Silence - By Kailin Gow Page 0,29

extending a hand out to touch her, almost as though he couldn’t believe there was a human in front of him. Or as if he simply couldn’t wait.

Barron was immediately at Briony’s side, his hand grabbing down on the other’s wrist with a crunch of bone. He pushed him back away from Briony, before reaching into his jacket and drawing out a stake. His arm blurred forward to impale the other vampire.

“I said hold off.”

Briony sat there in shocked silence at that.

Barron had just kil ed to protect her? Though from the looks that passed between him and his brother, there was no love lost there.

“No one touches her,” Barron repeated in a clear loud voice. “She is the heir to Palisor. She is human. She has the bloodline that wil break the vampire’s curse.”

The white-haired vampire appeared in front of Briony, leaning down towards her. He kept an eye on Barron. “Don’t worry, I don’t plan to touch her, brother.

Not yet.”

He stayed where he was, and Briony realized then that he was sniffing her, like an animal. He took a deep whiff of her and looked towards his brother once more. “She smel s of human and Hugtandalfer both.

Interesting. How, brother?”

Barron, Briony noticed, seemed to be on edge.

He clearly did not want to be saying any of this, but he did so anyway. “We underestimated Waltham, Marcus. He had more charm than us vampires, wooed the human woman who made it through the gate, and got her with child. Then, he hid the woman back in her mortal world where she raised the child as a human…

with no knowledge of Palisor, the Hugtandalfer people, or the scepter.”

Briony listened as intently as Marcus. Did everybody but her know about her past?

Barron continued. “Waltham took it further than that, though. He had his brother’s daughter help raise the child, training her to hunt and kil vampires, without magic or supernatural strength.”

Several of the other vampires grimaced as Barron said that.

Marcus laughed, his reddening eyes peering closer at Briony. “The pathetic specimens in her world, perhaps. Maybe even those fools who fol ow you, brother.”

“Careful, Marcus.”

“But to suggest that this could hunt one of the true vampires here in Palisor?” Marcus leaned in so close to Briony that he could whisper directly into her ear. “You think vampires in your world are frightening?

We are worse. I see you shuddering, little girl. I hear your heart grow faster and faster like a little bird’s. It would be so easy…so easy to squelch that. Hunter, ha.”

“Marcus,” Barron snapped, putting a hand on his brother’s arm, “would you think for a minute?

Would you think about what this means?”

“Oh, I have thought, brother.” Marcus moved, twisting Barron around expertly, then putting his hands on either side of the vampire’s head. “And what I think is that, with this girl here, it is final y time to be rid of you. Goodbye, brother.”

Marcus twisted, and Briony heard the snap of breaking bone as Barron’s neck broke. Marcus caught the stake that dropped from his brother’s nerveless hands, and drove it up into his heart, pushing Barron away to die. In those last moments, Barron’s eyes reflected his shock, as he stared at Briony from the carpet until the familiar blue flames claimed his body.

Marcus turned around to look at Briony, tossing the stake aside. “Now,” he said, “where were we?”

Chapter 12

Briony watched Barron’s stil body for the seconds that it took for flames to consume it. She wasn’t entirely sure why she felt anything at that death; after al , he had been the vampire who ordered her kidnapped from her father’s castle. Yet she did. Briony couldn’t help thinking of the sheer waste of a life there.

She was actual y starting to understand him, she thought.

Not to mention what it might mean for her own safety. Marcus was stil staring down at her with pure malevolence, after al , while even most of the vampires in his group were looking at Briony like she was nothing more than an interesting diversion.

Something to be used up and then discarded. It wasn’t a thought Briony liked at al . Even Pietre hadn’t kil ed quite so utterly without reason.

“You kil ed him,” Briony said. “You kil ed your own brother.”

Marcus shrugged. “You say that as though I should care, little human. Little princess.”

“He was your brother,” Briony insisted.

“He was weak!” Marcus moved to sit beside Briony on the red chaise lounge. He leant closer to her, one hand