Page 89 of Wretched Thorns

“Not today, but perhaps soon. When that day comes, beautiful, you will not have to ask me twice.”

She turned her head into his throat.

“Say it again.”

Eli’s mouth brushed hers once before he answered.

“I will not bite you tonight.”

“Not that part.”

His hand tightened slightly at the back of her neck.

“I’ll bite you on the day you ask me to.”

Serena’s breath caught.

“Promise?” she whispered.

“You have my word.”

The third time broke her.

She came hard against him with his name in her mouth and her hand tangled in his hair at the nape of his neck. Her teeth caught his shoulder through the open collar of his shirt while the silver thread flared hot between them.

Eli followed half a breath later with his forehead pressed against her throat and one arm locked tight around her waist, as if instinct had taken over somewhere in the middle of it.

Neither of them let go afterward.

Serena’s body still trembled under him while the library sat quiet around them in its dim yellow light.

Eli kept his face buried against her neck, breathing hard once against her skin before he finally laughed softly under his breath.

Not because anything about this was funny.

Because he was losing this fight completely.

***

When he pulled himself up on his elbows to look at her, she was watching him through a heavy-lidded warmth he hadn’t seen on her face since the porch in Magnolia Creek the morning after she’d moved into the garage apartment.

“One more thing,” he said.

“Hmmm.”

He moved down her body without hurry. He stopped at the inside of her left thigh. He pressed his mouth flat against the delicate skin there. He spoke the name of the mark into her skin in a language that wasn’t English.

The shadow-trail sigil came up under her skin in a slow dark seam Eli could feel through their silver-threaded bond. It settled. It stayed.

He kissed it once.

“This is not a claim,” he said.

She had her hand on the back of his head.

“It’s a way home. He can’t see it. My brothers and I can. If he moves you, we’ll know. When he tries to draw a binding circle, this will warn you before he closes it. When you walk out of his prison, beautiful, this is the line that one of us will follow to you.”

She was crying without making a sound about it.