The Ballad of Aramei (40 page)

Everyone else knows the demand also applies to them and so they all take off together into the house. Alexandra seems reluctant to leave Adria, but finally she heads inside, too. Nathan stays with me.

Adria walks up to me and just stands there, looking at me. Then she wraps her arms around me and lays the side of her face against my chest.

I kiss the top of her head and say, “What are you doing? Five minutes, okay?” I want to just hold her forever, but we need to get on the road.

She looks up into my eyes. “You
are
what’s most important to me.” And she pushes up on her toes and kisses me gently on the lips.

~~~

Viktor is smiling hugely when Nathan and I stand before him in the basement. Ashe doesn’t look happy at all and the other two just kind of sit there.

“You think you can defeat your
great father
?” Viktor says dramatically. He sits on the floor against the rock wall with his knees drawn up, his hands bonded by chains behind his back. I know one as old and as powerful as Viktor could set himself free from these shackles—not much can hold an Elder and they weren’t made for Elders—but he hasn’t even tried.

“How does it feel, being unbound to her?” I say. A small hint of mockery lies in the question, but I also genuinely want to know.

A flicker of pain moves across his eyes, but he retains the sadistic and humorous aspect of the situation, flawlessly. He smiles wide and says, “It feels
wonderful
.”

I know that the biggest part of him is telling the truth, that he
is
happy to be free of her after two hundred fifty years, but there is that small part that not even he can hide entirely, in which he is devastated by Aramei’s death and her connection to him severed. A Blood Bond of that measure, one that has endured for so long, isn’t something any werewolf can just forget. It will take time and discipline and determination, but none of these things are things that Viktor Vargas has. He is his own worst enemy. He always has been. And I think that what’s happened will only push him further over the edge of insanity and that sooner than later, he will be his own downfall.

“You can’t leave us down here,” Ashe growls, jerking his hands and legs, trying to get to me.

“I can and I will.”

“You know this war isn’t between us,” he says. “We could give a shit less about you, or about your tyrant father—let us go!”

I shake my head almost unnoticeably, but I don’t mock him or give in to the argument he wants.

But what Ashe said is entirely true. This war, generations of conflict between the Vargas family and ours, has always been about Viktor and my father. Viktor could’ve killed me that night I rushed in to save Adria from him. He could’ve killed me and bonded Adria to him as forcefully as he did Aramei. But he didn’t because it was never about me or Adria or wanting her as his mate. I know this now.

It has always been about my father and Viktor’s hatred of him. And Viktor took it out on anyone that had ever meant something to my father.

But Viktor is far from innocent in all of this. His treachery and his lies and the pain he has caused so many runs too deep. He passed any point of forgiveness a long time ago, though I know too that Viktor would die before asking anyone to forgive him for anything. He isn’t a broken soul that needs mending or absolution, nor does he want it.

I nod to Nathan, indicating to him that it’s time to go and he follows me toward the stairs.

“WAIT!” Ashe calls out. “You can’t be serious! I just came here for Alex! I just wanted her back!” I hear his chains pulling and loosening and pulling, over and over.

“Bro, I don’t mean to question your decisions, but shouldn’t we take them with us?”

I shut the basement door after Nathan steps out into the hall near the kitchen and then I slide all of the new locks recently installed in place. The door is made of solid steel.

“It would be more of a headache than anything to take them with us,” I say, sliding the last lock over. “And Viktor hates our father so much that I know he would never betray us to him. He’s really on no one’s side.”

Nathan nods thinking on it a moment and then agrees.

“And when Viktor wants out,” I say, “he’ll get out.”

30

WE MAKE IT INTO the depths of Sugarloaf Mountain by early morning. The sun hasn’t even broken through fully in the sky. We park our line of vehicles along one secluded makeshift road and get out to travel the rest of the way on foot through the treacherous terrain. Humans rarely tread here. It’s why my father chose this spot to hide Aramei, where he kept her hidden for nearly a year before moving her to the cabin. The cave is deep in the mountain, away from the skiers in the winter and more than three hours off the nearest hiking trail.

We shift into our mediate forms and glide along the tree-filled terrain with the quickness and dangerous grace of cheetahs gliding over a flat landscape.

Adria is beside me the whole way and I’m so awed by her agility and the elegant nature of her movements. It’s as if she’s been a Black Beast even longer than I have. So powerful and adaptive and…so incredibly hot that I….

Focus. I have to stay focused.

The entrance to the cave finally materializes and the sixteen of us enter the area two by two and stop. Harry was able to keep up somehow; another Praverian ability I suppose, but I don’t care enough about that right now to ask.

We edge ourselves through the slim entrance in a single-file line and follow the cold path as it snakes in one direction and descends deeper into the earth. I hear water dripping from several far off spots in the rock and the echoing of their whispers from behind me. Adria grabs my hand and squeezes it.

“Are you okay, babe?” I whisper quietly.

She presses her thumb tighter against my hand.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

I know this must be hard for her, coming here, to see the place again where she saw Aramei the very first time. I know it’s hard and it quietly breaks my heart.

Several minutes later and we emerge from the pathway and into the enormous area that had once been my father’s ‘meeting room’. The only real evidence that anyone had ever been here before are the torches mounted on the rock, which Nathan lights as we pass, the enormous stone table situated in the center of the room and the skeleton of the man my father killed when Adria and I were here. It sits slumped against the rock wall, still wearing the modern clothes he had been killed in; they fit ridiculously over his skinny bones. The skull’s jaw is lopsided and hanging wide open. Its neck hangs haphazardly to one side and I can see the bones where my father’s hand had been just before he snapped them.

“Gross!” Rachel says when she sees it. She jumps closer to Sebastian and I notice him slip his arm around her waist. “That is just nasty!”

Adria stares at the skeleton, no doubt recalling the very second that the man died.

“Will someone get rid of that, please?” I say.

Adria puts her hand on my arm, but keeps her eyes on the skeleton. “It’s okay…just leave it.”

I nod.

And then I make my way to the stone table and find myself standing at the head, just like my father would. I glance down at my hands and notice how the tips of my fingers rest lightly on the edge, also just as my father’s would. I shake out of the moment to look up at everyone standing around the table, waiting for me to sit down first…and more and more I feel as if I’m walking in my father’s footsteps, destined to commit the same crimes against our kind. Adria is next to me. I hesitate and then sit, taking Adria into the throne of my lap.

Everyone else follows suit.

“Isaac,”
I hear Adria’s voice in my head,
“you’re nothing like him. You never will be. You’re
better
than him.”

I look up from my hands and at her sitting on my lap and there’s nothing but love and understanding and
trust
in her eyes.

I thank her quietly for her words of encouragement.

And then I look out at everyone.

“I know how my father will go after his vengeance,” I say. “
His
only priority will be Adria. He’ll want her dead by his own hands. But the rest of you—” I look to each of them individually, “—anyone who sides with me and rebels against him will be hunted down by his army and also killed. It won’t stop with Adria and you all have to know that.”

“Like we said before,” Sebastian speaks up, “we’re with you in this all the way.”

Everyone else agrees by nodding and the occasional verbal response.

“But we can’t fight my father and those he brings with him by ourselves,” I state. “We’re going to have to spread out quickly and recruit the Alpha’s who would be loyal to me.”

“Yeah,” Nathan says, “the Alphas are the only ones we have to convince. Gain the loyalty of the Alpha and his entire pack will follow devotedly.”

“Does anyone here have a link to another Alpha?” I say.

One of the refugees, a guy named Ben who we picked up from Kentucky six years ago, raises his hand. “I was close to the Kentucky Alpha once.”

“Was? Once?” Nathan says warily.

 Ben nods solidly. “Yes, I ummm, well he’s my brother. We fight a lot—I kinda slept with his mate—but he doesn’t want anyone killing me but him.”

Nathan raises a brow. “Well, okay then….”

“Alright,” I say to Ben. “See if you can communicate with him. Don’t reveal our location.” I point at Harry. “Harry, can you listen in on his link to see if the Alpha is on our side, or just wanting us to believe that he is?”

Harry nods. “Yes, I can do that. Not one hundred percent fool-proof, but if he doesn’t know someone like me is testing him, he’ll be easier to figure out.”

“Good,” I say and two more refugees admit to also being directly linked to Alphas; one in Rhode Island and the other in Maryland.

After thirty minutes of discussion, Harry breaks away with all of them to listen in on their telepathic conversations, while Nathan, Sebastian, Xavier and I stay gathered at the table.

“I’m going to New Jersey to find Treven and Isis,” I say and this gets Adria’s attention.

“It’ll be fine,” I say, placing my fingers underneath her chin. “I trust Treven more than just about any other Alpha that I know and his pack is huge—sixty at least.”

Adria’s eyes narrow. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth about this cave.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the perfect hideaway to leave me while you go out and do all of the dangerous stuff.”

“My father will kill you,” I say, hoping she won’t fight me on this. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I know,” she says, looking away, but then she turns back to me again. “But I’m not going to hide like a coward and when the time comes and you need to understand that, Isaac. I won’t….”

“I know, baby,” I say and swallow down the argument. “I know.”

When the time comes, I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep her hidden away and I don’t care if she hates me for it later. I won’t let my father kill her.

“I thought you said you’d never close your mind to me?” she says softly into my ear.

I blink back into the present, but I say nothing in response. I did close my mind off to her for that brief moment, but right now she can’t know what I’m really planning.

Ben and the others come back into the meeting room, Harry and Daisy with them.

All of them appear eager and somewhat excited.

“They’re onboard!” Ben says. “The second I mentioned an uprising against the Sovereign, my brother’s voice changed. They’re
already
on their way to Maine.”

“And bringing the West Virginia and Pennsylvania packs with them,” Harry adds.

“Mississippi is onboard, too,” Mari, another refugee speaks up.

“And Rhode Island,” the other refugee says, “but their pack is pretty small.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nathan says, “a few is better than none.”

I nod, agreeing.

“Most, if not all of them, should be in Maine by the morning,” Harry announces.

“How can they get here so fast?” Adria says.

“They have their ways,” Xavier speaks up from the other end of the table.

“Yeah, like an airplane?” Alexandra mocks.

“You’re just making it worse on yourself,” Xavier says to her grinning a lopsided grin. He pulls his legs up and props his feet upon the table, crossing them at the ankles below.

“Yeah?” Alexandra says, “How’s that exactly?”

“Playing hard to get,” Xavier says. He interlaces his fingers and rests the back of his head in his locked hands.

Alexandra ignores him.

Suddenly, Adria gets up from my lap.

“Where are you going?” I say, holding onto the tips of her fingers.

She looks down at me and softens her expression. She’s trying so hard not to appear depressed or troubled by what happened with Aramei, but even for her it’s not an easy thing to hide.

“I’m just going to be alone for a while.”

I get up from the table, worried.

She kisses the edge of my mouth. “You worry too much—I’m fine.” She puts the palms of her hands on my chest and gently guides me back into the wooden chair. “Stay here and do what you have to do.”

I sigh deeply and let her go.

I notice Alexandra start to go after her, but she stops when her gaze meets mine. My eyes alone tell her that her sister just needs time and Alexandra quietly approves.

After the meeting is over and we’ve established what needs to be done, I leave everyone to find Adria where I knew she would be, alone in the room where Aramei used to sleep. A few candles have been lit throughout the space, giving off just enough orange light to see her lying on one side of the bed.

She’s been crying. I notice her covertly wipe the tears away from her eyes.

All of the immaculate pillows and sheets and other extravagant things my father kept for Aramei are gone. All that is left is the stone slab that made up the bed’s frame and the giant pillow that had been used as the mattress. The claw foot bathtub has even been removed, along with the old wooden desk that I split in half and into a hundred pieces when I brought Adria here with me that night. Funny how my father would have the remnants of an old desk cleaned out of Aramei’s room, but leaves the corpse of the man he killed out in the wide open for all to see.