The Ballad of Aramei

by J. A. Redmerski

  Everybody in the house is scrambling from room to room, my sisters and Xavier all charge into the den with Nathan and me. We’re all telepathically connected being siblings, so they’ve already heard what’s going on.

  Xavier steps up, combing his fingers through his freshly washed hair as though he just got out of the shower. “That didn’t take long, did it?” he says, shaking his head. “His girl bails and already he’s regretting his douchiness and coming to Romeo her back into his bed.”

  “Looks that way,” I say, “but I’m more bothered by Viktor being with him.”

  “Yeah,” Nathan adds, “I have to admit that not even I take Ashe to be the type to bring the ol’ man along—it’s not their style…over a girl, at least.”

  “No, it’s not,” I say. “Where’s Daisy?” I ask, realizing she’s the only one of my living sisters who’s not here.

  “Still hiding out with Harry,” Camilla says. “That Harvester thing really has Harry worried.”

  “And she’s closed her mind off to me,” I say after getting no telepathic response from her.

  I shove my way past everyone and head straight for the front door, pushing it open fully and stepping out onto the porch; everyone follows close behind. I descend the steps and stand my ground in the wide open of the front yard; my pack is close behind, casting a large pool of shadow across the driveway. We wait for several long, tense minutes; only the sound of summer insects buzzing in the still of the night. The quarter moon is high in the star-filled sky.

  And then an out-of-place band of shadow moves up from the end of the driveway as Viktor, Ashe and two others I don’t know, emerge from the darkness.

  Ashe, looking as pathetic as ever stands beside his father, Viktor, with his head cocked confidently to one side. His short black hair is messy on top, like he’d been in a fight recently.

  Viktor Vargas is the only one among them who has my attention.

  He stands tall at the head of their small group, his burly arms crossed, an impious grin that I know is telling of so much more, is a permanent fixture on his face.

  What is he really doing here?

  I know that his part in this has nothing to do with Alexandra. She’s a small, insignificant fish to Viktor Vargas and wouldn’t waste his time with the likes of her.

  He gazes across the yard at me and our eyes lock in an intense moment where two Alphas quietly come to an understanding: we are one in the same as Alphas and if there is a Challenge made here tonight, it will be between him and me.

  Bring it the fuck on.

  Viktor smiles chillingly. “I’ve been seeing and hearing some very interesting things as of late,” he says. His head leans in on one side, his chin barely turning at an angle so that he appears inquisitive and the one holding all the cards.

  “About what exactly?” I say, and although he’s already succeeded in worrying me, I’m not about to let him know it.

  Viktor grins. Probably because he already knows he’s succeeded.

  “First thing first,” he says, unfolding his arms.

  “Yeah, bring my fledgling girl out here,” Ashe says, “before I go in myself and get her.”

  Viktor puts his arm out horizontally at his side and pushes Ashe back. “I did not come here for your little girlfriend,” he says, “and if you interrupt me again, I’ll see to it that you never produce an offspring.”

  As Ashe swallows his pride and steps off, Alexandra and Rachel exit the house and stand boldly together at the top of the porch. I grit my teeth behind tightly closed lips, but think better of reprimanding them for disobeying my order to stay inside. I realize before it’s too late that letting Viktor and Ashe know that I don’t have those two properly ‘trained’ yet, will put a serious hurt on my reputation as Alpha.

  “I’m really surprised by your stupidity,” Alexandra says to Ashe.

  “His desperation is what I like to see though,” Rachel chimes in.

  I don’t have to look at either of them to see the smirks and taunts on their faces. But I’m about to explode over their interruption.

  Viktor looks dead at me, quietly questioning my leadership abilities.

  I throw a warning glance back at Alexandra and Rachel and thankfully they see it.

  But then Xavier opens his mouth, “Why don’t you go back to the shithole you crawled out of?—you’re not taking Alexandra anywhere.”

  I whirl around to face everyone behind me, including Xavier who instantly sees the anger in my churning black eyes. “ENOUGH!” My voice rumbles through my body, piercing the night air. My eyes remain black, claws at the ready where my stiff, partially curled fingers are challenging everyone from down at my sides.

  I turn around to see Viktor and say, “Why are you here?” and the question rolls right out of me amid an infernal echo.

  Viktor steps up closer and I do the same, leaving our groups several feet behind us. The light from the light pole nearby shines down and around us, making us even more-so the center of attention. Viktor’s smile never fades, but in it he carries something other than violence or retribution. No, Viktor’s face carries mystery and humor and relief. He’s not here to Challenge me or even to fight, he’s here for something much worse….

  “First,” he says, putting up his index finger, “I have to thank you for taking care of that little white-haired Praverian bitch—talk about a thorn in my side.”

  I say nothing. I just want him to get on with it.

  “But what I really came here for?” Viktor smiles balefully. “That mate of yours and her rather ‘unhealthy’ relationship with Aramei.”

  My chin rolls stiffly to one side and I glare in at him in a sidelong glance.

  He goes on:

  “I haven’t been able to see much into Aramei’s mind in so long and then one day, out of the blue,” he twirls both of his hands at the wrists and opens his palms out in front of him, “I start seeing shit you could never imagine.”

  He’s momentarily lost in some memory that appears to amuse to him in a sick sort of way.

  I keep quiet for now, letting him delight in his strange musings and self-importance, while giving me time to figure out how I’m to respond to any of this. I don’t want to risk telling him anything about Adria or Aramei that he doesn’t already know.

  He folds his hands together behind his back and smiles upon me.

  “Oh!” He laughs suddenly and his grin deepens. “I guess I don’t need to explain to you how it is that I’m still alive?”

  “No,” I say simply, pretending not to be fazed by his mockery, but I’ll always be hurt by the fact that my father chose to protect him all these years and risked his children’s lives by doing so. “I’ve known for a long time. But that’s not why you’re here, so stop it with the performance and get to the point.”

  I take another step closer to him and he casually stands his ground.

  “Fine,” he says, rolling his green eyes in a chafed fashion. “You’re going to lose the Dawson sister one way or another, and this time, I have nothing to do with it.”

  I step right up into his face as we are the same height.

  “Why are you saying this?” I glare heatedly into his eyes.

  “Because it’s true,” Viktor responds, never losing his slim smile. “There are only two ways that this will end, Isaac, and I don’t see you saving her from either of them.”

  “TELL ME!” I roar and Viktor still doesn’t flinch.

  I sense both groups becoming rigid and quietly riled by the rising of my voice, but they retain their distance for now.

  “Tell me, Viktor…,” I say in an almost failed attempt at a calmer voice, “…what are you saying to me?”

  And then in a strange shift, Viktor’s grinning face suddenly falls and he looks confused and traumatized and then blissful and then confused again, all in a matter of seconds.

  He steps away from me, stumbling backward with his wide eyes fastened to the ground. He holds his hands out in front of him and stare
s at them as if he’s never seen his own hands before. His face, riddled with shock, becomes more unreadable as it shifts from one expression to another in rapid, conflicting phases.

  He falls to his knees.

  His hands come up above his head for a moment and when he arches his back over and buries his face near his knees, I finally snap out of how confused I am by his sudden, awkward show. I hadn’t even noticed that I stepped away from him by a few feet, as if my subconscious was putting necessary space between me and an unpredictable madman about to prove unpredictability.

  Viktor raises his head and straightens his back again, craning his neck as if to look up at the stars and then a crazy laughter resounds through the air.

  All of us, my group and Viktor’s, are looking down at him, equally stunned, and at each other equally confused.

  “Father?” Ashe says. For a second, he goes to reach out for Viktor, maybe to help him up, but decides against it and backs away another step, instead. “Get up!” he hisses through his teeth. “What are you doing?”

  Ashe’s eyes keep bouncing back and forth between Viktor and me.

  Viktor laughs again, this time with tears running down his face. But these aren’t tears of sadness—Viktor is incapable of an emotion so human—but are of an eerie sort of exhilaration that I just can’t place.

  “Oh, by the Sovereign!” he sings, craning his neck back even farther, his big hands now attached to the sides of his head. A ripple of sadistic, delighted laughter thunders from his throat. “I can’t believe it!” He laughs yet again and I’m growing more worried and fearful with every one of them.

  Viktor suddenly lowers his head and looks right at me, grinning a victorious grin. His green eyes are hooded broodingly beneath his eyelids.

  I reach out and grab him by the throat, bringing him to his feet again. I grind my jaw and feel a livid tremor move through my lips, unsheathing them from my teeth. My razor-sharp claws puncture the flesh around his throat and blood oozes slowly down my fingertips and my hand.

  “WHAT. HAS. HAPPENED?!”

  Viktor does nothing to get out of my grasp. His eyes peer in at me intently.

  “You’ll know soon enough.” He smiles.

  I shove him to the ground and he laughs the whole way. He doesn’t even attempt to get to up once he hits it. Ashe and the two others who came along with them finally advance, but then so does Nathan and Xavier and, to my surprise, Sebastian, who I thought had left us to go back to his human family. He appears out of nowhere it seems and jumps on one of Ashe’s sidekicks, pummeling him with his fists. Nathan takes the other, while Xavier crashes to the ground on top of Ashe, his bloodied fists raining down blows on Ashe’s already scarred and angry face.

  But the fight is over quick and all of the Vargas filth is pinned to the ground, except for Viktor who still hasn’t moved from his spot. He’s still smiling and I know something of unimaginable weight has happened and that it has to do with Aramei.

  And Adria….

  I lean over fiercely into Viktor’s face. “Viktor, tell me! What has happened. Tell me!”

  But he just laughs and leaves me with nothing.

  “Take them all to the basement!” I command. “And make sure they can’t move.” I look right at Nathan with a cold, hard stare; my nostrils flaring. “Even if you have to take off their legs.”

  He nods and they drag Ashe and the others around the back of the house toward the new reinforced basement door.

  I take Viktor myself, but he goes willingly. It worries me more that he doesn’t fight back, that he suddenly, after hundreds of years, seems so different that I don’t see the old Viktor in him much anymore. I want to beat the information out of him, kill it out of him, but somehow I know he’s not going talk. He wants me to know, more than anything, but he isn’t going to be the one who tells me.

  Almost two hours pass and nothing.

  I’ve already left Viktor in the basement chained to the wall with his son and the others. There’s no way they’re getting out of there: reinforced steel all the way around and chains made of silver and iron.

  Viktor could probably get out if he really wanted to bad enough.

  The rest of us have migrated upstairs and are all standing around on the sharpest of pins and needles.

  “I still can’t get her on the phone,” I say. I grip my phone tight in my fist and move to smash it against the wall out of anger, but don’t in case Adria does try to call me back. And her mind…it doesn’t feel closed off to me intentionally. It feels…odd…like she’s unable to communicate with me.

  I’m going out of my mind!

  Daisy bursts through the front door, shaking everyone from the furniture.

  “Where’s Harry?” she shouts, coming around the corner, her curly blond hair whipping about her frantic face.

  “We thought you’ve been with him?” Nathan says standing beside me.

  “No!” she screams. “I haven’t seen him since this afternoon. But about thirty minutes ago, I got a telepathic message from him, telling me to meet him here and that it’s deathly urgent—Where is he?!”

  Before I have a chance to answer, the room goes quiet as Daisy’s head snaps around to face the door.

  She runs back out and we follow fast behind her.

  I gently push her aside and head down the porch steps as I stare off at the figure coming around from behind Harry’s car parked at the farthest end of the driveway.

  Harry is carrying Adria in his arms towards us.

  I run after them and stop just as Harry stops. We look at each other, Harry and I, for a powerful moment and then I glance down at Adria, whose eyes are open, but she seems oblivious to me.

  “Isaac…,” Harry says carefully.

  “Harry…,”

  He hesitates and adjusts Adria within his arms. I keep wanting to reach out and take her from him, but I can’t yet and I don’t know why.

  Harry takes a deep breath.

  “Aramei’s dead, Isaac,” he says and my heart stops. “Adria killed her.”

  29

  ALL OF THE VOICES around me have been blocked from my ears…or, maybe they just aren’t saying anything anymore. I hear nothing. Not the breeze combing through the trees, or the traffic in the distance, or Ashe’s chains rattling violently as he tries to break free, or even Viktor’s sadistic laughter that makes him sound all the more like the lunatic he is.

  I feel sluggish movement behind me, but I can’t comprehend what’s causing it. It takes several long, ominous seconds before all of the sound and movement rushes back into my consciousness and I’m jolted awake as if I’d been punched in the face.

  That sluggish movement from before was everyone clambering from the house, but my head was translating it all in slow-motion. I see two figures take off towards the woods.

  Finally, I notice Harry still standing in front of me holding Adria in his arms.

  I snatch her away from him.

  “My God…oh my fucking God….”

  This isn’t happening. Not like this. I have been plotting all this time against my father so that I could abolish his dictatorship once and for all…but not like this!

  Adria is coherent, but traumatized. She moves her body around in my arms so that she’s upright now, straddling her legs tight around my waist. She sobs into my neck, her tears wet against my burning skin, her body trembling against mine. I hold her tight, wrapping my arms firmly around her back, crushing her; the back of her head cradled within the palm of my own trembling hand.

  “I-I had to d-do it!” she wails, the words sputtering from her lips. “That’s what she wanted, Isaac! She was suffering! She’s been suffering inside her own mind for over two hundred years! I had to help her!” Her body quakes, racking against mine violently.

  “I know, baby,” I say softly, trying to calm her down. “I know…Adria, please don’t be like this. You did the right thing—.”

  “I KILLED HER!” she roars, pulling her head away from my neck. “IS
AAC, I SNAPPED HER NECK! I MURDERED A PERSON!”

  I know she’s not angry at me. It’s obvious just by the extreme pain in her eyes that she’s still trying to believe what she’s done, trying to convince herself that she had to do it.

  I shake my head. “No, baby, listen to me…Aramei hasn’t been a person for a long time. You didn’t kill anyone; you killed her pain. Nothing more.” My voice sounds breathless in my own ears.

  “You have to get her out of here, Isaac,” Nathan says in a grave voice behind me. “Bro, you know what this means. She can’t stay here. None of us can.”

  I break away from Adria’s pain quickly because I know I have to.

  “Harry! Get her out of here!” I go to pass Adria back to him, but she latches onto me. “TAKE HER! HARRY!”

  “No! I’m staying here!”

  Adria’s feet touch the ground and she grabs me around the waist. I thrust her face in my hands, her tears streaming under my thumbs. “You have to go with Harry! My father will kill you! And I can’t fight him if you’re here—I’ll be too worried about you!” Sobs rack my chest.

  I truly feel like this is the last time I will ever see her again. Either my father will find and kill her, or he’s going to kill me when I face him. Either way, I will never see her again….

  “NO!” Adria’s eyes turn black and the sheer hostility in her voice causes me to freeze. “You’re not going to die because of me! LISTEN TO ME!” She grabs my face, her claws grazing the skin on my cheeks and causing a trickle of blood to trail down my neck. “This won’t be a debate. I don’t care that you’re Alpha. I don’t care that Trajan will kill me. I’m not backing down from this, Isaac. Not for you or for anyone else. If you fight him, I fight him with you!”

  Xavier runs up behind us with Rachel and Alex. I don’t turn to look at him even though I know he’s seeking my attention. Right now it’s just me and Adria and…I-I don’t know what to do…

  “AHHH!” I scream into the night, balling my clawed hands into vicious fists out in front of me. Anger and indecision and fear of what my father will do to Adria overwhelms every inch of me.