Soul Bound

by Ella M. Lee

  Ari! ARI! I could almost hear his voice. The touch of the thread, the panic, the concern, the affection—it almost resolved into the word. Almost.

  Weston bit me again, I didn’t even know where. I felt the rush of blood as it left me.

  Ren, please, I can’t…

  I was screaming, but I couldn’t even hear myself, I could only feel the breath as it whooshed out of me.

  I held onto the thread like it was the only thing keeping me alive. I dragged myself to the center, as far away from my body as I could get. The pain still followed me. The thread pulsed beneath me like it was dying, like it was being consumed by my pain.

  As I clung tighter to it, something enveloped me. Wings. The echo of beautiful, ink-dark wings quivered around me, shielding me.

  Ren was here. He’d made it to the center of the thread, too. The feeling of his presence around me was soft and gentle. It held me close, and I could almost imagine his hands touching me.

  Ren, I whispered again, and I wept and wept and wept.

  Weston held me down, his mouth moving over me, pulling at me, tearing me apart. My throat issued only hoarse whimpering now. The tiny voice was gone, crushed.

  I felt it all, but everything was so far away— the dread coiled in me at the idea that Weston would drain me too much, the dizziness and numbness as I lost blood, the agony of those teeth and talons ripping into my flesh.

  And Ren’s trembling presence around me as he wept, too.

  Chapter 40

  Sunrise came and went, bringing day.

  Weston was gone.

  The tiny voice was gone.

  The thread was quiet.

  Something thrummed nearby.

  I opened my eyes.

  My clothes were shredded, leaving me basically naked. I lifted a leaden arm. My head ached and throbbed. Stabs of sharp pain ripped through me with every breath because my skin was torn and bleeding. My vision blurred as I blinked down at my body. I had at least a dozen bites, spread over me. I’d lost a lot of blood.

  I’d felt this all before. Practically every week for a year. Nothing new, although not usually this bad.

  I swallowed once. Then again.

  That thing thrummed again.

  Was it the thread?

  No, but it was something inside me.

  Ren, I whispered, caressing the thread.

  Nothing. I frowned, not sure what that meant.

  A third thrumming rang through me.

  I sat up and looked around, my head spinning. There was nothing and no one in the room with me. I listened outside, but the whole place was silent in the daylight.

  I needed to get back inside. I needed to get to Hannah. She could tell me how bad this was. I could move, and breathe, and think, so I doubted I was going to die. It felt like I’d endured worse, in those first few weeks with Franklin, when I’d struggled.

  And yet you agreed to this, the tiny voice reminded me viciously.

  All for a stupid dagger for some asshole demon who’d dragged me into his problems because he couldn’t do his dirty work himself.

  You even doubled down on it, when El told you to back off, it went on.

  But I couldn’t summon anger at myself or at Ren, because all I could do was remember his panic and sadness and anger last night, his essence draped around me as though he could protect me.

  He couldn’t, but it still felt like I’d been right to trust him.

  My mind stumbled back a few steps.

  Dagger.

  I was on my feet so quickly that my knees went weak, and I collapsed on the floor.

  That thrumming was the dagger.

  It felt just like the book.

  I whipped my head from side to side, ignoring my dizziness and laggy vision. But it wasn’t something I could see. It had to be felt.

  I can’t do this, I thought. I can’t focus, not after…

  Well, too bad.

  I pushed the thought down before I could finish it and closed my eyes again. I had to sense it.

  I cast out my net, looking for demon possessions, feeling along the invisible ropes and contours. I was shaking badly. I didn’t know if this sort of magic use would drain me even more. I’d never asked Ren if magic took a toll on his body, or if it would take a toll on mine.

  Below, the net whispered to me.

  I looked down, confused. Floorboards under my knees.

  My eyes moved from side to side.

  But the bed…the bed had a rug under it.

  I dug through the muddy mess that was my brain and pulled up some of Ren’s strength. Even with that, I still felt weak. I shoved the frame aside.

  Once. Twice. Three times. It creaked across the floor, dragging the rug with it.

  And right there, under the rug, the outline of a trapdoor set in the wood.

  I lifted it with its inset iron ring.

  A short staircase.

  Numbly, I followed it down into near darkness, lit only by the light filtering through the floorboards and open door. I stood in a tiny room, surrounded by rows of shelves. And right there, right there on the nearest shelf, a small metal box.

  I grabbed it and sank to my knees once again. I opened it. Set in velvet was the Kallatric Dagger. It sang to me. It was exactly as its drawing showed: fourteen inches long, iron, set with six glowing sapphires in the hilt.

  Ren, I whispered to the thread. Ren?

  No response.

  I tugged. The thread was definitely still there, but it was quiet. Where could he be? He’d never failed to answer me before.

  I waited.

  Ren? I caressed the thread gently. Then I grabbed at it, tugging harder. Nothing. Had something happened to our connection?

  It didn’t feel like anything bad had happened. It seemed intact. It seemed alive and humming.

  What now? The plan was to alert Ren when I had the dagger. He’d either walk me through destroying it or wait nearby until I could get it off Shaw’s property.

  I weighed my options.

  I could take the dagger and run. I could hope Ren would respond and come get me before sunset. Because there was a good chance the vampires in the house would notice me, the dagger, or both gone by then. There was always the risk El would notice me, too, that she was watching me and waiting for me to screw up.

  The other option was to lie low. Go back to the house. Rest. I knew where the dagger was now; I knew what it felt like. I could wait for Ren to contact me, and we could make a plan. I didn’t think Weston would come after me again, at least not soon—he hadn’t for Jess, anyway. And I didn’t think El would risk bringing up the dagger with the royals, not without a really good reason, not without it being in real danger. With me half-dead from blood loss, it wasn’t in danger. Or so she hopefully thought. I didn’t know how far I could make it if I tried to run in this shape anyway. I didn’t know if I could walk more than a few feet or use the magic I’d need to get away safely.

  With shaking hands, I replaced the dagger in its case and put it back where I’d found it. I climbed the stairs. I replaced the rug and the bed. It felt like it took forever, but eventually I walked across the garden. I was right; the dogs—or whatever—were triggered by the spell on the doors and windows of the house. Walking across the lawn didn’t summon them, only crossing the thresholds of the main house would.

  I made it to the back porch and collapsed at the door. I tried to examine the spell that would call the dogs, to see if I could open it from my side somehow without summoning them, but my brain was broken. Useless.

  Before I could figure out what to do, I passed out.

  Chapter 41

  I woke up in bed, with Ren curled around me.

  I was naked and wrapped in a blanket.

  I had a headache, but my bite wounds weren’t bleeding anymore.

  I blinked several times.

  Was I dreaming?

  I cast my gaze around. This was definitely my room on Shaw’s estate. Same bland, tan walls. Same beat-up furnitu
re. Hannah wasn’t here. Her bed was made.

  I shifted, and Ren’s arms tightened around me. Our thread went taut and glowed, a rush of emotions flowing into it, making me gasp.

  I spun. Ren’s eyes were on me, their emerald green depths drenched in profound relief.

  “What…” I started, the word fuzzy.

  He put a finger to my lips. “I had to know what happened to you. I had to see you for myself.”

  Those words melted me. Tears filled my eyes and overflowed. He’d come here. For me. I clung to him, digging my nails into his impenetrable skin. He cradled my head against his chest, and the thread tugged affectionately over and over again. I couldn’t think of anything except the safety of his presence.

  He sighed. “By the time I got here, it was past sunset. I framed my visit as a surprise drop in to pay respects to the royal family. The second I could, I came and found you. I think I surprised Hannah. She explained what happened. She’s the one who brought you inside.”

  “Where is she?” I asked.

  “Running an errand for me. She’ll be back soon.”

  “What happened to you?” I asked. “I pulled at the bond. You weren’t there.”

  “I think I passed out,” he said. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

  I sighed. “Lucky you.”

  “I thought you were dying,” he said softly, his eyes agonized, those shadows creeping in.

  “I probably was,” I said. “That’s how human bodies react when you drain them of blood.”

  Ren trembled against me. “Hannah said it was probably Weston.”

  “It was.”

  He didn’t speak, but his rage and frustration boiled over and into the thread. He was angry that he couldn’t kill Weston. I appreciated the sentiment.

  “Did you heal me?” I asked to distract him. I felt far too good for it to be less than a day after Weston’s attack.

  “Yes, as much as I could. I don’t have everything I need to heal you fully,” he said, sounding sorrowful. “But I stopped the bleeding and restored your blood. When I saw you here…” The thread throbbed with pain, and with his tight, desperate grasp. I’d never heard his voice sound choked before. “I didn’t know…”

  I shook my head. “This is just what vampires do.”

  “My kind don’t like vampires,” he said.

  “I know, but you made them,” I reminded him.

  “An experiment… An experiment that went wrong, and then went out of control.”

  “Were you alive for that?” He’d never specified his age, or a length of time for anything, really.

  “No, of course not,” he said. “That was a thousand years ago.”

  So he was at least younger than that. Good to know.

  “Why did your kind let them live? The vampires? Couldn’t you have wiped them out?” Bitterness I hadn’t intended crept into my tone.

  Ren shook his head sadly. “My ancestors had to make a choice. Bind vampires or bind the spell book that allowed them to be created in the first place. The book was more dangerous, so they chose to invoke ancient magic to bind and hide it. But magic in my world is always, always a trade. The trade was that the vampires had to live. Hence the truce with the royals. The best we could do was banish them from our realm.”

  “Great, thanks,” I said, but I couldn’t bring myself to feel anger toward Ren.

  He hadn’t done this, nor did he seem to approve of the existence of vampires. He wasn’t so bad, this demon who didn’t like vampires. Who stole from them. Who hurt them, and killed them, and let me kill them. It wasn’t so bad that I liked him. That I liked him a lot.

  I curled into him, holding him tighter. Vulnerable tears slipped down my cheeks. I wanted to close my eyes and pretend I was safe. I wasn’t, but in Ren’s grasp, it almost seemed possible.

  His eyes darkened, shadows consuming them. “Feeling what you felt but not being able to see what was wrong, not being able to help… It was…” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  I shook my head, not sure how to feel. “I didn’t think you’d come here,” I said, and the tiniest, strangled, hysterical laugh slipped out of me.

  Ren touched my face, wiping away the dampness. “Ari,” he said, and his voice was so hoarse it was almost a whisper. “I’m freeing you. I don’t care about the dagger. I can’t put you through this anymore. I’m so sorry I did it in the first place. I release you. You have no more obligations to me. You have no debts to me. I do not own you. I consider your conditions fulfilled.”

  The coils of the conditional bond unfurled, shattering and breaking and disappearing from their place around my heart. I gasped, looking up into Ren’s shadowy eyes. He felt the same thing—my conditions for him had also been fulfilled by both his words and his prior actions. We weren’t bound by that anymore.

  But our soul bond remained, and the thread between us was taut and thrumming with emotion.

  “We’re leaving,” he said. “I’m bringing you out of here right now, and then you’ll be free. You can go anywhere you want. Far away from vampires and demons, like you asked.”

  “Ren, no,” I said. “I don’t want you to do that…”

  I shook my head. Gently, I stroked his cheek. I knew it killed him to give up on his goal, and I couldn’t believe he’d released me. I couldn’t believe he’d come here for me, he’d healed me, and he’d decided he didn’t want to put me through any more danger or distress.

  How did I matter so much to him?

  But I owed him.

  There was no conditional bond anymore, but that didn’t wipe away my debts completely. I wouldn’t feel good about myself if I walked away, not after what Ren had given me. We were so close to the end. I could do this thing for him. I wanted to.

  “Ren, I know where the dagger is,” I said, “and I’m going to get it out for you.”

  His eyes cleared into bright, excited green, but he frowned. “Are you sure?”

  “I held it in my hands. It’s hidden in a secret room under that blue guesthouse at the edge of the property.”

  “No,” he said. “I mean, are you sure you want to keep going?”

  I swallowed. I didn’t, not really. It was very tempting to let Ren carry me out of here to safety, but I couldn’t do that to him. Ren needed me. Only I could do this. He’d given me his strength, and I could match it with my own.

  “I’m sure,” I said, trying not to let my uncertainty creep into my voice or the thread between us. “Let’s finish this.”

  Amazement and affection filled his eyes and poured over. “I really did pick the best human, the best possible partner.”

  With the gentlest touch of his fingers on my cheek, he pressed his lips to mine. I molded against him, slipping my tongue through his slightly parted lips. His fingers tightened on me, keeping us locked together. I ran my hands through his hair, letting his heat and pressure make me feel safe and cared for.

  I was shaking. I still had a job to do. Things could still go very, very wrong, even here at the end. But just for these few minutes, everything was okay. Just for these few minutes, the only thing that mattered was being in Ren’s arms.

  I closed my eyes and gasped against him, drawing him closer, letting him hold me and kiss me again and again until the thread between us was so tight that it ached.

  Chapter 42

  Ren and I were running on borrowed time. He was Shaw’s guest, and eventually his absence would be noted.

  But I was loath to let him go. I shook in his arms, not from fear or pain, but from coiled desire. The thread made it impossible not to feel close to Ren, but it was so much more, too.

  Ren had given me power and shielded me from darkness.

  And now he was holding me like he didn’t care about anything else in the world right now. He looked at me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

  I knew that probably wasn’t true. Although he likely felt overwhelming emotion about me because of our bond, the dagger was his prio
rity.

  And when this was all over, we’d promised to go our separate ways.

  But for now, just in this moment, this closeness was everything. My whole world.

  And for someone who wasn’t human, Ren certainly had human-like reactions to me. His lips and hands explored me like a human’s might, his breath caught, his muscles tightened against me, his eyes filled with longing and desire as we held each other close.

  By the time Hannah returned, he and I were still and quiet, exploring the thread between us with tender touches.

  “Did you find what I asked for?” Ren asked her, sitting up when she opened the door, his attention quickly snapping to her.

  Her eyes were wide and alarmed, with dark circles and red rims that made them look haunted. When Ren reached for her, she startled back, frightened.

  I pulled at his arm, gathering the blanket closer around my naked body. “Did you explain?” I demanded of him.

  He nodded.

  Hannah shook her head.

  I looked between them and sighed.

  “I told her I was a demon, not a vampire,” he said defensively.

  Hannah cringed.

  “You are bad at this,” I said to him. I beckoned to Hannah. “Sit down. He’s not going to hurt you.”

  She did as I asked, her movements wooden, not taking her eyes off Ren as she perched on the edge of her bed.

  “Why didn’t she answer my question?” he murmured to me.

  “She’s scared of you.” I held my hands up to Hannah, palms out, in a calm down gesture. “Really, he’s not a vampire, and he’s not going to hurt you. Did you get what he asked?”

  She held out a plastic bag.

  Ren reached over me to take it, peering inside, reaching in and checking the contents. “Yes, perfect, excellent.”

  He offered Hannah a pleased smile, and she cringed again.

  “What is all that?” I asked.

  “Something I can use to put the royals to sleep. It would have been easier to walk out of here with you if they weren’t trying to occupy my attention, but it will also work for our new plan.”