A Soulmark Series

by Rebecca Main

  “I don’t think they would do that…,” she hedges. When she catches my unimpressed look, she lets out a hoarse laugh of her own. This one carrying a more honest tune. “They’ll just kill you.” We both burst into laughter at the gallows humor, the bent-at-the-waist-clutching-at-your-sides kind of laughter. When we finally trickle down into giggles, she takes my hand once more.

  “It’ll be fine,” I tell her, though the words feel sour on my tongue.

  “He’s your other half. He was made for you,” Nova scolds me lightly, “and you were made for him.”

  “Didn’t we just go over the whole 'they’ll kill me' thing?”

  Nova squeezes my hand before letting go and taking a step back to begin pacing the room. “What were you going to do if you were assigned?”

  I sigh and shrug pathetically. “Just observe. See what he’s like from afar, I guess.”

  Nova frowns at my apathetic response. “That’s all?”

  “I already told you I don't intend to do anything about the mark, or anything equally as stupid.” Her frown remains. “What?” I snap, feeling my defenses rising. “You and I both know the Council has my future neatly planned out for me.”

  “You mean Mrs. Baker and your dad?”

  “I’ll finish my training with the Wardens, stay for a few years, and then start my study as a council delegate.”

  “And marry Wyatt,” she adds with surprising bitterness. Wyatt Baker, Mrs. Baker’s only son. A founding family just like my own. A sinking sensation dwells in the pit of my stomach. Wyatt and I had dated years ago but ended things when I started training as a Stellar Warrior. It wasn’t part of the "plan," he had protested to no avail. The Baker women always held positions on the Council, and Baker men always held positions as Head Stellar Warrior. Not the other way around.

  I give another helpless raise of my shoulders. “It is what it is.” Unless I find some way to validate a life without Wyatt to my dad, or forge a new path on my own.

  Her lips purse unhappily as she stops her pacing, her hair swishing dramatically to the side. “And you're positive it’s him? That the wolf is your soulmark?” There’s a sort of desperation in her tone, a pleading, but I nod my head along sadly.

  “You said you saw it yourself. I touched his mark and the reaction was instantaneous.”

  “All you did was touch it? You’re sure he didn’t seal the mark? Or anything else?”

  “I’m positive,” I tell her with more confidence than I feel. “There are words that have to be spoken while the soulmark is being touched for the sealing to happen,”—at least that’s what our books on the subject say—“The same goes for the other two steps; the marking and binding of the soulmark. Words are said. The soulmark is touched.”

  “And once all three steps are completed, the sealing, marking, and binding, your souls are joined as one,” Nova finishes, staring off into the distance. I feel my stomach turn uneasily. So the books say.

  “But he didn’t say anything,” I persist. “And I didn’t say anything. So we aren’t sealed.”

  “And what I saw?” Nova questions somewhat cautiously.

  “Shock and awe,” I offer after a moment’s hesitation, the truth spilling forth. “One second I’m on the verge of passing out. The next, we’re both hit with a tidal wave of emotion. It was like being swept up in the sweetest storm as it rained down this tremendous heat and—” desire “—fullness," I finish lamely.

  “Fullness?” she asks dubiously.

  I nod fervently. “It’s hard to explain,” I tell her, opening and closing my butterfly knife as I begin to pace as well. “It was as if I could feel this all-consuming feeling in every part of my body.”

  She raises an eyebrow, arms slow to fold over her chest once more as her lips twitch upward. “Feeling?”

  I blush. “Not that kind,” I lie.

  “Right.” She snorts and goes to sit on the bed by her bag. “Well, if you want, I can do some covert reconnaissance on him for you? Find out the basics. Name, age, history, medical records. You know, just the basics.”

  The weight of my secret lifts fully from my shoulders, and I give a breathy laugh. “That would be,” I pause, thinking of the right word and coming up empty, “nice.”

  Nova gives me a small smile in return, one that doesn’t exactly meet her eyes as she pats the spot beside her. “You’ve got it. Now, show me that knuckle trick again.”

  +++

  It’s late, and the triplets left hours ago. The remnants of my displeasure linger in my muscles and mind. I appreciate what Nova is doing for me, but I still can’t stem the jealousy I hold, or the stifling notion that things are falling into place, just as my father has planned.

  My fists careen into the punching bag with ruthless efficiency, the bracers I wear enhancing my force and sending it nearly off its hinges. I grasp onto it, steadying the bag as I pant from my exertion.

  “You’re in a fine mood tonight, Calliope,” comments a familiar voice from behind. Wyatt. I frown at the bag and keep my back toward him. His light footsteps echo in the empty gym until he comes to stand by me. I cast a wary look his way.

  “What do you want?”

  His eyebrow arches scrupulously while his gaze ventures the length of my body. I tense, but he sends me an easy smile, relaxing his stance and shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “Need any help?” His eyes flick to the bag and then to my bracers. “You’ll knock it off if you keep going at it like that.” I nod begrudgingly. There’s too much adrenaline in my veins to stop now, and the whole purpose of coming to the gym is to tire myself out, so I can sleep tonight. Wyatt moves to stand behind the punching bag, placing his hands securely on it.

  “One-two, weave, weave, two-three,” he instructs me, voice dropping any lilting amusement in favor of something more serious. Jab, cross, double weave, cross, hook. I nod and bounce on my feet, taking in several deep breathes before going into the combination. Even with Wyatt stabilizing the bag and providing resistance, my hits push him and the bag back.

  “How about something more… challenging?” I ask, stepping away from the bag after completing a repetition. Wyatt peeks his head out from behind the bag to study me.

  “How long have you been going at it?”

  I shrug. “Maybe forty minutes?”

  He frowns. “And you want to keep going?”

  I nod and put my hands back up in front of my face, bouncing once again on my toes. He gives a small shake of his head.

  “Fine. Lead front kick, one-two, lead side kick, back kick.” I catch the gleam in Wyatt’s eyes and feel a grin tinker at the corner of my lips. That combination is more of a challenge.

  Wyatt knows just how to push me—which is both a good and bad thing. With Wyatt I learned to push past my limits, exceeding my expectations time after time with him at my side. He gave me the confidence to believe in myself, but he also knows how to take that confidence away. Wyatt knows exactly what buttons to press and triggers to pull to bend me to his will.

  My left foot nails the side of the bag with a sharp smack. As I plant it back on the ground, I twist myself around to deliver the back kick with my right. Smack.

  “Feeling stressed?” he asks.

  I feel my concentration waver for a moment, and my lead front kick doesn’t land nearly as well as the previous. A frustrated air issues past my lips. Jab. Cross. Am I feeling stressed? I move with the bag, toggling from side to side before launching into my side kick and twirling into my back kick with vicious accuracy.

  “You know you can talk to me, right?”

  I scoff, sending him a look that displays my skepticism. Talk to Wyatt? Never again will I let this man in on my innermost thoughts. My feet shuffle backward and forward as I find my pace again, speeding through the next interval with concentrated breaths. All the while his eyes are on me, staring me down in a way I’m much too familiar with. I’m lucky Wyatt never thought twice about my fanged soulmark. To him, it was just another tatt
oo among the many. A moon on the back of my neck. A trident down my forearm. A shield on my shoulder blade. A dozen other tiny insignificant markings to hide the one that meant the most.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him through gritted teeth, pushing on. The punching bag rattles with each hit of my fists and feet, Wyatt’s small grunts of effort providing infinite satisfaction.

  “Right.” He snorts, pulling back and signaling me to stop. He shakes out his wrists, eyeing me with a small level of disapproval. “How about you fight against something that’ll give you a real challenge?”

  I take a couple of steps back, my breath coming in deep gasps as I attempt to catch it. “Are you suggesting yourself?” I ask dryly.

  He gives a confident smirk in return, popping the knuckles on his right hand. “We both know I can give you what you want,” he says, a husky edge to his voice. Not bothering to wait for my response, he strips off his shirt and goes to grab the hand wrap and a set of gloves. “No bracer power,” he comments over his shoulder. “Just us. One on one.”

  I flick my wrists with purpose, and the luminescent light sinks back into the iron bracelets. If he thinks he can beat me, he has another thing coming to him.

  “Ready?” I ask after he’s taken a few minutes to warm up.

  He gives a brief nod and circles forward. At first, we both pull our hits, dodging and feinting as we take up the violent dance. In no time at all, our movements become quicker. Harder. There is a comfort in this act with him. At least to me, there is. It touches the part of my soul that craves the fight, that yearns to inflict pain. My darkness; an all-consuming feeling of feral rage, that dominates me as I lose myself in a fight. It is considered a curse among our people, a blemish on one’s sanity, but if I’m honest, the soulmark feels more damning.

  Wyatt takes my hits with good grace, waiting me out patiently as I work out my aggression on his body. It doesn't take long for me to feel fatigued, which is of course is when he comes at me.

  I should have seen it coming. I should have learned by now—should have remembered—that he knows me. He knows how I move and how to read my body. He can expertly predict what I’ll do next and how to take advantage. Wyatt works his way meticulously inside and under my guard. Throwing hammer-sized blows to my torso until he all but levels me with an uppercut. I fall to the ground, sideswiping my feet out in retribution. His body lands close to mine with a startled grunt.

  “I thought we were boxing, not kickboxing,” he grumbles good-naturedly, nudging my calf with his foot.

  I pull off my gloves to rub my jaw. “Good hit,” I begrudgingly offer, hauling myself up onto my feet.

  “Want to go another round?” He’s up on his feet a second later, following me to the other side of the room where I put the boxing gloves away.

  “No.”

  “How about a different workout?” His voice tumbles into that husky tone again, the one he so often likes to use to coax me into submission. An echo of feelings long since lost shivers their way up my spine as I recall our old “post-workouts.”

  “No,” I tell him firmly, tossing my hand wraps into a laundry basket and briskly walking away. He jumps ahead of me, slamming his hand out against the wall to block my path. “I’m not getting into it tonight with you, Wyatt,” I practically growl, rearing back my fist to deliver a swift punch to his arm. As if expecting this reaction, he uses my momentum against me and pins my arm against the wall.

  “Were you always this feisty when we were together?” he asks with a charming smile, eyes smoldering with intent.

  I snap my head forward, hoping to catch his nose with my head-butt, but he lets out a bark of laughter and slams me back against the wall instead. His forearm and elbow dig into my clavicle. A noise of frustration passes my lips as my eyes dart to the side.

  “What do you want, Wyatt?” I growl.

  He loses the smile, leaning forward until his forehead rests against my own. “You know what I want, Callie. What I’ve always wanted.” I keep my eyes to the side, not daring to look into his honey-colored eyes. “You. Us.”

  “Don’t.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  “I was reassigned,” I remind him blandly, keeping my face expressionless as he trails his fingers along my neck, tracing the bruises. “I’ve also been busy. Besides, there’s no need to avoid you. We aren’t together anymore. We haven’t been for years. There’s no reason for me to see you.”

  He lets out an indignant scoff. “Ours is a small community, Calliope. Besides, after last winter. I—”

  “Last winter was a mistake,” I bite out, pinning him with a hard look. His fingers stall on the side of my neck. And I don’t care if our Native Alaskan community is small.

  “Apparently it was a mistake worth repeating,” he tells me, all false charm and barbed words. “What was it, a dozen times? More?”

  My palm rams into his lower sternum, and he lets out a grunt, pushing into me harder until our bodies are pressed tightly against one another. His head dips, and he nips near the bruises on my neck. I let out a startled gasp and go rigid.

  “You can’t run from me, Calliope. We were always meant to be together, and now that I’ve been assigned as part of the extra guard for the facility, we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other.”

  “You didn’t,” I protest, rearing to the side and away from the soft pull of his teeth and lips.

  He meets my horrified look with half-lidded eyes. “I spoke with our parents, and they approved.”

  I bite the inside of my cheek, fighting off the sharp sting of emotion that suddenly rises within me.

  “Don’t be that way, Calliope,” he tells me tightly, his features hardening. “There’s no need to get worked up about this. You and I both know—hell, everybody knows that we were always going to end up together. Save the theatrics, all right? You’re acting like a child.”

  “Fuck you,” I spit, stumbling backward farther. Wyatt reaches out for me, but a well-placed kick leaves him doubled over at the waist. He lets out a pained whine.

  “Callie—” His glossy eyes send me a glare that promises vengeance.

  “Save the theatrics, Wyatt,” I deliver coolly. “You're acting like a child.” As I walk away, a strange tightness surrounds my heart. Quite suddenly the idea of being bound to a wolf seems far more appealing than the alternative.

  Chapter 4

  One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

  Proctor’s Knife…

  Hamelin Pipe…

  Obsidian trident…

  Eight sets of poisoned-tipped pilum…

  Ammit Amulet…

  Enchanted coral necklace…

  Cataloging the relics is a shit task. What makes it even more shitty is the fact that we’re shorthanded and relic storage totals three floors. I’m assigned the atrium—by myself—and I’m on the fourth day of the monotonous task. The cherry on top? Only one display case out of the hundreds that lined the walls had been smashed open and its contents removed. All other displays were left untouched in the assault. On every level. Yet protocol dictates a complete catalog of the relics.

  Chains of the Wasted…

  Sanctum’s Collar…

  Two sets of Spring Jade rings…

  Five sets of Chameleon bracelets…

  A dozen Daylight rings…

  Vagrant’s Whip…