Forever

Freya

"From what Elijah told me, you usually would've run by now." She sat on the opposite end of the bench. "Or hatched some sort of plan to get back to your friends."

Freya.

I pulled my knees into my chest, 'people watching', as I sat on my bench. I knew I wouldn't get far, like Marcel or Marcellus said. The Mikaelsons owned this city and I felt eyes on me the second I left the bar.

"We've been testing you, and so far you've done well."

Testing me?

"Kol has maintained his distance. My brothers said it was something about 'giving you a moment to breathe'."

I didn't miss the jab.

Was she suspicious?

If she was, why am I still alive?

"We aren't your jailers, Drew."

I couldn't help but scoff. "Then why help them find me?"

She was quiet. "Soulmates are a rare and extraordinary thing."

So I've been told.

"I couldn't understand why you would run from him. Even Dahlia, the cruelest person I know, held the soulmate bond sacred."

"It helps when you've lost what I lost." Had I felt the strain? Absolutely. I ignored it, as difficult as it was. "And because there's so much unknown about our bond. Like I have no idea what it means to be unbounded. No one will tell me."

Grief was an excellent motivator and at the moment, my anger was the only thing I had to cling to.

"I'm sure Kol has his reasons."

"Bullshit ones. There've been a couple people that have come close to telling me and they're always stopped. It's so frustrating." Talking about this was easier than talking about why I left. It eased the grief building in my chest.

And Josh's death was still so raw.

"If you knew. Would you make it easier on all of us?"

I scoffed. "Easy?! You want me to make things easier? I tried that. I was ready to be your brother's soulmate. I was willing to accept how scared Klaus and Elijah made me, how my friends hated them and would probably hate me for 'joining their side'. In fact, my siblings were willing to lose me in order to stop the destruction your family caused. So no. I won't be making it easy. You say you aren't my jailers when I'm clearly stuck here." I closed my eyes, I needed to reign it in before I spilled secrets. "It's not like Klaus punishes me every time I do something he doesn't like, oh wait. He does. And it's usually something drastic. Or how Elijah started off acting like he was going to protect me and now he hardly seems like he can stand me."

It was laughable at this point.

How was I so naive?

"Growing up, I lived with Dahlia. She's my mother's sister. Despite how awful she was, I loved her. She was all I knew. Then I came to New Orleans, in search of family. I found them. Of course they had their own dynamics, Finn, while the oldest in my time away, was not the head of the family. It was Elijah."

"Why tell me this?"

"I had to learn to settle in my role, regardless of the circumstances. Now I'm the oldest, but I'm also the witch in the family, and my brothers and sister need me. I have a responsibility to them."

"They don't need me." I quite literally offered nothing to the equation.

In fact, I was trying to kill some of them.

"And I'm not going to settle in my role as the obedient little soulmate. Kol likes to claim that he lost me during the whole Hayley fiasco, but in truth, it'd been long before that. Her torture was just my breaking point."

"Who said that." Freya's tone actually kind of scared me.

The windows behind us rattled somewhat. "What?"

"That you were just meant to be an obedient soulmate." She had that very same look her brothers got when they were downright murderous.

"No one said it. It's how they act. I think Finn is the only one who hasn't had some sort of expectation. I tried to play the neutral role, I took the brunt of their tempers, and I'm done. I'll stay under their watchful eye, but only because I know that I can't escape and that anyone I care about will always be used against me."

She took a breath and the shaking stopped. "You never answered my question."

That kind of caught me off guard.

"If you knew what the bonding process was, would it be easier to accept?"

I could tell her no and the wording of her question changing didn't escape my notice.

But I could also be getting an answer I've been wanting to know for almost three years. "Maybe."

"It's a ritual performed between a pair of soulmates. You stand in front of one another and grab each other's hands, like this." She slowly grabbed my hands as if I'd pull away. "And swear to each other that you will love and accept the other. The bond itself will intertwine around your hands until it's done."

"That's it?" That's the big secret?

"It'll be different when you do it with Kol, and generally something that's rather intimate. You swear on you soul. Once the bond is complete. You will finally be safe from supernaturals killing you in order to gain their own soulmate. Typically it links your life with your partner's as well, though I don't know how that would work with Kol's Original status."

"So I'll always be in danger. Awesome."

"That's why it was so important to us that we find you, why we want you to be safe."

"Because of the threat to Kol."

"I wouldn't say that. My brothers have grown rather fond of you, if the stories they told me about you are true."

Yeah right.

"Wait. How did Mikael force your mom if it's a voluntary thing?"

She cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably. "There are ways to coerce those words. I'm sure he was creative. Eventually she fell prey to his cruelty, and was forever changed by it, even growing complacent as his rage was turned on his children."

"If you grew up with your aunt, how do you know all this?"

"Finn talks when he's drunk."

Damn.

No, I couldn't feel bad for summoning the man. Klaus deserves this.

He does.

After everything he did.

"Are you ready to go home?"

"No."

"We'll just sit here awhile then."