Pure Destiny (PureDark Ones #12) - Aja James Page 0,5

mind does, before his soul fully awakens, there’s no telling what he’s capable of. He is still the enemy.”

“How can we heal both at the same time?” Sophia asked desperately, an oft repeated question, at least in her own mind if not out loud.

Rain’s expression softened even further, perhaps in reaction to the stark torment on Sophia’s face.

The healer turned to Valerius, placed her palm on her Mate’s bicep and kissed his chest fleetingly before murmuring, “Give us a moment, my love.”

The warrior did not move, but it seemed to Sophia that his big, muscular body expanded even more like a protective shield around the tiny female that was his Mate.

They did not say anything more to each other, simply communicating through their locked gazes, or perhaps telepathically through their Bond.

Sophia watched on with something like envy before turning her eyes away. The palpable connection between Mates seemed too intimate to witness.

After a few seconds, Valerius quietly departed the healing chamber, leaving Sophia and Rain alone with the patient. And the enemy.

“I am always amazed by how silently he moves for someone so…intimidatingly tall and big. And, well, just plain intimidating,” Sophia mused out loud, trying to lighten the tension that permeated this room since Dalair had been brought in.

Rain smiled a secret feminine smile, the sort that only a female who knew and owned every inch of her male would be able to wear on her lips.

“He is all warrior and all grace,” she said simply.

“And all unfiltered male,” Sophia added with the semblance of a teasing grin.

“Indeed,” the healer readily agreed.

“As is your male, Sophia,” she added after a brief pause, redirecting them both to the issue at hand.

Sophia’s smile immediately collapsed, her doubt and worry returning full force.

“Is he?” she murmured.

“My male?”

“It is clear you believe so,” Rain pointed out. “We do not need ceremony for your Claim on him to be broadcasted to all who witness you together.”

Sophia was quiet for a while, sorting through her thoughts.

“Yes, I want to Claim him,” she finally said. “But the most important question is whether he wants to Claim me back. A Bond cannot be formed without mutual desire. There can only be one for each of us. And the consequence of making the wrong choice is…”

Death.

To be precise, the consequence of a Pure One carnally loving another without the other returning their love was an excruciating, torturous death within thirty days.

None of them knew why this Cardinal Rule existed, but some of them had suffered the Decline firsthand, so there was no denying that it was real. Their self-destruct button, so to speak, was programmed into their DNA.

Every situation was different. Valerius had experienced an accelerated Decline with Rain before she returned his love unconditionally. Seth had essentially died before Jade Cicada, the previous vampire queen of New England, pulled him back from crossing the divide into the afterlife.

If there was an afterlife.

For Pure Ones, their souls could be reincarnated, but how many times was left to the Goddess. Sometimes, they came back as vampires, if given the choice over death. Sometimes, they were reborn into another body, another time. And other times, the Fallen chose death, and their souls might never return, their bodies turned to stardust to be absorbed back into the Universal Balance.

If Sophia looked at the Pure Ones’ existence, their raison d'être, especially with her “human” side, she might feel powerless in the face of Destiny. That there should be only one out there in the vast, unfathomable universe that was meant for each person. That loving the wrong person was punishable by death.

Where was free will in all of this? Where was choice?

But Sophia knew better.

She had had many incarnations, more than she remembered, she was certain. But she knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that no matter when, no matter where, given a choice, she would always choose Dalair. Destiny bedamned. If he was not hers, she would move heaven and earth to make it so.

But she’d never take the choice away from him. He needed to choose her too.

“Try it,” Rain’s soft words pulled Sophia out of her reverie.

“What?” she started.

“You want to see if your connection to him can help him heal and bring him back to himself, yes?”

“Well…”

Sophia couldn’t meet the healer’s eyes.

In truth, she simply wanted to be with Dalair, any way she could. She craved him in the core of her being, with everything that she was. Selfishly, the fact that he might heal from the