❧ soulmate number three ❧

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The world felt like it had tilted violently off its axis, leaving Ana standing in the center of Amalie's apartment like a shipwreck survivor on unsteady ground. The air around her was heavy, thick with a suffocating tension. She stood there, frozen, but her mind churned like a storm-tossed sea, chaos bubbling just beneath her calm façade. Her hands hung limp at her sides, fingers twitching involuntarily, her brain working frantically to process the words that had just fallen from Max's lips.

"To kill Amalie."

The words echoed in her head, over and over, like the relentless toll of a bell signaling something dark and inevitable. They rang so loudly she could hardly hear the clock ticking on the mantle or the faint creak of the old wooden floor beneath Max's pacing. She stared at him, her chest tight, breath shallow, as if the weight of his confession had siphoned the air from the room. Her eyes searched his face with an almost desperate intensity, clawing for anything that could make this less horrifying, less real. A joke. A lie. A sign of hesitation. But there was none. Only guilt, etched deep into the lines of his expression, so raw and unguarded that she almost had to look away. He wasn't lying.

"Say that again," Ana said at last, her voice low, trembling, each word deliberate. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear it again, but she needed to. She needed to make sense of this madness.

Max exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his disheveled hair as he turned away from her, pacing three steps toward the window and back again. When he finally stopped, he didn't look at her right away. His gaze was fixed on some distant point, his jaw tight with frustration and shame. "You heard me," he muttered finally, voice barely above a whisper. "The witch wants me to anchor myself here—to get a physical foothold. But the condition to stay like that..." He trailed off, his jaw clenching.

Ana felt a sharp spike of anger flare up in her chest. "Is to kill Amalie," she finished for him, the edge in her voice cutting through the silence like a blade.

Max nodded, his face grim. "Yeah."

A heavy silence stretched between them. Ana opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. She was caught between disbelief, fury, and the urgent need to fix this before it spiraled into something they couldn't come back from. Amalie had no idea what was happening. She was still at the Lockwood picnic, blissfully unaware that someone—or something—had drawn a target squarely on her back.

Ana's hand shot up, pressing against her temple as though trying to stave off the pounding headache she didn't technically have. "This...this is insane," she muttered, pacing now as her voice grew sharper. "Why you? Why the hell would a witch even target you? You're harmless, Max—no offense, but you're not exactly the guy people call when they want someone killed."

Max gave a humorless laugh, his hands resting on his hips as he leaned back against the wall. "Tell that to her," he said bitterly. "I'm a ghost, Ana. A dead guy who's linked to Amalie. I guess that makes me the perfect weapon against her. She thinks if she gives me a body again, I'll do whatever she wants. But..." He trailed off again, his expression twisting into something desperate. "I can't do it. You know I can't."

Ana stopped pacing and turned to face him, her gaze narrowing. "No, you won't do it," she corrected sharply. "Because we're not going to let it get that far."

Max let out a breath, his shoulders slumping as he leaned back against the wall. "What are we supposed to do, Ana? I don't even know who this witch is. I just know that she's getting stronger."

Ana's stomach twisted. She hated the way he sounded, like he was already resigned to whatever fate had been laid out for him. She couldn't let him spiral. Not now. They didn't have time for despair.

"We'll figure it out," she said firmly, her voice steady, even if her insides were churning. "But we can't do this alone. We need help—real help."

Max raised an eyebrow, his expression skeptical. "From who?"

Ana didn't hesitate. "Jeremy," she said, the name escaping her lips with sudden clarity.

Max frowned, straightening slightly. "What about him?"

"He can get to Bonnie," Ana explained, her words spilling out quickly now, her brain clicking into overdrive as a plan began to form. "If anyone can figure this out, it's her. She's a Bennett witch. She'll know what to do—or at least where to start."

Max hesitated, his expression shifting into something guarded. "You think we should tell Jeremy? Won't he just freak out?"

Ana rolled her eyes. "Of course he'll freak out. But this is bigger than Jeremy being freaked out, Max. If we sit here and do nothing, this witch is going to keep pulling at you until she gets what she wants. We can't let that happen."

Max looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment, he sighed and nodded reluctantly. "Okay."

###

The late evening sunlight filtered through the trees, casting long shadows across the Lockwood backyard. The noise of the potluck had dwindled to a soft hum, with most of the guests either gathering in small groups to chat or packing up their leftovers. Amalie sat alone at a picnic table near the edge of the yard. Her phone was pressed to her ear, the faint sounds of Rebekah's voice bleeding through the speaker.

"You know," Rebekah's voice came through the line, her accent crisp and lightly tinged with awe, "you don't sound anything like I thought you would."

Amalie smirked faintly, tipping her head back to watch the fading sunlight spill across the sky, streaking it with soft shades of orange, pink, and lavender. The first starts were just beginning to peek out. "And what exactly did you expect me to sound like?" She asked, her tone dry but playful.

Rebekah hesitated, and the line crackled faintly. "I don't know," she admitted, her voice thoughtful, almost contemplative. "I've imagined this moment for centuries—meeting you, hearing your voice—and somehow you're just...different."

Amalie tilted her head slightly, her smirk softening into a small, amused smile. "Different how?"

There was a pause before Rebekah responded, her tone tinged with an unexpected vulnerability. "You sound more...real," she said finally. "Like a person. Not some untouchable figure or mythical soulmate my brothers have been carrying on about for the better part of a thousand years."

Amalie let out a soft laugh, leaning forward to prop her elbow on the table and rest her chin in her hand. "Well, I hate to break it to you, but I am a person. Flesh and blood. No mystical choir following me around or anything."

Rebekah's laugh came through the phone, light and genuine, and it surprised Amalie how quickly the sound disarmed her. "It's just surreal," Rebekah continued, her voice laced with both warmth and disbelief. "A thousand years waiting for someone, and then suddenly they're here, and they're...normal."

Amalie arched an eyebrow, though there was a flicker of humor in her tone. "Normal. That's a first. I'm pretty sure no one's ever called me that before."

"I don't mean it as an insult," Rebekah said quickly. "It's refreshing, actually. Nik always makes everything so complicated, like it has to be some grand, dramatic story. But you—"

"—am a little disappointing?" Amalie teased. Her tone was light but there was an undercurrent of curiosity she couldn't quite mask.

Rebekah scoffed softly, the sound indignant. "You're not disappointing," she said firmly. "You're...unexpected. And I like that."

The sincerity in Rebekah's voice made Amalie pause, the usual quips catching in her throat. She still wasn't used to this—people wanting to know her for her, not for what they could take from her or what she could do for them. For a moment, she didn't quite know how to respond.

"Well," she said finally, her voice quieter now, "you're not what I expected, either."

Rebekah let out a dramatic huff. "Let me guess—dramatic, spoiled, and unreasonable?"

Amalie couldn't stop the small laugh that bubbled up. "I wasn't going to say it."

Rebekah chuckled in response, her tone tinged with self-awareness. "Nik has a way of telling stories that make me sound like an absolute nightmare. But for what it's worth, I've been very impatiently waiting to meet you since the first time he mentioned you."

Amalie blinked, surprised by the admission. She shifted slightly, the phone slipping a little in her grip. "He talked about me?"

"Not nearly as much as I'd like," Rebekah said, a faint edge of exasperation slipping into her voice. "But enough to make me curious. Enough to make me think there was someone out there who could handle him."

"I'm not sure 'handle' is the word I'd use," Amalie said, laughing softly.

Rebekah's tone grew lighter, tinged with mischief. "Oh, trust me, if you've survived Klaus for this long, you're already doing better than most people."

Amalie smiled, but before she could respond, Rebekah sighed on the other end. "I suppose I should let you go. Nik is already mad that I've been monopolizing his phone for so long."

"Yeah," Amalie agreed. "But it was nice talking to you. Really."

Rebekah's voice softened. "You too, Amalie. I hope we can meet properly soon. Not over the phone next time."

"Same here," Amalie said.

"Goodbye, then."

"Bye, Rebekah," Amalie said softly, a faint smile tugging at her lips as the call ended. She set her phone down on the table, letting out a quiet breath as she stared at the blank screen for a moment.

Rebekah. Even just thinking the name in her mind made something tighten in Amalie's chest. Different, she thought. A good different. She'd known it within moments of hearing her voice—Rebekah wasn't like Klaus or Elijah. There was something sharp yet unguarded about her, a vulnerability that seemed to hover just beneath her carefully cultivated confidence. Amalie hadn't even met her yet, and already she felt the pull, that strange, magnetic thread that came with being around one of her soulmates.

It was absurd, really. She hadn't even seen, hadn't stood across from or touched Rebekah. She was still just a voice on the other end of the line, a phantom sketched out by Klaus and Elijah's stories and her own imagination. Yet she could picture her vividly, her mind filling in the blanks with a timeless beauty that only the Originals seemed to carry.

It unsettled her. Not in a bad way, but in a way she didn't quite know how to sit with yet. She wasn't used to feeling this...protective. Enamored, even. It wasn't like her. She'd noticed beauty before, sure, but this was something else entirely. There was an ache to it, a quiet yearning that settled low in her chest. It was ridiculous, she told herself. She hadn't even met the woman face-to-face yet. For all she knew, the real Rebekah could be nothing like the woman she'd begun to piece together in her mind.

She shook the thought away before it could burrow too deeply. There was no point in overthinking it—not yet. She'd deal with the rest when the time came.

Movement in her periphery caught her attention, pulling her from her thoughts. Jenna was walking over to her, purse slung over one shoulder, her hair catching the moonlight as she crossed the lawn. She had that purposeful yet unhurried stride Amalie had come to associate with her, the kind of calm that made it seem like she always knew exactly what she was doing, even when she didn't.

Amalie rose to her feet, slipping her phone into the back pocket of her jeans as Jenna reached her. The other woman had just retrieved her things from the Lockwood house, and there was a faint dusting of weariness around her eyes, though she still managed a small, genuine smile as she approached.

"Ready to go?" Jenna asked, adjusting the strap of her purse slightly as she came to a stop beside the table.

Amalie nodded, brushing at her jeans out of habit more than necessity. "Yeah," she said simply.

Jenna glanced at her as they reached the driveway, her tone light but curious. "Who was that?"

Amalie smirked faintly, her hands slipping into the pockets of her jeans. "Soulmate number three," she replied casually, glancing sideways at Jenna to gauge her reaction.

Jenna froze for half a second, her eyes widening just slightly before she let out a soft, incredulous laugh. "Which one?" She asked, her voice tinged with both amusement and genuine interest.

"Rebekah," Amalie said simply.

Jenna raised an eyebrow, a grin tugging at the corner of her lips. "Huh," she said, the sound more thoughtful than surprised. "What's she like?"

Amalie's expression shifted, her face softening into something a bit more wry, almost fond. She tilted her head, her gaze flickering to the ground as if she were searching for the right words. "Everything you'd expect," she said after a beat, her tone dry but tinged with a quiet warmth. "Dramatic, opinionated, and very determined to make a grand impression."

Jenna chuckled, shaking her head slightly. "Sounds about right," she said. Her voice carried an edge of understanding. "How are you holding up with all of this soulmate business, anyway?"

Amalie hesitated for a moment, her gaze fixed ahead as her thoughts churned. She let out a quiet breath, her expression unreadable as she turned the question over in her mind. "Honestly? It's weird," she admitted, her voice low but steady. "Really weird. But it's also...kind of nice."

Jenna tilted her head, glancing at Amalie with a flicker of surprise. "Nice?"

"Yeah," Amalie said, her tone more thoughtful now. Her eyes darted to the side, catching Jenna's gaze for a brief moment before looking forward again. "I mean, Rebekah's been waiting a thousand years to meet me. They all have." She let out a short laugh, the sound dry and almost self-deprecating. "It's kind of hard to live up to expectations like that."

Jenna hummed thoughtfully, her steps slowing just a fraction as she processed Amalie's words. "Well," she said after a moment, her voice light but sincere, "if I was waiting a thousand years for someone, I probably would take anything at that point."

Amalie snorted softly, her lips curving into a small smile. "I suppose," she said, shrugging one shoulder. "But somehow that makes it worse."

Jenna's brow furrowed, her expression softening with a quiet sort of conviction. She stopped walking for a moment, placing a gentle hand on Amalie's arm to make her pause as well.

"It's you," Jenna said firmly. "Let's be real, you probably exceed all their expectations."

Amalie turned to look at her, her eyes narrowing slightly in mock suspicion as a teasing smile tugged at her lips. "Flattery won't get you anywhere, Jenna, you know that," she said, her tone playful, though there was a faint blush coloring her cheeks.

Jenna laughed, the sound warm and unrestrained, and gave Amalie a light nudge on the arm. "Maybe not," she said, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "But it's still true. Besides, you're probably the only one who could keep up with them."

Amalie let out a soft snort, her gaze dropping briefly to the ground as a small, genuine smile broke through her usual guardedness. "God, I hope you're wrong," she muttered. "A thousand years' worth of drama sounds exhausting."

###

Jeremy lay sprawled across his bed, the faint hum of the summer night filtering through the open window. Crickets chirped in a lazy rhythm, and a cool breeze stirred the edges of the curtain, carrying with it the faint scent of damp earth. Despite the calm outside, the quiet in his room felt heavier than ever, a stillness laced with the echoes of a conversation that had happened only hours ago.

His arm rested limply across his chest, his fingers absently tapping a rhythm he couldn't place. The ceiling fan spun slowly above him, its blades slicing through the shadows in lazy circles. He stared at it, letting his mind replay every word, every pause, and every look Bonnie had given him.

It hadn't gone as badly as he'd feared.

But it hadn't been easy, either.

He'd started with the small things, testing the waters—apologizing for not telling her sooner, explaining how he'd been scared of what it all meant. The words had come out haltingly at first, his voice low and uncertain, but Bonnie had listened. Her brows furrowed, her hands still, and her expression careful, but she hadn't interrupted. She hadn't lashed out.

When he told her about Ana, her lips pressed into a tight line, but she didn't look surprised. "I thought something was different," she'd said softly, her tone more resigned than angry.

The hardest part, though, was talking about their breakup—about how they had drifted apart like boats caught in separate currents. He hadn't meant to bring it up, but it spilled out somewhere in the middle of his explanation, tangled with all the things he hadn't said when it mattered.

"I think we both knew it wasn't going to last," Bonnie had said gently, her voice quiet but steady. "We wanted it to, but...we just weren't in the same place. And that's okay, Jermey."

Her honesty had been both a relief and a sting. It hadn't ended with any dramatic declarations, just a mutual understanding that things were better as they were now—two people standing on different shores.

Jeremy exhaled heavily, his chest rising and falling as the weight of the memory lingered. His hand slid over his face, fingers brushing against his temple. He had done it. The conversation was over. But why did it still feel like so much had been left unsaid?

The faint shift in the air drew his attention.

He didn't startle anymore when Ana appeared. Her presence had been a quiet constant, like the way the sun rose or the way the moon waxed and waned. Turning his head, he saw her lying beside him, her body stretched out casually on the bed. She rested her head on one arm, her dark hair spilling over the pillow in loose waves.

"You're getting better at sensing me," she said softly, her voice carrying a hint of approval, but no teasing edge this time.

Jeremy gave a faint smile, propping himself up on one elbow. "You're not exactly subtle," he murmured, his tone light but tired.

Ana tilted her head, a flicker of amusement crossing her face. "I could be, you know, if I wanted to."

"Yeah?" He asked, quirking a brow. "Why aren't you?"

She shrugged, leaning back slightly. "Because you'd miss me if I was."

He huffed out a quiet laugh, but it faded quickly. His hand curled into the fabric of his blanket as his eyes dropped to the space between them. "I talked to Bonnie," he said after a beat, his voice low and steady. "Told her everything. About you. About...all of it."

Ana tilted her head slightly, her smile fading into something softer. "How'd that go?"

Jeremy shrugged, his gaze still fixed downward. "She wasn't mad. I thought she'd be mad." He let out a faint, humorless laugh. "Guess that says more about me than her."

Ana didn't reply right away. She studied him in the dim light, her expression calm but searching. "You care about her," she said, her voice light, matter-of-fact.

"Yeah," he admitted softly, glancing up at her. "Not like that, though. Not anymore." He hesitated, his throat tightening. "But it feels like...I don't know, like I dragged her into something she didn't ask for."

Ana's brows drew together faintly, her