Page 51 of Soulmates

“That hasn’t seemed to be the theme lately. Not when you had my dick down your throat.”

Maddox smiled at him as Jake felt something crawling up his legs. He tried to jump back, but whatever it was held fast, and he only succeeded in falling on his ass with his feet still planted on the ground.

“What the fuck?” Pale green vines wrapped around both legs up to his knees.

Chapter 31

Maddox had a lot of time to think while he walked through the swamp after Jake. At first, he couldn’t believe, could not fathom, what Cricket had done. It was the most horrific betrayal. Cricket had thrown them out with no guidance, into a wilderness so unfamiliar Jake at least had no hope of finding his way out.

Maddox only knew two things. First, he couldn’t let Jake die in the middle of a swamp just so Cricket could make a point. And second, he knew which direction Jake had headed. He could sense Jake as if there were a rope between them. All he had to do was follow it.

He started off doing just that—following the rope. Knowing Jake, he would run for a good distance before slowing. It was Jake’s way. But Maddox wasn’t in any hurry for the confrontation he didn’t know how to handle. He wandered in the direction his heart pulled him. He scoffed at that. His heart. His heart pulling him toward Jake. Wasn’t that what his life had always been? He allowed himself the overly romantic metaphor if only to stop himself from making a worse one.

He stopped when he got thirsty. He pulled the backpack off and crouched on the ground. Inside were two canteens of water, bread, some sort of hard sausage, something labeled “salt pills,” rope, a container of Cricket’s awake potion that tasted like the swamp smelled, and a small first aid kit. He rolled his eyes at the pack. That wasn’t going to keep him alive in this ridiculous place. Seemingly in answer to that, the cicadas shrieked for several moments before muting as if in alarm.

Maddox stood and looked around. A deer stalked past in the near distance, but he could see no other disturbance. Maybe the swamp just didn’t like him mentally talking shit about it. It would be just like this place to read his mind.

He drank a mouthful of water and then another. Then tucked everything away and stood, popping his back and wiping some sweat off his brow. Wasn’t this fun?

He took off again after Jake.

Cricket was no fool. Nor was he cruel, despite his occasional sharp manner of speaking. There must be a purpose to this little experiment. He didn’t think Cricket would let either of them die, but a lot could happen in a place like this where nature had no interest in allowing humans to tame it. He had to go after Jake, even if he wanted to boycott this plan of Cricket’s and march back to the house and demand Cricket retrieve Jake himself.

He’d save that as a last resort. Cricket had a reason. Cricket believed Maddox could handle the swamp, which would have been unthinkable a week ago. What had Cricket said? Talk to the earth. Maddox could commune with nature. He did it all the time back home and at school, despite never having thought about it in exactly that way. Just because this nature was such an extreme, didn’t mean he couldn’t feel it and push and pull with it in the same way he did in his regular practice. He had to talk to it, ask it questions, and get a response.

He held out his hand, palm up, and let earth magic flow out of his veins to collect in front of him. It was green and bright, brighter here in this place of wild abandon where humans could barely reach. He mentally brushed the plants, gave them a little greeting, which they returned with what Maddox could only describe as a huff of annoyance at being bothered. He chuckled at that. He did the same for the air, his green earth magic now tinged through with swirls of silver. The wind here was languid and heavy with water. But it was restful too, as if it had no need to go anywhere. It was malleable, letting the surroundings dictate its movements. He’d never experienced anything like it. That was as true of the way it sat heavily in his lungs, to the way it flowed to his inner senses.

He rolled the mage ball around, casting his energy subtly out as he walked. Cricket had taught him new ways to think of his magic. Much more of a give-and-take than he’d thought of it before. It didn’t change how it worked, just how he perceived it. And that perception opened up the world in a new and bright way that excited his inner academic. Which was ironic in that Cricket’s teachings were unacademic.

There must be something in all of Cricket’s discussions that would get him out of the mess he and Jake had stumbled into.

There was magic and the push and pull he had with nature—with earth, and air, and fire.

Then there was the Soul Exchange. Maddox thought back to all they had researched about it, the meditations, the scant passages, the illustrations of unions.

There were so many parallels in all of this.

And Maddox knew what he needed to do.

Maddox had watched Jake for a while before he stepped from behind the group of trees to confront him. Jake had been playing with water magic, which wasn’t something Jake should have been able to do. But as the magic traveled from the stream to Jake’s palm, Maddox could feel it as well. His veins cried out, and Maddox had to suppress the urge to take the water for himself just to play with it. Did they have water magic somehow? He shook himself of that thought. One problem at a time.

Maddox stepped into Jake’s line of sight with no fear. And now faced down his friend and lover. Maddox had easily, so easily, asked the newest roots of a nearby tree to wind their way up out of the ground and around Jake’s legs. There were so many trees here that the very ground was made of roots.

“What the fuck?” Jake sat looking stunned at his encased legs, trying to pull at the immovable vines. Maddox had asked them to hold firmly without cutting off Jake’s blood supply. Jake wouldn’t be able to remove them on his own.

“You aren’t going anywhere. Calm down.”

Jake glared up at him, reached for his spear, and hurled it at Maddox.

Maddox didn’t even flinch, just raised his eyebrows at Jake in silent question as the makeshift spear headed straight at Maddox’s face, only to bank right and fall to the ground. Jake said nothing.

“Did you really think that was going to work?”

“No, but it made me happy to try.”

“Happy? I thought you didn’t have feelings.”

“No, I do. It makes me especially happy to imagine you dead.”

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