Page 5 of Seared Fates

It’s like that moment of weightlessness when the car flipped, when I felt like I was being thrown out of my body.

“Just because you technically can’t get sick, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look after yourself,” I say, slipping into my best fussy big brother voice.

Better to focus on him.

“I…” Golden’s gaze shoots to Lucero and his pinched forehead, then back to me. “I…yeah, I’ve drunk blood today. But you’re right, I need to rest. Stay with me? Please. Just…please.”

I shake my head hard enough to hurt my neck. “I’m alright, but you head off to bed now, okay? And drink more blood. Actually,lemme add you to my to-do list and I can remind you. I do that for Thomas and his medication. Honestly, if I didn’t he’d forget. But I don’t mind, as long as he’s okay. And you, too. As long as you’re both okay.”

Golden squeezes my hand tighter. “Please, Kai. Stay here tonight. Please. We can talk, figure out…just…Kai, don’t go away.”

“Golden is right,” Lucero says. “You should stay.”

I push down all of me until I might not even be a real person any more. Just a Kai-shaped thing.

“Don’t worry about me. Besides, Golden needs to focus on getting better. You’ve been so weak after turning into a vampire, mate. You have to get better, okay? How about you come over to mine at some point and I’ll do your hair?”

Golden searches my face, and after a moment, he nods. “Okay. Okay, I’ll…” His voice wobbles, but he forces a smile, and I hate that I’m making him pretend like this. “I’ll come over. But you have to text me when you get home. Promise? And call me. Any time. It doesn’t matter when. Please, Kai.”

I try on a smile for Golden, but it’s all wrong with too many jagged edges.

“Yeah, I gotta…” I swallow. “I gotta go.”

My mind is empty as I leave the mansion, a part of me hoping Vidar will change his mind and come running after me.

He doesn’t.

And he doesn’t when I drive away in my Mini Cooper. I stay hollow the whole drive home, barely remembering getting back into the city and parking in my underground garage. Head empty of thoughts as I make my way up the flights of stairs and towards my flat, then hang up my jacket like I always do.

As normal, I get undressed and oil my hair, and brush my teeth. I text Golden and message ‘goodnight’ in my family group chat and the one with my brothers.

It’s when my phone and tablet are on charge, my to-do list updated, clothes folded, the sides wiped clean, and the floor hoovered—with all my lights off and I’m alone in my lumpy bed—when it finally sinks in that….Vidar really isn’t coming for me.

Hot, aching tears rip down my face and open me so wide that everything I’ve been forcing down comes out in a great, shuddering yell that I suffocate into my pillow.

‘I’ve just met my soulmate, and he doesn’t want me.’I think on repeat as I grab hold of my braids to cover my face and curl in on myself, sobbing.

Chapter three

Vidar

The smooth leather of the punching bag gives way to my fists. But it does nothing to unknot my tight muscles.

‘Fight back!’ I want to demand with each blow. Grab a sword, grab an axe—for fuck’s sake, be a man and earn the air in your lungs.

But for a thing shaped like a blood-filled cock, it's as threatening as a corpse.

I crave a good fight. Flesh instead of synthetic leather, muscle instead of stuffing. The thrill of not knowing if it’ll be my neck without a head, or theirs. Rather fall to the glory of blades and blood, or even one lucky—or unlucky, when the blade sticks from your chest—blow. Better all that than the vast unyielding nothing apathy brought.

It took ten long years to finally drag myself from the numb nothingness apathy had sunk me into, and how does Fate reward me?

A male soulmate, of all things.

“Vidar!” Ramy shouts from behind me. “Answer me, how could you say that to Kai?”

Grunting, I hold off the punching bag with one hand and level a look at my offspring, who’s been barking at my heels now for over ten minutes after I had to get out of the same room as my…soulmate.

Gritting my teeth, I bring my fist into the bag. “Rahim, enough. I’m in no mood.”