I smirked.
The walls were bare. But there was a large TV across the room and a leather couch in front of it. Atop the couch was a thick leather-bound book of sorts. I softly closed his door and went over, peering down at the ancient appearing book.
There were words etched into the rich brown cover. It looked old, like it had been opened and reopened a million times.
The Pair Bond Chronicles.
I delicately touched my fingers to the cover. The moment I did, the words on the cover lit up. I gasped, watching how some of the words were made of fire and the others were made of ice. The red flames and blue-tinged ice met where my fingers touched. They created a purple mist that shimmered and was hot to the touch.
Entranced, I didn’t move my hand when the mist fell atop it. I turned my hand over to find my palm glowing purple. My palm pulsed, as if it were waiting for something.
“It wants you to open it.”
I whirled around to find Maxell standing at his open bedroom door. He didn’t look mad that he’d caught me in his room. His eyes were back to normal. If anything, the mint color was even stronger than the brown at the moment. There were no signs that he’d hungered at all. He leaned against his open doorway with his hands in his pockets, watching my palm.
“Only those pair bonded can read The Pair Bond Chronicles,” he said quietly. He nodded me along. “Open it. It’s getting impatient.”
I looked down at my palm. It was pulsing faster. “Okay, okay, relax.” I reached for the book, picking it up with two hands. It was so heavy, I grunted, taking a seat on his couch. I set it on my lap and then I touched the front cover, pulling it open. The purple mist traveled down my fingers and became fire and ice again. They swirled around the first page, which had the same title handwritten on the worn, aged paper.
Words that weren’t visible to the naked eye materialized. Some lines were made of flames. The others were made of ice. But the last line was made of both.
In the war between fire and ice, there’s another fight. One not often mentioned, but one often needed.
Love and loss duel amongst the flames and the frost.
Neither can afford to lose, and yet they fight anyway.
Why do they risk everything?
They need each other. Even within the rage and fury, they exist most when they question the existence of the other.
Without ice, who would stop the fire from burning itself out?
Without fire, how would the ice ever know it could melt?
A Pair Bond is more than a bond. It is a forever promise. It is within itself more important than life or death. It transcends disappointment and expectations. It is love at its truest, selfless form.
If you’re reading this, it isn’t because you’re doomed.
You’re reading this because you’re destined.
Fate picked you both for each other for reasons only you will understand.
Bond, pair, for your lives are now one.
The moment I finished reading, the words disappeared. I felt such loss at their absence.
“Where did they go?” I tried to hold the book to the light, to see if I could see them still, but there were no ink stains or clues that they’d existed at all.
“They’re gone,” Maxell answered, much closer to me than he’d been before. “You only get to read them once. I guess whoever wrote it figured that’s all you’d need. And it’s different for every couple. No one else will ever get that message. Just you and me, Emmie.”
I turned to the second page. It was blank, but the third page immediately launched into text. I flipped the page, and the next, maddeningly trying to find how many pages there were to read. I wanted to read them all. Right up to the very last page, and there were a lot of them, all handwritten in long, elegant script. There were ink stains, and I imagined someone dipping a quill into ink and taking their time to write every single word down. There were no page numbers, just words.
I looked over my shoulder at him where he stood. “Have you read this?”
His eyes met mine. “More or less.”
Something about him reading it made those stupid butterflies swarm. I turned back to the book. “May I?”
“Are you sure you want to?”
“Why wouldn’t I want to?” I touched the cover again, feeling this intense pull to reopen the book.
“Because once you do, you can’t stop what will happen. But I can, Emmie. There’s still time for you to change your mind. But there won’t be if you read that. It says we’re not doomed, but whoever wrote that didn’t know us. I’m vampire. You’re human. We’ve already doomed ourselves.”
“There’s still time for me to change my mind about what?” I stood, clutching the book to my chest. I wanted to protect it. Keep it safe. I faced him.
“About me.”
I didn’t know what was going on inside me, but my heart seriously hated that he said that. I flinched, pressing the book harder against me. “You think so?”
He nodded brusquely, either forcing himself to be unfeeling or rushing past his own feelings. “Yes, I do.” He could hardly meet my eyes. But he still managed to do so. “We barely know each other. We’ve barely touched. We’ve barely… bonded. You’re only seventeen. You have your whole life ahead of you. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I will not take that from you. No matter how badly I want to. No matter if everything in that book turns out to be true, I will not take your heartbeat and replace it with silence just so I can have you forever. That’s what’s at stake. Don’t you understand that? We’re pair bonded, but for how long?”
My heart writhed. She knew things, amazingly terrifying things. That or the book was whispering secrets to her. It told my heart how it was too late. That we may not have touched, but we’d already bonded. That no matter what he said, life without the other would be unbearable. I couldn’t grasp how that could be. How could that possibly be when we’d just met? How could I argue against something that was simply a feeling?
How could I not?
“So why bother, right? Why get to know me at all when I’m going to grow old and you’re never going to? Why have anything close to what this book says if we can’t have it at all? Is that it?”
His eyes narrowed and there was such intensity in them. He didn’t have to admit that’s what he was thinking. I could already see it. “Every day we spend together makes it so much harder to do what we both know will have to be done some day.”
“Which is what?” I asked, steeling myself.
“Which is separating. One day we will, Emmie. You have to know that. One day you will have lived your life. I will have to part ways, but I won’t be okay then. I won’t be able to fathom a life without you in it if we do this for the next eighty years. I will have to live forever without you. But if we never have each other, it will still be hell, but it will be a hell we can both live with.”
The book got heavier in my arms. I struggled to carry it. When he reached for it, I yanked it away from him. “No. I’ve got it. You already gave up on it.” Maybe that’s why it felt like I was carrying both of our weight now.
He cringed, expression dire. “I haven’t given up.”
“You’re right, you haven’t even tried.” I moved to leave the room, the weight of the book growing so heavy my knees gave out and we both hit the floor. I tried to pick it up off the floor, but the stupid book wouldn’t budge. It was like it gained a hundred pounds. It had gained every ounce of pain Maxell refused to feel. I hated the irrational tears that filled my eyes. I brushed them away and tried with all my might to pick up that book. I wanted it. I needed it. I barely managed to lift it an inch with my fingers before it fell heavily back to the floor.
“Emmie,” Maxell said softly. He crouched down in front of me, his hands reaching over to gently cradle my face. He lifted my face, but I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him. His thumbs softly skimmed under my eyes, drying the tears that still fell. “I’m trying to do the right thing.
The fair thing. The thing you deserve. How could I ever take your life and still mourn my own? Your life matters to me. Your heat, your soul—I can’t throw those away for my own. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I read that book. I read it from the start to the end. I know how this ends as long as you’re human. It’s all I think about. All day long, all night long, I think about what to do. Do I stay away from you and keep you safe, or do I give in to the part of me who already can’t manage a day without seeing you?” He brought my face closer to his and I closed my eyes tighter; my hands shook atop the book. “The harder I fall for you, the more you lose. Can’t you see that?” His forehead pressed to mine.
A sob got stuck in my throat and I pulled away, falling onto my backside. I wiped hectically at my eyes and tried to pick up the book again. Didn’t he know anything about me? I had nothing to lose. My parents were gone. Forever. They left me. They tossed me aside. If I vanished tomorrow, no one would even know I was gone. The world mourned him. He thought I was losing so much, but really, what was there left for me?
In a moment of revolting clarity, I realized what life would be like for me if he stopped this bond. Nothing would change for me. And that was absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking. I cried harder, fighting him when he put his arms around me and lifted me up. But it was no use to fight him. He was so much stronger than me. He didn’t flinch or react when I fought. He let me and then he cradled my exhausted body to his chest.
“I want the book,” I sobbed, looking at it as he carried me over to his couch. He sat atop it, holding me in place against his chest. “I want it,” I whispered, reaching for it as he pressed his lips to my temple.
“I want you,” he whispered instead, making me sob harder. I couldn’t see the book through my tears. “But I want your life more.” He kissed down my temple to my ear, whispering his next words with the swiftness and expert precision of a knife plunged through my heart. “That’s why I should say goodbye.”
It was immediate, and though I understood it on the surface, I didn’t understand the feeling deep inside, where his words hurt me the most. An ache so wide and open stretched before me. It was instant, the change inside. My eyes saw things differently. I wanted differently. I reached unsuccessfully for the book. It remained where it was. Heavy and impossible for me to carry it on my own.
I needed help with this bond. It wasn’t one-sided.
“Don’t.” I rotated in his arms to find his eyes.
His beautiful mint chocolate eyes were dripping heartbreak. He pressed his forehead to mine. “Don’t what, Emmie?”
“Don’t say goodbye.”
He smiled at me. It was a sad smile, but no less beautiful. “I’m not.” Every bone in my body relaxed. “I can’t. It… doesn’t work.”
“You’ve tried to leave before?” A soft painful caress of betrayal tickled down my spine. I didn’t like that. Nor did I think that was fair.
“I’ve left a dozen times. I get as far as Vancouver, and life ceases to matter.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal that our fates were sealed to a bond we still didn’t fully understand.
Or maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe I was the only one who didn’t understand. I wiped at my eyes, my breathing calming down some. Still, my eyes sought the book. I couldn’t help myself. I wasn’t even sure if the book wasn’t the one who sought my attention. “Show me.”
He stilled. “Show you what?”
“Show me what it feels like when you’re not there. Since you’re so hellbent on saying goodbye, I’d better get used to it.” I struggled to get off his lap, but he held me still.
“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose to keep you safe and away from all of this?”
I suspected all of this meant the emotional torture he warred against himself. In which case, I guessed it did defeat his purpose. But as far as purposes went, mine were still out there. “Show me, Maxell. Please.”
“Okay. I’ll show you.” He stood up with me in his arms. “But you have to promise not to weep at my feet when I return.”
I rolled my eyes, landing easily on my feet. “Shut up.”
He took my hand, stepping over the book. I glanced back at it longingly. “We’ll come back for it,” he promised in my ear, his icy breath kissing my neck.
The house was silent as he led me down and outside, waiting to get on the road before he spoke again.
“Have you ever kissed a boy before, Emmie?”
His question was so off chart and unexpected, I choked on my own tongue. “I’m sorry, what?” I managed, after I had caught my breath.
He smiled at the road. “I’ll take that as a no.”
I glared at him. “Why would you ask me that?”
Again, he gave the road a smile. We were almost out of town. There was nothing on all sides of us but trees. “I’ve wondered, is all.”
I sat back in my seat, refusing to look at him. Instead, I studied the wet snow-ridden road. He didn’t seem to be bothered by the icy conditions. Heat snaked up my neck and crept into my face. “When do you wonder that? While you’re plotting ways to leave? How do you ever find the time?”
My dry tone didn’t deter him. Unfortunately. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
I don’t, I thought sadly, and judging by the way his smile fell and his eyes narrowed at the road, he was thinking the same thing. If I didn’t become a part of this bond instead of a spectator, Maxell would continue to think he had all the cards, that he was in this alone. He wasn’t.
“I’m afraid to ask what sorts of other things you’ve been thinking.”
His smile crept back up. “My mind is a labyrinth. I can think a million different things all at once and still somehow maintain them all.”
“Is that a vampire thing, or a you thing?”
“Vampire, I think. As a human, I was the worst multi-tasker.”
I watched him. One, because I had an awful feeling I was developing an addiction to his cheekbones, and two, because looking elsewhere felt felonious. “You said that some vampires can do certain things better than others. Reowna has visions. What does Masters do?”
“He’s incredibly intelligent.”
I believed that. So far, he was the brains of the Parkes family. “What about you? What’s your supernatural skill?”
“Not sure yet. Masters says it takes time. Most newly turned vampires are overcome with bloodlust. It can take years for them to even remember they once had feelings, let alone remember how to use them. In my case, I’ve never tasted human blood. I skipped the murderous rampage stage.”
“You weren’t supposed to,” I thought out loud. “You weren’t supposed to have a vampire like Masters who’d made synthetic blood, or a vampire like Reowna who knew you were coming, or a vampire like Jessamine who had a past just similar enough to save you. I was supposed to be out there that night, and you were supposed to attack me and drain me and then you’d have to bring me to Masters, and I’d be like you. A vampire.” My breath sped up and goosebumps spread out over my arms, and it had nothing to do with the cold; Maxell had the heater on. “I can’t tell if someone really wants me to stay human, or if someone really wants me to be a vampire.”
He was quiet for a long time. The bones in his face looked more pronounced and the steering wheel whined under the intense grip he had on it.
“What do you want?” he finally asked, pulling over on the edge of the road. He unleashed the full weight of his eyes on me.
“I want a chance.”
“A chance at what?”
“A chance at being your pair bond.” I held his eyes. Despite how intense they were. I refused to back down. Despite how nervous I felt. “A chance at us.”
“As a human?” he needed to know.
“As a human,” I said before I could say what I was really thinking. For now. I had this crazy feeling that someone really wanted me to be a vampire. Like him. But I was still human, human enough to admit I didn’t know enough, let alone anything at all, and I wasn’t so
far gone that I couldn’t admit that I was afraid of all of it. “I have a choice. You never did. I get it, Maxell. I do. But I also get that I don’t get anything at all. Neither do you. You’re operating on fear, and that means you’re going to miss so much.”
“Speaking of missing.” He stopped the car. “We’re near the Canadian border. I’m going to run until you can’t physically take it anymore. Here.” He leaned across me, his hair so close I couldn’t help taking a sniff. His eyes cut to mine. “Did you just smell my hair?”
That close, his mint-chocolate eyes looked decadent. “Yes,” I whispered, busted.
His eyes took on a glimmering edge. “I think it’s only fair that I smell yours then, don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I squeaked. His breath was this perfect temperature of cold. The kind that took your breath away but still somehow remained sweet. I caught the tail end of the spiciest cinnamon and the sweetest cherries, and when he turned, skimming his nose along the hair at the nape of my neck, I realized our mistake.
He was out of the car and standing in front of it within seconds. His driver side door still hung open, and his eyes were pitch-black with hunger.
“Oops,” I mouthed.
“Oops,” he mouthed back, no longer breathing. He pointed at me. But not at me, at something I should see.
I looked away from him for a second to find the glove box ajar. Inside was a cell phone. I took it out and looked back at him to find that he was looking at his own. The phone in my hand vibrated with a message.
The name that popped up made me roll my eyes.
MAXELL, THE LOVE OF YOUR HUMAN LIFE, ALTHOUGH YOU HAVEN’T REALIZED IT YET, WHICH BOTHERS ME AS MUCH AS IT SHOULDN’T, CONSIDERING ONCE YOU DO, WE’RE EVEN MORE SCREWED, HEATHESTONE: Call me when you need me to come back.
Me: why would I want to? And what is my name in your phone? Wait, never mind, don’t tell me.
Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1) Page 13
