An hour later, Aka and Calum slowly made their way downstairs and to the living room. They sat on the couch as close as they could without sitting on top of each other. Howard watched them cautiously, having unconsciously taken what Jack said to heart. Cora grinned, getting up and walking away from the conversation she was having with Evan and Howard and towards the newly bonded soulmates. She sat in a chair near the couch, smiling at them.

Calum and Aka whispered among themselves. “I can’t believe I’m your soulmate.” Calum grinned, squeezing Aka’s hands. He never knew what he would feel when he connected the bond with Aka, but now that he did, he didn’t want to go back. He was happy. Genuinely happy.

“I can’t believe it either.” Aka smiled back, pulling his hand from Calum’s grip to wrap around him. “You are aware of Jack, right?”

“Of Jack glaring at us from the kitchen? Yeah.” Calum looked at Aka lovingly. He leaned into Aka’s chest. “I don’t really care. He can glare all he wants. We’re not being separated.”

Calum’s older brother glared at them from the kitchen, unaware that the soulmates knew he was watching them. Jack lifted himself off of the counter, suspicious that they had been in a relationship for much longer than two weeks. He stalked up the stairs into his bedroom, beginning to write something down on a notebook.

“You guys are so cute,” Cora said, smiling at them. “It’s so unfair. You guys act as if you’ve been soulmates for much longer than a day.” Aka shrugged, giving her a ghost of a smile. Personally, he felt like that too. But he wasn’t complaining.

“You need to tell me more about soulmates. And everything that I didn’t know before. I can’t believe I lived nineteen years with a million supernatural creatures right under my nose.” Calum whispered, more to Aka than Cora.

Cora nodded, smirking at Calum. “Of course.” She glanced at Aka and raised her hands in surrender. “But I’ll wait for a little bit. I think Aka wants to just be with you alone for now. And who could blame him? He’s waited eighteen thousand years for you. He’s allowed to be a bit possessive of his soulmate for a while.” Cora stood up, walking back over to Howard and Evan and rejoining their conversation.

Aka smirked down at his soulmate. “I love how short you are.” Calum blushed, hiding his face in Aka’s chest. The siren leaned down to nuzzle his face in Calum’s soft dirty blonde hair, inhaling his scent. Before, Calum would’ve thought it was weird but now Calum understood why the siren smelled him. They were soulmates. They wanted to know each other in every sense. “You’re adorable,” Aka mumbled into Calum’s hair, pulling a grin from the human.

Howard glanced over at his son and Aka, taking a double-take when he saw how close and comfortable they were. He restrained himself from pulling the two apart, forcing himself to tune back in with the conversation Cora and Evan were having with him. I need to take my own advice, Howard thought to himself, I’ve got to let him live his life.

~~~~~~~~

Aka and Calum walk to the beach, hand in hand. Cora was watching them from the window in the guest room. She wasn’t really mad that they were straight-up ignoring her. She was happy that Aka had found his soulmate and she would willingly give up anything for him to be happy. She couldn’t wait until she met her soulmate. Cora knew that she would be as stunning as she could be and as witty as the siren’s mom.

That thought was bittersweet. She wanted a soulmate, she really did. She wanted someone who she could come home to after hunting for fish for the pod. But she really hoped that she wouldn’t meet one in this life. She knew what was her destiny, she talked to the Seer. She couldn’t do that to her soulmate. Cora couldn’t let her die.