A day after my arrival Leila sent Cole to take me to where she and her people waited outside the house. The soulless seemed to have made a similar setting to the one I remembered from the magicals' camp. 

An altar was elevated in the middle of the backyard of the house, the wood carved in a similar fashion to the first one I'd seen. It was far from the only thing that reminded me of the altar I'd been chained on. Darker spots where the blood had leaked onto the wood were visible to the eye and the familiar set of shackles adorned both ends of the rectangular table.

"Just do what she says and you're going to be safe. I'll be here but I won't be able to help you now," Cole whispered in my ear as he pushed me a step forth to where she waited by the side of the altar. Her right-hand man was on her left, a shadowy hand supporting her upright as a slight swell of her body was noticeable. She looked sickly, almost like she was in pain and from what Cole had disclosed to me, she might as well be.

I suppressed the urge to glance back at the man who had been nothing but friendly toward me so far and show him how confused his behavior made me feel and instead made my way to the waiting soulless.

The rest of her people had gathered in a big group behind her and seemingly there was no end of them. The wildlings were missing, probably sent off to roam the territory by Cole or by her. I didn't know what they did and no one deemed it vital to inform me about their whereabouts or occupations.

I stopped a step away from her and looked her right in the red eyes. She smiled a smile that would have been one of reassurance on another face but was anything but on hers.

A feeling of uneasiness rippled through my body and I shivered.

"Don't be afraid," she said, noticing my concern. "We won't force you into anything this time. I'm just going to place my mark on you and connect you to us which will help you when the time comes for you to use your gift. It might be a bit unpleasant but no permanent damage will be left on you and I believe you'll be able to draw strength from us via this bond."

I didn't know how bonds worked or if they were really as powerful as she believed, but she seemed like she knew what she was talking about. "What you mean draw strength?" I voiced my question.

"You see, Lucas, there is a purpose to bonds. Maybe you've seen it with your shifter friends since they are so big on that—packbonds, matebonds, and the likes. I needed ten years and a lot of failures to figure it out myself but having the wildlings at my disposal allowed me to do something not even your father managed to accomplish.

"I have a bond to the wildlings, to Cole, to my own people now and after this, you will be a part of that bond too. A bond will allow you to use your ability at a wider range, it will make you stronger because we'll share our power with you and it will benefit us too. I don't know how it will work in our favor yet, but once you're connected to us we will discover that, won't we?" She grinned at me then motioned toward the altar.

"Now, please, lay down," she said.

I hesitated, eying the wooden table warily. I hated what she asked of me and I didn't want to do it.

You don't have a choice, Lucas. You must do that or she's going to become suspicious of you, Cole's voice sounded in my head nearly making me jump.

"Alright," I mumbled and sat on the altar then lowered my body until it was sprawled on top of it.

Leila moved to the head side gently supported by her soulless. "Please, give me your wrists. I need to chain you so you don't hurt yourself."

I obliged to her demand although I doubted she needed to shackle me for my own protection. By the tremor of her hands, I could only guess she needed it for her own safety. Perhaps, she was too weak to hold me down if I fought her, which I was certain I would.

As soon as the metal clicked around my wrists she moved to my legs leaving me with the cold bite of the shackles on my skin. It felt like the temperature had suddenly dropped and when she weaved her fingers around my ankle to tug the material of my pant leg up her skin against mine was almost warm. Almost.

Despite her obvious weakness and the impact Scarlet's bond completion seemed to have on her, her skin felt smooth on me, nearly snake like smooth except for its warmth.

Perhaps, after all, there was something that flowed in her veins, whether it was blood or poison I was uncertain.

After donning the second set of shackles, Leila moved to the near middle of the altar and placed her small hands on the collar of my shirt. A second later, a ripple sounded and cold air bit on my chest.

Closing my eyes, I had to imagine this wasn't happening. I had to somehow stop the flooding memories of the past, of that night when I'd been most afraid, and instead, I thought about her—the woman I loved but couldn't have, the woman who was never mine.

The feel of skin on skin replaced the chilly bite of oxygen and I bit my lip not to scream as I sank deeper and deeper into these memories of Scarlet, that time when nothing was decided and we were both ignorant to the truth and the future that awaited us, that past when she ran with me and not away from me.

"Do it!" Leila said. A second later, something cold and sharp pierced my chest, not deep enough to kill me but deep enough to hurt me. Her scream echoed along with my own, the sharp object retreated and then a sizzling sound followed, a scorching sensation registered where her palm laid on my chest.

Something changed. The fire turned cold. It felt like water but stickier and much nastier. And it was everywhere. It was inside of me too. It drowned me. It made me choke and suffocate.

I peeked through my eyes to see what was happening.

It looked like a smoke—a black smoke that drifted from where skin laid on skin but much more substantial. It was what they were made of—that dark, shadowy thing that I couldn't name. It was spreading across my body, flowing in the air around me, particles of it transfusing into me. Its odor was heavy and putrid, making me gag and cough in reflex as I felt it slithering down my mouth and nose. Eventually, I had to squeeze my eyes when the substance reached them, made them water and sting. Nothing helped. Nothing could stop that thing from going inside me. It felt like it had a mind of its own, a purpose of its own, and that purpose was to be inside of me.

And suddenly, I knew what people meant when they said something came in through the cracks. The substance literally violated every crack of my body until it was let in.

And then, a couple of minutes later, the smell and substance seemed to dissipate and I could breathe normally once more.

The pain was gone too, my chest felt whole when I knew the wound had to be still there and bleeding.

She unglued her hand off uncovering the perfect skin underneath. No wound was visible on her palm either. Somehow, we were both healed but now we were connected too.

Now I could feel them—not breathing, not feeling, not really living like a real person would but there—all around us like shadows that crept into the night, that existed through the patches of light.

And they were pure evil.

"Cole, please, come here and free him from the restraints," Leila said in a voice that betrayed her exhaustion. What she just did obviously had tired her out.

Glancing down at me then, she went on, "We're leaving in the morning so get a good night's rest, Lucas."

I didn't answer her vocally. All I could do was give her the slightest of nods before she shuffled her way into the house accompanied by her pet soulless.

Cole came to hover above where I laid and silently started on the shackles. Helping me to my feet he gave me a sympathetic look and said, "I know it's hard right now and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it's going to become easier with time. It won't but eventually you'll get used to it."

I didn't need to ask him what he was talking about. I knew exactly what he was telling me because I could feel it inside.

That same evil the soulless possessed was now coursing through my veins too.

"Did you get used to it?" I asked the other man as he led me toward the house after Leila.

It felt off to be here with them now when all my life I'd fought on the good side, fought for freedom and justice. It felt off to know that the soulless were so close to me, everywhere around me and know that they weren't going to hurt me, that they saw me as one of theirs now.

"I did," Cole said, stopping at the doorstep that led to the inside of the house and where his mistress rested and healed herself from wounds that couldn't be seen. 

"And that's exactly why I'm this monster today," he confessed, the corner of his lips turning up so dismally I almost thought I'd missed it as I listened to the screams of the souls these monsters had consumed through the bond. An echo.

"Let's go before they start wondering what's taking us so long," he urged, his hand tightening its grasp on my elbow.

I sighed and let him lead me inside. 

We were all covered in the same invisible blue and black after all. It was inevitable.