Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I'm Stuck as Their Baby!-Chapter 132: Marked

"Hey!" Riven shouted from the far end of the room. "Found a box of bones!"

Velka and I stepped back, just a little.

Not too far.

"Please tell me you're joking," I called, though I already knew better. Riven didn't joke about bones. He was the kind of person who found comfort in chaos, humor in horror, and apparently joy in unearthing skeletal remains inside haunted basements.

"I'm offended," he replied, crouching beside a cracked wooden crate. "These bones are very real, and possibly cursed. Maybe haunted. Definitely illegal."

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Aria, still balancing the professor's journal on her knees, sighed. "Riven, if you touch those, I swear I'll hex your hands into goose feet."

He blinked. "Would I still be able to throw knives?"

"No."

He drew back instantly.

While Riven muttered threats about unfair hex policies and Aria continued translating the last few fragments of Professor Aldren's journal, I turned back toward the far wall. Something had been nagging at me since we entered this place something more than the chill in the air or the whispery pressure against the back of my neck.

My right hand had been itching since we stepped into the tunnel. I flexed my fingers now, frowning. The sensation wasn't painful more like a quiet burn, as if something old and invisible was waking up beneath the skin.

I pressed my palm against the wall, experimentally.

Nothing.

Then I let out a sharp hiss.

A shape flickered over the back of my hand a soft shimmer, like a spiderweb of ink and light, trailing in an elegant, unfamiliar spiral. It was only visible for a second before vanishing again, but that second was enough.

Velka's head snapped around. "What was that?"

"You saw it?" I asked, heart suddenly too loud in my chest.

"Show me again."

I hesitated. Then I pressed my hand against the stone once more, channeling just a thread of heat through my fingertips. The mark returned, pulsing faintly in that same strange light violet-black, like twilight caught in ink.

Velka stepped closer, her brows furrowed. "That's not Arcanum magic."

"Then what is it?"

She didn't answer right away. Instead, she reached into the neckline of her uniform and pulled out a small, silver charm hanging from a black cord. It pulsed faintly as she neared my hand, reacting to the mark like a dog catching scent of something old and unwelcome.

Velka swore softly under her breath an old word, not in any language I recognized.

Riven perked up. "Was that a curse or a threat?"

"A warning," she muttered.

"Charming," I said tightly. "So… Velka? Do I need to worry about my hand turning into a demon or something?"

Velka's expression was unreadable. Her usual cool disdain was gone, replaced with something colder. Sharper.

"That mark is old. Forbidden. Vampire magic," she said. "Very old. Very specific."

I swallowed. "What kind?"

"A binding glyph," she said slowly. "From the northern covens. Blood-seared. It's used to track vessels."

My stomach dropped.

"Vessels?" Aria asked, voice small.

"People," Velka clarified, her voice devoid of emotion now. "People they've chosen. For power. Or sacrifice."

"No offense," Riven said, edging away slightly, "but your people really need new hobbies."

I turned toward her. "You said it was a binding. So whoever put this on me—"

"—intended to use you for something," she finished.

There was a pause, heavy and thick as the dust in the air.

Then I said, "It was during the kidnapping. I didn't feel it. But it must've been then."

Velka nodded once. "It explains the reaction. This room whatever it is has residual echoes. It pulled on the mark."

I stared at the faint shimmer on my hand, the spiraled sigil still tingling beneath the skin. I hated the way it made me feel watched. Branded.

Owned.

"Can you remove it?"

Velka hesitated.

"That depends," she said finally. "If the caster is dead, maybe. If not... removing it might tell them exactly where you are."

I exhaled slowly, forcing my thoughts into order. "Then we don't touch it. Not yet."

"Smart," Velka murmured. "I hate to admit that."

The others looked at me the way people look when they're afraid but trying not to show it. I offered a tight smile.

"It's fine," I said. "We'll figure it out."

"Classic protagonist energy," Riven muttered. "First it's a mystery mark. Next you'll be glowing in the dark and speaking in tongues."

"Wouldn't be the weirdest thing," Aria added, flipping the journal shut. "This whole school is a nightmare cake with secret-passage frosting."

We left the chamber slowly, one by one. I kept my hand tucked tightly into the folds of my sleeve, the mark still pulsing faintly beneath the skin like a heartbeat that didn't belong to me.

As we walked, Velka drifted close again close enough that her voice was barely a whisper.

"You need to be careful," she said. "That kind of magic doesn't mark someone randomly. It chooses."

"I didn't choose it," I whispered.

She looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something that almost resembled sympathy flicker in her crimson eyes.

"Maybe not," she said. "But it still chose you."

Then she stepped ahead into the corridor, leaving me in the shadow of the flickering torchlight, hand burning softly with a sigil that no one should have ever worn.

I exhaled, ready to follow, to tuck this whole night into a too-full drawer of "unsolved horrors" and pretend everything was normal. One foot moved forward and then Velka's hand caught mine.

It wasn't a hard grip. Not firm, not commanding. Just… soft. A touch that stopped me in my tracks more effectively than a spell ever could.

I turned my head slowly, confused. Velka didn't look at me at first. Her eyes were focused somewhere past my shoulder, like she was trying very hard to pretend she hadn't just grabbed my hand at all.

"…Velka?" I asked, my voice quiet, uncertain.

Her fingers tightened slightly not enough to hurt, but enough to say: don't move. Not yet.

She didn't speak.

Didn't look at me.

Just held on.

Behind us, I could hear Riven complaining about the dust in his sleeves and Aria trying to stop him from sneezing all over the cursed bones. But their voices were distant, muffled by the hush Velka's silence had cast between us like a bubble no sound could pierce.

Her hand was cool unsurprising, given the vampire heritage but not cold. And mine, still tingling with the echo of the mark, felt suddenly warm. Too warm.

I cleared my throat. "Did… you want to say something?"

She still didn't answer.

Didn't move.

And then she blushed.

Just faintly. A little color blooming high on her pale cheeks, quickly hidden by a sharp turn of her head. If I hadn't been watching her so closely, I wouldn't have seen it.

[Oh my gods,] the system crowed in my mind, sudden and smug. [Is this a confession? Is the blood princess about to declare her undying affection under torchlight? I should be charging admission for this.]

Not. Helping, I thought sharply.

[No, no, don't mind me. Just over here polishing the 'Rivals to Lovers' award. Carry on.]

My eye twitched.

Velka finally looked at me, just for a moment and I saw something flicker in her eyes. Not fear. Not mockery.

Hesitation.

Like she'd planned to say something. Wanted to. And couldn't remember how.

And then, softly, too soft for the others to hear:

"I don't know why," she murmured, "but… I just wanted to hold it."

My hand.

She meant my hand.

We both went red.

[This is the greatest day of my life,] the system sighed dramatically. [Can you feel the tension? I'm writing fanfiction about this later.]

I will delete you.

[Try me, sugarplume.]

Velka's hand slowly withdrew, and she stepped away again, the moment already slipping back into the veil of unspoken things.

She didn't explain.

And I didn't ask.

But for the rest of the walk down that corridor, I could still feel the ghost of her touch cool, quiet, lingering like a secret only we were allowed to keep.