I could only tell them apart by their size difference. Isaac was like a pup next to Viktor Vargas. I thought I would faint as Viktor struck Isaac so hard I could hear Isaac’s neck crack. I grabbed my ears and cried out.
When three other werewolves rushed from different rooms and leapt into the fight, Viktor tossed them all like ragdolls out of the way. One soared above me, falling into the stair railing. Splintered wood shot in every direction. The werewolves recoiled instantly, obeying Viktor’s orders. He wanted Isaac for himself.
I ran for the nearest weapon, a heavy lion statue on a nearby inn-table, but just as I went to smash it across Viktor’s back, Alex grabbed me from behind.
“Not a good idea, little sister.” The smell of her breath choked me. “That’ll only piss him off.”
“You’re not my sister,” I screamed. I spun around and my hands came up fast, pushing her away hard enough that she let go of me, but she had me in her grasp again in no time.
She held me there, forcing me to watch as I struggled against her. She knew Viktor would rip Isaac apart and Alex wanted me to see it happen. I thrashed around in her grasp, but she was so strong.
To the shock of everyone watching, Isaac lunged at Viktor and buried his teeth into Viktor’s collarbone. An excruciating growl ripped through the air.
Isaac was beating him....
I even felt Alex’s hands loosen from around my arms out of disbelief.
Isaac had Viktor on the ceiling, pressing his head against a massive wooden beam. Isaac’s brute head reared back, mouth wide open, and came back down on the other side of Viktor’s neck.
Viktor fell to the floor like a slab of meat.
Ashe and one other stepped out into the room, but Viktor, grasping his bleeding throat, ordered them away.
“I want him to kill me,” said Viktor; blood gurgling in his voice. He lay there nak*d, slumped against a coffee table already back in his human form.
But Isaac, he wasn’t about to shift and give in. He was going to kill him.
And in turn, he was going to sentence himself to death by killing Aramei.
I jerked my way free from Alex again and stumbled forward, catching my fall by holding onto someone’s shoulder. I didn’t care that it was Ashe. He didn’t seem to care either.
“Stop!” My hands were out in front of me.
The room became quieter.
“Isaac, don’t kill him!”
Isaac’s head, teeth dripping with saliva and blood, turned to see me. His eyes drifted to and from me and his prey.
My voice dropped and I pleaded, “Don’t....”
It was in that very moment that I decided not to tell Isaac about Aramei. In that crucial moment in time when everything I knew became clear. Isaac could not know the truth because sometimes the truth does more harm than good. If Isaac knew his own father chose to risk the lives of his sons to save Aramei, Isaac would be abandoned twice; first by his own mother and worst of all by the father that he revered.
Isaac let go of Viktor, but stood over him in warning as I approached. I moved against Isaac’s beastly chest and looked down upon Viktor.
“Humans are so soft,” Viktor said. “You would want me to live after what I’ve done to you? Stupid little girl.”
He didn’t know. Viktor had no idea why I stopped Isaac. I wanted to keep it that way. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sibyl watching me from the second floor.
“I guess being human has its disadvantages,” I deceivingly agreed.
Zia and the rest of Isaac’s family entered the house in their mediate form.
“No!” Viktor roared at his fledglings, keeping them at bay. “Let them leave, all of them.” He looked at Isaac then. “One as powerful as his father,” he said. “Of your brothers, I always knew it would be you.” Viktor’s eyes met mine then and I felt a remarkable sentiment in his gaze. “In more ways than one, I see,” he added.
The stealthy comment was directed at me and the meaning behind it, to which I feared I’d never know, weighed heavily in my heart.
Isaac’s massive body hardened. I stopped him. “Let’s go home,” I said softly, hoping he would continue to listen to me. Already, I felt I had asked too much of him.
“We’ll stay to make sure no one follows,” said Nathan.
Zia took me by the arm.
But Isaac wasn’t following. He was staying behind?
I tore away from Zia.
“What are you doing?” I shouted at Isaac. I wished he could speak in werewolf form. He wouldn’t even look at me.
Isaac knew something that I didn’t at first. He knew that Viktor was not ready to give up.
It wasn’t over.
In a flash, Viktor sprung up and bounded toward Isaac in mid-air. Claws and teeth at the ready before his feet fully lifted from the floor. My body flew backward, crashing into Ashe who tossed me aside as if I were weightless. I skidded into the kitchen, landing pressed against the legs of dining chairs. My skull jolted around inside my head as I hit the metal bar holding the massive tabletop to its base.
I couldn’t move; beasts were all around me. I couldn’t tell who was who, except for Isaac and Viktor. Viktor was a titan among the others, and Isaac, I knew him now enough to distinguish him over anyone and in any form.
The house began to come down all around me, the table barely shielding me from broken glass and projectile debris. A giant chandelier hit the table hard, shattering in all directions, reflecting light like glitter as it rained down onto the floor. I wondered how the table was still standing when everything else was destroyed. I hoped it would hold. I hoped it wouldn’t crush me.
I drew my legs into my chest and pressed my hands over my ears. The roaring, the gnashing of teeth; I couldn’t take it anymore.
Savage fighting everywhere. Blood everywhere.
But Isaac was beating Viktor still.
I couldn’t breathe. I sat huddled, watching; my eyes so wide open. My heart had thickened in my chest.
Isaac’s beastly claws whirled around and cut Viktor’s neck once. Once more and I knew Viktor would be dead.
Everything moved so slowly. In the back of my mind, somewhere beneath the pandemonium, I wondered if I would be able to say how fast it all happened.
And then the unthinkable.
A beast more colossal in size than Viktor, held Isaac’s arm just before the fatal blow.
Isaac was thrown right through the wall of the house.
I gasped and felt my insides dissolve into mush.
“Nooo!” My scream was the only noise.
I came slowly out from underneath the table, watching everything and everyone around me and I crept forward. Many others slunk out of sight with Trajan’s presence, knowing if they didn’t that they would surely die. Viktor stood wounded, blood soaking his fur.
I looked directly at Trajan, so tall against me, so enormous, so absolutely frightening. “An Alpha protects his own....,” I said, my words poisoned with resentment.
I did not fear him, not even on the inside.
He let me be.
I ran outside through the new opening in the side of the house and found Isaac in human form, lying nak*d in the snow. Blood covered him; his hair thickly wet with it. I fell to my knees next to his body.
“Isaac!” I touched his face and head all over; blood quickly stained my hands and clothes.
He wasn’t responsive, but I saw that his body shivered in the cold. His skin was not hot like it normally was after he shifted form. The snow around his body did not melt away. I ran to a nearby parked car and yanked open the back door, searching everywhere for something to cover Isaac with. I pushed the button in the front to pop the trunk where I spotted a duffle bag stuffed full of laundry. Tearing it open, I tossed everything until I found a large bath towel.
I covered Isaac with the towel the best I could. He had started to gain consciousness while I rummaged through the car, but he was weak.
“My father...” he said. “Was that...my father?”
I looked toward the house. Indecision crippled me.
And I couldn’t lie to him.
“Yes,” I said and I leaned down and kissed his forehead softly.
Isaac lifted with difficulty and pain. I couldn’t believe all the blood and how he was still alive.
“My father has always been greedy,” he said, holding onto my shoulder for balance.
“Greedy?”
“He won’t let anyone else kill beasts of rank,” he said. “Not while he’s Alpha. It can threaten his position.”
The secret was still safe, but it was painful for me. Isaac didn’t know that rank had nothing to do with what Trajan did, that he saved Viktor’s life. But I knew. I knew and I hated myself for it.
I helped Isaac to his feet.
“My father will kill him,” he said, staring toward the house. I could sense a big part of him was angry; he wanted to be the one.
I couldn’t say it, that I knew otherwise. Trajan would not kill Viktor Vargas. It hurt so much to keep the truth from Isaac.
“I need to get you out of here,” he said.
He kept looking back as we walked toward the main road where his car had been parked out of sight. I thought at any moment he would barrel back into the chaos and finish what he started.
We drove away from the Vargas house and I hoped I would never see it again.
21
ON THE WAY TO Isaac’s house, over the winding black roads and snow-covered land, I kept looking back, afraid that we would be ambushed again.
“They won’t come,” he said as he pulled me nearer.
I sat pressed so close to his body that I could hear his heart thrumming calmly against my cheek. I could faintly smell the soap he had showered with and underneath it, the natural delicious scent of his warm skin. Every now and then when I would shift in his embrace, his heart would quicken and his arm would constrict protectively around me, calming me.
I was so tired; I could hardly keep my eyes open, but in a short time we were pulling into the drive and Isaac killed the engine.
He carried me into the house and though I was more worried about his injuries than mine, I couldn’t bring myself to object.
The house was rich with warmth and firelight; the fireplace blazing behind the hearth, licking the cool air coming from the chimney above. Briefly, I glimpsed the painting of Trajan and Aramei and softly shut my eyes, as if to forget that I knew anything about them at all.
My bare feet began to thaw as Isaac walked with me up the staircase. I could feel my toes coming to life with pain. My back and ribs began to throb, but I hid my discomfort from him well. Carrying me into a spacious bathroom, Isaac carefully sat down on the side of the deep tub with me enveloped in his lap. He reached out and turned the squeaking faucets, letting the tub begin to fill up with water. Steam rose from the top of the water, fogging the nearby window, which had already been covered by frost and snow. Only one light burned low over the pedestal sink.
“Isaac,” I said, and I noticed how weak even my voice had become, “I’m fine.”
Reluctantly, he let me go and I raised myself to sit more upright on his lap, though it was a struggle. I was a bloody mess; the gown Viktor dressed me in drenched in Isaac’s blood. Glancing down, I noticed that both of my legs were covered in bruises and cuts, but I ignored that too. Isaac was more important.