The Bell of Freedom (King and human romance)✔

Chapter Fifty-Two

I throw the fifteenth shell into the ocean and I watch as it skims the top of the small waves. I've been walking along the beach for most of the morning, Marina wanted to speak with me but I've been avoiding her. Christian, however, has this annoying gift of always knowing where to find me.

I slump down onto the sand and I push my knees to my chest, he joins me a few minutes later.

"Are you having second thoughts?"

"I've been having second thoughts for the last seven or whatever months," I say, throwing another small shell into the water.

"What's bothering you? Is it the others? That was a lot for them to process last night, even I acted like that when you first told me."

"It's not just that." I take a deep breath, summoning the courage to admit what's really bugging me. "I'm finally at this stage of my life where I can wake up in a morning and not think about him. And when I do think about him, it doesn't hurt like it did. I'm not exactly madly in love with him anymore but before I get anywhere near that bell, I'll have to see him again."

"And you're scared of that?"

I nod. "I'm scared that if I see him then I won't be able to do it."

"That's what you're afraid of?" he says, his voice filled with disbelief.

"Yes, why?"

"Not the fact that he'll show up here starving and wanting to eat you?"

I grin, looking back to the ocean. "I'm not afraid of that. I've actually never been afraid of that since the first time I met him. We're only going to get one shot at this and that's an enormous amount of pressure."

"Because once he gives you your soul back, he'll have no trouble with killing you?"

I shrug. "Possibly. It's my soul that gives him these emotions and desires, that gives his brain the chemicals capable of feeling love towards me. But. . . I've felt his soul too. His real soul. It was kind and compassionate and there wasn't anything evil or bad about it."

"Aurora, you can't seriously believe that he's going to still care for you after this. The creatures cannot care. Like you said, they lack the chemicals that we have naturally."

I turn my face and smirk at him. "Then how do you explain Marina?"

He sighs, narrowing his eyes at the ocean. "I can't."

"Come on, Christian. Six months and you still don't trust her? Some creatures are good, you must see that by now."

"Fine, Marina is an exception," he says with light amusement. He hears a noise from the top of the cliffs and twists his torso to stare up at the line of creatures that have been there since I arrived. "Jesus, are they following you?"

"Yep. I think they're watching over me. It's weird."

"Just a little," he mumbles. "That huge lion is terrifying."

"Oh my god, Christian, look." I grip my hand around his wrist and he twists back. I point in the far distance to where a large whale is jumping into the air. It's enormous black body splats against the current and unleashes a giant splash.

"Is that a...?"

"A whale," I say. "A real whale."

"A pod of whales," he says. We both put a hand above our eyes to try and get a better look, there must be at least ten of them jumping into the air, it's like they're taking turns. "I've seen dolphins before but never anything that big."

I smile. "I guess I'm saving them too."

"Yeah." Christian turns and looks up at the cliffs again. "They don't seem interested in them."