The Soul's Mark: CHANGED

by Ashley Stoyanoff

  He padded over to her, and tapped the bottom of her chin. His fingers felt like ice. She looked up at him, feeling utterly empty, unwilling to process what he’d just said. He smiled an encouraging kind of smile. And then, he was just … gone.

  Amelia didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or scream. They all seemed like viable options right then. She couldn’t say how long she stood there, not knowing what to think or what to do, when her cell phone chirped and vibrated. Amelia dug into her pocket, pulling it out and glancing at the screen. It was a text message from Cole. She tapped the screen pulling it up, expecting it to be the spell, but it wasn’t. Instead, it said: Meg filled me in. On my way.

  Amelia scrunched her nose, reading it again. Just yesterday, Cole had made it overly clear that he wasn’t coming back, like ever. Meg? Amelia called silently as she stared at the message. What did you tell Cole?

  I told him the truth, she replied. Before you freak out, it was Mitch’s idea. He figured we could use all the magic we can get our hands on.

  Amelia gritted her teeth. The last thing she needed right then was to have another person depending on her. Another person to make sure she was safe. Tell Mitch to stop having damn ideas! Amelia shouted back.

  As soon as she sent the thought, she felt the slight pull around her heart, and Mitchell said, “I heard that.”

  A hot wave of emotion rushed through her at the sound of his voice, a sound that after tomorrow, she realized, she may never hear again. She sucked in a ragged breath and spun around. “Don’t you ever listen to me?” she said through her teeth, as she fought against the sob that was trying to find its way out. “I told you to stay inside.”

  Mitchell ducked under the swaying branches, walking towards her with a maddening (and infuriatingly sexy) grin. “You already knew I wasn’t going to.”

  She didn’t know how he could be so calm about everything or how he could be smiling. She started to shake, first her fingers and then her arms and then her shoulders. It spread through her until even her bones felt as if they were quivering. “Don’t you get it!” she shouted. “I’m trying to keep you safe. I’m not going to lose you. I can’t lose you.”

  Mitchell flinched away from her, and dropped his sky-blue eyes to the ground, shifting back and forth from foot to foot. “Don’t be mad, love, please,” he said, nervously. “I can’t …” He sucked in a breath, looking back up at her. “How did you deal with this? It’s … it’s …”

  Amelia stared at him for a long moment, not really sure what he was talking about, but once she clued in on it, she felt horribly guilty. She remembered what it was like to feel his anger, and she remembered the fidgety unnerving feeling it had given her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just did, but you need to chill out because all your fidgeting and nervousness is driving me crazy.” She sighed, and forced a smile. “Now, please, go back inside.”

  He gave her a pleading look, moving closer to her. “Amelia, let me help you. Let me do something. I can’t just sit back and watch. It’s not me. I just can’t.”

  Something inside Amelia cracked and broke and her eyes filled with tears. “They’re going to take you from me,” she said.

  “I heard, love.” Mitchell let out a long breath. “Come on.” He took her shoulder, guiding her out of the branches and leading her back to the house. “Let’s not dwell on it. We still have time.”

  Maybe he was right, Amelia thought. It was probably best not to think about it, but the problem was, her brain and her heart wouldn’t let her stop. “I just don’t get why they would do that. Why you? It’s my screw-ups, not yours.”

  “They’re taking what they can,” he said. “Your soul is not theirs anymore, or at least not all of it. The spirits, Mother Nature, they are charged with humans and witches. And you’re not only a witch. When you changed, your soul became my soul. A vampire does not own their soul. It will always belong to their soulmate, whether they are human or have been changed. The spirits cannot take what no longer belongs to them.”

  “So as long as you’re human, you’re vulnerable.” A sharp feeling of betrayal prickled her skin. How could her mother do something like this to her? Amelia wouldn’t have thought she could have. There had to be a way to change him back. There just had to. Amelia wouldn’t—couldn’t—believe that her mother would leave Mitchell human if he wouldn’t be safe.

  “Stop that,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist as they neared the terrace. “You don’t need to worry about me right now. You need to stay focused.”

  “For the first time in probably forever, I’m completely focused, Mitch,” she said, looking up at him. “They won’t take you from me. I won’t let them.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The girl was smirking; her sharp fangs, only half extended, were resting on her plump lower lip. Rays of light from the dying sun made them shimmer and glint like a metal knife. The breeze picked up, whipping her flat white hair around her shoulders. She giggled as she took him in, her smirk shifting to a coy smile. She took her bottom lip between her teeth, and her fangs extended further as her eyes fixed on the mark on his neck.

  She stared at the inked mark, licking her lips. Her eyes narrowed to sliver-like slits, and she cocked her head to the side, as if she needed to see it from another angle.

  Tyler thought he’d feel something. Anything. But he didn’t. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He felt something, but it was only stunned disbelief. He hadn’t expected her to find him so quickly. After all, it had taken Mitchell five years after the dreams had started to find Amelia. But he figured that this was better. No dreams. No attachment. He didn’t even know the girl’s name. Killing her would be ... easier. Too bad the thought of actually doing it made his stomach clench.

  He glanced over his shoulder, just a quick look to see if the guy at the front desk was watching, and as he did, he reached behind his back, gripping the stake tightly and pulling it from his back pocket.

  The girl giggled. “There’s no need for that,” she said. Her voice was too close. Tyler could feel her warm breath puff against his cheek as she spoke, and he cursed himself. Mitchell’s first rule: never take your eyes off of the enemy. He tightened his grip on the stake, swiveled on the balls of his feet, and plunged it at her in a fast and efficient motion.

  It wasn’t fast enough.

  The girl snarled something that he couldn’t even begin to understand, and grabbed hold of his wrist, squeezing it so tightly that he couldn’t keep hold of his weapon, and it slipped from his grip, clattering to the pavement. She yanked on him, pulling him with her at an inhumanly fast pace, and in a blink, she was dragging him across the parking lot.

  She shoved him into a room, wrenching his arm behind his back before she let go, and he fell to his knees hard. Sharp pain lanced through his legs and shoulder and he grunted, swallowing down the cry that tried to slip out. The door slammed, and he heard the lock snap closed, and that’s when he finally felt something real.

  Fear. It slid through him like a hot needle. His heart leapt to his throat like a racehorse breaking through the gates, and he scrambled to his feet.

  “What the hell is your problem?” the girl asked. She moved towards him, with slow steps; her hands rose just as slowly as if she was trying to show she wasn’t a threat. It was confusing as hell. Her expression was murderous, but the rest of her body language was unthreatening.

  “My problem?” Tyler asked, skeptically, forcing himself to stand still and hold his ground. “You’re the one that practically ripped off my arm, dragging me into this room.”

  The girl stopped moving towards him, her hands still in the air. She stood directly in front of the door. There was a large picture window off to the side of her, the brown curtains hung partway open. Off to his left, the bathroom door was ajar, and for half a second he thought about bolting to it and locking himself in, but the idea didn’t last. Any vamp could tear a door like that off its hinges without much effort. He eyed the wooden desk from the corner
of his eye, wondering if he could snap a leg off before she snapped his neck. Not likely, he thought bitterly.

  “Because you were about to stake me out in the middle of the parking lot,” she shouted, and then groaned, cutting him a bored and slightly ticked off look. “I’m going to ask you again. What the hell is your problem?”

  Tyler smirked and shrugged a shoulder in an attempt to hide how trapped he felt. “Look, it’s nothing personal. I just don’t want you.”

  “Wow, that kind of sounds personal,” she said. Her fangs retracted, and a flash of something that looked a lot like sorrow darted across her face. Her hands fell to her hips, and her eyebrows rose. “Do you have any idea how old I am? I could snap you like a twig, kid.”

  Sweat started to bead along his hairline, and trickle down his spine. There was a freakish quality to the girl that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She was too calm. He remembered when Megan had shown up. Eric had been a wired mess. And Mitchell hadn’t been too sane with Amelia, either. But this girl ... her calmness unnerved him.

  “Nice,” he said, scowling at her. “You’re lying to me already. What a fantastic way to build our budding relationship. You’re sixteen. Seventeen at the most.” His voice held confidence that he didn’t really feel. He figured it was because he knew she was just turned. He’d only had the mark a few days. The one thing he was certain of was her age.

  She laughed, a startled kind of sound. “I don’t know who you think I am, but whoever it is, it’s not me.”

  Tyler was silent for a moment, looking past the girl and out the window at the pub. The sky was darkening and he wondered if he’d see it rise again tomorrow. “You expect me to believe that you’re just some random vampire?” he asked, meeting her crystal clear blue eyes. “That you don’t know me. That I’m not your soulmate, and you’re not here to claim me.”

  She made a strangled kind of sound from the back of her throat and her eyes bulged with shock. She threw her hands up again. “Whoa, let’s back up like twenty steps here. I’m not some random vampire. I work here. I saw you getting out of your car and grabbing a stake. I don’t know about where you come from, but the vamps in this town don’t take kindly to kids walking around with that kind of weaponry. And I’m not your soulmate.”

  Tyler snorted. “So what, you’re some kind of do-gooder? I find that even harder to believe.”

  “Yeah, well that’s me.” She shrugged and sat down in the lone desk chair, daintily folding one leg over the other. “Believe it or not, I was just trying to help out before you got yourself drained for stupidity. Where did you learn to hold a stake like that anyway?”

  Tyler narrowed his eyes, not believing her for a second. “Mitchell Lang taught me,” he said, hoping the name would mean something to her, and hating himself for using it to get out of this mess.

  “Oh?” She spoke without much interest, but her eyes darkened and flared, and in a fluid, graceful motion, she was back on her feet. “Is that so?”

  “Um, yeah, it is.” He backed up a step, his entire body going rigid, and his throat went dry. Clearly, the name meant something to her. And with the way she was looking at him right then, Tyler was sure it wasn’t a good something.

  “One of his pets. How perfect.” Her fangs slid down unnervingly slow, and a playful grin tugged at her lips. “You run away from home, kid?”

  “I’m not his pet,” Tyler snapped. His blood ran cold, as he watched her glide towards him. “Mitch doesn’t …”

  “Mitch, is it?” she asked in a silky, flirty tone. Flares of crimson spread through her eyes, and Tyler sucked in an involuntary, and way too loud, breath. “That sounds pretty friendly.”

  ****

  Angelle forgot how hard this was. Tracking a person based on small clips of waking dreams and scent alone. It was next to impossible. She knew if she could just sit down and focus it would be a lot easier, but they didn’t have that kind of time, and Tyler still wasn’t answering his phone. Out of everything that was happening, not answering his phone was the one thing that was really getting to her. Really, the point of a cell phone was so a person could be reached while not at home, and when this was over, she planned on having a little chat with him on that concept.

  It had been Lucy’s idea to track him by scent. They’d gone to his apartment, hoping that being there would help Angelle focus on the dreams, but when they arrived outside the building, Lucy had picked up the smell of the god-awful cardboard pine air freshener that Tyler always hung from his rear view mirror.

  It was an easy enough scent to follow, so obviously fake that it stuck out amongst the natural scent of the trees, but even so, Angelle hadn’t needed to track someone like this for more than a couple hundred of years and it was harder than she’d expected.

  But really, the hardest thing, and the thing that had every nerve ending in her body on fire, was that Tyler was actually her soulmate and she’d stupidly let him walk away. It was a hard thing to swallow. It was impossible. But even knowing how ridiculously impossible it was, she knew it was true. She could feel it—her soul—calling to her, and when she really concentrated, she could pull on it through the mark, yank it from his body, and see small clips of his surroundings. The problem was she couldn’t seem to hold onto it long enough to talk to him before it snapped back in place, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t call his soul to her.

  Lakeridge wasn’t far off now. Angelle could hear the whispers of civilization in the distance as they ran through the woods along the side of the road. Erin and Lucy stayed right on her heels, barely making a sound. The sun was falling. It would be dark soon. Through the trees, the sky was dark denim blue, littered with white cotton clouds.

  Suddenly, spine tingling fear skittered through her belly. Angelle skidded to a stop. She sucked in a deep breath, her nostrils flaring, and her eyes tingled as a red haze washed over them.

  “Angelle, what’s happening?” Erin asked. “Why are we stopping?”

  “Something’s wrong.” Fear rushed along her skin, sending a prickling shiver down her spine. She didn’t know why she was so afraid, but the terror felt as if it was alive inside of her, winding through her body, and pumping through her veins. “Tyler’s in trouble.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Amelia stood frozen on the terrace steps as sharp clarity sliced through her. She had to fix the bond now. She had to change Mitchell now. She had to do it all now. And she knew exactly how to do it. She bit down on her lip as her thoughts rushed together, all fighting over one another to be heard.

  Amelia couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it sooner. There were always loopholes to magic. Josh and Cole had taught her that, and right then, she felt a little stupid for not seeing it all. She could have changed Mitchell weeks ago. Her mother had been pretty specific, None of them can change him before his body has healed. But she’d never said anything about Amelia doing it herself. It was a spell. He was human because of a spell. She didn’t need to change him the traditional way. And if it worked the way she saw it playing out in her mind, he’d just revert back to the vampire he once was. It would be as if nothing changed. He’d still be one of the oldest and the strongest vampires alive and most of all, he’d be him again.

  The spirit was right. He’d never said Mitchell knew how to accomplish anything; he only knew what the goal was. But Amelia had spent weeks trying to figure out how to change the bond. She knew how to do it all. She knew her spell would work. She may not have been willing to mess with Luke and Lola’s link, but she’d damn well do it with her own.

  “Can we talk about this?” Mitchell asked, his voice sounding unsure, uneasy.

  She looked at him. It was a thorough look, searching not only his face, which was grim, or his body language, which was overly tense, or his scent, which held a slight wash of salty fear, but his mind. And what she saw, she didn’t really like. It reminded her of herself from when she had been human. The eager urge to please mixed with weary caution and outright dist
rust. He was wondering how far he could push her, before he’d be writhing in pain, and he was trying to convince himself that he could handle it if it happened.

  Her heart stopped and squeezed painfully tight before it started to thump again. “Don’t you trust me, Mitch?” she asked.

  The hum of him in her brain started then, and he frowned, taking a small step back from her. He shook his head. “Not when your head is as clustered as it is right now, no.” His words cut deep and she flinched, feeling them like a physical slap. He reached out a hand, and she flinched again as if his touch would hurt just as much. “I’m sorry, love.” He dropped his hand along with his eyes, and puffed out a slow breath. “I shouldn’t have said that, but I think we need to talk about this.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “There’s nothing to talk about.” She stepped away from him, pulling open the doors that led into their bedroom. She knew she was being a jerk. She’d told him the same thing just yesterday, but hearing him say that he didn’t trust her burned worse than she’d thought it would. But it didn’t just burn. It sparked something in her—something that felt a lot like outright rage. And right then, she needed to put some distance between them before she did something that she knew she’d regret.

  “Amelia, you can’t be serious.” Mitchell’s hand clamped down on her wrist, stopping her. She looked down at his hand, just a quick glance, and he let go instantly.

  Amelia pulled her phone out of her pocket, and placed it in Mitchell’s hand, closing his fingers around it. “Call Angelle,” she said with a forceful tone that made her feel a little sick. “Tell her I’ve found another way.”