Soul Mate

The lust in his eyes was still evident. It had been so long since I had first seen the smoke swirling in his eyes, something I had first thought was a trick of the light was really the first clue that I was being forced to take this path. A path that I vehemently did not want to be on; I had plans, I had goals. Being the young bride of a powerful demon was not one of them.1

Before I had found out his secret I would have happily accepted his proposal, but now knowing that his proposal (not a proposal, more like a plea) had conditions with it. Knowing that he wasn’t human…. Well, it all made me a little weary.2

I had seen him first; if he had seen me first I wouldn’t have fallen in love with him. But I had seen him first on campus and I had thought that he was merely going to be some eye candy for me to munch on while waiting for class to start. When he showed up in my Late Start class in November I nervously sat near him, it was a lab class and I was feeling daring (thinking back, I think the feeling was suicidal.) He was focused on the teacher, but when the assignment was passed out for the lab his eyes locked with mine.3

Being only eye candy I never really saw his eyes, but when I did I was shocked because they were dark and murky. At first I wanted to get a closer look, but as I continued to look into his eyes I became apprehensive. Something was telling me to walk away, to ask for another partner, to drop the class (that was your sanity, Cathy.)4

But this is the point in the story where my sanity flies out the window, not to be seen for several weeks.5

“I’m Cathy,” I extended my hand and he grasped it in his.6

“Dane,” he said back, he held onto my hand for a moment too long and let go of it slowly. I made no intention of taking my had back for his touch was nice and warm against my own. Instead my hand fell slowly back down to the table, it landed on the cold piece of paper that held the instructions for our lab, which brought me back to reality. This was not Soul Mate 101… what class was it again?7

We got through class and walked out together silently, it was dark outside but we stopped under a brightly lit archway in the school, “Do you think I could have your number?” he asked. “Science isn’t my best subject and you seemed pretty sure of yourself in there, I could use your help.”8

He passed me his cell phone and I punched my number in before returning it, “I’m sure you’ll do fine in the class. Science isn’t my thing either, I want to be a journalist.”9

“I bet you’re a fabulous writer, I think you have a beautiful soul.”10

At the time, I didn’t think that was weird in anyway, I thought it was romantic. Which was why I allowed him to walk me to my car and why I accepted the dinner date he asked me on after the third class. Now that I knew he was some demon who survived on people’s souls, who needed people’s very being in order to live, the words had an entirely different and very dark meaning.11

On the bright side of things, he didn’t want me to become his next meal. On the dimmer side of things he wanted to bind out souls together, effectively making me his soul mate. It gave the phrase a sick new meaning. And while the thought of being bound to him for eternity twisted every piece of me I couldn’t deny the feelings for him, because despite the fact that I truly feared him now I still had every ounce of passion and love for him. They were just being overshadowed at the moment.12

He looked at me, we were still sitting in the rocky cave that we had discovered so many days ago. We had been walking on the beach and while the tide was nipping at our feet we had no intentions of turning around, I was perfectly at ease with his arm around my waist, his jacket on my shoulders and my head resting on his shoulders. It was a cold night so we were alone on the beach, it was romantic but when the tide began to rise while we were exploring the cave the situation quickly became dangerous.13

The cave was deep, so while the water didn’t reach the back of the cave it was dark. I hadn’t slept with a nightlight for years but at that moment I missed my Donald Duck nightlight cover. I should have been more than afraid, I should have been panicking, but I was falling, and falling fast. 14

The fear didn’t seem to transfer to him at all, instead he calmly directed us to a high point in the back of the cave and held me on his lap, silently waiting till morning. I tried to give him back his coat multiple times, but he refused, simply saying he was fine. I had to admit that when his hands fingers brushed across my face and combed through my hair they felt perfectly warm to me. Almost too warm.15

But his soft strokes soon led to sleep and the bright morning sun quickly crept through the cave.16

Now we were sitting on that same alcove, we had come back multiple times since we were first stranded there. The fire he had lit was warm, but now that he had told me the extent of what it meant to be a soul eater I wished that I wasn’t in the depths of a dark cave with him. No matter how safe I felt with him in the past, this was all different now.17

“Cathy, I love you. Without you, I’ll die. That’s all there is to it. I can survive without you for some time, but each day with out my soul mate, each day that passes without us binding together I die a little. And that will keep happening until I fade away.”18

I tried to wrap my head around the logistics he had given to me, he was a demon. But essentially a good demon, but as he continued the description of his way of life I began to realize that he was a bit bias. Sure he left his victims alive, but they were soulless. No personality, no memories. Simply an organism with human feature, brain waves and a need for nutrients.19

But that could stop, he explained, every demon—every demon of his kind, had a soul mate of some sort. If they found their soul mate by their 25th birthday they would live, if not… they would die.20

This was so Beauty and the Beast minus France.21

“I just—I just can’t handle this. I love you, Dane, I really do. But I don’t know if I’m ready to make this kind of decision yet. I don’t know if I want to be with you forever,” I knew the words stung, “Oh, Dane! It’s just… I’ve known you for a few months and I know your getting whatever feeling it is that says I’m your soul mate, but I’m human and I don’t get that kind of feeling. I need time, Dane.”22

“I don’t have time,” he had stressed this earlier. His 25th birthday was in two months.23

“Then we have a problem. I don’t like this guilt on me, I don’t like knowing that if I say no to you, you’re going to die—“24

“Isn’t that what love is, Cathy?”25

“No, it’s about being human! And having a conscious. I’d feel guilty knowing that anyone’s death was on my hands. You kill people all the time, Dane, you’re the bad guy in this situation. You have no problem with death, you don’t get where I’m coming from!”26

“I don’t kill people.”27

“You might as well,” I yelled, “you take their souls from them. People are nothing without their souls, I would have never been more than a lab partner if my soul wasn’t the way it is. A soul makes a person.”28

“You can stop all this, if you bind with me then I won’t have to feed off so many people. I could feed off criminals, their souls are damaged but having yours with me would help. I would only have to feed every several years, maybe every few decades.”29

“I don’t know if I want to live forever. Forever’s a very long time.”30

“You’d be with me.”31

“What if we get sick of each other?”32

“Can’t happen.”33

“How do you know? Can you see the future as well?” he smiled, “Please say no.”34

“I can’t see the future, Cathy, but I can feel it. I know you’re the one. I wouldn’t lead you on, it’d only be wasting my own time. You’re special to me, Cathy.”35

I looked up at him, there were tears in both our eyes. No matter how afraid I was of the future, I couldn’t deny myself the truth, I loved him and that was that. “I don’t think I can survive without you either, Dane.”36