Bondmates

Sadly, the uploading chapter thing, rather than copying and pasting, also didn’t register the italics and such. So I guess you’ll all have to just imagine where the emphases are being made… =P

Anyway, here’s the next chapter…It’s not really eventful, but mandatory since it explains things a little. It may be kind of confusing also.

But you do get to meet another really cool character…or at least I think he’s cool…but then again, I am privy to information on his background that you wouldn’t be………………… I hope you all think he’s cool anyway…you will later, trust me ;P

Thanks for the reviews! (They really do inspire me. I just haven’t had time to write recently :( )

Sorry about the wait...

Happy reading!

Chapter 4

The first thing he noticed was the smell. There was a faint scent of mint and vanilla that teased him awake. It felt very…homey.

Comforted, oblivion claimed him once more.

The second time he woke, the clean mint-y vanilla fragrance was still there. Added to that was the smell of…scented laundry detergent?

“Fresh Spring Breeze, to be exact.”

He “Mm-hmed” and snuggled his face deeper into the soft down comforter that covered him.

Fresh Spring Breeze, huh? Maybe he’d try that next time…

Wait…

In a flurry, he flew the delightful fluffy comforter from his face. Sitting up, he found himself looking at a complete stranger.

Let’s rephrase that…a gorgeous stranger…

He gaped into fascinating ruby red eyes that stood out from a somewhat elfin featured face, framed by feathery silver hair. What skin was visible from under a form fitting black leather suit was pure milky white. The leather, buckles an all, combined with the stranger’s lithe form seemed fitting of a porn star…or maybe the sexy main character of an action flick…

Furthermore, delicate-looking, long-fingered hands casually twirled around several black chains with deadly curved blades at the end.

Apparently noticing his discomfort (who wouldn’t notice his saucer eyes and blatant edging away?), the stranger smiled lightly at him (he had enviously perfect white teeth by the way).

“Don’t worry,” the stranger said in a surprisingly soft and husky voice. “I won’t bite…unless you want me to of course….” His smile turned slightly lascivious.

Swallow. “Uh…gaaaah…”

Though he couldn’t quite get his tongue and jaw to work in unison, he meant to explain that he wasn’t so much afraid of being bitten as he was by the whirling chains and the blades attached to them.

“Ah…yes I suppose they are rather intimidating, huh?” The stranger looked thoughtfully at the chains now dangling seemingly harmlessly in his hands. “Sorry about that.”

How did he know…

“…What you were thinking?”

Jaw dropped.

The stranger eyed him from where he was (quite deliciously) sprawled on the gray suede couch across the room.

“It’s because I’m something of a psychic…Max Harris, right?”

He nodded dumbly.

The stranger tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Interesting…hm…he’ll be surprised by that, I’ll bet…”

“Er…”

“Oh, right, sorry. My name’s Jocelyn, but you can call me Jos, most people do.”

“…Jocelyn?”

Red eyes narrowed dangerously…except entirely non-threateningly. “Don’t even think it…I know that it’s kinda girly…but my parents swore that when they were name searching, the database they browsed said that it was a name for both boy and girl babies…. Personally, I’ve never heard of another male Jocelyn before…”

As Jos continued his monologue, Max found himself relaxing. Though his appearance and carefree swinging of the chain-weapon-thing had originally put him on the edge, his contrastingly playful and easygoing personality swiftly eased the tension.

In the middle of Jos’s speaking, Max’s stomach gave a loud grumble.

“How silly of me…I’ll bet you’re starving by now…Hold on…” With that, he jumped up and breezed into the adjoining kitchen where he could be heard rustling through the refrigerator.

As he did so, Max took the opportunity to look around at his surroundings. It appeared that he was in a living room of sorts. It was nicely decorated with simple, yet stylish furnishings of a rather monochrome palette. Blacks, whites, and various shades of gray were arranged throughout the room rather artfully.

He was in the middle of said room, lying upon a soft, squishy easy mattress nestled in the previously mentioned thick down comforter. And to his side, also under the comforter was…

Reese Ferralan.

Max gasped, all the memories coming back to him. The horrible creature, Reese’s broken body, the stone’s light, and the beautiful foreign face that was the last thing he saw before he passed out…

He clutched his hands to his head, his body shaking in shock. It was all real…

“Oi, get yourself together. Everything’s okay…”

Warm hands gently pulled his own from where they had been pulling at his hair. A faint hint of cinnamon reached his nose. Max blinked up into oddly soft red eyes. Then he looked at the hands circling his wrists lightly.

Where had Jos’s chain-things gone?

Jos laughed, husky and alluring like his voice. “Those things? I can call them and send them away at will. You’re a funny one, you are.”

Max blushed.

Remembering Reese, he quickly pulled away from Jos and hesitantly reached a hand towards his schoolmate’s still form.

“It’s probably best to leave him be,” Jos’s voice stopped him. “He’s pretty burnt out. It’ll probably take a few more days for him to recover.”

Max’s head snapped back towards the other. “A few more days?!”

“Ah! So you can speak coherent sentences!”

Another blush.

“But as for your question, yeah. You’ve been out cold for two days already.”

Various thoughts hit Max at once. They had already been there for days? Surely the school would get worried…. And though he didn’t have parents that would worry about him, being an orphan as he was…what about Reese’s family? Surely they were worried… And he didn’t hurt at all. Looking at Reese, he seemed perfectly fine as well. Max was sure that their bodies had been pretty beat up by that freaky monster…How could they be perfectly fine now? And what had happened? What was that monster? Where were they now? Who was that delicate boy that had opened the door? Was that just a hallucination? And what kind of person was Jos that he could read minds and create weird chain weapons?

WHAT WAS GOING ON?!

“Oi, you don’t need to think so loudly.”

Max blushed, he had forgotten about the psychic thing…

“…sorry…”

Jos smiled warmly. He was even more alluring up close. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, let’s try to see if I can answer some of your questions. Shoot.”

“Uh, okay. So…how is it that Reese and I don’t have any injuries? Weren’t we wounded when we were brought here?”

Jos nodded. “While I can’t say how hurt you two were when you first got here (since I wasn’t there), I do know that you were both seriously injured. Apparently your friend,” he motioned to Reese “was on the verge of death.”

“So then…”

“Calm down, I’m getting to that point. The person that opened the door to you…this is his place…well, his and his boyfriend’s.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll make it really short and simple in saying that that person—you can call him Taylor, though his full name is Kim Taewoo—is what is known as a Healer.”

“A Healer? And that is…?”

“…You don’t know?”

Max bit his lip at the other’s surprised expression. “Is that a bad thing?”

“Er…not ‘bad’ exactly…just kind of odd given…” Jos paused. “You really don’t know do you?”

“What?” Max was really confused. Why was it so odd for him to not know? It didn’t seem like it was common knowledge…

“Well, I mean, a Healer is exactly what it sounds…and then some. But essentially the thing that Healer’s are known for is their ability to heal people. However, it’s odd in your case that you don’t know…because…well…you are one.”

…

…

…

“WHAT?!”

Jos clucked his tongue, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “Yeah, um, so…see how that’s kind of odd?”

Max shook his head in shock. “B-b-but th-that’s not possible!”

Jos raised a dark eyebrow.

“I mean…how can you tell…maybe you’re wrong…you have to be…I can’t…I can’t be…”

“You are. There are several ways to tell. For one, your spiritual aura is white and gold…that marks you as having Healing Magic. The undeniable proof is that white stone that you have.”

Max blinked and pulled out the stone in question. It looked just like a stone now, displaying none of the strange qualities that it had several days before. It did, however, give off a gentle, reassuring warmth.

“This is proof that I’m a Healer?”

Jos nodded. “It’s called a Healer’s Mark. Basically, it identifies you as a Healer. It can also give you help when you need it, such as when you desperately needed help after…whatever it was that caused those injuries. It can do various little things, but the fact that it identifies you as a Healer is perhaps the most important. People who may be violent towards others will often treat a Healer very well. After all, if you suddenly become ill or something and doctors can’t help, you’ll want to be able to ask a Healer for help. And strong Healers are pretty rare these days…”

Max put aside his initial shock. “Really? How come?”

There was a sad look in the slanted red eyes. “You should know that too, at least instinctively. I’m assuming you’ve had a pretty tough life so far…surely you’ve had a hard time even standing up for yourself…right?”

Max stared at him.

“That’s the thing about Healers. They’re incredibly gifted, and the only ones that can heal even the worst of injuries. However, they tend to have very weak dispositions. Even if it’s unconscious, they constantly have a sense of the feelings around them. As they grow older, that awareness gradually deepens until they naturally have a hard time doing anything that might hurt someone else, since they would feel the lash-back. It then would become a cycle such that they wouldn’t do anything against other people no matter what, then they would feel the others’ derision at them, and their self-confidence and strength would fall more.

“Eventually, the Healers would kill themselves. The more powerful the Healer, the sooner it happens. Many of the stronger ones don’t enter that cycle I just mentioned. They simply kill themselves because they can’t handle feeling all the emotions around them.”

Max swallowed. “A-am I going to end up like that…too?”

Jos smiled slightly. “I doubt it. If things hadn’t ended up as they did, maybe you would have…who really knows? But now, it isn’t very likely. You see, the Healer that healed you—Taylor—is quite possibly the most powerful Healer in existence…and he’s also probably the one with the strongest mentality. I’m sure that he’ll be able to help you…”

Max looked down at his hands. “But…I’m…” not worth it, he thought.

Suddenly Jos clapped his hands right in front of the brown-haired boy’s face. “And that is just the attitude that you need to get rid of. Far from being worthless, you’re worth quite a bit. For example, you have no idea the kind of things people will do to get their hands on a Healer. Healers are very valuable indeed…unless…” he narrowed his eyes at Max, “you don’t think that saving lives is a very worthy thing?”

Vehemently, Max shook his head. “No! Th-that’s n-not at all w-w-what I…”

A hand gently came down on top of his head. “I know. But that’s the truth. If a Healer’s life is meaningless, then doesn’t that also make the people’s lives that they save or can save meaningless too? So, if for that anyway, you shouldn’t think yourself worthless anymore, in the very least. Think you can do that?”

Max slowly nodded. “I-I think so…”

“Good. Anything else?”

“Um…what about Reese? Is he a Healer too?”

Jos laughed. “No, no. He’s a Swordmage. Swordmages are basically people who have mastered sword techniques as well as magic and can combine the two. They’re highly offensive, as opposed to Healers who tend to be anything but. A bit of information that is relevant to your situation is that Healers and Swordmages are capable of becoming Bondmates.”

“Eh?” Bondmates? Like people in prison that shared the same cell?

Jos choked and nearly fell over. “You are one strange-thinking kid,” he finally said when he stopped choking on his laughter. “No, Bondmates consist of a Healer and a Swordmage that are very close together, such that they have formed a ‘bond’ with each other. I guess you could say that they’re special ‘soulmates.’”

“So…Reese and I…?”

“I’m guessing that you’re True Bondmates.”

“True…Bondmates?”

“Yeah. Some Bondmates form bonds after long periods of association, and usually not a little sexual interaction. However, if a Swordmage and Healer are True Bondmates, then upon meeting,, they will instantaneously begin to form a bond that will quickly strengthen, even without close interaction.”

“And you think that Reese and I…are True Bondmates?” Max supposed that it did make sense…a little. After all, Max had always been somehow especially attuned to Reese, especially after working together on that one project. And the certainly had not had any…well, “sexual interaction.”

“I do. But I don’t think that you have a full bond yet. So I guess you’re not really Bondmates yet…more like Bondmates-in-the-process.”

Max nodded. “Oookaaay.”

“Any more questions?”

“Um…oh! The monster that we fought…what was it?”

Jos frowned. “Can you picture the image of it? I’m not a full psychic…I can only read things immediately at the forefront of your mind.”

“Okay,” Max did as he was told. Then he realized something. “Wait, then how’d you know my name? I mean, I don’t think that I usually think about my name…”

“You woke once before and told us your name then. Guess you don’t remember it. As for your question, the thing you fought was a Reaper. It’s basically a spirit that feeds on the spirits of others. In other words, it eats your soul. You were lucky since it wasn’t a very strong one…D class at best, but still strong for you given your skill level.”

“D class?”

“In the supernatural area of existence, we assign ranks to all beings. For ourselves, we assign ranks of Unranked, Initiate, Novice, Journeyman, Master, Adept, and Grand Adept, and then assign respective ranks of E, D, C, B, A, S, and SS to ranks of spirits, monsters, demons, and other such things.”

“Oh…so what am I?”

“Initiate. You have a gift, so you’re not Unranked. But since you’re new to everything, you’re of the lowest ranked level.”

It was understandable. “What about you?”

“That’s a secret.”

Max frowned. “…Okay then…what are you?”

“Human?”

…

“You’re a ‘supernatural’ person too, right? I mean, you’re psychic and can summon and dismiss weird chain weapon-y things at will…So you have to have a rank, right?”

Jos’s eyes flitted to the side. “Erm…maybe…possibly…I really can’t say…gah.”

Curiously, “Why not?”

Max felt his heart twinge as Jos’s red eyes clouded over. Jos bowed his head, dark silver hair falling to cover his eyes.

“It’s kind of…hard to explain, and not exactly something I really want to explain.”

The silence weighed down on them as Max found himself uncertain what he could say.

Suddenly Jos brightened. “Anyway, it was very nice to meet you, and while I’m sure this is quite a lot to take in all of a sudden, I’m sure you’ll be fine. I suppose I’d best be going now.”

“You’re leaving?” Max worried his lip. He really was a horrible person to have made such a nice person feel that they had to leave…

Jos smiled brightly. “Yes, and don’t worry, I’m not leaving because of you. It’s just that as one of the actual residents of this place is back, I don’t need to be here anymore. I have certain things that I need to get started on now…”

“Oh…so…you were…”

“Just keeping an eye on you two while the others were at their jobs. They didn’t know when you would wake so that asked me to stick around. They figured you would have questions and didn’t want you to freak out or anything,” he winked. “So…tata…I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

With that he was gone before Max could even reply. He blinked. The silver-haired man had been standing in front of him one moment…and suddenly he wasn’t there anymore. He definitely hadn’t used the door…

What the…?

And then said door opened. But the person who stepped in wasn’t Jos.

Blue eyes met obsidian.

“Oh, so you’re awake, huh? I suppose Jos already left…” said the angel who had saved them.

“Um, hi.”