Pandora awoke the next day and took a shower, first thing. She needed to feel refreshed for the meeting. In Lupe’s room she opened the closet and looked for the knee-length black skirt she’d been trying to get the other girl to lend her for a month. She found it after a few minutes, and chose a dressy maroon tank top to go with it. The only pair of nice shoes that fit comfortably was a pair of four-inch high black sandals, which would no longer be comfortable by the time she got downstairs. But everything else pinched her toes, so it was either the sandals or her less-than-brand-new Nike Air Maxes. She made up her mind to just put them on at the last possible moment.

Grateful that she and Lupe had similar hair types, Pandora grabbed a can of mousse from the dresser and worked the white foam into her long wet hair. It was starting to form curls, and the mousse would hold them, preventing her hair from frizzing. It wouldn’t do to meet a major representative with frizzy hair.

At five to ten the doorbell rang. Pandora was looking over the papers Thierry had given her one last time. They outlined all the community work and projects Shapeshifters United had put into motion to help ‘shifters gain political power in the Night World. The organization was trying to get rid of the bad name shapeshifters had been given when they had almost destroyed the world millions of years ago. Pandora had no problems with that. Her own clan had a very messy history, and she was willing to do whatever she could to clear it up.

Reaching for the damned sandals, Pandora worked her feet through all the straps and buckled the small clasp by her ankle. She fastened on a silver-plated anklet and poked her fake silver hoop earrings into her ears. One of the things she missed about not being a ‘shifter was silver. She made sure she was still wearing the pentacle around her neck and her slim black watch before leaving the room and going downstairs.

*     *     *     *     *

Nilsson met her on the ground floor. “Mister Dylan Richards is waiting for you in the study,” he told her. “Call if you need anything.” Pandora nodded, thanked him, and opened the door to the study.

She stopped short in the doorway and stood as still as the dead. A tall boy about her age – eighteen – was seated on the sofa. He had shiny black hair, and high cheekbones. She couldn’t see his eyes yet, but she hoped to God that they were blue. If they were…then Pandora would be happy forever. The past two years of secret mourning would be forgotten, if only those eyes were blue. The boy turned his head to look at her and…

His eyes were the brightest shade of blue she had ever seen. And right now they held a look of shocked recognition. He stood slowly. “Lexine?” he whispered.

She hadn’t been called that in years. Pandora blinked. It couldn’t be Cole…could it? But how? Britt and Braxton had killed him… But it was Cole. He was moving towards her now, gathering her in his arms and crushing her to him. Pandora snapped out of her stunned state and hugged him back. They held each other and Pandora squeezed her eyes shut. Tears still seeped through. Cole pulled back and wiped them away with the pad of his thumb. He looked into her eyes and then…

He hit her.

Or he might as well have. The shock value would have been the same. Pandora felt herself gripped by a seizure, traumatizing her nerves, hitting her like a blow to the gut. Her knees buckled and she fell forward into Cole’s arms. Where his hands touched her bare arms she tingled, as if he were assaulting her nervous system. But she knew the same thing was happening to him.

<<Let down your guards, Lexine. Let me in.>> Pandora heard Cole’s voice in her head, as clearly as she had heard him speak those same words to her three years before in her bedroom in St. Louis. She let down the shields she had made to protect her thoughts from vampires and felt Cole enter her mind.

I thought you were dead, he told her. They found your mother’s car and body, and a charred circle of grass about a mile away, but no bodies, aside from a few small bones scattered about. Pandora showed him some of her memories. He saw how Briony Veleur had changed her into an otter and urged her to take on her middle name, Pandora, and the last name Veleur. He looked into her soul and knew everything that had occurred over the past few years, from becoming an otter to getting a new identity to joining Circle Daybreak. Cole opened up his own mind and Pandora saw him joining Shapeshifters United and changing his name in case Braxton found out he hadn’t died and decided to finish the job.

Cole peeked into her memories of the night she had fought Braxton and the others. I’m glad to see you killed them all, he told her. And I’m glad to know that you missed me.

Cole! Pandora stared at him. I’ve been miserable for the past three years because I’ve been missing you! Let me look into your mind; I want to know if you missed me as much as I missed you.

Smiling down at her, he allowed her to search his thoughts. You know I have, he whispered. And Pandora could see that, indeed, he had. She saw images of Cole lying awake at night, drawing her picture over and over again in a sketchbook. She showed him her own memories; her crying alone in the dark as she thought of him and how she would never be able to look into his eyes again, how she would never get the chance to say she loved him.

But I can say it now, she said. I love you, Cole. And now I know why it all felt so right before. We’re soulmates.

He pulled her close again. Yes, he said. We are. The thought had crossed my mind before, but I figured I would feel all sorts of weird sensations – like we are now. I always thought that if you weren’t my soulmate, then I didn’t want to find her at all, because no one was more perfect for me than you. He kissed her, then whispered, I love you…

Time was lost to them. It was only Cole and Lexine – because she would always be Lexine to him – and there was nothing else. The world as they knew it had ceased to exist, and they didn’t care. They were only aware of each other.

Then a loud sound broke through the haze of happiness that surrounded them. It sounded harsh after the softness of Cole’s mental voice. They were thrown out of each other’s minds and Pandora found herself and Cole sitting on the floor just inside the doorway of the study, wrapped in each other’s arms. The doorbell rang again, and then a third time before Pandora thought of answering it. She jumped up and got to the door as soon as Lupe’s four-inch heels would allow her to. She unlocked the door. Whoever was on the other side had to have been approved by the security guards, and there was no peephole to look through, anyway. For all his precautions, Thierry forgot the most important one, Pandora thought, but she opened the door…

…And found herself staring into the astonished brown eyes of Dessa Veleur.