Chapter 3
Chapter Three
KEIRA
The café is already humming with life when I arrive the next morning, the familiar scent of freshly ground coffee and warm pastries wrapping around me.
Sunlight streams through the large windows, catching the steam rising from cups and turning it into tiny swirling galaxies.
The space is cozy and eclectic, mismatched vintage furniture, walls covered in local art that changes monthly, plants hanging from macramé holders that Jeni always threatens to steal.
Our usual spot in the corner is miraculously empty, the worn velvet armchairs positioned perfectly to watch the world go by while remaining slightly hidden from casual observers.
I claim it before anyone else can, sinking into the familiar cushions and letting out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
I slept poorly last night. Dreams of drowning, of hands reaching for me through dark water, of my mother's scarred neck and sad eyes. I woke more than once with my own hand pressed against my mark, feeling its warmth pulse against my palm like a second heartbeat.
The five flowers are still gray. Still waiting. I've checked approximately seventeen times since yesterday.
"Birthday girl!" Jeni's voice cuts through the ambient noise of the café, and I look up to see her weaving between tables with the grace of someone who's spent years navigating crowded spaces.
She's dressed in her signature style, bold colors and interesting textures that somehow work together despite breaking every fashion rule I know.
Today it's a mustard yellow cardigan over a floral dress, her dark hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun that probably took thirty minutes to look that effortless.
She reaches me in seconds, pulling me up from my chair and into a hug that's too tight and exactly what I needed.
"You look terrible," she announces cheerfully, holding me at arm's length to study my face. "Did you sleep at all?"
"Good morning to you too," I manage, but I can't help smiling. Jeni has never believed in softening her observations, and after years of friendship, I've learned to appreciate her honesty. "And no, not really."
"Hmm." She releases me and drops into the chair across from mine, signaling to the barista with a practiced wave. "Birthday anxiety? Mark anxiety? General existential dread?"
"All of the above."
"Fair." She leans forward, eyes bright with barely contained curiosity. "So? Are you going to show me, or do I have to wrestle you for it?"
My hand moves instinctively to my neck, where the mark pulses gently beneath my cream turtleneck. I'd chosen the high collar deliberately, wanting to control the reveal, but now that the moment is here, I find myself hesitating.
"It's... a lot," I say slowly. "More than I expected."
Jeni's expression softens slightly, some of the manic energy fading into genuine concern. "Hey. Whatever it is, you know I'm not going to judge. It's just a mark, Keira. It doesn't define you."
Except it does. That's exactly what marks do—they define your future, your connections, the shape your life will take whether you want it to or not.
But Jeni doesn't know that. Jeni grew up in a house where soulmates were celebrated, where her parents' matching marks were displayed proudly and their love story was told at every family gathering.
She doesn't know what happens when bonds go wrong.
She's about to find out.
"Okay," I say, reaching for the hem of my turtleneck. "But you have to promise not to scream."
"I make no such promises."
Despite everything, I laugh. Then I pull the fabric down, tilting my head to expose the intricate design that now decorates my skin.
Jeni's gasp is audible even over the café's ambient noise.
"Keira." Her voice is barely a whisper. "That's... oh my god. Is that—are those—"
"Five flowers," I confirm, watching her eyes trace the branch from behind my ear down to my collarbone. "Five soulmates."
"Five." She repeats the word like she's testing its weight on her tongue.
"I've never... I mean, I've heard of it, but I've never actually met anyone with more than three.
This is incredible. This is—" She breaks off, finally seeming to register my expression.
"Why do you look like someone just told you your dog died? "
I pull my sweater back up, hiding the mark from view. My coffee arrives, the barista placing it on the table with a smile I barely acknowledge—and I wrap my hands around the warm cup, letting the heat seep into my suddenly cold fingers.
"I need to tell you something," I say quietly. "About my mother. About why this... why five soulmates isn't the blessing everyone thinks it is."
Jeni's playful energy fades entirely, replaced by the serious, attentive friend who's held me through late-night breakdowns and career crises and every other disaster life has thrown my way. She reaches across the table to cover my hand with hers.
"I'm listening."
So I tell her.
Everything. The words come slowly at first, rusty from years of silence.
I tell her about my mother's original soulmate, a man whose name I never learned, whose face I never saw, who exists in my memory only as a ghost that haunted my childhood.
I tell her about my father, about the love that bloomed between him and my mother despite the bond that tied her to someone else.
I tell her about the choice my mother made.
"She broke the bond," I say, and even now, even after all these years, the words feel heavy in my mouth. "She loved my father more than she loved the man fate chose for her, and she decided to sever the connection."
Jeni's grip on my hand tightens. "That's possible? I thought... I mean, I've heard rumors, but I always thought it was just a myth."
"It's possible." I stare at the steam rising from my coffee, watching it dissipate into nothing.
"It's just... it's not survivable. Not really.
Breaking a soulmate bond is like tearing a piece of your own soul away.
Most people die in the attempt. My mother was one of the 'lucky' ones who survived. "
"Lucky," Jeni repeats, and I can hear the quotation marks in her voice.
"She survived the breaking," I continue. "Spent months recovering, her body fighting against the trauma. The doctors called it a miracle. But the wound never healed. Not really."
I pause, gathering the courage to say the next part.
The part I've never spoken aloud to anyone except my mother herself, in those final days when her hand was cold in mine and her eyes were already seeing something beyond this world.
"I was twelve when she died. Twelve years of watching her fade, year after year, until there was nothing left.
The broken bond... it didn't kill her right away.
It killed her slowly. Drained her bit by bit until she was just a shadow of who she used to be. "
"Keira." Jeni's eyes are bright with unshed tears. "I had no idea. You never—why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want to think about it." I pull my hand back, wrap both around my coffee cup like a shield. "Because as long as I didn't talk about it, I could pretend it didn't affect me. Pretend I wasn't terrified that the same thing would happen to me someday."
"But you have five soulmates," Jeni says slowly, working through the logic. "That's not the same as breaking a bond. That's—"
"It's five potential chains," I cut in, and the words come out sharper than I intended. "Five people who could consume me, drown me, pull me under until I can't tell where I end and they begin. That's what my mother said bonds felt like. That's what she was trying to escape when she broke hers."
"But she broke it because she didn't want her soulmate," Jeni argues. "That's different from completing a bond with someone you actually—"
"Is it?" I meet her eyes, and I know she can see the fear in mine. "What if completing the bonds is just as consuming? What if I lose myself to five people instead of one? What if the only difference is the speed of the drowning?"
Jeni is quiet for a long moment, her expression thoughtful.
The café bustles around us, oblivious to the weight of the conversation happening in the corner.
A couple laughs at a nearby table. The espresso machine hisses.
Life goes on, unconcerned with the existential crisis unfolding in the worn velvet armchairs.
"Okay," she says finally. "I hear you. I understand why you're scared. But Keira—your mother broke her bond because she didn't want it. Because she loved someone else more. That's not the same situation you're in."
"How do you know? I haven't even met them yet." I sighed, trying not to even think about it.
"Exactly." Jeni leans forward, her voice gentle but insistent.
"You haven't met them. You don't know who they are or what it would feel like to actually bond with them.
You're making decisions based on your mother's experience with a bond she was trying to escape, not a bond she was trying to complete. "
I want to argue. Want to explain that the fear isn't rational, that it lives in my bones and my blood and has been shaping my choices since I was twelve years old. Part of me—the small, quiet part that noticed the pull when watching SIREN's performance—wonders if she might be right.
"What if I told you," I say slowly, "that I might already have an idea who they are?"
Jeni's eyebrows shoot up. "What? How? You just got your mark yesterday."
"I know. But there's a project—a group I've been assigned to write for. And they..." I trail off, unsure how to explain the tingle in my mark, the pull I felt watching their performance. "They're five alphas. With a shared mark. Waiting for their sixth."
The silence that follows is deafening.
"Wait." Jeni's voice is barely a whisper. "Are you telling me you think your soulmates might be—"