Chapter Four
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Vex
Church is already in session when my phone buzzes.
I’m leaning against the wall in the back corner, half-listening to Blade talk logistics about a shipment coming through next week, when I feel the vibration in my pocket. I pull it out, expecting club business.
It’s Hannah.
Tessa’s hurt. Something’s wrong with her. Please. I’m outside.
My entire body goes still. Every instinct I have screams at me to move, to run, to get to her now. But Blade is still talking, and church protocol demands I wait.
Fuck protocol.
I’m already moving toward the door when Blade’s voice cuts through the room. “Vex. Where the hell are you going?”
“Emergency,” I say, not stopping.
“Sit your ass down. We’re not—”
The door to church bursts open, and Hannah storms in, her face flushed, her eyes wild. She doesn’t care she’s interrupting, doesn’t care every brother in the room is staring at her. She looks right at me.
“Something’s wrong with Tessa,” she says, her voice shaking. “She won’t tell me what happened, but I saw there’s something on her shoulder. Something’s wrong.”
The temperature in the room drops. I can feel Prophet’s attention snap to Hannah, feel Blade’s eyes on me.
“What do you mean, ‘something on her shoulder’?” Blade asks, his voice careful.
Hannah wraps her arms around herself. “A mark. It looks like a tattoo, but it’s black and it’s moving under her skin. She tried to hide it, but I saw it when she reached for something in the storeroom.”
Prophet is on his feet. “What did it look like? The pattern?”
“I don’t know, I only saw part of it. Spirals, maybe? Geometric?” Hannah looks between us, clearly fighting tears. “She looked terrified. And there were bandages on her other shoulder. Like something clawed her.”
The room erupts. Brothers talking over each other, some dismissive, some concerned. But I’m not listening to any of them. I’m already calculating how fast I can get to Tessa’s house, what weapons I’ll need, how many seconds it will take to break down her door if she won’t let me in.
Because I know what Hannah’s describing. I’ve spent the last two days trying to convince myself I was wrong, that the wrongness clinging to Tessa was only my paranoia.
But I wasn’t wrong.
“Enough,” Blade’s voice cuts through the chaos. He looks at me. “You know what this is.”
It’s not a question.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
“Then you’re with me. Prophet, you too.” Blade stands, church forgotten. “Hannah, you’re coming to show us exactly what you saw, and I want to keep you safe.”
“I want to help,” Hannah says immediately.
“You are helping,” Blade tells her. “By showing us what we’re dealing with.” His words sound harsh, but as he moves to wrap Hannah in his arms, I can see them both relax.
Blade and Hannah even each other out, a perfect match, the opposite sides of the same coin. She loves him and he loves her so much, he’d burn down the world to keep her safe.
Ten minutes later, we’re on our bikes, Hannah riding behind Blade, heading toward Tessa’s house. The sun is setting, casting long shadows across the snow, and I can feel the temperature dropping. Not just the normal November cold, it’s something else. Something ancient stirring.
I’ve felt this before. Centuries ago, in the old country, when things that should have stayed buried clawed their way to the surface.
Don’t let her be hurt. Don’t let it have hurt her.
The thought loops through my head, a prayer to gods I stopped believing in long before I became this. Tessa is stubborn, brave, and beautiful. If she has been marked by something that could kill her in a dozen different ways, and she didn’t come to us.
Didn’t come to me.
It stings more than it should. But I understand it. She wants to stay out of our world, wants to keep her distance from the monsters. I can’t blame her for that.
Even if it might get her killed.
We pull up to her little blue rental house, and I’m off my bike before the engine dies. The others aren’t behind me, but I’m faster, already on her porch, already smelling it.
The wrongness is stronger here. It’s soaked into the wood, into the air itself. And underneath it, I catch her scent, and it’s filled with fear, pain and determination.
There is a symbol on her porch, half-covered by a doormat. I crouch and pull the mat aside, studying the pattern. It’s the same one from the photos Prophet showed us. The same one from stories I hoped I’d never see made real.
“Fuck,” I breathe.
Blade and Prophet join me on the porch. Prophet kneels beside the symbol, his hand hovering over it without touching. His face goes pale.
“This is a claiming mark,” he says quietly. “Old magic. Older than vampires. Older than shifters.” He looks up at me. “Older than angels.”
“How old?” Blade asks.
“Before the flood,” Prophet says. “Before most of what humanity remembers. This is ancient.”
I stand, my hands clenched into fists. “We need to see the mark on her.”
Blade nods and pounds on the door. “Tessa! Open up. It’s Blade.”
Silence.
He pounds again, harder. “Tessa, we know something’s wrong. Hannah told us. Open the damn door.”
More silence, then finally, her voice, muffled through the wood: “Go away.”
“Not happening,” Blade calls back. “You can open this door, or I can break it down. Your choice.”
“You can’t just—this is my house—”
“Open. The. Door.”
There’s a long pause, then the sound of locks turning. The door cracks open, and Tessa glares out at us, her face pale, dark circles under her eyes. She’s wearing an oversized sweatshirt, and I can see the edge of a bandage peeking out from under the collar.
She looks exhausted. Terrified. And so damn beautiful it makes my dead heart ache.
“What do you want?” she asks, her voice sharp.
“To see the mark,” I say before Blade can answer.
Her eyes snap to mine, and for a moment, we just stare at each other. I can hear her heartbeat, fast and frightened. Can smell the adrenaline in her blood. Can see the way her pupils dilate when she looks at me.
“No,” she says.
“Tessa—” Blade starts.
“No.” She starts to close the door, but I move faster than she can track, my hand on the wood, holding it open.
“Something marked you,” I say, keeping my voice gentle even though every instinct is screaming at me to check her for injuries, to make sure she’s safe. “Something dangerous. We need to see it.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“I handled it fine on my own.”
“Did you?” I lean closer, lowering my voice. “Because from where I’m standing, you look like you haven’t slept in two days. You look scared. And whatever attacked you left a mark that’s black on your skin. That’s not ‘handling it fine.’”
Her jaw tightens. “How do you know what it looks like?”
“Because I’ve seen it before,” I lie smoothly. I haven’t seen it, but I know what it should look like based on the stories. “A long time ago. And everyone who bore that mark died.”
The color drains from her face.
“Let us help you,” I say, gentler now. “Please.”
For a moment, I think she’ll refuse again. But then her shoulders sag, and she steps back, opening the door wider.
“Fine,” she says. “But you have five minutes, then you leave.”
The others file into her small living room, but I’m a vampire and I need an invitation.
Tessa frowns, head tilting as she notices I’m not following. “What now?”
“You need to invite me in.”
Her eyes widen. “That’s... a real thing?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t glitter in the sun?”
A rough laugh escapes before I can stop it. “No. Absolutely not.”
She squints at me, studying me like she’s deciding whether this is another joke at her expense. Then, slowly, she gives me a crooked smile.
“Vex,” she says, voice softer, “please come into my home.”
The words slide over my skin like a warm hand. I step through the doorway, and her scent hits me, vanilla, coffee, a hint of something uniquely her I’ve memorized over two years in Betty’s Café.
The place is small but warm, with soft lighting, mismatched furniture, and a stack of dog-eared books on the coffee table. It feels lived-in. Safe.
A stark contrast to what has marked her now.
It smells like home.
No. Focus.
Tessa stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed defensively. “Well?”
“The mark,” Blade says. “We need to see it.”
She hesitates, then slowly pulls off her sweatshirt. Underneath, she’s wearing a tank top, and I can see the bandages on her front shoulder. But it’s the other shoulder, the back one, that makes Prophet suck in a sharp breath.
The mark is exactly what I feared. Not a tattoo but black frost spreading across her shoulder blade in an intricate pattern that matches the symbol on her porch. It’s not static, as I watch, it pulses faintly, like something alive.
“May I?” I ask, stepping closer.
She nods stiffly.
I reach out, my fingers hovering just above the mark. The cold radiating from it is intense, unnatural. But underneath it, I can feel her warmth, her life. The scent of her blood calls to me, strong and sweet, and I have to fight down the hunger that rises in response.
Not now. Not ever. She’s not food. She’s—
She’s everything.
The thought hits me like a physical blow, and I force it away. I can’t afford to think like that. Can’t afford to want her the way I do when she’s in danger.
My fingers brush the edge of the mark, and she flinches. Not from pain, I can tell by the way her breath catches, by the spike in her heartbeat. She feels it too, this electric current that runs between us whenever we touch.
I withdraw my hand quickly, stepping back before I do something stupid like pull her against me and promise to keep her safe forever.
Prophet moves forward, examining the mark without touching. His face is grim.
“This is a seal-mark,” he says. “A claiming. Whatever left this on you... it’s marked you as its own.”
“Its own what?” Tessa demands.
“Anchor. Vessel. Prey.” Prophet looks at her with something close to pity. “All of the above, depending on what it wants.”