Ah, evil Rachel. No surprise there, really.
“What did you say to him?” That’s definitely among about three other pressing questions that I’m a little more than curious to find out, but I stick to the subject and the point he’s about to make.
“I told him that I’ve been around humans since I was two and that by him ordering us to hunt rogues all our lives and forced to live in the human world so much, that he can’t expect us not to be influenced by it.”
“And he actually listened to you?” I’m not buying it.
“Not at first,” he says and I’m not surprised. “I was brought to the Elder Council where my father agreed to let them punish me.”
“I don’t wanna hear about it!” I rip the words out, turning away from him. I can’t bear to listen to him tell me stories of how he was beaten, or forced to fight in some stupid death match of sorts. I don’t want to hear it.
“No, love, listen to me,” he says, his voice becoming softer. “They were going to exile me to Serbia, force me away from everyday human life and put me back in the mountains, but my father, no one else, had a change of heart and forbid the punishment at all.”
A car passes by in the opposite lane, blinding me momentarily with its headlights on bright.
“My father said I was right, that I was destined to be an Alpha one day and that I should be able to act on my decisions before that time came. So he approved my request to loosen the law forbidding our kind to become involved with humans.”
I mumble under my breath, “He’s a hypocrite; after all, Aramei is human.”
Isaac heard what I said, but he doesn’t seem to care much about going into that topic.
“I’m guessing that ‘loosen’ means there were a lot of restrictions around it?” I ask.
Isaac nods. “Yeah, you can say that.”
His answer leaves nothing but a suspicious question on my face.
“The night I took you to see Aramei,” he says, “I was also bringing you to meet the ol’ man.” He tries to hold back that lopsided grin, but I still catch it.
My eyebrows crinkle softly. “What, like letting him approve of me, or something?”
“It wouldn’t have made any difference to me,” he explains, “whether he approved of you, or not. It wouldn’t have changed anything between you and me—I would’ve fought him for you. But having my father’s approval was important to me because he is my father.”
“So he actually approved of me?” I admit it does make me feel pretty good. Still doesn’t refute the fact that his father is not very high on my list of likable people.
Isaac’s smile gets wider; another oncoming car passes us, illuminating what I notice as a proud and satisfying expression on his face.
“I told you standing up to Nataša the way you did was hot as hell,” he says, grinning hugely. “You stood up to my father, Adria. Do you have any idea what kind of strength that takes—no werewolf lets that kind of courage go unnoticed.”
I hide the blush in my face by looking out my window.
“So, did…Avril ever get approved by your father?” I totally failed at hiding the pang of jealousy. It wouldn’t have mattered how I asked the question; there’s just no way to hide the obvious in a question like that.
“Is someone jealous?” he says, and I hear the heavy grin in his voice.
I turn my head around harshly, my mouth fallen open in total disbelief. Okay, not so much disbelief, just the fake kind.
“No, baby,” he says, cupping my chin in his fingertips, “no one approved of her.” He lets his hand fall away and takes the steering wheel again and then becomes serious once more. “She was the girlfriend I told you about before. The one my family thought was unstable and who I Turned.”
It shocks me to hear this admission.
I don’t say anything for a moment, but I study Isaac instead, wondering if he still blames himself for her death.
“Like I told you before,” he says, letting the memory fade from his mind, “I didn’t love her; I only wanted to, just to know what it felt like.”
I look down toward the dashboard, still not sure what to say. I’m not jealous anymore, but am a little bothered by the possibility of Isaac ever having actually loved someone before me.
“I didn’t know what it really felt like until I met you,” he says and it sounds like he’s testing me, “but then you already knew that, didn’t you?”
I look over at him carefully and I can’t resist that disarming smile of his.
“But yes, these are the ways that my father shows me his love.”
We turn down another street that looks exactly like the last one and keep driving with few cars in sight until we get on a seemingly endless stretch of highway.
“But because I’m one of the few he trusts with Aramei, it shows me more than anything his love for me.”
None of it is what I consider ‘love’, but I can’t bear to bring myself to say this to Isaac. However he wants to believe that his father loves him, I’m not going to take that away from him. It would crush him. And here I am all over again thinking that maybe it is a good thing after all that Isaac doesn’t know what I know. Maybe it’s still better that I continue with my original plan months ago about never telling Isaac that his father has put all of their lives in jeopardy over and over again for the sake of keeping Aramei alive.
After an hour, we pull down a dirt road hidden by a canopy of low, sweeping trees and heavy brush; even in the daytime you’d never see this road unless you already knew it was here. The change of scenery makes me think we’re pretty much there, but then we drive another ten minutes down a slim, winding black street. There are no street lights, or painted lines on the road and the canopy of trees looming over each side only helps to block out any light the moon might give off.
Five more minutes and we come to a road block.
The Jeep’s headlights brighten the nine giant figures standing in the center and on each side of the street. I’ve seen men like this before, in Aramei’s cave. Werewolves. They only look like men, but their true identity is unmistakable to me. They’re lightly armored, wearing thick vests and metal and leather bracers around their arms. Each has a sword sheathed at their sides.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing swords. Everything can appear modern and normal to me. I can be talking to someone I know is a werewolf and it doesn’t shock me anymore. But when I see men wearing swords it never fails to make me look twice, just to verify I didn’t slip in the shower and wake up somewhere in the medieval days.
“Stay here,” Isaac says as he opens the door and hops out.
He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
This makes me as nervous as it did the first time; no, actually it’s worse because I already know that from this point onward, I’m not in the human world anymore.
As Isaac talks with the guards in front of the headlights, I glance uneasily out all of the windows, looking toward the thick, black trees that surround us on all sides and I can feel them in there. They’re everywhere. These werewolves out in the open on the road are just a tiny fraction of their numbers. I think of Malachi, about how he described the way in which Aramei is always so heavily guarded. He was pretty dead-on.
It never dawned on me until now, why she is so heavily guarded like this. What can she do? I don’t know, it just seems like overkill. I guess it makes sense that because Trajan is the most feared and most powerful werewolf living, that others who might want to dethrone him may go after the one thing he cares about the most. But it also makes me question Trajan’s leadership on a whole new level.
I’m no military expert, but it seems like a poor tactical decision for Trajan to put all of his eggs in one basket like this. Either that or he has so many soldiers that he can afford to spare one hundred just to guard one person.
Yeah, okay, that’s probably the case.
Isaac comes back around to the Jeep and slips inside.
The window banging once b
eside me makes my heart jump up into my esophagus. I turn around to see a familiar face staring in at me.
I push the button to let the window down, still trying to catch my breath.
“You’re still with this pup?” Raul says, smiling in at me all crazy-like. He was one of the guards posted at the entrance to Aramei’s room in the cave the first time I saw her. Raul and Isaac seem to have a respectful sort of relationship and even though this werewolf is as tall as a tree and twice as thick as any human body builder I’ve ever seen, it’s not as easy to be afraid of him with his facetious nature.
“Yeah,” I say, letting a sly grin touch the corners of my mouth, “but I’ve been thinking about broadening my horizons, maybe seeing other people, y’know, like big, older guys.” I look him over suggestively.
Raul’s grin consumes his face. He leans over farther so he can see Isaac sitting in the driver’s seat.
“You hear that, boy?” he says and Isaac is grinning back at him. “Your girl wants to see what it’s like to be with Big Raul—you’re gonna’ lose her, kid. Better get the shackles on her now.”
Isaac shakes his head, big smile still intact. “Alright, Raul, I’ll be sure to do that.” He places his hand on the gear shift.
Raul winks at me and steps away from the window, patting the top of the door a few times to indicate it’s okay for us to drive ahead now.
“He’s right, y’know,” I say, grinning over at Isaac. “Better get the shackles out.”
Isaac barks a laugh. “If I get the shackles out,” he says just as playfully as I had, “it won’t be to keep you away from him.”
I don’t know why that visual made the area just below my stomach feel like ice all of a sudden, but I think I’ll keep that to myself. I keep my face turned away from him, but I’m sure he can tell I’m blushing so hard.
The Jeep descends a steep little hill that leads down into a clearing amid the trees where a large two-story cabin sits. There is no electricity here and the only light glowing in the windows is the dancing orange flames most likely from lanterns lit all throughout the house. I expected an old, dilapidated cabin with cobwebs and six inches of dust and maybe even a few deer skins hanging out front, but this is actually nice.
Scanning the area, I see several tall, dark figures all standing around outside and I catch the glint of a few pairs of preternatural eyes staring back at us as Isaac and me get out of the Jeep.
There’s a river, or maybe a waterfall nearby. The sound of rushing water resonates through the forest.
Isaac takes my hand and as we approach the front of the cabin, a werewolf in human form almost as enormous as Raul, steps in front of us. Only this guy, by the ominous, hard look on his face, I can’t help but be intimidated by.
“And who is this?” he drills Isaac through a deep, rough voice as he looks down at me.
“My girlfriend,” Isaac says sternly, which between it and the intolerant look in his eyes seems enough for the brute to bow his head and step aside to let us pass.
I’m surprised that he referred to me as his girlfriend, instead of his mate this time. When it came to the older werewolves, ‘mate’ seemed more appropriate, as if Isaac was speaking to them in their language by simply not using human terms.
When we step inside the warmly lit cabin, it isn’t a surprise to see several servants all dressed alike in black ankle-length gowns, tending to various duties. One steadily dusts the empty shelves and abandoned rustic furniture. Three are coming and going from an area under the staircase that probably leads into a kitchen, each carrying different types of food; fruit mostly, which is carried up the stairs toward a wide-open section overlooking the downstairs floor and where I’m certain Aramei is being kept. Two more servants approach Isaac and me, bow low at the waist and raise their backs again slowly without ever saying a word. Isaac makes a slight motion with his hand, dismissing them and they bow again and move to stand against the wall.
The cabin looks only recently lived in; by Aramei and those inside of it now. There isn’t anything else that I can see which might suggest any humans have been here in several years. Besides the perfumed oils and burning incense that is standard around Aramei, I can easily detect the smell of old air, weathered wood and something mildewed. And even though every inch of anything in reach had been recently dusted by the servants, the mounds of dust and cobwebs on the tall log-like walls and rafters above make this old cabin look as vacant and worn as I had expected it to.
Isaac pulls me along by my fingertips and we walk up the wooden stairs and onto the second floor, which is one enormous area with no hidden rooms or hallways to duck into. The space is vast, encompassing the entire area from halfway overlooking the downstairs floor and spreading out into an oval, flanked by a log balcony separating both floors.
Aramei stands in the soft orange light from a nearby lantern, one servant girl with velvety auburn hair devotedly at her side.
My chest feels empty, dominated by nothing but cold air which whirls up into my throat and down into the pit of my stomach. How just being in Aramei’s presence can make me feel so overly emotional and afraid and wounded still defies any rationalization. Aramei stands with her back to us, her dainty arms lying softly at her sides. The white gown that she wears does little to hide her perfect naked form underneath it. Her silken hair lies neatly against her back, down the center between her shoulder blades, so shiny and soft you just know one of her attending servants had recently brushed it more than one hundred strokes. But Aramei hardly moves. I watch her, swallowing my pain, as she appears to stare downward at the hardwood floor. Her little white feet are bare and the gown she wears barely hovers an inch from the tops of her small ankles.
I see nothing but her in this moment. I don’t remember that Isaac is standing next to me somewhere, or that the auburn-haired servant stands feet from Aramei with her hands folded carefully against her pelvis.
What is Aramei looking at? Nothing, of course, I make myself believe. Maybe she doesn’t see anything at all. Maybe as she stands there staring off into oblivion, all that she sees is oblivion.
This will be me one day….
Isaac rests his hand on my shoulder from behind and it feels like an attempt to console me. But why would he need to console me? He doesn’t know why I’m standing here like this, why my heart feels like an empty, dead thing rotting inside my chest, threatening to bring me to my knees while I wither away and die.
I hold back the tears hiding just behind my eyes.
“Milord has ordered she only be accompanied by you anymore,” the auburn-haired servant says to Isaac and finally I tear my eyes away from the cruel mirror I had been staring into.
“When did he say this?” Isaac says and I feel his body step away from mine.
The servant bows her head as he approaches. “He informed us yesterday—no longer can Aramei be personally guarded by anyone but you, Milord.” Her voice is gentle and subservient.
Isaac lets out a long, deep breath. I turn at the waist to see him. That look in his eyes is him trying not to appear devastated, while at the same time, apologizing to me for the new order thrust onto him. He already knows how I feel about it. This news, after the conversation he and I had on the way here, is cruelly ironic.
“Do you know what his reasons are for this decision?” Isaac says and I hear the anger seething quietly in his words.
I look back at Aramei, who hasn’t moved an inch and I hear Isaac pull out a chair situated under a small table pressed against the balcony.
“Partially, Milord,” the servant says, but she stops. I turn around slightly to see why. She looks toward another servant fluffing up the pillows amid Aramei’s giant bed that sits against the far wall. “All of you leave us,” she demands and every servant bows where they stand and scurries down the stairs.
“Everyone, all of you, go outside,” Isaac says, looking over the balcony, to those lingering in the room below.
Not until Isaac and the servant are confid
ent that only the four of us are left inside the cabin does the servant feel she can speak again.
“Milord,” she says, “may I speak freely?”
“Of course.”
I don’t move. I turn my back on them, letting my gaze fall only on Aramei, but leaving my ears open to everything she and Isaac are saying.
“Your father has become obsessed, paranoid even,” she says and her tone and choice of words feel borderline blasphemous to me, but I guess that’s what being able to speak freely means.
“Go on,” Isaac urges her.
Aramei still hasn’t moved. Her body sways in an almost invisible motion, but she isn’t the one provoking it.
“He was visited by a woman who told him that there might be someone on the inside who is a danger to Aramei.”
“Who was this woman?”
“I do not know, Milord. I have never seen her before.”
“Well, what did she look like?”
“She appeared young,” the servant says, “her hair was dark and long, but she had no distinguishable traits to set her apart from any other young girl. But she was a Black Beast; this I know.”
Black Beast is the old term for werewolf. Only the Elders normally still use it.
“But then why still allow all of these guards and the servants, or even you for that matter, around Aramei now?”
“The girl said that the threat is coming from among those you know, not from those of us who have tended to her and guarded her life for two hundred years.”
I notice Aramei’s chin raise and it’s enough to keep all of my attention. She is still so beautiful and unchanging, still the same angelic figure she has always been.
I walk over closer to her, letting Isaac’s and the servant’s words fade behind me.
In a split second, I could’ve sworn I saw Aramei’s body tense up as I approached her. But that can’t be. She doesn’t know that I’m even here. She doesn’t know that she’s here.
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