Page 41 (1/2)

I felt sorry for her

Lacingwith her? Is she sick?"

"No," he answered absently "It’s the price she and my father pay for her i "Immortal? How?"

"The Blood Bond" Isaac walked with ain, but this tiht be scared ofwith Trajan, only she was more alive then

Isaac went on, "It’s a sad story, really" He sat down on the far end of the bed I sat next to hi disrespectful

I watched the servants tend to Aramei while he told me the story

"There was a war between o in the Carpathians My father ounded on the battlefield and he woke up in a barn in one of the nearby villages Wounded so badly, he wasn’t strong enough to shift back into his human form"

A servant lit two more candles on the bedside, while another rubbed Arahter of a fisherman, found him in the barn"

"While he was in his olf for like that

"Yes," Isaac said, "and she wasn’t afraid of him; not like a human should be anyway She pulled the swords froash on his throat My father could have killed her In fact, e’re wounded severely enough that death is a possibility, blood is the one thing that can sustain and heal us But es, the pain"

Araainst the pillows on her side A servant covered her middle body with a silk sheet Her feet were so delicate, so small

"If she were anyone else," Isaac continued, "ht He almost died himself because he couldn’t"

"He fell in love with her"

"Yes, he did"

The servant stroked Aramei’s hair and face softly as a h to shift," Isaac said, "he wouldn’t shift because he didn’t want to scare her--I know that sounds dumb, but--"

"I knohy," I interrupted "Trajan was afraid if she saw hi"

Isaac nodded slowly "Yes, that’s right A beast is one thing, but a beast that is also a o back He knew that just being near her would sooner than later only get her killed"

Isaac looked intoabout er he posed And I found it disturbingly beautiful how similar our stories were, that I would meet the real Isaac wounded in a barn, too

He turned away

"A few years later," he went on, "Viktor’sthe men He wanted an are was one of them By the time my father made it there, her fa in the woods, bloody and dying, but she had not been infected"

Isaac took a deep breath, watching Aramei

She shut her eyes

"My father fed her his blood, bonding her to hi candles cast shadows upon the walls The light diently blew the candles out near the bathtub

Isaac turned back to me, severity in his face "Our blood, e and disease It can heal grave wounds and ward off sickness It’ll h just like us; a hu, this Blood Bond Mya million miles a second

"Milord," said a servant, "will you be sleeping with Milady this evening?"

A weird luain

"No," Isaac said to the servant, "Adria and I will be leaving soon You can lay with her untiland turned back to me

"The price," he said, "of her immortality is her mind Aramei has not been herself for at least two hundred years She knows only lanced at Araht you’ve seen her quiet and eoes into these uncontrollable episodes Sometimes she cries and hurts herself Other ti to be"

"So awful" I said

As Ara but peace in her I never wanted to witness her violent or suicidal The thought of it was blasphemous

"But as sheon Trajan’s lap like that?" I had to ask It was obvious Aramei was no ‘whore’, but I couldn’t understand the relationship between her detached personality and what I saw at the table

Isaac’s gaze strayed toward the floor, his posture suggesting pity and regret

"She’s barren," he said laiveits toll on her hts, they sort of…stuck that way My father will never tell her she can’t have children Herfor her; let her have her ith him whenever and wherever she feels the need"

He added, "My father is her life, as she is also his If one of them died, the other would follow"

It was theI’d ever heard

It was also a devastating end to

I stood carefully from the bed and watched Aramei from afar; my hand cuppedher hair