The Soul's Mark: Broken (22 page)

Amelia didn’t respond right away.  She
wasn’t sure exactly what to say.  Yes, Mitchell had let her go, but why?  Why
did he tell her to run?  She wanted to think it was because a small part of him
still cared, but the bigger part of her thought he wanted to hunt her, and she
had made it too easy for him.

“He also bit me.”  The bitterness Amelia
caught in her voice sent shivers over her skin and made the hair on her arms stand
up with goose bumps.

“But he stopped?” Megan said, as if it was
a question, and Amelia figured it probably was, but she couldn’t say for sure
if Mitchell had in fact stopped, or if she had stopped him.  She knew she had
thought about using magic, but if she had actually used it, she didn’t know.

When Amelia didn’t answer, Megan went on
and said, “I don’t blame you for kissing Josh.”  She locked sad and tired eyes
with Amelia.  “I went down to see Eric after you fed him.”  The shame was
audible in her timbre, but it was unnecessary.  Megan was playing it safe,
making sure there was less temptation for both of them, and honestly, Amelia
wished she had her strength.  She had caved to Mitchell the moment she laid
eyes on him.  “He remembers the bond, you know.  He remembers what it’s
supposed to feel like.”

 “Megan, you need to stay away from him. 
He’s messing with your head.”  She tried to sound like she knew what she was
talking about, but all her words did was add more doubt in both of their minds.

“I don’t think he is, Millie,” she said,
befuddled, and she paused for thought.  “It’s not like breaking the bond wiped
out their memories of us.  It’s as if it just flipped a switch to their
emotions, as if they were turned off.  But he remembers.  And he’s confused. 
He doesn’t understand why he would have ever cared about me.  It’s like he
can’t understand what that feeling means.”

Amelia wanted to tell her about the
confusion she had seen in Mitchell’s eyes and about what Luke had said.  She
wanted to agree.  She desperately wanted to believe it all, but she couldn’t
form the words.  She didn’t want to raise their hopes, because the reality was,
even though they were confused now, it may not last.  She knew better than
anyone did that when something doesn’t make sense for long enough, people tend to
push it aside, forget about it, or begin to hate that very same thing that they
had been trying to find an answer for.

It was Megan’s deep, wispy breathing that
pulled Amelia away from her thoughts.  She sighed and then got up, snagged a
throw off of her bed and draped it over Megan, before climbing back on her bed,
careful not to wake Tyler who was sound asleep on her bed, and twisted her legs
back into lotus.

That night, Amelia dreamed.

The air was silky and fresh and warm.  A
soft spring breeze brushed through her hair, fanning out her curls like coiled
streamers.  Amelia looked out over a meadow of lush green grass and glowing
daisies.  Waiting.  Waiting for what, she didn’t know.  But she knew she was
waiting.  Expectantly.  Longingly.  Her heart throbbed and her skin tingled as
she scanned the golden soaked horizon.

In the distance, a figure stepped out
from the trees.  Amelia raised her hand, shielding her eyes from the winking
sun, and her heart took off like a bird startled from its nest.  The figure
waved an excited, big wave and began to run to her, bounding through the field
of flowers.

As it neared, she couldn’t hold back;
she grabbed her dress, pulling it above her ankles, and she ran as fast as she
could.

It was exhilarating.  Her heart sang,
and her legs carried her as if she was floating on a cloud.  And she couldn’t
have stopped her legs even if she had wanted to.  It was as if there was a
force, a powerful and blissfully wonderful force, which kept her moving.

Amelia took the last step, leaping into
the outstretched arms, mesmerized by the warm, sky-blue eyes that smiled at
her.

And then the arms disappeared, and she
was standing in the meadow alone.

A bright white light flourished the size
of a firefly in front of her, and a soft voice filled her ears, “Look into your
heart, child, and you will know what to do.”

 
And then
everything dimmed, and the voice was lost as she drifted into a dreamless
sleep.

Mitchell stood in the shadows, peering
through the French doors.  He knew he shouldn’t be there, watching her sleep,
but he couldn’t get himself to do what he had come to do.  She looked so … peaceful. 
At one time, he swore he had felt that peacefulness, too, but no matter how
long he watched, he couldn’t summon it, and he desperately longed to feel it
again.  And watching her sleep, curled up on the enormous bed surrounded by a
rainbow of cushions … he just couldn’t bring himself to disturb her.

She was beyond perfect.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a
movement, and reluctantly, he pulled his gaze from Amelia, shifting it to the
other side of the bed. 
Tyler,
a voice in his head growled.  He was
sprawled out beside her, and rolling closer.

Mitchell ground his teeth and fury
enveloped him, blazing like a fire, licking up his throat. 
What was she
doing?
  Earlier she had been practically drooling over a hunter and now …
She’s
mine!

The burn in his throat was becoming
painful.  A blistering pain that he knew only blood would fix.  And yet, he
stayed to watch, mesmerized by the soft rise and fall of her chest, and the
slight smile on her lips, even if the sight of another man in his bed with his
woman was torture.

Mitchell hadn’t expected this to be so
easy.  He had figured that Amelia would have spelled the block by now, and they
wouldn’t have been able to even get to the house.  But she hadn’t.  She had
found his note.  That had been the first thing he had checked.  Knowing that
she had found it, and still had done nothing, made him a bit uneasy.  He was
pretty sure that the thirty or so hunters that they had found weren’t Amelia’s
only line of defense.  She was smarter than that.  He couldn’t imagine that she
would just go to sleep with only a thin window between herself and the world,
but that’s exactly what it looked like.

“Mitch, if those hybrids see you here,
you’re as good as dead,” Lola whispered.  She moved with graceful caution to
his side, her eyes darting back and forth, watching for any sign of trouble. 
“We saved one for you.  You need to eat.”

“I know,” Mitchell sighed.  His reluctance
to go and eat was disturbing.  He still couldn’t understand why he had let the
witch go.  Why had he told her to run?  She was his.  It was a thought, no; it
was knowledge, something he had known since the beginning of time.  She was his
to have.  But he had let her go, and now he was withholding food.

He looked back at Amelia, searching for an
answer. 
I should be happy to be free of the bond,
he scolded himself
. 
But in all honestly, he wasn’t.  He missed her voice, her thoughts, and the
swarm of commotion within her brain.  He missed the bond.  He missed her
touch.  And it was infuriating.  He didn’t understand why he missed her.  It
made no sense.  He was a vampire, a soulless demon.  He shouldn’t care, but the
emptiness he felt as he watched her was consuming.  It grew within him like a
gaping hole, the loose dirt around its edges crumbling and falling away.

“Aren’t you going to get her?” she asked,
following his gaze.  “That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Mitchell said, looking back at
Amelia, hypnotized for a moment by the slight rise and fall of her chest.  “But
this is too easy.  We’re missing something.”  He scanned the French doors again
with a critical eye, but still, he saw nothing.  And for about the millionth
time that day, he missed the bond.  He missed seeing the glow of her magic that
winked and shimmered like crystals in the sunlight, and he craved the feeling
of the pulsing warmth it emitted.

  He heard Lola’s soft, but sharp, intake
of breath, and he knew what she was noticing before she even asked the
question.  “Why’s Angelle’s pet in bed with her?”

Mitchell took a deep breath, forging his
voice to sound calm and uncaring.  He ignored the question and said in an icy
tone, “The other Caldwell witch is in their as well,” and he pointed to the
chair where Megan was curled up.

“What are you waiting for, old man?” 
Tristan asked, pulling Mitchell away from the scene in front of him.  He
glanced over his shoulder to see Tristan climbing the steps with McLean in
tow.  “I thought the plan was to grab the witch and dump this little surprise
for the hunters?”  Tristan gave McLean a shove, and he fell to his knees on the
terrace with a muffled grunt through the duct tape that held his lips closed.

An idea hit Mitchell, and he chuckled.  He
looked Tristan up and down, weighing out the risks, and then he said, “I
thought I’d let you do the honors.”  He stepped back with an elaborate
after
you
bow.  Lola giggled, and Mitchell shot her a quick
shut up
look.

“Really?” Tristan asked, furrowing his
brow, as if he was looking for a catch.

“Of course,” Mitchell said encouragingly. 
He needed to know if the house was protected, and Tristan had outlived his
usefulness, especially now that he was fresh out of information about the
hunters.  And besides, what was the worst that could happen?  A shock, maybe? 
Or he could walk into an invisible wall?

That encouragement was all Tristan needed. 
He peered into the room and smirked. “She doesn’t waste any time,” he said, and
winked suggestively at Mitchell.  It took every ounce of will power Mitchell
had not to lash out at Tristan.  It was hard enough seeing it; he didn’t need
any help imagining why they were sleeping together.   Tristan must not have
noticed Mitchell tense up.  He walked up to the door with a cocky grin, reached
for the knob, and turned.  “She didn’t even …”

He didn’t have time to scream.  Muted
sparks swirled around Tristan like dying embers in a fire that were sucked up
in a windstorm, spinning around him in a whirlwind, and then he was just … gone. 
Flakes of charred flesh and ash sizzled on the terrace where he had stood, and
the rancid smell of burning hair and skin hovered in the air.

Lola sucked in a breath, and her eyes
widened and bulged like a bullfrog’s as she looked down at what was left of
Tristan.  McLean made a sound that Mitchell figured was meant to be a scream,
but it sounded more like a gurgled sob.

“Well that sucks,” Mitchell said, and then
he shrugged and turned to McLean.  “Looks like this is your lucky day; you get
to live a bit longer.”

Morning dawned, and Amelia woke up to
strips of sunlight streaming through the windows like ribbons.  The soft
strands lit up the room with a warm glow, and it made Amelia groan.  She
couldn’t remember the last time she slept until after the sun rose—not in the
last few months at least.  With Eric around, it had rarely happened.  But now,
pre-dawn runs seemed like a lifetime away.  A distant memory.  And it was one
that she missed terribly.

Who would have thought that she would
actually miss the early morning wake ups?  She certainly hadn’t.  But right
now, she did.  She missed Eric’s ridiculously maddening comments and annoying
teasing, and she yearned for Mitchell’s laughing glare when Eric woke them up.

Her dream from the night before still
lingered on the cusp of her brain. 
Look into your heart, child, and you
will know what to do,
the lilting voice taunted
.
  But that was the
thing; she just didn’t know what she was supposed to do.  Fix the bond?  Leave
it broken?  Which would be better?  And why hadn’t she done either yet? 
People
are counting on you,
she reminded herself.

Amelia pulled herself out of bed with a
heavy heart.  She spotted Tyler and Megan whispering between each other by the
French doors, and she walked over to them.  “Have you guys been out there yet?”
Amelia asked, making her way over to them.

They both stopped talking abruptly, and
spun towards her.  Tyler cleared his throat, and when he looked at her, Amelia
noticed right away that he wouldn’t meet her eyes.  “Um, yeah, I talked to Josh
this morning for about half a second.”  He was still in the same jeans and
mustard yellow polo shirt from the day before, except today it was full of
wrinkles, and his shaggy brown hair clearly hadn’t been brushed.

Amelia waited for more, wondering what had
happened now to make them so uneasy, but it didn’t come.  “And how is everyone
coping?” she asked Megan carefully.  She was still drowning in Eric’s clothes,
and the bags under her eyes seemed darker than yesterday.  She had her fiery
red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and she was fiddling restlessly
with the ends.

“Millie, um, last night …” Megan started,
but was cut off.  The bedroom door flung open, cracking against the wall.

“I’m done playing your games,” Cole
growled.  “It’s time to kill those monsters.”  He stormed into the room, his
silver eyes flickering from green to yellow, then back to silver.  His
movements were coiled, tight as a corkscrew, and his face held the telltale
signs of exhaustion.  Amelia took in his filthy jeans and t-shirt, which had a
few more rips on the chest than it had had yesterday, as he stomped towards
her.