Read The Ballad of Aramei for Free Online Page B

does it for him.
    Trajan, as always, is handsome beyond words, with dark, flowing hair and matching facial hair that grows perfectly on his chin, under his nose and upward along the lower half of his cheeks, buzzed short so that it’s not too bushy. But he’s dressed differently than I’ve seen him before in the cave when he looked much more savage and ancient, wearing no shirt and an old leather coat split down the sides. Today he looks more like the men he brought with him, except that he wears his black jeans and tight black t-shirt better than they do. There’s something about a man with power that makes him look better in his clothes than everyone else.
    I straighten my back and fold my hands together in my lap. I try to look him in the eyes as little as possible because it feels disrespectful of me.
    “Would you mind telling me first why I can sense her at all?”
    Trajan rests his back in the comfort of the seat and lets his extremely long legs splay, folding his strong hands together adorned by thick silver rings that look like something bought from a gothic shop. The only difference is that his rings are, I know, very real and very priceless. But more than their worth, the fact that they’re solid silver shows even more how powerful this werewolf is because silver burns like hell. Isaac told me this. The necklace that he gave me in June is silver, but now that I’m werewolf I can’t wear it for long periods of time or else my skin will start burning. I have since put it away safely and I don’t wear it at all.
    Trajan looks out ahead of him and says, “You were once bonded to Isaac when you were human. Becoming a Black Beast dominates a Blood Bond and you no longer have to drink his blood to stay alive, but it is still in you and it will always be.”
    I turn my head to look directly at him so that I can focus solely on his words as they fill my mind with wonder. But he keeps his gaze focused out ahead, not appearing to look at anything in particular, but not lost in his thoughts, either.
    And I continue to listen with the greatest intent.
    “Anyone bound by our blood,” he goes on, “can be eternally linked to all who are bound in the same way. You are connected to Aramei because of this and it will never change.”
    I feel Isaac’s heart fall tremulously as he hears his father’s words in my mind.
    “But this connection is so rare, Adria,” Trajan says, now looking right at me, which makes it feel mandatory that I look at him too, “that it is a miraculous thing, you must understand.”
    I am caught off-guard by the sliver of hope in his voice that at first I thought I was making up. But there was definitely hope in his words, an emotion that I never would have otherwise associated with someone like him. Why would he care about something as petty as hope when everything he wants and needs tends to fall right into his lap?
    “How rare?” It’s all that I can say. I’m still trying to feel him out, to understand where this meeting might be leading, to figure out of I need to be concerned.
    “You and Aramei are the only two to be connected since the Asvald sisters seven hundred years ago. They were daughters of a Viking warlord, both bound by blood to my father.” There is a sudden knowing glint in his eye now and his tone shifts for a moment to indicate a faint layer of wit. “As you can see, Blood Bonds run in the family.”
    He looks away from me again and goes back to being completely serious.
    “Aramei has changed,” he says and silence fills the dense air around us.
    An announcement like this one might not seem so extraordinary to some, but those three little words are truly worth giving my full attention to.
    I just look at him, hoping he won’t stall to divulge the details that I desperately need and want, yet at the same time in a way, fear.
    “For two hundred years,” he goes on, “Aramei has only ever spoken to me, only ever spoken my name aloud. She has not shown an ounce of