by N P Hector
Joan dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand, “not in the way you’re thinking. No, it wasn’t like that.”
Selene definitely wasn’t going to let this go now. Someone had broken Joan’s heart and she wanted to know why. “Then what happened?”
Joan captured Selene’s rook with a flick of the wrist. “I was training the new team in Bulgaria. It was a few years after I left France. I had been experimenting with my powers on the farm when a man followed me home from the market and discovered that his suspicions were true—I was part of the Order. They also knew of my battle history and they were intrigued. Within a year or two I was the Order’s head trainer.”
Selene hummed. For Joan to reach a position like that in such a short period of time was testimony to her friend’s strength. She longed to be that powerful, that sure of herself. Joan continued, “so there I am, whipping a bunch of young kids into shape in the mud. Kids who think they want to target soul stealers-- the killers of innocent soulmates. They swagger into camp thinking that they’d show the new head trainer just how special they are, how ready for battle.” Joan laughed at the memory, “boy, did I wipe the floor with them.” Seeing the shock on Selene’s face she felt obligated to explain, “not just for fun! Well, it was fun…but that wasn’t why I did that. After training with me my fighters lived. I made sure that I sent men to the battlefield, not boys.”
“There weren’t any women?”
“This was before the Order really got on board with that…I was an anomaly. But, I will say that they grasped onto equality far faster than humanity. Now at least 60% of recruits are female.”
Joan sighed at the memory, “anyways, there I am in the muddy training camp, literally covered head to toe in muck. It’s raining and freezing cold and half of the kids there are seriously questioning why they wanted to do this in the first place. And suddenly this blonde guy steps forward. And he’s just seen me thoroughly demonstrate how to kick ass, but he’s so confident.” She smiled fondly at the memory, and her whole face lifted. “Oh, he was so full of spunk. So, he’s standing there, confident as ever, and then I look at him. And that was it.”
Selene was skeptical. “That was it?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know. I saw your reaction to Romulus. Anyways, he gives me a run for my money in grappling. And we meet after.” She sighed deeply, “he was raised in the order and knew about protecting innocent soul mates, so he already knew what we were. But then…”
Selene placed her hand over Joan’s. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too painful.”
“No, I’m no stranger to pain.” She continued, “we bonded. But then he asked me not to tell anyone. He said that he was happy to meet me, but that we weren’t going to work out. You’ve got to remember, this was a time when women were meek, small, and delicate. And here I was, this tall brunette trainer. Who wrestled with men in mud –and enjoyed it. I had been waiting two hundred years for him. And here he was, and he didn’t want me. At least not in public.”
Selene was absolutely furious on behalf of her friend. “What an absolute ass!”
Selene hugged her friend as Joan blinked away tears. “God, it’s still so humiliating to talk about. Here he was, the man who was formed just for me from stardust. Stardust! We were meant to be. And he didn’t want me. He didn’t find me attractive. I’d always been so confident, so happy with who I was. But here was this guy who was supposed to love me for me, and he wasn’t attracted to me. And it made me start questioning whether he was right. I started to hate myself.”
Selene began shaking in anger. “You’re gorgeous! You’re smart, you’re funny, and you’re the second hand here! What a shallow ass. I can’t believe that someone could be so…so… awful!”
Joan nodded “I know. But he wanted a short, dark haired, ebony skinned girl. And I’m this tall brunette with stretch marks because I grew too quickly while I was human.” She swiped quickly at her eyes, “I had to grow quickly! I was fighting a war. I was just happy to have made it out in one piece. I was just thankful to be alive. But he looked at me like I was weak.”
Selene felt like punching something. More specifically, the someone who had made this amazing woman feel this way. It felt impossibly unfair that her fate would treat her that way, and Joan couldn’t just pick another soulmate.
She was new to all of this but she already knew that it wasn’t how things worked. “So, what did you do?”
“Well, I did what any sane woman would not do. I followed him here. After all of this, I still love him. He’s my other half. And when we die, he’ll still be my other half when we return to star dust. That’s a truth that I must live with for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t mean that I have to associate with him, or that I have to lower myself and request that he heal me. So, I honor the most basic part of our fated connection by keeping close to him, while staying as far away as possible until we die together.”
“Die? Together?”
“When you bond, as I did with him, as true soul mates, your souls connect so they are as near whole as possible. So, if one dies, so does the other. If you don’t bond, you won’t follow each other into the next life.”
Selene was beginning to understand her friend’s dilemma. “So, you love him, but you can’t forgive him?”
Joan nodded and moved her piece. “That kind of betrayal. The shallowness of it all. The humiliation. It brands you in a way you can never forget.”
Selene looked between Joan and the piece her friend had taken from the board, “you took my king.” How had Joan managed to take the game while explaining such a heart wrenching story? She couldn’t help but be awed.
Joan wiped at an errant tear and barked with laughter at the timing of the coup and the conversation. “It happens more often than you think.”
Selene had thought that her friend was an incredibly powerful woman before this conversation. Now, after this conversation, she saw her friend in an entirely different light. Despite everything she had been through, despite the pain, she had come back stronger than before. She pulled Joan into a hug. The two were interrupted when there was a knock at the door.
Chapter Eight
'Our souls already know each other, don’t they?’ he whispered. ‘It’s our bodies that are new'.
-Karen Ross
Romulus paced the length of private dining room. It was filled with a large warm hearth and a large, maple table with many settings.
At one point in time it would have housed the families and children of the Order’s leaders. Children were a gift to his kind. Women with their fae blood could only conceive every few years. A man who had successfully located his soulmate and had children was considered to be very fortunate indeed.
He tried to picture the table filled with smiling children and Selene. This private dining space had never been used while he was leader.
It was daunting now to be standing in this great room all alone.
Romulus had led his kind into several battles against the Order’s enemies. He had raced into the heart of enemy lines and easily tortured those who would hunt souls. But here he stood, pacing all because of a tiny little woman in his bedroom.
It’s just dinner.
But he knew that it wasn’t. He was born to the Order and knew that his soul mate would return. So, as was customary for his kind when they anticipated their fated, he had spurned any romantic advances from human and fae. This had left him with very little dinner date experience.
He had certainly watched his unmated friends court human and Fae. He had seen members of his team return from a night of partying with humans, their lids half cast with a sloppy grin on their faces.
He’d seen them dance at clubs, drawing beautiful women to themselves like moths to a flame. And while he’d received similar attention, he couldn’t stomach the idea of a woman who wasn’t Sorcha.
It wasn’t that he didn’t find them pretty. Many would have looked regal at his court. It’s just that he couldn’t
forget the love Sorcha had given him. Nothing else could compare.
But now that Sorcha returned she could not remember him. He had Roger do some digging and found that the woman had been born in a hospital in Connecticut and adopted by a loving couple desperate for children. The couple was human and had no idea of what the baby they adopted was destined for. No one had prepared Selene for life within the Order.
It was frustrating to wait after all this time. To not have her recognize him as instantly as he had remembered her. He had been raised in the Order and identified early on as a potential reincarnation of Adrian. At a young age, his unparalleled expertise and growing repertoire of weapon mastery had stood out at the training center.
Luckily, Dougall and others had lived through the span of his death and eventual rebirth and had recognized the traits of their once leader. Plucked from obscurity, they had raised him within the Order and with the pools. From a young age he had known of his intended, Sorcha. And he treasured the thought that someone out there was specially designed for him, just as he was designed for her.
As a young man, he used to stare at the stars while enduring the hell that was training camp with the Order. He’d lay there with mud covering his body and hair, the scent of pine filling the air and rocks and uneven ground poking at his back.
He’d stare at the stars and imagine which death had birthed he and Sorcha. It was well known in the human and fae world that the death of a star could take centuries to be visible to Earth. So, he’d lay there, and he’d think of her and the star dust that had formed their souls.
And at court, when he stood as a sentry against the wall at balls, meetings, and trials, he continued to avoid female attention. The rumor of his fated had spread throughout the Order. But that didn’t stop unmated women from trying to convince him that they were Sorcha, now restored to him. It was so bad that it almost resembled the search for the living Grand Duchess Anastasia. Each woman clung to his arms and waxed poetic about their souls melding.
But he knew that they were all poor imitations. He didn’t need the absence of a glowing mark to tell him that the women were not his fated. Instead, he watched the crowds like a hawk, scouting for a woman with regal bearing and an unquenchable fire. None had resembled his Sorcha. None until a determined hostage negotiator tumbled into the council rooms.
So now she was here. And he didn’t need the glowing mark to convince him that Sorcha was back. But it seemed that after all these decades she was the one who needed to be persuaded.
Couldn’t his word be enough?
He had to admit, he was irked that she hadn’t swooned into his arms. He had been told that he was handsome enough with his broad shoulders and long silver hair. But then again, the lass was raised as human and was blind to their ways.
But she must feel the draw, too he reasoned. Though she could try to deny it, soulmates felt an unavoidable pull. As they were born from the same star dust and split in two, a soul felt an almost magnetic draw to their fated. That was fate’s way of easing the reunion of the soul. God knows, she had almost felled him at the knees, her draw was that potent.
The manor’s footman appeared at his door with a selection of clothes from his closet. He wasn’t about to march into Sorcha’s domain searching for a suit.
“Master Romulus, I have a freshly pressed jacket and dress pants.”
“Did you invite her to dinner?”
The man shifted his weight from one foot to another, his wrinkled face tightening in unease. “I did.”
“And?”
The older man walked over to the bed and laid the suit out. “She was…reticent. But she’s agreed.”
“She doesn’t have any other clothes.”
Frederik looked appalled that he would remind him of that fact, “I had an evening gown sent up to her room after lunch. She balked a bit, but from what I understand it fit.”
Romulus marched over to the ensemble and ground out, “damn monkey suit. I’d be much more comfortable in jeans. This feels just like court.”
Frederik smoothed an already pressed sleeve and picked at imaginary lint. “If I may be so bold, why not meet in a more relaxed setting?”
He had already considered that as an option, but he would not dishonor Sorcha by dining with her in jeans. “And insult the pride of her bloodline? She deserves a candlelit dinner.”
“Perhaps the reborn Sorcha is...different.”
Romulus raised a brow and shrugged into the tight-fitting suit. The fabric stretched over the width of his shoulders and his biceps. He immediately felt caged. “Is there something you know that I don’t, Frederik?” The man looked incredibly uncomfortable. He turned a shade of red and whispered something indiscernible to even Romulus’s ears. He leaned forward. “Good god man, speak up.”
“She went down into the kitchens to make lunch”, he blurted out.
A great booming laugh came from Romulus as he tried to imagine the tiny slip of a woman invading Frederik’s domain. Frederik, the master of propriety, was likely horrified at the idea of an esteemed guest making their own meal. He couldn’t resist teasing the mortified man. “Did she try to do the dishes, too?”
“You have a cruel sense of humor, Sir.” The poor man. He had likely guessed right. Trying to assuage the footman’s embarrassment, he spread his arms and asked, “well, do I look like a soulmate?”
Frederik inspected the cuff links at the edge of Romulus’s sleeves. Without making eye contact, out of fear of being too sentimental, the man who had practically been a father as Romulus grew said stiffly, “she will find you irresistible. I’m proud you found her.”
He clapped a hand on the footman’s shoulder and then straightened his jacket. “Let’s hope she comes to dinner.”
Selene bit her nails (a terrible habit) as she stood staring at the dress that the kind elderly man from this afternoon had delivered to her room.
The man took his work very seriously and had nearly expired on the spot when she tried to make something for lunch after playing chess with Joan. They had practically played tug of war with a skillet before she relented out of fear for causing him an aneurysm.
By the end of it all the veneer of formality that he wore so stiffly had disappeared, and they both stood laughing in the kitchen at the absurdity of the situation. He had tried to herd her to the formal dining room, but she insisted that he keep her company at the kitchen island. So, she peppered him with questions about the estate while he cooked. When he was done she complimented his cooking and he had puffed up with pride. She didn’t want to disappoint him again.
Frederik had urged her to be in the formal dining room by 7pm for aperitifs. She had slipped into the dress with gauzy blue material and tied up her hair but shunned the makeup that had also been delivered. She didn’t want to encourage the strange man’s affection, no matter how attractive he was. She’d go down to dinner, eat, negotiate her release, and then leave in the morning. She missed her work bag and her cell phone.
But now that it was 7:03pm she found that she couldn’t move. Her hands bunched in the full skirt of her dress, and she pulled at the gentle slope of the scooped neckline. She had never worn anything so decadent before.
Her mother, an insistent homemaker, had sewn all her graduation and dance dresses. She had the sinking feeling that this dress, which sparkled with the glitter of tiny hand sewn stars, was worth a month’s rent.
She wanted to spurn it and the dinner invitation. But she loved the dress. The deep blue of the fabric was so rich against the embroidery. And although she was wary of the man, she couldn’t seem to deny that there was some sort of raw attraction between them and that some part of her wanted to look good at dinner tonight. She hated to admit it, but she was terrified by the attraction.
I hardly know the man. I must have hit my head harder than expected if I’m suddenly pro- Stockholm Syndrome.
As a hostage negotiator she had seen many cases of Stockholm Syndrome. But most occurred after a period of time
. She hadn’t yet been here a week. Stiffening her shoulders and finding her resolve, she looked at the clock.
7:05. Best go down.
She opened her door and went to march down the hall when she noticed Frederik standing in the alcove opposite to her door. Horrified that she might have kept him waiting, she asked, “oh my gosh, have you been waiting for me?”
The man extended the crook of his arm and she clasped it lightly. “I wanted to escort you to the dining room so you wouldn’t get lost.”
She shook her head and tapped his arm in thanks. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. You’re a gentleman for escorting me.”
He began to lead them down a maze of corridors and she tried desperately to remember the series of twists and turns so she could make it back on her own. When her heels made contact with the grand marble staircase she remembered where they were.
She peeked at Frederik and asked quietly. “Is he….um...is he alone in there?”
“Master Romulus?”
“Yes?”
The man nodded and shot her a conspirator smile. “He’s been pacing in there for the last twenty minutes, dear. I can assure you that he’s just as nervous as you are.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Nervous? What does he have to be nervous about? I’m the one being held hostage here.”
Frederik looked alarmed at the notion that he was imprisoning her. When they reached the door, he let go of her arm and faced her. “My dear, if I may be so bold. No one will force you to do anything here. You two are fated--”
She went to interrupt but he lifted a patient finger. He continued, “you two are fated but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be work. The soulmate bond brings you together, but you two must put in the work to sustain it. You can sabotage this bond right here, right now.”
She blushed and admitted to herself that his description had been accurate. She had planned to sabotage any romantic attempts.
What Romulus had proposed had terrified her. She didn’t like the idea of having the rest of her life planned out entirely. Especially when she wasn’t the one planning it.
