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Mera chuckled with a hand over her mouth and shook her head, brushing her side-sweeping bang away from her petite face. “I suppose you’re right, but you’re being quite presumptuous.” Her voice held an accent with a melodic lilt that Blaire couldn’t place.

Riley turned her attention to Blaire. “See, those two are already a fully bonded pair.”

“I don’t see any markings on their necks.”

“I take it that’s where Lukas saw his mark on you, then?” Mera asked softly.

Blaire nodded.

“That’s not how it works…”

Mera reached down and started to unbutton her blouse. Blaire opened her eyes wide until Mera stopped, pulling the upper portion of her blouse open, revealing an intricate tattoo of vines with blooming flowers wrapped around a black triangle with a dotted crescent moon in the middle of her sternum.

“All of that is your mark?”

“No, this,”—she touched the triangle symbol—“is mine and Kai’s mark, but I had the tattoo done around it because I felt it looked nice, creating one large tattoo rather than a single mark in the center of my chest.”

“Wow… it’s actually really beautiful,” Blaire said as Mera buttoned her shirt.

“Kai also has the same tattoo on his chest, but where I carry flowers, he wields thorns.”

Kai reminded Blaire of a stereotypical vampire with his aristocratic features, further emphasized by a long, narrow nose that led down to a cupid’s bow above a pair of full lips, accented by a labret piercing. When he made no move to show his tattoo, she turned her attention back to Mera as she spoke again.

“The mark you share with Lukas… when you bond fully, it will manifest itself completely on your necks as clear as the one we carry.”

Blaire scrunched her nose as though tasting something sour, and Aiden raised an eyebrow, studying her. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of having a permanent mark like a tattoo on her neck in plain sight. As a point of rebellion against the Wilcox restrictions, she briefly entertained the idea of getting a small one, but to not have a choice in design rubbed her the wrong way. She didn’t allow herself to go deeper into what the mark symbolized. She wasn’t mentally prepared to face it yet.

Mera continued. “Each Korrena pair holds their own unique mark. The location where it presents itself varies, but there are only so many body parts to go around, so some pairs share the same location for the mark as other pairs.”

“A human as a Korrena…” Kai spoke quietly, as if in awe. He pulled Mera to his side with one arm, and she leaned into him. Grey eyes framed in black eyeliner set beneath a deep brow assessed Blaire intently. “It seems unreal, and if I may be so blunt, I’m not sure I entirely believe it. I honestly wonder if Lukas is so enamored with the idea of finding his pair that he is willing to see anything, even if it wasn’t there. I mean, he is almost my age and hasn’t found his pair.”

“Aiden is four months older than Lukas and in the same boat…” Riley gave her brother a sad look.

Aiden tensed in his seat and clenched his jaw.

Blaire tilted her head. “I read pairs are found around seventeen or eighteen on average, meaning later is just as possible. He’s only nineteen. How is that so bad?”

Kai shook his head. “Even if only a year or two later than average, it is sad to endure. We grow up learning about the Korrena and eagerly await the time of our awakening. If that doesn’t happen—even if only a year or two passes—knowing it could signify centuries of solitude… I can’t even begin to fathom how some never find their pair.”

“Centuries?” Blaire’s eyes widened, and she looked around the group. “Just how old are you? You look so young…”

Riley spoke up first. “We are young. I’m seventeen. Aiden’s nineteen. Mera’s eighteen, and Kai is the oldest at twenty. He also has a little brother you’ll meet later, Seth. He’s eighteen. How old are you?”

“I’m eighteen.” She took a sip of her peach tea before adding, “I thought most Korrenas found each other by the time they were my age.”

Aiden sighed, running his hand through his hair, before sitting back in his chair. “It doesn’t always work out like that.”

The table remained silent until Kai spoke up again. “Honestly, I couldn’t imagine my life without Mera, and let’s just say I was immensely relieved when she had her awakening and it clicked for us. I started to worry I wasn’t going to find my beloved, as I was already nineteen when she finally connected with that side of herself at seventeen. I felt something for her before, and suspected it was the call of the sacred bond, but with her being younger than I, let’s just say I had… difficulties.”

Mera put her head on Kai’s shoulder and smiled, closing her eyes.

“Sensing the bond before your pair and being around them isn’t easy. I even questioned my sanity at one point, thinking I might have been wrong. It wasn’t pleasant. Another two years passed before the bond called to her.” Kai squeezed Mera’s arm as he pulled her close. “All that aside, I couldn’t imagine facing the hurdle of a human being my other half, if that’s even possible. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea of a Vasirian and a human joining. It’s nothing against you personally, don’t get me wrong. It’s just… peculiar.”

Riley nodded. “It does seem weird. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this happening before, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible!” She took a bite of her salad.

“Well, of course, nothing is impossible, I suppose,” Kai said. “Sure, there’s plenty of media out there depicting vampires and other supernatural beings falling for humans, but I’ve never heard of it as reality. That kind of stuff is only found in books, movies, and the ramblings of human girls going through puberty. The idea of the dark entices them, but they don’t understand its reality.”

Everyone stayed silent during Kai’s long-winded musings before Blaire finally spoke up, changing the subject entirely, not sure she wanted to be talking about bonding; she wasn’t sure she wanted to bond with Lukas. No, she had no intentions of “mating” with a Vasirian; she found the idea ridiculous.