The Ballad of Aramei (The Darkwoods Trilogy 3)

“Gross!” Rachel says when she sees it. She jumps closer to Sebastian and I notice him slip his arm around her waist. “That is just nasty!”

Adria stares at the skeleton, no doubt recalling the very second that the man died.

“Will someone get rid of that, please?” I say.

Adria puts her hand on my arm, but keeps her eyes on the skeleton. “It’s okay…just leave it.”

I nod.

And then I make my way to the stone table and find myself standing at the head, just like my father would. I glance down at my hands and notice how the tips of my fingers rest lightly on the edge, also just as my father’s would. I shake out of the moment to look up at everyone standing around the table, waiting for me to sit down first…and more and more I feel as if I’m walking in my father’s footsteps, destined to commit the same crimes against our kind. Adria is next to me. I hesitate and then sit, taking Adria into the throne of my lap.

Everyone else follows suit.

“Isaac,” I hear Adria’s voice in my head, “you’re nothing like him. You never will be. You’re better than him.”

I look up from my hands and at her sitting on my lap and there’s nothing but love and understanding and trust in her eyes.

I thank her quietly for her words of encouragement.

And then I look out at everyone.

“I know how my father will go after his vengeance,” I say. “His only priority will be Adria. He’ll want her dead by his own hands. But the rest of you—” I look to each of them individually, “—anyone who sides with me and rebels against him will be hunted down by his army and also killed. It won’t stop with Adria and you all have to know that.”

“Like we said before,” Sebastian speaks up, “we’re with you in this all the way.”

Everyone else agrees by nodding and the occasional verbal response.

“But we can’t fight my father and those he brings with him by ourselves,” I state. “We’re going to have to spread out quickly and recruit the Alpha’s who would be loyal to me.”

“Yeah,” Nathan says, “the Alphas are the only ones we have to convince. Gain the loyalty of the Alpha and his entire pack will follow devotedly.”

“Does anyone here have a link to another Alpha?” I say.

One of the refugees, a guy named Ben who we picked up from Kentucky six years ago, raises his hand. “I was close to the Kentucky Alpha once.”

“Was? Once?” Nathan says warily.

Ben nods solidly. “Yes, I ummm, well he’s my brother. We fight a lot—I kinda slept with his mate—but he doesn’t want anyone killing me but him.”

Nathan raises a brow. “Well, okay then….”

“Alright,” I say to Ben. “See if you can communicate with him. Don’t reveal our location.” I point at Harry. “Harry, can you listen in on his link to see if the Alpha is on our side, or just wanting us to believe that he is?”

Harry nods. “Yes, I can do that. Not one hundred percent fool-proof, but if he doesn’t know someone like me is testing him, he’ll be easier to figure out.”

“Good,” I say and two more refugees admit to also being directly linked to Alphas; one in Rhode Island and the other in Maryland.

After thirty minutes of discussion, Harry breaks away with all of them to listen in on their telepathic conversations, while Nathan, Sebastian, Xavier and I stay gathered at the table.

“I’m going to New Jersey to find Treven and Isis,” I say and this gets Adria’s attention.

“It’ll be fine,” I say, placing my fingers underneath her chin. “I trust Treven more than just about any other Alpha that I know and his pack is huge—sixty at least.”

Adria’s eyes narrow. “I shouldn’t have opened my mouth about this cave.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the perfect hideaway to leave me while you go out and do all of the dangerous stuff.”

“My father will kill you,” I say, hoping she won’t fight me on this. “I just want you to be safe.”

“I know,” she says, looking away, but then she turns back to me again. “But I’m not going to hide like a coward and when the time comes and you need to understand that, Isaac. I won’t….”

“I know, baby,” I say and swallow down the argument. “I know.”

When the time comes, I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep her hidden away and I don’t care if she hates me for it later. I won’t let my father kill her.

“I thought you said you’d never close your mind to me?” she says softly into my ear.

I blink back into the present, but I say nothing in response. I did close my mind off to her for that brief moment, but right now she can’t know what I’m really planning.

Ben and the others come back into the meeting room, Harry and Daisy with them.

All of them appear eager and somewhat excited.

“They’re onboard!” Ben says. “The second I mentioned an uprising against the Sovereign, my brother’s voice changed. They’re already on their way to Maine.”

“And bringing the West Virginia and Pennsylvania packs with them,” Harry adds.

“Mississippi is onboard, too,” Mari, another refugee speaks up.

“And Rhode Island,” the other refugee says, “but their pack is pretty small.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Nathan says, “a few is better than none.”

I nod, agreeing.

“Most, if not all of them, should be in Maine by the morning,” Harry announces.

“How can they get here so fast?” Adria says.

“They have their ways,” Xavier speaks up from the other end of the table.

“Yeah, like an airplane?” Alexandra mocks.

“You’re just making it worse on yourself,” Xavier says to her grinning a lopsided grin. He pulls his legs up and props his feet upon the table, crossing them at the ankles below.

“Yeah?” Alexandra says, “How’s that exactly?”

“Playing hard to get,” Xavier says. He interlaces his fingers and rests the back of his head in his locked hands.

Alexandra ignores him.

Suddenly, Adria gets up from my lap.

“Where are you going?” I say, holding onto the tips of her fingers.

She looks down at me and softens her expression. She’s trying so hard not to appear depressed or troubled by what happened with Aramei, but even for her it’s not an easy thing to hide.

“I’m just going to be alone for a while.”

I get up from the table, worried.

She kisses the edge of my mouth. “You worry too much—I’m fine.” She puts the palms of her hands on my chest and gently guides me back into the wooden chair. “Stay here and do what you have to do.”

I sigh deeply and let her go.

I notice Alexandra start to go after her, but she stops when her gaze meets mine. My eyes alone tell her that her sister just needs time and Alexandra quietly approves.

After the meeting is over and we’ve established what needs to be done, I leave everyone to find Adria where I knew she would be, alone in the room where Aramei used to sleep. A few candles have been lit throughout the space, giving off just enough orange light to see her lying on one side of the bed.

She’s been crying. I notice her covertly wipe the tears away from her eyes.

All of the immaculate pillows and sheets and other extravagant things my father kept for Aramei are gone. All that is left is the stone slab that made up the bed’s frame and the giant pillow that had been used as the mattress. The claw foot bathtub has even been removed, along with the old wooden desk that I split in half and into a hundred pieces when I brought Adria here with me that night. Funny how my father would have the remnants of an old desk cleaned out of Aramei’s room, but leaves the corpse of the man he killed out in the wide open for all to see.

“I’m proud of what you did,” I say as I make my way across the dimly-lit room towards her. I sit down next to her on the edge of the mattress pillow. “It took a lot of courage and compassion to do it.”

She stares at the dancing flame cast upon the wall next to her; the candle it comes from is nearby on the floor.

I reach out and brush a lock of hair away from her face.

“I know it had to be done,” she says, her voice distant. “And I feel that even though she’s gone, she’s grateful.”

Finally, she turns her gaze on me; the flickering light of the candle flits across her irises making the blue of her eyes appear faintly golden. She sniffles away a few lingering tears. “It’s just something I have to get myself through. And I will. In time.”

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of strength in my girl. She’s been through so much and is going through so much more that sometimes I can’t comprehend her strength, like it’s something entirely foreign to me.

She should be Alpha. She’s stronger than I could ever be.

I crawl over and move around to lie behind her, my knees fitted into the backs of hers, my arm draped over her arm where I knit my fingers between hers to hold her hand against her side. Her free hand comes around to touch my face. I shut my eyes and kiss her fingertips.

“If we die,” she says and my eyes creep open, “do you think we’ll still know each other in the afterlife…if there is an afterlife?”

I nestle my face into her neck and squeeze her hand. “I believe that no matter what happens, or where we go, or if there’s an afterlife, that we’ll always be connected. Not even death can make me forget you, or forget that I love you.”

I feel her smile. I don’t have to see it.

A quiet few seconds pass between us and then she turns her body just enough to see my face.

“Promise me that if we die, you’ll look for me,” she says and kisses my lips.

Her words wrench my soul, but I hold my composure and nod gently, looking into her eyes. “I promise.”

I take her into my arms and kiss her. And then I make love to her as if it were the last time.

Half of us leave the cave by midday. Alexandra, Rachel, all four of my sisters and Harry stay behind with Adria. At first, the girls were offended, mainly Rachel and Alexandra who didn’t hold back their opinions about how ‘leaving all the girls in the safe cave’ was ‘totally sexist’ and us guys should ‘really pull our male egos out of our asses’. But Daisy spoke up to diffuse the situation:

“You really think my brother feels that way about you?”

“Umm, yes?” Rachel said with a venomous sneer. “We’re the ones told to hide in the stupid cave while they—” her hand shot out beside her to point at us, “—get to go out into the danger zone. It’s bullshit.”

Daisy smirked and rolled her eyes. “Think about it for a second: Isaac would never leave Adria with the weakest of the pack.”

Adria smiled. “We’re all female. Doesn’t that tell you anything?”

Rachel’s sneer melted into a proud grin.