Chapter 4 The Soul Mark
MIREYA'S POV
The pain hits me like lightning striking my chest.
I scream. My hands claw at my cardigan, ripping buttons free. I need to see what's burning me alive from the inside out.
My skin glows beneath my shirt. Black lines twist and curl across my chest, right over my heart. They look like someone carved demon symbols into me with a burning knife.
"What did you do to me?" I gasp.
Across the summoning circle, Azraeth staggers backward. His hand clutches his chest. His face twists with shock and something darker—rage mixed with fear.
"Not you," he snarls. "Not again!"
The mark keeps growing. It spreads like living ink, forming patterns I've seen in my research. Ancient writing that predates angels and witches. The kind of magic that only happens once in a thousand years.
My chest feels like it's splitting open. But underneath the pain, something else rushes through me. Power. His power, bleeding into me through whatever connection just formed between us.
I can feel him. Not just see him standing there, but feel him. His anger crashes into me like waves. His hunger—centuries of starvation—makes my stomach clench. And buried deep beneath everything else, a grief so huge it could drown the world.
"Stop it!" I yell. "Get out of my head!"
"I'm not in your head, little scholar." His voice sounds strangled. "You're in mine."
He stumbles toward me. I back up until I hit the cold stone wall. He cages me in, one hand pressed against the wall beside my head. This close, I can see the mark on his chest through his torn shirt. It matches mine exactly. Twin brands connecting us.
"That mark is a soul bond," he says. Each word sounds forced out. "The rarest demon magic. It means your soul called to mine across the veil, and the universe answered."
"I didn't call for this!"
"Yes, you did." His amber eyes bore into mine. "When you spoke your true name—Mireya the Betrayed—your soul screamed into the darkness. And mine recognized you. We're bound now. Permanently."
My heart pounds so hard I think it might explode. "Unbind us."
"I can't." Something flickers across his face. Pain? Regret? "No one can. The bond is absolute. Your life feeds mine. If you die, the bond breaks and I get dragged back to my prison—or worse, the curse finishes killing me."
"Curse? What curse?"
His laugh sounds bitter and broken. "The one that's been eating me alive for five hundred years. The one that can only be broken by—" He stops. Studies my face like he's seeing someone else. "Tell me your name. Your real name."
"I told you. Mireya Ashcroft."
"Liar." His hand moves to my throat. Not squeezing. Just resting there, warm and threatening. "The name your soul knows. The one you used in the ritual."
I should be terrified. This demon has his hand on my throat. He could kill me with a thought. But through the mark, I feel his desperation. His need to understand what just happened.
"Mireya the Betrayed," I whisper.
His eyes close. His jaw clenches. "Of course you are."
Before I can ask what he means, footsteps thunder in the hallway outside. Lots of them.
Azraeth's head snaps toward the door. His whole body goes tense, like a predator hearing danger.
"No," I breathe. "Not already. They can't have found us already."
The archive doors explode inward. Wood splinters everywhere. I throw my arms over my face to protect it from flying debris.
When I look up, my heart stops.
Kieran stands in the doorway. My ex-fiancé. The man who stole everything from me. He looks wild, his perfect hair messy, his expensive suit wrinkled. Behind him, six security guards point weapons at us—weapons that glow with magic designed to trap demons.
"I knew it!" Kieran shouts. His eyes shine with manic excitement. "I knew you'd be stupid enough to actually try it, Mireya!"
Shame burns through me hotter than the soul mark. Of course he knew. He stole my research. He knows every detail of the ritual I spent three years documenting.
"You followed me," I say.
"I've been watching you for weeks." Kieran steps into the room, careful to avoid the summoning circle. "Waiting for you to do something desperate. And you did! You actually summoned him!" He points at Azraeth like he's a prize at a fair. "Do you know what this means? I'll be the most celebrated researcher in history! Capture them both—alive if possible!"
The guards move forward. Their glowing weapons hum with power that makes my teeth ache.
Azraeth moves so fast I barely see it. One second he's caging me against the wall. The next, he's standing between me and the guards. His massive wings spread wide, blocking their view of me.
"Who," he asks very, very quietly, "is this insect?"
The quiet voice scares me more than shouting would. Through the bond, I feel his rage building like a storm about to break.
"My ex-fiancé," I say. The words taste like poison. "The one who stole everything from me."
Azraeth's smile could cut glass. "How convenient. I was starting to worry I'd lost my touch for creative violence."
Shadows explode from his hands. They move like living things, wrapping around the guards and throwing them through walls. The guards scream. The sound cuts off when they hit stone.
Kieran tries to run. Azraeth catches him by the throat, lifting him off the ground with one hand.
"Listen carefully, insect." His voice drops to a deadly purr. "That woman behind me? She's mine now. Soul-marked and demon-claimed. If you come near her again, I'll show you what five hundred years of torture taught me about breaking men slowly."
He throws Kieran across the room. My ex crashes into his own security team.
But before I can feel even a second of satisfaction, everything changes.
The ceiling explodes.
Not the doors this time. The ceiling. Stone and dust rain down. Through the hole in the roof, something descends.
An angel.
She's beautiful in a way that hurts to look at. White wings spread wide. Armor that shines like starlight. And in her hand, a sword that blazes with pure light.
A sword I somehow recognize, though I've never seen it before.
Through the bond, Azraeth's emotions hit me like a punch. Terror. Rage. And underneath it all, recognition.
"No," he whispers. "Not her."
The angel's eyes lock onto us. Her beautiful face twists with disgust.
"Azraeth, the Demon King," she says. Her voice sounds like bells and breaking glass. "Five hundred years, and you still corrupt innocent souls. This ends tonight."
She raises her sword. The blade burns brighter, hot enough that I feel it from here.
"Seraphina," Azraeth breathes. Through the bond, I feel his fear intensify. "The same one who—"
"Killed your precious Morwenna?" The angel—Seraphina—smiles. "Yes. And now I'll finish what I started. I'll kill her reincarnation too."
Wait. What?
But before I can process those words, Azraeth grabs my wrist. His grip is iron-hard.
"Hold on, little betrayed one," he snarls. "This is going to hurt."
"Wait, what—"
Darkness swallows us whole. The world dissolves into shadow and screaming wind. My stomach lurches. I feel like I'm being torn apart and put back together wrong.
We crash into solid ground somewhere else. I collapse, gasping for air that burns my lungs.
Through watering eyes, I see we're in some kind of abandoned building. Broken windows. Rotting wood. Moonlight streaming through holes in the roof.
Azraeth staggers. His hand clutches his chest where the mark burns. Blood seeps between his fingers—black blood that smokes when it hits the floor.
"She found me," he gasps. "Already. The bond must have—" He stumbles, catches himself on a pillar. "Your mark is broadcasting our location. She'll track us anywhere. And that sword..."
"What sword?" I demand. "What did she mean, Morwenna's reincarnation? What aren't you telling me?"
But before he can answer, his eyes roll back. He collapses.
I catch him—barely. He's massive and heavy, and I'm not strong enough. We both crash to the floor.
His skin feels like ice. Through the bond, I feel his pain. The curse, eating him from the inside. The teleportation drained what little strength he had left.
"No, no, no," I mutter. "Don't you die on me. You don't get to bond my soul to yours and then die!"
His eyes flutter open. Gold fire in the darkness.
"She'll come," he whispers. "That angel... Seraphina... she killed Morwenna five hundred years ago. And she won't stop until she kills you too."
My blood turns to ice. "Why? Why does she want to kill me?"
"Because you're Morwenna reborn." His hand finds mine. Squeezes weakly. "Your soul called to mine because we've done this before. We were bonded five hundred years ago. We loved each other. And the angels murdered her to punish me."
The world tilts sideways.
I'm someone's reincarnation. The demon I just bonded to is my soulmate from a past life I don't remember. And an angel is hunting me to finish a murder she started five centuries ago.
"I don't remember any of that," I say.
"You will." His eyes start to close. "The memories... they'll come back... whether you want them or not..."
His hand goes limp in mine.
Through the bond, I feel his consciousness fading. The curse spreading through him like poison. He's dying, and our brand-new soul bond means I might die with him.
Outside, in the distance, I hear the sound of wings. Coming closer.
I'm trapped in a ruined building with a dying demon. An angel is hunting us. And I just found out I'm the reincarnation of someone I've never heard of.
The soul mark on my chest burns brighter. Like it's trying to tell me something. Like it's waking something up inside me.
Something dark. Something powerful.
Something that remembers everything Mireya Ashcroft has forgotten.
And whatever it is, it's terrified of that angel.
The sound of wings gets closer. Closer.
I look at my hands. They're shaking.
But when I clench them into fists, shadows dance between my fingers.
What am I becoming?