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“Because I’m your best friend.” She leans forward, pounds her fist against the table, and laughs. “And as your best friend, I know all your secrets.”
“But that’s not what we’re supposed to be talking about,” I remind her, sneaking the bottle back. Keeping the bottle under the table, I discreetly unscrew the cap. “You’re supposed to be telling me why Shade thinks Jules has never been with any other werewolf and never will be.” I hurriedly lift the bottle to my lips and down a swallow.
“You little thief.” She grabs the drink from my hand, plops it down on the opposite side of the booth, and points a finger at me. “No more trickery from you.”
“Only if you tell me what in the love of madness is going on with Jules and me?”
She pauses, eyeing me closely. “Do you feel it, too?”
I give a lazy shrug. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“The connection. Like, every time you’re around him, you want to kiss him and touch him—be one with him.”
“That sounds like a bad romance cliché right there.”
“Lake, I’m being serious,” she whines, stomping her foot. “I need to know if you feel anything at all so I can decide just how much to tell you.”
“I really don’t know how I feel.” The room spins around me in bright colors. Well, either that or my head’s spinning. “Do I like Jules? Sure. He seems nice. But I just met him a few days ago. I barely know him, and he barely knows me. Well, it feels like I know him, well, sometimes. Or well, like, I want to get to know him better. And he has really pretty eyes and the softest lips. I kind of like how he always holds my hand, although I do pull away because I’m me. And then there’s the kissing. Yeah, that sort of freaks me out, yet lights me on fire. It’s all very conflicting …” I trail off, my brows pulling together. “Wait. What was I saying?”
The goofy grin on her face makes me smile.
“You were saying what I needed to hear.” She props her elbow on the table and rests her cheek against her hand. “And you feel all those things because Jules is your alterum dimidium animae.” My lips part to demand for her to explain that damn word, but she beats me to the punch. “Alterum dimidium animae means second half, which means that, together, Jules and you make up a whole, but when you’re apart, you’re just a half.”
I lower my head to the table. “That explains nothing, but does put strange images into my head of Jules and I walking around with half our bodies.”
She bites back a smile. “I’m not talking about your bodies. I’m talking about your wolf souls.”
“Wolf souls?”
“It’s pretty much like a normal soul except, since we’re also one with our wolf, it shares our soul, too.”
“This is all very confusing.”
“I’m sorry. I know it is. But at the same time, it really isn’t. It’s basically like having a soulmate for both you and your wolf. It doesn’t happen to every werewolf. Only the lucky ones find their alterum dimidium animae.”
I blink at her. “So, Jules is my soulmate? And his wolf is my wolf’s soulmate?”
She shakes her head, deepening my confusion. “No, you’rehissoulmate, and your wolf is his. But you and your wolf haven’t claimed Jules and his wolf as yours. Well, unless your eyes go violet around him.” She squints as she examines my eyes.
“Not that I’ve noticed.” I brush my hair out of my face as I sit up straight. “So, let me get this straight. Jules got stuck with me as his soulmate, and I’m guessing it’s been a while since he spoke of having that alter … rim dillydally thing before I vanished, but he might not end up being mine?”
She studies me closer. “Does it upset you that he might not be?”
“I don’t know how I feel about it.” Honestly, if I wasn’t drunk on faerie magic, I might be freaking out by now, which is probably why Liberty gave me the drink to begin with. “But I do feel bad for him. I mean, not only does he get stuck with a hot mess of a werewolf who disappeared for a decade, only to return to his life without any memory of him, but he might not even end up my alter dil … mmm … Okay, I’m really starting to hate that phrase.”
“Alterum dimidium animae,” she enunciates. “Now repeat it.”
It takes me a few tries before I finally get it right. She praises me with a round of applause, and I laugh, even when werewolves gawk in our direction.
“It still seems really unfair to Jules,” I state with a sigh. “I mean, what happens if someone else ends up becoming my alterum dimidium animae?” Even the magic sloshing around in my veins can’t hide how disappointed I feel about becoming soulmates with another werewolf.
“Then he lives his life loving you, while you live your life loving someone else. He’ll probably never be with anyone else, either, unless he pulls a Shade, gets drunk, and starts sleeping around.”
“That is the saddest story I’ve ever heard.”
“It hasn’t been written yet, so don’t get too depressed.”
“I don’t feel depressed. I feel droopy.”
