DARKNESS, the second instalment in the Marked Series.
Won first place in the SNOWFLAKE AWARDS Werewolf category!
UNDISCOVERED WOLVES Book of the Month, April 2018!
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'There is a darkness within you, Isa. I saw it then, and I see it now.'
...
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Father walked towards me, the echo of his footsteps ringing in my ears.
"You are my only child, Isa."
I straightened and looked up at him, quelling the urge to shout that he was wrong. That he had another daughter—that he had killed her in cold blood, simply for something she couldn't control. My blood began to burn but I merely nodded my head.
He took a lock of my short hair between his thumb and forefinger. "You are the only member of my family who has stayed loyal to me. It's what has kept you alive."
I didn't reply. I just stared right at him, taking note of the coldness in his eyes. When he'd looked at my sister, the darkness in those orbs had vanished, destroyed by his love for her. It made me think. If he could kill the daughter he loved the most, what was stopping him from killing me?
"You're fourteen now," he said softly, shaking his head. "The age she was when I...when I killed her. She was my daughter. My only—the only person I ever truly loved."
His words should've hurt me. They should've cut through me as if I was made of paper, but I had long since built iron walls around myself. I raised an eyebrow—that was my only show of emotion, if it even counted. I didn't feel much anymore.
"A girl your age needs a mother." he sighed, backing away from me as if I had some kind of disease. "It's a shame I had to kill her, really. She could've helped you with all of that...girl stuff."
"Yes." I said robotically. "It is a shame." A shame that you're not dead.
"You are my last hope, Isa. Your powers, combined with your superior fighting skills, make you the perfect Huntress. Never betray me." he said, anger sparking in those icy blue depths.
"I won't."
He smiled and kissed my cheek, lingering for just a moment. Hot, searing anger sweltered in my abdomen and it screamed that I should fight; it screamed that this man murdered my mother and sister and he was touching me, probing me, marking me.
But I was as unmoving as ever.
He withdrew and the heat grew stronger still, encasing me with an insatiable thirst, eating savagely into my bones and muscles and blood.
"I'm burning."
I'm burning.
Burning.
Burn.
It was all I could do.
I woke up flailing in my bed, kicking the covers off of my legs. I was too hot. Even the air burned my lungs to a crisp and heated my blood until I could only scream, shivering and tensing and thrashing all at once.
