Heart of Glass [manxman]

Prologue

"Mama, what's that mark on your arm?"

"It's a soulmark."

"What's a soulmark?"

She smiled and knelt down, gently touching my hands. "Well, you get a soulmark when you and your soulmate touch for the first time. I got this when I first met Mommy."

That was one of the only memories I had of my mothers, both of them dying shortly after that day in a demonic raid. Out of all the fucking things to remember, it'd be about soulmates and soulmarks. Since that day, I'd dreamt about meeting my soulmate, getting a mark like my mother's, all of it. It wasn't until I was a teenager, and a cynical little shit, that I realized how rare it was to obtain a soulmark.

Not only did someone have to find their soulmate, but both of them had to be pureblood witches to get a soulmark. Other species, vampires, fae, demons, none of them had soulmarks, so as the hybrid populations increased, the likelihood to find a soulmate through soulmark alone was decreased drastically for witches such as myself.

So, finally, I stopped hoping to get a soulmark. And then, I stopped hoping to even meet my soulmate. Because really, with all the people in the universe and my shitty luck, the chances of meeting them were slim, if they even existed, not to mention the fact that I was quite literally stuck in one place.

And then, I wasn't so stuck. Drafted into a war against a dangerous demonic empire and thrown into a team of demon Hunters in training, I walked up to the first masked guy and shook his gloved hand. Cloaked head to toe, all Hunters were required to remain totally anonymous in order to avoid off-duty demon attacks. Being disgustingly traditional, Hunters were given dog tags not only to identify them, but also blank ones to serve as the skin-to-skin contact barrier necessary for soulmates to breech in order to find each other. While not every Hunter was a pureblood witch, it aided those that were, while further protecting identities from demons.

Despite finding the dog tags silly, I wore them as required, pulled on my uniform, and went to meet my team as requested. And as I stood there, glove-to-glove with the Hunter in front of me, I saw his blank tag fill out. Glancing down, I saw mine doing the same, like an invisible force painting swirling black lines over the metal, painting a compass on one side and a clock on the other.

The same thing happened to the guy in front of me.

Just like that, I had a soulmate, and everything I thought I knew about the world suddenly shifted.