Page 33 of These Eternal Bones

Syringa

My hands shake as I knot my apron, bunching up the lace trimmed fabric before letting it fall and smoothing it again.

Gathering and falling, gathering and falling.

Strands of pale gray hair fall free from the braid that worked loose as my head snaps down to the article, noting all the new wrinkles that must be ironed out.

My chest aches like a chasm because although master’s screaming is terrible, his silence is worse.

Blinking my eyes free from their tears, I pass the Nephilim in the wood line.

For once, his lack of teasing is sorely missed.

His more play than work attitude annoys me to the high realms and back, but to see him without it feels like another notch in my composure.

His golden eyes are red and overflowing with tears.

It is his first time .

But it won’t be the last. My mistress is stubborn, you see. Her soul simply refuses to stay away for long. How could she? A love like theirs is special. Curse or not, she would return to him. Return to us all.

My bare feet crunch on the frosted grass as the sound of master’s humming fills the clearing of her cottage. For all my years, I find it hard to maintain myself and the task of simply looking upon them impossible. “M-master…”

The humming, that pretty song seems…tortured as it cuts off, his voice a deadly growl when it takes its place. “What is it, selkie?”

“I–” Realms help me; my voice breaks as my eyes find the loosened laces of her boots.

The desire to right them, to bind them, for her sickens my stomach as I finally force my eyes upward.

Echoing through the woods, cries of pain only serve to compound the sight before me.

The fox somewhere nearby, sharing in the… wrongness of the scene.

The agony of it.

My mistress’s hair slips free from her scalp under the gentle petting of master. I shift my feet, his dark eyes zeroing in on the frosted grass crunching beneath my boots. “Shhhh, my sweetest love. It’s gotten cold. Selkie, fetch my mate a blanket so that I may warm her.”

A wretched sound works up my throat before I choke it back. Her short black hair, nearly the same shade as his, has lost its shine, her limbs locked up from days of being curled in his arms.

Days my Master has refused to let her go, days since his bellows rocked the ocean, days since his mind escaped him, days…

or perhaps it’s been a week now. I doubt even Tien knows at this point.

Master’s skin is networked with his dark veins.

His soul matches her body, rotting from the inside out.

My apron knots in my hands again as he resumes his rocking, his loving murmurs and promises he’ll never keep.

It takes a long moment for me to put substance into my voice.

“Master, perhaps allow me to take the mistress inside and get her cl eaned up, yes? She has been in those clothes for much too long. Her skin will chafe.”

The mighty, terrifying Vampire of Port Clyde makes an odd, strangled sound as he takes her in.

“Yes, my apologies, syringa. It seems I have lost track of time.” His voice breaks as he slowly, gently presses a lingering kiss to her stiffened lips.

“I–” another choked sound. “I will see you after your bath, yes?” My tears spill over as his forehead meets hers. “Please. Please, my love. Please.”

Elric

Silky strands of copper colored hair slip through my fingers as I run the brush through it, letting it fall to her lower back, finding some semblance of solace in the subtle rise and fall of her breaths.

Now and then, she takes an extra slow one, I all but freeze in place until I see her move again.

It’s been days without the sound of her voice.

The gods know how badly I’ve ruined things in this life.

It had been the wrong time to tell her, but I am not feeling like myself.

My fangs throb, the venom keeping them engorged and aching.

This is the longest I’ve fought the bond, and I can feel the wariness in my everlasting bones, every thought obsessively circling her, dragging her down underneath me and sinking my teeth into her soft, sweet neck.

The smallest trickle of venom takes restraint.

It is what I am made for. All of my long, weary years, my only purpose is to be hers.

All the Gods have mates, humans or otherwise.

It is said that when a God is born, their soul is snapped in two.

That to be born whole would make them too powerful, too omnipotent within themselves.

So, the other half of them is split apart, made to walk the world without them, to humble the Gods.

Our mates represent our humanity, our compassion.

Some never find it, some suffer a fate even worse than mine.

To have never had her…I shudder at the thought.

No matter how terribly our love, our bond, was perverted by the witches that sought to punish me, it is better than that.

I am not so na?ve to think my years here have been a mere seven hundred and eighty-three; it is simply the only part I can recall.

When a god finds their other half, their soul is wiped clean.

The bonding erases all so they can be made new, forget the empty wondering and transgressions of their past. When I found her, Lucretia, as she was called then, had been my salvation.

It was all too short a reprieve before my past crimes caught up with us, before my bonded mate, the other half of my soul, something that was so pure, so right, was turned into something… horrible.

In every life, my sweet love will be empty, wandering in discontent until she finds her way back to me.

She will love me simply because she was made to.

My other half, and in every life, the bond that ties us will ride my very soul.

To ignore one’s mate is to spit in the face of a fate; it is never done.

To refuse the bond is an agony unlike any other.

In every life I will give in, in every life, my sacrament of our love will be the thing that sets in motion another loss. Another hundred years of grief.

It is my curse, and such a bittersweet one.

To have and lose her for a thousand years.

After every bond, her days are numbered.

After every bond, when our souls finally rest together, she will die.

Sometimes that very day, sometimes it will be a week, a month, even a handful of painfully short years, but I will lose her.

The binding that twists our souls will snap, and there is no torment greater than that .

“I am sorry, syringa, please speak to me. It has been too long without your voice.”

My tendrils, as always, act with a mind of their own, answering only my primal, less civilized wants as they band around her, seeking her warmth.

I know it is time she requires, space to wrap her mind around what she’s learned, but unfortunately, time is the only thing I have both an abundance of and none at all to spare.

There is much she doesn’t know, more guilt I have to atone for, but…

however wrong it feels to keep secrets from my other half, I refuse to spend this time at odds.

I cannot bear it. I will protect her from my transgressions, from the full and horrid ugly truth of our fate.

I will do anything to keep her for as long as possible, whole and mine.

I cannot bear another one hundred and seventy-two years in the dark.

Even if she only looks upon me with distrust and hate, it will be worth it. If only to have the privilege of staring back into her eyes.

A small knock comes from the door, making me realize I had long gone still. “Master?”

“Leave us, selkie.”

She does not. My attention snaps to Molly as her eyes track one of her oldest friends. How terrible it must be to remember nothing? How lovely a reprieve it would be to remember…nothing.

“I was hoping to be permitted a walk along the beach.” The small, quiet woman asks before turning to my mate. “Come, mistress, you always long for sunlight in the long winter months.”

Molly sighs, glancing at the window. “It is cold.”

My phantom heart jolts at the sound of her voice, my tendrils working themselves into a frenzy before I dismiss them.

The selkie laughs, flouncing over to the wardrobe. “Nothing a few extra layers cannot fix. Master, I think it would brighten her spirits. ”

“Syringa?”

Her wide, tired eyes turn to me before snapping away once they meet. I pretend not to be gored by that small action. “Fine.”

The selkie clasps her hands together, tugging Molly from the bed, as always, the resilient creature seems impervious to the mood in the room around her. The lack of warmth hits me like a blanket of snow as I blur off our bed, stepping between them to press a soft kiss on my mate’s forehead.

I wait until I am in my office before I dare summon Tien. “Has there been any word at the port?”

“No, it appears all has been silent since the last letter.”

Rage rises in me like an iron left too long in the fire.

The putrid captain had, in fact, sent word back to the bastard who thought to take my mate from me.

He’d done so simply to demand payment for her passage, perhaps ransom her back to what Molly called New Eden.

A nagging in the back of my mind screams about everything I stand to lose.

It seems Joseph was more than willing to pay to have her returned.

It seems perhaps he was more than willing to cross the ocean for her, too.

My fangs descend, my claws scoring the top of the windowsill as I glare out at the turbulent waters.

He may be willing to cross the ocean, but I would burn the world for her.

I will return to the defilement I once was, and it would be all too easy to fuck and hold her as the snow turned red with their blood.

Their screams would be nothing but an accompaniment to the cadence of her breath, their pleas a symphony in tune with the beating of her heart.