Page 1 of Soulmarked (Hellbound and Hollow #1)

PROLOGUE

T he Italian restaurant bustled with warmth and laughter, the kind of place where memories were made. I sat between my parents at our usual corner table, my legs swinging beneath my chair because they couldn't quite reach the floor yet. Looking back, I can still picture every detail of that night.

The restaurant, Bella Notte, had been our special place since before I could remember. Red and white checkered tablecloths, bottles wrapped in wicker baskets that created shadows like spider webs on the walls, and the constant melody of clinking glasses and happy chatter. The owner, Marco, always saved us this specific table, tucked away in a cozy corner where the overhead chandelier cast everything in a warm, golden glow.

My mother reached across the table to wipe a smudge of sauce from my chin. “Cade, honey, you're wearing more of your spaghetti than you're eating.” Her dark hair caught the light when she moved, and I remembered thinking she looked like a princess from my storybooks. She smelled like vanilla and something flowery, a scent that would haunt me in dreams for years to come, the ghost of comfort I could never recapture.

“Let the boy enjoy his birthday dinner,” Dad said, his deep laugh rumbling through his chest. He was still wearing his work suit, but he'd loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. A sign that he was relaxed, truly present. Not the stern businessman who spent hours in his home office on conference calls. “Eight's a big year, kiddo. Feels like just yesterday you were running around in diapers.”

I rolled my eyes, fighting back a grin. “Dad, that's embarrassing.” But I didn't really mind. Their teasing always felt like love, wrapped in jokes and silly stories. If I had known these words would be among our last, would I have said something different? Something deeper, something worth remembering?

Marco appeared at our table, his round face beaming as he carried my birthday dessert. The tiramisu had a single candle stuck in its center, the flame dancing as he set it down. “For the birthday boy,” he announced in his thick Italian accent. “Extra cocoa, just how you like it.”

The other diners turned to look, some smiling at the scene. A happy family celebrating their son's birthday. If any of them were still alive today, I wonder if they remembered us. The last happy moment before everything changed.

“Make a wish, sweetheart,” Mom said, adjusting the candle so it stood perfectly straight. It was such a mom thing to do, making sure everything was just right. Even now, I can see her delicate fingers moving the candle, the light catching on her wedding ring, the gentle smile that I would never see again.

I stared at the flame, wondering what to wish for. What do you wish for when your life already feels perfect? I had parents who loved me, a nice house, good friends at school. I was that kid, the one others might have envied, though I didn't know it then. Instead of making a real wish, I just thought about how happy I was, right there in that moment. How completely I took it all for granted.

I blew out the candle. My parents clapped, and Mom pulled out her camera to take a picture. “Smile, baby.” The flash went off, capturing our last family photo. Sometimes I think about that picture, wonder where it ended up. Lost in the wreckage, probably, like everything else from that night. Lost like their voices, their warmth, their presence in my life.

The tiramisu was perfect, with just the right amount of coffee flavor that made me feel grown-up. Dad let me have a tiny sip of his espresso, and Mom pretended not to notice. It was our little secret, one of many small moments that made me feel special, loved. One of the countless little memories that would soon become all I had left of them.

When we finally got up to leave, Mom helped me into my winter coat, fussing with the zipper like she always did. “It's getting cold out there,” she said, wrapping my scarf around my neck. “Winter's coming early this year.”

If I'd known it was the last time she'd help me with my coat, would I have paid more attention? Memorized the feeling of her hands smoothing down the fabric, the way she always double-checked that I was warm enough? Would I have held onto her a little longer, trying to store up enough love to last a lifetime?

The night air hit us as we stepped outside, crisp and sharp with the promise of snow. The street was quiet, most of the dinner crowd gone home. A few taxis drove past, their yellow bodies bright against the darkness. I held Mom's hand as we walked to the car, her fingers warm and secure around mine. The last time I would ever feel their comfort.

Dad had parked the Mercedes under a streetlamp, the black paint gleaming like liquid shadow. He was always proud of that car, kept it spotless. I remember thinking it looked like something out of a spy movie, sleek and powerful.

That's when I noticed something was off. Dad paused as he reached for the door, keys in hand. His body went still, the way it did when he was listening for something in the house late at night. His eyes scanned the empty street, focusing on the shadows between the buildings.

“Richard?” Mom's voice was casual, but her grip on my hand tightened just enough for me to notice. “Something wrong?”

Dad turned back to us, his face relaxing into a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “Nothing. Just thought I saw something. Let's get home.” He unlocked the car, the lights flashing briefly.

I climbed into the backseat, buckling myself in like the big kid I was trying to be. Mom turned around to check anyway, making sure the belt was secure. “All set back there, birthday boy?”

“Mom, I know how to do my seatbelt,” I protested, but secretly, I liked that she cared enough to check. If I had known this small kindness would be one of her last acts of love, would I have cherished it more? Would I have told her how safe she made me feel?

The car's engine purred to life, the familiar leather seats cradling me as we pulled away from the curb. Dad turned on the radio, keeping it low, classical music, something with violins that Mom loved. The heater hummed softly, and I leaned against the window, watching the city scroll past.

Snow began to fall, fat flakes swirling in the headlights like tiny dancers. The streets were emptying out, most people already home for the night. Store windows glowed softly, their displays promising warmth and comfort. Everything felt peaceful, wrapped in winter's quiet embrace.

I was getting sleepy, the combination of good food and the car's gentle motion making my eyelids heavy. The streetlights created a rhythm as we passed under them: light, dark, light, dark. Like a lullaby made of golden circles on the ceiling of the car.

Then the rhythm broke.

One streetlight flickered and went out. Then another. And another.

The darkness spread like spilled ink, following our car down the street. Dad sat up straighter, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. In the passenger seat, Mom's hand moved to her purse.

“Elizabeth, call...” Dad's words cut off as something slammed into the side of our car.

The impact was like nothing I'd ever felt before. One moment we were driving, the next we were flying. The world spun, metal screaming as the Mercedes flipped. I heard myself cry out, the sound strange and distant over the chaos.

Glass exploded inward, a shower of diamonds in the darkness. Snow rushed through the broken windows, cold and sharp on my face. The seatbelt dug into my chest as we rolled, once, twice, three times before coming to rest on the roof.

I hung upside down, held in place by the belt that Mom had checked just minutes ago. My head spun, and something warm trickled down my face. Blood, I realized dimly.

“Mom? Dad?” My voice came out small and broken, like a wounded animal's. The silence that followed felt endless, filled only by the soft hiss of snow through the broken windows and the tick-tick-tick of the cooling engine.

How quickly the world can shatter. One moment, secure in the love of family. The next, dangling upside down in a broken car, calling out to parents who might never answer again.

Finally, Dad groaned, shifting in his seat. Blood ran down his face from a gash above his eyebrow, but his eyes were sharp, alert in a way I'd never seen before. “Elizabeth, get Cade out. Now.” His voice held an edge that made my stomach twist.

A heavy thud landed on the car's undercarriage. The metal buckled with a screech that set my teeth on edge, and the whole car shuddered. Through the spiderweb of cracks in the windshield, I saw it, looming upside down from my inverted perspective. Even now, years later, I struggle to describe what I saw that night.

The thing wasn't human. Its body was wrong. Its skin gleamed wetly in what little light remained, stretched too tight over a frame that kept shifting, changing. But its eyes... God, its eyes were the worst part. They caught what little light remained like pools of oil, reflecting back a cold intelligence that predated civilization.

Mom's hands found my seatbelt, trembling but determined. “Sweetheart, listen to me.” Her voice was steady despite the fear I could feel radiating from her. “When I say run, you run.”

“I...” The words caught in my throat. I wanted to protest, to say I wouldn't leave them, but the look in her eyes stopped me. A look I would carry for the rest of my life, the final gift of a mother's love.

“No questions.” Her voice cracked with desperation, her fingers working faster at the buckle. “Do you hear me? Promise me, Cade.”

Above us, something growled. It made my bones vibrate, made my primitive brain scream danger in a way I'd never felt before.

The seatbelt finally gave way, and I tumbled into Mom's waiting arms. She caught me, her body shielding mine as claws punched through the roof. The metal peeled back with a shriek that hurt my ears, revealing more of the creature looming over us.

Dad moved faster than I'd ever seen him move. A gun appeared in his hand, and he fired upward. The muzzle flashes lit up the night in strobing bursts, the sound deafening in the confined space.

The bullets hit the creature. I saw them impact, saw dark fluid spray from the wounds. But it didn't die. It didn't even flinch. Instead, it turned its head toward Dad, its face splitting open to reveal row after row of teeth.

“Run!” Mom shoved me toward the broken window, glass crunching under my hands as I crawled out. The snow was deep enough to cushion my fall, but the cold hit me like a slap. I stumbled to my feet, my new sneakers already soaked through.

That's when I saw the others.

They emerged from the shadows between buildings, from behind parked cars, from places too small to hide things so big. Some walked on two legs, others crawled on four or more. Some looked almost human, if you squinted and ignored the wrongness of their proportions. Others didn't even try to mimic humanity.

The street I'd known my whole life had become a nightmare gallery, and my parents were trapped in the middle of it.

Dad's gun kept firing, the sound somehow both too loud and not loud enough against the chorus of inhuman sounds filling the air. Mom had something in her hand. Light glinted off it as she moved, and whatever it was made the nearest creatures hiss and recoil.

“Go!” Dad's voice carried over the chaos. “Run, Cade!”

My feet moved before my brain could process the command, years of listening to that authoritative tone taking over. I ran, snow spraying up around my feet, my breath coming in sharp gasps that hurt my chest.

But I couldn't help it. I looked back.

I wish I hadn't. That image is burned into my memory, a snapshot of the moment my world ended. Dad staggered as one of the creatures drove its claws through his chest. The gun fell from his hand, disappearing into the snow. His eyes met mine one last time, and I saw something there. Not fear. Love. A father's last gift to his son.

Mom screamed. Not in fear, but in fury. She lunged forward, the thing in her hand blazing with sudden light. For a moment, I thought she might actually win, might somehow save Dad and everything would be okay.

Then another creature caught her from behind, lifting her off her feet like she weighed nothing. The light went out. The night swallowed everything except the sounds, terrible sounds that I tried to block out but couldn't.

Blood splattered the snow in dark patterns, steaming in the cold air.

I ran.

I ran until my legs felt like they were on fire, until my lungs burned with each breath, until the familiar streets of Manhattan became an endless maze of shadows and snow. Every corner looked the same, every alley a potential death trap. Sounds echoed off the buildings.

Was that a car backfiring, or something else? Was that laughter from a late-night party, or something hunting me? The line between reality and nightmare blurred with each step.

The alley I finally collapsed in smelled of damp concrete and rotting garbage. My breath came in ragged gasps that turned to steam in the frigid air, my small fingers clutching the fabric of my ruined coat. The birthday dinner felt like it had happened a lifetime ago, to a different boy, one who still had parents, still had a future.

Blood had dried on my face, pulling the skin tight. Every part of me hurt, but none of it compared to the hollow ache in my chest where my world had just been ripped away. I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. Maybe I was too scared, or maybe I'd gone somewhere beyond tears, to a place where grief is too vast for something as simple as crying.

The scrape of footsteps echoed off the brick walls. Slow. Measured. Deliberate.

I curled tighter into myself, trying to become invisible in the shadows between the dumpster and the wall. But the footsteps kept coming, and with them came a presence that made the air itself feel wrong.

A figure emerged from the darkness, impossibly tall, its edges blurring like smoke in the wind. It moved with a fluid grace that no human could match, its form constantly shifting and reforming. When it spoke, its voice curled around me like a serpent, soft and terrible.

“Such a shame,” it murmured, head tilting at an angle that made my stomach turn. “All alone. So small. Your parents fought well, little one. Better than most. But in the end...” It made a sound that might have been a laugh, might have been something worse.

I wanted to run. Every instinct screamed at me to move, to fight, to do something. But my body wouldn't respond. Fear had turned my muscles to lead, leaving me trapped as the thing drew closer.

“P-please,” I whispered, though I didn't know what I was begging for. Mercy? A quick death? For this all to be a nightmare I could wake up from?

The creature reached for me with fingers that were too long, too sharp. I could smell copper and rot on its breath as it leaned down, could see my own terrified reflection in its glassy eyes.

Then everything... stopped.

The air grew heavy, like the moment before a thunderstorm, crackling with invisible energy. The temperature plummeted until even the creature pulled back, its head snapping up to look at something I couldn't see.

A new voice filled the alley. It came from nowhere and everywhere, speaking with the weight of mountains and the patience of centuries.

“You have a choice, little one.”

The words weren't English, weren't any language I knew, but I understood them perfectly. They bypassed my ears entirely, appearing directly in my mind like they'd always been there.

“Die here, forgotten, your parents' sacrifice wasted. Or live, bound to me.”

The creature that had been about to kill me backed away, its form wavering like a mirage. Was it... afraid? The thought that something could scare these monsters should have terrified me more, but I was beyond normal fear now.

“I-I don't know what that means,” I managed to say. My voice sounded tiny in the vast silence that had fallen. “I just want my mom. My dad. I want to go home.”

Something shifted in the darkness. I couldn't see it clearly, my eyes refused to focus on it directly, like trying to stare at a shadow cast by nothing. But I felt it move closer, felt its attention settle on me like a physical weight.

“They are gone,” the voice said, not unkindly. “Nothing can bring them back. But you can live. You can become something more than prey.”

A touch on my cheek, not quite a hand, not quite anything I could name. It was both burning hot and freezing cold, solid and insubstantial at the same time. The contact sent images flashing through my mind: power, protection, a chance to fight back against the darkness that had taken everything from me.

“Say yes,” it urged, “and you will live.”

I thought of my parents. How they'd died protecting me. How they'd want me to survive, to keep going, no matter what. The choice didn't feel like a choice at all, it was live or die, and some fundamental part of me wasn't ready to die. Not when their last act had been to ensure I survived.

My lips parted, the word falling out before I could really think about what it meant. “Yes.”

The world exploded in pain.

It started in my chest, right over my heart. A burning sensation that quickly became agony. It felt like someone had pressed a white-hot brand against my skin, but the pain went deeper than that. It sank into my muscles, my bones, my very soul.

I screamed, my back arching off the dirty alley floor. The thing that wasn't quite a hand pressed harder against my chest, and I felt something ancient and wrong seep into me. It was like ice in my veins, like fire in my mind, like a thousand voices whispering in languages that had died before humans learned to speak.

My vision blurred, dark spots dancing at the edges. Through the haze of pain, I saw snow falling again but where it touched my skin, it turned to steam. My whole body felt like it was burning from the inside out.

The presence loomed closer, its vastness blocking out what little light remained in the alley. “You are mine now, little one. My mark will protect you, will give you the power to survive in this world of monsters. But remember, everything has a price.”

I wanted to ask what price, wanted to understand what was happening to me, but the pain was too much. Darkness crept in from all sides, promising an escape from the agony.

The last thing I heard before consciousness slipped away was that ancient voice, speaking words that would echo through my dreams for years to come: “We will meet again, when you are ready. Until then, live. Grow stronger. And remember who owns your soul.”

Then the darkness took me completely, and I knew no more.

When I woke up hours later in the hospital, they told me I'd been found in the snow by a passing police officer. They said I was lucky to be alive after the car accident that killed my parents. They didn't mention the creatures, or the voice, or the mark that now sat like a brand over my heart.

I didn't tell them either. How could I? They wouldn't have believed me. Hell, part of me didn't believe it myself.

But when I looked in the mirror that first morning, I saw it, a perfect scar above where my heart was, the skin raised and darker than the rest.

It wasn't a typical scar, not jagged or puckered like something left by a knife or a bullet. This was deliberate, almost artistic in its symmetry. Twin curved wings spread outward from a central point, their edges sharp and defined like tribal markings. The lines flowed together, forming an intricate pattern that resembled a stylized phoenix or perhaps angel wings folded in prayer. As the light caught it, the scar tissue seemed to shift between deep charcoal and a silvery sheen, as if something metallic had been embedded beneath my skin.

Each curve and point was flawlessly rendered, too perfect to be an accident. My fingers traced the outline, feeling each ridge and valley of the design. It was warm to the touch, pulsing faintly with my heartbeat, alive in a way scars shouldn't be.

That was the morning I realized the world was bigger and darker than I'd ever imagined. And somewhere out there, something ancient and powerful owned a piece of my soul.

I was eight years old, and my life as I knew it was over. But a new one was just beginning.

I survived. They didn't. Why? The question haunts me still. Not just why they died, but why I lived. Was I special? Chosen? Or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, when ancient powers needed a pawn?

Sometimes, in the darkest hours of night, I still feel the ghost of my mother's hands straightening my coat. I still hear my father's laugh rumbling through his chest. I still taste tiramisu and stolen sips of espresso. And I wonder if they would recognize the person I've become, marked and changed by powers beyond understanding.

I wonder if they would be proud.