Image (Insight #3)(33)

Alamos looked over his shoulder at Drake, his eyes searching him over carefully before returning to mine. “I find that...unfair. Are we not human? Do we not have only the emotions we feel to go by?” He looked at Beth, who was still crying in Marc’s arms. “I had no way of knowing which boy would be born here – the ‘good’ soulmate or the ‘bad’ soulmate. Drake’s fate came down to moments, just as mine had. I did find it ironic that the child that needed my counsel the most was born in my care,” Alamos said, staring at Beth.

She looked up from Marc and wiped her face dry. Anger was coursing through her, and Marc must have sensed it; he held her arms against him. “You’re trying to live your life through him – to find a selfish victory – and you don’t care who you hurt in the processes,” Beth said.

Alamos looked away from her accusing eyes, walked to the table, and opened one of the books he’d brought.

“I am not selfish. I traced his life. I knew that he’d paid the price enough times – that he deserved to finally get the girl. That passion would move this universe for the first time,” he said, turning the pages in his book.

Perodine walked to the table and slammed her hands down. Alamos casually looked up, unshaken by her display of anger. “Passion is for the body,” Perodine said, leaning dominantly toward Alamos. “It dies when the body does. Love, the love of a soulmate, is carried to the place between; it is felt from the first breath.”

“If it can be dismissed so easily by you – why are you afraid of it?” Alamos asked.

“I have no fear of it,” Perodine said, glaring at him.

He broke his stare with her and looked at me, then to Drake, who was completely captivated by what he was hearing.

“Then why did you take the privilege of allowing her to choose away from her?” Alamos asked.

I stood up straight; he was starting to make me angry. “I choose – I have chosen – twice,” I said, looking at him.

He closed the book he was looking though and walked over to me. Drake stepped closer; everyone grew tense.

“You chose with a blind eye,” Alamos said, taking in a deep breath. “You can’t feel me, can you?” I shook my head no. He looked to his side at Drake, then back to me. “Have you ever asked your mother why? Why she spoke the words that would keep you from ever knowing that I love you,” he looked at Drake, “that he loves you?”

I felt my stomach turn. My eyes moved to Perodine, but she refused to look at me. I looked back to Alamos; his dark eyes had softened. He wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at the person I was millions of years ago.

“Why?” I whispered just loud enough for Perodine to hear me.

She looked up, and I could see she was fighting back tears. “I had no choice. Alamos had evoked Drake’s dreams...you would have felt his love and the love of Landen…it would have been too much for you to understand,” she said in a low tone.

I felt my cheeks flush with anger and Landen’s hands on my arm, sending a calm through me.

“He deserved to dream, to see her as Landen did...don’t blame this on me,” Alamos said, turning to look at Perodine.

“What was your plan?” Perodine asked him. “For her to be terrified – and then for some evil angel to come to her and show her the emotion of love?”

“He’s not evil,” Alamos said in a firm tone.

“No, but the demons you taught him to play with are – the ones that found her in her peaceful sleep,” Perodine argued.

“If you hadn’t suppressed his emotions – his energy – he would have been able to release her from the pressure they applied,” Alamos argued back.

Perodine shook her head from side to side, glaring at Alamos. “And I suppose that is your excuse for giving him a seductive touch?” Perdoine said, looking from Alamos to Drake.

Alamos tilted his head and looked at Perodine. “Is that not what ‘bad’ soulmates are known for – our seductive touch? I only enhanced what was natural to him,” he said.

“You are an evil bastard,” Perodine said in a low tone. “If I was your soulmate – as you have proclaimed over the years – you would have never had the stomach to hold another woman; you have proved my point more than once,” she said coldly.

“Soulmate or not, I am human, and I have had a very long life; forgive me if I wanted the illusion of love – even if I knew it would only be for a moment.”

“How cruel can you be? You have plotted and planned to take the soul of our child and put it into the body of a daughter you conceived with another woman...you cannot even see how sick you really are,” Perodine said.

I knew what Perodine was talking about. Landen’s body and my body couldn’t be divided, and Drake’s solution to this was for my soul to merge into Adoina. Adoina and her soulmate, Justus, were close friends of my fathers. Their story was the first story I’d ever heard of Chara and Esterious.

“After all these years, having my two daughters as one seems to be nothing more than a small reward for my pain,” Alamos said, walking back to the table.

I stood up straight and took in a deep breath. Everyone was looking at me, waiting for what I had to say. I looked at Perodine, then to Alamos. “Undo it all; I want to feel everyone. I want Drake to forget every life beyond this one. Take everything you’ve done to us and undo it,” I said in a calm tone. The room remained silent. “Did you hear me?” I said louder, my eyes staring at Alamos. “I will feel and he will forget, and you all will see for the final time that nothing you do will take me from Landen. I have sympathy for the both of you – but neither of you had any right to toy with our lives. I am not you,” I said, looking at Perodine, “and Drake is not you,” I said, looking at Alamos. “You should have just left us all alone. Adoina would be alive, and Drake would have had a blissful childhood.” I looked behind me at Dane, Landen, and Marc, then continued, “He would have found unconditional love long before he ever searched for his soulmate. You have not counseled him; Beth is right: you ruined him – sentencing him to a lonely life, just as you have lived.”