Vengeance (The Captive Series, Book 6) Read Free Page B

moving down the road toward the houses lining the street. She watched as the men and women moving down the road began to knock on the doors of the homes. Few doors opened immediately, some of them tried to close again, but they were shoved back open.
    Her hands began to tremble while she watched the vampires barge their way into the homes. The chill from the drafty window was nothing compared to the chill running down her spine.
    “Get the children into the attic,” she hissed to Abbott before spinning away from the window. “I’ll try and stall them when they get here.”
    She grabbed hold of her wool pants laying on the trunk where she’d left them and tugged them on as Abbott rushed from the room. Flinging the trunk open, she dug out a sweater and pulled it on over her nightgown as a loud knock echoed through the hall below. Grabbing a ribbon, she hastily tied her hair into a loose ponytail that fell to beneath her shoulders.
    Her head lifted, she went completely still as she listened to the protests of the children being roused from their beds. It was a good thing they didn’t have any babies in the orphanage right now, there would be no keeping them quiet. Another loud knock rattled the door in its frame as she snatched up her candlestick. The children were all in the hall when she stepped out of her room. The flickering candlelight illuminated their pale faces and shadowed eyes.
    At only three, Agnes began to cry in Abbott’s arms. “Shh,” Abbott coaxed. “You must be quiet.”
    “Get them upstairs,” Tempest urged.
    Abbott nodded and with the help of eleven-year-old Nora, they hurried the children down the hall to the attic door. Tempest waited until the door closed behind them before rushing down the stairs to the front hall. Through the window in the middle of the door, she could see a lantern flame leaping and dancing outside. The tall head of a man on the other side moved before the window, but that was all she could see of whoever was out there.
    “Open up!” the man shouted. His fist landing heavily upon the door again, shaking it in its frame.
    “I’m coming!” she called back.
    She placed the candle on the table beside the door. Taking a moment, she wiped her sweat-dampened hands on her pants and tried to steady the tremor in them before grasping the knob. She opened the door to gaze out at the three men gathered on her stoop. They turned toward her, their faces red from the wind as their eyes ran over her from head to toe. Somehow, she managed to keep her knees from knocking together when their eyes came back to hers.
    What is going on? She wondered frantically. Behind the men, white cloaked figures filled the street. Shouts and cries echoed through the air as more homes were invaded. The black sky and twinkling stars were in stark contrast to the numerous torches filling the street with light.
    “Do you own this house?” one of them demanded.
    “No,” she replied honestly, proud that her voice didn’t waver.
    The man standing in the front raked her body with his gaze a second time. The look made her wish she had ten more layers of clothes on. She managed to fight the urge to cover her breasts with her arms, but she did take a step away from him. “Then what are you doing here?”
    She glanced at the sign hanging over his head, the one clearly reading Orphanage on it. “I grew up here,” she replied. “I’m watching over the place while Laverne, the woman who runs the home, is away visiting family.”
    Tempest had already moved out of the orphanage, but she still helped to care for the remaining children. The couple who had lived here, and run the orphanage before Laverne had taken over, had rarely been here.
    After the war, the couple had fled before the new king’s troops could arrive in town to establish order. Tempest and her friend, Pallas, had stepped in to take care of the children after they’d been abandoned. Laverne had come to town as one of the king’s peacekeepers.