The Soul's Mark: Broken (12 page)

“That might have come out wrong,” he said
shyly from the doorway.

“You think?” Amelia grabbed an armload of
blankets from the shelf.  She could feel his eyes on her, wandering up and down
her backside.  Her arms began to shake; her legs trembled.

“I just don’t understand why you’re
fighting me,” he said.

Amelia sucked in a deep, shaky breath and
slowly turned to face him.  She met him square on, and for a moment, time stood
still.  There was something so perfect about the way he looked at her.  He
didn’t try to hide the remorse or the affection or the lust from his eyes like
Mitchell always had, and she let the emotions envelope her.

Josh closed the distance between them in
three large steps.  Her breath caught in her throat, and for a fleeting moment,
she thought about backing away, but she didn’t.  He took the blankets, placing
them back on the shelf, and then inched a bit closer until she was pressed
against the metal frame of the shelving.

And then he kissed her.

It was sweet and tentative.  Her skin grew
warm, and before she knew it, she was kissing him back.  His hands rested on
her hips, his thumbs rubbing lightly against her sides, and he pressed closer
still.

And it all felt … nice.

Her heart, although beating quicker, was
not pounding.  Her skin, although warm, did not tingle.  His lips moved from
hers and trailed along her jaw to her ear, and it felt … okay.  Not earth
shatteringly wonderful, but nice, and it freaked her out, but damn, she was
pretty sure she could get used to that kiss.

“Josh,” she whispered, placing a hand on
his chest and pushing slightly.  “I need to get some sleep.”

He straightened and blushed.  “Yeah, um,
you should.”  When he didn’t move, Amelia went to duck under his arm, but he
stopped her, cupping her cheeks gently.  “Promise me you’ll think about giving
me another chance, please?”

Amelia tried for a smile and was surprised
when she felt her cheeks stretch upwards.  She drew in a deep breath, searching
for the now familiar cotton candy smell.  It was the only reason she could
think of that could explain her quickened heart rate and her easy smile, but it
wasn’t there.  She didn’t know what to say, so she nodded, just a small bob of
her head, and then slipped out of his arms.

Amelia walked back to the main room of the
dungeon in a daze, completely forgetting the blankets.  What was happening to
her?  She fought against her mind to bring forward an image of Mitchell, but
the only ones she could find were not happy memories.  Cole glanced at her and
gave her an approving nod, and she couldn’t even begin to figure out what that
was supposed to mean as she slid into the sleeping bag.  She needed to rest. 
To think.  Figure out a plan.  And …

Mitchell woke up to blindingly bright spotlights
shining in his eyes.  His neck snapped and popped, and when he tried to move to
block the glare, searing pain shot through his arms. His skin felt as if it was
ripping from his bones.  He blinked against the glare, trying to get his
bearings, but the light burned his eyes long enough that he didn’t see the
railroad spike coming until it was already lodged in his shoulder.  His fangs
snapped down.  An automatic response to the tearing pain, which he could not
stop, and he held in the snarled growl that was building in his throat.  He
glanced down; the rusty metal was already covered in blood.  It welled around
the spike, soaking into his light blue button down shirt, and he paled.  Amelia
was going to kill him when she saw the hole in his shirt.

Amelia.
  His
throat burned.  He remembered the taste of her syrupy blood; it tingled at his
tongue, and his fangs grew, pinching at his bottom lip.  He could almost smell
it.  The sweet floral scent drove him wild with hunger.

Blood.  He needed it.  Wanted it.  He
craved the warm, thick liquid that would cool the blistering heat that seared
his throat.  But not just any blood.  Hers.  Only hers.

Another railroad spike came at him. 
Mitchell saw it coming as if it was in slow motion.  He went to block it when
suddenly he couldn’t move.  White-hot pain raced up his right arm, and he heard
the meaty rip of his skin.  And then the spike pierced through his belly.  He
hollowed out, the sound ripping from his throat.

Someone chuckled.  “I’ve been waiting so
long for this.”

“Tristan,” Mitchell snarled.  He didn’t
need to look; he knew that voice.  It was demented, cruel, and exactly what a
vampire should sound like.  A smile pulled at his lips, and pride washed over him. 
He had created the perfect monster.

That’s not right,
Mitchell thought for half a second, but then the thought was gone,
and the burning hunger came back with a vengeance.

“You hungry yet, Pops?” Tristan asked with
a laugh.  He grabbed Mitchell’s hair and smashed his head against the hard
brick wall behind him.  The bricks crumbled, and warm blood trickled down his
neck.

“Do you know what happens to children that
cross their makers?” Mitchell asked, his voice deathly calm, masking the
blinding pain which radiated through his body.  “They get put down.”  But what
Mitchell didn’t say was that he was partly glad that Tristan was back.  The
idea of having his child back, hunting together … It was exactly what he
wanted.

Tristan laughed and then grabbed the spike
that was lodged in Mitchell’s stomach, ripping it out and jamming it into his
leg.  Mitchell held in the scream and kept his face hard, and unreadable.

“Funny,” Tristan said.  “Because that was
my plan for you.  To kill you slowly.”  He twisted the spike in Mitchell’s leg
until a cry of pain fell out.  “You deserve to die.  You’re weak.”  Mitchell
snarled, and Tristan chuckled.  “It’s time you remember what you are.”

“I know what I am, you fool,” Mitchell said
through the biting pain, forging his voice to sound cold and even.  He looked
past Tristan, trying to focus on something, anything other than the pain. 
That’s when he realized where they were, the old dilapidated railway station. 
Clearly, it was still Tristan’s favorite place to inflict pain.  No one came
down here anymore, and the area around it had been fenced off long ago.
I
should have torn it down years ago,
he thought in frustration.

“The bond clouded your judgment,” Tristan
countered with disgust, promptly drawing Mitchell’s attention back to him.  “It
made you weak.  You were supposed to help me.  You were supposed to teach me. 
But instead, you banished me for killing my soulmate.”  He sneered and let the
word hang in the air.  “We were made to kill,” he yelled, eyes blazing and
shimmering with tears at the same time.  He looked lost, confused, evil, and
perfectly sadistic all at once.  “Now that that pesky spell is broken …” he
paused, searching Mitchell’s face with contemplation, and his lips slowly
twisted into a grin, “I think you’ll be more fun alive.”

Amelia’s smile flitted across Mitchell’s
mind. 
Soulmate.
  The word seemed so foreign, so wrong, but yet, so
real.  He remembered loving her lips.  They were soft, sweet, and warm.  But
the memory was like a movie.  He saw it, watched it, but the pounding heart did
not come, his skin did not tingle with the thought of her kiss.  The only thing
he felt was hunger.  Searing hunger.

“I tasted her.  Did you know that?” 
Tristan said with a grin.

Mitchell didn’t need to ask who; he knew. 
Amelia.  He growled and snapped out with his teeth at Tristan’s neck.  “She’s
mine.”  The words were snarled, and his building rage veiled the pain.

“She was delicious.  I understand why you
wanted to keep her as a pet.”  He licked his lips and flashed his fangs.  “And
that aura.  So full with pulsing magic.  It’s intoxicating.”

She’s a pet?
Mitchell thought about it.  It sounded right.  Like something he would do.  He
had always liked to have fresh, warm blood on hand.  But it also felt wrong. 
Unreal. 
She’s your soulmate,
his annoying conscious shouted.  He had
made love to her; the memory was etched in his mind, burned in his vision.  He
was sure that he had loved her.  He had told her so over and over.  And had she
loved him? 
Yes.
  She did.  He licked his lips.  That love would make
her easier to bend and break.

But the idea of him loving her seemed
ridiculous.  Completely and utterly ludicrous.  Amelia was his.  He had claimed
her.  But love… He loved her blood.  His eyes washed crimson.  He had tasted the
blood, smelled it, and he needed it now.

He looked at his hand, noticing the spike
protruding from it and another in his bicep pinning him to the wall.  He looked
back at Tristan, clenched his jaw, and counted backwards from three.  He
focused, masking his face in a void of emotion or thought, and with a swift
yank, Mitchell pulled his arm free, and one of the railroad spikes ripped a
hole in the palm of his hand.

Tristan hadn’t seen it coming.  Mitchell
ripped a spike from his leg, and with perfect aim, he launched it.  It sank
into Tristan’s neck, dead center, and he snarled.  With his hand free, it only
took Mitchell seconds to pull the other seven spikes from his body, and with
each one he removed, Tristan found another one embedded in his skin.

Tristan collapsed, growling and shriveling
in pain on the ground, and Mitchell laughed.  His fangs sharpened, and he
watched the hole in his hand close before looking down at his protégé.  “You’ve
ruined my favorite shirt,” Mitchell said. His voice was void of emotion, and to
his ears, it sounded wonderful and strong and dangerous.  He unbuttoned his
shirt slowly, flexing his fingers over each button, and his lips curled
upwards.

“Sorry,” Tristan grunted through the
snarls.  “It had to be done.  You had to remember who you were and what you
are.”

Mitchell let his shirt fall to the floor,
cast a quick glance at Tristan, and smiled.  “You’re lucky that you’re my
blood,” he said before turning to the door.  “If you weren’t, I’d kill you.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find my pet,” Mitchell called over his
shoulder.  “I’m famished.”

Amelia slept, but not well.  It was the
kind of sleep she imagined people meant when they said they slept like the
dead, the body stiff and unmoving, but the soul restless.  She guessed it
wasn’t far from the truth.  Her soul, or at least half of it, was restless,
unattached, and wandering.

She woke to find Josh curled up beside her,
thankfully in his own sleeping bag.  He was snoring softly, and he looked … young,
fragile, nothing like the monster she had thought him to be.  Was that because
he was sleeping and vulnerable, or was it because she now knew the truth about
his existence?  Amelia didn’t know, but what she did know was that she did not
like the way her heart softened when she looked at him.  Wasn’t it just a
couple days ago that he had kidnapped her, tied her up, and used her magic to
break the bond that she had never wanted broken?

Madame Crystal and Megan were huddled in a
corner holding hands, their eyes closed.  A glow of bright, white energy
surrounded them, and their soft murmurs filled the room with a warming power.

Cole was slumped against the wall, sleeping
on his feet, and Tyler still slept in front of the passageway to Luke and
Eric.  Amelia wiggled her way out of her sleeping bag, trying not to wake Josh,
and padded over to him.  As soon as she touched his bow, Cole’s eyes snapped
open, and a manic look passed across his face but vanished as soon as he
recognized her.  “Go lay down,” she whispered.

To Amelia’s surprise, he let her take his
bow, and he curled into a sleeping bag without a single protest.  Once he was
out, Amelia grabbed her phone from the bench, and groaned when she noticed that
is was only 3:15 in the afternoon; she had only slept four hours.  Before she
could consider crawling back into the sleeping bag—because, well, that’s
exactly what she wanted to do—she went to join the witches.

“You should have woken me,” Amelia
whispered, breaking their concentration, and the current of electric magic receded.

Megan gave her a dirty look.  “I tried,”
she said, her voice cold as a stormy winter night.  “You just kept tossing and
turning and mumbling.  You wouldn’t wake up.”  She narrowed her eyes and
sneered.  “You didn’t stop until
Josh
lay down next to you.”

That hurt.  Really hurt.  It felt as if
Megan had stabbed her through the heart with a jagged, dull knife and then
twisted.  And the look that Megan was giving her was just as bad.  “Have you
found him?” Amelia asked, rushing over the words hastily, which only made
Megan’s stare grow colder.

“No, not yet,” Madame Crystal replied with
a shake of her head, oblivious to the suffocating tension.  “We’ve been trying
to contact the spirits for guidance, but it seems as if they have put us on
hold.”

Amelia plopped down on the ground beside
them.  She huffed.  The way the psychic said it, it was as if she was trying to
call the cable or phone company.  How could they be put on hold?  The idea was
completely ridiculous.  And she was about to say as much, but when she looked
at Madame Crystal, Amelia could clearly see that she was dead serious.