The Soul's Mark: CHANGED by Ashley Stoyanoff Read Free Book Online Page B

part, he wanted her to bond them together fully, but it still freaked him out, just a little.
    He hated feeling so weak.  Mitchell couldn’t remember the last time he had actually feared dying.  But right now, he did.  He wasn’t ready to leave this lifetime, but more importantly, he knew Amelia wasn’t ready for him to go.
    It had been a long day.  One of the longest he could remember.  Once Megan realized how sick he was, the girls had taken off to the library with all of Amelia’s journals in hand, determined to find a way to fix him.
    His sweet little Amelia had grown up so much.  And he was so proud of her.  He really was.  It just kind of sucked that she still had such a long way to go, and Mitchell really didn’t know if he’d be around long enough to help her get there.
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  They were supposed to leave.  Start a family.  Be happy.  And get away from all this death and danger.  All he had wanted was to give her a new life and a fresh start.
    But Mitchell knew what all of this was now.  A test.  A test of their strength, of them together, but most of all, it was a test of her worth.  He’d known all along that becoming human had been too easy.  There was always a catch to magic.  Always.  But what he didn’t know was what the end result was supposed to be.  What was th e point of this test?
    Mitchell had played the conversation that Amelia had had with her mother, after she had first arrived in Willowberg, over and over in his mind, and he was no closer to the answers now, then he had been nine months ago when it had happened.  He’d figured that her mother had been up to something then, but now that he knew she was Mother Nature, he was sure of it.  He was also sure that Mother Nature had been hinting at something.  The spirits rarely gave a person a second chance at the same lifetime.  There was something Amelia was meant to do in this life.  And he was pretty sure he knew what it was; he just didn’t understand why.
    So many things just didn’t add up.  Amelia had cast the soul curse fifteen hundred years ago, but Mother Nature had said she had only been her mother for a little over twelve hundred years.  Mitchell knew it was possible that Amelia hadn’t been put back into the life cycle for a few hundred years, but what he didn’t get was why her parents had changed.  Witches always had the same families.  So why had Mother Nature taken on the role as Amelia’s mother?
    After the girls had left to try and figure out a way to fix him, Eric had confessed that he’d taken not one, but two vampire lives in the last week.  With Luke, they had spent hours discussing the situation, but came up with little that would help.  They considered separating the vampires and soulmates, but they knew that that wouldn’t do any good.  Separating them wouldn’t stop the bond, and most likely, it would only intensify the vampires’ need to use the pain in order to get their soulmates back.  Neither of them had any insight on what was happening with Tyler and Angelle, and by the time Amelia came back, exhausted and desperately needing sleep, they were no closer to a solution then they had been before she left.
    Mitchell glanced down at Amelia curled up beside him and brushed a few curls out of her eyes.  She looked so small, so innocent, as she slept.  He didn’t know how he had gotten so lucky to be matched with her.  It was luck, he was sure of that, because he knew he didn’t deserve someone so perfect.
    He leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, before he pulled the covers back and got out of bed.  He needed to talk to Luke about his suspicions, and see if he, or Lola, had any ideas as to how to get Amelia to actually listen.  She was so focused on not hurting him with the bond that she just couldn’t see past it to everything else that was happening because of her fear.
    “Where are you going?” Amelia groaned, rolling