Eric’s POV
Gwen and I are a pair of star-crossed soulmates.
That’s what the High Priestess told me in my past life while trying to dissuade me from going through the ritual that would keep me around for half a century.
She said no matter how many lives our paths crossed, it would never end well.
I don’t think I entirely believed her back then. After all, she was the same person who took Ruby’s life with a lie. She could have been lying to get out of performing the ritual because it was forbidden and would cost her.
Even if she was telling the truth, it wouldn’t have changed my mind. It’s okay if I never get to be with her, as long as I can protect her.
I had hope that would be for at least a few years before my spirit dissipated. But all I’ve gotten are a few months so far. And unless I convince Gwen to give Stefan another chance, that might be all that I get.
We make the switch in the morning. I told Stefan I can rob him of his body. I was bluffing. I’ll be lucky if I can hold on to it for an hour.
An hour.
That’s all the time I get to see her, hear her, and feel her as myself and not through Stefan’s senses.
It’s not nearly enough, but it’s all I get, and I intend to soak as much of her as I can before my time is up.
I approach her in the back garden–the sun is bright this morning, and she is sitting on a bench, her face turned to the sky, her eyes closed.
I’m about ten yards away when her eyes open and she looks at me. Her face closes up and she gets to her feet. “What part of 'I don't want to talk to you’ is so hard to understand?”
I close the distance between us and introduce myself before she leaves, because she looks ready to flee. “It’s me. My name’s Eric. I don’t know how much Alexander told you, but I’m the one who shares Stefan’s body.”
She watches me with her brow slightly furrowed, as if determining whether I’m lying or not.
“He didn’t tell me anything,” she says finally, sitting back down. “He didn’t get the time.”
Stefan sighs in my head. His head. Whatever.
I second that sigh. I didn’t think it would be so easy to get her to talk to me.
I step closer to the bench. “If you want, I can tell you everything.”
“Does it matter?” she asks. “Will it change anything?”
Will it? She is in a good place. There’s nothing good about what happened in the past. The only reason she is aware of it is because Alexander and I stuck around. We couldn’t move on because we had a debt to pay. For her, there’s nothing but pain in the past. Maybe it’s better to leave it there.
“No,” I say.
She gets to her feet again and faces me. “Why did you stick around?”
I swallow hard. “Because I…”
Because I loved you but I failed to protect you, and the thought of seeing you again and knowing what you meant to me in another life sounded like the best thing in the world.
“...I had to see you again.”
“Why?”
“Because you were my soulmate, and I failed you.”
“Was I a werewolf?”
“No. Human.”
“Then how was I your soulmate?”
“I don’t know.”
She looks at the ground, silent.
‘What do you think she’s thinking?’ Stefan asks.
Oh, I would love to know.
“You are the one I have a bond to, right?” she asks when her eyes rise back to me. “Not him.”
I nod.
“What’s your name? Your full name.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue just before Stefan’s voice lashes across my brain like a whip. ‘Don’t tell her!’
“What?” I whisper.
‘She wants to reject you to break the bond.’
I was so entranced with her, I wasn’t thinking about that.
Gwen comes closer to me. “Let’s set him free,” she says. She is not hiding her intention.
“He loves you, Gwen.”
She laughs. “I don’t know what you are trying to do–”
“He had a bond with your sister, and when she showed up, it messed him up. His feelings for you had no chance against such a connection. The bond is all-consuming. You know that. You’ve felt it.”
She turns away from me and faces the jungle. “What is he doing here, then?”
“She is dead.”
She laughs again. The kind of laugh people give when they think something is unbelievably ridiculous. “So that’s why he is here. Looking for the backup.”
“He had rejected her before that happened,” I tell her. I take another step closer. “He wishes he had done it sooner. He regrets not breaking that bond the moment she stepped into your lives. He has spent the last five months looking all over for you. I’m not saying that makes up for everything. Or that you should forgive him. I just want you to know his true feelings for you.”
“True feelings?” she asks. She faces me again. “Everything he thinks he feels is because of the bond between you and me. That’s the only reason he forced me into his life and that’s the only reason he was ever with me. So let’s end this and set him free. See how much he loves me then.”
There’s challenge in her eyes, but I know it’s not meant for me. It’s for him.
“Fine,” I say.
‘Are you crazy?’ Stefan freaks out instantly.
She blinks, as if she wasn’t expecting me to agree. “Okay.”
“But we can’t break the bond now,” I tell her. “Only after you’ve delivered and recovered. It can be painful.”
She swallows and nods.
‘What are you doing?’
I say nothing as she walks back to the castle.
“Giving you back your woman,” I tell him. I take a seat on the bench she just vacated and drop my head between my shoulders. “Unless you are not confident about your feelings?”
‘You have waited for five hundred years. You can’t throw it all away like this.’
“This is not about me–”
‘The hell it isn’t. I’m not going to take that from either of you. I messed up with her and that’s on me. I should be the one to fix it.’
“I didn’t wait five hundred years to make her cry,” I tell him. “I came to see to it that she is safe and happy. She is hurt right now, and you are right, you are the only one who can fix that. So I’ll get out of the way.”
‘You are crazy.’
“I’m running out of time, anyway. I’ll leave everything up to you.”
‘She hates me. She wants to cut all ties with me, so much that she doesn’t even care that you’ve been waiting around for five hundred years. She doesn’t want to know what happened back then because she’s afraid she won’t be able to ignore you after that. And if she can’t ignore you, she’ll be stuck with me. I don’t think I’m the one who can make her happy.”
He believes that. He thinks she’ll never let him back into her life. That his presence will only make her miserable. If I don’t take this chance, he’ll not give me access to his body again, and she’ll never know my full name.
I get up from the bench and hurry up after her. “Gwen!”
‘What are you doing?’
She stops and turns to me. “What is it?”
“My name is Eric Orion S–”
Stefan grabs back control so fast it feels like I’ve been kicked through space and landed on a faraway galaxy.
I’m suddenly back in his head.
‘Jerk.’
He looks at her. Seeing her through him is different. It’s like I’m looking at her through a window.
“It’s me,” he starts. “Stefan. You can hate me. But don’t do this to him. He has waited for your rebirth for five hundred years. He bargained his life for this chance, and he has done nothing but protect you since he found you. Don’t hurt him like this.”
Her face is back to being closed off again, emotionless. She arches a single brow. “So you are friends now?”
There’s more mockery than curiosity in her voice.
“He was the one you loved in your past life,” he tells her. “You protected him and saved his life, but he was too late to do the same for you. I’ll give up my body if it’s what it takes to make you give him a chance.”
Wait, what?
‘You can’t do that!’
“There must be a ritual–”
‘There’s none.’
But he is not talking to me. “--that we can use. Let’s ask Phillip. Look through Alexander’s library.”
Gwen is no longer looking at him with a blank face. His words are finally having an impression on her, but she’s too taken aback to give a response.
“I want you to be happy,” he tells her. “And I don’t want to be the reason you are not. With me out of the way–”
‘Shut up!’ I shout hard enough that he can’t ignore me. ‘I have less than a year and a half remaining, and there’s no ritual on earth that can make me live for more years than I was fated for.’
“Then I’ll give up my body for a year and a half,” he tells me out loud. The next part is meant for both of us. “You two can forget about me for eighteen months, and then…”
‘You are the one she loves, idiot. She doesn’t want eighteen months with me. She wants years with you.’
“What the fuck can I do to make this right, then?” he yells. “I’m sorry,” he says to her. “That was meant for Eric.”
‘Wait,’ I tell him. ‘With time, she might let you back in. You don’t get to give up. If you really deserve her, you’ll wait for however long it takes for her to take you back. Until then, you’ll protect her with your life and not make her cry ever again or I swear I’ll haunt you to your death.’