by Quinn Loftis
Zara opened her eyes and saw him place a peanut butter sandwich on the floor in front of her, just out of her reach. This was a game she knew all too well. He wouldn’t give her the food until she begged for it. And, unfortunately, there was a point when hunger just became too much and her will to live kicked in and she begged. She disgusted herself. The first time she’d given in, Zara had wound up throwing the food up because she’d wept over her own weakness. If she’d just not eaten the food, she wouldn’t be enduring this hell anymore. Then she would be beyond Ander’s reach. She wanted to think that someone in her place would have done the same thing, but she was weak. Others would probably be stronger than her and not give in.
“You survived. That’s what you did, and there is no shame in that. If you hadn’t, I would have never found you. I would be left alone in this long existence,” Wadim said and her head snapped around, her eyes darting across the room.
“Stop it,” she said, pressing her hands to her ears. “Just stop it. You aren’t real,” she yelled. Ander was watching her and looked a bit worried, or as worried as a vampire could possibly look. He was, no doubt, afraid his food source was losing her mind. Or maybe she’d already lost it.
“Perhaps we can play our game another time.” He reached down and picked up the sandwich and held it out to her.
Zara stared at it like it was a snake about to strike her. She was hungry, so incredibly hungry. The girl felt as though her stomach was trying to devour itself, but she was also tired of this existence. Zara was so very tired. She wanted to just close her eyes and never wake up, never have to face the monster who had destroyed her. Zara just wanted it to be over. She pressed her head back against the stone and closed her eyes, ignoring the sandwich being offered. Zara wondered if she could will her heart to stop beating. If she were desperate enough to die, but had no way to take her own life, could she use the power of thought to do it? “It’s worth a try,” she whispered, uncaring if Ander was watching her. “Anything has to be better than this.”
Chapter Twenty
“If death were a person, I’d throat punch him, push him down a fire-ant covered hill, and then set him on fire. Or her. I mean, I guess death could be a chick. Actually, the more I think about it, death would definitely be a chick. Women are just more likely to drag the whole murdering process out. After all, a quick death would be a gift to your enemy. Only your friends deserve quick deaths. Because, again, only a woman would think about their friends needing killing. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m merely talking about killing them if they do something ridiculous like lick your mate or rub her scent all over him. Then, bestie or not, she’ll be pushing up daisies. Okay, enough about that, carry on with the story. You have my permission.” ~Jen
* * *
In his long life, Wadim had never been more terrified than he was right now. Their bond was completely open, and he could see and feel everything his mate was experiencing, but he couldn’t seem to do anything about it. One minute, she had been standing next to him watching Jen fight and kill Stephanie and the next she’d been on the floor wailing about the blood on the front of her shirt. He’d carried her back into one of the archive rooms and now sat on the floor with her in his lap. She was crying, and the sound echoed off the walls of her room, but other than that, she was not in the archives with him. She was trapped in her memories.
“Zara! Open your eyes, beautiful, open your eyes,” he ordered as he felt his wolf rising up inside him. In her mind, she was back in that terrible place with the vampire who had hurt her. She was chained to the floor, her back against a stone wall and her head pressed tightly against it. Her eyes were closed. Only seconds before, she’d looked terrified, but that fear had faded and been replaced by a spark of determination.
Now Wadim couldn’t get a response from her. He pushed further into her mind, against a wall she’d somehow put up between them. It was like a wall of glass. He could see her through it, but he couldn’t get to her. “Zara, please, remember. Come back to me,” Wadim pleaded. For a brief second, he felt her, felt the object of her determination—death. She wanted to die. She wanted to leave this world, leave them. Wadim’s wolf was incensed inside of him. He slammed his will against the man’s and roared at her. “MATE!” His hands, under the control of his beast, pounded on the glass wall in her mind. “YOU WILL NOT LEAVE US.” He howled so loudly Wadim wondered if he’d actually said it out loud rather than just through their bond. “Open your eyes, mate! Open your eyes and see the truth beneath the lies.”
She was giving them no response. Wadim opened his own eyes, pulling himself out of her mind to check on her physical body. She was no longer crying, in fact she wasn’t moving. Zara was limp against him. Everything inside him froze as Wadim looked down at her chest and then let out the breath he was holding as she inhaled and exhaled. She was breathing.
He continued to watch her chest rise and fall and noticed her breaths were getting shallow and strained, as though she were trying to breathe through a plastic bag.
He shook her. “Zara? Come on, baby, wake up.” Wadim tapped her cheek, but she didn’t wake up or move. Her breathing continued to sound labored. “ZARA!”
“Wadim?”
He looked up to see Rachel and Gavril standing in the doorway. “Something’s wrong,” he said, his eyes on Rachel because she was the one who might be able to help.
Rachel hurried over and knelt beside him. “I need to go into her mind,” Rachel said.
She was asking him permission. Sharing the mate bond was aggravating to his wolf, but they both knew their mate’s life depended on it. Wadim nodded.
Rachel placed her hand on Zara’s forehead and closed her eyes. Wadim noticed Gavril was crouched down behind his mate with his hand on her shoulder, reminding her he was with her. She could lean on him and use their bond if she needed to draw strength from him. They’d been bonded for so very long they almost moved as one. Wadim wanted a chance to have that with Zara. He needed to share the years with her, experiencing life and the beauty, sorrow, joy, pain, laughter, and love, all of it. He wanted it with her. Without her, his life would be a grey existence, a half-life that would never be whole. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose her, not when he’d only just found her.
Rachel immediately pushed her light into Zara as her hand touched the girl’s flesh. The healer looked first at the stress on Zara’s lungs and heart. The she-wolf’s heart was beating as if she were running a marathon, even though her physical body was lying still as stone in her mate’s arms.
Zara’s lungs were rigid, refusing to fill with air, making it hard for her to get a good breath. Rachel could feel that the girl’s body was desperate for air, sustenance, warmth, safety, touch. Her very soul was desperate for love.
Rachel moved from Zara’s body into her mind and felt a tremendous darkness swirling wildly within Zara’s subconscious. A seed had been planted. Rachel could see the origin. A vampire’s magic. Now, the seed was attempting to grow, to overtake Zara’s healthy memories and twist them to darkness. Rachel pushed a little further and came up against a shield, like a glass wall. On the other side sat a woman on a floor of a stone with her eyes closed. A tall man stood next to her, looking down at her with confusion and … something else. Rachel watched him closely for a moment and then realized what she was seeing—lust. This man coveted the woman on the floor in many ways.
“She is mine. You cannot have her,” the man said as he turned to look straight at Rachel. He smiled and his fangs flashed.
“You are wrong on both counts. She is not yours, and I can have her because she belongs to our pack. You are nothing but a bad memory that shall be excised,” Rachel said, her voice still calm. Inside, however, the healer was beginning to worry.
Zara grew pale on the floor. Something was very wrong.
The man began to laugh. “You think you know so much, healer? Yes, I know what you are. And your power is no match for mine. Zara’s soul has been marked.”
Rachel eyes widened, and she had to steady herself from pulling out of the female’s mind.
“Ahh, I see you know what that means. You must be old, healer, to know of such magic.”
“That’s witch magic,” Rachel whispered.
The vampire nodded. “Very good. Turns out witches have the same weakness as any who desire power—greed. It didn’t take much to get what I wanted. Witch magic is fueled by blood and, obviously, I am good at getting blood. Turns out if a person has even a smidgeon of supernatural blood in them, they can be soul bound to another supernatural.”
“Why her?” Rachel asked, shifting her attention back to Zara’s sitting form.
He shrugged. “She has the blood of Canis lupus in her, which means she had the potential to live a long life. She was beautiful and strong. And she tasted divine.”
Rachel kept her light steady, not wanting him to sense her disgust. She now understood why Zara’s soul was so filled with darkness. The healer needed to keep the vampire talking. Maybe he’d reveal his plan for Zara’s soul. His words hit her like a ton of bricks. “Why are you talking in the past tense? Zara is still of Canis lupus blood. She is still beautiful and strong.” Rachel didn’t add that Zara probably still tasted divine. That was just … ewww.
“Not for much longer.” The vampire chuckled as he looked back down at Zara. “She doesn’t even realize why she wants to die so badly. She thinks she wants to escape her existence. But she really wants to die because her soul is searching for its mate—me.”
“But you’re dead,” Rachel said.
“I am,” he agreed. “But, as I said, she is soul bound to me.”
Rachel reached deep into the recesses of her own mind, searching for any information she knew about the witches’ power of soul binding. “So, by binding her soul to yours, you had to leave a part of your own soul in her when you died?”
His grin widened, and he tilted his head as he looked at her like a proud parent. “And here I always thought healers were mousy idiots who knew nothing other than a little herbal healing.”
“What do you want from her?” Rachel asked.
His grin fell. “You’re treading carefully on the edge of being considered a mousy idiot again.”
Rachel shrugged. “Humor me.”
He sighed, letting out the air in a loud whoosh as his shoulders exaggeratedly rose and fell with the breath. “Fine. It’s not like I have anything else to do at the moment. Since I am no longer amongst the living, the only way for our souls to be together is if she dies as well.”
Rachel watched him carefully. There was a gleam in his eyes that told her he wasn’t being completely forthright. Not that she should expect anything different from a vamp, or even the soul of a dead one. “What’s the rest of it? She doesn’t just have to die, does she?”
“Witches might be greedy, but they also like messing with those who want to know their magic. You have to be careful when buying the spells because they are tricky. Once it’s cast, nothing can be changed. I didn’t even know there was a contingency to the spell until I was killed.
“The witch hadn’t told me that in the spell was a clause that if one of the souls passed on without the bound one, the only way for them to be together was for the living person to die, of their own free will. In other words, they couldn’t be killed by someone or by an accident of some sort. If either of those things happened, then the binding would be broken.”
Rachel felt as if the air had been sucked from her lungs. Zara’s death would be worse than a death sentence for Wadim. They weren’t bonded. If she died, he would be left behind without her. No doubt, that would send him over the edge.
Deciding she’d gotten enough information from the vampire, Rachel turned her attention back to Zara’s unconscious mind. Rachel gave herself her human form so she could be seen by Zara as a person and not just a ball of light. She stared at the girl sitting on the stone floor. Rachel put her hand against the clear wall standing between her and Zara. Rachel thought of all the things that brought joy and light into the world. She remembered the times in her life that had filled her with love and hope. Rachel pushed those emotions into her magic, as she pushed her magic against the wall. She could feel the force of the vampire’s soul attempting to push back, but Rachel was alive. Her will was stronger than his dead one.
Rachel lifted her other hand and placed it on the wall as well. She poured light into her hands in an attempt to get past the barrier so Zara would be able to feel her and hear her. “Come on, Zara, let me in,” Rachel said under her breath as she continued to pour her magic into her hands and against the barrier. Rachel pictured each new child their pack had been blessed with. She remembered the first time her eyes met Gavril’s and the power that one look had given her. She thought about the love she saw between Vasile and Alina and the sacrifices they’d made for those they loved so dearly and for those who would never know it.
Rachel felt the barrier shudder and heard a popping sound. She opened her eyes and saw a long crack running diagonally across the barrier. But that was all. She could feel Gavril pushing his own strength into her, but she didn’t know if it was going to be enough.
“I’ve got your back.”
Rachel’s head whipped to the side to find the owner of the soft voice. Sally. The soft-spoken healer smiled at her as she placed her own hands in the same position on the barrier. Hope swelled inside of Rachel.
“Anything I need to know?” Sally asked her.
Rachel nodded. “Her soul has been marked by the vampire who held her captive. His soul is trying to take hers. Zara is lost in her mind and thinks this is all real. She doesn’t realize she isn’t a captive any longer. We need to get this barrier down so we can reach her.”
“Just when I think things can’t get more convoluted,” Sally said, shaking her head. “How do we bring this down?”
“The opposite of darkness is light. This barrier is a result of the lies with which the vamp filled her mind. It is the physical manifestation of the darkness the soul bond has created in her.”
“So, we use our light to bring the wall down?” Sally asked.
“Exactly. And how do you create more light?” Rachel asked.
“By exposing the darkness,” Sally said with a determined gleam in her eyes. Her lips pressed tightly together as she looked at the barrier. “Alright, let’s shine some light on the situation. And yes, I totally meant that as a pun. Jen’s wearing off on me, causing me to say stupid stuff when I’m stressed.”
Rachel grinned. “If your stupid stuff makes others smile, it can be forgiven.”
They both turned their attention back to Zara and the wall between them. Rachel closed her eyes again and whispered, “Great Luna, help us. Help us save Zara.” Rachel once again focused on shoving her light into the barrier.
“The lies create darkness. Expose the lies with truth.” The Great Luna’s voice filled Rachel’s mind. “Speak truth into her soul.”
Rachel began speaking, letting the Great Luna’s words and wisdom guide her. “Zara, you think you are alone. You are not, dear sister. You are a part of our pack. You have become a dear friend to us, and we care for you and your well-being. You think you have no other options, that death is the only way out of the hell in which you lived. Hear me, Zara. Hear me and feel the truth in my words. You are loved. You have a mate who adores you and is terrified of losing you. This isn’t your end, child. It is only the beginning. Don’t give up. Don’t stop fighting. You don’t have to do it alone.” There was another popping sound, and Rachel’s eyes opened once again. Another crack had formed in the barrier.
She turned her head to look at Sally and was not surprised to see the young healer lit up like a firecracker. Rachel had always recognized the power in the girl. Suddenly, Sally’s eyes opened, and instead of seeing the brown orbs that Rachel was accustomed to, the other healer’s eyes were filled with a white light. Then Sally began to speak, and Rachel felt chills roll down her sk
in. Maybe Rachel hadn’t had a clue how powerful Sally was.
Sally had heard the Great Luna’s voice. She was sure Rachel had heard it too. There had been another crack in the barrier, but it still wasn’t enough. They had to give more.
“Zara!” Sally boomed, her voice sounding as though she’d shouted into a cave, reverberating off the walls. “Listen up! If you die, I swear to you I will come to the afterlife and drag your butt back just to smack some sense into you. Don’t let him win! He took so much from you, I know. Believe me, I know what it’s like to have precious things taken from you against your will. I understand what it’s like to feel like death is the only option. I actually chose that option once upon a time, because I thought it was the only way to save those I love. But for you, there is another option. You fight. Fight against the memories that are threatening to steal your sound mind and turn you into a blubbering weirdo, rocking in a corner. You fight against the lies that the wicked man said to you and hear the truth instead.
“The truth is that you are alive and well. You aren’t in this hell any longer. You made it out. Do you hear me? You made it out! You have a mate who is the cutest nerd in all the nerddoms of the world, and he is completely taken with you. You have three new girlfriends who think you’re the coolest thing since ice makers were invented. The truth is that you are loved so very much. You are loved, and we would miss you terribly if you left us. So, fight. Do you hear me?” Sally lifted her hands from the barrier and then slammed them back against it as she roared, “FIGHT!”
There was a heartbeat of silence and then the wall shattered and began to fall. It was almost beautiful as it fell in slow motion, Sally and Rachel’s lit-up hands still glowing behind it, causing the shards to appear iridescent.
