“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 Only seconds before, she’d looked terrified, but that fear had faded and been replaced by a spark of determination.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 pushedher 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 Icanhave 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 shehadthe 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?”
