him

"Max," Gideon murmured

"Max," Braith snarled The boy had been lost in the confusion and hadn’t returned with Williaered, he fell to his knees and atteain David, Willia behind to reach Max’s side They helped Max back to his feet and hoisted hi heavily in the air, but Braith couldn’t see the extent of the dae that had been done to him

"How bad is he injured?" he demanded

"He’ll survive," Jack assured hi to ravage his veins as he stalked toward Max "Where have you been?"

"I followed them," Max croaked out "I had toher I broke ahen they entered the gates of the palace walls"

Braith’s hands fisted as he fought the urge to rip everything around hi to burst free of hiinable fate for her, but if he got to her soon…

He would get there soon, now He would tear that palace apart with his bare hands if it becaht to father," Jack muttered

"Not soldiers," Max inserted "It wasn’t soldiers that had her"

There was so in the boy’s voice, a treed Jack out of the way as he struggled to focus on Max "Who? Who has her?" he barked

"It was your brother"