Page 14 of Soulmarked

Then she bolted.

I pursued immediately, aware of the hunter following us both. The vampire led us on a chase through back alleys and service corridors, moving with inhuman speed. But I kept pace, and so did our leather-clad friend.

The chase ended in a dead-end alley. Classic mistake. The vampire turned, trapped between brick walls and my advance.

“You,” she hissed, her crimson eyes narrowing with recognition. “You're the one they've been warning us about.”

I didn't know what she meant, but I could feel the hunter watching from somewhere above. Let him watch. This ended now.

The vampire struck first, launching herself at me with supernatural speed. Most humans would have been dead instantly, but I wasn't most humans.

I moved on pure instinct, sidestepping her attack with a fluid grace that surprised even me. Something was happening inside me, a power surging through my veins that I couldn't explain but couldn't deny. My blood sang with it, electric and foreign.

The impact of her missed strike tore my shirt slightly at the collar, exposing a small portion of the mark on my chest. The vampire froze, her eyes widening as she fixated on it.

“That mark,” she gasped, backing away slowly. Her voice dropped to a whisper, fear replacing hostility. “You're Cade Cross. The rumors were true after all.” She glanced around frantically, as if looking for an escape. “He never said you'd be this strong already.”

She tried one last desperate move, attempting to scale the wall and escape over the rooftops. But I was ready. My hand caught her ankle, yanking her back to earth. The movement felt natural, powered by something beyond normal strength.

“He said you'd come,” she gasped, eyes wide with terror. “Said you'd be the one.”

I didn't let her finish. My training took over, muscle memory from years of hunting these creatures. But before I could end it, she moved with desperate speed, bolting deeper into the maze of alleys and abandoned buildings.

The chase led us through narrowing passages, each turn taking us further from the city's pulse. I kept pace, my footsteps echoing off brick walls that seemed to press closer with eachblock. The vampire was running, yes, but something felt wrong about it. Too deliberate. Too planned.

The final turn brought me into a narrow alley, high walls on both sides, plenty of shadows for cover, and absolutely no witnesses. Perfect. Or perfectly wrong, depending on how you looked at it.

I stopped in the alley's center, every instinct screaming that I'd just walked into a trap. “Well?” I called out, keeping my voice steady. “Are we doing this or not?”

The silence that followed was absolute. No distant traffic, no city sounds, not even the usual rats scurrying through garbage. Just the sound of my own breathing and the faint drip of water from somewhere above.

Then something moved at the alley's mouth.

What stepped into view wasn't the vampire I'd been chasing, or at least, not entirely. The female vampire's form seemed to ripple and distort, something else moving beneath her skin like oil under water. Her limbs elongated, joints bending at angles that defied anatomy. Her face became a roadmap of scar tissue and exposed bone, fangs protruding past lips that weren't quite lips anymore.

But it was her eyes that stopped me cold. Where vampire red should have been, her eyes had flooded completely black—glossy, opaque darkness that swallowed all light, with no whites or irises visible. Ancient intelligence burned in that darkness, filled with a recognition that made my blood run cold. This thing knew me.

“He said you'd be pretty.” It hissed through the vampire's distorted mouth, its voice like gravel being ground to dust.

My fingers moved toward my gun, but I already knew I'd be too late. The possessed vampire moved like liquid shadow, crossing the distance between us before I could clear my holster.Pain exploded through my ribs as it slammed me against the alley wall, the impact driving the air from my lungs in a rush.

My head cracked against the brick, vision blurring with starbursts of white and black. I heard my gun clatter somewhere out of reach, the sound oddly distant through the ringing in my ears.

Claws like heated needles dug into my shoulders, piercing through my suit jacket and into flesh. I bit back a cry of pain, feeling warm blood begin to soak into my shirt. The creature's strength was impossible.

It leaned in close, its breath carrying the sweet-rot smell of ancient graves. “He wants you alive,” it murmured, almost tenderly. “But he didn't say unharmed.”

The impact had torn my shirt further, fully revealing the mark on my chest. Its black eyes fixed on the sigil, which pulsed faintly in response to the creature's proximity.

“Who's 'he'?” I managed to ask through gritted teeth.

The thing's lipless mouth stretched into what might have been a smile, those pitch-black eyes never leaving the mark on my chest. “You don't even know what you are, do you?” Its claws dug deeper, drawing a hiss of pain from me.

Questions burned in my mind, but they'd have to wait. The creature's grip was crushing, its claws seeking vital points within my body. I needed to move, needed to fight back, but my body felt like it was moving through molasses. Some kind of venom, maybe, or something worse.

“You know,” I said, forcing a smile despite the pain, “if he wanted to talk, he could have just sent an email.”

The creature's laugh scraped against my eardrums like rusted nails, black eyes glittering with malice. “Brave. Stupid, but brave. I see why he chose you.”

---