Chapter 46 The Claiming Mark Part 2

Chapter 46 The Claiming Mark Part 2
Vladimir

The fluorescent overhead light flickered and I felt heat and then a burn right through my chest. Then warmth travelling in my veins in a body that was always cold. I made no sound. I couldn’t. I didn’t understand what was happening but I knew it was of great importance.

“Mae Vlad…” she whispered so soft I almost missed it. My eyebrows raised in shock. She had said My Vlad. Or mine in Latin. My mind was racing.

My first thought was “How on earth could a girl who I had never met before and who was barely conscious even know my name?

My second was “How the hell did a four year old know Latin?”

My last thought was, did a little girl barely holding onto life just Claim me? Declare me hers???

Her hand moved off my chest, slipping limply to lie once more by her side. She looked at me, eyes drowsy but as if memorising my face. “Mae Vlad…Kustodis…My Wolfie…safe now” she murmured to me.

I stared in a daze at the little girl. Kustodis Also Latin. As in Guardian??? Saviour??? What the hell did she mean?

She tugged with the hand still on my wrist. I moved closer. Her fingers trembled. She wasn’t gripping me. She was anchoring herself. Then she swallowed once more, and let go, head falling back on the pillow, eyes fluttering closed. 

The monitor steadied. The numbers climbed. Her breathing deepened. She slept. I simply sat there, stunned, my wrist still against her lips, even though she was no longer drinking, my heart trying to tear out of my chest. 

When Mara returned a while later, she found him standing at the window, staring at his own reflection. She looked at the sleeping girl in shock, checking the readings on the monitors. “She’s stable,” Mara said. “Breathing on her own. No more bleeding.” 

“I am glad she is recovering.” I said. I looked at the sleeping girl, her breathing easy now and more colour on her cheeks and then down at my wrist. The cut was closed. Sealed over. No scar. No evidence of what had happened here.
“You saved her,” she said. 

“No,” I said voice quiet correcting her. “She chose me to do so.” Mara looked at me puzzled but I offered nothing more.

I didn’t mention what had happened or the mark or that a four year old had possibly reverse imprinted on a centuries old vampire as it was still beyond me how that could have happened.

I especially didn’t mention how she had used the demunitive version of my name when she claimed me. “Mae Vlad…” I could still hear her whisper when she had branded me.

I didn’t sleep that night, I couldn’t. I kept seeing her and still felt a warmth under my skin where her hand had been. I waited for dawn. At first light, I pulled my shirt aside. Over my heart, inked into skin that had never held ink, were two wings. Open. Feathered. Symmetrical. 

It wasn’t a scar or a brand. It was a tattoo burnt into my skin by her small hand. Angel wings? What the hell was she???

I couldn’t give the incident more attention as I was dealing with an urgent call from the Elders. The supernatural world had felt a blast of Power the next town over from where the hospital was. It was there for a while and then it wasn’t. I had been called upon to investigate, make sure it was not a threat.

It was a full week before I could return to the small rural hospital. By that time the girl and her parents were long gone. I never saw her again. Mara was certain the parents had used a false name. She told me they had had her discharged and removed from the hospital the moment she was stable.

The girl had disappeared but her mark had remained. No one could explain it. Not witches. Not seers. Not vampires. Not anyone. And for fifteen years it had sat over my heart. Silent. Meaningless. Until today.

Another pulse raced through it. Hotter. Stronger. Alive. I frowned. "What are you trying to tell me?" I murmured. The mark offered no answers. Only another wave of heat.

The unease in my chest deepened. Something was coming. Of that I was absolutely certain. Whether it was connected to the Dark Wizard. The Elders. Or something else entirely. I didn't know.

But instincts had kept me alive for four hundred and fifty years. And every one of them was screaming at me now. Pay attention.

The mark pulsed again. I looked toward the front of the estate. Toward the long drive leading to the manor. Waiting. Watching.

Certain that before this day was over, something important was going to change.