The Soul's Mark: Broken by Ashley Stoyanoff Read Free Book Online Page A

Tristan as he slithered back over to Amelia’s
bedside.
    “Don’t you get tired of leading these fools
on?” Tristan asked Amelia, taking Josh’s seat and leaning back, letting his
arms hang over the plastic armrests.  “You finally let Eric go, and now you’re
messing with this one?” He winked at her and leered.  “I’m guessing Mitch
doesn’t take care of all your needs.”
    “What does it matter anymore?” Amelia
asked, and choked on a sob.  “You’ve already killed him.  Why don’t you just
finish it and kill me, too?  That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
    “Killed him?” Tristan asked, raising both
of his eyebrows.  He looked completely befuddled.  “Josh, what is she blabbing
on about?”
    Amelia’s heart hammered in her chest.  She
wanted to scream and cry all at once.  She eyed Josh as he shuffled back and
forth.  “I may have insinuated …”
    Tristan threw back his head and let out a
deep roar of a laugh, cutting Josh off.  “That’s rich.”  The laughter in his
eyes made Amelia grit her teeth.  “You really thought I’d kill my good friend,
Mitchell, without making him suffer first?”
    “I can’t feel him,” she said softly, and
tears started to sting at her eyelids again.  But just as quickly as they came,
a thought hit her that made the tears dry up.  She glared at Josh.  “Seriously,
doesn’t it bother you at all that the only way I’ll talk to you civilly is by
using magic on me?  Why don’t you take these chains off, and see what I really
think of you.”
    “Amelia, the chains and the charms are for
your protection,” Tristan said, and patted her hand.  “We can’t have you
hurting yourself until it’s time, now can we?”
    Okay, so that didn’t make any sense , Amelia thought, as she scanned Tristan who was clearly enjoying
her confusion.  Why would she hurt herself?  If she hurt anyone, it would be
one of them.  “Why do you want to break the bond?” she asked.
    “Mitchell doesn’t deserve the power you
give him,” he said simply, as if it was a well-known fact, and then he shifted
his gaze to Josh, who was now standing on the other side of her bed glaring
furiously at Tristan.  “Thanks for borrowing her magic,” he said. “It worked
like a charm.”
    Amelia’s eyes darted back and forth between
Josh and Tristan, and a sense of dread filled her.  There was something here,
something that she just wasn’t getting.  She could see something that resembled
understanding floating around her brain with a great big look at me sign , but no matter how hard she tried to read it, she just couldn’t.  It was as if
it jumped back, just out of reading distance, every time she was close.   Her
gut was telling her she should be upset or scared even but, oddly, she wasn’t.
    “What does he mean you borrowed my magic?” And
why am I talking to them as if we are old friends?   She shot Josh another
glare as a strong scent of cotton candy drifted up her nose.  “Will you stop
it!” she shouted, suddenly understanding the strange calm that had settled over
her.
    “I don’t want you to re-break any of your
bones,” Josh said, and squeezed her hand. Amelia wished she could jerk away
from his touch.  “You need to calm down.”
    “What I need is some damn answers!” she
shouted, because, really, a straight answer would have been nice right about
then.  It was as if they were talking in circles, but none of those circles
fully connected, they just curved and twisted around each other.
    “I used your magic to lift the spell you
had placed on the bond between Tristan and his mate.”  The words rushed out of
Josh so quickly that Amelia almost missed it.  Almost.
    All the circles collided together with a
brain-numbing intensity, and right then Amelia thought she was going to be
sick.  Erin, a voice in her head whimpered, and panic clenched at her
throat.  She squeezed her eyes shut, and right then, she actually wished that
Josh would