Chapter 15 Collision #4
"Why did you call me here, Lucien?" Auren asked. The Soul Searcher had been resting in his home, nursing a cup of tea after a long night of reaping.
It had been a shock to Auren to receive a message from Lucien. He still wasn’t used to technology, but the doctor had insisted, gifting him a basic flip phone so they could communicate.
And Lucien’s message had been a simple, Get to Vesperin’s dorm. Make sure you are not seen.
Like that was difficult for Auren. He slipped through the shadows with ease. He was not seen unless he willed it.
The rushing trickle of the water in the sink worked to drown out their voices. Auren watched it pool in the porcelain before spiraling down into the drain. His eyes flicked up to the mirror above the sink, taking in the sleep-rumpled blonde hair peeking from beneath his hood.
"You need to be here," said Lucien. His eyes cut to the closed bathroom door, then back to him. "We don’t have much time—I don’t have much time to tell you. But…"
Auren’s grip on his scythe loosened with every word Lucien said, rushed and whispered.
Vesperin had two other Soulbonds.
A prince… and a criminal.
And they were both just outside that door.
"Celestials," Auren cursed, running a hand through his hair and dislodging his hood in the process. "Does she know about you?"
"No," Lucien said adamantly, "and I do not want her to. Please, Auren, do not tell her about me or Kiton. She’s had to deal with so much." His brows rose with a pained expression. "I don’t want to add to her anguish. If Vesperin finds out I’ve kept this from her for all these years, she may never forgive me. I could live with that, but I couldn’t live with her being put in harm’s way of the Blackfalls. "
Lucien scrubbed a hand over his eyes, and Auren reached out, white gloves catching the fluorescent bulbs above the sink as he placed a hand on Lucien’s shoulder. "You’ve done well, and you have done enough, Lucien. You cannot keep her from everything, and neither can I."
It hurt Auren’s very Soul to know with whom his Soulbond had been during this night. When Lucien had detailed the blood around her mouth and the way her legs had given out when she burst inside…
"I will not breathe a word of it to her," Auren vowed. "However, I will not lie to her unless it is to keep her safe. Do not force me to keep this from her forever. She must know."
Lucien nodded. "I’ll tell her, but not with those two bastards anywhere near her."
Auren understood the sentiment.
It was time to meet the other pieces of his Soulbond’s Soul, and finally tell her just what she meant to him.
Rin sat stiffly on the bed; though, Cyrus kept hovering, trying to get her to lie back after he’d snuck off to the kitchen for some juice for her.
She twirled the glass straw inside the cup, the clinking of it as it hit the side the only sound in her bedroom.
Well, besides the shuffling of Valkar’s boots over her carpet. Rhyden, she reminded herself. Rhyden Valkar—
Who was in her bedroom, touching the petals of the forget-me-nots on her dresser and kicking up the edge of a fluffy rug at the foot of her bed every time he paced across it.
After Rhyden had shown up, Lucien had turned utterly still. There was no denying that Lucien knew who the male was. His face was plastered all over the news. The infamous Rhyden Valkar, leader of Noctis.
After a terse thirty minutes—with Lucien going toe-to-toe with Rhyden, vines curling up around his boots as Rhyden called on his flames to warm the air around them—she’d pleaded with Rhyden not to hurt Lucien.
Something in the vampire’s red eyes had grown cold at her begging words, and he’d taken care not to touch Lucien even once since.
A few minutes ago, Lucien had sat silently between her and Rhyden, Cyrus deemed a non-threat in the face of the vampire. He’d held her hand, fingers cold, muttered, I need a moment, then disappeared to the bathroom.
Leaving Rin alone with Cyrus and Rhyden.
"You need to drink some more, Ves," Cyrus urged from her side.
She looked away from the purple swirling juice to the incubus at her side. "Right." She took a sip, and the sugary tartness did nothing to dispel her worry. She heard the water running faintly in the sink.
Her head still pounded, but she was getting better. Being near Cyrus and Lucien had calmed her, chased away the strange ache in her breastbone. When she’d opened the door to let in Rhyden, perhaps another part of her had calmed, too. That, Rin would take to her grave.
"You know, you’re going to burn scorch marks into her pretty rugs with all your pacing," Cyrus commented.
Rhyden stalled, fangs flashing. "Better the rug than the pompous doctor."
"Don’t speak about Lucien that way," Rin said, strength lining her words.
Rhyden met her eyes. She waited for a quip, but it never came. The vampire merely hummed and continued pacing.
Just when Rin thought she’d go insane, trapped with these two males, their dominance pressing her deeper into the mattress, the water turned off, and the door opened.
"Vesperin," said Lucien. When she looked at him, she saw anxiety lining his face, leaving a line between his brows. "Trust me, my V girl."
She opened her mouth, ready to ask what he meant, but Lucien stepped aside, and she was hit with the familiar sight that had haunted her since that night in Nova Zone 21.
The gleaming blade of a scythe, hooked over his back. Blue eyes, messy blonde hair. And a tiny Star etched under his left eye.
The Soul Searcher.
Rin stood on shaky legs, Cyrus taking the glass of juice from her.
"It’s you," she breathed, feeling Rhyden and Cyrus’s eyes on her.
"Hunter," the Soul Searcher addressed. And god, the sound of his voice. She’d nearly forgotten it. How could she ever have forgotten his voice or the quiet power in his presence?
Rin shook her head in disbelief, Cyrus unfurling to stand at her side.
Her eyes jumped from the Soul Searcher to Lucien, then back. "Why are you here?" She wanted to bring up the note he’d left for her, but held her tongue—just barely.
The Soul Searcher dipped his chin, then crossed an arm over his chest, his white gloves and white cloak like a beacon in her dim bedroom, with its closed curtains and yellow-tinted lamplight.
His gloves groaned as he made a fist and tapped over his chest, head still bowed.
His hair fell into his eyes, and it looked so fluffy, she wondered how it’d feel under her fingertips.
With half-lidded eyes, the Soul Searcher stared at Rin. "My name is Auren Neris, and I have known you for three lifetimes, Vesperin Vox. I have loved you for each one, and in this one, I will love you, also," he vowed, unmoving. "Our Souls are forged in the same fabric of fate."
Rin exhaled a shuddering gasp, knowing the truth in his words.
She had known that day, when she had first seen him.
She just hadn’t been able to place the feeling that had taken hold of her when she had stared up at him and she’d taunted him.
Even now, the memory of his words whispered over her skin, and she stepped away from Cyrus, drawn to this male, this immortal being who spoke of things like love.
With Cyrus, it had been a neon collision. With Rhyden, it had been violent and soaked in blood. With Auren, it was fated.
When Rin stood right before him, her heart thudded in her chest.
His throat bobbed with an audible swallow as his eyes traced over her. "You still have Stars in your eyes," he said lowly.
Rin raised a hand, tracing the air before his face with a trembling finger, aware of their audience as she followed the outline of the Star under his eye. "So do you."
"You do not seem perplexed, Hunter. Why?" His breath rustled her hair.
"Maybe because I already knew," she whispered, lowering her hand. "I think that day in the Nova Zone, part of me felt like you were familiar, I just didn’t know then because I didn’t realize I could have this—have a Soulbond."
"And now you have us, Hunter," Auren said. His blue eyes gleamed as he stared at Cyrus, then Rhyden, resting upon Lucien.
A twinge of pain twisted in her gut. She was selfish, greedy. She had three Soulbonds. One professing love, one unpredictable but protective, and the last thirsting for revenge—but the two she longed for would always remain beyond her reach.
Thoughts for her alone. Thoughts she could never voice.
Rin shivered as the lampshade made the shadows in the room seem larger.
"Vesperin, go lie back down." Lucien’s voice turned clinical, undercut with concern.
"I’m… fine," she managed, still unable to wrap her head around the fact that her three Soulbonds were immortal.
What cruel, sick joke was this?
Auren leaned against the wall, his scythe a comforting weight on his back as Lucien fussed over Vesperin.
It was everything he had wanted it to be and somehow more. She knew, and she had not turned him away or been angered by his lies.
Now, Auren waited for doom. It was wired into him at this point. Their prior three lives had all ended in tragedy, especially the last one, when he had held her so dearly on that trail as she took her last breaths. Her Soul had been beautiful, but Auren found that her heart was even more so.
On edge, he stood guard by the wall, eyeing the one known as Rhyden Valkar with clear suspicion.
The incubus Prince was not as threatening.
Auren did not keep up with intergalactic politics, but his purple eyes never left Vesperin, and he guarded her as fiercely as Auren wished to. For that, he had his respect.
The vampire, however, was yet to be seen.
"Auren?" Vesperin whispered, speaking slowly as if to taste his name on her tongue. He wanted to hear it again and again.
Why had he waited to reveal himself to her?
"Yes, Hunter," Auren replied softly, loving the way her eyes lit up every time he used her title. Hunter… She was one, for the first time, in all the lives he had known her.
Strong, yet soft. The perfect dichotomy.
Her hands curled into Lucien’s, who was quiet, loathing radiating from him in waves. How could the doctor not see how much Vesperin cared for him? She looked at him when he was not aware, eyes filled with worry, teeth digging into her lower lip.
"You said you knew me for three lives?" she questioned.
He smiled, but it was painfully melancholic. "I did." Time had blurred, but never did it take those memories from him. Sometimes, he wished it had.
"Will you tell me about it?"
His eyelids fell closed, but the sense of doom struck, and he opened them swiftly, ensuring she was here, before him, safe. "Perhaps I will one day, Hunter. For now, you should rest. You are unwell."
Auren would not lie, but he would not ignore the truth. She had been experimented on by the people who had taken her in. That never should have happened. If she had simply trusted Lucien enough to tell him she was back…
Vesperin shook her head, dislodging Cyrus’s hand where it was tangled in the ends of her white hair. She looked past him to the vampire. "I can’t. I have… something to do."
"You mean we have something to do," Rhyden Valkar said. His voice was like a hiss. How could someone as precious as Vesperin be tied to him?
"Yes," Rin amended, features tightening. "It’s why I went to Lunar City in the first place. Like I told you, it was just a coincidence I ran into Rhyden. The real reason I went there is still looming. I have to deal with this."
"Vesperin, absolutely not. I just got you back—I mean, you just met your Soulbonds, and you wish to leave?" Lucien implored.
"This is something we have to do. Lucien." Vesperin gathered Lucien’s hands in hers. "Please don’t ask me questions, because I don’t think I can answer you," she begged, and it was such a private moment that Auren felt the need to turn away.
He did not, consumed with the sight of her.
"Just trust me? Like I trusted you?" Her voice wavered.
Lucien shifted until he sat fully by her side, a knee notched on the mattress by her hip. "I trust you, my V girl, and I trust that there is something you are not telling me. What I do not trust is the vampire."
He was not subtle.
"I’ll keep her safe," Cyrus said quietly from Vesperin’s side. The incubus had been rather silent.
"You act like I’m going to dump her body into the goddamn Azure River or something," Rhyden drawled. They all stiffened. Auren reached for his scythe. "I had plenty of opportunity to do that when I had her as my prisoner in Lunar City. Did she tell you how we met?"
Lucien and Auren shared a look. Lucien shook his head imperceptibly. No, then.
"Leave it alone, Rhyden," Rin snapped. "We made a bargain—we deal with this, then you can do whatever you want. Leave, for all I care."
The vampire curled his lip at her words. What had happened between them to cause such derision?
Her acerbic words seemed too much for the vampire to stand.
"If we’re going to see this through, then you come with me, or the whole thing is off," Rhyden said carefully.
Lucien protested, and Auren watched, holding his tongue.
The vampire stilled Lucien with a raised hand, rings on his fingers glinting above his fingerless gloves.
"Save it, Lucien Quenlan. Trust me when I fucking tell you I could’ve done anything to her by now, and I haven’t.
She’s coming with me, and I’ll bring her back to you—safe—once we’ve finished what we agreed on. "
"Vesperin, you cannot possibly wish to go with him," Lucien said to her.
"I have to, and I hope I can tell you why one day." She steeled herself, and Auren felt pride for this version of her.
Cyrus stood from the bed, holding out a hand to her as he met Lucien’s eyes, then Auren’s. "I won’t leave her side. I’ve kept my doll safe in Lunar City." A strange wave of violent glee passed over his face before leaving just as quickly.
Auren was on the outskirts, watching quietly, entranced by the way they all interacted. She was his, but also theirs. Perhaps that was why he felt unmoored; in her other lives, she had been his, alone. Now, he must share.
He could share—but never with blind trust. He would not relinquish his hold on her so easily.
Auren pushed off the wall, his scythe brushing against his spine in constant reassurance. "I will go with you. That"—he reached for his scythe and cut the blade through the air in a whistling whoosh, the silver arcing—"is mandatory, Rhyden Valkar."
He could ask for her forgiveness later.