The Soul's Mark: Broken (4 page)

“Mitchell, you can’t go after them yet,”
Sally said.  “Amelia has to find her way through this.”  Sally took another
long sip of her tea, taking her time in swallowing, before she continued, her
expression changing to ominous and stormy.  “And I’m afraid if you follow her
now, you’ll end up dead.  The paths of destiny have been crossed.”

There was a chorus of gasps and a low
growl, presumably from Eric.  Mitchell’s heart shattered again, and he was sure
he looked every bit as broken as he felt.  “No,” he whispered, clutching the
cup of tea that had sat in front of him untouched.  He was hoping the warmth
would help, but it didn’t.  “They can’t cross.  Not now.  I just found her.”

Sally sighed and cast her eyes down to her
mug.  “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“How is fate my fault?” he asked, but it
was a pointless question.  Who else could there be to blame?  Everything had
changed after the lifetime Amelia had been burned as a witch, and that was also
his fault.  He should have saved her then, but he hadn’t.

As if Sally could read his mind, she sighed
and then said, “There are some things you need to know about Amelia.  About her
past lives after she was burned.”  Sally looked past him, and smiled a sad kind
of smile to his family.  “You all might as well sit.  This affects all of you.”

As Josh dragged Amelia up the steps of the
deck, to what she was sure was her imminent death, she put out every stop she
could think of.  She struggled, pleaded, cried, and begged.  She tried using
magic.  She even promised Josh that she’d stop fighting him and do what he
wanted.  But nothing worked.  He ignored her and kept pulling her along as if
she was merely a small misbehaving child crying for a new toy.

The last time Amelia had been here, she’d
almost ended up as a little snack for two seriously scary vampires, and the
house had been packed full of college students partying it up and having a good
time.  Now it was very quiet.  He stood on the deck with a smug look on his
face, but other than him, there was no one else to be seen.

“With the way you’re carrying on, you’d
think I tried to kill you before or something,” he said, and laughed at his own
joke.

“You won’t get away with this, Tristan,”
Amelia snarled, and she was floored at how vicious her voice sounded.  Maybe
living with vampires was starting to rub off on her.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to scare
the psychotic, evil vampire who stood before her.  It only made him laugh
harder.

“Amelia,” Josh groaned.  She kept
struggling and managed to land a punch into his stomach.  Her hand throbbed
instantly, and with the way he was looking at her, she was certain the punch
hurt her more than him.  “No one is going to hurt you.  Will you stop already?”

“What’s wrong with you?” she shrieked.  Her
power shot out from every inch of her skin as she desperately thrashed about trying
to get out of his grasp, but it just bounced off him as if he was shielded. 
“He’s a vampire.  You’re a vampire hunter.  In case you forgot, that means
you’re supposed to kill him.”

Josh wasn’t listening.  He continued to
drag her along as if he didn’t have a mind of his own.  His face was slack,
void of emotion; his eyes, vacant.  It was as if he was… 
Brainwashed,
the
thought hit Amelia hard and fast.  Heady power coursed through her, sparks
ignited along her skin, and she focused the new stream of energy on Tristan.

“Cole,” Tristan said, before she could let
loose any of her power.  He was eyeing Amelia closely, his lips pressed into a
tight white line, and the flares of her magic reflected in his beady black
eyes.  “Kill that one,” he growled, and pointed to Megan who was still thrown
over Cole’s shoulder.  “We don’t need her.”

Amelia’s magic sputtered and then went out
like a match dipped in water.  “No,” she screamed.  She stopped flailing
instantly, and her skin turned icy.  She didn’t doubt for a second that Tristan
was serious.  He was cold and callous.  She had witnessed it firsthand the
night he had brutally killed her parents.  Stabbing them over and over and
forcing her to watch them bleed out.  She remembered his smirk as if he enjoyed
watching them die.  It was the same smirk that was twitching at his lips now.

Everything happened quickly after that,
except to Amelia, it felt like she was watching it in ultra slow motion. 
Josh’s eyes widened, and he shook his head violently from side to side.  He
glanced between Tristan, Cole, and Megan, and then he let go of Amelia and
rushed at Cole.  Cole dropped Megan to the ground and notched his arrow,
pulling the bowstring taut.  Tristan shot at Amelia, knocking her over.  He
then grabbed Josh by the collar and flung him to the ground.  His razor sharp
fangs snapped down, and a menacing snarl ripped from somewhere deep within his
belly.

“Wait,” Josh yelled, pulling his hands up
over his face, as if his hands could stop the vampire’s wrath.  “Their magic is
tied together.  We need them both to break the curse.”

Break the curse?
Amelia was sure she hadn’t heard him right, and she almost asked him
to repeat it, before she caught herself.

Cole looked at Tristan with the same vacant
expression that Josh had worn seconds ago.  He tilted his head from side to
side slowly as if he was examining all angles, and his skin rippled and began
to melt away.

“Cole!” Amelia shrieked.  “It’s Meg.  You
are pointing that arrow at Meg!”  Cole let his eyes graze over Amelia in a slow
and long look, and a shiver rushed over her.  His eyes looked empty, completely
void of emotion.  Another ripple rushed over him, and the last bit of skin that
remained vanished.

Tristan was murmuring something that Amelia
couldn’t make out.  He had one thick black boot planted in the center of Josh’s
chest, the other on the ground.  From where Amelia stood, she could see his
milky glass eyes focused on Cole.  “Tristan, please,” she begged, terrified to
move.

He just smiled at her, a full toothy smile,
and said, “I believe Josh warned you about using magic on us.  Her death is on
you.”

Cole focused back down at his target. 
Megan was still out, peacefully sleeping on the ground below him.  Josh growled
something at Tristan, but Amelia had no clue what it was.  Tristan began
murmuring to Cole again, and Cole centered the arrow, lining it up squarely on
Megan’s chest.

Amelia couldn’t think.  Tristan was a good
ten feet in front of her, Cole fifteen.  She wouldn’t be able to get to either
before the arrow found its mark, and she knew that if she tried, they would
move faster than her human legs could go.  She tried tapping into Mitchell’s
senses.  She called to Mitchell.  She screamed into Megan’s brain.  She willed
Josh to get up and fight.  But it was useless.

Tristan’s purely evil smile widened, and
blistering heat rushed through Amelia’s veins in response, pulling her out of
panic mode.  She summoned her power, and sent out a thread of white-blue light,
snapping it like a whip around Tristan’s midsection, and then she yanked.

Tristan lost his balance for a split
second, but that was enough for Josh to slip out from under his foot and launch
himself at Cole.  Amelia kept yanking, pulling the rope of magic as if she was
in a tug-of-war match, keeping Tristan slightly off balance.

Cole released the arrow just as Josh
tackled him to the ground.  Megan shot up, and her blood-curdling scream ripped
through the dawning morning like a herd of banshees.

The sound punctured Amelia’s eardrums.  Any
focus she had rushed away, and the strand of magic that held Tristan dissipated
and then vanished.  Tristan was on Amelia faster than her mind could
comprehend.  He raised his arm and swung at her, and then she was flying
through the air.

Growls, grunts, and screams echoed around
her, and then they were gone.  Amelia slammed into the side of the house with a
cracking thud.  The air rushed from her lungs.  Her vision blurred.

Tristan moved in on her, gliding along the
ground like a snake.  Amelia tried to scramble to her feet, but every inch of
her body screamed out with breathtaking pain.  He laughed, and Amelia swore she
saw three sets of fangs in his toothy smile.

Her heart raced, and her blood ran cold. 
Tristan bent down, crouching in front of her, and he began speaking to her. 
She could see his lips moving, but the sound of his voice evaded her ears. 
Suddenly his hand shot out, and he buried his fingers in the thick of her
curls.   He yanked her to her feet, holding her by her hair against the cold
brick of the house.

Amelia whimpered.  She felt it bubbling
from her belly, through her lungs, and up her throat.  She tried to swallow
it.  She didn’t want to give Tristan the satisfaction, but she couldn’t do it. 
It gurgled out of her lips, and his eyes flashed with unmistakable pleasure.

With his free hand, he grabbed Amelia’s
chin and turned her head, holding her neck at a close to breaking angle.  She
could feel her pulse drumming in her throat, and his breath pushing against her
skin.  His lips were surprisingly, and nauseatingly, soft as they pressed
against her neck. They trailed up to her ear, and his voice sent a rolling
chill down her spine.  “You smell like sweet flowers,” he murmured.  And right
then, his fangs slid under her skin, and Amelia felt her blood being sucked
from her body.

****

Every muscle, every bone, every inch of
skin hurt.  Her eyes felt swollen, and it hurt to swallow.  Amelia forced her
eyes open and then squeezed them shut against the bright light that glared from
overhead.  She tried to cover them, but her hands were stuck beside her.

“Don’t move,” a deep voice urged, and a
warm hand threaded through hers.  “You’ve lost a lot of blood, and you’re
pretty broken up.”

“Mitchell?” Amelia croaked, and she tried
to open her eyes again.  She peeled them apart to little slits, and her heart
broke when she saw the face that was looking down at her.

“I can’t believe you’re still thinking
about that bloodsucker,” Josh said in a toxic tone.

A swarm of memories filled Amelia.  Cole
and Josh kidnapping them.   Tristan’s beady eyes.  Cole shooting Megan.  Amelia
felt cold and hot and sick.  “Where’s Meg?” she demanded, struggling again to
move.  Hot pain shot through her limbs, stealing her breath.  Sweat broke out
along her forehead and back.

“Amelia, please don’t struggle.  You’ll
only make it worse,” Josh urged, and brushed some matted curls from her sweaty
forehead.  “Megs is alive.”

Amelia glared at him, or at least that’s
what she tried to do, but her eyes were so swollen that she wasn’t sure if she
succeeded.  “Where is she?” she demanded again, her voice catching and shaking
on another blast of excruciating pain.

Something happened then that Amelia didn’t
understand.  Josh’s eyes widened, and a look of disbelief mixed with paranoid
fear flitted across his face.  He clamped his lips shut, biting on them as if
he was fighting against the urge to answer her.  He trembled, but not in the
losing skin kind of way.  Amelia thought it was more like he was trembling to
keep his lips from moving, as if the effort in doing so was a strain on his
body.  He paled and squeezed her hand a bit tighter, and then, with a long and
gusty sigh, he pointed across the room.  Amelia followed his outstretched
finger, and her eyes landed on a large television screen fixed to a gray cement
wall in front of her.

“No,” she gasped, and tears sprung to her
eyes as she took in the cage that held Megan’s beaten form.  Her eyes were closed,
and blue welts dotted every inch of her skin.  Her arms were stretched out, and
her wrists were secured to the cage with thick, gold chains; her ankles were
chained as well.  Blood dripped from puncture wounds on both of her wrists.

Amelia jerked up, and a loud crack
resonated around her, mixing in with her own agonizing scream. Her eyes shot to
the pain, and she almost threw up when she saw the bone protruding from her
forearm.

“Amelia, please don’t move,” Josh begged,
and his voice cracked in agony.  Golden light washed over her, and the pain
receded.  That’s when she noticed the glowing chains that surrounded her
wrists.  The same chains that were holding Megan.  They shimmered with magic. 
Josh must have noticed her staring at them, because he said, “It’s for your own
safety.”  He fixed his eyes on the ground and whispered, “So you can’t hurt
yourself with your magic.”

His words made no sense.  But then nothing
was making sense.  How was she still alive?  How was Megan’s heart still
beating?  That’s when she noticed the silence.  The missing buzz of thoughts. 
The lack of pulling at her heart. 
I can’t believe you’re still thinking
about that bloodsucker,
Josh’s words replayed in her mind.  Her throat felt
tight, and the pain in her chest was unbearable.  “Did you kill him?” she asked
with a voice as utterly empty as she felt.

Josh didn’t answer.  He narrowed his eyes,
glaring at her as if he couldn’t understand what she was asking.  Amelia’s
white-hot rage spiked, and all she could see was red.  She fought against the
restraints, ignored the snapping and cracking of her bones.  Her blood boiled,
masking the pain she would certainly feel later.  She summoned her magic,
gathered it together in the pit of her stomach, and sent out a blast.  It
formed at her chest, peeking out, and then with a puff, the white glowing ball
dispersed into thin air.