The Soul's Mark: FOUND (17 page)

She pulled the plug on the tub, dried off
quickly, pulled on her pajamas and took the book back out to her room.
 
After snuggling up in a cozy blanket on the
comfy chair, she dove back into the reading.

It was deeply engaging, and if she hadn’t
seen with her own eyes that vampires were real, it would have been a great
story.
 
But with her newfound knowledge,
it all seemed just too real as she flipped the pages, reading as fast as her
mind could absorb the words.

The
dreams are not really dreams.
 
It took me
a long time to figure this out.
 
My
soulmate enlightened me after years of questions.
 
Your vampire has many supernatural powers,
one of which is mind control.
 
With your
link, they are able to not only control your mind but your spirit and
soul.
 
They can pull your spirit out of your
body at will and bring you to them.
 
This
is why the dreams seem real.
 
They
are.
 
You are really there.

Huh.
 
Made sense, Amelia had seen Luke do some kind of mind, brainwashing
thing on Tyler.
 
What had he called
it?
 
Persuasion.
 
And she had always thought that the dreams
had felt like real life.
 
Amelia tried to
figure out the science behind it but only hit a bunch of brick walls.
 
She didn’t want to admit it, because, well,
it was crazy, but the only explanation was magic.

He
bit me today, only after I asked him to.
 
He is scared that I will regret it but I know I never will.
 
I have never been so close to another.
 
He loves me, of this I am sure.
 
I can feel everything he feels, pulsing
through me like waves of radiant light.
 
We can speak without words now, communicating with our thoughts.
 
Even when he is not at my side, I know that
he is out there, thinking of me and wishing we were together.
 
He truly is my soulmate and I thank the stars
above that destiny has brought us together at last.

Amelia traced the words lightly with her
finger.
 
Maybe it wasn’t all bad.
 
She tried to imagine what it would be like
with Mitchell.
 
Could she let herself
forget the monster she had seen?
 
The betrayal?
 
The deceit?
 
If she
could, then maybe, just maybe, they could be… happy.
 
As if her heart and soul knew what she was
thinking, she felt a jerk, rough and forceful, around her heart that almost
pulled her off the chair, compelling her to run to him.
 
She took a few deep breaths, and pushed
herself to read on, not wanting to admit that that’s exactly what she wanted to
do.
 
The stupid starry-eyed ideas were
quickly
extinguished
as she continued.

You
must watch out for the bite.
 
It will
ruin you and it will only cause you a great deal of pain.
 
I think she did it to me to try to help me
accept her.
 
I can see that now but when
it happened, it only made me hate her more.
 
It strengthened the link between us and my thoughts, my decisions,
everything that made me who I was, were no longer in my control.
 
I spent most of my days writhing in
excruciating pain.
 
Any decision that I
made that she did not condone caused the pain, burning from the inside out,
collapsing my lungs so I could not breathe.
 
She could not stop it and at the time, I believe she did not want
to.
 
They are all monsters first and
foremost…

****

Amelia was startled awake.
 
There was a noise… the soft click of her
bedroom door.
 
She bolted up to her feet,
letting the book and blanket fall to the floor with a dull sounding thud.
 
Her eyes were fuzzy, still half-asleep and
she blinked a few times to clear the sleepy haze.

Eric, green hair standing up (he obviously
hadn’t bothered to brush it) was standing at the door dressed in gray jogging
pants and a sweater, grinning at her.

Amelia groaned, and plopped back down into
her chair.
 
“Now what?” she snapped,
annoyed that he was back again.
 
Hadn’t
he just left like an hour or two ago?

“Get dressed,” he said, not bothered by her
tone or her glare.
 
“Time
for your morning run.
 
No one
wants to deal with grumpy Millie today.”

She stared at him blankly for a few moments
and when he just laughed at her, she glanced over at the window.
 
The sun was just starting to peak over the
tree line in a soft, orange glow.
 
She
looked at the clock: 6:45.
 
No wonder her
bones hurt and muscles felt so stiff.
 
She had slept sitting up in a chair all night.

Eric snapped his fingers and tapped his
foot on the floor.
 
“Come on,
Millie.
 
Everyone will be up soon so if
you want to go you need to go now before his highness,” he paused to give a
dramatic eye roll and bow that could have given Angelle a run for her money,
“wakes up and tries to forbid exercise because it’s dangerous.”

Despite her morning grumpiness, Amelia
laughed.
 
That was the one good thing
about Eric.
 
He could always make her
laugh.
 
“I’ll be ready in a minute.”
 
She jumped up, grabbed a pair of light blue
jogging pants, a t-shirt, and a matching light blue hoodie and dashed into the
bathroom to change.

In seconds, she was ready, shoes on, hair
retied into a loose bun—so loose that it would probably fall out, but the lump
on her head was still throbbing and the pressure stung—and she was padding her
way across the room to the door.
 
“Go out
the patio doors,” Eric said, stopping her just before she went out into the hallway.
 
“Someone’s moving upstairs.”
 
He glanced up at the ceiling, looking as if
he was trying to pinpoint exactly who it was.
 
Amelia also looked up but she couldn’t hear anything.
 
Maybe
they really did have super hearing powers
, she thought and was about to ask
when he continued.
 
“We need to sneak out
so keep quiet.”
 
He gave her a wicked
smile.
 
“And try not to think about where
we’re going.
 
If he’s paying attention,
he’ll know.”

Amelia giggled and followed Eric out the
back.
 
They tiptoed down the steps of the
terrace and slithered around the house, keeping close to it, out of sight of
the windows.
 
She focused her mind by
reciting over and over the table of elements in the hopes that if Mitchell
started to listen into her thoughts, he would assume she was studying.

When they made it to the front, all her
excitement vanished.
 
She hadn’t realized
how open it was; a good twenty-five feet of wide-open lawn stretched out in
front of her.
 
If they tried to sneak
across it, they would be seen for sure.
 
She just knew it.

Eric must have noticed that she deflated
like a popped balloon and grinned at her.
 
“Do you trust me?” he asked in a hushed tone.

Did she?
 
She didn’t want to, that was for sure.
 
What kind of a question was that anyways?
 
And how could she trust him?
 
Like, really trust him after everything that
had happened over the last twenty-four hours.

Eric noticed her hesitation.
 
She had never been good at lying and her
mother had always told her that she was an open book and her face always gave
away what she was feeling.
 
He sighed, a
sad sound.
 
“Millie, I’m not going to
hurt you.”
 
He paused, gauging her
reaction, and when she still hesitated, he continued, “I get it.
 
I led you on.
 
I’m a big jerk and I’m sorry.
 
Really I am.
 
I just…” He reached
out and brushed his fingers lightly across her cheek and then a look of horror
crossed his face and he promptly dropped his hand and his gaze.
 
“It doesn’t matter.
 
We need to get past the trees and onto the
street.
 
You can’t run fast enough to not
be seen but I can.
 
If you’ll let me, I
can carry you across.”

Everything after that happened in a
blur.
 
Mitchell started yelling at her
through the bond, frantically looking for her.
 
Amelia started to tremble and in a panic she hopped onto Eric’s back,
not wanting to face Mitchell yet, and Eric took off for the trees.
 
In under a second, he was setting her down on
the sidewalk.

Amelia was dizzy and her stomach
queasy.
 
She bent over, sucking in deep,
calming breaths.
 
Eric cleared his throat
and rubbed her back.
 
“We need to get
moving if you want to get in any running time, Millie.”
 
Her head was pounding and Mitchell started
yelling incoherently, words too loud and too panicked to really understand them.
 
Her chest hurt and she couldn’t breathe.
 
She tried desperately to suck in air but it
was as if her lungs had collapsed and her throat had closed up and no air could
get in.
 
Amelia searched for Eric.
 
She could hear him, his voice distant but she
couldn’t find him.
 
Little spots, all the
colors of the rainbow, flickered across her eyes.
 
Her lungs were burning and she was sure her
face was turning blue.
 
She needed air,
needed to breathe.
 
A stabbing pain, like
a knife ripping into her stomach, sent her crumbling to the ground and she
screamed, pushing out the last of her precious oxygen from her body.

As quickly as the pain started, it
vanished, leaving Amelia drained and breathless.

Mitchell’s voice blasted in her mind,
Love, I’m so sorry.
 
I didn’t mean to.
 
Are you okay?
 
He sounded so sad, so ashamed it brought the
sting of tears to her eyes and her heart swelled, just a little.
 
He could control it.
 
He was trying to control the pain.

After a few more shaky breaths, Amelia
cleared her mind enough to answer him.
 
I’m okay.
 
Even in her mind, the words sounded shaky and
unsure and she was glad she didn’t have to actually use her voice.

The link was silent for a long moment and
she could feel him, poking around in her brain, sifting through her
thoughts.
 
It was the strangest feeling,
one she wasn’t sure she would be able to get used to.
 
She knew the exact moment when he found
her.
 
The images of her in the blue
jogging suit standing at the tree line flashed before her eyes and she felt him
breathe a sigh of relief.
 
You went for a run,
he said, sounding
bemused.

Um, yeah, with Eric.
 
Amelia sent the thought to him
hesitantly.
 
Would he let her go?
 
Would he order her back to the house?
 
A quick flash of rage passed through the bond
but he quickly
extinguished
it and she knew how
hard he was trying to keep his calm.
 
When he didn’t say anything she asked,
is that okay?

Mitchell stayed silent for a minute and
Amelia couldn’t get a handle on his thoughts.
 
They were just so muddled up it was hard to tell.
 
When he answered her, it sounded tight and
forced.
 
Fine
, he sent, obviously annoyed and angry and she winced.
 
He must have felt it because at that very
moment, Mitchell sent a warm and sparkly burst of tenderness and then she felt
him recede, drifting out of her thoughts, but still somehow staying on the
sidelines.

“You okay, Millie?” Eric asked.
 
He was kneeling in front of her, scanning her
over with concern.
 
“I’m really
sorry.
 
I didn’t think he would freak
like that.”

Amelia forced a smile.
 
“I’m good.”
 
She rolled up to her feet, feeling more stable with every passing
second, and she did a few light stretches.

“You sure?”
Eric asked, frowning.
 
“Do we
need to go back?”

Amelia felt every muscle in her body clench
and she clamped her lips together in a thin line.
 
Was this how it was going to be?
she
wondered.
 
When
Mitchell says jump, they all jump?
 
“I’m
sure and no, we don’t need to go back.”
 
Her voice came out short with a tint of annoyance and she felt bad.
 
This wasn’t his fault.
 
Eric was just trying to help her, get her out
of the house, and she was taking it out on him.

To her surprise, Eric chuckled.
 
“Glad to see having Mitch around hasn’t
sweetened you up any, ‘cause I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get my
morning dose of bitchiness from you.”

Amelia glared at him, but it must not have
been convincing because he just laughed.

The run helped, a lot, in fact, and by the
time they got back Amelia was drenched in sweat—Eric, to her utter
astonishment, was not—and she almost felt… okay.
 
At least she did until she walked into the
kitchen and the tension that filled the room forced her roughly back to
reality.
 
Eric must have felt it too
because his joyous laughter stopped abruptly and his expression turned grim.

Mabel stood over the stove, making
eggs.
 
Her hands were shaking so bad that
when she cracked the egg on the side of the frying pan it would split all the
way through, splattering her hands with slivers of the shell and the goopy
yoke.
 
Angelle looked like a
disaster.
 
She was still in her pajamas—Winnie-the-Pooh
shorts and tank top—her
hair was dull and limp
, as if
she hadn’t bothered to brush it, and she had no make-up on.
 
Amelia had never seen her look so… unruly
before.
 
She was sitting at the island
flipping through a magazine so fast, Amelia was sure she wasn’t actually looking
at it, but using it as a reason not to talk to anyone.
 
Mitchell sat beside Angelle, gripping his
coffee cup so tightly Amelia wouldn’t have been surprised if it shattered in
his white-knuckled hands.

Amelia, even though she tried to fight it,
couldn’t help but notice how sexy he looked, dressed in jeans and a button up
blue and gray striped collared shirt, untucked and unbuttoned, showing off his
firm and sculpted abs and chest.
 
He
looked up at her and smiled.
 
It was a
forced smile, she could tell, but her heart fluttered anyways.
 
Mitchell was trying and that was all that
mattered.
 
Amelia gawked at him,
physically unable to pull her eyes away.
 
He was a powerful magnet and she a helpless piece of metal, and their
mutual attraction was a strong, unbreakable force she knew she was powerless to
resist.
 
She wanted to hate him.
 
She wanted to look away.
 
But she just couldn’t.

“Good morning,” Luke called, strolling into
the kitchen, not noticing or choosing to ignore the friction in the room.

Amelia sucked in a breath, realizing when
the air hit her burning lungs that she had stopped breathing and fire blazed in
her red cheeks.
 
You’re supposed to hate him
, she scolded herself, disgusted that
she couldn’t control the overwhelming urge to run to him and kiss him, touch
him, just be close to him.
 
With haste,
desperately wanting a diversion, she rushed over to Mabel.
 
“Let me help.”
 
Amelia took the egg out of Mabel’s hand and
retrieved a new pan—one that wasn’t caked in eggshells.
 
“Do any of you want breakfast?” she asked,
glancing up.
 
It dawned on her that she
didn’t know if they actually needed to eat or if they even liked the taste of
food.
 
Did they only need to drink blood?
 
They had always eaten with her before but did
they have to?
 
Did they want to eat or
did they do it just for her benefit?
 
She
didn’t know and she didn’t really want to ask.

Mitchell heard her thoughts and
chuckled.
 
Amelia bristled.
 
Would she ever be able to have a thought
without him knowing it?
 
“We don’t need
to eat.
 
The food provides us with no
nutritional value but it still tastes good.”
 
He set down his mug and glanced at Mabel, who was now in the fridge
looking as if she wanted to climb in and shut the door.
 
“Mabel, why don’t you take the day off?
 
You look like you could use a break.”

Mabel slowly closed the fridge and made her
way over to Amelia, taking her hand tightly.
 
Her hand was cold and clammy, Amelia noticed, and she was
trembling.
 
“No…” her voice sounded
shaky.
 
Mabel cleared her throat and
tried again.
 
“No thank you, sir.
 
I would like to stay with Millie.”

Sir?
 
Really?
 
Amelia didn’t get to finish
the thought because Mitchell was angry again.
 
It boiled through her like steam from a boiling pot of water and it was
all directed at Mabel.
 
It was becoming very
clear that Mitchell always got what he wanted and was not used to people
outright disobeying him—something Amelia found strangely comforting.
 
At least it was not just her that he expected
to be at his beck and call.

Amelia pushed Mabel behind her, and looking
back, that was probably a bad idea.
 
There was a collective gasp, hissing like snakes, from her roommates and
Amelia saw their pale faces turn stark white.
 
She hadn’t seen him move, but Mitchell was suddenly in front of her,
towering over her.
 
She had never felt as
small as she did at that very moment.
 
His crimson eyes bore into her and to her horror, his fangs snapped
down, white and deadly.

She didn’t know how she mustered the
strength, but Amelia squared her shoulders, pushed her head back and looked up,
right into those terrifying eyes.
 
“Back
off, Mitch,” she said in a lethal voice.

Mitchell laughed wickedly, reached out and
grabbed Amelia by the neck, lifting her off the ground.
 
Mabel screamed and pounded her fists on
him.
 
She tried to pry his fingers away
from Amelia’s neck but he just batted her away as if she was a pesky fly.

Amelia didn’t struggle, she couldn’t
breathe, but she just stayed limp in his grip.
 
Tears burned her eyes, but she didn’t blink and focused her stare on
him, willing him to realize what he was doing.
 
She could feel the monster in him taking control.
 
That’s what he was, she realized, a
monster.
 
Was there anything human left
in him?
 
What had happened to the man
from her dreams?
 
The one she had fallen
in love with?
 
Was he still in
there?
 
She didn’t know, but she truly
hoped so, because if not, if he really was just a monster, he could kill her
now, and she would be happy.
 
“Please,”
she choked out, unable to finish the rest, she sent the thought through their
link,
just kill me now.
 
I would rather die than spend a lifetime with
you.

Blue flecked his blazing eyes for a quick
second and he looked taken aback.
 
His
grip loosened enough for her to pull in a bit of air, though it burned all the
way down to her lungs.
 
His fangs were
still down, and he looked like he was fighting the demon that wanted to kill
her.
 
She could almost see the devil on
one shoulder and the angel on the other coaxing him back and forth between good
and evil.

All of a sudden, Amelia was airborne,
flying across the room.
 
She crashed
against the fridge with a clatter and a thick thud to the ground.
 
A loud pop sounded and an intense,
immobilizing pain shot into her shoulder.
 
She looked down to see her arm limply dangling from its socket.
 
Her shoulder had dislocated.

Amelia didn’t focus on the pain long.
 
The next sound was so loud and horrifying she
was almost sick.
 
The meaty crack of a
fist hitting flesh and then the dry snapping of bone echoed in the otherwise
silent kitchen.
 
She watched in horror as
Eric’s lifeless body crumpled to the floor at her feet.
 
She could feel the blood rushing out of her
cheeks and her body went numb.

She didn’t remember moving, but the next
thing she knew, she had Eric’s head in her lap and she was stroking his
hair.
 
Tears fell freely down her cheeks
in a waterfall of despair.
 
Commotion
erupted all around her, yelling, crying, more fists and the same sickening
cracks, but she drowned them all out.

Eric’s perfect complexion had taken on a
grayish tint and his skin was rapidly cooling, far faster than Amelia would
have thought possible.
 
She supported his
floppy, crooked neck in one hand and continued caressing his hair.
 
No.
 
He can’t be dead.
 
He can’t be dead.
 
She thought over and over.
 
Not
Eric.
 
Please no.

Someone pulled her away, wrapping her in a
hug.
 
Amelia tried to fight it.
 
She needed to stay with Eric.
 
He looked so uncomfortable, his head resting
on the cold marble floor at an impossible angle, but she couldn’t break
free.
 
“This is going to hurt, kiddo,”
Luke said in her ear, just before she heard the loud bone popping sound of her
shoulder going back into place.

Amelia squealed out in pain, paralyzed for
a moment.
 
Sweat beaded on her forehead
and she bit her tongue to stop from screaming out.
 
Luke held her tightly to him, gently
massaging her shoulder until the pain receded to a dull throb.
 
It took a few minutes, but as soon as she
could she said, “Let go.
 
I need to help
him.”