Page 7 of Soulmarked

“Ah, shite,” I muttered, already mapping the coming attack in my mind. “Should've seen this coming.”

The second wolf crashed through the window behind me in an explosion of glass and twisted metal, its trajectory perfectly calculated to cut off my escape. I pivoted, but the space had already collapsed.

Sometimes being lethal wasn't enough. Sometimes the monsters just had better position.

The glass hadn't even finished falling before both wolves were converging from opposite directions, moving with the coordinated precision of predators who'd hunted together for years. In that heartbeat before impact, a stray thought crossed my mind: Eli would have laughed his arse off seeing me backed into a corner by the same tactics we'd once perfected together.

“Right then,” I said, adjusting my grip on both knife and gun with deadly purpose. “Let's make this interesting. I've got places to be, people to see, beers to drink.”

I was bleeding from a dozen wounds, each one carefully cataloged in my mind. My jacket clung to my side, saturated where the wolf's claws had found purchase. The cuts were shallow but something deeper than my patience was beginning to fray.

Time to end this dance.

“Getting tired, hunter?” The alpha's voice dripped with false concern. “You're slowing down.”

I let exhaustion show in my posture. Every predator instinctively recognizes weakness, and every hunter knows exactly how to manufacture it.

“Maybe,” I muttered, staggering back a step. “Maybe you're right.”

The wolf's eyes ignited with savage anticipation. This was the moment it had been waiting for. Its massive body tensed, muscles coiling beneath that thick fur, preparing for what it believed would be the killing blow.

I counted the heartbeats. One. Two.

It launched forward, a mountain of fur and fury blotting out the moonlight, casting a shadow that swallowed me whole. In that suspended moment between life and death, time crystallized into perfect clarity. I could see every detail, the individual yellowed fangs, saliva trailing in viscous stringsfrom its open maw, the cold intelligence burning behind those inhuman eyes.

My hand found the remote trigger in my pocket, thumb pressing down with calm certainty.

“Gotcha.” My lips curled into a smirk. “Always carry a Plan B, fuzzball.”

The warehouse floor erupted in a mechanical symphony of my design.

Steel cables, meticulously concealed beneath scattered debris. Each strand had been hand-treated with silver nitrate, woven through the braided metal with the care of a master craftsman. The trap caught the wolf mid-leap, wrapping around its limbs and torso.

The howl that tore from its throat wasn't anything close to animal. The silver began its alchemical work immediately, burning through fur and flesh with a sound like meat on a hot griddle. The stench filled the warehouse, scorched hair and cooking flesh with a chemical undertone that spoke of corruption being purified.

I didn't pause to admire my handiwork. The second wolf was still in play, and a trapped predator was the most dangerous kind. I moved, silver knife held in a reverse grip that would deliver maximum penetrating force.

The wolf's eyes locked onto mine as I approached. Even through the agony, even with death breathing down its neck, that terrible intelligence remained undimmed. It knew what was coming.

“Do it,” it growled through clenched teeth, defiant even in defeat. “Finish it.”

I obliged.

The knife slid between the alpha's ribs, finding the heart with the accuracy that came from killing monsters before most men learned to shave. The wolf's body bucked against the restraints,every muscle and sinew fighting against the inevitable. Black blood spread across the concrete floor in a slow, pulsing pool.

It should have been over. Another monster down, another night's work completed, another entry in the ledger of hunts that defined my existence.

Then the body began to change.

The transformation wasn't like the usual shift from wolf to human. This was wrong, jerky, unnatural. The fur receded like it was being burned away, revealing pale flesh beneath. But it was what I saw on its chest that made my blood run cold.

A mark. No, not a mark, a sigil. The lines seemed to writhe and twist, even as the flesh around them grew pale with death. Complex geometries that hurt to look at directly, symbols that violated the natural laws of our reality.

“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph,” I breathed, taking an involuntary step back.

I knew that sigil. I'd seen it in books older than Christianity, in texts that Skye kept locked away in her most secure vaults. The kind of books that whispered back when you read them.

A demon mark. But not just any demon, this was old magic, the kind that predated the wars between Heaven and Hell.

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