Juliet Immortal

burning-heart love. And it changes everything.
    “Do you think a person can have more than one soul mate?” I ask, my pulse racing as I wait for Ben’s answer.
    He cocks his head. “Why? You thinking of replacing me already?”
    Something inside me lightens, just because he’s so certain. So certain that I am the One. His One. “No. No, I just … I thought I was in love once. A long time ago when I was … younger.” Several hundred years younger. “I was so sure that was it, my one chance, but now …”
    “Gemma said Dylan was your first date.”
    I bite my lip, not wanting to lie, but too afraid to tell the whole truth. “I met the other boy at a party. We never went on a date. He would sneak into my house at night and we’d talk, but it only lasted for a few days. Five days after I met him he … left town.”
    “You’ve only known me three days.”
    The realization makes me start. It’s true, but it seems I’ve known Ben forever. I’ve felt that way since the night we met. It’s as if some part of me has been waiting to meet him my entire life, my entire afterlife.
    “I knew that first night,” Ben whispers. “That first hour. Right after I wiped the blood off your face, I just thought—this is it, this is …”
    “What?”
    “This is the girl I’m going to spend my life with. I couldsee it,” he says, a vulnerable look in his eyes that makes it hard to swallow.
    Maybe he really
did
fall in love with me,
me
, that first night. Before I saw him in the light, before I knew his aura was colorless before we met. Maybe Ben isn’t the soul mate I’ve been sent to protect after all. Maybe I’ve been sent for Gemma and
someone else
. Maybe the other boy she’s seeing, the one she told Ben was worth the trouble.
    “I don’t need any more time to know that I’ve never felt like this before and never will again,” Ben says, banishing thoughts of anything but him as his hands smooth over my hips. “But I don’t care if you have.”
    My eyebrows arch. “You don’t?”
    “No. I don’t care if I’m not the first.” His head tilts and his lips move within a whisper of mine. “As long as I’m the last.” And then he kisses me, until the world spins and my blood races and there is nothing but Ben.
    And he is perfect and right and good and I love him. I don’t care if this is impossible. I don’t care if it’s forbidden. I
know
it isn’t wrong. There’s nothing wrong in the way he makes me ache, nothing wrong in the way his heart speeds along with mine, nothing wrong with his hands on the buttons of my raincoat, working at the barriers that separate us from each other. I want his skin on my skin, I want—
    Skin
. The terry-cloth liner of the raincoat slithers along my arms as it falls to the ground, reminding me of the scars peeking out from beneath the T-shirt I threw on before I left the house. Scars. Skin. This isn’t
my
skin.
    “Wait.” I choke out the word as I stumble back, hands flying to cover my mouth.
    This isn’t my body. Ben and I might be soul mates, but Ihave no physical form of my own. I don’t belong here and I’ll never be able to stay. Despite the strangeness of this shift, despite the miracle of falling in love again, I can’t promise Ben this body’s future. I can never be with him, even for a night. Ariel’s soul is out there in the mist. She will be coming back. Sooner or later. Maybe sooner, if Romeo has discovered that Ben isn’t Gemma’s soul mate after all.
    Somewhere out there, Romeo could have found Gemma’s real love and be making progress convincing him to slay Gemma in return for immortality. Ben and I could have a day, maybe less. And then I’ll be gone and Ariel will be here in my place. If I use her body as my own, I’ll be an abomination. I’ll step over the line I’m dancing on and become one of the monsters. When the time comes for Ariel and Ben to be together, it has to be Ariel’s decision.
    I dig the heels of my borrowed hands into my borrowed eyes and fight the despair the thought of leaving Ben inspires, try to ignore the jealousy that curdles in my mouth when I imagine Ariel’s lips against his.
    “I’m sorry,” Ben says, still breathing fast. “I wasn’t even thinking. We can wait. We can wait as long as you want. We can wait until we’re married if you want.”
    “Married.” I sob the word.
    “Yeah. Married. Why not? Someday?” He takes my wrists, pulls my hands away from my eyes. The love in his