The mystery seemed to unravel. Her mind darted to the theories, the information she'd obtained over the years. This explained everything. An airborne virus that would attack the soul, erode it, rot it, destroy it. It did not happen during the matriarchy because the pathogens had yet to take root. But it flourished with war, with destruction, with poverty.
It must be everywhere now.
So, the whole time, the Lonely were just monsters desperate for their soulmates? Her thoughts jumped to the asshole, to Marcus, to the man with a soulmate and yet had fucked around with a mistress. His transformation was divine retribution for his folly.
But in Euodia's world, did the same rules apply? So many Alphas had been killed; was the loss of a soulmate also a reason for the transformation? Her head throbbed.
It could be. If the virus were always weakening the soul, and if soulmates were the only way to prevent the transformation. The death of a single soulmate was known to weaken a group. A lost connection, a broken chain, never to be completed.
It could take months for the signs of decay to present themselves. But by then it would be too late. Omegas could not accept Alphas after the war. That alone destroyed them all. But it had taken time for the souls to rot, years even. There were just so many soulmates to hold it all together, so many Omegas in the kingdom. Those who lived after the war were all huge packs of at least five men. But with the virus at its peak, their resilience must have waned.
Her mind swept over the details.
Her boys had mentioned scientists, research done on the hearts. But how had those goddamn scientists survived on flesh when what they needed was the soul? Luck? Love? Were they lying? How could they obtain the one thing they needed if their soulmate had been killed by their hands?
Were hearts truly an equivalent exchange? No, her mind reminded her. It never was. Digested within their bellies, a day could be bought, perhaps a couple of hours. But for months? They needed a constant supply of their dead soulmate's soul—Quinn's eyes widened at the thought.
Children.
They held a mixture of their parents' souls within the bodies of their mothers. They were known to deepen bonds in her world, providing a natural increase in health and happiness. It could be a temporary solution.
But they would find that out soon enough, and by then their world should be almost dead.
She'd solved the mystery, and it had all been handed to her on a silver platter. But the information was now completely useless to her. Her lips quirked into a sad smile. It did not matter whether or not Zen had her heart. He was going to die. They were all going to die. Her lips pursed into a thin line.
But did she have to care about that? She was dead. They'd killed her again. There was nothing she could do now, a dead body in their world, a ghost in hers. And she was a ghost. With her hands raised high into the air, she could see through her fucking skin.
She was dead.
Quinn sighed, dropping her palm.
That had tears in her eyes; her thoughts were ricocheting, flying to her boys. Rowan would be angry; she could almost hear his voice shaking with rage. Helios would cry for days, unravelling too quickly, too rapidly. And Zen? Would he ever forgive Klaus? Would he even survive long enough to try? Her chest squeezed.
They loved her.
She mourned the possibilities then, of a lifetime of happiness in the arms of people who loved her. Her vision blurred, salt on her tongue, vinegar in her throat.
Icarus and Elysian. She'd left on an odd note, had yet to speak to them after the fight, the party, the day she'd learnt of the horrible truth. She'd died before they could reconcile, before she could tell them that she was sorry. Before she could tell Elysian what she truly felt.
Regret clung to her.
She was always grateful for him, and truly, some part of her understood his narrative. She understood his decisions. It didn't mean that she supported them, but…He was still her soulmate as much as she'd cursed him.
Her heart ached then, bile forming in her throat. He would be in pain from her death; the break of their bond would scorch him, hurt him. As her soulmate, he would crash harder, burn faster. He'd experience her death in all of its magnitude. And Icarus would blame himself; he was good and honest like that. He would take it too hard.
Quinn supposed she'd been too harsh on them. It would take time for them to change their minds. She hadn't allowed them that space to try. But there was no point spiralling, no point thinking about what she could have done.
They were all soulmates. They would be fine. Solar would have to shoulder all that trauma, but he could do it. If anyone could convince them that things were fine, it would be him. A spark of naivety danced in her head. Surely the virus wouldn't touch them if they kept loving each other, if their bonds held. Right? Surely their love counted for something?
But what if it was all just a lie? Her gaze dropped to her trembling hands. What if everything, the seven, the Lonely, the wasteland, was just some dying dream? A pathetic fiction conjured by her collapsing mind? That would be fucking cruel.
Her lips moved on instinct, the word barely a whisper. "Float."
The screen shimmered into being like a phantom, spectral glow in the darkness. Her fingers moved automatically across the strange page. No neat numbers. Just rows of hearts, like some grotesque parody of her old signature in the app. Code she'd left buried in the files now mocked her. She exhaled shakily. Their names remained.
It was real, or as real as whatever the fuck she was experiencing right now.
Klaus 80%
Elysian ♡
Icarus ♡
Solar ♡
Helios ♡
Rowan ♡
Zen ♡
The cutesy emojis were absurd, like childish doodles next to their names. A lovers' mark. But the bold around Elysian's name made her stomach flip. And Klaus's lone 80% was like a goddamn splinter under her skin, pissing her off for reasons she couldn't name. Scowling, she swiped away, diving into the shop interface.
Rows of icons and descriptions scrolled past, the hundreds of "abilities" she could purchase with the hearts she'd unknowingly collected. She browsed with hollow detachment until something new snagged her attention.
Status.
Status? What the fuck was that? She didn't care. She bought it without thinking, a flip of her hand, and it was in her cart. She was dead anyway; what did it matter? Another option caught her eye.
Information.
She purchased that too. She swiped out of the page, hovering over the options, and this time, a pop-up appeared just as her hands slipped over the collected hearts.
Hearts – The number of times your soulmate has reached completion while thinking of you
Her face ignited, heat crawling up her neck. What the fuck? Her eyes darted to the tally. A tally that must be completely Zen's and Elysian's. The number was in the thousands. Thousands?
Her stomach dropped. What the hell? No human can masturbate a hundred times a day. Did they even have any skin left? Scandal churned into delirious laughter that caught in her throat, breaking into a horrified choke. Her trembling fingers hovered over the names as another pop-up appeared.
Soulmate Love Meter– A gauge of their growing love for you. A 100% will automatically transform into a heartfor everlasting, true love.
Soulmates. The pop-up remained as she flourished her hands over each name. Soulmates. Seven names. Seven soulmates. Her breath hitched violently. Even Klaus? Klaus at 80%? Her eyes widened further. Solar had a fucking heart. Was he that deeply in love with her? Were they all her soulmates? Her mouth dropped open, eyes widening into horror.
Her hand flew to Elysian's bolded name as the text shifted again:
Mated Soulmate – A soulmate who has been completely claimed by you.
The words throbbed in her vision like a heartbeat, each one like a blow to her skull. Of course. Of course, the universe only chose to explain now when she was already dead. A cruel fucking joke played on a goddamn corpse. She laughed, clutching her chest, laughed like a fucking lunatic with tears in her eyes. Her pulse was erratic, heart pounding like a war drum struggling to break free.
She had everything she ever wanted right under her fucking nose. Seven fucking soulmates, and half of them had tried to kill her. No, all of them had tried to kill her. Fate was a motherfucker. She snorted, her gaze snapped upwards, caught by a tiny icon shimmering at a corner. A simple medical cross, innocuous and mocking.
Status.
Something in her gut twisted. Her finger trembled as she tapped it. A stillness settled. For half a heartbeat, there was silence.
Then the world ruptured.
The screen screamed. A piercing alarm detonated in her skull, like a howl ripped from her own marrow. Ice poured through her veins. And her breath seized as the interface bled into an angry, violent red, pulsing like a wounded heart.
And then she saw it.
Her name. Her bar at the very top.
A health bar she hadn't even known existed, glowing faintly at first like a candle in the dark. For one impossible second, it held steady. Then it spasmed, cracked, and plummeted. Her stomach lurched as if she were falling with it. She couldn't breathe. She watched it fall like a dying star until only the thinnest sliver of light remained. One breath, one heartbeat, one miserable flicker of existence. She was almost gone. The number fell from 100 to 1, creeping towards the end. One step away from the void.
And it was fucking odd that she could feel it, as if she had connected to her dead body. Her limbs were growing colder, heart slowing, breath clogging up in her throat.
And before she could even process it, the screen flared, searing light across her vision. A single white burn. She flinched and blinked at the new change.
Helios. Rowan. Zen.
Their names seemed to glow, igniting into flames, melting into her retinas, burning bold like brands seared into the interface. New bars erupted beside each name, fat and full for a blink before they, too, began to collapse violently.
DYING. DYING. DYING.
The warning flashed across the page in jagged red, each strobe a blade across her nerves. Her chest constricted. She could feel them. God help her, she could feel them. Their terror, their agony, their bonds with her unravelling thread by thread. It was like a knife through her heart.
Her breath shattered into ragged gasps. Their souls had connected with hers, threads locking with her own. And then immediately they were torn apart, wrenched away, each thread painfully sliced through like a dull blade on raw nerves.
Bolded names.
She did not need the pop up to understand what it meant.
They had claimed her in her death. The thought of that sickened her, but there was no space for a humoured chuckle, for her to wave her hands and call it a fluke. She could fucking feel it, she almost feel them, their teeth in her skin. Their hands in her hair. She could feel the tears; she could hear the screams. The sobbing. It was all contained within her soul.
So loud, so raw, so awful.
And their bars, Gods, their bars were falling. Her body knew what was happening; she could feel it in her bones, in her soul. What had they done? What were they fucking doing? Her body knew before her mind could catch up: she was dragging them down with her. She was killing them quickly, painfully.
They'd chosen to mate with a dying Alpha.
Too fresh, too ripe. Their minds were melting from her immediate death. They could not handle the loss of a mate so quickly after the claiming. Why the fuck would they do that? What the fuck were they doing? But she understood quickly enough, stared at her own bar that remained tremendously at 1.
1 single point to death.
They were holding her back from death, from the claws of the Grim Reaper. This was why she remained in a corporeal form, floating like a ghost in her old world.
"No. No, no, no—" Her voice broke raw in her throat, sobs clawing upwards, shredded raw. Her fingers shook so violently that she almost missed the shop menu. She dug through it like a madwoman, desperate, frantic. She didn't know what she was looking for. She needed anything, anything that could stop this avalanche.
Soulmate Health.
Her fingers slammed into the first lifeline she saw. The bars jumped, a gasp of hope, a single heartbeat. For all of them, they were airborne for a single fleeting moment. Then immediately they all nosedived again, like mockery, like a fucking glitch. She bought another. And another. The hearts bled out faster each time, slipping through her fingers like sand in an hourglass, like blood pooling out faster than she could staunch.
"No! Please—PLEASE!"
Her scream splintered into gasps, chest convulsing. Tears seared down her cheeks as panic ripped through her like wildfire. Her hands slipped against the screen, slick with sweat, wet with tears. Her pulse thundered in her skull, so loud she almost didn't see it in the blur of her tears.
Klaus's name.
The 80% was gone.
Winked out and collapsed into a single heart.
Her breath stopped, snapped in her throat. His name turned bold. The rush was immediate. The flood of relief, replacing pain with dopamine, adrenaline. Then Icarus's. Solar's. One after the other, like dominoes falling into the abyss. Every single name on the list was now ignited bold, the light flaring so hard it stabbed her eyes.
Her body seemed to burn, chest flooding with warmth as if pumped full of vigour. Fire instead of blood. Her body shook, like hands on her chest, electric on her heart. One. Two. One. Two.
Life.
The screen convulsed violently, glitching and spasming as if alive. Her vision tilted, the whole world spinning off its axis. Her heart seemed to ricochet so hard, she thought it might tear free. Her sobs tore raw from her throat, jagged and animalistic.
And then her gaze locked as the screen seared with a final message, white-hot, merciless, irrevocable. A final verdict, a final brand. Her vision tunnelled white.
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