Read Bind Our Loving Souls Online
Authors: April Marcom
Tags: #coming of age, #family, #danger, #sacrifice, #alien, #extraterrestrial, #love at first sight, #soulmates, #pianist, #new adult romance
Bind Our Loving Souls
A novel by
April Marcom
Published by
Fire and Ice
A Young Adult Imprint of Melange
Books, LLC
White Bear Lake, MN 55110
Bind Our Loving Souls, Copyright
2015 April Marcom
ISBN: 978-1-68046-062-9
Names, characters, and incidents
depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States of
America.
Cover Design by Caroline
Andrus
For my little Holly Berry, who is
anything but ordinary.
BIND OUR
LOVING SOULS
by April Marcom
There’s only one word to describe Sarafina’s
life—ordinary—until a man from another world falls right out of the
sky and changes everything, because it’s love at first sight. Fresh
out of high school, Sarafina has no idea what she wants to do with
her life. So when she’s offered a well-paying job as a pianist in a
grand manor, it seems like everything is finally falling into
place.
But there’s a catch—it’s in Norway, and it’s
for the seemingly dangerous family of this unworldly man called
Enock. It’s crazy and completely out of character, but she makes
the decision to leave her very ordinary life behind and chase an
extraordinary love halfway around the world.
Unfortunately when she arrives, nothing is as
it seems. And after uncovering the grisly fate of a human and alien
who once fell in love, Sarafina is left to question everything.
Ultimately she must decide: Does she walk away and live the rest of
her life full of regret, or does she risk it all for an eternal
love humans can only dream of finding?
Table of
Contents
Chapter
One
My head moved back and forth methodically to
the song I was playing on our fifty-year old upright piano. The
“Moonlight Sonata” was my favorite song, and it was the perfect
accompaniment for the drab weather outside. If it would only rain,
as the forecaster had promised, I would be one happy girl.
On the outside, I’m nothing more than your
everyday high school senior—average height and weight (well, maybe
a little on the scrawny side), average brown hair and eyes, average
grades, average ambitions. But on the inside, I’ve always been
drawn to the darker side of things.
The youngest of four girls, my three sisters
all above average on any given beauty or intelligence scale, I had
our secluded Nevada home and too-busy-for-us-anyway parents all to
myself, since the sister closest to me in age had gone off to New
York to pursue a career in fashion almost a year before. I didn’t
mind, though. I actually preferred it this way, just me and a
gloomy melody sharing an empty old house at the end of the day.
Without warning, the power went out, and the
room became a whole lot darker. I spun around on our antique piano
bench and looked through the expansive windows on the other side of
the room. Finally! It was raining.
I picked up the red sweater I’d laid over the
back of the couch weeks ago and ran out the front door.
Immediately, cold water splashed against my head and shoulders. It
was early afternoon, but the dark clouds made it look more like the
sun was preparing to set.
Taking in a deep breath of fresh rainy air, I
closed my eyes and smiled, because when the world gets dark before
a great thunderstorm, it’s like the lights dimming before a
fantastic concert. But this is Mother Earth’s performance, her
great rain dance, deadly gashes slashing through the sky, and
clouds applauding thunderously. It is the sweetest symphony ever
created, never played quite the same way twice.
Facing our long, winding driveway, I turned
and ran around to the back of the house, where the flat land
quickly became winding hills and hundred-year-old trees. It was a
good jog getting to my destination—up and down a steep hill and
then up an even taller one. But I knew that once I was at the top
of the second one, I’d be able to look down on the still and
peaceful valley that had always been my favorite place on
earth.
Getting over the first hill was easy, but the
second one required some bobbing and weaving through a good number
of younger trees to get to the top, and it was so much taller.
It felt good once I got there, though, heart
hammering, huffing and puffing and all. I reveled in the beauty
below me as I fought to catch my breath, the youngest blades of
grass and delicate flower petals trembling in the rash winds.
Pink and purple wildflowers grew in uneven
patches here and there, and the tall grass always felt soft and
comforting to my skin. Nearly at the bottom of the hill was a sort
of miniature cave with walls of dirt and rock that were just the
right size for me to sit in. It was the best place in the world to
think or mourn a rough breakup, especially when orchestrated by the
rain.
The water droplets were getting heavier and
coming down harder. And just as I began jogging downward into my
own little refuge, the first bolt of lightning shot through the air
in the distance. The sky flashed with fury so I picked up the
pace.
My sweater snagged on the branch of a tall
bush, so I yanked hard enough that the limb broke off and flailed
from my elbow all the way down the hill. Thunder crashed a moment
before I ducked into my cave. And then I was able to relax. I
plucked the clingy branch from my sleeve and tossed it out of the
cave’s mouth, the wind catching it and carrying it away.
These were the times my mind was most clear,
so I planned to try and decide what I would do when I graduated in
a month. I knew I was cutting it way too close, but I honestly had
no idea what I wanted. I loved piano and beaches and seclusion, but
none of these seemed to offer much of a future. So I needed to
decide which of my three closest friends to stick with after
graduation. Whatever I did, it would be fun if I was with them.
Jo Hanna planned to keep working at the
boutique in the mall, Daily Roses, where she’d been a store clerk
for the past two years. She was paid two dollars above minimum
wage, but it just didn’t seem like a forever option to me.
Carlotta was going to nursing school in the
fall. She’s always been obsessed with helping old people, the
thought of which literally made me cringe. But she was kind of the
unofficial leader of our group, so I felt like she’d carry me
through it easily.
And Cassidy wasn’t any more certain than I
was about what she wanted to do. So she was planning to attend the
community college in town to get all the basic classes out of the
way, hoping she’d figure it out as she went.
Of the three, Cassidy’s plan was the most
appealing. But it still bothered me that I had absolutely no
direction in my life to follow, no paths paved in my mind. It just
seemed pointless to go to college with no clue what I wanted to do.
I really wished I had a better grip on things.
Lightning flashed, followed closely by
thunder, each helping to soothe my troubled mind. Whatever I did,
there would always be a good rainstorm to look forward to.
A jackrabbit ran out of the grass several
feet to my right and climbed into a hole under a crooked bush.
That jackrabbit’s so lucky, I thought. It doesn’t have to worry
about its future. It just eats grass and snuggles up in a warm,
safe underground home and it’s all set.
I let out a sigh. “I wish it was that easy
for me.”
The leaves of the little bush became blue as
an enormous flash of light blazed through the sky, dyeing the world
a rich cobalt blue for only a second. Then something smashed
against the ground on the other side of the far hill, ten times
louder than thunder, and shook the earth violently.
I rolled out of the cave in my haste to get
away, just in case the walls were about to give. But it remained
intact as the trembling ceased.
I stood in the rain for a moment, considering
going to investigate the great noise, when something leapt onto the
top of the far hill from the other side. He gazed at everything for
a moment as he sat crouching. He looked so human, and yet so
inhuman at the same time. Kicking off with two very powerful legs,
he went sailing outward and then down through the air.
I stifled a scream as I grabbed a branch from
the ground and threw myself back into my hiding hole. The branch
was nowhere near big enough to hide me, but it was all I had. So I
curled myself into the tightest ball I could manage and held the
pitiful limb in front of me.
Through the pointed leaves, I watched the
manish thing move to the center of the valley on all fours. He’d
just jumped from the top of the hill to the bottom, and yet he
seemed completely unharmed. There, in the center of the stormy
wraparound hills, he stood tall and studied the ground surrounding
him.
His skin was azure, but his arms had a sort
of dark leopard print on them. As he twisted around to look back, I
saw the dark knotted hair that grew to an uneven point between his
shoulder blades and on the back of his knees, which bent toward his
back instead of his front. It looked like it was easier to get down
and run with both his hands and feet that way. Aside from the
bluish color, these would have looked normal if it hadn’t been for
the razor-sharp claws that grew from each finger and toe.
I assumed it was a
him
because the
only thing he wore was a cloth tied around his waist that dangled
halfway to his backward knees, and what I could see of him looked
male. The black cloth had several stones on it that cast bits of
strangely colored lights, which somehow scared me even more,
because the longer I watched him the more positive I became that
there was nothing human about him. And no human could have created
him.
He turned back to study the ground in front
of him some more as he walked closer to me.
Even with a good distance between us, the
fear swelling inside me threatened to push me to a breaking point.
“Turn back,” I whispered softly to myself.
My blood ran cold as he looked up, meeting my
eyes with glowing amber ones. He threw all his weight onto his
hands as he leaned forward and shot toward me. The hair on my arms
stood up as my body shut down the way it does in my nightmares. My
voice refused to work; my muscles wouldn’t move. I was frozen with
fear, and he was heading straight for me.
Slowing down only when he was close, he stood
up and stared. His orangey eyes were terrifyingly unearthly. His
head tilted slightly to one side as he leaned closer to my
cave.
I broke free of this immovable state when he
reached in with one long hand. Screaming, I kicked his hand away
with both of my muddy tennis shoes. But the whole space I sat in
was only maybe two and a half feet deep. I was practically throwing
my body out of it just trying to get his arm away.
He pulled his arm back and looked puzzled as
he stared at me. His lips parted and a breathy hissing sound came
out, only making me more afraid. It continued as he reached out for
me again.
This time when I tried to kick his hand, he
moved it to the side and grabbed my ankle, yanking it out of the
hole, and pinning it against the side of the hill underneath. I
tried kicking him with my other leg, sure I was fighting for my
life, but he grabbed that foot with his other hand and pinned it
next to the first one. He managed to hold onto both with one hand,
even though I was trying as hard as I possibly could to get free,
and reach out to me with his other one.