Inflexible | Fated Four: Book 1

Chapter Eighteen

Two months.

It had been two months since Aphrodite had spoken to us about Soren's soulmate and in that time, we had all thrown ourselves into searching for signs of Soren's soulmate as well as tracking down Eris and Enyo.

We hadn't found anything.

Eris and Enyo had been leaving taunts written in blood for us all over Moonshell, but hadn't stepped out to face us in person. To make matters worse Eris and Enyo were still blocking Nemesis' powers. Soren couldn't use his powers to see their futures either.

We were completely blind to them and that unsettled us all.

As for Soren's soulmate, he had been feeling a pull on his heart that led him back to Moonshell, every time he tried to leave the city.  So it was safe to say that she wasn't in Moonshell yet.

Currently, Arrow and I were down at the beach under the light of Artemis' moon.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" he asked.

"I'm ready, are you?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I am," he told me, "I think it's time I accepted that you aren't going anywhere, that my pain doesn't scare you, and that you can handle my pain."

"I can and I'm not going anywhere," I assured him, "Call her."

"I beseech Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty, appear before me and help me," Arrow called out.

There was a flourish of rose petals and Aphrodite appeared.

"I'm here, Arrow," Aphrodite told him, "What can I do for you?"

I answered instead.

"There's a battle coming, My Lady," I told her, "We can all feel it and I don't want Arrow to be hindered by his pain when we come face to face with Eris."

"And it's for that reason that Clary and I have decided to complete our soulmate bond now," Arrow told the Goddess. Aphrodite smiled.

Arrow and I had discussed this extensively over the past few weeks and we had both decided that we needed to complete our bonding ceremony so that we could have a better fighting chance against Eris. But we weren't just doing it because of that. No, Arrow and I wanted to do this for ourselves as well. He was tired of running and hiding from his pain and he knew that the only way he'd ever be able to be free from it was for me to bear half of his burden. And while he didn't want that initially, he knew that I'd be able to handle it. He wanted to heal and I knew that our love was going to help him with that.

"Will you complete our soulmate bonding ceremony?" I asked.

"I will, but I need to hear explicit consent from each of you," Aphrodite told us, "Once this is done, there's no going back."

"I consent to binding myself to Arrow," I told Aphrodite.

"I've spent so much time trying not to subject Clary to my pain, but I've come to realize that I am stronger with her at my side," Arrow told the Goddess as he wrapped an arm around me, "I consent to binding myself to Clary."

"Very well then," Aphrodite said with a smile.

Her hand glowed a bright pink and she produced two threads. One of them was glowing bright gold and the other was only glowing a little.

"These are your life threads," Aphrodite told us before holding up the bright gold thread, "This thread represents Arrow." She held up the thread that wasn't glowing that much. "And this one represents Clarissa. However, soulmates are equals and Arrow is an Immortal, so before we begin, I give Clarissa, daughter of Melinoe, the gift of immortality, making her equal in stature to her soulmate, Arrow."