Chapter 13
Soul
Fate.
What the fuck was Fate doing here? I’d spent my entire existence being told that the bastard was nosy, that he liked to interfere and play games where he didn’t belong.
Death had spoken over and over again about all the things he’d do if he could get hold of him, all the ways he’d break him in the name of revenge…
And…
He just looked like a man. A beautiful, tall man whose hand was still holding Caiden’s wrist. The low growl that tore from my chest at the touch instantly cut off when his gaze snapped up to me.
Just that expression was enough to nearly lance me, enough to tear through my chest like I could feel his fingers wrapping around my lungs to squeeze. “Calm down, pup. I’m not hurting him.”
As though to prove it, he dropped Caiden’s wrist and held his hands up. His grin was mischievous, though. Fate looked between us with the most delighted expression, like he’d discovered a gift.
“It’s okay, Soul. I’m fine… I…” Caiden looked over his shoulder, and I could see that pain and longing still on his face.
I’d been ready to let him break every rule I’d ever known, the laws of the living and the dead, if he wanted to see his brother.
I would have risked the Reaper seeing me, though I knew Sephtis probably would have thought I was there to drag them both back to the Lake after all…
“That’s right, puppy. It wouldn’t have ended well for anyone.
” Fate spoke like he was reading my mind as the thoughts came to me, which…
from what I knew of him, he probably was.
“More than that, your brother is only just learning how to walk in a world without you.” He’d turned his attention back to Caiden.
“As much as you want to see him, if he realized there was a way to keep you, he’d probably try to fight Death all over again. ”
“But I’m here now. I could have…” Fate shook his head, and Caiden’s words trailed off before he’d even started.
“You know you can’t stay here forever. What’s dead is dead. Eventually he’d have to lose you all over again…” I wondered if I could kill Fate for the pained expression that crossed Caiden’s face.
“I…” My fingers threaded through his, and he took a shaking breath as he leaned against me. Finally, he nodded. “I know. I just…”
“You miss him. I understand. Don’t worry—a lifetime isn’t really that long.” Fate smirked, and it was like Caiden only realized then that this entire situation was odd.
“Uh… so… who are you exactly? It seems like you know each other…” He trailed off as he looked from Fate up to me.
“He’s nobody.” My answer came out a little more scathing than necessary, but I didn’t like the way he’d touched Caiden. I didn’t like the way he was standing in front of us with such a pleased expression on his face.
I knew the game that he and Death played—the dance they’d been in for longer than time had been a thing people dreamed of.
“Now, now. Don’t lie. It’s not very becoming, even of a dog.
I’m… Fate.” The charming smile he offered Caiden made my hackles rise again.
“But the real question is, what are you doing here, interfering with soulmates and…” His question trailed off as his gaze dropped between us.
The sudden burst of delight made his eyes flare nearly luminescent.
“Soulmates. Hm… Death really is a tricky little bastard, isn’t he? ”
It took me a second to realize what had caught his attention, but when Fate started to reach for the line that trailed between Caiden and me, I knew.
“Don’t touch it,” I snarled without thinking. I wasn’t sure why I was protective of the little purple thread, but I knew what kind of creature Fate was. Every part of me that connected to Caiden was something I wanted to protect.
“Touch what?” Caiden seemed confused, though his voice was a little muffled from where I’d yanked him to my side, putting myself bodily between him and the man in front of us.
“You can see it?” Fate’s eyes were wide, curious sparks of prismatic light that seemed to signal the beginning and the end—the world and everything in between.
“That’s… interesting. And look, even though it’s half broken, his soul patched all the fractures to make it whole so you could still be tied together. ”
I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. I knew what Fate dealt in—soulmates and cupids. But a soul hound wasn’t made to have a soulmate…. we were made to hunt and shred wayward souls, not…
“Soul?” Caiden’s arms around me tightened, and I only realized my shoulders were shaking when his fingers smoothed up my bicep to still the motion. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, little flower… I just… I…”
I was so confused.
Fate, it seemed, wasn’t. “Look at you. So full of love and emotion. No wonder you can see the thread.” He reached out and plucked the line, and the sensation seemed to reverberate through my entire chest. “You could have been a cupid if I’d found you first.”
“Don’t.” My eyes narrowed, and I tried to pull back. My arm tightened around Caiden’s waist to bring him with me, but Fate seemed determined to show us he was something you simply couldn’t escape.
“Now, now, pup. I need you to listen to me. Do you know how your kind was made?” He stretched his hand forward as he spoke, his fingers grabbing hold of the thread.
The deep purple flared, crackling with that red spark again.
“Once upon a time when I ruined all of Death’s fun, he made you.
I just didn’t realize he’d plucked you straight from a living body…
straight from a pure…” The corner of Fate’s mouth lifted in a smile as he looked me up and down. “Soul…”
“What are you doing?” It was Caiden’s question that interrupted Fate’s little speech, Caiden who looked wide-eyed and confused as he glanced between us. With Fate’s hand on that line, I wondered if he could finally see it too.
“Rectifying a mistake I didn’t know I’d made.
It doesn’t happen often… then again, I didn’t expect Death to steal away potential soulmates to make them his minions.
Whatever human he tore you from to make you never really died, did it?
That means this little red thread—” He jerked at the line between us again, and another pop of crimson stole my breath, made my heart thunder.
“It was always searching, always half connected to the person you truly belonged to. Don’t worry…
” He grinned and tugged one more time, and the violet thread blossomed to a pure, bright red. “I moonlight as a cupid, you know.”
“Fuck,” Caiden gasped, his body swaying so his full weight was suddenly against me.
The blossom of warmth that spilled through my skin everywhere we touched felt magnified.
It was more than it had been, more than I’d ever thought I could feel.
That red line between us blazed like an inferno and lit me up from the inside out, as though I was touching sunshine. “What just happened?”
Fate was the one who answered, his voice smug. “Fate happened. You’re welcome… I’m always happy to undo Death’s little mishaps.”
Those words seemed to catch Caiden’s attention, pulling him away from the sudden burst of heat, though I was still drowning in the fascination I felt seeing that red line.
The knowledge of what it meant.
Soulmates.
Soulmates.
Caiden was my soulmate. He really was mine.
And apparently I was his, because instead of asking Fate to let him see his brother, instead of begging for his own safety, he asked for mine.
“Can’t you help us? He’s stuck like this.
” Gods, Caiden really was the most innocent soul that had ever existed.
The fact that he could look a creature like Fate in his ridiculous prismatic eyes and ask for help with so much heart, so much honesty…
There was no one else like him.
Apparently Fate noticed too. He cocked his head to the side, looking at Caiden with soft amusement. “You’re a cute one, aren’t you? I don’t think he was ever really stuck—his soul just wanted a reason to make sure he could stay with you.”
That was a lie. When I’d tried, it had hurt. When I’d tried to change to my proper shape before, it was…
To hurt Caiden.
To hunt him.
Fuck, what if he was right? What if my soul—my soul—had known all along that I needed to be in this form to get to where we were right now?
Fucking Fate.
“But what about Death?” Caiden’s voice was still sweet, earnest.
“What about him?” Fate, on the other hand, sounded curious.
I answered before Caiden could somehow indebt himself by asking favors from Fate. “He sent me to hunt him, Fate. I don’t think he’ll be satisfied until Caiden is back in the Lake.”
The impatience that crossed Fate’s face was playful as he reached out, tapping my temple.
I only just managed to hold back another snarl.
“Pay attention, pup. I already gave you all the answers you need. Though when you do speak with him again, tell your master to stop playing with my things.” He stretched his hand out, one slender finger prodding the center of my chest. “Or I’ll play with his too.
He stole one of my cupids… he should really take time to realize how soulmates work. ”
Before I had a chance to ask what he meant, there was a burst of bright light… and Fate was gone.
All that was left was the burning sensation spilling from my chest straight into Caiden, and the knowledge that the little line between us had been crimson all along.