Free Huntress, Black Dawn, Witchlight by L.J. Smith Page B

another way.
    This shouldn’t be happening, she told Morgead, putting all the energy of her terror behind the thought.
    I know. But that’s because you’re fighting it. We should be somewhere else by now.
    Jez was exasperated. Where else?
    I don’t know, he said, and she could feel a tinge of sadness in his thought. Some place—deeper. Where we’d really be together. But you won’t open your mind….
    Morgead, what are you talking about? What do you think is going on?
    He seemed genuinely surprised. Don’t you know? It’s the soulmate principle.
    Jez felt the floor drop away beneath her.
    No. That’s not possible. That can’t be. She wasn’t talking to Morgead anymore; she was desperately trying to convince herself. I’m not soulmates with Morgead. I can’t be. We hate each other…he hates me…all we ever do is fight….
    He’s impossible and dangerous and hotheaded and stubborn…he’s crazy…he’s angry and hostile…he’s frustrating and infuriating and he loves to make me miserable…
    And I don’t even believe in soulmates. And even if I did, I wouldn’t believe it could happen like this, just bang, out of the blue, like getting hit by a train when you’re not looking, without any warning or even any attraction to the person beforehand….
    But the very hysteria of her own thoughts was a bad sign. Anything that could tear away her self-control like this was powerful almost beyond imagination. And she could still feel it pulling at her, trying to strip off the layers of cloud she was hiding behind. It wanted Morgead to see her as she truly was.
    And it was trying to show her Morgead. Flashes of his life, of himself. Glimpses that hit her and seemed to cut cleanly through her, leaving her gasping with their intensity.
    A little boy with a mop of tousled dark hair and eyes like emerald, watching his mother walk out the door with some man—again. Going to play alone in the darkness, amusinghimself. And then meeting a little redheaded girl, a girl with silvery-blue eyes and a flashing smile. And not being alone anymore. And walking on fences with her in the cool night air, chasing small animals, falling and giggling….
    A slightly older boy with longer hair that fell around his face, uncared-for. Watching his mother walk out one last time, never to come back. Hunting for food, sleeping in an empty house that got messier and messier. Learning to care for himself. Training himself. Getting harder, in mind and body, seeing a sullen expression when he looked in the mirror…
    A boy even older watching humans, who were weak and silly and short-lived, but who had all the things he didn’t have. Family, security, food every night. Watching the Night People, the elders, who felt no responsibility to help an abandoned vampire child….
    I never knew, Jez thought. She still felt dizzy, as if she couldn’t get enough air. The images were dazzling in their clarity and they tore at her heart.
    A boy who started a gang to create a family, and who went first to the little girl with red hair. The two of them grinning wickedly, running wild in the streets, finding others. Collecting kids the adults couldn’t control or wouldn’t miss. Walking around the worst parts of town, unafraid—because they had one another now.
    The images were coming faster, and Jez could hardly keep up with them.
    Dashing through the metal scrap yard…with Jez…Hiding under a fish-smelling wharf…from Jez…His first big kill, a stag in the hills of San Rafael…and Jez there to share the hot blood that warmed and intoxicated and brought life all at once. Fear and happiness and anger and arguments, hurt and sadness and exasperation—but always with Jez interwoven into the fabric. She was always there in his memories, fire-colored hair streaming behind her, heavy-lashed eyes snapping with challenge and excitement. She was everything bright and eager and brave and honest. She was haloed with flame.
    I didn’t know…how could I know?