StarShine (Temporarily On Hold)

26

Ki blinks, breaking the trance as he squeezes the space between his eyes with his fingers.  Elara's hand flies to her chest as she gasps for air, feeling like she hadn't even been breathing throughout that whole exchange.

Everett is at his sister's side, trying to get her to look at him, but her wide eyes as still stuck on Ki. She can feel Everett's hands on her, hear him calling her name but she is too stunned to respond.

"What?" her mind reels as she works to put the pieces she now has, all together. But she just can't seem to reconcile it all. Her eyes finally meet Everett's, just a brief connection to reassure him, but she sees nothing but concern staring back.

From an outside perspective, Elara can understand the concern. She doesn't know what it must have looked like while she was entranced by Ki, but if it looked anywhere near what it felt like - it would be confusing.

"Why else would I be here?" his voice is hollow as if he too can't understand exactly what is happening but is going to accept it for what it is anyway.

At this point, nothing would surprise him. But Elara isn't so willing to just accept it. She isn't really even sure if she fully believes it and she felt it. This could all just prove to be too much, too impossible.

She can't even tell what is moving faster, the beat of her heart, or the thoughts in her head. She tries so hard to organize them, wanting to ask the millions of questions that sit on the tip of her tongue, but she just can't seem to grasp the words.

"How?" Elara can't be sure she even said the word or just mouthed it but she knows that Ki will understand either way.

"Someone needs to explain to us exactly what is going on!"  Alpha Gabriel demands, stepping forward earning him a glare from Ki.

But to his credit, Ki doesn't comment on the Alphas tone. He simply looks at them as if they were children trying to eavesdrop on an adult conversation.

"Elara has a piece of Kamaria's soul inside her,"  he says on a breath and sinks into a nearby empty chair.

The room is silent as everyone stares with wide eyes between Ki and Elara. The words moving and turning in their minds as if said in a different language. Elara doesn't blame them, it is a lot to take in.

"I'm not sure I understand," Elara mumbles, leaning against the Alpha's desk.

"Why would you need to see Bennett?" Grace asks quietly.

"I still want to. I think he has a piece of my soul in him," he says simply as if commenting on the weather, "If my theory was right, it would have been easier to sense my own soul in Bennett instead of having to call out to Kamaria's soul in Elara. It's only a small sliver, but it's there and now I'm almost certain there's a piece of mine in Bennett," he pulls his eyebrows together, rubbing a hand absently over his chest again.

Elara's eyes snap to Ki at his words and it's like another light bulb goes off over her head. Her mind flashes back to when she and Bennett first met - when he had first told her about the vampires. There was something that Alpha Rafael had said...

"They were acting as if they were searching for something and they got more than excited when I had arrived at the scene with Bennett and some other men. Makes sense that they'd be after the Alpha,"

It had made sense that the vampires were looking for the strongest wolves to take down. It happens all the time with rogues, they go after the Alpha for the glory. To be able to say that they took down the strong leader but now Elara can't help but think a new possibility has appeared.

What if the vampires weren't looking for the Alphas?

If Ki is right about their souls being alive here in Elara and Bennett, what if Sethos felt that? Is it possible that the vampires were searching for the pieces of their soul either for elimination or control?

"How did you know it was in Elara?" Elara couldn't tell which alpha spoke, her mind too preoccupied with the theory she's putting together.

But she knows the answer to this question. She just didn't realize it until now.

"I felt you," she whispers looking up at Ki from where she had been staring at the floor, "That's why I was in the cells in the first place. I felt a pull there - I just didn't know why,"

"That's why I ended up here after falling from the sky. The piece of her soul that lives in Elara pulled me,"

"Wait a minute," Everett puts his hands in the air as if he were separating a fight, "I think we're forgetting that you were separated in the sky, how could the moon goddess have put a piece of your soul in Bennett?"

He's just wondering out loud, his mind having a hard time connecting the dots, but it makes sense. Kamaria was banished to the moon and Ki to the sun, how could she have gotten a piece of his soul. Once again though it seems Ki already knows or has a theory about that.

His eyes become sad and his smile wistful as he glances out the window towards the pale blue sky. For a moment, Elara wonders if he will even answer the question, but after a few beats of silence, he turns back to the group.

"She must have gotten from the stars," Ki can see the confusion on everyone's faces so he continues, "before I made them, they were just rocks. I put a piece of my soul into them so that a part of me could always be with her, shinning light in her darkness."

The room is silent again, everyone taking in the new information.

"If I'm understanding correctly, you think he's after Elara then?" Alpha Rafael says cautiously, casting a glance at Elara as his words would scare her.

"I'm not sure if it's me exactly or just the piece of the soul," she says, having already thought of this. She quickly explains her theory but towards the end trails off, still not able to think of Sethos' end game.

And that left one question that no one, not even Ki, had an answer to. If Sethos wanted to take the piece of the Gods' souls that lived within Bennett and Elara, how would he do that?

How had Kamaria done it?

"Okay, so how do we get her out?" everyone turns to face Alpha Rafael, a steel look of determination across his face.

"We kill Sethos. He was wounded and Ki fell. If we kill him it should be enough that Kamaria can -" her words trail off, her eyes glazing over for a moment.

"Elara," the words flow through her head stopping what she was saying. The connection was weak, but the relief of hearing his voice again had tears flooding her eyes and a sob ripping from her throat.

"Bennett," she takes off without another word heading toward her mate.