Marked: A Two Halves Novella Read online

  Marked: A Two Halves Novella

  Book One

  by Marta Szemik

  Copyright 2012 © Marta Szemik

  Published by MyLit Publishing

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Allromanceebooks.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Publisher’s Note

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher and author.

  Warning: This book contains adult content.

  ISBN-978-0-9878772-2-2

  To Maya and Alex

  who marked my heart the day they were born.

  Shapeshifter Xander will be stuck in oblivion between good and evil until he is marked—either with the sphere that will identify him as a servant of the underworld, or with the water mark, working for the keepers of humans, vampires, and warlocks.

  One decision will mark him and his twin sister Mira equally. She is in love with a man bearing the water mark and wants Xander to follow the path of the good. But Xander loves a black witch, a minion of the underworld. All he has to do to join her forever is kill.

  After all, there’s something good about being bad . . .

  Table of Contents

  Marked: A Two Halves Novella

  -Beginning

  -Middle

  -End

  Sneak Peak at Two Halves

  About the Author

  Other Books by this Author

  Acknowledgments

  * * *

  One more inch, and his neck would snap.

  The glow of his orange eyes had faded—he was close to death. My hold tightened on the demon. He had to pay for what he’d done. At sunrise, the walls of a cave like this one would glisten with moisture, lightened by the sun from an opening suitable for a groundhog. But now, even the moon couldn’t breathe through the hole my sister crawled into, following a demon who had killed humans for the fun of it. I told her trying to catch him wouldn’t be a good idea but did she listen to me? Of course not, and now she was trapped.

  Death scattered across the floor with bones and unrecognizable flesh remains. I tasted the stench of decay and lessened the frequency of my breaths.

  The mark of the sphere on my left wrist glowed as it began to appear, and I felt my mouth curve up in a smirk. The orange sparks of the imprint faded and brightened like flickering ends of fire. The heat burned. I’d been waiting for this moment for a long time. Finally, we’d know which side we would serve, and there was something good about being bad.

  My sister, Mira, disagreed. “Xander, you’re making a life decision for both of us. Look.” She turned her head to the left. The magic light-ropes binding her to the back wall of the cave reddened the skin of her hands and feet, but I saw the glow of the sphere imprinting on her wrist, as well.

  “It’s better than living in a void.” I clenched my jaw, determined. Ever since Ma found us as babes lying side by side on the forest floor, staring into the dense crisscross of tree branches overhead, we’d been floating between the realms of good and evil for more than twenty years.

  “You know I’ll follow you wherever you go, but I don’t think the underworld is the answer.” Mira’s coo soothed me. “We have a choice, Xander.”

  “And this is it.”

  Once I killed this demon, the sphere would define us forever. There’d be no doubt where our alliance lay: with the underworld, instead of serving the keepers who protected humans, vampires, and warlocks.

  I flexed to constrict the demon’s air flow. The burning of the oval on my wrist spread, and the heat transferred to my chest, as if imprinting on my heart. I greatly preferred being marked with the sphere than lying motionless in the woods, waiting for something to happen. If it weren’t for Ma, we’d still be there, stuck in oblivion, unable to learn how to grow. Now the obscurity that challenged us was emotional, not physical, and I’d had enough.

  Before the tension could snap the demon’s neck, the cave filled with a purplish mist. I inhaled and smelled lilac and lavender. The new trespasser couldn’t be a demon from the underworld—those creatures stank like rotten eggs and dirty socks.

  A man appeared between Mira and me. He stood tall with feet apart, arms at his sides. A blue glow swirled around his palms before condensing into round balls of power. Holding my gaze with his purple eyes, he lifted his chin. “The sphere is not your calling, Xander,” he whispered. “Let the demon go.”

  I hesitated, focusing on my hold. The demon would be dead in less than a minute.

  “Let him go,” his hushed voice said in my mind. My grip loosened immediately, as if my arm listened to his request, instead of my mind. His words seemed to penetrate my brain and analyze my thoughts.

  “What’s it to you?” I said, playing the skeptic, though my usual tone sounded less harsh.

  “I know what you’re struggling with. I’ve been there.”

  “And you are . . . ?” I prompted.

  “I’m Eric. They call me the evil-bender.” He bent his arms up so the blue spheres of light rested on his palms. Their electricity sizzled, and sparks from one connected to the other. The flickers zipped outward as far as two feet when his fingers twirled the lights. The sleeves of his turtleneck slipped back, revealing three wavy lines on his left wrist. The water mark: the sign of the keepers.

  “Mind your own business, evil-bender,” I blurted.

  I sensed Mira studying Eric. Her eyes glistened with lust. The emitted estrogen from her body danced through the room. She hadn’t said a word, but I knew what she was thinking. I could feel my twin’s pain, share her happiness, and dwell on her sorrows. Our inability to control our emotions was because we weren’t marked.

  Now, her mellow eyes, accelerated pulse, and bitten lower lip made me want to puke. She may as well have said, “Here I am. Have your way with me.”

  Women! I rolled my eyes. She’d been swayed by his charm and style the minute he appeared. And if I killed this demon now, she didn’t have a chance with the evil-bender. She’d be welcomed to the dark side, while Eric was one of the good guys. They couldn’t be together. That’s what I saw in her eyes when the evil-bender showed up: she finally had a chance to be with someone like her.

  In my heart, I knew Mira did not belong to the underworld, and I wasn’t ready to force her that way. Yes, the decision was quick, but I couldn’t overlook the immediate connection they’d obviously felt. A connection I yearned for. Eric’s testosterone blended with Mira’s hormones and the cave was rapidly becoming a pheromone heaven.

  I loved my sister too much to bind her to the dark side. A decision that affected us equally had to be made in unison. Mira wanted to join the keepers. The choice had always been clear to her, not to me.

  “How do you know who we are?” Mira asked. The question sounded so automated I narrowed my brows and cocked my head to the side.

  The evil-bender kept his eyes on me—as he should, because I wouldn’t let him cross me. “Because I was unmarked once,” he answered. “Your place is with the keepers, not
in the underworld.”

  Fury flowed through my body. Who was he to say where we belonged? It was our decision. I tightened my grip on the demon’s neck until he passed out, then let his body thump to the rocky ground; it would take hours before he woke. The sphere vanished from my wrist, unable to imprint.

  My gaze flew to our newcomer. I spread my legs, flexed my knees for a better launch, and hunched forward, baring my fangs.

  Eric’s palms lost their glow, and his shoulders drooped.

  “What? You afraid?” I goaded.

  “No, but I have priorities.” He turned to face Mira. “Hey, sugar.”

  “Hi.”

  I rolled my eyes again, surprised she could speak at all. Her gooey grin would have suited her better if she had shifted to a teenager hitting puberty—something she’d experienced five to ten years back.

  “Let’s get you out of these.” He pointed to the magical light-cuffs.

  “I already tried. They’ll burn you,” I warned.

  “That’s why I’m here, you nitwit,” Eric murmured, his eyes on Mira.

  The remark boiled the blood in my veins. I was certain I turned green, the way I always did when rage consumed me. The evil-bender pushed me in ways only Mira and a handful of people knew how to.

  “Xander, don’t,” Mira pleaded, sensing my anger.

  But it was too late. The evil-bender would get what he had coming. First he interrupted our marking, and now he was throwing punches at the most powerful shape-shifters in the world. I hadn’t met anyone else like us, so I guessed that statistic might be inaccurate, but still, we weren’t the usual demons trailing an acidic stench and burning with their claws. We didn’t know exactly what our calling was, but it would take only one kill for us to begin our work in the underworld.

  What work would there be for us otherwise? Trying to stop the demons from ruining the world without killing them? How exactly were we supposed to gain the alternate—the water mark? We’d tried and tried, and nothing worked. The only reasonable solution was to give in to the first kill. I wondered how the evil-bender got his, but the fury inside me boiled and I imagined it steam through my ears, evaporating logical thoughts.

  I launched myself toward the evil-bender—only to be stopped in my tracks. Stunned, I looked down to my feet, now embedded in blue-glowing soil. Momentum carried my body forward until my nose almost touched the ground, then I sprang back to stand tall, sputtering, “What the hell?”

  “You’re not marked yet, you little monster, which means I have power over you,” Eric drawled.

  “Take it off.” I kept my eyes on the blue glow. My ears flattened against my head and I tightened my jaw until one of my molars cracked—something I instantly regretted; I hated tooth pain.

  “Hold still,” Eric whispered to Mira as he removed one strand of the magical light, then another.

  “How did you . . .” I felt my jaw drop.

  “Years of practice.”

  I pictured his mouth curving up in a smirk. Of course it was all for show; Mira would love it.

  “You all right, sugar?” he asked, taking her hand to help her step out of the magical bindings.

  “I’d be better if you stopped calling me sugar,” she said.

  There was my sister! I stood taller, squaring my shoulders. Ha! She’s not as easy as she looks, is she? Mira would have smacked me if she knew what I was thinking. Then I caught her dirty look. Shit! She did know what I was thinking. That was the problem with twins, especially shape shifter twins.

  “All right, what do you want me to call you?”

  “Mira—just Mira.” She fluttered her lashes.

  Jeez! Is this really happening in front of me? I pointed to the blue glow at my feet. “Do you mind?”

  Eric looked back as if he’d forgotten about me. “Are you going to behave?”

  “He will. Take it off.” Mira walked toward me but, of course, stroked Eric’s arm on the way past. By the time she reached my side, the blue light was gone and I could move my feet again. And just in time.

  “Are you meddling in my businesss, evil-benderrr?”

  No one could mistake Aseret’s slow hiss for that of anyone else. I turned and saw the demon lord standing at the entrance to the cave.

  “Your business is my business, Aseret,” Eric replied. Blue spheres appeared on his palms again.

  “Xannderrr.” Aseret turned his attention to me, and suddenly it felt as if we were the only two creatures in the cave. The fire in the grand hall crackled as it intensified, feeding his power. Part of me wanted to listen to every word that left the lord’s mouth. “I can make you feel the powerrr you dessserve to have.” His hiss became hypnotic. “You don’t have to be bound to the biddinggg of othersss. Join me, and you will have the ressspect you dessserrrve.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Xander. He’s the one who trapped us. He used the demon to lure me here.” Mira’s voice came from far behind me, so distant she seemed to be talking from another planet. Her words were scrambled, difficult to comprehend.

  Aseret cocked his head, his nose twitching. “I can make you belonggg,” he coaxed, drawing the words out and pausing between each. “The confusssion will be gonnne. One ssstrike, and it will be donnne.” He kicked the unconscious demon’s arm. It flopped on the rocky ground. “Joinnn me.” He beckoned with his twig-like fingers, the movement slow, mesmerizing. The sleeves of his long robe slid back, revealing pallid, wrinkled flesh. For the first time, I thought I saw an orange glow in his eyes, similar to the eyes of the seekers: Aseret’s minions created to hunt and kill.

  I wanted to go with him. I wanted the comfort of knowing my destiny. I took a step forward.

  “Xander, turn around, now!” Eric ordered. Had I known what the evil-bender was up to, perhaps I would have kept my eyes locked with Aseret’s, but I turned on reflex. Eric’s purple eyes pierced into mine, and the room spun. Black and brown earth blended into mud, then changed to a mixture of greens. When the rotation finally stopped, my body uncoiled and I found myself standing in front of our hill home, in the middle of the forest.

  I shivered like a wet dog as my body shed Aseret’s spell. The pull to the underworld was greater than anything I’d experienced. The heat of it wrapped around my body, penetrating my soul. Part of me felt I had a place in the underworld, that it was where I belonged. Or was all of that a remnant of the spell?

  I didn’t like Eric deciding where we should be. I wanted the choice to be ours. Wasn’t it supposed to be?

  “Next time you want to send us through a vortex, warn us,” I growled, feeling a new shift developing inside my body. What would I choose to be to beat up this smart-assed boy?

  “Xander, don’t,” Mira cautioned. She was holding Eric’s hand. It only took five minutes for the two to become lovebirds? Was she kidding?

  “Let go of him, or you’ll get hurt as well, Mira.” I clenched my fists.

  “You can’t hurt him, Xander; he helped us.” She squeezed his hand, looking into his eyes, mesmerized.

  “I didn’t want to be helped,” I stomped, crunching the dry leafy under footing. “I wanted the mark. I wanted to know what it feels like when you know what you’re supposed to do, when your emotions don’t rule your life.”

  “That’s why I’m here, to help you figure it out, you little monster,” Eric wiggled his finger as if I were a kid.

  “Stop calling me that! We’ve tried to get the water mark, but it’s impossible. Killing a demon, that’s easy.”

  A gust of wind blew through the forest. Mira’s hair flapped behind her then crossed her face and mouth. She spat out the strands. I chuckled inside.

  To me, the way we swayed didn’t matter; as shape-shifters, we’d serve the side we pledged our allegiance to. But now, with my sister’s endorsement for the keepers, it felt as if I was standing in the middle of a battleground with guns blasting at me from each side.

  “The wrong choices are always the easy ones, Xander.”

  “Don�
�t lecture me, lover boy.”

  “Xander, please,” Mira urged. “I know you’re angry with me; I shouldn’t have followed the demon to the underworld without you. Honestly, I don’t think we belong there.”

  “Then where do we belong?”

  Silence.

  I thought so. Mira was just as clueless as I was—or was she? The way her gaze connected with the evil-bender’s made me doubt that today was the first time she’d seen him. The shadows under her eyes suddenly made sense—she’s been keeping a secret from me, straining to control her true feelings in my presence.

  “There’s a prophecy being written as we speak, and your help will be needed,” Eric said.

  “When?” I threw my hands in the air.

  “When the keepers decide.”

  “Tell Father that if his decision to mark us is difficult, then we should have been left in the woods.” I feared if I stayed any longer, I’d turn green again. It wasn’t my favorite shade.

  My bones cracked as I sprang up, shifting into an eagle. The sprouting feathers from my wings lifted me above the trees. My gaze focused on the clear sky above me as I soared higher and higher, wanting nothing less than to feel lost.

  Below me, Mira and Eric stood with their heads tilted back. I could hear my sister’s voice inside my head: “Come back to me, Brother. I cannot lose you.”

  “You won’t. I just need some time.” Solitude was the only way to clear my mind.

  When they disappeared from my view, I landed on the edge of a cliff on the face of Mount Owen. The wings stretched and skin began to envelop the feathers as I shifted into my human form. My clothing magically returned to my body; all I had to do is ensure I phased to the same size. With my back pressed against the rock, I gazed out at the morning fog wrapping wisps around the treetops and blanketing the Grand Teton Mountains. I inhaled the crisp air and closed my eyes, letting the sun glow orange behind my eyelids.

  A long breath out emptied my lungs as I relaxed my jaw and tried to concentrate on the forest—the way the leaves shuffled against one another as the trees swayed in the breeze. Not something a human would notice. The sound reminded me of Ma’s shell chimes, which I’d broken a few years back when Mira tackled me. High off the ground, in this exact spot, was the only place where I heard that sound, a sound I loved.