Page 40 of These Eternal Bones

Dearest Me

Molly

The running of the bath barely covers the sound of my sniffles as I read entry after entry of a mirror image of my life.

Different places, different circumstances, a different me, but the same.

I see myself in her words, in each passage of pain and longing, the emptiness that brought her to Port Clyde.

The finding of everything she never knew she wanted…

Dearest me,

The man came back again today. He is strange, and I quite think he likes me.

Judging by the uncomfortable way he hovers, growling at the patrons in the eatery.

But he said nothing again, aside from ordering his food, which he did not touch.

It’s always handsome smirks and please and thank you.

He’s polite and very pretty. I suspect he’s one of them .

There are a lot more of them here than there were at home in the city, although his particular kind I’ve never seen before.

I had never thought of lying with one, not in any genuine sense, but I wouldn’t mind being taken to his bed.

I let out a breathless, snotty laugh at the blatant way she swooned over him and him with her. It seems in this life I was much more…sexually experienced than I am now.

She got her wish only ten entries later.

The contents made me blush.

Almost more shocking are the mentions of Cartiel. Nearly every entry had his name at least once. We went for walks, had lunch together, he made light bounce between mirrors, and we’d laugh…

We were…friends. Close friends. His life before Port Clyde only made it even more confusing that he stayed.

In a place built between grand marble towers and sandy shores, he was revered as a god.

A true one, worshipped. He missed it, but he’d seemed happy…

with me. It’s odd trying to equate the two versions of him.

The fox was allowed inside as well. Another shock. Albeit rarely and far from me, it turns out he was a ruthless flirt then, too. Elric killed him and tossed him in the woods, which I then found kind of funny. She thought them to be like brothers, fighting over their favorite toy.

Old, scary, and incredibly violent brothers.

I skip forward, most of the pages are filled with a lot of sex, feeding, more sex, and a few mentions of the bond. While nothing too specific. She can feel him through it, his emotions. She’s upset because he’s not acting like himself. He’s nervous, worried for her.

She doesn’t understand why.

You and me both.

My lips part, my tears drying and crusted to my face as I open to the end of the last diary.

The words are shaky, the beautiful penmanship sloppy and rushed, the pages dotted with dried tears that smudged the ink.

My hands shake as I brush my fingers over them, knowing without reading what I just found.

A sick feeling jars with nerves and anticipation in my gut as I press my back against the hot but slowly cooling side of the claw-footed tub.

Imogen, One Hundred and Seventy-Two Years Ago

“You cannot bear it?! Tell me Elric, how am I looking upon you now? I can feel your fear, your guilt eating away at the bond. You’re worried, you don’t sleep, something is happening, and you cannot bear to tell me? But instead, inflict me with your emotions day in and day out!”

My throat burns from hours of screaming, hours of trying to make him understand.

He doesn’t. He couldn’t begin to even with the ever-tugging bond tied between us.

An intangible connection formed in our blood.

It’d once been a comfort. It still is…only one soured by guilt, fear, worry, and an ever-present pang of grief from the man in front of me.

How can one person feel so much horror and stand tall in the face of it?

How could I have possibly ever made him smile?

It’s been almost a month since he bonded us. What started out as the most wonderful feeling, that empty space at the core of my being filled finally with so much rightness, so much love, has been polluted by the man who put it there.

His dark eyes track me as I rage through his office, always tracking. I had once thought them a comfort, a blessing. Now they scrape. Something is happening. Surely it's driving me as mad as him .

His face is the picture of stoicism, but I know better. The clever schooling of features no longer works on me. This is gutting him; I am gutting him.

But why?

“What have I done wrong? What have I done to make you feel this way?!” I plead, my throat knotting closed before I swallow past it.

“It is not what you have done, syringa.”

My mind swirls, tears coating my cheeks.

We’ve been at it for hours, for days . I think I’m losing my mind.

My eyes snap toward the sharpened letter opener on his desk, steeling my jaw because you cannot reason with someone being utterly unreasonable.

So, I will be unreasonable too. He doesn’t make a move.

His tendrils locked, soothing my heated flesh as I jerk it off the desk.

Everything is still, so still as I bring it to my throat.

My actions are ridiculous even to me. They make little sense, but it’s the bond , this horrible, lovely bond.

It’s his madness leaking out into my chest, making my thoughts odd and unfamiliar.

It’s the waiting for a threat I cannot understand or identify; I had never been a fearful person before but it is all I feel now.

His eyes widen, a sharp pang of agony, of terror striking the bond, nearly making my knees buckle.

How could a creature, a god, be so afraid of anything?

“Imogen…” he warns, “Don’t.” His voice is all growl, but I’m past the point of listening.

I dig the blade into my neck, just the tip, until I can feel the warm blood well before he stops it.

It only angers me more. He won’t even let me bleed .

He’s in my veins, always, his tendrils snapping wildly as I take a step back.

My feet nearly tangle in them, making me stumble, and they right me and retreat all at once.

I feel the loss immediately .

For as many times as I’ve forbidden him to touch me tonight, I never thought he would actually stop. It only steels my resolve. He said the bond would ruin everything. God, he was right.

Everything is ruined.

Us included.

“You will tell me now what plagues my chest, or I will cut it free.” My voice wobbles. Even so, it’s stronger than I could’ve hoped for.

Mama always said I had a flair for dramatics, for big, wild emotions. She would’ve had a field day with my mate. I’ve felt nothing as loud or crippling as what’s coming off this man.

He stands with a blurred grace that I’ve come to admire, but not like this, not when it's used against me. My body stops…his dominion over blood, the God of Blood and Eternal Death, stops my heart. I barely react as the blade tumbles from my fingers, his arms banding around me like a vice. Loving and punishing as his dominion leaves me, everything snapping back as it should be, like it had never happened at all. A sob rips from my throat. “You’re a monster.”

My spine tingles, my body acting with a mind of its own as his hand snakes up my neck, capturing it in a gentle but firm hold.

“Yes, my sweet mate, I am. That is what you wanted, no? To snap and prod what was left of my mind! You win. I shall tell you a story befitting a monster, then you will truly mean those words the next time you use them.”

I tremble in his hold, not daring a breath.

“In every one of your lives, you are stunning, jarringly beautiful, and different. Every time, it is a different name, an unfamiliar face, but your soul is the same. You always smell of lilacs like you did in that very first life. Six hundred years ago, I bound you to me for the first time.” He seems to shudder at the memory, but it is not one of pleasure.

This is not the gentle man I love. This is a man maddened by rage.

I knew of my reincarnation, something I took surprisingly well.

None of this is new. He drags his thumb across my throat a final time before releasing me all at once, leaving me to steady myself as he snags the blade.

I stifle a scream as he throws it, embedding it so deep in the wall that the hilt can barely be seen.

“You see, in that first life, we were happy. We were happy . Our clan was fifty strong, but my mate needed more. My human mate needed the only thing an immortal, undead god could not give her. A child born from your own womb. I had never seen anyone want something so badly.”

He takes a deep breath, his tendrils, as always, betraying his unearthly stillness as they writhe on the floor. They look…hurt, like something terrible pains them. It drives more tears from my eyes. I wish to gather and comfort them, but I stand, glaring instead. “A baby?”

“I may be a god, but at my core, I am a dead man, Imogen. My seed was useless aside from filling you.” He says the words like it’s a shameful secret, like there’s something wrong with him. “You refused to let me turn you–”

“Turn me into what?”

“A vampire.” My eyes widen, but he says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

His jaw works. “You refused to let go of the notion of having a baby, and I refused to let another give you one, so I scoured this earth. I called upon higher gods, but of course, they had no time for a minor one such as me. They cared little for the pains of humanity. I watched your soul wither, your disappointment grow until we landed in Port Clyde. It was a long shot, but there was a coven, the last remaining one, from a primal bloodline. Long descended from gods, but not of them. It was your last chance. I could not bear denying you much. Even then. ”