“Our souls aren’t bound. Shan should have walked away from me. You should have too.”
“They are bound.”
His tone brooked no argument, and I sighed.
“It’s just a story, Emmett,” I said, arguing anyway. “There’s no proof. It doesn’t make sense for souls to be drawn together continuously through reincarnations.”
“Why did he find you, then?”
“Why didn’t he find me in my last reincarnation?” I countered. “He’s been alive as an angel for four hundred years. I’ve only been in this life for twenty-four. If we were destined to keep coming back to each other, he would have found me before.”
“You likely died before he could find you. There are no guarantees, not even with fate.”
Em wasn’t going to give it up. Arguing more was pointless, especially because a part of me liked the idea of us being fated mates.
It wasn’t fated in the traditional sense of being ordained by the gods. It was a binding of the souls. The story went that if two people chose to be bound in a mate bond of any kind, be it between an Alpha and Omega, Alpha and Beta, or any other combination, that bond would carry through once they left behind their current incarnation. People would be drawn back together, over and over again. Each reincarnation they were a different race, a different designation, but the bond remained, tethering their souls.
No one knew for certain if it was true, because no one retained memories from their past lives.
Except the occasional angel, like Shan.
Plenty of people believed it was utter bullshit, myself included. A lot of Omegas had to believe that — they were forced to create bonds based on necessity and not love, and no one wanted a convenience match following them for eternity. Others fantasized about a love match from a prior life coming in to sweep them off their feet.
There was no way to tell for certain. I had to admit Shan’s experience of knowing my scent from the Viking era was a point toward it being real.
Right now, I couldn’t believe in fantasy. Not even when it said I would find Caspian again when he reincarnated.
Because Shan?
He wouldn’t come back. Life as an angel was a soul’s last hurrah. If Kylan killed him… I’d lose him for good, whether or not I wanted to believe in bound souls and fairy tales.
“We need to get them back,” I murmured. “Which means we need to get up and figure out how the fuck we’re going to manage it when we got our asses handed to us this time.”
Em curled closer, inhaling deeply at my neck. “You’re right.”
When he didn’t move, I gently extracted myself from his embrace. “I am right, and I can only wallow so long when there’s still a chance.”
If they died? Then I would wallow. For months. Years, maybe.
But I couldn’t think about that, not with how it made my heart feel like it was trying to rend itself from my body.
For comfort I mentally tapped at the bonds connecting me to Shan and Caspian, reassuring myself they were still there. They were strong. Our love hadn’t waned, though there was a significant distance between us. “I think they’re in Zemterra,” Emmett said quietly, finally sitting up.
I spun to face him again. “Why?”
He answered my question with a question. “How weak is your bond with Caspian? Can you show me?”
“Show you… how?”
Em grabbed my wrist, running his fingers along the bond mark he’d left there. Wetness pooled between my legs, my body reacting to the touch of my mate. “Since we’re connected, you can open our bond up to let me feel everything. You can feel Nolan through Oswald, right? I can feel Caspian through you, but only if you trust me.”
“I do,” I said, surprising myself. To think I’d been wary of everything and everyone a mere six months ago.
“Open up to me, then. It’ll be easier if we…”
He lifted me, placing me on his lap. We were chest to chest, his cock confined in pants and pressing urgently against my bare pussy. I trembled when he pressed his teeth against my skin, right over his mark, and held us as close as two people could be without actually being connected.
Pushing aside the distracting arousal, I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against his shoulder. Opening myself up was unnatural. I’d had so much practice at keeping my thoughts closed off when it came to Oswald, only allowing him to hear words I wanted him to hear except for minor slip-ups. I pictured myself physically prying my head open, which was a fucking horrible image, but worked.
