Bind Our Loving Souls by April Marcom Page A

parents and Jo Hanna. “It’s been okay.”
    Enock took the pins from my hair and began
brushing out the braids with his fingers. “You’re lying, Sarafina.”
I looked at him, feeling bad, but he grinned handsomely in the
flickering light of the fire. “Thank you. I know you’d rather not
be here. I see it in your eyes every time ours meet. So thank you
for lying to spare my feelings, and thank you for staying with me.”
His arm went around me again as he leaned closer.
    “It’s worth it to be with you,” I whispered
against him.
    And then the skin on my lips felt like it was
melting away as he kissed me, pausing to drag his tongue over my
eyelids delicately, making my head spin. My hands slid under his
collar and over his neck and everything in the world stopped except
for us…until I heard the faint scraping of a door opening at the
end of the hall.
    Enock didn’t seem to notice, but I moved
away. “That might be Helena,” I said. “She’ll probably come in
here.”
    With his arm thrown over the back of the
sofa, Enock looked at the door. “Well, I’m not ready to leave your
side just yet.”
    He stood and went to move the curtains to the
side enough to look through my window. “Only Henrik is out, I
believe. Come on.” He opened my window as I went to him. When we
were both outside, he scooped me up and raced past several windows
and two bends in the front of the manor before stopping to help me
into another window.
    “Whoa,” I stammered as I stepped into his
room. It was lit by bright red berries growing on purple vines that
clung from ceiling to floor in the corner beside the window. Next
to that, a table had a huge glass tank on it, filled with glowing
multicolored rocks and the most beautiful fish I’d ever seen.
Vibrant blue, green, and red fish swam around, a sort of hybrid
between a betta and a jellyfish. I moved closer to watch them,
their long tails swishing back and forth through the clear
water.
    “There’s still so much you haven’t seen yet.”
I felt Enock’s hand on my back.
    “Really?” It seemed like I’d seen everything
he could possibly have to show me, except for the Anvilayan woman I
could only assume he’d killed. But I didn’t recognize the fish or
the berries. And the fact that his bed was bare except for a white
sheet wrapped around the mattress seemed strange.
    “I could show you more. We have all
night.”
    Another long night would wipe me out
completely, but I wanted this. I craved that lost-in-his-soul,
complete-love-for-me feeling. And I could beg Helena to let me
sleep in the next morning. “All right.”
    He put his other hand behind my knees to
sweep me off my feet again, this time to carry me to his bed. He
smiled and held me close.
    As he took my hand, his eyes seemed to flare,
the gold burning and swallowing everything else, until Anvilayans
were whizzing around me and I was seeing
all
of Enock’s
favorite foods, including the thresh berries growing in his room. I
saw that Anvilayans usually only slept for two hours each night,
because that was all their bodies needed. I saw all the animals
Enock had seen and read about over the course of his life. They
came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, just as ours do, but most of
theirs had no hair and only slits for eyes with cold black spheres
behind them. I also saw some of the customs of their planet. Like
two Anvilayans placing their right hands on each other’s left
shoulder to say hello when they hadn’t seen each other in a while,
or poking out their bottom jaw and their hair standing up when they
needed to show dominance. Then it all began to fade away.
    Enock was still smiling as he watched me when
I opened my eyes. I took in a deep breath and pulled myself up to
lean against him and smile back, still completely aware of how
absolutely amazing and extraordinary everything about him was.
    “We’ll wait until all Halvandors are asleep,”
Enock said, “and then go to see what is hidden under the