The Mayfair Moon (32 page)

“Not exactly,” he said, pulling me along.

We left the car parked on the side of the road and entered the forest.

“Isaac?” I said; uncertainty laced my voice.

“We have to get enough away from the road,” he said, “just in case.”

“In case of what?” It was difficult to walk through the thick snow, much less keep up with his much faster pace.

He stopped next to a tree stump.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. He held both my hands in his. “You trust me not to hurt you and so I’m going to trust myself because of that.”

He didn’t have to explain further. I knew exactly what he was about to do. My heart sped up.

Isaac stepped backward and away from me. “Just don’t move, speak or walk towards me. Do you understand?”

I felt my head nod in quick, nervous jerking motions.

Isaac gave me one last loving gaze, finally stopping his backward trek many feet away from where I stood.

His whole body jerked forward, plunging him onto the frigid, white ground. He was on his hands and knees, his head rolled up and backward, the whites of his eyes churning black. The first fiendish growl ripped through the air, echoing off every looming tree. A burning scream forced from his lungs and his body began to thrash, throwing him onto his back where he writhed in agony.

Everything told me to back away further, every sense and emotion. But I had to be still. No movement. No words.

He leapt up then, his legs growing along with his massive body. His face contorted. I heard bones snapping, his flesh ripping. Birds sleeping in the trees above went wild and flapped their wings in a fleeing rage.

Isaac howled, standing feet taller in a dominating stance. His enormous, razor-sharp hands pulled backward. His snout heaving with hot, visible breath.

He howled again and then dropped his massive head and looked right at me. I felt the perilous graze of his eyes scan over me.

No movement. No words.

Towering on two feet, Isaac approached me, his much heavier footsteps crunching the snow loudly in his wake. I trust you, I thought. I trust you....

I was terrified.

I shut my eyes tight as he got closer, his form so enormous that I felt engulfed by its shadow. I shook all over, uncontrollably, feeling his hot breath moisten the skin on my face. He was right there, an inch from me. I could hear the saliva sloshing around in his mouth, the heavy breath from his nostrils.

Only when I heard a low guttural growl from deep in his chest did I slowly open my eyes. In a split second, Isaac hoisted me up and pressed me between his colossal chest and the fold of his arm.

I never saw it coming.

The whip of tree limbs thrashed against Isaac as he ran; his body protected mine. Branches and even rocks crushed hopelessly under his giant, beastly feet. Rock reduced to dust. He moved so fast, covering a distance I could never possibly imagine. I had to shut my stinging eyes. The battering wind was too cold; snow from the trees pierced my face like tiny shards of glass. If it weren’t for the warmth his body gave, I would have frozen to death.

I seized desperately to his fur, but the hold he had on me was all that I needed. His chest was rock hard; his arm I knew had a grip stronger than a boa constrictor. One slipup and Isaac could so easily crush me like brittle bone.

We moved so fast through the mountain that I was lucky to make out anything as we raced past. The sound of water thrashing against rocks was all that I heard distinctly. I opened my eyes a crack, just in time to see the ravine out ahead.

The trees ended and my heart fell into the pit of my stomach. Isaac leapt over the deep chasm and skimmed the waterfall. Only seconds felt like an eternity suspended in mid-air as I held my breath. But he covered the ravine flawlessly, landing hard on the other side. The whipping trees were back as we pressed on. One caught me, cutting a tiny slit along my cheekbone.

Finally, we stopped.

My eyes crept open as Isaac laid me on the cold ground. My hands and legs had fallen asleep. Tender ribs caught me off guard. He had held me tighter than I realized.

Isaac went to his knees and raised his head; pain reverberated in his screams. I covered my head in the snow with my arms, my breath hot in their confines. I couldn’t take it anymore, seeing him in such agony. I wondered why when I saw Alex Turn she didn’t show to be in as much pain as Isaac. She didn’t writhe on the floor of our den. Her body didn’t thrash about.

Isaac lay naked on his side, the snow around him melting from the excessive heat of his human body. I could even see the ground, wet and dark as though only touched by rain.

I ran over to him.

He reached for me, his finger running gently across the cut on my face.

“It’s nothing.” I pulled the backpack around and set it on the ground, rummaging through it. It was why he had packed the clothes from the car. “Isaac?” I said, handing him the long-sleeved shirt. “Why does it hurt you so much to Turn?”

“Because my concentration is filtered elsewhere.”

He lifted and sat in an upright position, one leg bent upward to shield his nakedness. “Usually the concentration is to keep the pain to a minimum,” he said, slipping on the shirt, “but making sure I don’t hurt you is more important.”

Next, he put on the jogging pants.

“What about shoes?”

“Sort of forgot the shoes,” he said. “The entrance is right there. I can get some later.”

I stood and turned, but saw nothing but the usual, darkness and trees.

“Right there between the rocks,” he said, pointing further. “Stay close.”

Not until we came right upon the mouth of the entrance did I see it. And not that I had technically forgotten why he brought me here, but suddenly it plagued my mind again.

Once we passed the threshold and stood between the towering boulders, Isaac could rest.

“Remember,” he said, taking my shoulders, “stay close to me. My father doesn’t know we’re here and really, I’m not supposed to be here.”

“What?” Worry twisted every muscle in my body. “But I thought—”

Isaac quickly placed his hand over my mouth. My voice had echoed down the dark passage. Wincing, I realized and he slowly moved his hand away. “I thought you were bringing me here to meet him?” I said in a whisper.

He whispered back, “I did....”

Isaac paused, looking upon me with warm eyes.

“Adria,” he said, “do you remember what I said to you about how in one way I would be like my father?”

I thought back to that day in Vaughn Woods, remembering everything he said to me almost word for word.

“Yes…you said you would ignore the need and the warning.”

He looked down and away from me. I couldn’t read his emotions at all; I couldn’t tell the difference between shameful and contemplative.

“I
will
ignore the need to protect you without being in your life,” he began, “but in another way I will
not
be like my father. I won’t....”

It seemed like a warning and a promise, which left me feeling disenchanted.

Isaac held my hand through the cold, dark tunnel under ground. Wind whistled through cracks in the ceiling until we were too far away from the entrance to hear it. The passage snaked left and right and then minutes later I felt like I was walking down a steep hill. I could see nothing, hardly even the white of my hands. But Isaac could see perfectly in the darkness. Without his guide, I would have tripped many times over rocks and uneven flooring. I briefly wished I had a flashlight; a primitive fiery torch would even have been welcome.

I was beginning to feel a gnawing pain through my wet socks. My feet were thawing. I noticed that the air was getting warmer, the rosy tip of my nose no longer chilled to the touch. I could inhale with my lips parted and not feel the sting of frigid air drying and scraping my throat anymore.

We were close.

We came upon the end of the tunnel. Warm firelight glowed against the cave walls in the short distance. Shadows moved upon them.

There were voices.

Isaac stopped about twenty feet away.

He turned to me; his hair looked darker in this light, his eyes, more fierce. “Don’t speak to anyone if we’re seen,” he whispered. “Let me do the talking.” He leaned in even further, his expression fixed. “Those here are not like me or Nathan. They’re soldiers, loyal to my father, but more beast than man.”

The mere fact that Isaac seemed worried at all put me completely on edge.

He led me around the first corner where the stone and dirt hallway turned into a V. The firelight source, I was surprised to see my wishful primitive torches mounted along the rock walls. I peered down the left tunnel as we passed quietly; guards were posted far off in the distance. I was glad Isaac took me in the other direction. Soon we came to a section of the hallway where the rock separated. Ducking halfway, we squeezed into a hidden niche. It was a good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic.

More voices reverberated through the space. Generous firelight brightened the blackness of the cave from a room just beyond. We crouched low behind a rock wall; a jagged oval-shaped opening allowed us to peer inside the room unseen. My fingers pressed against the moistness of my palms, sweating like mad from both the heat and my rattled nerves.

The room was vast, towered by rock and earth that had been carved perfectly over time. The ceiling shaped like a dome, which seemed to cradle the room beneath it. Three more entrances were visible, one just behind the long black table where a man sat at the head, a delicate woman in his lap. Guards, werewolves that wore the skin of men, stood at each entrance; swords sheathed to their backs. They were ridiculously tall even in their human form.

I was trembling. Isaac put his arm around my waist, pulling me gently toward him.

Six chairs were on each side of the table. Random food and what looked like old maps and yellowish-brown paper lay strewn across the tabletop. Thick, dusty books were stacked next to candelabras. I truly felt as though I was in the wrong time.

“Milord,” said a man standing near the entrance at the other end of the table. “He is here.”

The man at the head looked up from the woman. I knew the man was Trajan, Isaac’s father. There was no mistaking it. He was the power in the room. When he simply moved his eyes, all attention shifted to him. He was the one I saw in the painting above the fireplace in the Mayfair house. Unapproachable and imperial. He appeared in his middle forties, rugged and unshaven, scarred and beastly, yet handsome beyond words.

Trajan didn’t answer the man and then I noticed something, something disturbing. I felt my cheeks flush under my already warmed skin. A tiny gasp of disbelief escaped my lips.

The woman sat facing Trajan, straddling his lap in the chair. The long, thin white dress she wore covered what was happening underneath it. I didn’t want to look, but the shock of it forced me to. “Oh my God,” I whispered, “...is she?”

Isaac nodded, but there was sadness in his face.

He began to explain until four more men entered the room, the two in the center obviously led by the guards beside them. A dark piece of cloth lay against the front of their shirts. I recognized it as what had probably been placed over their eyes by the guards, before coming here.

One of the visitors gawked, realizing instantly what I had realized about the woman. It sickened me, to see this man so excited by a seemingly sad sex act. I don’t know why it was sad, but it loomed in my heart. Maybe Isaac’s expression rubbed off on me, or maybe it was the woman. Something about her, even though I could barely see the side of her face, was tragic. There was no emotion in her except for sorrow and emptiness.

I had to shake it off.

Trajan carefully took the back of the woman’s head into his giant hand. Pressing his lips against her forehead, he whispered something to her.

I was completely confused.

Trajan, this man of total domination and power, a werewolf known to be cruel and deadly,
respected
the woman.

Another woman stepped out of the shadow near the exit behind Trajan’s chair. She took the woman’s hand and led her out, leaving Trajan free to the visitors.

“Nothing says power,” the gawking visitor began, “like having whores at one’s disposal.”

No time at all for me to quietly display my disgust, Trajan was out of the high-back chair, pressing the man into the stone wall. Every guard in the room stiffened, one hand raised to the handle of their swords. The quiet visitor withdrew, feeling for the exit behind him, only to be grabbed by one of the guards who brought him here.

Trajan held violently to the man’s throat. Rage had become him. The muscles in his neck thickened and pulsated, the glint of his eyes were golden in the light of the fire. Gold on black and fury.

Isaac held me tighter. I was shaking all over.

Without a word, Trajan crushed the man’s neck in his hand. I felt my heart stop, literally, for two seconds. Vomit churned in my stomach as the man’s neck fell over to one side, dangling grotesquely. The tongue lolled out of the corpse’s mouth so unnaturally, so horrific.

Tears burned the edges of my eyes.

“I s-swear to you—” the other visitor had started to say.

Trajan stepped into the man’s space, his hands balled into fists at his sides. Tilting his head to one side, he said calm and dangerously, “Innocent and precious is the beloved that your friend so foolishly insults.” He tilted his head to the other side. “Do you share his views?”

The man shook his head so harshly it could have rolled off his shoulders. “N-No....” The guard holding him jerked his body forward, forcing him into a deep, painful bow.

He screamed out and grimaced under the pressure. “I m-mean...n-no, Milord,” he corrected himself.

Trajan walked gradually back to his chair. He looked across at the man, brought one hand out from behind his back and gestured. “Sit,” he said, just before sitting himself.

The man took the chair, his body shaking worse than mine was. A lone candle sitting in a silver tray fell over onto its side as his fumbling hands grazed it. Apologizing profusely, the man picked the candle up before it caught a stack of papers afire.