Reclamation (The Ravening #3)(31)
Author: Erica Stevens

Rosemary nodded as she placed her hands on the rickety card table before her. "None of us did."

"What is it?" I asked.

Rosemary smiled at me. "It’s love."

I glanced at Cade before focusing on her again. "I know that, but why? What is it that is so different about me, or him," I said with a nod to the man beside her. "That makes you feel something for us?"

Rosemary frowned thoughtfully as she glanced at the man beside her. "I knew the second I saw Greg that there was something different about him, something… more." Cade remained immobile but Jessica was nodding enthusiastically. "It’s not something you could understand as a human. It wasn’t until this past year that I began to understand it more, and only because I’ve finally had a chance to discuss it with others that it has happened to."

I glanced at Cade as she stopped speaking. He remained rigid at my side, his hands fisted as a muscle in his jaw twitched. His eyes slid to me briefly before he focused on Rosemary again. "And what is it that you’ve begun to understand?" he inquired.

"There’s something about certain humans that entangles us. There’s something about them that we react to, and it is only one of them for each of us." Cade grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me back a step as Rosemary stepped around the table. She held her hands up and didn’t come any closer as color began to seep through Cade’s face.

"We don’t see auras as people commonly think of them but I see something around Greg that is almost similar to an aura," Rosemary continued. "I believe it is the soul of the one that we belong with, the one that can change us that we are able to see. Their souls are stronger, more vibrant and powerful than other human souls and the people that possess those souls call to us. I cannot see yours," her gaze focused on me before sliding over the others. "Or theirs, but I see something around Greg. Jessica tells me it is the same with Leo and the others have reported the same thing to me. I assume it was no different with you, am I right?"

Cade’s fingers slid over my arm as he pulled me back another step so that I was pressed firmly against his solid chest. "Something like that," he stated.

"Your souls are stronger, or at least they are to us," Rosemary said. "And they draw us in, but its more than that, we can feed off of them and it actually nourishes us and it satisfies us without draining them completely. It also seems to somehow change us physically."

"That’s why you look so different," I guessed. "You’re softer than Cade and Jessica, almost more… human?"

"Yes, perhaps that is the best way to put it, you make us more human. Your souls bring out a side of us we never even knew existed, a human side, a side capable of love, a side that our kind would destroy us for possessing."

"If you truly feel the same way about Greg as I feel about her than you should realize that moving any closer is risking your life," Cade grated when she took another step toward us.

"There’s no need for that," Greg said coldly.

Cade didn’t bother to respond to him as he remained focused on Rosemary. "How long have you been together?" I asked quietly, hoping to break the tension in the room.

"I met Greg five years ago. Thankfully I was in a position where I was able to choose the husband I wanted to marry as long as we didn’t have children. I was of little importance amongst the ones of us placed here, other than to be a spy," Rosemary continued.

Despite my best intentions I felt my gaze slide toward Jessica. Her gaze was focused on Rosemary as Jessica nodded along with her words. Of what importance were she and Cade that they had been chosen to marry each other? I wondered as I looked toward Cade. It was something I would have to remember to ask him about later.

"When I met him, I knew. It was like being hit with a lightning bolt, I was flooded with a wash of emotions that I’d never experienced before. All I wanted was to get closer to him, to know him, and to be near him. To be away was a physical ache and I tried to stay away in the beginning as I was convinced I was going to hurt him, but it was impossible to do so. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore and gave in. We’ve been together ever since."

I noted the ruddy color in his cheeks and his solid build as I focused on Greg. "You appear healthy," I stated.

He nodded. "I am."

"They’re stronger, the humans that effect us, much stronger than any of the others, but it’s more than that. When we feed on their souls there is an exchange between us. We don’t only take from them but we also give them pieces of our souls so that they’re never depleted. I didn’t even think I had a soul until I met Greg. I realized afterward it was just hidden and deadened without him, but he alerted me to its existence by awakening it within me. Our humans are able to stay strong because we also supply them. It’s how some of the ones without type O blood were able to survive The Freezing; they were cloaked from it by having pieces of us inside of them."

I remained motionless, my arms by my sides as her words ran through my mind. It wasn’t Cade’s blood within me, or at least not only Cade’s blood that made me seek out a piece of his soul when he was within me, but something that he was inherently giving to me to begin with. My relief was so profound that I felt tears burn my eyes and it took all I had to hold them back.

"You said some of them?" I asked. "How did the others survive?"

Cade shot me a look but I ignored him as I took a step forward. Jessica’s face fell as she shook her head. "None of us knew that the soul thing would work for sure and very few of us knew of each other’s existence before The Freezing. Some tried a more radical approach to keep their loved ones alive."

I was as still as stone as I awaited her explanation of what this more radical approach was. "What was that?" Molly inquired when Jessica didn’t continue.

"They tried to exchange their blood with their Soul, which is what we call the people that we are drawn to." I felt like I was on the edge of a tightrope as I bit back the questions that threatened to spill from my mouth and forced myself to remain as calm as possible. "You have to understand they were desperate to try and keep them alive, it was a risky thing to do, but they saw it as their only option. Their last chance to save the only person they had ever loved."

"What happened to them?" Bishop inquired.

"Most died, our blood isn’t typically at home in the human body," Rosemary said. "We have almost fifty of our kind here that have lost the ones they loved. They’re surviving, but they’re broken, lost without their Soul. They still have no interest in returning to our kind though, or at least the ones we’ve met don’t plan to return."