Amelia ran a finger across the leather of the couch she was sitting on. This was where it had all started—where she’d found out that Mitchell was real. She’d been laying on this very couch after he’d bitten her, and she’d been standing in this very room the first time she’d felt the pain of the bond. And it was that memory that made her even surer that she had to change it—she couldn’t fail. She remembered crumpling to the ground, screaming in agony. She remembered Mitchell’s confusion, not even aware that he was causing the blinding pain. How many others had done the same thing? How many vampires had caused their soulmates excruciating pain without even realizing what they were doing?
Mitchell elbowed her exceptionally hard, given his condition, in the ribs, ripping her from her thoughts. “Sorry, what?” Amelia asked, giving him what she was sure was an utterly blank look. He rolled his eyes at her, clearly aware that she hadn’t been listening to a word that had been said, and jutted his chin towards Lola.
Lola stopped her pacing and through her clenched teeth she said, “Are you really telling me that you could have changed Mitchell weeks ago?” Her tone was nothing short of fury.
Amelia closed her eyes for a second, biting back the snarky response she wanted to spit out. She felt as if she couldn’t please anyone. Mitchell didn’t want her to do anything until Angelle and Tyler got back. Megan wanted her to use Eric and her to change the bond now before touching Mitchell. Eric wanted her to reverse the spell on Mitchell before messing with the bond, and she was pretty sure he wasn’t too keen on the idea of using himself and Megan for anything. Lola wanted ... well, Amelia didn’t really know what she wanted. She glanced at Luke, looking for some kind of support, but he wasn’t paying attention either. He sat in the wingback chair in the corner of the living room, eyes closed and head tilted back. His jeans and T-shirt were full of wrinkles, Amelia noticed, and his legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles.
“Yes,” Amelia answered tightly, fixing her focus back on Lola. “Theoretically, I could have.” She hated the way her voice sounded, full of anger, mixed with guilt. She didn’t want to feel either, but not wanting to feel them didn’t stop the emotions from tumbling in. She was furious with herself that she hadn’t figured everything out sooner. If she had only listened to her mother nine months ago to begin with and changed the bond instead of fighting it, she could have stopped the hunters before any of this damage had been done.
“And he’s still human now because?” Lola said, with a rolling hand gesture, as she tapped her foot on the hardwood floor impatiently. Her typically soft features looked sharp and tired. Her eyes were veined red. At first, Amelia had thought it was her anger that was forcing the change of color, but on closer scrutiny, she realized they were bloodshot from exhaustion.
Amelia shot a glare at Megan and Eric. They were the only ones in the room who didn’t look as if they could sleep for a week. They were cuddled in each other’s arms on the couch. Clearly, they’d worked out whatever had happened between them. “Because Meg wanted me to wait for Cole,” Amelia said. She felt her fangs lengthening, the razor sharp tips pushing at her bottom lip.
“Well, he’s here now,” Lola shouted. Her face streaked cherry red. “Get on with it!”
Amelia almost snapped at that. Lola hadn’t stopped yelling since Cole had walked through the door, but right then, Mitchell started to squirm beside her, and his anxiety hit Amelia with breathtaking force. Stand up for yourself, he sent. He nudged her with his shoulder, and then pressed himself closer to her side.
Amelia sucked in a loud breath. They never yelled at you like this, she sent, as she shifted her gaze, focusing on him. His chiseled face was smiling at her and his sky-blue eyes were alive with humor. Amelia blinked and furrowed her brow in confusion. She could feel his scattered emotions: fear, anxiety, love, anger, more fear, clustered together and she just couldn’t understand how he was smiling through it.
He reached up, tracing the length of her fang with a finger, and his smile widened. Yes, they did. You just didn’t hear them. He winked. Tell her to stop. She’s stressing everyone out. You need to take control, love.
Amelia giggled and she hated herself for it. She sounded like a little girl, but she couldn’t help it. The way Mitchell was looking at her, full of wonder and love and encouragement, and behind that she swore she could see the flames of desire sparking in his eyes. A nervous, excited shiver spread along her skin. Mitchell smirked and leaned in, pressing a light kiss on her lips and her heart fluttered erratically. He squeezed her knee, reassuringly, and gave her one of those looks that said I know what I’m talking about.
Amelia nodded, pulled in a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. Finding her center, she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin, and then fixed her eyes on Lola. “You need to stop it. Yelling is not helping anything here.”
Lola jerked back a step. There was no vampire grace to the motion. It was as if someone grabbed her by the back of her neck and yanked. Her eyes widened, fixing themselves on Amelia’s mouth, and she visibly shuddered. “Could you please not bare your fangs at me?” she grumbled. “It’s freaking me out.”
“Good, you should be freaked out right now,” Amelia said calmly, even if the little voice in her head was yelling What the hell? She knew she was stronger than they were, but really, didn’t Lola know that she’d never hurt her? Well, at least intentionally. “You need to back the hell off, Lola.”
Mitchell chuckled at that, and Amelia cut him a dirty look. “That’s not really what I meant, love,” he said, squeezing her knee and stopping her from saying something else that she’d most likely regret. “Angelle found Tyler. I thought it would be best ...”
“You thought it would be best,” Lola said, cutting him short. “Amelia, you should have just done it. I can’t believe you even asked his opinion when the spirits are threatening to take him from us.” Her bottom lip began to tremble and her eyes began to water. She wasn’t crying, Amelia told herself, because Lola did not cry. Ever. Amelia’s fangs retreated into her gums, and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth, not knowing what to say.
“Lola,” Luke said calmly, his eyes slowly opening. He sat forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’re not being fair to her. You should be happy. She’s being patient. She’s actually thinking about what she’s doing.”
Lola swiveled on her heels and glared at Luke. They held each other’s glares, and by the intensity of it, Amelia figured their conversation was still continuing through their link. As the seconds ticked by, Luke’s face hardened with resolve, and tension pulsed from Lola, thick and suffocating.
“I hate to break up this completely pleasant visit,” Cole said, and then he huffed when all eyes snapped to him. He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe that he’d spoken up and dropped his gaze to the floor. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think Lola’s right. We need to worry about changing him back before your deadline is over.”
****
Tyler nodded his head again. It was pretty much all he could do as he listened to Angelle’s explanation. The moon was bright overhead, illuminating the road in front of him. Erin and Lucy were exceptionally quiet in the backseat. It unnerved him. Lucy was always quiet, but Erin, well Erin rarely shut up.
Angelle hadn’t been lying when she’d said that she was a few miles out of town. It wasn’t until he’d spotted her with Erin and Lucy on the side of the road that he truly believed any of the soulmate crap she’d been trying to tell him. One minute she was sitting beside him talking so quickly he could barely follow it all, and the next, she was standing on the side of the road. That’s when it really hit home. He’d slammed on the brakes, his gaze darting in between her sitting beside him and her standing on the side of the road. “I told you,” she said, exasperated, and then the Angelle that was in the car vanished, and the one outside was yanking the door open and hopping in.
But Tyler was fine with the wh
ole soulmate thing. More than fine with it, actually. The whole reason he’d left in the first place was so that they could be together. He didn’t question how it was possible. Really, he didn’t want to know. How it happened, why it happened, none of it mattered to him. All that was important was that Angelle was his.
What Tyler wasn’t fine with, though, was that Amelia wanted to use him for a spell. He knew how Amelia’s spells played out. He’d witnessed some of them firsthand, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her touch him (or his soulmate) with any of her flaming magic.
“Tyler, are you okay?” Lucy squeaked from the backseat, when Angelle finally took a breath.
“Fine,” he said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. He glanced in the rearview mirror and forced a tight smile.
Erin snorted. “You’re driving really slowly.” Her voice was dry and tinted with annoyance. “Clearly you are not okay. Really, Angelle, you need to take a breath and let him absorb all of this.”
He was about to tell them that he was driving the speed limit when he glanced down at the speedometer. Thirty miles per hour. He gritted his teeth, but just couldn’t seem to make himself step on the gas and speed up. The quicker they drove, the sooner they’d be test subjects for one of Amelia’s epic spells.
“You don’t want me to bite you, do you?” Angelle asked. Her voice was just a whisper, but Tyler heard every bit of the anguish it held. “I get it. After what I did to Derek …”
“Angelle, stop,” he said, firmly but not unkindly. “It has nothing to do with you biting me or what happened to Derek. I don’t want Millie to test her magic on us. More specifically; I don’t want her to use it on you.” Tyler was floored at the fierceness of his tone, and more than a little stunned when he realized he meant every word. He knew right then that he’d let her bite him if she wanted to.
Angelle was unnaturally quiet for a moment, and then she sighed. She reached out, running a silky finger along his jaw. “I’d let her if it meant we could have the bond without the pain.”
Tyler didn’t say anything to that, but he did step on the gas pedal a little harder. He’d never heard her so unguarded before or seen her without that bubbly, chipper facade that she showed to the rest of the world. But in that glimpse of vulnerability, he saw the self-disgust that ran right to her core, and Tyler knew he’d do just about anything if it meant he could ease the pain from that wound. Even if it meant letting Amelia use the magic that scared him to death on them.
CHAPTER 31
The moon was bright, casting a silvery glow upon the grass beneath his feet. Mitchell watched Amelia from a distance as she huddled with Cole, Lola, and Luke, discussing her plans. She’d decided it was probably safer to work with her magic outside, just in case things got out of control and she accidentally torched the house.
She’d sent Megan and Eric back inside moments ago to get blood. Amelia thought that when the spell to change him was finished, he’d be starving. She was probably right. He saw what her plans were: reverse the spell as if it had never been placed. If it worked, it would be as if he’d still been a vampire for the last two and a half weeks—a vampire who hadn’t had a drop of blood in just as long. Except, Mitchell knew exactly why she’d sent Eric and Megan inside. She wanted them out of earshot. Amelia knew Megan would never go for what she was determined to do, and in all honesty, Mitchell wasn’t too keen on it either. But with Angelle still a few hours off and dawn coming closer and closer, her plan was the best they had. Neither of them was willing to risk Eric and Megan. They just weren’t an option—not for this.
Mitchell shuddered and swallowed the prickly lump in his throat. He didn’t know why it was there. He didn’t want it to be there, but dammit, he was nervous. He’d never sweated like this before. His shirt clung to his back and his hair felt clammy against his scalp. He didn’t want to die. It wasn’t that he thought that Amelia’s spell wouldn’t work or that her new plan wasn’t solid. He knew she’d never let him die. He’d searched her mind over and over, running through the spells that she planned to use, and he couldn’t find a single thing wrong with them. But still, the fear was there, ingrained within him.
It seemed entirely unfair that they were even put in this position in the first place. After spending centuries searching for each other, hating each other, fighting each other, they’d both finally and fully accepted one another—accepted the bond. He just didn’t understand what the big rush was to fix a curse that had been around for hundreds of years or why the spirits would have let them find each other if they planned on taking him away.
“Um, Mitch?” The voice was barely a whisper. “You ready?”
Mitchell flinched at the sound and looked up. Cole stood within arm’s length, his expression, grim. Mitchell’s jaw clenched as he calmed his racing heart. Damn, but he hated being human, not being able to hear people approach. He felt so vulnerable. It was like an intense pain within his gut, always present. He cleared the startled lump from his throat and said, “I guess.” Although the last thing he wanted to do was work with one of the hunters that had been hell bent on killing him not so long ago, even if Cole wasn’t actually a hunter anymore, it still made him uneasy. But then if Amelia trusted him …
Cole only stared at him, as if he really hadn’t expected him to say yes. After a minute, Mitchell asked, “Why are you here?”
The question seemed to stir a whole lot of uneasiness in the ex-hunter. He jammed his hands in his jean pockets, as if to keep them still, and something that looked like wrongness flitted across his face. He kicked at the ground. “Megs told me who you think Amelia’s supposed to be. I couldn’t say no.”
“But you didn’t want to say yes either,” Mitchell said, filling in the unspoken words that littered his face.
Cole shook his head, as if trying to shake away what Mitchell had said. “That doesn’t matter,” he said with haste. “I came. That’s what’s important.” He looked as if he was about to say more, but all that followed was an uncomfortable silence.
“Cole, just spit out whatever it is you’re trying to say,” Mitchell said, harsher than he’d intended.
“For what it’s worth, I believe she can do it,” he blurted and grimaced. With a nervous twitch of his head, he glanced at Amelia, and then back to him. His eyes were wild, full of something that Mitchell couldn’t understand. “Look, you need to trust her. I really don’t think the spirits mean for you to walk out of this alive. Mother Nature has never had a partner. Not one that can share her powers.”
Mitchell’s head felt heavy and thick, his eyes, bleary. The nervous twitches coming from Cole were hard to read. Mitchell couldn’t tell if he was lying or if his uneasiness came from being back in Willowberg, surrounded by vampires, or if it was working with Amelia after everything that had happened. Or, perhaps, it could have been that he was just plain nervous to be messing with the bond again. Through his teeth, Mitchell asked, “Why should we trust you? Why should I let her trust you?”
“Because I showed up when you asked me to.” It wasn’t much of a reason. In fact, it was probably the worst reason Mitchell had ever heard. People usually showed up when he called because they were too scared not to. It didn’t mean he could trust them. His thoughts must have been written clearly on his face because Cole added, “You’re only a human, now. You’re really not that scary.” And then he turned away. “Come on, she’s been calling you. She’s ready.”
Mitchell clenched his teeth, watching the ex-hunter turned witch walk over to Amelia. He met Amelia’s eyes for the briefest of moments, seeing the confusion blazing there. He hadn’t heard her calling to him, too wrapped up in convincing himself not to be scared of what she planned to do. He let out a long breath, steeling his fear deep within him, and he padded over to the group, his gaze fixed on the ground.
Amelia made an odd sound somewhere in between a choking gasp and a moan, drawing his attention as he neared. She turned to him, her gray-blue eyes shimmered under the moonlight, an
d she took a hesitant step in his direction. You’re scared, she sent. If it makes you feel any better, I am, too. Um, you do want to be a vampire again, right? I assumed that you did, but ... Her silent words fell short, her head dropping like a wilting flower.
Her sudden doubt twisted at his heart. I’ll be whatever you need me to be, love, he sent, and he knew he meant every word. It’s what I should have done from the start.
She glanced up at him, a small smile playing at her lips. You know, I think you always have. If you weren’t such a jerk, I’d probably still be hiding in the shadows. You’ve tested me, pushed me to my limits. Even if I fail, even if we fail, at least I wasn’t too scared to try.
I trust you, he sent, not waiting for her to ask the question that he could see flitting across her mind. I’ll do whatever it is you need. It was a gut feeling, one he couldn’t really explain, but he was sure that he needed to trust her for any of this to work.
She reached out to him, her hand open, waiting for his to grasp it, to take the last step to her, and as he did, all the fear that had been trying to drown him was gone.
****
Mother Nature wrung her hands as she stared at the doors of the sanctuary. The spirits had found out about her interference, she was sure of it, she could feel it in her essence. She placed a hand on the thick stone doors, and again, she was greeted with cold silence. They would not open for her touch; they didn’t even tremble in consideration.
What has she done? The question played through Mother Nature’s mind relentlessly. She was sure Amelia had done something; something to out her. It was really the only explanation. She’d agreed to Water’s terms—more than agreed. There was not a chance that he’d betray her; Mother Nature knew it with every fiber of her body. He had never wanted to be mixed up in all of this, and she would gladly—willingly—take his place. It was a chance to stay with Amelia after all and a chance at staying alive. She knew that once she was replaced, her soul would be retired. No past Mother Nature had ever been placed back into the life cycle. It just didn’t happen; it was unheard of.