Chapter 2

 

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time after the crying stopped. My eyes were swollen, my chest ached, and every breath tasted like salt. But underneath all of that, underneath the grief and the rage and the disbelief, one thought kept circling through my mind like a shark.

Camila wanted my husband. She wanted my life. And she got it.

I let out a bitter chuckle that sounded nothing like laughter. The girl I had pulled out of that orphanage, the girl I had fed and clothed and defended my entire childhood, had murdered her own baby and framed me for it just so she could crawl into Alejandro Montero's bed.

"And I let her," I muttered to myself, staring at my hands in my lap. "I saw every red flag and I let her."

That was the worst part. Not the betrayal itself, but how easy I had made it for them. I had been so desperate for love, so hungry for a family, that I had handed them the knife and stood still while they used it.

Not this time. This time I was going to divorce Alejandro before the apocalypse hit, stockpile everything I needed to survive, and make sure Camila never got close enough to hurt me again. Kindness had gotten me killed. Power was going to keep me alive.

"Mmm, finally showing some spine. I was starting to wonder if you had one."

I jumped so hard I nearly fell off the bed. The voice had come from inside my head, low and amused and dripping with mockery. I whipped my head around the room, my heart hammering.

"Who's there?" I demanded, grabbing the pillow like it would protect me from anything.

"Over here, sweetheart."

My eyes snapped to the mirror on the vanity table. My reflection was looking back at me, except it wasn't really mine anymore. The face in the glass had shifted into something sharper, more angular, with cheekbones that could cut steel and a smirk so cold it made my skin crawl. The eyes were mine but darker, filled with a cruel amusement that I had never once felt in my entire life.

"Boo." The reflection winked.

I screamed and threw the pillow at the mirror. It bounced off harmlessly and the reflection dissolved back into my own terrified face.

"Relax, little flower. I'm not going to eat you. Not yet, anyway." The voice purred from somewhere behind my eyes, low and teasing like a cat playing with a mouse it had already decided to keep.

My hand flew instinctively to my chest and my fingers closed around the twin-star pendant hanging from my neck. The necklace my grandfather had given me when I was twelve, the one I had lost during the apocalypse when everything fell apart. It was here. It was still here.

"You feel that?" The voice hummed with something close to curiosity. "Interesting. Our necklaces are the same."

"Our what?" I whispered, gripping the pendant tighter.

The metal began to glow. A soft, golden pulse that warmed my fingers and spread up through my wrist, then my arm, then my entire body. Before I could react, a mechanical voice, completely different from the one in my head, cut through the silence like a blade.

[SYSTEM INITIALIZING. SOUL SYNC FARMING SPACE SYSTEM DETECTED. SCANNING HOST COMPATIBILITY...]

"What is happening to me?" I gasped, stumbling backward until my back hit the headboard.

[TWO SOULS DETECTED. COMPATIBILITY RATE: 87 PERCENT. SYNC PERMISSION GRANTED. WELCOME, HOSTS, TO SSFSS10.]

The pain hit me like a lightning bolt. Every vein in my body felt like it was being filled with liquid fire, burning through my blood, searing through my bones. I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted copper. My vision blurred and the room spun around me, and I could feel something wrapping itself around my soul, binding me to another presence that was ancient and furious and completely alien.

Then everything went white.

When my sight returned, I was standing in a place that shouldn't exist. A flat, empty wasteland stretching out in every direction under a sky so blue it looked painted. No trees. No buildings. No sound except the wind pushing across dry, cracked earth.

And directly in front of me, about ten feet away, stood a woman.

She had her back to me at first. Her dark hair was pulled into a long ponytail that reached her waist. She wore ancient battle armor etched with symbols I couldn't read, black and silver metal plates that hugged her frame like they were forged specifically for her body. A long sword hung at her hip, and even from this distance I could feel the aura radiating off it, heavy and suffocating and absolutely terrifying.

She turned around slowly, and my breath died in my throat.

Her face was beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful. Sharp, angular, dangerous. Her brown eyes locked onto mine with the lazy confidence of a predator who had already cornered its prey and was simply deciding which angle to strike from. A slow, cruel smirk spread across her lips as she began walking toward me with long, unhurried strides that made the ground feel like it was trembling beneath her boots.

She stopped right in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head back to look up at her. She was taller than me by half a head, and she used every inch of it, staring down at me with a mixture of fondness and malice that made absolutely no sense.

"So you're the one I'm stuck with." Her voice was deeper in person than it had been inside my head, smooth and cold like dark water running over stone. "Smaller than I expected."

"I..." My mouth opened and closed uselessly. My entire body was locked in place, every survival instinct screaming at me to run but my legs refusing to obey.

"Well?" She raised one perfect eyebrow. "Are you going to stand there looking like a scared rabbit all day, or are you going to introduce yourself?"

I swallowed hard and forced my hand out in front of me. It was shaking badly enough that she could definitely see it. "V-Mia. My name is Mia."

She looked at my outstretched hand like I was offering her a dead fish. Then she drew her sword in one fluid motion and used the flat of the blade to push my hand away with a dismissive flick that stung my wrist.

"I don't shake hands." Her smirk deepened, and she stepped closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off her armor. She tilted her head and studied my face with the lazy thoroughness of someone deciding whether to keep a stray animal or toss it back into the street. "The name is Xiomara. And you better remember it, little flower, because from this moment forward, your body belongs to both of us."

"Both of us?" My voice cracked on the second word. "What do you mean, both of us? This is my body. You can't just..."

"Can't just what?" She cut me off, one corner of her mouth lifting higher. Her fingers traced the edge of her blade slowly, almost lovingly, without breaking eye contact. "Finish that sentence. I dare you."

I closed my mouth.

"Smart girl." She straightened up to her full height and looked down at me with something that could have been approval or amusement or both. "You learn fast. I like that."

Her eyes held mine without blinking, dark and bottomless and filled with a hunger that had nothing to do with food. I could feel her aura pressing against me from all sides, thick and heavy like standing at the bottom of an ocean. My knees were shaking. My palms were slick with sweat. Every part of me wanted to look away, to step back, to put distance between myself and this terrifying woman who was now permanently attached to my soul.

But I didn't move. I couldn't. Her gaze pinned me to the spot like a butterfly under glass, and for the first time in both of my lives, I understood what it felt like to be truly, completely powerless.

[SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE. HOSTS HAVE FULLY BONDED. SOUL SYNC FARMING SPACE SYSTEM IS NOW ACTIVE.]

The mechanical voice echoed across the empty wasteland, cold and final, sealing my fate with a woman whose smile promised me nothing but trouble.