Page 94 of Soul Bound

“I don’t want her to leave.” Remi walks closer and touches Ella’s cheek. “She’s the most interesting person here.”

“She’s a baby, how is she interesting? Don’t get me wrong, she’s cute as hell and I like her being here but all she does is sleep, eat and shit her pants,” Ransom questions.

“The fact I find an infant more interesting than you is a real indicator of how boring I find you.” Remington gives him a pointed look. “Please work on yourself.”

* * *

A little while later,Nadia texts me she’s pulling up to the house. Ranger and I silently gather all of the items we had bought for Ella over the past week, putting them in the duffel bag. We don’t talk as we move around the room, each of us in our own thoughts. I’m genuinely so happy Ella is going to be reunited with her family, but I can already feel the slight burn of unshed tears in my eyes.

Ranger senses this and pulls me into a tight hug, placing his chin on my head. “Nadia promised to bring her back to visit when things blow over. She’ll be safer with Nadia. Sterling is bound to want revenge for what happened in New York—he’s already mad we shut down his Vancouver facility,” he reasons.

“I know,” I sniff against his chest. I clutch the soft T-shirt he had put on. “This is what Thalia wants,” I remind myself.

“Maybe by Nadia taking Ella, Thalia will be able to find peace and move on.”

“I hope so.”

I carry Ella out of the house in her baby carrier, she’s sound asleep after having her bottle. Ranger has the duffel bag in one hand and my free hand in his other. The rest of the family wanted to be here to see Ella off, but we decided it would be less overwhelming for Nadia if it was just us two. Besides, I wanted a little alone time with just the three of us before Ella left.

An orange Subaru hatchback drives up the gravel driveway and comes to a stop in front of us. The windows are so tinted I can’t see into the car. I feel anxious as I wait for Nadia to get out of the car. My heart speeds up and my palms become clammy.

The driver’s side door opens, and Nadia rounds the hood of the car, a small smile on her face as she walks toward us.

As she gets closer my breath catches in my throat and my grip on Ranger’s hand tightens.

Holy. Shit.

At first, I think I’m looking at Thalia’s ghost again because Nadia is the spitting image of her sister.

“You were twins,” I say as I look her over. Nadia isn’t see-through or bloody like Thalia. Nadia’s dark hair is shorter than Thalia wore hers, it’s cut in a long bob, framing her round face. Her chocolate-colored eyes are the same color Thalia’s were before she died. Everything about her facial structure and body type is the carbon copy of Thalia’s.

Nadia nods her head, a sad smile on her lips. “We were, I guess I forgot to mention that on the phone. No one could ever tell us apart. It was one of our favorite activities to swap places in school—it used to drive our teachers nuts!”

“My twin and I used to do the same thing,” Ranger tells her.

“It’s a twin rite of passage, right?”

Ranger inclines his head. “Exactly.”

I have to pull my eyes away from her because I just keep staring at her. It’s so weird to see someone who looks like Thaliaalive. “We want to just say again how we are so sorry for your loss.”

Nadia’s throat bobs. “I’ve known she was gone for a while, I couldn’t sense her anymore, but it’s nice getting the closure and knowing exactly what happened to her—where she was all that time she was missing. I tried really hard to find her, but nothing I did worked. I tried using a tracking spell with my blood, but I just kept getting the location formyself,” she explains, her voice scratchy with emotion. “Thank you for doing all you did for her, for helping her when no one else could—when Icouldn’t.”

“It was all worth it,” I assure her, swinging my gaze between the sleeping baby in her carrier and the man next to me. “It all ended up okay.”

Nadia grins at us. “Congratulations on your mating, I think it’s so amazing shifters can mate with people of other species now. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact the White Wolf Prophecy wasactuallyreal…” She shakes her head in disbelief. “But I’m glad for you guys it was.”

“We’re pretty thankful it was too,” Ranger agrees.

Ella makes a cooing noise in her sleep, drawing everyone’s attention to her. “I guess you’d probably like to meet your niece now.” I pass the baby carrier to Ranger, so I can unbuckle Ella. I hold her tightly to my chest, hugging her one last time before carefully handing her to Nadia.

I nestle into Ranger’s side as I watch Nadia break into tears as she looks down at her niece, “Hi Ella, I’m your aunt,” she whispers to the sleeping baby. “We’re going to be okay, just the two of us.” Nadia strokes Ella’s cheek and she breaks into a watery smile. “We’re going to do so many fun things together. One day, I’ll even let you get a tattoo that you’ll later regret, even though I know your mom wouldn’t have approved—she was always so prim and proper. I’m going to tell you so many things about your mom, so you never forget her.”

A chill settles in the fall air and I look over Nadia’s shoulder. Thalia stands behind them beaming, looking completely at peace. This is why she came to me a month ago, for this exact moment to happen. Everything that happened to us over the past month was so worth it to see the three of them reunited. The contentment coming off of Thalia washes over me like a warm blanket and I embrace the feeling.

A breeze kicks up around us and in the wind, I hear her say, “Thank you, Winslow.”The voice light and airy like the wind itself. She no longer sounds like she’s in anguish when she speaks, and I know it’s because she’s no longer in pain. Nadia and Ranger don’t hear her, but that’s okay. I’ll tell Ranger later and Nadia already knows her sister will always be out there somewhere watching over Ella and her. She’ll be their guardian angel.

I should be the one thanking Thalia. Without her coming to me, I wouldn’t have found Ranger and for that, I owe her everything.

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