The Ballad of Aramei (5 page)

“You
will
leave her alone with me,”
Trajan says and I see that his solid, emotionless expression never wavers.
“I will not harm her.”
It was an intolerant demand spoken in the calmest of words, yet at the same time I could sense that Trajan was also doing right by his Alpha son by giving him his word that he won’t hurt me. Trajan would never feel the need to give
anyone
his word, or the need to explain himself. I know that he would kill someone first before ever offering such an accommodation as this.

And Trajan isn’t the type to lie or use manipulative tactics like Viktor Vargas would. Trajan doesn’t need to. This alone gives me reason to trust in his words and so I step out the rest of the way from behind Isaac.

“I’ll be fine,” I say aloud, putting my hands on Isaac’s hand before he can grab me. “I believe him.”

Isaac’s chin rolls outward, the look on his face unsure, concerned, but he knows as well as I do that we have to give in to what his father commands or else the situation will quickly take a violent turn.

“Leave your mind open to me,” Isaac whispers and I nod once, agreeing.

I peer deeply into his bright blue eyes and let our thoughts sync. Instantly my head feels slightly heavier as Isaac’s mind wanders through mine and latches on the same way he had been physically latching onto my body just seconds ago.

His jaw moves as he grits his teeth harshly behind his tightly closed lips.

Isaac looks back at his father, nods and reluctantly lets go of my hand. I soften my eyes on him, hoping to calm him even more and then I walk toward Trajan, feeling every one of my steps pulling me farther and farther away from the safety of Isaac’s arms. The last time I stood face to face with Trajan was the night I was rescued from Viktor Vargas. Trajan looked down at me that night from his massive height and body; he is the biggest and deadliest werewolf in the world and I stood up to him. I didn’t fear him an ounce. He had just thrown Isaac through the wall of the Vargas house and out into the snow, saving Viktor from being killed by Isaac’s hand. Something in my mind clicked when it happened and fear was the last emotion that I could evoke in that moment. Rage, anger and hatred were all that I could feel and I had let Trajan know it.

And he didn’t kill me.

But right now, I’m not feeling those vengeful emotions which had helped to smother the fear in the past and as I stand before Trajan now, I can’t help but be immensely nervous and exude a childlike timidity in front of him. I fold my hands together in front of me and bow my head once out of respect. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but hopefully Trajan will overlook it if I’m not. Just give me points for trying, please. Thanks.

Trajan nods, opens the back door on the Escalade and motions for me to get inside with his hand palm up. Nervously, I look back at Isaac one more time as he’s walking up the porch steps, taking his time so that he can use what’s left of it to watch me.

“I’ll be listening,”
he says telepathically,
“and if I sense the slightest bit of alarm I’ll be out here before you see me coming.”

“Okay.”

“Leave the link open,”
he adds.
“Even if my father tells you to close it off. Do you understand?”

Easy for him to say that, but I’m the one outside with Trajan. Alone. If Trajan tells me to shut off the link I might have to cave and do what he says.

“Yes,”
I answer.

Isaac walks inside the house to the voices of a dozen concerned people:

“Isaac, what’s going on?”
Isaac’s sister, Camilla, says restlessly.

“Why is he here?”
Daisy says.
“I sense something is wrong, terribly wrong.”

“You left her with him?”
Harry snaps.

“Shit around here just keeps getting better,”
Zia says and I always find it amazing how she can be so sarcastic in even the most traumatic times, or maybe she’s just better at hiding her fears than some are.

The flurry of voices snaps out of my head like turning off a light switch when Trajan speaks.

“Please get in.”

I finally do as he wishes and climb inside the backseat of the massive vehicle. The first thing I do is look around the seats for Aramei and I’m baffled to see that she isn’t here.

I sit down and the noises from outside close off as the door shuts behind Trajan.

“I assume you’re wondering why you can feel her?”

It takes me a second to understand his question because, quite frankly, I’m sitting in a close, confined space with the world’s most feared werewolf and I have every right to be pushed up on the level of stupid and it not count against me.

“Uhh…yes, I am as a matter of fact,” I say, forcing the nervousness down some so that I can at least retain a bit of dignity. “Where is she?”

“Aramei is in the cabin,” Trajan reveals, “and why you can hear her and sense her is the reason that I am here.”

He speaks so calmly that one might presume he isn’t capable of violence if they didn’t already know who and what he was. But truthfully, the calm in his voice is what intimidates me the most. It translates as confidence and dominion; he doesn’t have to raise his voice or use threatening words to get his point across because that eerie calm does it for him.

Trajan, as always, is handsome beyond words, with dark, flowing hair and matching facial hair that grows perfectly on his chin, under his nose and upward along the lower half of his cheeks, buzzed short so that it’s not too bushy. But he’s dressed differently than I’ve seen him before in the cave when he looked much more savage and ancient, wearing no shirt and an old leather coat split down the sides. Today he looks more like the men he brought with him, except that he wears his black jeans and tight black t-shirt better than they do. There’s something about a man with power that makes him look better in his clothes than everyone else.

I straighten my back and fold my hands together in my lap. I try to look him in the eyes as little as possible because it feels disrespectful of me.

“Would you mind telling me first why I can sense her at all?”

Trajan rests his back in the comfort of the seat and lets his extremely long legs splay, folding his strong hands together adorned by thick silver rings that look like something bought from a gothic shop. The only difference is that his rings are, I know, very real and very priceless. But more than their worth, the fact that they’re solid silver shows even more how powerful this werewolf is because silver burns like hell. Isaac told me this. The necklace that he gave me in June is silver, but now that I’m werewolf I can’t wear it for long periods of time or else my skin will start burning. I have since put it away safely and I don’t wear it at all.

Trajan looks out ahead of him and says, “You were once bonded to Isaac when you were human. Becoming a Black Beast dominates a Blood Bond and you no longer have to drink his blood to stay alive, but it is still in you and it will always be.”

I turn my head to look directly at him so that I can focus solely on his words as they fill my mind with wonder. But he keeps his gaze focused out ahead, not appearing to look at anything in particular, but not lost in his thoughts, either.

And I continue to listen with the greatest intent.

“Anyone bound by our blood,” he goes on, “can be eternally linked to all who are bound in the same way. You are connected to Aramei because of this and it will never change.”

I feel Isaac’s heart fall tremulously as he hears his father’s words in my mind.

“But this connection is so rare, Adria,” Trajan says, now looking right at me, which makes it feel mandatory that I look at him too, “that it is a miraculous thing, you must understand.”

I am caught off-guard by the sliver of hope in his voice that at first I thought I was making up. But there was definitely hope in his words, an emotion that I never would have otherwise associated with someone like him. Why would he care about something as petty as hope when everything he wants and needs tends to fall right into his lap?

“How rare?” It’s all that I can say. I’m still trying to feel him out, to understand where this meeting might be leading, to figure out of I need to be concerned.

“You and Aramei are the only two to be connected since the Asvald sisters seven hundred years ago. They were daughters of a Viking warlord, both bound by blood to my father.” There is a sudden knowing glint in his eye now and his tone shifts for a moment to indicate a faint layer of wit. “As you can see, Blood Bonds run in the family.”

He looks away from me again and goes back to being completely serious.

“Aramei has changed,” he says and silence fills the dense air around us.

An announcement like this one might not seem so extraordinary to some, but those three little words are truly worth giving my full attention to.

I just look at him, hoping he won’t stall to divulge the details that I desperately need and want, yet at the same time in a way, fear.

“For two hundred years,” he goes on, “Aramei has only ever spoken to me, only ever spoken my name aloud. She has not shown an ounce of understanding the world around her, but has been trapped in a world of her own, some strange world inside her mind that I’ve never been able to comprehend. It seems so real to me, Adria.” He looks over at me and his face reveals even more of that hope I saw before, which has now also become determination. And it shocks me a little that he used my name, speaking to me as if I were a friend and he is taking advantage of my ability to listen. But the determination suddenly dissolves from his face and there’s a sort of sadness left in its wake.

He sighs and I glance down to notice his fingers moving along the contours of his rings.

“In two hundred years Aramei has never spoken my name and it felt like she never even knew who I was anymore. She calls out to me, yet my heart tells me she doesn’t really know me, that she has not the slightest inclination of my presence. It is as though my name resonates inside her head as an echo from long ago before the blood took her mind and when she loved me.” His face has hardened, but this powerful being I know is incapable of tears. His sadness and despair can only come out as anger and rage. And I feel it laying there dormant in his heart, a storm of emotion that he has let build up inside of him for two centuries.

I try to swallow that knot in my throat again, but another one just forms in its place.

Trajan turns to me again and I raise my eyes to his without hesitation.

“She spoke your name two days ago,” he says and my heart locks up in my chest because I already know what he’s about to say next. “And when she did, there was absolute life in her eyes. She
knew
you, Adria…she knew you.”

I shift uncomfortably on the seat and look toward the window next to me rather than at Trajan anymore. I can’t bear to look at him because I feel so guilty. How can she know me, but not him? This can’t be happening….

Isaac’s mind is swimming with realization and panic. I can see through his eyes as he stands in the den in the center of the floor, pacing back and forth across the carpet as everyone watches all around him. I see Nathan standing near the den entrance leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and there’s an equally concerned look on his face that I know, just by feeling Isaac’s emotions, is pretty much how Isaac looks right now, too.

“I need you to communicate with Aramei,” Trajan says and my heart falls into my stomach, “and I will not take no for an answer.”

Chapter 4

SO MUCH FOR THINKING Trajan might have a kind bone in his body. I should never have let myself believe that were remotely possible. I think about putting my hand on the door handle and helping myself out, but decide against it. Where would I go and how would I get there? I’m trapped inside this Escalade with nowhere to run.

But just as Isaac promised, he’s running down the front steps of the house and towards us.

I’m positive Trajan knows that he’s coming, but he never takes his eyes off me. Seconds before Isaac makes it to the window, three of Trajan’s men step in front of him and stop him in his angry rush.

My whole body stiffens when one of the guards is sent flying over the hood of the Escalade and crashing into a tree about fifty feet on the other side of me. And then the Escalade shakes and jolts as Isaac and another guard crash against the rear. I hear the covering over the brake lights shatter and then a loud
bang
as the guard’s body is forcefully pressed against the back window, the sound of glass snapping and cracking as he’s pushed further and further into it and it’s barely withstanding the weight. The vehicle jerks side to side and I find myself gripping the back of the seat in front of me, my fingers digging abrasively into the leather.

Trajan is absolutely calm and motionless.

“My guards cannot defeat my son,” Trajan says looking directly at me, “but once he gets past them, the only one left is me.”

My hands begin to shake and sweat, my eyes dart from the fighting going on outside the vehicle and back to Trajan, who just threatened his son’s life in so many grim words. And by the resolute look in his eyes, I know the ending to the inevitable outcome rests solely in my hands.

I take a deep breath, grip the door handle and step calmly outside the Escalade.

Isaac throws a fourth guard off him and rushes over to me, breathing heavily and already bleeding.

“Stay away from her!” Isaac says as Trajan gets out and closes the door softly. “You’re not taking her with you! DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME?” The demonic undertones in his voice send shivers through my body. He pushes me behind him aggressively.

Trajan doesn’t move and his expression doesn’t shift an inch from the composed, emotionless state it has remained in for most of his visit. Instead, in reaction to Isaac’s disrespect Trajan simply lowers his head just enough so that his dark blue eyes appear hooded underneath the lids, giving his face an even more intimidating and intolerant appearance.