The Soul Bond (Werewolf High Book 4)

by Anita Oh

  He stared back at me, something like guilt flashing in his eyes. He didn't reply.

  I don't want to break it, either, I told him. I shook my head. But this is something I need to do. It'll be fine. The bond will be fine.

  I said it to reassure myself just as much as him.

  "It's so creepy when you guys do that," said Nikolai. "You have no idea."

  Chapter 20

  The book had said "a transformative event" would trigger the Rebirth, so, after dinner that night, I made the others brainstorm ideas with me and wrote them up on a whiteboard with appropriately colored pens.

  "A haircut," said Nikolai. "I could refer you to someone. It really would be a community service."

  I rolled my eyes but wrote it down. In red pen, which was the "not helpful" color.

  "We could contact a magic user and have you transformed into something else," suggestion Althea, wrinkling her nose to show she didn't really like the idea.

  I wrote it up in blue, which was the "I'd prefer not to" color.

  "I doubt that would work," said Tennyson. "Lucy was transformed by Hannah Morgan, first with the miniaturization and then with the mind transference. If those transformations had no effect, I doubt a spell from a different magic user would, either. Nor a haircut, for that matter. The transformation clearly needs to work on a deeper level."

  "Blood transfusion?" suggested Nikolai. "Gender reassignment?"

  I wrote them down, but I agreed with Tennyson. Physical changes wouldn't cut it. The change needed to rock the foundations of my world.

  "Well, think about it. What things have changed you in the past?" asked Althea. "Significant life events and such."

  I thought about it, but none of it was anything I wanted to repeat.

  "When my dad walked out," I said quietly. "When Sam died."

  "We could do a reenactment!" said Nikolai. “Lie down and look corpsey, Sam.”

  Sam sneered at him.

  "Even those things obviously weren't enough to trigger it, though," said Tennyson. "If our theory about the timing is right."

  "How about you guys?" I asked.

  Tennyson, Althea and Nikolai looked awkwardly between each other.

  "I suppose it was the first time we fully transformed into wolves," Althea said, looking to the others for agreement.

  Nikolai nodded, but Tennyson hung his head.

  "When Lady Fluffington died," he whispered.

  Althea rubbed his arm.

  "There's nothing you could've done, buddy," said Nikolai. "It was just her time."

  Tennyson shook his head.

  "You know mine," Sam said.

  I nodded, but something occurred to me. It wasn't something I wanted to bring up, but it was too important to be delicate about it.

  "Something must have triggered your change, though, right?" I said softly. "That night?"

  Sam narrowed his eyes at me. He'd never looked at me coldly before, and I hoped he never would again. I shivered.

  "What are you trying to say, Lucy?"

  "Only that you went through this ‘rebirth’ process, right? So, according to the book, something must have triggered it."

  I wasn't sure why he was being so defensive about it, but it made me think he hadn't told me everything about that night and what he remembered.

  "Not necessarily," said Tennyson. "From what you've said, Sam, you didn't have this same awareness of the power inside you, did you? Without knowing what Ruby Spencer intended for you both, we can't assume it’s the same experience. I believe she viewed you both as test subjects, and that she was experimenting with different ways to trigger this Becoming."

  It was an awful thought, one that must be even worse for Sam. It was considerate of Tennyson to refer to her by her full name rather than her relationship to Sam, but that didn't change the fact that she was Sam's mother and had used him in such a terrible way. I wondered what her endgame had been, why she'd wanted to turn us into monsters. And if they were doing the same thing to all those other people who had gone missing.

  "We're getting off track," said Althea. "What else?"

  "I think the solution here is pretty obvious," said Sam, giving me that cold stare again.

  We all looked at him expectantly.

  "Oh, come on," he said. "The two of you. You can't tell me it hasn't occurred to you before."

  Tennyson and I looked at each other, both of us puzzled.

  "You have to complete the bond," Sam said. "Then your souls will be forever entwined, or whatever garbage they say happens, and you'll be transformed enough for the Becoming."

  It seemed obvious now that Sam had said it.

  "But I don't…" My throat was dry, so I swallowed. "I don't know how to do that."

  Sam rolled his eyes. "That's pretty obvious, too. It's like a wedding, right? Of sorts, anyway. And how does that end?"

  I shrugged. "With divorce?"

  "With a kiss," Sam said. "So, just get it over with and put us all out of our misery."

  I couldn't look at Tennyson. I'd never even thought of such a thing. He turned away from me too.

  The whole atmosphere became awkward.

  "I think there's something in this book," said Althea, drawing a tall pile of books toward her so that her face was hidden.

  Nikolai started humming that song, "Girl, you'll be a woman soon."

  "Um," I said, trying to think of an excuse to leave.

  Sam shook his head. "You know I'm right," he said, pushing up from the table to leave.

  I thought about Sam's suggestion all night. All the next day and all the next night. No other thought came into my head. Sam had been right: completing the bond would definitely be enough of a transformation. It would change me on every level of my being. If that didn't work, nothing would.

  It wasn't as if I wanted to break the bond, but it wasn't something I could back out of later on if I didn't like it, either. A soul bond was for life. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Tennyson and I could live separate lives while still being linked. Despite what Sam had said, it didn't mean marriage. Not all bonds were romantic. We could have a buddy bond; that would be fine. So, I looked into other ways to complete the bond that didn't involve putting my lips on Tennyson's lips.

  Not that there was anything wrong with Tennyson's lips. He had nice lips. They were full and shapely lips. They just didn't have any business with my lips.

  Sam had kissed me once. It had only been a whisper of a kiss, and I wasn't sure that it counted. I wasn't entirely convinced that it had been real, although I'd played the moment back in my mind a thousand times. We'd never discussed it, and it had never happened again. I didn't want my first actual kiss that was definitely real to be an "obligation because of magic" kiss, no matter who it was with. When I was a crazy old lady with a million cats, I didn't want to think back on my first real kiss and remember that it had been a chore.

  Still, I couldn't think about anything else. I vagued out in class; I lay awake at night. I didn't even have much of an appetite.

  As I watched the sky turn light from my bed, I finally gave up. I should at least talk to Tennyson about it, get his opinion. We'd done a good job of avoiding each other since Sam had brought up the whole kissing business, but really, it was something that the two of us needed to decide together, and only the two of us.

  He was waiting for me in the clearing behind the Golden House. Morning sun was filtering through the trees in bright streaks, making the whole place seem enchanted. He reached out and took my hand, but even before we touched, I knew what he would do. He'd already decided.

  We both had.

  My eyes fluttered shut, and his fingers brushed my cheek. I rested my hands on his chest, clutching the soft fabric of his shirt, needing to be sure he was real. He was so close that I could smell the pine fresh scent of him. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his breath on my skin.

  So close.

  Are you sure? I asked him.

  And then his
lips were on mine.

  It wasn't a chore, and it wasn't a whisper. It was a revelation.

  And then the Becoming started.

  Chapter 21

  We were pressed so tightly together that when the power filled me, it filled him as well. Light exploded around us, and I closed my eyes and pressed my face against Tennyson's neck to block it out.

  And then we were nowhere. We had no form.

  I was him and he was me. There was nothing between us, no divide whatsoever. A perfect blending. Those cracked and broken pathways between us that had formed our bond melted away. No road was needed to bridge the space between us anymore. There was no space between us. I knew all his thoughts, remembered his memories, shared his opinions. I was still myself, but I was him as well, and it felt right. It felt as if it had always been that way. It felt as if it would be wrong to be apart. Unfathomable.

  That matterless place existed for an eternity. It was the entire history of the universe, from the first spark until the final darkness. We were everything. Everywhere and always. There was nothing but the two of us; nothing else was possible. There were no secrets between us, and we knew that we could trust one another completely, knew that we would always be on the same side, no matter what the battle.

  I wanted to hold on to that feeling, the absolute perfection of it, but as soon as that occurred to me, it became harder to do. The power that had been swirling around us, holding us together, compressing us like a diamond, dropped away.

  It felt as if we were falling. Logically, I knew we were probably still standing in that clearing behind the house, but our conscious minds weren't there at all.

  As we fell, we began to separate. We had no form, not in any way that I understood, but I could feel him being slowly pulled away from me. If I'd had hands, I could've grabbed him, but there was nothing to hold him with, and none of him to hold. It felt like my skin was being ripped from my body, and I screamed and screamed as he parted from me.

  Before we were completely divided, we stopped falling. We appeared as if we were in our bodies, but I knew that was just our own perceptions of how we were; our bodies weren't really there. I still could feel Tennyson as a part of me, and myself as a part of him, but less than we had been. That wasn't enough. We weren't solid or human; we only looked that way.

  I could no longer feel the power inside me or swirling around us, but I knew it was close by. It had brought us to this place for a reason, and it wouldn't let us go until it was satisfied. I knew that the power wasn't sentient, couldn't reason or make decisions. It wasn't even inherently good or bad. But it had a purpose, and it was driven to complete that purpose. There was no way for it to stop until it was done.

  Where are we?

  I wasn't sure if it was me who was asking, or Tennyson. It didn't matter.

  When we tried to look, we realized that we could see.

  The mosaic walls were familiar, as was the strange light. We were in that same temple that we'd dreamed about, what felt like so long ago. The temple of Lycan. The pictures on the walls made more sense now, without that dreamlike quality obscuring my vision. The story they told also made a lot more sense now.

  I saw the girl and her wolf again, surrounded by flames, but I realized now that she wasn’t the only girl. There were so many girls. A series of different girls, little details showing them clearly to be from different times, different places. All of them in a dark place, then being surrounded by light. The light changed them, transformed them into something else.

  It seemed to happen in a series of stages. They became one thing, a witch or a werewolf or a weird bird creature, various different things that I couldn't even name, and then they moved on to the next thing in their own personal process. Always moving toward something bigger, something more powerful. Some of them got to a point where they stopped. They stayed a wolf or bird for the rest of their lives. But most of them kept moving through the steps, absorbing the traits of each form and becoming more and more powerful until they reached the final stage in their evolution.

  The power seemed to be pushing me toward the answer, to see what that final stage would be.

  But I could guess, and I didn't want to know.

  The more I recoiled from the knowledge, the more the power pushed me closer to the answer and farther away from Tennyson. The power was so strong, much stronger than I was. Even without the weaknesses of my human body to hold me back, I was no match for that power. My entire being screamed for Tennyson, and I could feel him trying to reach me as the power forced us apart.

  It was useless. The power consumed me, no longer diluted or restrained. I knew what it wanted me to Become now, knew that it would drive me through all the steps in the process, like those girls on the wall, until I Became one of the Others.

  That was the final goal.

  I understood now how Sam's mother had been unable to resist it. It was unstoppable. I could feel it seeping into me, into all the parts of myself that I'd shared with Tennyson. It wanted to drive him out completely, to own me, to make it as if Tennyson had never been a part of me. But that wasn't possible, and it gave me the strength to push back.

  Tennyson was there. He was right there. And I could feel him fighting to drive that power away.

  Let me take it, he said. Channel the power into me. I can handle it. I'll take it for you.

  I wasn't sure that werewolf strength counted when you had no form, but the power was quickly overwhelming me. It felt as if it was burning up everything that made me who I was and replacing it with something new. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't become one of them.

  With everything that was left of me, I reached out to Tennyson. I felt us connect, the thinnest thread of connection — but it was enough. I felt him drawing the power from me, and with all my strength, I pushed it toward him.

  I pushed and he pulled, and the space inside me began to clear. Without the power pressing down on me, I felt more like myself and could push even harder.

  Then we hit a barrier. I felt Tennyson's alarm as the power started to flood back into me. I pushed back even harder. The barrier was unyielding, but I pushed and pushed. And the harder I pushed against it, the more I began to understand it. It was a stubborn, resentful power that did not belong inside of Tennyson. It had been constructed to hurt him, and it needed to be destroyed. It was the curse that stopped him from transforming fully into a wolf.

  Help me break it, I told him, pushing with renewed force. I wanted to give him this one thing, to help him like he'd been helping me.

  The power flooded back into me more and more quickly, like the sea retreats into the ocean floor after an earthquake. And I knew then that I had the strength to break that barrier, to control the power inside of me, to do anything I needed to. That spot behind my breastbone, where I’d first felt the bond with Tennyson, which had become an abyss when he’d been taken from me — I sealed it shut completely.

  The power surged back out of me like a tsunami, hitting that barrier with the full weight of its force. The barrier hadn't been built to withstand such an onslaught. It shattered into nothing, and Tennyson was free of it.

  Still, the power continued to surge. There was so much of it. It flooded into Tennyson at an unstoppable rate.

  Push back, I told him as I felt it overtaking him. Share it between us.

  I knew, somehow, that the only way to control it was to find a balance between us that was manageable.

  Some of the power had been spent when the barrier was broken, so it was a little easier to manage as we tried to balance it between us. It took all of my concentration as we held it there, like balancing on a tightrope. It wasn't sustainable. We both released our hold on it at the same time. The power bled out into both of us, and once again, it felt as if we were falling.

  It seemed shocking that we would still be standing there in the clearing, the morning sun still filtering through the trees. How could it possibly still be the same morning, the same day? It felt as if lifetimes h
ad passed.

  As I returned to my body, all my strength left me. I clutched Tennyson's arms as my legs gave out, and the two of us crumpled to the ground. He held me to him, and I stared up into his face, both of us wide-eyed in fear as we thrummed with the power.

  The power had been scary enough before, but now it was out of control. It spiked between us like a ping-pong ball, gaining momentum each time it changed direction. We had no idea how to find that balance again, or what to do with it once we had, but we had to try to do something.

  My fingers dug into Tennyson's biceps as we tentatively reached out for the connection between us. As we did, the power crackled. It wanted to possess me, to take root in me and grow, and my connection with Tennyson was preventing that. It stopped ping-ponging as it crackled, waiting.

  As we prepared for it to strike, we became aware of a new problem. Sam, Althea and Nikolai. They were awake and looking for us. They were getting closer.

  We turned to look at them, to try to warn them, but as they stepped into the clearing, the power crashed into us.

  It took hold.

  Chapter 22

  It hit us like an electric shock, forcing us apart and sending us flying back across the clearing in opposite directions. The power was visible now, its glowing purple live wires snaking all around us.

  "Stay away," I warned the others, but I hardly needed to. There was no way they could come any closer without one of those tendrils of power hitting them.

  The whole clearing was alight with the purple glow, and as I looked around, trying to find some way back over to Tennyson, I realized that the tendrils of power were coming from him. He was lit with a fierce purple glow, and he was half-changed into his wolf form again. He was radiating that same feeling as he had on the full moon, that protective fury.