Marked By Novels & Stories

A symbol had been carved into the ground beside him. Not messy. Not rushed. Precise. A sharp, angular mark etched into the earth, stained dark. Blood filled the lines. Mia frowned. “What is that?” she asked. No one answered at first. Mark crouched beside the symbol, eyes scanning it carefully. Recognizing—not guessing. “That’s not random,” Luca said quietly. “No,” Mark replied. Mia stepped closer. “Then what is it?” Silence stretched. Mark stood. “A signature.” The word hit harder than she expected.

“This… mark. It’s not just a scar, is it?” “Don’t be too fat, Marianne,” said Marianne, pursing her lips very tightly. She placed the book on the bedside table, and flipped the book to the ribbon marker. The parchment was yellowed, covered with symbols I didn’t understand, but the image in its center took my breath away: a woman with a glowing moon-shaped mark on her chest, standing under a full moon, wolves bowing at her feet.

"Agreed?" Lucien pressed his lips together. "Fine. Agreed." Caius looked at the notebook. "What I know with reasonable certainty is this. First, the mark appeared as a direct consequence of last night. We never had it before then. The timing and nature of it, the placement. I am eighty percent certain it's a bond mark." "Eighty." Lucien said. "What's the other twenty?"

“She has a mark.” The words land harder than they should. For a second, I just stare at him. Then my gaze drops back to June. Slowly. Carefully. My eyes move over her, past the blood, past the rise and fall of her chest, until they find it. There. On the left side, just beneath her ribs. A mark. It is not like ours. Not like anything I have seen before. A crescent. Curving softly against her skin. And at its center, a star.

*Mark. The word landed differently than it should have. Not bureaucratic. Not procedural. Something older. Something that made my skin heat and my spine pull in two directions at once. "What does it mean," I said. "To be marked." His eyes found mine. The gold didn't flash this time. It stayed. --- "You found it," he said finally. His voice was careful in the way voices are careful when the speaker is managing something large. "You knew it was here." "My patrol found the blood this morning."

I move closer, drawn by something I don't understand, my fear momentarily eclipsed by fascination. The carvings are beautiful and terrible. Wolves with their heads thrown back in silent howls. Crescent moons in various phases, waxing and waning across the stone surface. Symbols I don't recognize but that make something deep in my chest tighten with recognition. How can I recognize something I've never seen before?

I asked, growing increasingly more concerned. "We don't know what happened, but Chase found them. Agent Marks was found dead at the scene." "WHAT?!" I unknowingly shouted, altering Jessica and waking Maverick from his sleep. Maverick began to cry, and Jessica picked him up, holding him in a tight hug. She looked over at me, but I didn't miss the concerned expression on her face. I could tell that she knew that something was wrong, and was desperate to find out what had happened. I switched the phone over to speaker phone, knowing that Jessica desperately wanted to know what had happened. Thankfully, Maverick was too young to understand what was going on.

And there was certainly no reference to a ring of blood. I read the captions on the map, and still couldn’t find anything. Then, I saw it. There, at the bottom of the map, was a footnote. Beneath the caption for the Old State House. It read: “At the base of the building, on the street, stands the spot commemorating where the Boston massacre occurred.” “Here,” I said excitedly, pointing. “The Boston Massacre. There’s nothing about a ring, but that certainly qualifies for blood.”

But this time, there was something new. A mark burned into the wood near the back — a spiral surrounded by claw lines. Kellen crouched to examine it. His brows furrowed. “This wasn’t here before.” I knelt beside him. “You think it’s one of theirs?” He nodded slowly. “The Matriarch’s sigil. She’s been marking territory.” Lira frowned. “Then why leave it unguarded?” Kellen rose, scanning the shadows. “Because she wants us here.”

"I see. You can go back to your work now." Mark took out the letters he had received. They were all from the same sender, bearing the same symbol. It was clear that the person sending them was trying to imply something. Looking closely, he noticed a small image in the corner—a cross. The image symbolized justice and truth, while Mark was the villain, the one destined to be punished.