Ceaseless (Existence Trilogy #3)
Abbi Glines
Prologue
“The soul has been marked since birth. It wasn’t meant to live out this lifetime.” - The Deity
“Fly away please. Stay out of my room. I could’ve been naked!” (Pagan -Existence)
“The soul has been appointed not once, but twice now.” - The Deity
“A soul came into my house. She touched me and talked to me. Souls never talked to me, before you.” (Pagan -Existence)
“If you are determined for this soul to remain by your side, then a choice must be made.” - The Deity
“You can’t scare me off and I’m not running away.” (Pagan -Existence)
“You know that the soul has a mate. If her soul is to exist for an eternity then the soul must choose you over the mate created as its other half.” - The Deity
“This is the most precious perfect gift anyone has ever received. You gave me back a memory that I will cherish forever.” (Pagan -Predestined)
“The soul has seen too much. She knows more than a soul should know. She can’t keep her memories. The choice will be an unfair one if she does.” - The Deity
“I’m saving it for my smoking hot boyfriend.” (Pagan -Predestined)
“Every moment she has spent with you will be taken from her memories. She won’t remember meeting Death and your breaking the rules to save her. She won’t remember fighting for you. She won’t remember the curse she suffered while under the spell of the voodoo spirit. It will all be washed clean.
If you want her, Dankmar, then you have to win her heart from the soul made to be her mate. Only then will it be possible for you to keep her for eternity.
She must pass this test.” - The Deity
“Trust me, Dank Walker I will only have eyes for you. No one else even comes close.” (Pagan -Predestined)
Chapter One
Pagan
Miranda pulled her shiny new silver Land Rover into an empty parking spot in front of Jemison Hall, our home for the next nine months.
“Can you believe we’re here?” Miranda whispered in awe as we stared up at the historic brick building in front of us. My mom was a Boone University alumna. Boone was a small private college in Weston, Tennessee. When Miranda and I had both been accepted there, I figured this was where I was meant to be. Going to a larger state university terrified me. I liked the smaller, more intimate feeling of this place.
“I’m still trying to grasp the fact that we’re in college,” I replied as I opened the car door.
“I know, right?”
We both stepped out of the SUV and headed for the rear cargo compartment to start unloading our boxes. My mom had been unable to come with us because she had to attend a writer’s conference in Chicago. Miranda and I both agreed that having her parents come with us was a bad idea. Her parents could be a tad bit embarrassing. Since we were doing this together we decided to be independent and do it without help from anyone else. We had each other.
Now, looking at the stack of boxes and luggage piled in the back of Miranda’s Land Rover, I wondered if that had been a mistake. It was going to take us hours to carry all of this stuff up to our dorm room.
“This is gonna take forever,” Miranda moaned in frustration.
I started to respond when the loud vibrating sound of really good speakers caught my attention. The source of the music was a small black convertible that had just pulled into the parking space beside us. The first thing I noticed about the driver of the car was her wild blond hair with bright pink tips.
The driver cut the engine, which made my ears instantly thankful. The driver swung open the door and hopped out of the car. It was obvious from her makeup and attire that she was an emo. She had on heavy black eyeliner and black combat boots. The only thing that threw me off a little was the hair. Hot pink wasn’t really an emo thing, was it?
She put one hand on her hip and blew a large bubble with her gum, blatantly staring at both of us. She popped her bubble loudly and smirked. “This shit is gonna be fun,” she said in an amused tone, then turned and headed toward the dorm.
Once she was out of hearing range, Miranda grabbed my arm firmly, “Please God don’t let her live anywhere near us. She scares me.”
I couldn’t disagree with her there. Nodding, I reached for the closest box to me. “I doubt we’ll see her that much. It’s a big building. Chances are we aren’t even on the same floor. Now, get a box and start unloading.”
“I so hope you’re right. Should I move to another parking space? You know, away from her.” Miranda asked.
“Just grab a box and stop worrying,” I replied and resolutely headed for the dorm.
The wild looking blond was standing on the bottom step watching me when I reached the double doors of the entrance. Great. She hadn’t gone inside. I shifted my eyes away from her and on the ground to keep me from tripping and falling.
A loud rumble caused the ground to vibrate. I stumbled and dropped the box of shoes I was carrying. Despite my efforts to hold onto them, the shoes spilled out onto the pavement. I practically growled in frustration. I put my hands on my hips and silently cursed myself for not asking Miranda’s parents to come with us. This was just my first danged box and I couldn’t even get it inside safely.
The rumbling sound of a motor became louder and I turned my head to see a black and silver motorcycle come to a halt a few feet away from me and my shoe disaster. It was his fault I’d dropped the danged things. What was he doing riding around campus on a loud motorcycle? When I looked up from the offending motorcycle, my eyes met a pair of brilliant blue eyes. My swift intake of breath was loud, as his gaze traveled over me slowly. He was just so… so… strikingly perfect. Dark thick eyelashes outlined the most insanely blue eyes I’d ever seen. Long dark hair curled at his collar and was tucked behind his ears. A perfect mouth was turned up in a smirk. Wait… a smirk. I shook my head to stop the complete physical assessment I was doing on this stranger. I managed to turn my slightly-awed expression to one of annoyance.