Page 84 of The Guardian's Curse

“I think I’ve found something,” she said.

“Then come sit and tell me about it,” he said, taking her hand gently.

She pulled her hand back. “You’re being distracting.”

“That was my intent,” he said. “But I truly do want to hear what you’ve learned.” He took her hand and pulled lightly, guiding her out to the living room. A break did sound nice.

“Your notes were helpful,” she said. As she told him what she’d found, she wished she could see his face. “I think soulmates are a real thing, Alistair.”

He was silent for a while. “People who are in love? Of course.”

“No. It’s not just a poetic thing,” she said. “Something you can see and measure, almost.”

He tilted his head and sat at the piano, picking up the Tchaikovsky waltz they’d played yesterday. His deft hands danced over the keys. He improvised, combining the two parts to make a single, solo part.

“Show off,” she said.

“I have much to show off,” he said.

As he played the haunting, familiar tune, she focused intently on him. The impact on her vision hadn’t altered her magical sight, and she could see the threads of magic surrounding him as clearly as ever. The fragment of red had grown, like a seedling taking root. Tendrils of bright, pulsing red radiated from a small core. When opened her eyes, letting her mundane sight and arcane sight overlap, she could see the flicker of red at the base of his hand. A thin thread extended from him and across the open space.

While he continued to play, she raised her left hand. A pulsing core of red wrapped around her little finger like a ring with a fat ruby setting. Her heart thumped against her ribs. She got up, slowly moving toward him. A wispy tendril of red extended toward Alistair, and when she was within arms’ length, they met, intertwining.

A warm, satisfied sensation washed over her. She could feel a distinct tug at her wrist, as if he was touching her. “Oh God,” she murmured.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she blurted.

Thanks to melodramatic TV shows, she’d had plenty of expectations from pop culture for losing her virginity. In magazines, there were guides on “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” and “Top Ten Signs Your Man is Cheating.” But nothing in her twenty-nine years had prepared her to discover in the space of a single day that there was a very real, perceptible proof of the existence of soulmates, and that hers was a cursed vampire.

Soulmates.

What would he think? Would he want her to be his forever? Did she want him to be hers forever? Was this some cruel trick of fate? Her mind was spinning, and he was still staring up at her, or at least she assumed he was because his damned face was still covered.

“Shoshanna?”

She pressed her hands to his shoulders, resting her chin atop his head. “Keep playing. It helps me think.” He hesitated, then continued to play. She hummed along to the melody.

“What’s that you’re singing?” he asked, without missing a note. His head tilted to brush against her hand. “Your voice is lovely.”

“It’s from the movie,” she said. “You know, Sleeping Beauty. They dance in the woods after he kisses her to break the spell, and...” She froze as the idea hit her like a slap in the face. “Did Lucia meet Kova before or after he was cursed?”

“After,” he said.

“And Julian and Brigitte?”

“After,” he said. “Why?”

She plopped onto the couch, turning her gaze inward. They’d spent many hours in training learning their own auras, tracing the unique patterns of their own essence. It felt like staring at her face to put on makeup, with every crevice and pore familiar. When she examined the knot of red around her hand, it was surrounded in a tangled web of bluish-purple, like the one that covered Lucia.

She was cursed. And it was connected to the red thread.

If this was what she suspected, then the curse was only going to worsen. Would she go blind entirely? Perhaps turn to stone like Lucia? Maybe Lucia had started to lose her sight, too. She jumped up from the couch and knocked something over in her hurry. The piano stopped suddenly. “Shoshanna, are you all right?”

“I have to get back to work,” she blurted. She bumped into a table as she stumbled across the living room. Using the walls to guide her, she hurried back to Lucia’s alcove, to the growing fortress of books and papers.

Alistair was already there before she could sit down. “What’s going on with you?”

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