I wake up panting and breathless against something soft and uncomfortable. Arabella's face is stuck to my mind, her descent towards the ocean, her desperate need to kill me. I can't remember what happened after that. Did I pass out? I sit up, looking around to see a long stretch of beach. I'm outside a cave entrance, the sun is low and I can hear the waves from the ocean meeting the shoreline. Cain is standing in the water with his back to me, I use the rock from the cave to pull myself up and I check I'm not going to pass out again before I start walking over to him.

As I get closer, I notice that he has the blade in his hand. He's staring down at it, deep in thought about something. He suddenly shakes his head and turns around. Our eyes meet and I fold my arms before sitting down in the sand. My head is still aching and I rub my temple as he slides down next to me.

"I haven't done it yet," he says, as though I should know what he's talking about. "I've been here hours just staring at it and. . . I can't bring myself to do it."

"Collect her souls?" I ask.

"Collect her soul," he says, scowling back to the ocean. "Arabella may have seemed cruel to you but she was important to me. She was right. I'd kill my own to protect you. It's very difficult to decide what kind of world she deserves."

"Do you have to take her?" I say.

"What do you mean?"

"Can't you just let them go?" I whisper. "Release them all?"

"I've never considered doing that," he says, glancing back to the blade. "I've always collected them."

"I knew some of the souls in there," I say, tears welling in my eyes as I picture their faces, the last time I ever saw them, embraced them, told them everything would be alright. "They've been suffering for a long time and you can set them free."

"Do you think there's something better out there for them than my worlds?" he asks me.

"I don't know, Cain. Nobody knows. That's the point. Maybe wherever they go, there will be family there, familiar faces. Ancestors. Maybe they'll end up exactly where they should be."

"Arabella too," he says, his gaze shifting back to the blade. "When I bid for new souls, I have to trade old ones. I have to cast them out of my worlds to keep feeding. I hate that part of my existence."

"Then why do you make it a law?"

"Because otherwise the humans would be extinct by the end of the year," he says. "Bidding is the only way to keep things fair, to stop the most powerful from consuming all the pure and to stop the less powerful from rising to higher positions. It's the way we've always done things, just like humans bought food with money. Nothing is free or there would be chaos."

"A few days ago, you said that you didn't know if Bella was deserving of one of your worlds. What did you mean by that?"

He smiles to himself and picks up some sand that falls through his fingertips. "Not every soul that I consume gets a world. When I first landed here I was too hungry to care about good or. . . 'evil' as you put it, I killed as many as I could because I couldn't stop. But over time, I became more aware of human desires and those that were selfish or selfless. I stopped killing as quickly and dragged the process out over months to really know the human I was consuming inside and out, because I learned that environment changes can alter personalities. I wanted to give them at chance. But Bella is selfish to the core, she doesn't care about anyone, she doesn't even care that her parents died. When I feed from her, all I can taste is her desire to have a world where she gets anything she wants. This has become quite common with many of the pure souls."

It was common with most of the human race. Selfishness has existed within us since the very beginning, the fight to survive is strong within us and history has proved that we'd step on each other's backs to push ourselves to safety. I'm not shocked that a few young girls are merely the recent evolution of it. But there's a difference between being selfish and evil, there's a difference between being deserving of a heaven or a hell. Cain doesn't quite understand that yet and I don't think I have the time to educate him about it.

"The first time I fed from you, the first thing I saw was you standing in front of Tyler's bed. Shielding him, protecting him, trying to negotiate with his killer to take you instead. That memory was so bright inside of you. It showed me who you are." He turns and meets my eyes, smiling softly. "And I know you'd do the same for anyone you love. Even when you were a child, you were always putting others above yourself. Talking to the elderly and cheering them up, crying with the victim whenever you witnessed bullying at your school. I have seen every part of you, Aurora and none of it is bad."

I stare back at him, completely silent as I think about those memories that were so long ago that I wouldn't even be able to tell him if he was right. The girl that did those things, that had a life before all of this, she lived in a different lifetime to me. What was only eight years ago cannot be the same world, it cannot be the same person. Everything about it is unimaginable. I look to the ocean as I imagine that world. Walking along the street with a bag in my hand, smiling at all the friendly faces of my neighbours. Visiting my grandparents for dinner every Sunday and. . . Christmas. Christmas. Sitting around that big, old tree and drinking hot chocolate as the presents gathered underneath it. Being comforted by my parents' safe embraces, knowing that there was no pain in my life that they couldn't heal. Most of the children don't even remember such things because they were too young when it all happened, if they did, I don't think they'd ever stop crying.

"Hey," he whispers, touching my shoulder to comfort me as I wipe my eyes. "Those memories will always be yours, no matter what happens."

"I miss them so much," I whisper. "I've never been able to say that."

He swipes his finger underneath my eye, catching a tear. "Don't ever think that you can't cry around me. If you need to let it out then let it out."

My lips trembles as I push my knees to my chest. "I won't be able to stop. I've always had to stay strong for the children, I've always had to conceal my emotions to help them, even at the very beginning. I never got a chance to mourn them properly, to say goodbye. Not just my family but everyone I've known and lost over the last eight years."

"You can say goodbye now," he whispers, raising the blade into the air. "We can do it together."

I watch as he narrows his eyes at the weapon, holding it higher until his arm is completely straight. The sight of a blast of light escaping from it makes me flinch backwards in panic. The light is like a lightening bolt, it bursts upwards, causing a devastating rumble of thunder to escalade through the sky. I've never seen anything like it. I keep my eyes on the bolt as it changes into a line of whiteness, slowing down until it's just small zaps, eventually it stops and Cain lowers the blade back to his side.

"They're free," he says. "To travel to wherever is meant for them."

I stare at him through my tear-soaked eyes. I didn't think he'd actually do it. His actions shock me. I can't speak for several minutes. We just sit there, in silence, breathing hard next to each other.

"Arabella's disappearance is going to be investigated," Cain says with a deep sigh. "I was lucky enough to get away with killing Raven and the visitor, Dande, and even Zander but she was very well known among our species. Especially for following my laws. I'm not sure what the council will do but it won't be good."

"What about her humans?" I say. "The ones she has locked up?"

"Of course you're thinking about the humans." He grins to himself. "I'll have a group collect them and bring them to the palace. The others from those I've killed would have been collected and sold by now."

"Thank you," I whisper. "But there's something else that I don't understand."

Cain looks at me and in that moment, it's like he's reading my mind. "You're wondering what will happen to the pieces of their souls that Arabella consumed."

I nod.

"They return to them," he says. "A soul cannot survive or tolerate being split. Zander's humans would be whole again, and Raven's, and Dande's. There is no point in me collecting split souls from hosts I have no interest in. It would just make whoever consumed them next feel incredibly uneasy. We don't like sharing."

I stare into his eyes, becoming overwhelmed with one burning and unanswered question. "What are you?"

He laughs, it's big and loud and it makes me laugh too. "I'm not sure, Aurora. What are you?"

I bang my shoulder into his as we both laugh together. His laughter drowns out first as he glances at the ocean in front of us, scanning his eyes to the farthest horizon.

"You're the only human that's ever made me laugh," he says. "I have never done it before meeting you, it feels. . . good."

"You're the only creature that's ever made me laugh," I say.

"Why do the humans call us that?"

"Because it's kind of the only explanation. And, I've never been given a name to your species."

"We are called. . . oh." He points his eyes down and thinks to himself, like he's trying to make the sand move. "There is no human translation for it. Soul-eater is close."

"I don't like that," I say. "Creature suits you better."

He smiles and then glances down to my hand, I push it out further, giving him permission to hold it. He takes it gently, becoming fascinated with our entwined fingers. Those twinging, forbidden emotions return to me and I remove my hand from his, he's suddenly annoyed by that, but his gaze softens when I place my hand against his shoulder. I flick my fingers down his arm, feeling the rough and impenetrable skin in my tips.

"Aurora," he says, closing his eyes with a deep breath. "Stop."

"I can't."

I move my fingers up his throat and I scale the bone of his jaw, my fingers going higher until they're grazing his thick, dark hair. His hair is so soft, it's like butter. Everything about him is handsome and when he opens those lime green eyes and looks at me, I lose control. I tighten my hand around the back of his neck as I press my lips against his. He doesn't fight it. I don't think he can. Just like me, he's a slave to these unbearable desires. The kiss is strong and only getting stronger, I place my tongue into his mouth and that startles him at first but he adapts to it. He lays me on my back in the sand, kissing me until I'm almost sinking into it. He pulls away suddenly, grinning as he backs away.

"It's too dangerous here," he says. "They might be watching us."

I sit up with a dazed and aching pain in the side of my head. It's not from being fed on anymore but it's from being apart from him. It's ridiculous and shameful and no matter how hard I curse myself, I can't switch it off.

"Then take me home," I say.