The room was vast, towered by rock and earth that had been carved perfectly over time. The ceiling shaped like a dome, which seemed to cradle the room beneath it. Three more entrances were visible, one just behind the long black table where a man sat at the head, a delicate woman in his lap. Guards, werewolves that wore the skin of men, stood at each entrance; swords sheathed to their backs. They were ridiculously tall even in their human form.
I was trembling. Isaac put his arm around my waist, pulling me gently toward him.
Six chairs were on each side of the table. Random food and what looked like old maps and yellowish-brown paper lay strewn across the tabletop. Thick, dusty books were stacked next to candelabras. I truly felt as though I was in the wrong time.
“Milord,” said a man standing near the entrance at the other end of the table. “He is here.”
The man at the head looked up from the woman. I knew the man was Trajan, Isaac’s father. There was no mistaking it. He was the power in the room. When he simply moved his eyes, all attention shifted to him. He was the one I saw in the painting above the fireplace in the Mayfair house. Unapproachable and imperial. He appeared in his middle forties, rugged and unshaven, scarred and beastly, yet handsome beyond words.
Trajan didn’t answer the man and then I noticed something, something disturbing. I felt my cheeks flush under my already warmed skin. A tiny gasp of disbelief escaped my lips.
The woman sat facing Trajan, straddling his lap in the chair. The long, thin white dress she wore covered what was happening underneath it. I didn’t want to look, but the shock of it forced me to. “Oh my God,” I whispered, “...is she?”
Isaac nodded, but there was sadness in his face.
He began to explain until four more men entered the room, the two in the center obviously led by the guards beside them. A dark piece of cloth lay against the front of their shirts. I recognized it as what had probably been placed over their eyes by the guards, before coming here.
One of the visitors gawked, realizing instantly what I had realized about the woman. It sickened me, to see this man so excited by a seemingly sad sex act. I don’t know why it was sad, but it loomed in my heart. Maybe Isaac’s expression rubbed off on me, or maybe it was the woman. Something about her, even though I could barely see the side of her face, was tragic. There was no emotion in her except for sorrow and emptiness.
I had to shake it off.
Trajan carefully took the back of the woman’s head into his giant hand. Pressing his lips against her forehead, he whispered something to her.
I was completely confused.
Trajan, this man of total domination and power, a werewolf known to be cruel and deadly, respected the woman.
Another woman stepped out of the shadow near the exit behind Trajan’s chair. She took the woman’s hand and led her out, leaving Trajan free to the visitors.
“Nothing says power,” the gawking visitor began, “like having whores at one’s disposal.”
No time at all for me to quietly display my disgust, Trajan was out of the high-back chair, pressing the man into the stone wall. Every guard in the room stiffened, one hand raised to the handle of their swords. The quiet visitor withdrew, feeling for the exit behind him, only to be grabbed by one of the guards who brought him here.
Trajan held violently to the man’s throat. Rage had become him. The muscles in his neck thickened and pulsated, the glint of his eyes were golden in the light of the fire. Gold on black and fury.
Isaac held me tighter. I was shaking all over.
Without a word, Trajan crushed the man’s neck in his hand. I felt my heart stop, literally, for two seconds. Vomit churned in my stomach as the man’s neck fell over to one side, dangling grotesquely. The tongue lolled out of the corpse’s mouth so unnaturally, so horrific.
Tears burned the edges of my eyes.
“I s-swear to you—” the other visitor had started to say.
Trajan stepped into the man’s space, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Tilting his head to one side, he said calm and dangerously, “Innocent and precious is the beloved that your friend so foolishly insults.” He tilted his head to the other side. “Do you share his views?”
The man shook his head so harshly it could have rolled off his shoulders. “N-No....” The guard holding him jerked his body forward, forcing him into a deep, painful bow.
He screamed out and grimaced under the pressure. “I m-mean...n-no, Milord,” he corrected himself.
Trajan walked gradually back to his chair. He looked across at the man, brought one hand out from behind his back and gestured. “Sit,” he said, just before sitting himself.
The man took the chair, his body shaking worse than mine was. A lone candle sitting in a silver tray fell over onto its side as his fumbling hands grazed it. Apologizing profusely, the man picked the candle up before it caught a stack of papers afire.
“What information,” Trajan said, “do you have for me?” He never looked at the man; it seemed the man was not worthy of such a gesture. Instead, Trajan began scanning a nearby text.
“Viktor,” the man began, “he has—”
Trajan put up his hand and the man stopped cold; worry plagued his expression. His eyes grew wide with dread, his face stricken pale and nauseous.
Suddenly, I knew how he must have been feeling. Trajan looked in our direction.
He knew.
I slid down, sitting fully onto the dirt floor, praying silently.
“Isaac,” Trajan said, “go to my chamber and take the Dawson sister with you.”
Isaac stood carefully from our not-so-secret spot behind the rock wall. He held his hand out to me, but it took a moment for me to gather the courage to accept it.
“Adria,” he said to Trajan. “That is her name, Father.”
Was he insane? I froze, all except for my hand, which tightened around his in alarm and disapproval. Isaac’s comment wasn’t a correction; I think even he knew that would be unwise. It was merely an introduction; a dangerous introduction that could so easily go the wrong way if one syllable was out of place. Being the son definitely had its advantages.
Trajan nodded so lightly that it was almost as if he never moved his head. He sat with his elbows resting upon the table, his fingers touching in a steeple.
The frightened man gawked at me from across the cave room. It felt intrusive.
“Forgive me,” he said to Trajan, “but is that the sister? The one that—” The man swallowed the rest of his words and slunk back into the chair. A simple threatening turn of Trajan’s head was enough to steal his voice from him.
“Leave now,” Trajan demanded Isaac.
“Yes, Father.”
Isaac bowed halfway and pulled me through the room toward the exit behind Trajan’s chair. I didn’t want to go that way; for a second I felt my feet become heavier. But Isaac kept me closest to the cave wall, away from the man’s reach...away from his father’s reach.
Every ravenous eye in that room was on me, except for Trajan’s. I could feel them all, like tiny spotlights alerting hunters of my whereabouts. And though Trajan was not looking, he was the one I feared the most.
We slipped into the tunnel and made our way through the torch lit hall.
“Is he going to kill me?”
“No,” said Isaac as we turned a corner.
“What was that man talking about?” I said. “The sister that what?” The hallway snaked around another corner and then we descended a set of makeshift stone stairs. “Isaac? I got a bad feeling about it.”
“So did I,” he said simply, pulling me along.
We came upon another room where four guards, three on each side were posted at the entrance. Like the ones in the room we just left, they were giants. I felt like an insect standing before them.
“Isaac, you shit,” said one closest to the tall wooden door. “What are you doing here?” He glanced over at me, inspecting me. He raised his head and sniffed the air—they seemed to do that a lot, I noticed. “Human. Ah, I see,” he said. “Come to show her what it’s like, have you?”
Isaac was not amused.
“You know it’s forbidden to speak of her, Raul.”
The werewolf smiled a big, toothy smile. It was an odd way to apologize.
Raul stepped aside to let us pass.
Isaac closed the door softly behind us. The room smelled of flowers and scented oils. There were so many candles placed throughout that the room was bright with intimate light. The space was enormous. A giant bed sat centered against the stone wall, the most delicate fabric dressed it lavishly. Great pillows, large enough to sleep upon themselves laid out upon the floor. A desk and a sofa sat against one wall, a claw foot bathtub against another, where three women sat on short wooden stools in front of it. Two more women stood to the left of me, one holding a white robe. All of them were dressed the same: simple black gowns, their heads covered by thin black veils. They were servants.
18
I HEARD THE SOUND of trickling water. Looking further, another servant knelt near the bathtub. Steam rose up out of the water, swirling around to veil her face briefly. The woman who had been in Trajan’s lap sat blankly in the tub; her dainty white arms resting upon the length of the sides. I wondered where they drew the water from to fill the bath, but insignificant curiosities like that did not matter.
Few servants paid mind to our presence, most too attentive to their duties. All of those duties involved the woman in the bath in some way.
A servant bowed deeply in front of Isaac.
“Shall we leave you to her, Milord?”
All of the proper addressing of titles and such was foreign to me.
“No,” said Isaac. “I won’t be here long.”
She bowed once more and went back to stand where she was before.
The woman rose from the water. I began to turn away to shield my eyes from her nak*dness, but I seemed the only one in the chamber who felt the need. To everyone else, including Isaac, it was perfectly normal. Drops of water ran smoothly down her pale, lithe form. Her dry hair flowed to the center of her back. Frailty. She was frail and innocent beyond my comprehension. I couldn’t understand it, this thing inside of me that ate away at my wonderment. No part of her was capable of savagery.
She was human.
A servant dressed the woman, slipping another white gown over her body. It seemed the woman did little on her own. Another servant had to lift her arms for her, while a third brushed out her hair from behind.
She looked across at me. I would have frozen, but you only do that when you’ve been spotted. It felt as if she was staring right through me. I felt like I was in Isaac’s dream again, but I was the one watching through the trees. I was the ghost and she wasn’t aware I was there.
“Who is she?” I whispered to Isaac next to me. I never took my eyes off the woman. She was beautiful and soft; pure beyond words. Pure. Yes, that was it.
Isaac’s breath tickled my earlobe. “She is Aramei,” he said, “my father’s wife. She is his soul.”
Softly stunned, I could only stare at her for several long minutes. Aramei wasn’t a child, after all.
Two servants led Aramei to the bed where she sat on her own. Still, the act of sitting seemed only achieved due to repetition. Nothing in her face suggested she even knew where she was.