Raul’s grin deepens and he rolls his chin upward a little, looking proud and feeling sexy. I swear the big guy is blushing. But he’s not as talkative as I’ve seen him in my brief encounters with him in the past. Trajan is inside and I was brought here for a purpose, in which Raul probably feels it’s better not to delay. I step up and around him, letting his soft smile comfort me for a very brief moment before I head inside.

The cabin is unsurprisingly spotless, except for high up in the rafters where the servants can’t reach. The space smells richly of lavender and honey. I can hear water dripping from another room and the sound of the servant’s soft, bare feet shuffling throughout the cabin. I count five women dressed in long, sheer black gowns as always, tending to duties downstairs.

As I walk by, each of the servants stops what they’re doing and bows their heads to me. It feels awkward and I do wonder why they would feel the need to do that to me, but I didn’t come here to question the actions of servants.

I stand at the base of the wooden stairs that lead onto the vast open floor that overlooks this room below. And I take a deep breath before I place my foot on the first step.

I still can’t feel her, which strikes me as odd. But I soon find out why as I take the last step and enter the top floor. I look across to see her lying on the giant bed against the far wall, sleeping soundly.

Trajan stands in the center of the room with his powerful hands clasped in front, resting on his pelvis.

Evangeline, or Eva for short, approaches me and bows once in the same way the servants had downstairs.

“Tis’ good to see you again, Milady,” Eva says as she comes out of her bow.

I feel my eyes furrow with confusion, but still, I don’t spend any time inquiring about my own curiosities while Trajan is here. It just feels wrong and…unacceptable. But ‘Milady’? This just keeps getting weirder.

I nod to Eva as if to acknowledge her greeting, but really I have no idea how to go about all this formal stuff; it’s so completely foreign to me.

It may be early morning still, but the upstairs space is quite dark having only one small box window and it’s covered by a thin, white curtain. The light funneling in through the downstairs windows only spreads so far up here where the balcony seems to cut off most of the light, leaving the top floor bathed in semi-darkness. A few candles are lit throughout the room.

Feeling completely uncomfortable, I take a seat on the chair next to the little round table near the balcony and fold my hands nervously in my lap. To my utter shock, Trajan walks over and takes the empty seat.

I shift on the chair, straightening my neck and allowing my shoulders to stiffen. I feel his eyes on me, but at first I can’t bring myself to look directly at him. He feels so dangerous and everything about this entire series of events is unimaginable to me. I am a new werewolf, having suffered only two full moons. Trajan is…I shouldn’t be here.

A flash of the man’s face that Trajan killed in that cave so long ago sears through my mind.

I swallow air and look up to meet Trajan’s gaze, who looks back at me with such solid calm and deafening silence that I want to drag my nails across the tabletop just to invoke some natural noise.

But I sit as still as a statue, until finally Trajan breaks that silence.

“You are right to think me cruel,” he says in a composed, yet compelling voice.

I don’t say anything.

“I would never deny that,” he goes on, “but our ways are different than yours. They always have been. Humans are weak and those like you who were human before gifted with this power will always be human. You will never understand our ways, nor will you ever know the true depth of our existence.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me, then?” I say, and I don’t sweeten the poison in my voice. Surely he knows that he’s seriously offended me and despite being who I am and him being who he is, I can’t sit here and let him completely turn me into his submissive little tool.

A small part of me hopes he doesn’t kill me though.

“It cannot be told,” he says simply.

I lick the dryness from my lips carefully and look over at Aramei sleeping. The quiet starts to fall across the room again and then I say gently, “But what about Aramei?” And when I’m not thrown onto the floor with Trajan’s massive hand around my throat, I continue:

“She’s only human. Do you think of her as weak?”

“Yes,” he says and his frankness stuns me, causing my head to snap around to face him again. “Aramei is weak because she is human, but that does not mean I cannot love her.”

Maybe he’s right in saying that humans are weak. I think I may have in a small way just proven his point by assuming he had been trying to anger and offend me all along when that wasn’t the case at all.

I lower my eyes away from him and gaze back at Aramei.

“Humans are unnecessarily violent,” he says, “and vile and treacherous and foolish.”

“And werewolves aren’t violent?” I say. “And I’m sorry, but there seems to be a lot of treachery among your kind, too.”

Trajan crosses one leg over the other and rests his right arm on the table. His eyes stray toward Aramei who still hasn’t moved since we got here even though we aren’t making any effort to lower our voices.

“Only small pockets of our kind are treacherous,” he says, still looking out ahead. “All races of life harbor treachery. Violence? No, Adria, violence is hatred and callousness and folly. We are none of those. What you consider violence in our case is merely honor and survival.”

I really could go on and on about this with him, delving into why they have death-match fights and things like that, but I think I’m walking enough of a thin line with my defiant questions already. And something deep down tells me that he will easily have a worthy justification for anything I throw at him.

I hope he’ll drop it, too.

Trajan stands from the table and pushes the chair back underneath it.

“But I did not bring you here for conversation,” he says walking toward the bed where Aramei lay sleeping. “At least not with me.”

“What am I supposed to…I mean how exactly am I supposed to communicate with her?”

Eva has been standing near the wall all this time, so quiet and still I forgot she was even in the room. With her hands folded gently in front of her she takes two steps forward and bows her head in Trajan’s view. He simply nods and she leaves the upstairs floor, the sound of her soft bare feet shuffling quietly down the wooden steps behind me.

I look back at Trajan as he sits down on the side of the bed next to Aramei with his back to me. I pause for a moment, thinking long and hard about my next move and then I rise to my feet. Slowly, I approach them and make my way around to the side so that I can see both of their faces. Trajan reaches out his hand and brushes the length of Aramei’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. She stirs, but remains sleeping.

Trajan doesn’t look at me when he says, “I do not know,” and his admission numbs me. He tilts his head gradually to face me now, “But I’m sure you will figure it out.” He leans across Aramei and touches his lips to her forehead.

I just stand here, flummoxed. I want to say: What the hell do you mean I’ll figure it out? But the actual words never escape my lips.

Trajan rises from the bed and absently I move to the side to let him walk past.

“I will leave you now,” he says, looking back once, “if you should need anything, Eva will assist you.”

“But….” I can’t get the question out.

And just like that, Trajan makes his way down the steps into the vast room below and leaves me standing here. I didn’t expect any bonding between he and I, or much in the way of conversation, but I really didn’t expect to be left on my own without an inkling as to how I’m supposed to go about this, either.

Chapter 5

IT’S NOT UNTIL I hear the front door shut after Trajan walks out, do I let myself snap out of the disbelief.

“He always leaves,” Eva says coming up the stairs.

My chin draws in slightly. “Wait…,” I say, putting up my hand, “did I just become Aramei’s new babysitter?”

A faint smile softens Eva’s face as she walks over to me. The long, see-through black gown she wears clings softly to her nak*d hourglass form; her dark auburn hair rests freely against her back like a wave of silk between her shoulder blades.

“I suppose you have, Milady.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

She stops in front of me.

“I mean…well, it’s just weird, y’know?”

Eva nods softly; her delicate hands are cradled just below her belly. “Very well. I will call you Adria.”

A failed attempt at a smile barely cracks my face. “Thanks.”

I let out a heavy breath and approach the bed, sitting down on the side of it where Trajan last sat. I reach out my hand and tuck my fingers under a long lock of Aramei’s light-colored hair. It feels so soft against my skin, the way I expected it to feel. I always did think of her as an angel and the way she lays here now, covered by a thin, white satin sheet and enveloped by her fluffy pillows so that her soft hair can lay feathered upon them, makes her appear even more angel-like.

I brush my fingertip across the bridge of her nose.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Eva.” I never look away from Aramei.

Eva steps up behind me and I feel her hand rest on my shoulder.

“Wake her,” she says, “and then perhaps you will know.”

There’s more in her suggestion than what she is letting on. It feels like Eva already knows what I’m supposed to do, or what might happen.

I stare down at the sleeping angel for a moment, admiring her beauty and innocence, forgetting that the only emotion I should feel for her is sorrow.

“Aramei?” I say softly.

She doesn’t move and so I say it once more, raising my voice a notch. “Aramei, please wake up.” I comb my fingers through her hair and I can smell the lavender shampoo that it had been washed with recently.

Her eyes gently crack open, revealing a slither of iridescent green hiding underneath the delicate lids. She’s looking right at me, like she did before, on that night Isaac brought me here last and I felt her emotions within me. Her eyes open the rest of the way and she never seems to blink. I sit here frozen, my breath caught in my lungs. As always, I’m afraid I’ll scare her with any sudden movements. But at the same time, I’m mesmerized by her and what is slowly happening between us.

“Just let it happen,” I hear Eva’s voice whisper behind me and for some reason unknown to me, the advice puts me completely on edge.

Aramei’s eyes lock intensely on mine and suddenly I feel like I can’t breathe. My hands begin to shake irrepressibly. I can’t move my body. It’s as if I’m no longer the one in control of it.

“Don’t fight it….” Eva’s voice says though it sounds so far away that I want to turn to see if she’s even still standing in the room.