He plopped into a chair at the dining table. “You’ll never believe what I found out today.”
“Oh?” Cole reached for this and that, throwing together a lunch for both himself and Sean.
Throughout Sean’s explanation, Cole’s eyebrows drew closer together and his brown eyes darkened. He abandoned the food and gawked at Sean.
“What—what does this mean?” he asked when Sean finished.
Every scrap of patience inside him pulled tight as Sean rubbed his face. “I don’t know. She said it will merge us. One soul. Two bodies. One life. One death.”
Cole plunked into a chair across from him. “That’s not possible, is it?”
Sean’s hands clenched on the table, and he stared at them. “Do you think I have any idea what is and isn’t possible in this place?”
Several blinks later, Cole drew a quick breath. “So David Berkeley…is your soulmate?”
He scowled. “That makes it sound like I’m in love with him.”
A hint of humor sparked in his cousin’s eyes. “Maybe you are and you just don’t know.”
The fleeting thought had crossed Sean’s mind when he’d been fighting Cathaire, but it didn’t make sense. What Isobel had done didn’t make them love each other. It made them blur into one.
Sean laced his fingers, squeezing pastthe point of pain. “He’s going to be in my mind. His personality. His mannerisms. That stupid fucking way he stares at people like he’s a statue with no thoughts or feelings.”
The silence was broken by Cole’s deep, unsteady breath. He said nothing, but what exactly was Sean expecting him to say?
“His last breath will be mine,” Sean said. “Do you have any idea what that means? I live and die withDavid Berkeley.”
Swallowing hurt, but the acrid taste in his mouth was worse.
Cole’s sigh punctured the stillness. “Then—and I say this with all the irony in the world—it’s a good thing he’s really bad at dying.”
A snort ripped its way through Sean’s nose. “Wow.”
He gave an unapologetic shrug. “I mean, he’s a dick, and I kind of hate him, but if you’re going to be bound to someone irreversibly, isn’t it best that it’s someone who can talk his way out of anything with a smirk and a bit of snark?”
Gaze dropping to his clasped hands, Sean said, “I have to read this prophecy thing.”
“I read it, Sean. Reading it is not going to change anything. It doesn’t even make sense.”
“Does it say I’m going to save the world?”
“It calls you a savior. It doesn’t say from what.”
He stood, pushing back so quickly that his chair scraped against the wood floor. “I have to go. Need to think.”
Cole nodded. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
Sean paused on his way out. “Will you keep this to yourself for now?”
“Of course,” Cole said, as if it was already understood. “Your secrets are my secrets. You know that.”
CHAPTER 30
DAVID
Fully dressed before sunrise the next morning, David stared at the beautifully mussed girl sleeping in his bed and sipped the minty lemon beverage he could no longer live without.
Raven hair fanned over his pillows. Her brown skin gleamed against his white coverlet.
