Cassie
I woke up choking on my own breath.
My eyes snapped open in the blackness. Sweat was plastered onto my body like a second skin. My heart pounded in my chest, every beat a drum reviving something within me.
Something was not right. Or perhaps too right.
I sprang up suddenly. The blanket had encircled my legs, but I pushed it off and lurched into the mirror. The moonlight streaming in through the window illuminated my body and that's where I saw it.
Glowing strings of light emanated around the crescent birthmark on my shoulder as if veins of silver hummed just beneath my skin. They flowed with me, flashing and stabilizing, as if to the rhythm of my pulse.
I touched it, pushing the tips of my fingers into the mark. It didn't hurt. But it stirred, awake.
My mind flashed to the Lu
