The Soul's Mark: HUNTED (The Soul's Mark #2)

Everyone was too stunned to move. This wasn’t Eric. Eric cared. He laughed. He joked. What right did he have to be a jerk to Megan? Sure, she had yelled but… Amelia’s blood started to boil all over again, and she was the first to come to her senses. She got up from her chair and started towards the door after Eric.

She didn’t make it far before Mitchell said, “Amelia, let him go.”

Amelia swiveled to face him. “Mitch, I…”

“I’m not asking,” Mitchell said, cutting her off. “He’s my son and I’m not going to have you coddling him whenever he throws a tantrum.”

Amelia hesitated and thought about ignoring Mitchell. Someone had to talk some sense into Eric, and he obviously wasn’t going to do it. But then she looked at him. Really looked at him, and she suddenly realized what he was doing. Why he had hardly spoken over the last hour. It was all right there on his face. He was testing her. Letting her lead. Giving her the chance she had wanted.

Deep down she knew running after Eric wasn’t the most important thing. He’d come around. She knew that. Eric was probably surfing through Megan’s thoughts right this second and he’d see the truth. Mitchell held out his hand to her, and his face lit up with pride when she took it. You’re doing the right thing, he sent silently, and she took the chair beside him.

“Wow, he’s seriously been hanging out with Millie too much,” Angelle said under her breath, and then she blushed. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.” She gave a bashful look to Amelia and said, “No offence.”

There were a few chuckles and giggles, and Amelia rolled her eyes. “Sure,” she said with as much sarcasm as she could put into it, which just led to more giggles. Even Megan was giggling through her sniffles.

“He’ll come around, Meg,” Tyler offered. He got off the couch and padded over to Megan with an outstretched hand. “Eric doesn’t know how to hold a grudge.”

Megan took Tyler’s hand, and once on her feet, she went straight to Angelle’s open arms. Again, Amelia had that annoying I’m such a hypocrite feeling. Since Mitchell had spoken up, the rest of her family dropped their suspicions, and she realized suddenly that their initial suspicions were most likely based on her reactions. They looked to Mitchell for answers and, by extension of him, they also looked to her. If she freaked out, they would follow her lead with the belief that she was on the same page as Mitchell.

Amelia took a long deep breath, trying to erase the embarrassment she felt, and said as calmly as she could, “Megan, I know this is hard, but I promise you, Eric will come around. The bond won’t let him stay away, and once he calms down you can bet that he’ll search your memories to see if what you are saying is true.” Amelia gave Megan her warmest smile, and the crevasses along Megan’s forehead smoothed to small wrinkles. “We need you to tell us everything you know.”

Megan shifted her gaze between the empty doorway and Amelia a few times before she finally said, “Okay,” with a small bob of her head. She glanced at the empty doorway again and let out a soft hissing sigh, and then she asked, “Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning, when you first met Cole,” Mitchell encouraged, bringing Megan’s focus away from the missing Eric and the empty door. “Any detail, no matter how small, could help.”

Megan chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, and Angelle tightened the arm that was draped around Megan’s shoulder. That was all the encouragement she needed to launch into her story.

Amelia hung onto every word, letting her senses loose, searching for anything that may hint at a lie in her words. Megan started from the beginning, when Cole had moved in next door to her in the sixth grade. They became fast friends from their first meeting. They started dating in high school and that was when she found out about witches. She hadn’t believed him, figuring he was just toying with her, until she had met his parents.

“They invited me over for dinner,” Megan said. “I was sitting at the table, and the food smelled so good. His Mom had made a turkey with all the fixings.” A slight smile touched her lips, and her eyes clouded over in memory. “I had offered to help her bring the food in, but she just smiled at me. Then suddenly we all had steaming food on our plates.”

“Okay, that’s kind of cool,” Tyler said. He grinned and tilted his head back to look up at her from his seat on the floor, snuggled against Angelle’s legs. He fixed his eyes back on the notebook on his lap and went back to jotting down notes from the story.

“Yeah, I guess,” Megan said with a shrug. “But at the time I was so freaked out that I ran from the house screaming.” She let out a soft laugh. “After that, I avoided Cole like the plague. Whenever I saw him, I’d hide. Behind a bush or I’d climb a tree, anything so he wouldn’t see me. It worked for a few months. He had stopped calling and dropping by, so I thought I’d gotten rid of him.”

The laughter washed from Megan’s brow, and her eyes took on a vacant look. “It was about two months later when my Mom took off, and the night she left, Cole climbed through my bedroom window while I was sleeping. He was with Dustin, one of the guys you killed tonight, and Stephanie, the girl that was there,” Megan said to Mitchell. “I was so broken up about my Mom that when I saw Cole, I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t care what had happened before, and when he explained that I was a witch, I just believed him. He told me that the others were witches, too, but honestly, even after we turned eighteen and our powers became activated, Cole and I were the only ones that ever used magic.”

“Let me guess,” Eric said bitterly. “He climbed through your window and you fell for him all over again.”

Amelia let out a groan. She hadn’t noticed him come back in the room, and by the look on his face, he was still in a mood. She glanced back at Megan just as she shrugged away Angelle’s arm.

“Well, kind of, yeah,” Megan said to Eric in a tone that said it was a stupid question. “We’d been friends for years, and I missed him. He was just trying to help me. I didn’t know about you, Eric.”

Eric snorted and narrowed his eyes at Megan. But before he could make some comment that Amelia was sure would be uncalled for, she said, “Eric, you aren’t being fair.”

Angelle, Erin, and Lola were all glaring at Eric so fiercely that it was as if they were just waiting for him to say something nasty to Megan. It was at that moment that Amelia realized they had completely accepted Megan into the family. She recognized the look. Although she had never been on the receiving end, she had seen it given many times in her defense.

Megan defused the tension. “It’s okay, Millie,” she said, lightly shifting her gaze away from Eric. “He’s just trying to find something to be mad at because he knows he was wrong.”

Eric shuffled side to side and jammed his hands into his pockets. “I um, I’m…”

“Oh, shut up, Eric,” Megan huffed, cutting him off. “I’ve felt you searching and listening in since you left, so if you’re finished acting like a moron, you can sit down. Otherwise come back when you’re ready to actually help.”

Amelia’s jaw dropped, and from the corner of her eye, she saw that Mitchell was having the same blown over reaction. How could Megan speak so freely after only a few days of dealing with the bond? Eric clearly wasn’t happy, so why wasn’t she screaming in pain?

To Amelia’s further surprise, Eric flushed red as a beet and grinned. “I’m sorry I’m such a dumbass.” He ran a hand through his messy leaf-green hair and gave Megan a heart melting puppy dog look, jutting out his bottom lip. “Forgive me?”

“Already over it,” Megan said with a bright smile.

Eric didn’t hesitate; he rushed over to the couch, dropped down beside Megan, and quickly pulled her close.

“What the hell just happened?” Tyler asked, wide-eyed and stunned. Then he looked at Mitchell, expectantly. “How did that not hurt her?”

“I knew she was right,” Eric said and kissed the top of Megan’s curly red head. “I was being an idiot. I never doubted she was right; I just didn’t want to accept it. The pain only comes into play when she doesn’t agree with what I think is right.” He grinned—his trademark, sexy half grin. “I’m not too proud to admit that I’m never right.” Eric’s vibrant green eyes sparkled as he said the last words.

“But Mitch and Millie,” Tyler protested.

“Never agree on anything,” Luke said with a rumbling chuckle.

Erin was the first to let a giggle slip, but it sounded more like a high-pitched squeal than a giggle as she tried to hold it in. That was all it took for everyone to erupt in laughter. Amelia tried to glare at them and give a so not funny kind of look, but she failed miserably. Her own laughter bubbled up and burst out. It wasn’t as if she could deny it. She rarely agreed with Mitchell on anything. Could their pigheadedness really be the cause for all their troubles in the past? She laughed even harder when a memory of her mother popped into her head. “Amelia, you wouldn’t be grounded right now if you weren’t so stubborn. It never hurts to admit when you are wrong,” she had said so many years ago.

“Amazing,” Lola said through her laughs, pulling Amelia from her memory. She was looking at Eric and Megan with obvious respect.

It took a few more moments, but when the laughter died down, Erin asked, “You’re mom took off?” She wiped tears from her eyes and rubbed at her aching sides. The question effectively stopped the remaining giggles, bringing everyone back on track. “Like, just left you?”

“Yup,” Megan said. “I haven’t heard from her since. Cole’s parents took me in when child services tried to put me into foster care, and shortly after that, the bank took our house.” Megan hesitated for a minute. She glanced at Eric as if she was trying to decide how much to tell with him there, and then she sighed loudly. “It was about a year later that I started seeing the images of Mitchell, and that’s when I broke up with Cole. We stayed close friends, and his parents taught me about being a witch. They trained us together, made us study spells and history so when we turned eighteen and our powers triggered, we’d know how to use them.”