Page 22 of Worse Fates (Soulmates Suck #1)

“Nah, he still looked like a skeleton. But one with more flesh,”

I tell Kai as Lucero drives us back home.

Kai shivers.

“I have no idea how to respond to that. Good for him, I guess?”

“He certainly was livelier,”

Ramy replies easily, but from the rearview mirror I spot him nervously smoothing his trousers.

“A livelier skeleton…”

Kai mumbles. “Great.”

Twisting in my chair, I pat Ramy’s knee to get his attention.

“Don’t worry about Rurik and Vidar. I bet they’re chatting away over a virgin or something.”

Ramy laughs, shaking his head, the imagined wrinkle forgotten.

“How many times do I need to tell you, virgins don’t taste any different.”

Flashing a grin, I settle back into my seat.

“Vidar didn’t hurt me.”

I point out to Lucero.

Placing his large hand on my thigh, Lucero hums, unconvinced. He keeps his focus trained on the road ahead. It might be late afternoon, but already the sun has set behind us and the dark creeps in.

“So, what’s with the tension between Vidar and Rurik?” I ask.

Lucero squeezes my leg.

“Rurik had a mate once. But when Rurik tried to turn him he…”

He sighs, long and sad. “Died.”

“Shit.”

The sudden need to touch him nearly overwhelms me. I don’t fight it, just lay my hand over his.

“How long ago?”

“Fifty years now,”

Lucero replies.

“When a vampire wants to turn a human, the vampire must have been turned longer than the human has been alive. Rurik was older by nearly four centuries, but he asked Vidar to come as a precaution. Our Maker’s blood is old and powerful.”

“How old is Vidar?”

Kai relaxes into his seat.

“Over a thousand,”

Ramy answers.

“Holy shit,”

Kai and I remark in unison.

Lucero nods.

“And his Maker is…well, a story for another time. On the night Rurik drained his mate and fed him blood, he never woke up. Vidar also attempted, but it was just too late.”

I suck in a breath.

“Jesus, that’s awful.”

“Rurik blamed everyone; himself mostly, and Vidar. Sen and I, even though we weren’t there. He likes Ramy, though.”

Between two fingers, Ramy plays with a long strand of hair.

“I’m very likable.”

My hand entwine with Lucero’s.

“The idea of losing a mate is…”

“There is nothing worse.”

Lucero’s tone is strained, and I wonder if he’s thinking about his other soulmates. I fight off my jealousy, and it half works. As much as I hate thinking about the others, I can’t even imagine how Lucero dealt with losing each one.

My feelings for Lucero are both complicated and very simple. I want him—a lot. Our connection stopped feeling like a cosmic version of forcing two Ken dolls to kiss when we talked in the garden, but I also wish fate had fucked off and let us handle this on our own.

My vampire is protective, charming and sexy as hell. But he worries, and I might sometimes be stupid, but I know he’s rearing up to give me a big fat ‘no’ when it comes to turning me into a vampire. Hell, if he wasn’t hesitant I wouldn’t be here in the first place.

When I decided Lucero and I were worth a try, I took that shit seriously and I refuse to let him become like Vidar; a half-formed thing who doesn’t give a shit. Lucero cares, damnit.

We might have to work on some things, but what couple doesn’t? And Lucero is going to learn just how stubborn I can be.

“When we get home, beautiful, we’ll talk,”

Lucero’s low voice interrupts my thoughts.

I take my phone out of my pocket, grinning.

“I’ll even add it to my cal—”

SLAM!

Something smashes into the car and we’re spinning out of control.

Glass explodes, coming at us like tossed diamonds. Someone’s screaming, and Lucero curses as he wrestles with the wheel, the stink of burnt tires acrid as the vehicle careens. I cling to the door handle, a yell trapped somewhere in my ribcage.

Before I can even form a thought, there's another incredible force and we’re airborne, my stomach lurches, and my phone is thrown from my hand.

For a second, time stops and I’m weightless—suspended like a comet against the black, shattered glass shining like stars and I can almost believe we’ll be okay. Then time snaps back and the roof SLAMS into the earth with a screeching crunch. We grate across the road, orange sparks shooting off and all I can do is hold on as my body is tossed.

Stopping with a jerk, my seat belt cuts into my shoulder and torso, painful but keeping me suspended instead of splattered on the ceiling.

There’s smoke. So much of it. Thick and cloying, stinging my eyes and clogging up my throat. I try to make sense of what happened, but rushing blood pounds in my ears and my vision blurs.

A hand seizes my shoulder, and panic floods my system, my fists swings wildly before my mind can catch up.

“Golden!”

I halt to find startling blue eyes staring at me from beside my blown out window, and instinctively reach for him.

“L-Lucero.”

“I have you.”

With one hard tug, I’m ripped from my seatbelt, my fall softened by his waiting arms before he hauls me out the wreckage.

“I have you. I have you, Golden—”

And then he doesn’t.

I’m dropped onto glass shards, crying out as pain flays open my flesh, followed by an awful crunch somewhere in the distance.

Sucking in a breath between clenched teeth, I jolt upright, terror for my vampire sharper than the broken glass cutting me.

“Lucero!”

I cry, finding him hurled across the black expanse of the road. Too far to make out details, but close enough to see him moving. “Lucero…”

I ignore my rolling stomach, and wheeze as I drag myself up.

“I'll help you.”

A ringing buzzes in my ears like a fly, and I shake it away as I limp forward. Only to realise it’s coming from somewhere in the crush, and glance around to find my phone shattered, the stupid thing calling the voicemail.

Scoffing, I ignore it and keep going.

“Golden! Help me with Kai!”

Ramy calls out.

“Kai?”

I gasp, glancing over at Lucero who’s beginning to stand, then to where Ramy is behind the car.

Who do I go to?

“H-h-hey Goo-Goofball.”

My heart stills. Jace? Is he here to help.

“Did y-y-you lost yo-your phone again?”

Wait. No, that isn’t right. I ran away from Jace.

And it hits me with a start that his voice is coming from my phone—from the voicemails I saved.

Biting back a curse, I make up my mind and stumble around the car to Ramy. My steps falter, and I collapse onto the car for support—only to jerk back on a sharp hiss, the overheated metal burning blisters into my skin. Spitting out a pained breath, I dismiss the tenderness and keep hobbling until I’ve reached Ramy pulling Kai from the back seat.

“Kai?”

I drop next to him. “Kai?”

My voice breaks.

He’s not moving

“Kai!”

“Anyway, just-just want-ed to l-l-let you know I’m on my way ho-home.”

Oh God he’s not moving.

I scream his name, cold dread starting from my heart and freezing outwards.

“He’s just unconscious,”

Ramy pants behind me.

Relief leaves me on an exhale. My gaze sweeps to Ramy, but the action causes pain to blaze across my skull.

“Lucero,”

I grit out, the world doubling.

“Lucero needs help.”

“Stay with him.”

Ramy’s voice is hard—an order. Then he’s vaulting over the smoking car and sprinting towards a sound I hadn’t even noticed, but could never forget; squelching, raw meat squeezed between fingers.

Oh, shit. Blood mages.

“Se-see you in a-a bit.”

I want to see what's happening, but as the sounds of a fight become obvious I stay low, knowing I’ll only distract and focus on Kai. His brown skin is leached of colour, there’s a small cut on his forehead but I can’t make out any other damage. Which doesn’t mean there’s none, however.

“You’re gonna to be okay, dude, got it?”

I whisper to my best friend.

“We’re gonna get outta here.”

I’m startled by a scream piercing the air, then Ramy’s body is thrown like garbage beside us.

Terrified, I go to help him, but he lets out an enraged roar so unlike my gentle friend I fall back.

Ramy wrenches himself up, but a shining red spear comes out of nowhere to stab through his chest in an explosion of gore and impaling him to the ground.

“Ramy!”

His name rips out of me. Yet I’m reminded he is no human. His fangs drop as he fists the spear and begins to draw it from his body, thick blood drenching his t-shirt, his face a fragmented mirror of both rage and pain.

“Love ya.”

Something cracks, then grinds, like eggshells under a boot—cutting the voicemail off. And then like the monster from my every nightmare, Jace climbs up on the car and looks down at me, smirking.

“Hey, goofball.”

“Jace,” I spit.

A misty ball of squelching blood pulses in his open palm, his fingers stroking it, as if it were a cat’s chin. His disgusting spellbook hovering by his side.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“Leave him alone—”

Ramy’s words end on a high-pitched wail as Jace pulls his fingers in tight. Jagged thorns grow from the spear and burrow deep, ripping apart Ramy’s insides.

“Stop hurting him!”

I grab a piece of jagged scrap metal, hold it tight enough to slice open my hand.

Like I give a fuck.

Fury propels me forward, and I slam my shoulder into Jace’s gut. A startled yell leaves him as we topple over the car, hitting the floor in a tangled heap.

Jace tries to punch me, but I block him with my forearm then bring the metal down—yet before it pierces his face, a sharp pain doubles me and I drop my only weapon.

Then that pain is yanked forward, like someone is trying to pull not me—but something in me—out.

And I watch in horror as a long ribbon of wet blood is leached from my shoulder.

A strained yell bubbles in my throat, then bursts as that ribbon sharpens into a solid needle as long as my forearm, and stabs through my upper arm.

“GOLDEN!”

Lucero roars.

Toppling over, my cheek scraps against the road where I land.

But I don’t have time to catch my breath.

Slapping damaged and hurting hands down I heave my throbbing body up.

Through a haze of confusion, I watch in the distance as Lucero ducks and dives through long, violent whips of blood.

Like the spear, they shine like polished metal and have wicked teeth to inflict as much damage as possible.

The blood mage controlling them isn’t Jace though, but a dark haired woman with a shock of white down her flowing hair, a flesh book hovering by her side.

From this distance it’s hard to make out any other details of her, but from the way she stands and wields her sinister weapons, she reeks of a lethal confidence.

Too bad for her Lucero isn’t making this fight an easy one, he dips and dodges.

Hitting at her then speeding back.

She’s flagging, that much is obvious.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going!”

Jace grabs my t-shirt and spins me into him so close I can smell his minty breath.

“You’re mine, Golden. Mine!”

he seethes.

“Piss off you bellend!”

My knee comes up and when it connects—hard—Jace gags. Blood drains from his face as he drops down, curling in on himself and whining like a dog.

Air saws out my lungs, and my mind flashes back to when I was a sobbing mess, bruised and beaten and on the fucking floor like I didn’t matter.

And before I can even stop myself, not that I would, I swing my foot into his unprotected stomach.

“Fuck you!”

I’m screaming.

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

My voice comes out shredded, ripped into pieces and hurled at him with each damn kick.

Reeling my foot back, I strike him in the head with a brute force I didn’t think I had in me, knocking the fucker out cold.

“Bitch.”

And spit on him.

Breathing hard, I turn, stumbling towards Kai and Ramy. But before I can get far a sphere of blood collides into my stomach with the force of a bowling ball. Wind is beaten out of my lungs as I’m knocked back, crumbling into a heap next to Jace.

Then a shining bloody spear hurtles in my direction. Sucking in a cry, I dart my hands up to protect myself.

The sound of something sharp slices into flesh and I wait for pain. But when none comes, I drop my hands to find a muscular chest—a bloody spear lodged deep inside him as he shields me.

“Lucero!”

Teeth gritted, Lucero jerks forward as a volley of spears stab into him. A shuddering shout leaves him each time he’s impaled.

“Stop! God, Lucero, stop! Run, you have to run. You’ll be killed!”

But through my tears I see his face as if carved from stone—no force on this world, or any other, could make my vampire move.

He might be covered in blood, but he’s not defeated.

“I have you,”

he breathes, reassuring me even as grimaces in pain. Blood staining his clenched teeth.

“Run!”

I scream, grabbing fistfalls of his tattered shirt.

“Please just run, just run!”

In all this chaos, his blue eyes hold me captive, and he looks at me like he always does—as if I’ve given him something precious.

“I have you, Golden.”

Shaking my head, my hands now soaked, I try to push him, tears streaming down my face.

“No, no, no!”

“What did I tell you before? I’ll be fine—”

A gleaming point pierces through his heart.

His eyes go round, and he chokes up a stricken cry. The noise that leaves me is from somewhere so deep I didn’t even know it existed. Fear beyond my bones and marrow, like my soul yawned open and told the universe ‘no’.

“I’m….”

Lucero spits out a shout of pain.

“Not. Leaving. You!”

Ramy speeds past us—hair trailing behind him. I hear a voice cry out, thankfully not his, and manage to see over Lucero’s shoulder. Ramy darts around the whips, his arm slashed—but a laceration is cut across the blood mage’s arm and she drops onto a knee. The whips somehow still thrashing.

Ramy zigzags to her, but an engine roars to life, and a car shoots towards him like lightning down the asphalt, and Ramy has to throw himself out of its path before it crashes into him.

“Get in, Emma, we need to get out of here!”

Jace shouts to the woman with dark hair, flinging a spear at Ramy to keep him back to give the blood mage time to scramble inside.

When the car accelerates away—leaving only a burning tire stink behind—Lucero finally drops.

I bolt up and attempt to help him into a more comfortable position. My trembling hands hover over his ravaged chest.

“Need to stop the bleeding.”

My voice is far away, quivering. Lucero is groaning something, then Kai is dropping next to me.

Ignoring them, I shove my hands over Lucero’s heart to apply pressure.

Ramy collapses on the other side of Lucero, looking like he’s barely holding it together with a phone pressed to his ear. Speaking into it even as he coughs up blood.

My body is numb, but I refuse to give up and keep my weight on Lucero’s chest.

“You're fine. You’ll be fine, you have to be.”

My mate’s hands lay across mine. He’s trying to tell me something, but he might as well be speaking another language. All I know is I need to keep my hands down, keep the pressure up. I don’t care that every bone in my body hurts, or my hands are soaking in a pool of Lucero’s blood—God, he’s bleeding so much—none of it matters.

“Just need to stop the bleeding and then you’ll be okay, Lucero,” I ramble.

Suddenly—I’m in the air. I scream, kicking and scratching at the hands holding me like I’m a wild animal.

Ramy comes in front of me and I’m shoved into his arms, before Rurik comes into view.

“He’s going to save Lucero, Golden. I promise, I promise,”

Ramy says in my ear.

I can’t stop shaking, or crying. I’m either breathing too much, or not at all. I don’t stop fighting Ramy, even as Rurik gets on his knees. In one smooth bite of his wrist, blood streams out and he forces it into Lucero’s mouth.

Blackness pulls in at the edge of my vision. Lucero becomes a single point—his arm stretching taut towards me.

“Lucero…”

I plead, broken and lost.

The world draws in and I watch in horror as Lucero goes limp, his open gaze blank.

Then—darkness.