Summary: Lydia’s soulmark changes unexpectedly, leaving her wondering just who her soulmate is. A soulmates AU and a reimagining of the first diamond scene with Jax.
The mark doesn’t hurt when it appears. Lydia thinks she night not have noticed it at all, but a warm, pleasant sensation suddenly flows through her forearm while she’s getting ready the morning after her 18th birthday. She looks down to see black lines appearing, curving and merging together to form a series of numbers. Lydia watches it with a bit of wonder, the way it appears so seamlessly under her skin.
The numbers pause momentarily as she watches, then gradually begin counting backwards. Towards zero, she knows, to the day she’ll meet her soulmate. She thinks out loud, counting to herself, and figures out she’ll be 23 the day she meets her soulmate, whoever he is.
The mark might not have hurt when it appeared, but it does hurt when it suddenly vanishes in the middle of the night shortly after she turns 23. An intense burning sensation wakes Lydia, and she bolts upright with a gasp, grabbing her arm. Lydia gingerly lifts her hand away, gritting her teeth and flipping the bedside lamp on.
“What…”
She stares down, stunned, then squeezes her eyes shut, convinced she must still be dreaming. When she opens them again, she’s dismayed to see that her forearm is still bare. The familiar black mark, those numbers she likes looking at when she’s had a bad day, is gone.
Lydia doesn’t understand. The numbers have steadily been making their way toward zero, to the day she would meet her soulmate. It had been close, just a few months away. Her fingers trace over where the numbers had been. The pain is nearly gone, but she’s overcome by such a profound sense of confusion and sadness that she barely notices.
She’s heard of the marks disappearing before, but only in cases where someone’s soulmate has died. Lydia keeps staring at her arm, as if she can will the numbers back, until she realizes with a start that the sun is slowly peeking through her window and she’s been sitting there all night. With a heavy sigh, she gets out of bed and forces herself to shower and get dressed.
She’s just sitting down to email her resume to a few companies when her forearm starts burning again. It’s not as painful this time, but more of a tingling, pins and needles sensation. Lydia watches, waiting, and gradually, numbers start appearing again. This time, though, they’re a scarlet red.
The countdown appears to be the same as before her original mark vanished, and it confuses her even more. Why would it vanish, only to return hours later in a different color? She’s never heard of that happening before.
Lydia snorts out a laugh, partly out of relief that the countdown is back on her skin, partly because if anything different was going to happen with someone’s mark, of course it would be hers.
Her countdown continues to confuse her. At times the numbers are that same vivid scarlet color as when it first reappeared. At other times, they’re solid black. She can’t make any sense of it.
At least, she rationalizes, she’ll have some answers when she finally meets her soulmate. The day it gets down to less than a few hours is the day Adrian sends her to The Shrike. She’s not scared, exactly, not with Adrian’s brand on her arm, but she’s a little nervous about what she’ll find.
The Baron is, like Adrian had warned her, worse than anything she could have imagined. Her temper gets the best of her, flaring up at the worst possible time and making her decide to spit in his face rather than hand him the summons. She’s convinced she’s never getting out of here as she’s hauled off, until someone appears out of nowhere, fighting The Baron’s henchmen off of her.
Amidst everything going on, the panic running through her and the dark-haired man who saved her getting her out, all Lydia registers and can think is, My countdown is at zero.
It’s such a ridiculous thought to be having right now that she laughs. Her rescuer gives her an odd look as they enter another building.
“Sorry. It’s…never mind,” Lydia says.
His name is Jax Matsuo, she learns, and this is his safe house for Clanless vampires. He was injured while he rescued her, and she feels like the least she can do is let him feed on her after he saved her life.
Jax tilts his head toward her arm as they sit down, at the series of exposed scarlet zeros.
“A vampire, huh?” he says.
“What do you mean, a vampire?” Lydia asks in confusion.
“The red,” Jax explains, moving his chair closer to hers. “It means your soulmate is a vampire. It’s red when they need to feed.”
“Oh. I-I don’t know,” she answers. “It just got to zero tonight.”
Jax stops suddenly, his fingers hovering over her chin. He leans back, dropping his hand, his eyes intently staring into hers.
“When?”
“Sometime when you were…”
Lydia trails off, suddenly understanding. Jax unceremoniously rolls his sleeve up, and Lydia sees that his countdown is also at zero, though his is composed of the thin black lines hers used to be. He brings his arm next to hers, their skin touching, and Lydia jumps a little and lets out a surprised, “Oh!” when their marks simultaneously begin to glow a shimmery black.
Her skin warms pleasantly, her eyes flying back up to his. As the warmth slowly dissipates, she asks, “Jax? When were you…changed?”
He tells her the date, and her mark disappearing and then reappearing suddenly makes perfect sense. “My countdown disappeared that day,” she says, still a little stunned. “Then reappeared and was red.”
It was always meant to be Jax, she realizes. It’s still meant to be Jax. There’s a certain comfort in that, that despite everything, they still managed to find each other. She looks at him, taking in the way his dark hair falls over his forehead, the deep brown of his eyes, the curve of his lips and the slight stubble on his jawline. Jax grimaces again suddenly, shifting in his chair.
“You still need to feed,” Lydia remembers.
“You still sure?” he asks. “This will be even more intense, with you being my soulmate.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Lydia asks.
She sees Jax’s lips tilt up in a smile at her comment as he brings his hand to her chin again, gently tilting her head. His fingers against her skin ignite her before she even feels the warmth of his mouth on her neck.