I’m still trying to toil my way through Zia’s unexpected acceptance of Cecilia. It wasn’t that long ago she couldn’t stand the girl. Something extraordinary must’ve happened while we were in Providence. I don’t know, like maybe Cecilia revealed that she was related to Dax Riggs—Zia’s man-crush underground singer from about a dozen different bands—or, maybe Cecilia offered Zia a friendship in the form of money with any number that has a lot of zeros behind it.

I can’t think of anything else that might cause Zia’s change of heart.

Isaac slips his fingers under the edge of my panties and I squeal. Thankfully, he’s just messing with my head and isn’t actually going to touch me where he shouldn’t with others around. At least I hope like hell he doesn’t plan to. Regardless, I don’t think I can contain myself much longer.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Isaac says in my mind, slowly moving his fingers closer. “Are you sure you’ll hold out on me for an entire week?” I want to kiss that confident grin off his lips, but I can’t move any part of my body now but my eyes.

Finally, Isaac moves his hand away, pulls me around in front of him, my legs still straddling his waist, and crushes his mouth against mine.

“Ahhh!” Zia yells out. “Come on! I’m not into porn!”

Isaac breaks the kiss and says without taking his eyes off mine, “I guess I’ll just have to wait a week.”

He won this battle a long time ago and knows it.

I lean in and gently tug on his bottom lip with my teeth and then kiss it softly.

I don’t have to say a word.

We leave Zia, Camilla and Cecilia in the pond and can’t seem to get to his room fast enough.

Chapter 13

ISAAC HAS ME AT Aramei’s cabin before the sun comes up the next morning. On this day, there are fewer guards outside; at least those in plain sight anyway. Raul is one of them, standing outside at the front of the cabin with a sword sheathed at his hip. I think he’s Trajan’s number one guard because he’s the only one I’ve seen consistently since the first time I laid eyes on Aramei months ago.

“Another day of volunteer work,” Raul says as we approach the front porch.

The early morning sky is borderline dark. A faint blue hue bathes the forest in just enough soft light that I can see everything clearly but it makes me feel like I should still be in bed.

“Unfortunately,” Isaac answers in a sullen tone. He pats Raul’s shoulder with one hand.

I leave them to their usual conversations, kissing Isaac once on the lips and slipping inside the cabin. It looks exactly the same as it does every day except that just like the guards, there are fewer servants working on the bottom floor than normal. Eva, Aramei’s chief caregiver, stands on the top floor overlooking the bottom and she smiles down at me.

As I make my way up the stairs, I realize how relieved I am to be with Aramei again. The more that I see her, the more I sometimes feel like I never want to leave and although I find that strange and maybe even unhealthy, I don’t care to seek the answers why. Aramei is special to me. I think maybe she always has been since the moment I met her. Being connected to her like this has only enhanced my feelings for her and every day it drives this insatiable need to help her and maybe to protect her.

I don’t know, but I truly feel like our connection means more than helping Trajan to know what’s going on inside her mind. I feel like I’m here for Aramei and not Trajan and that he really has nothing to do with it. And the more I think about this the more I feel like I want to lie to him, keep him out of my time with her entirely. Because after all, I think if Aramei were trying to communicate with him, it would be him she has called out to. She would have said his name and not mine.

“Good to see you, Milady.” Eva bows and I put up my hand and shake my head.

“You’re really gonna have to stop doing that,” I say. It seems I have to remind her of this every time I come here, but she is a slave to habit.

She nods her apology, her soft hands folded together in front of her laying against the black sheer fabric of her gown.

“She’s awake,” I say walking over to Aramei sitting on the edge of her immaculate bed. I lean over her and comb my fingers through her light-colored hair, brushing it back behind her ears and I look across at Eva. “Has she seemed any different since yesterday?”

“Yes,” Eva says walking up to join us, “she has appeared more anxious than usual. Just an hour ago she could only stare off at the window overlooking the driveway. I could be wrong, but it seems as though she could sense that you were on your way.”

I smile at Eva, glad to hear this news and then I kneel in front of Aramei so that I can be more at level with her eyes. The lantern on the bedside table casts a soft orange-yellow glow on one side of her face, accentuating her long, thick eyelashes and her angelic, unblemished white skin. Her legs are bare and I reach up and gently pull the ends of her sheer white gown down from being pushed near her thighs, and smooth the fabric over her knees. Her restful hands lay in her lap, sinking slowly in-between her legs in the slope of the thin material. As always, she smells wonderful, like vanilla and jasmine oils that have been rubbed into her skin.

I peer deeply into Aramei’s placid green eyes, searching for some sign of conscious life.

“How does she eat?” I say to Eva, but not looking away from Aramei. I don’t want to miss anything, having learned that she comes and goes so sporadically that the blink-of-an-eye saying fully applies to her.

“She doesn’t.”

I do look over this time. “Never?” I say, unable to grasp the absurdity of it. “I know she’s immortal, but I guess…,” I look back at Aramei and rise to my feet, “…I don’t know, I guess I just assumed that she at least ate, even if you had to feed her.”

I cross my arms and turn to face Eva fully. “Then again, it makes perfect sense, too.”

Eva nods. “She will not die of starvation,” she says. “Trajan’s blood provides her body with all of the nutrients that it needs. She hasn’t eaten in over one hundred fifty years.”

Astounded, I can’t do anything but shake my head over and over, staring downward toward the floor.

I lift my eyes to Eva and say, “Would you mind bringing me some fruit?”

Eva looks at me curiously. “Of course,” she says and heads for the stairs.

“Thanks.”

Eva disappears from the top floor and I turn back to Aramei who still has yet to move. It always makes me anxious to see her sitting like this for long periods of time seemingly without twitching a muscle. It’s like my own body starts to feel stiff and unhealthy just looking at her. I think about blood clots and poor circulation and all kinds of conditions caused by an inactive body. I know Aramei will never die or even be affected by any of those things, but it doesn’t keep me from feeling uncomfortable by it just the same.

I stand beside her, brushing the silkiness of her hair between my fingers and then I take a chance and position one hand underneath her arm, trying to coax her statuesque body into a stand. But she doesn’t move, so I move around and in front of her again and bend over, taking one of her legs into the cradle of my hands. Back and forth I move her leg, bending it at the knee as if I’m performing her physical therapy. But she still doesn’t budge, or show any signs of comprehension.

Eva comes back upstairs with a small glass bowl of strawberries. She walks over to me and holds the bowl out to me. I take one strawberry off the top and carefully dig my fingernails into the juicy top to pinch away the leafy green stem.

“You mean to try feeding her?” Eva says curiously.

“I’m going to try,” I say, though I don’t feel any confidence that it’ll produce any results. I kneel in front of Aramei once more and squeeze the fruit so that a little of its juice comes to the surface. I place it to her lips and move it across her bottom lip slowly, wetting the sensitive skin there with the sweet juice.

After a few more times of doing this, and I admit, taking a tiny bite for myself, Aramei’s pale green eyes shift so subtly that for a moment I do think I was only seeing things. I try with the strawberry again, but Aramei never changes, so I pop it in my mouth and sigh as I swallow it down.

“Kind of dumb,” I say looking over at Eva standing at the foot of the bed. “I thought maybe something her body used to be accustomed to before she lost her mind, might help her to wake up a little.”

“That is not at all dumb,” Eva says with a smile in her voice.

I go to my feet, already feeling defeated and thinking this day is going to turn out like yesterday, but then I sense movement behind me. Before I turn around I check Eva’s face and sure enough she’s staring behind me at Aramei as though my luck has finally changed. I turn around to see Aramei looking up at me. Her almond-shaped eyes blink twice and a shiver runs through my back. Without turning away from her, I reach around behind me for the bowl of strawberries in Eva’s hands and fumble another one into my fingers. I kneel in front of Aramei again, pinching the stem off at the same time. Her head and eyes actually follow me, but I feel like the strawberry has nothing to do with her attention. I want to turn and look at Eva so that she can see the shock and relief in my expression, but I’m afraid to take my eyes off Aramei for one second. I bring the strawberry up to her lips and just before it touches them, Aramei stuns me and Eva both, “Release me from his prison,” she says and I can’t breathe.

And then the life in her face grows cold once more.

When the stun of her bizarre words allows me to move my head, I turn brashly to look up at Eva, searching her face for answers, but I can see that she won’t have them.

Back and forth I look at each of them, finally letting my desperate gaze fall upon Eva who is the only one of the two I can get anything at all from. My lips are slightly parted, eyes slanted and focused.

“What was that?” I finally say. “His prison?” I don’t think I’ve ever been so perplexed.

Eva’s face softens. “Delusions,” she says. “A Blood Bond, as you know causes the mind to experience things that are not real. Milady Aramei has been speaking these strange things for two hundred years.”

Something Trajan said to me the day he came for me courses through my mind: “…trapped in a world of her own, some strange world inside her mind that I’ve never been able to comprehend…,” and I grow more perplexed than ever. But what Eva says about this makes perfect sense. And the only thing I’ve seen inside her head are the memories of her past and there is nothing strange about them.

“Can you leave me alone with her?” I say gently.

“Yes,” Eva says and bows. She places the bowl of strawberries on the table next to the balcony and leaves us without another word.

I crawl into the bed and nuzzle next to Aramei facing her and I brush the softness of her cheek with the backs of my fingers. Her eyes are open and before long I realize that she’s staring at me. She knows that I’m here. And I know now that the key to opening her mind is that we have to be alone together. But why? Is what she has to tell me a secret? Is she afraid even of Eva who has watched over her for so long? It could be anything, but no matter what it is I’m determined to unravel it.