a better look at Kara too and what he saw twisted his heart.
There were tears on her cheeks and she was shouting his name and tugging at his shoulders frantically.
“Raak! Raak, come back to me! Come back, I love you! Don’t leave me—don’t leave me!”
Distressed by her sorrow, Raak gave another tug on the rope—only this time it was a mighty heave. He had to get back to her!
He found himself whizzing downward, on a collision course with his own body. He tried to brace himself for impact but when it came, the sudden meeting of his soul with the flesh shell that encased it was so rough, it shook him to the core.
Like slamming into a steel wall at a hundred clicks an hour, Raak thought, feeling dazed.
He tried to move but every part of him seemed heavy—like a machine that had stopped working and didn’t want to get started again. Inertia had set in and even lifting his eyelids was too much work—they seemed to be made of lead. His heart was like a useless lump of clay in his chest—it didn’t want to beat.
But if I can’t make my body work, I’ll be forced out of it again, Raak thought, with something close to panic. At the very least, I have to breathe—I have to make my lungs work.
It was the hardest thing he’d ever done—like trying to push a huge, heavy boulder up a hill. But somehow, he managed to pull in a small sip of air and get it down into his lungs. Slowly, they inflated and then he heard a low, faltering thump.
It was followed by another thump and then another until there was a steady rhythm. Thump- thump … thump-thump -… thump-thump…
My heart, he realized, it’s started beating again!
His lungs expelled the air he had sipped in and then expanded again—much more broadly this time—as he took another, deeper breath.
The engine was working again, Raak thought with relief. Thank the Goddess, his body was beginning to come back!
He forced his eyelids open and saw that Kara was staring at him with tears in her eyes—her dark blue eyes—with a silver ring around the irises.
Raak wanted to tell her how beautiful her new eyes were, but his mouth still wouldn’t move. It seemed some parts of his body were coming back faster than others. Still, he had another way to communicate with her now, didn’t he?
“Your eyes are beautiful, baby girl,” he sent through their newly formed bond. “They’re dark blue with a silver ring now.”
Kara’s lovely eyes flew wide and she looked at him in astonishment.
“Raak,” she whispered in a voice hoarse from crying. “Are you okay? And did you just speak inside my head?”
“That’s right, baby girl,” he sent, and found that his mouth was at least able to grin, though his lips still felt too clumsy to form words. “I’m talking to you through our link—we’re bonded now.”
“But…how?” Kara shook her head in disbelief. “You’re an Unbondable.”
“Not anymore, I’m not—you bonded me to you when you bit me just now, baby. That’s the reason you have your fangs in the first place—so that when the two of us got together you could bond me to you. The Goddess told me so.”
“The Goddess?” Kara sent through their link, a look of shock on her face. “When did you speak to the Goddess?”
“Just now—when I was dead,” Raak told her.
“When you were what?” she demanded out loud.
So then of course, he had to explain everything.
Thirty-Seven
Kara listened in disbelief as Raak finally explained what had happened. How his sliver of a soul had grown as he came to care for her and love her and how the Goddess had granted them the ability to bond as a consequence.
“But how did you die in the first place?” she demanded. “Did it have something to do with you growing a soul?”
“Exactly,” Raak said, nodding a little too quickly, Kara thought. She was almost certain there was more too it—in fact, she could feel that he was keeping something from her. But she could also sense, though their new bond, that he thought knowing his secret would hurt her and he wanted to keep her safe.
Reluctantly, Kara decided to leave it alone—for now. What really mattered was that Raak was back with her and he seemed to be as healthy as ever. In fact, as soon as he had finished explaining everything, he immediately wanted to make love again.
“Not so fast,” Kara told him sternly. “Before you