The Soul's Mark: FOUND

by Stoyanoff, Ashley

  “Not yet,” Mitchell said. He took her hand and looked at her with sad, sullen eyes. “I’m sorry, love. I know this must be hard for you but I want you to know I love you. I really do. I only want what’s best for you.” He paused for a moment, watching her, trying to gauge her feelings. She could feel him poking around in her head and could sense his hope that she would believe him.

  That thought made her laugh unpleasantly, and she snatched her hand away from him, standing up abruptly. Amelia put on her best ice queen stare and fixed it on him. “What’s best for me?” she spat. “You think locking me up here and threatening to kill my friends is best for me?”

  “You were attacked last night, Amelia,” Angelle said, deliberately stopping Mitchell before he could say anything. She crossed the room to her. “You were attacked by two other vampires. If we hadn’t been there, you could have been killed. Even with your mark they still went after you.” She reached out to brush some loose curls out of Amelia’s eyes. “Adam and Kandi were banished from this town fifty years ago. We don’t know why they’re back.” She sighed, a long and stormy sound. “Amelia, we’re the oldest coven around these parts. If they went after you, there’s a reason for it. No one would cross us, not here. They wouldn’t stand a chance. He really is just looking out for you, sweetie.”

  Amelia turned her ice-cold eyes on Angelle. “Don’t talk to me like you care. You’re just as bad as him. I confided in you. I even told you about him and you acted as if you didn’t know anything. Was your stupid dream story even true?” Hurt flashed across Angelle’s face as she backed up. “You know, I don’t even care.” Amelia focused back on Mitchell. “I will stay here only because I don’t want my friends to get hurt but you should know that’s the only reason I’m staying. I don’t want anything to do with you or any of you.” She glared around the room, making sure to focus her chilly stare on each one of them. “Now if you’re done, I’m going to my room.” And without waiting for an answer, Amelia stormed out; keeping her shoulders straight, and went straight for the refuge of her room.

  CHAPTER 17

  Amelia was a bundle of nerves. She paced her room for a full hour trying to come up with a plan but she knew deep down there was nothing she could do. She cried, she yelled into a pillow, and then she paced some more.

  Just after 7:00, Mabel brought in a bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup. Amelia tried to talk to her. She had so many questions. Did Mabel know about them? She was sure that the older woman wasn’t a vampire. But Mable wouldn’t talk to her. She just dropped the food and left. Despite her best efforts not to, Amelia gobbled the food down. She was starving and she ate it so fast she barely even tasted it.

  When the sun set, the night started to play tricks on her. Lurking shadows filled every corner of her room, reminding her of all those horror movies she had seen and what could be hiding under her bed or in her closet. Her fairy tale castle no longer felt like a fairy tale. It felt too big, and spine-chillingly creepy. And it really was filled with monsters, the fanged bloodsucking kind. Amelia got down, peered under her bed and checked her closet. She was starting to feel really stupid when a gust of wind hissed through the open window, whipping the curtains around and she jumped.

  She let out a nervous little laugh and went to the window, pulling it shut. She was about to turn away, and start the restless, helpless pacing again when a movement caught her eye. She peered out into the cloud-covered night. Standing outside her window, on her terrace was Kandi, smoldering scarlet eyes staring in at her. Amelia recoiled and blinked and when she opened her eyes, Kandi was gone.

  Keep it together, Amelia, she scolded herself silently. It’s just the night playing tricks on you.

  Deciding she needed to relax, Amelia went into the adjoining bathroom and turned on the taps filling the tub with warm, steaming water. She added a dollop of strawberry-scented bubble bath to the water, and lit some vanilla spice candles. Instantly, the room filled with their soft scent and she stripped off her clothes, tossing them wherever they landed. She took a deep calming breath, letting the aroma soothe her.

  Amelia was just about to climb into the tub when she heard a little knock at the door, so soft that she almost missed it. And if she hadn’t still been so jumpy she probably would have missed it, but she was so wired with jitters that every little bump was making her jump out of her skin. She snagged her silk housecoat from the hook, and went to the door, unlocking and swinging it open.

  It was Eric. He had that mischievous twinkle in his eyes and he raised his finger to his lips in a shhhh gesture. He glanced surreptitiously over his shoulders and then without a word snuck past her into her room, moving with all the stealth of a cat burglar.

  Amelia was speechless. She hadn’t expected any of them to bother her, not tonight. She watched as he shut the door behind him and once that door was shut and he was standing in her room, and they were alone, she became hotly aware that she was in a thin little housecoat, completely naked underneath. She flushed.

  “Did I wake you?” he whispered, still glancing at the door as if he thought at any moment someone would burst through and catch him.

  “Um, no. I was just about to have a bath. What do you want?” Bath, crap! She had left the water running and rushed to go turn it off. When she got back into her room, Eric was lounging on her bed. “Eric, I think you should leave.”

  He looked surprised at her reaction. “What’s up with you?”

  “Really? You’re really going to ask me that?” Amelia rolled her eyes. What was it about him that made her not want to stay mad? She should hate him. Throw him out. But there was something so… fun about him. Folding her arms and trying to keep an annoyed tone, she said, “Like I said, I was just about to have a bath so if you don’t need anything, go away.”

  “Oh okay, sure. Here.” He slid off the bed and shoved a book at her, looking wounded. “Thought you might want to check it out.”

  “Thanks, I think.” Amelia took the old leather-bound book in her hands and examined the cover. There was no title, just the soul mark carved into the worn and weathered book. “It’s the book. The one you told me about the first night.”

  Eric winked at her and smiled. “Sure is. Thought you might have some questions and since you don’t seem to be about to ask them you should read this.” He gave her another secretive look. “But don’t tell anyone I gave it to you.” He cupped her chin in his hands lightly and tilted her face up to meet his eyes. His gaze was intense and serious, and really, really, wrong. Eric shouldn’t look serious. He was supposed to be fun and carefree. “Hey Millie?” he asked, hesitating for a moment.

  “Yeah,” she breathed, lost in his eyes.

  “I’m really sorry for kissing you and I’m sorry for leaving after. I hope you understand why now. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just…” he fumbled over the words. “You don’t belong to me and even though you’re fighting it right now…” He huffed and gave her a torn and sad smile. “You love him. You won’t be able to fight it forever and he really does love you.” The carefree smile sprang back over his face and he headed towards the door. “Besides, I’m a slacker. You deserve better than me,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her and then he was gone, door clicking shut behind him.

  Amelia stared at the door for a moment, shocked and befuddled. Her heart wasn’t racing like it normally did when Eric was around. Was that because of Mitchell? Even thinking his name made her heart skip a beat, answering her silent question. Yes, yes, yes, it was all because of Mitchell. She was made for him, body and soul, and Eric just wasn’t… right. After that flabbergasting revelation, Amelia looked back at the book in her hands, whose brittle, old pages exuded a faint scent of mold.

  She opened up the book, gingerly flipping through the pages looking for an author, but she found none. She went back to the start. There was no table of contents or copyrights and the first page was entitled: WARNING TO ALL HUMANS WITH A SOUL’S MARK.

  Amelia closed the book, wond
ering if she should actually read it. Would it have answers? Maybe it could tell her how to break the bond between them. Did she want to break it? She had so many questions and really wasn’t sure if she even wanted the answers.

  She padded back to the bathroom and set the book down on the tub ledge. Maybe she would just scan through it. It couldn’t hurt. She took off her housecoat and slid into the tub, letting the hot water soothe her aching muscles, and closed her eyes for a few seconds. After a few calming strawberry filled breaths, she reached for the book, holding it up, well away from the water and started to read.

  What you are about to read is an overview of what you can expect before and after you are found. I speak from experience and can guarantee that you will be found. It may be in this lifetime or in one to follow, but you should know it is inevitable. You have been marked by a vampire’s soul. The journey you are about to embark on will not be easy. At times, you may be blinded by love or overtaken by hatred.

  From this point on you are no longer the master of your destiny. It is imperative for you to forget the notion that you have the power to control your own fate. Your path has been chosen for you and whether you like it or not always remember you canNOT run from destiny.

  That’s not very encouraging, she thought, rereading the warning. She considered putting the book down and not going on. If it started out like this, it couldn’t possibly get any better, but curiosity got the best of her and she kept reading.

  A Brief History of the Mark

  The first thing you should know is that soulmates are real. They are not just some romantic idea. We are made for one person and one person alone.

  When it comes to souls, the alchemists were close to the truth. They believed that we are not born with a soul but only with sparks of spirituality and our purpose in this life and every life to follow is to find our souls. This is not entirely true. Our purpose is not to find our soul but to find the missing half. Our twin.

  Since the beginning of time, souls have been divided equally amongst men and women. The theory is that we are destined to spend our lives searching for our other half, over countless reincarnations, in hopes to become one again.

  With that bombshell, Amelia wondered how much weirder this can all get. Reincarnation wasn’t possible. Of that, she was certain. She was more of a “big bang theory” kind of girl. She looked for the scientific explanation, and reincarnation was, without a doubt, not it. Halfhearted, or at least that’s what she tried to tell herself, she read on.

  The second and probably most important thing you need to know is that vampires do exist. The sooner you accept this, the better off you will be.

  As for the mark, I have found records of it going back at least a thousand years. Throughout time, the stories have been altered, but they all hold a similar tale of a witch finding her lover dead—drained of blood by a vampire.

  Heartbroken over her loss, the witch wanted to avenge her lover’s death, so she stripped all vampires of their souls, casting them out to wander the universe. Once the souls were taken, she then cursed the vampires with an eternity of emptiness and condemned them to always be searching but in the end never able to find their souls.

  What the witch did not consider is that nature always finds a way to maintain the balance between good and evil. This curse shifted the natural balance by creating a breed of soulless, bloodsucking monsters.

  To rectify this disturbance, nature took over, gathering the lost souls and joining them with their human twins. The humans were then marked with the soul’s symbol, giving the vampires a chance to find their souls. Through the mark, a bond formed between the vampire and their soulmate allowing them to keep in touch with their humanity.

  In the pages to come, you will learn the stories of two individuals who wore the mark. By no means do we claim to be experts on this subject. We can only hope that our stories will help others with the trials and tribulations that are to come. Learn from our choices and let them act as a guide on your journey.

  Amelia closed the book and let it drop to the floor. She had Mitchell’s soul? How was that even possible? She guessed it explained the connection, but was it just his soul that was entwined with hers or was it more? Was he also her true love? That’s what a soulmate was, wasn’t it? The questions burned through her brain, swirling around in a whirlwind of puzzlement. The hunger for knowledge, to learn the unknown was taking control of her and she knew she just had to keep reading. She had to know more. What was happening to her? What was happening to him? What more was to come?

  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 h
e 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.