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49
the marking
darius
A shrill scream echoedthroughout Maxine’s family home. I scanned the party for Sina, my stomach tightening when I couldn’t find even a glimpse of her among the many, many dancing figures.
“Where the hell is Sina?” I asked Thayer, who sat at the bar, clutching a glass tightly in his head and eyeing the group of demons in the back, who he must’ve really fucking hated. Hell, he hated almost everyone nowadays.
“Bathroom.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the open bathroom door and growled, snatching his shoulder and lifting him off the freaking barstool. “The bathroom is fucking empty. Where the fuck is Sina?”
Thayer snapped his head toward the bathroom, eyes immediately glinting red. After ripping himself out of my grip, he rushed toward the bathroom and lifted his nose to the air, sniffing her scent.
While I would’ve done the same thing, there were far too many scents in this room to distinguish any from each other. They were all mixing together, overwhelming my wolf in ways that it shouldn’t. But the most I could smell was vampire. Thayer was a half demon, who had a mother who could smell almost anything at any time, no matter how far away. He had better senses than most of us.
Thayer hurried through the party, pushing and shoving people out of the way. The scream came again, so loud that I could hear it over the thumping music. I stormed by his side, needing to find Sina now.
“Where is she?” I growled again, chest tightening.
If someone had fucking taken her again, I would … I would lose it for real this time. I didn’t know what I would do without her, especially after what she admitted to me the other night, all the shit she’d been through.
I’d told her that I would protect her, and yet … here we were.
“Sina!” Thayer growled, shoving open a back door.
As soon as he stepped outside, he stopped in his tracks. When I pushed past him, my eyes widened. Sina sat on top of a vampire with his dark blood soaking into her skin and her Halloween costume.
She ripped her fingers into his flesh repeatedly, tearing skin and splattering blood everywhere. “You’re not going to lay a finger on another innocent woman!” she shouted at the dead vampire, pummeling her fist into his face. “Never again!”
Before I could stop myself, I wrapped my arms around her waist from behind and pulled her off him. “Sina! Sina, it’s me. It’s Darius. He’s dead. You need to calm down. We need to get you home—”
Sina kicked her foot back, hitting me in the kneecap and sending me flying backward. I landed on my ass at Thayer’s feet as she escaped my grasp and lunged forward toward the corpse once more, using her nails—no,her claws—to rip off his right arm. She hurled it behind her so hard that it collided with a tree and made an impact.
Thayer grabbed my upper arm and yanked me to my feet, his eyes turning a shade of red. “What the fuck is going on with her? I let her use the bathroom to fucking clean herself up, not turn into a fucking demon.”
“Those aren’t demon fangs in her mouth,” I said, staring at the bloodstained teeth with a pointy edge, fangs that would slip into any human’s neck to suck out blood. “And she shouldn’t be strong enough to … to kill a vampire with her bare hands.”
A pregnant woman sank down against the house, her head in her hands, wailing so loudly that the sound vibrated through my ears. She rocked back and forth, muttering something about how she didn’t want to go with him, about how she had a child.
“I’ll handle Sina,” Thayer said, taking another step toward Sina. “You quiet that woman.”
Thayer lunged forward toward Sina, grabbing her by the upper arms to restrain her body. I leaned down next to the woman, not really good with feelings with anyone other than Sina. Andthatstill wasn’t my strong suit.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked her, but she continued crying. “Please?”
As soon as she opened her mouth, Thayer growled, “Fuck it. Never mind, D. I need your fucking help with her. She’s—”
When I glanced over at Thayer, Sina ripped herself out of his hold and scratched him right across the face with a sharp claw. Blood poured out of the wound, dripping down his face. Almost immediately, her eyes widened and filled with tears, her body stopping completely and falling to the ground.
“Oh my gods,” she whispered, brows furrowed. She glanced down at the blood dripping down the side of his face, her pupils dilating, like a vampire’s would. “I-I’m so sorry. I can’t stop. I can’t control myself. I … you need to run, Thayer. I’m g-going t-to hurt y-you—”
Sina lunged at Thayer. I leaped up from the ground, mind-linked the guys to tell them to get their asses out back before anyone saw Sina like this, and tried my fucking hardest to get Sina away from the blood.
None of this made any fucking sense. Sina had the fangs of a vampire, the eyes of a demon, the claws of a wolf, and the strength of something … else.
Moments later, Gaian and Calder hurried out of the back door, asking what the fuck was going on. But, hell, none of us knew either. Not even Sina as she continued to fight back against both Thayer and me now, trying to get to the blood.
