Not from pain, but fromrightness.
The magic stretched deeply into me, through blood and bones and spirit. It was familiar in the sense that this was now my fourth time receiving one of the Mystique tattoos, but it was?—
“It’smore,” I whispered to Tolek as my eyes stung.
This was so much more. It wasn’t just a feeling of magic seeping into my body, it was a sense of true belonging as our souls merged into one. Destined and inevitable. As this man who had always understood me, protected me and cherished me, became tethered to me in a way beyond this earthly plane.
Two halves of broken spirits becoming one, two lives unceasingly bonded.
Tolek nodded at me, squeezing my hand. “It’s so much more,” he said.
We stayed in that awed silence for the majority of the time that Marxian worked on me, and with each passing second, Tolek infiltrated my being more. His warmth spread across the new bond, his gentle nature and heated passion caressing it. A slight hint of teasing edged along the slip of soul until I was practically squirming, sending the adoration and desire right back to him.
By the time Marxian was done, my breathing was nearly ragged.
Thiswas how it was supposed to feel? Perhaps the Bind was different for every pair that received it. Where my first had been one full of innocence and hope, this was a preordained, destined need I’d never before experienced.
It had me stumbling out the door, pressing my lips to Tolek’s and whispering, “Take me home.”
We barely madeit back to our suite in the palace before we were ripping each other’s clothes off. We left a trail through the foyer, his tunic and my leathers falling among the combinations of our favorite artworks we’d purchased in Damenal this past year.
On the way here, I’d healed both of our fresh tattoos with seraph magic so they wouldn’t be tender to the touch, because I didn’t want soft from Tolek now. Not with this desire raging between us.
As we spun into the bedchamber, his lips feverish on mine, I pulled at the buckles of his leathers. Tol ran his hand down my spine, hovering over the joint of my wings so I arched against him, my bare skin hot and sensitive.
“I want to see it,” Tolek whispered as he kissed down my neck.
I moaned in answer, my head tipping back, but I sent a feeling of utter compliance down the bond.
Tol scooped me up, laying me back on our grand bed, the cream silk comforter cool beneath me. He held my wrists in one hand above my head and with his other, he traced the fresh black ink adorning my body.
He started at the end, where the delicate rope design trailed between my breasts, curving beneath one. I gasped at his touch, my back arching and core aching for him. With a combination of hunger and disbelief shining in his eyes, his fingers followed the pattern to my ribs, where the rope curved into a perfect infinity knot.
He studied it for a long, silent moment as if committing it to memory.
I’d chosen the spot because it was intimate. Somewhere others might see part of the tattoo, but where only Tolek saw it fully on display. Where he could trace it night after night as we laid in this very bed together for the centuries to come. Where he could leave kisses as he whispered all those salacious promises and words of adoration he loved so much.
We’d given so much of ourselves to Ambrisk, I wanted this piece to be for us.
And Tolek…he’d chosen his because it was somewhere he could see at any moment. That he could use to remember where he was and what grounded him when memories and nightmares pushed into his mind.
Tugging one wrist from his grip, I lifted his hand, tracing the way the infinity knot painted the inside of his forearm. The rope curled up around his bicep and shoulder, weaving between the scars that littered his torso. On this end, it stretched all the way to the scar on his thigh—the one he’d received on our way to the Undertaking, when he’d pushed me out of the way of an Engrossian ax.
And on the other end, the rope wrapped around his wrist and hand, trailing down over his pinky. I thought of the time we’d fallen asleep in a dark cave, pinkies entwined, and tears rushed to my eyes at the memory.
This was a tattoo to ground him, but it also decorated the scars of his commitment to me. It was woven throughourstory.
Tolek linked his fingers through mine and ducked his head to kiss first the knot on my ribs, then along the rope until he stopped between my breasts. His eyes lifted to mine, and he whispered, “Infinitely.”
“Infinitely,” I repeated, cupping his cheek and pulling him up to me.
And it only took a moment of lips against lips, of his tongue pushing into my mouth, for both of us to become desperate.He was already hard against my center, my legs hitched tightly around his waist, and I ground against him, seeking relief.
“I need you,” he groaned the words straight from my head.
“Please,” I begged, even that one word cracking. I was so ready for him from just the wait.
The soul bond between us was strung tight, pulling on either end as we discarded the rest of our clothes. As he lined himself up with my entrance and hovered above me. As he slowly sank into me and never broke eye contact for a moment.
