Page 39 of Luna Rising

She shook her head. “I don’t know. Like I said, it’s different with him. I see him sometimes, but he never speaks.” Winter rested her hand on his leg and pulsed her magic. “It’s a temporary fix. He doesn’t have much longer. One of us is going to need to make the decision for him soon.”

Gaia, don’t let it be me, I thought. Condemning him to an undead life in a foreign realm wasn’t something I was prepared to do. In his position, I would have preferred death.

Then, something occurred to me. “Wait. Mat went to the Cursed Realm, and with the tears, maybe some regular vampires have, too. So, it wouldn’t be impossible for him to go home, right?”

“Mat’s only passing through and he hasn’t sired a regular vampire in centuries, so I doubt he’ll start while on a business trip. As for your hypothetical, everyday vampire, that’s actually a good point, but Webber would be a newborn vampire, sired by an eternal from a different world. That’s a science experiment gone wrong.”

When she put it like that, I couldn’t deny the situation sounded… messy.

“He could stay here, in our world,” I said, already considering a return voyage to the Cursed Realm to retrieve Webber’s wolf-less shifter boyfriend, who was very much of this world.

I hadn’t told anybody about him. It wasn’t a secret necessarily, more like a potential hidden advantage that I had yet to tell anyone about. Probably I should have said something the previous day during the meeting. Why didn’t I? I wasn’t sure.

Thoughts of Xavier reminded me of the horrors both of us had endured in the Cursed Realm, more so Winter than myself.

“How are you doing after our trip to hell, you know, after the magic loss?” I asked, speaking softly so Birch wouldn’t overhear the conversation from the hallway. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked when you came by the other day.”

“You’ve had a lot going on.” She tapped her teeth just in case I misunderstood her vague words.

“Yeah, still. I’m a shitty protector and an even worse friend.”

The amused expression that overtook her face made me want to flick her on the nose like a bad cub.

“What’s so funny?”

“Feeling sorry for ourselves, are we?”

I glared, sort of offended. “I’m not feeling sorry for myself. Well, I am, like, in general. Zosia wasn’t a great person, I don’t think, and the more time I spend in her memories… it’s made me realize that I’m not a great person either.”

Most of the amusement died away, her expression softening. “Hey, I’ve known you in many lives. My soul remembers even if I don’t. Just like with the soulmate bonds. I have trusted you with my life since I first set eyes on you. I didn’t understand it, but I knew.”

“But Enzo severed our bond,” I said, confused. When I first saw Winter, I already knew she was Nicasia, but I hadn’t felt the intense need to protect her then. Maybe a baby need to protect, nothing like how I felt after they restored my wolf.

“Our bond, like the soulmate bond, can’t be severed, only rejected,” Winter said. “He managed to dull it, but I still knew.”

“Is that true of all eternals and protectors?” I hadn’t realized she knew so much about the bonds. Maybe she’d been talking to Walter.

I had assumed the answer was yes and was surprised when Winter hesitated before shaking her head. “Our bond is different from the others.”

“Because you’re the only female eternal?” I asked, absently stroking Webber’s hand.

Winter blew out a long breath and smoothed the sheets on the bed. “We don’t think so. Only one pair of fae soulmates exists at any given time. Archer and I had already risen when you and Stavros were born.”

“So I’m a technicality? Why does that feel so fitting?”

The smile she offered me was tight and thin-lipped. “I think it might be why I picked you.” She picked at nonexistent lint on Webber’s blanket. “Back in the Valley, the soulmates supposedly held great power once united. Most of the stories we’ve found about bonded soulmates are more legend than fact, and there haven’t been that many recorded pairs.”

An itch developed at the base of my skull as I listened to her talk. Something she said stirred my memory, yet the details refused to surface. Worse, I didn’t even know if the memory was from this life.

“I think I chose you as my protector because a part of me knew what you were and thought you would give me more power.” Her eyes were shiny when they met mine. “So, who’s the shitty friend now?”

I wondered if I should be upset because I wasn’t. I mean, it would’ve been nice to hear she picked me for my fighting prowess or winning personality. Maybe it was because of the bond that I found it so hard to get mad at her, but I just couldn’t hold a decision she didn’t remember making, in a life that happened long before Colleen Sable brought Winter into the world, against her.

“The bond works both ways, right? Isn’t that what you keep telling me? So if I give you more power, you must make me more powerful, too. I think in your little human science classes they call that a symbiotic relationship.”

She frowned. “Do they not teach science in shifter schools?”

“They do. Sort of. Like, magical science, though. Supernatural biology. We learned about stuff like wolf anatomy and shifter genetics and reproduction. We didn’t make those exploding volcano models and take them to fairs like they do in movies.”

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