Bind Our Loving Souls (15 page)

All that mattered was being bound to
Enock.

“Then place your hand over my heart,” he
said, pulling the neck of my shirt down just enough to rest his
over mine. Almost instantly, my hand began to sink into his skin,
into the scars he’d accepted from me. This time, it felt amazing,
the fiery warmth and tingling I always felt from his tongue
creeping steadily over my skin and spreading upward away from my
fingers. Each of our hands disappeared, but it was taking too long.
I wanted him now. So I leaned against him carefully, feeling the
all-consuming pleasure and indescribable love we shared take me
over. “I love you, Sarafina,” Enock’s voice hummed as I closed my
eyes and lost myself completely in him.

In addition to these incredible feelings, I
felt the rushing of his blood and beating of his heart. And then I
simply felt his love surround me, a reverent peace, as my heart
began beating in unison with his. My emotions, my thoughts, my body
had become part of his. It felt like everything was perfect, and
nothing could ever go wrong, because I would never be separated
from Enock.

Chapter
Thirteen

Enock opened the door for me to leave my
room, a married woman now.

The light had finally burned out in his
gorgeous eyes, but the love they still emanated for me shone
brightly as far as I was concerned. He put an arm around me to keep
me steady as we walked toward the sitting room. The changes I had
experienced still had me a little shaky.

I listened to the rhythm of his heartbeat as
we walked, and marveled at the way I could tell exactly what he was
thinking when our eyes met—how he couldn’t wait to bring me a
certain Anvilayan flower every day when we returned to Cyron, and
how happy he was to be taking me back with him. I couldn’t help but
kiss his side, pressed against me. He smiled as his eyes flashed an
orangey-pink color, which I’d learned back in my bedroom was what
happened when he felt desire.

At the end of the hall, a large clear stone
had been placed at eye level on the door. A golden hand protruded
from it and dug its fingers deep into the wall beside the door,
making it impossible to open.

“Would you like to do it?” Enock asked
me.

I nodded, hoping I was Anvilayan enough that
the stone would respond to me, and placed my hand over the smooth,
glassy rock. It shone brightly as the fingers ripped themselves
from the wall and curled inward, allowing Enock to open the door so
we could enter the men’s sitting room.

There was a warm rush through my body as I
remembered the night I had arrived, my human side taking over at
the worst possible time. I felt out of place in my jeans and
T-shirt, when everyone else was wearing the familiar dark cloth
tied around them, glittering with small, luminous stones. And they
were all in Anvilayan form.

Two people stood near the door, a man trying
to comfort a woman who was crying. Others were crying here and
there throughout the room. Obviously, they were upset about having
to leave their home, and it was all my fault.

Everyone was talking in ghostly Anvilayan
voices, but it all became quiet when we walked in. Every last
Halvandor turned to stare at us, most of them at me.

Is it done?
Mattias stepped forward
to ask in an eerie voice.

Enock gave me an encouraging look. I stared
at the ground and concentrated on Enock sharing his world with me
only days before. A moment passed before I felt the rush of
changing. The tattoos that had become part of me during our binding
painted themselves over my arms, showing that it had indeed been
done and that I was now marked a Halvandor.

Good. Now that that is in order, we must
decide what to do with the humans. Sarafina, you know far more
about them than us, so what do you think we should do?

I was surprised and pleased to have the
honor of voicing my opinion first, but also afraid of saying the
wrong thing. If I did, I figured it would at least be better to say
it in their language.
Um—will you ever be returning?

No.

A twinge of heartache shot through me.

Then I would suggest leaving things as
they are.
The humans are happy here. If you don’t want
them to remember you, then you could erase it from their memories
and let their lives go on as they are now.
It bothered me a
little that I was already speaking of humans separately from
myself.

Yes, that is how I figured it. We will
have to leave a deed to the house and lands to them, I
suppose.

But, Mattias, it has been in our family
for generations
, a woman objected.
We cannot simply hand
it over to the humans.

It will do us no good to own it once we
are gone. And it is part of the human world. This is where the ones
who have served us all our lives grew up. They should have it,
rather than others come and take it from them.

The woman sobbed, making me feel worse.

Enock ran his fingers over my back. “They
will thank you when we return home, trust me,” he whispered.

So, Rolph, you visit the humans in the
hall west of this room. Remove any trace of our existence,
including their own recollection. Harold, you will cover the rooms
west of those.

I waited patiently for Mattias to finish
before I spoke with the women who would be covering my hall, so I
could make sure I was the one to remove all traces of my existence
from Helena myself.

* * * *

Enock and I stopped just outside of Helena’s
door. I suddenly began to feel a great deal of separation anxiety.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said, feeling pressure in my
chest.

“I don’t want you to either.” His grip
tightened over my shoulder. “But I’ll wait right here for you.”

I continued staring at him, asking myself why
I was being so ridiculous. He would be less than twenty feet away
from me and it felt like I was getting ready to say good-bye to him
forever.

“All Anvilayans feel that way when they are
first bound,” Hannah said softly, stopping in front of the first
door on the opposite side of the hallway. She’d been happy to let
me go see Helena instead of her, and she was very kind in general.
“It is never easy to part from the one you love for any period of
time, but it does become tolerable.” Then she opened the door and
disappeared inside.

Enock and I continued watching one another as
I opened the door, which was a lot easier to do now. “Hurry, won’t
you?” he said.

I nodded and entered the room, taking my cell
from my pocket and remembering the last conversation I’d had with
my dad. It was depressing, but it brought on the change to human I
needed as I crossed the room and sat on Helena’s bed. Her fireplace
was burning, so I was able to see her sleeping.

“Helena,” I said, shaking her arm a bit.
“Helena.”

She opened one of her eyes halfway, then
blinked a few times and sat up. “Sara?” She rubbed her eyes before
she put a hand over the one I had on her bed. “Are you all right? I
thought I went to your room and it was full of Halvandors, but now
I’m wondering if it was just a dream.”

“I’m fine. I just wanted to thank you for
being such a good friend to me.” I leaned over to hug her, thinking
how I would truly miss her and her unusually cheerful nature.

“You’re welcome, but I should be thanking
you. Before you came here, I only had children to play with.”

“But you’ll still have Eddy,” I sat back to
say.

“He’s not as much fun, though…You’re not
leaving, are you?” A look of worry passed over her face.

I nodded, because she deserved the truth. “I
will never forget you.”

“Don’t leave.” She started to cry.

“You’ll be okay.”

“No,” she sobbed. “Please stay—”

It was surprisingly easy to think of how I
needed her to forget me and every other Anvilayan she’d ever met,
the rush of my body changing running its course and my eyes
flashing right away. Helena stared at me blankly as I convinced her
silently that my room and everything in it was hers, that her life
would continue wonderfully, and that she could have a lot of fun
with Eddy if she would give him a chance.

When I was finished, she climbed out of bed
robotically and left the room through the side door that led to
mine. And then I was alone, feeling human sadness for saying
good-bye to a dear friend that wouldn’t even remember me, and a
greater Anvilayan joy because now I could return to Enock.

I ran from the room and into the hallway,
where Enock took me into his sweet embrace. I felt lighter than air
as the nagging fear of something terrible happening to him while we
were apart was taken away.

It was impossible not to be grateful for this
ever-present painful need I had to be with him, when it was making
the idea of leaving everything behind so much easier. There was
nothing else in existence that could have made things so
simple.

“It was horrendous the way I missed you,”
Enock said, rubbing my back with one hand.

“I know what you mean.”

“You’ve eaten nothing all day,” Enock said.
“Let’s go to the kitchen for a late-night snack.”

“All right.” I realized I was starving.

Arms tightly around each other, we headed for
the kitchen to get something to eat before we prepared for our
journey.

Chapter
Fourteen

It took some persuading to get myself there,
but I was standing on the edge of my driveway at midnight with
Enock by my side. I’d just finished erasing Jo Hanna’s memory of
everything I’d told her about him. It had been hard to leave her
behind, but leaving my parents would be ten times worse. Hopefully,
my unnatural obsession with Enock would get me through it as it had
everything else.

We walked slowly up my driveway as I let the
memories flood through me, changing me back to human. This was the
last time I would ever be here, so I didn’t want to rush it. I
glanced at our old blue mailbox, remembering the balloons my mom
tied around it every year for my birthday party. I watched the dark
mass of trees behind my house wave to me in the wind as I thought
of the cold December morning each year when my dad, sisters, and I
woke up early to chop down a Christmas tree and drink hot apple
cider together. Then I stared at the front porch, thinking of the
afternoons Julianna and I had spent out there, drinking lemonade
and listening to the rain fall. In spite of my mostly-absent
parents, I’d had a wonderful childhood. I was grateful for
that.

I paused outside my bedroom window, sad to
see the curtains closed. We’d burned all the belongings I’d brought
to the manor with me because it was forbidden to bring items from
other worlds back to Cyron and because it helped to erase my having
ever been there. So it would have been nice to have a final look
inside my room.

Next, I moved on to my parents’ room, where
the curtains were pulled back and the window was open, letting the
summer night’s breeze in. My parents were lying close to each
other, fast asleep. Enock took the screen out very carefully,
making just enough noise to cause my mother to roll over in her
sleep. Then he kissed my forehead before I climbed into the window
and went to stand beside the bed. My eyes began to tear up as I
stood there and watched them, hurting enough that I had to look
away.

My eyes met Enock’s and I felt the rush of
becoming Anvilayan. My chest filled with warmth at the sight of his
face, his smile, his never-ending love.

I looked back at my parents and reached for
their hands, feeling the pain of a broken heart over deserting them
and the happiness of having the cracks filled with Enock’s
devotion. I closed my eyes and concentrated on convincing them that
I’d gone abroad, and that no matter how long I was gone, I was
happy and safe.

My mother’s eyes fluttered as my hand
withdrew. She was always a light sleeper. Thankfully, they remained
closed as I stood and left the room.

Once I was standing outside, Enock replaced
the screen in the window without making a sound.

Standing there watching my mom and dad, I
thought of how humans had become something like strangers to me in
less than twenty-four hours. The more time that passed, the more
the Anvilayan side of me overrode everything, and the more grateful
I was for it. Their culture and lifestyle made such perfect sense
to me now.

And I was beginning to fit in well with a few
of the Halvandor women. Not all of them cared much for me, but
Hannah and a couple of others had really taken me in and become my
friends. They’d all seemed so strange and scary to me before. But
now I saw them more as the person I’d always been inside, dark and
simplistic with a great love for nature. It almost felt like I
hadn’t changed at all, like the creature hidden deep inside of me
my whole life had been set free.

The plan when we reached Cyron was to tell
everyone that I was one of the Halvandors born on earth, which
would explain any of my human tendencies that might occasionally
resurface. I would be the daughter of a couple whose names were
Richard and Krista, distant enough relatives that my marriage to
Enock would be perfectly acceptable.

Enock’s hand took mine, distracting me from
my thoughts. He smiled and licked my right temple. “We should go,”
he whispered.

I nodded, hesitant to leave my home, but
ready to start a new life with him. I waved my free hand at my
parents, even though they couldn’t see it, and said, “I love you
both,” very quietly.

Will you race me back to the ship?
Enock hissed.

Since I’d learned how to move more easily as
an Anvilayan, I couldn’t get enough of it. Racing over earth and
hurling myself through the air made me feel unbelievably alive.
Enock was well aware of this, and how it was one of the best ways
to make me feel better.