47. Chapter 47 #2
“Hell can measure a soul’s power. Weigh its sins, bind it into contracts, punish it. But a soulmate bond predates every law. Human. Demon. Mortal. Immortal. Whatever you were when our paths first crossed, you left an imprint deep enough to survive death. And I must have done the same to you.”
“You remember that?”
“No. I don’t know what names we carried or what you looked like. I can’t tell you if I found you in every life, if we were permitted years together, or if I spent some of them searching without ever understanding what was missing.”
“Then how can you know that we’re soulmates?”
“Because now that I know what it is, I can feel the bond for what it is.” The backs of his fingers glide over my cheek. “The pull toward you has been there from the beginning. I just didn’t understand it.”
“That sounds close to fate.”
“No. Fate would ask nothing of me. You make me look at every miserable, inadequate part of myself and wonder what else I might become if I stopped accepting it as permanent.”
“You were changing before you met me.”
“Perhaps.” A faint smile touches his mouth.
“But you see me more clearly than anyone ever has, Evie. Not the demon I was expected to be or the failure I believed myself to be. Me. You knew almost nothing about me when I arrived here, yet you gave me shelter when you had every reason to fear me. You trusted me with the pieces of your life you guard most fiercely.”
“So what happens now?”
“Whatever we choose.”
I blink. “That’s it?”
“The bond isn’t a prophecy. It doesn’t promise happiness or make us incapable of ruining what we’re given. We still get to decide.”
“And when you go back to Hell?”
His mouth tightens. “The pull will remain. I’ll always know you’re there, no matter how much distance or how many realms separate us.”
The warmth of the cottage suddenly feels temporary. “What is that like?”
“For me, the bond is difficult to ignore. I can feel your soul because it’s bound to mine.” His fingers drop to my waist, drawing me closer. “It’s a constant note beneath everything else. When you’re near, it grows clearer. When you move away, the bond stretches with you, marking the distance.”
“And me?”
“Humans experience it differently. Your bodies aren’t made to sense souls directly, so the bond translates itself into whatever your mind can bear.
It may come as a homesickness for somewhere you’ve never been.
A grief without a memory attached to it.
The feeling that the world once held something essential and has misplaced it. ”
“So I’ll miss you.”
“Yes.” The word catches in his throat.
The unfairness of it crashes over me. I draw back to see him clearly. His hands loosen at my waist, but they don’t leave me.
“What if I bargained for you to stay?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I won’t let you. And I’m not even sure it would be allowed.
” He sits up straighter. “Supernatural law is complicated. Bargains have rules. Loopholes get people killed. And if anyone in Hell discovered you were my soulmate, you’d stop being an uninvolved human and become leverage. It’s not worth the risk.”
“It is if it means you get to stay.”
“No, Evie. It’s not.”
“Of course you think that. You’ve already decided your life is the expendable part of this.”
His expression tightens. “That isn’t what I said.”
“You’re miserable there.” Frustration flares hot in my chest. “You hate what they expect of you.”
“I’m still a demon.”
“And?” I snap.
“That doesn’t change because I prefer your world. Even if a bargain could somehow bind me here, I’d still be what I am.”
“You spend almost all your time in your mortal form now,” I argue, my voice rising slightly. “Even around me. You dress like a human, you live like one, and you prefer it.”
“I do,” he admits quietly.
“Then stay.”
He closes his eyes, and for a moment I almost believe wanting him could be enough. When he opens them again, I already know the answer.
“I can’t let you offer yourself as payment.” His hands return to my waist and hold on. “Risking your soul, risking you, for something that might not even work—” He shakes his head. “I won’t do that. Even though I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
“I’m not asking you to decide for me.”
“You may hate me for it, but I will not purchase my freedom with any part of you.”
The sentence leaves no room for argument.
“That’s such bullshit.” I shove the blanket away, unable to bear its warmth. “None of this is fair.”
“That’s the hand we’ve been dealt. And—”
“Don’t tell me it’s just the way it is.”
“I wasn’t going to.” He pulls me back against him. “What I wanted to say is that fair stopped mattering the second I realized what you were to me. I’d take four days with you over an eternity without you. Even knowing how it ends.”
I have no answer to that. Fighting him would be easier if he sounded resigned, but he doesn’t. He sounds certain.
“How did you know?” I ask instead. “About us being soulmates. When did you figure it out?”
“It’s . . . complicated.”
“Milo—”
A thud interrupts us. We both turn toward the sound. Marmalade has appeared in the living room doorway, looking pleased with himself. At his feet lies a very dead and mangled field mouse.
I squeal and scramble off Milo’s lap so fast I nearly fall off the sofa. “Oh my god. Marmalade, no.”
He sits down beside his prize, looking directly at us.
Milo stares at the cat for a long, strange moment before laughing. “Good job, buddy.”
“It’s disgusting.”
“I’ll get rid of it. You stay there.”
He crosses to the kitchen for paper towels while Marmalade continues his victory pose in the doorway. I sink back into the cushions, pulling the blanket up to my chin. The movie has ended without either of us noticing. The screen has gone dark.
Four days. That’s all we have left.
I refuse to accept it. There has to be a way around this, and I’ll find it before time runs out.