“Let me do this for you,” I whisper. “I want to make you feel good tonight.”
His eyes flash. Darken. “That is never a concern with you, Liebste.” He hooks a strand of hair behind my ear. “But today has been a lot for you, I know. And tomorrow will be too. And I want to make sure you’re taken care of—”
I silence him with a kiss. Nothing deep. Nothing suggestive, even, despite the clear intention humming in the air between us.
“Hush now,” I whisper into his mouth, “and take what I give you, Jäger.”
I know I don’t imagine the pulse of heat in Otto’s gaze, the flicker of his lips tugging up at the way I grab his wrists and smash them to either side of his body against the bark of the tree. Magic tingles along my arms, and I have vines crawl up the tree, intending to encircle his wrists and keep him pinned.
But before they even touch him, a spasm grabs my lungs, and I halt the spell.
My own wrists burn.
They’re long healed, no scars even.
But I still feel the manacles.
The way I’d hung by them in Dieter’s room, and then again, attached to the stake. His brand searing into my stomach, my thigh, my collarbone, over and over and—
My palm had been pressed to Otto’s chest. The ink and the magic of the tattoo were not abrand, not a burning, not something forced on him—he’d chosen this, he’d chosen me,it’s not the same—
Leaning against Otto, I go rigid, and he feels the change in me, coming out of his own stupor with a sudden inhale.
“Fritzi? What’s wrong?”
Nothing. No,nothing, nothing here, not now—pleasenot now—
I kiss him, but he doesn’t return it, doesn’t drop back against the tree.
“Fritzi—”
Fritzichen. Oh, sweet sister.
He isn’t here. He isn’there. He’s in a prison in Trier, or dead already, and he’s gone, andhe can’t hurt me anymore.
My face ends up buried in Otto’s shoulder. The crook of his neck. I take hard, gasping breaths, my whole body shuddering, and Otto’s arms come around me, a warm, immovable wall.
“Liebste,” he whispers into my hair.
I say something against his skin. Words tumble from my lips, sobbed words, and I hear them coalesce, “I did this to you.”
My hand is on the tattoo. Just under his tunic.
Otto holds me closer. “Yes,” he says. “We did this. Together.”
I lurch back, tears burning my eyes, and then shame matches, burning my throat. I ruined this night. Ruined this moment. My hand fists in his tunic, and I glare at him for being unable to glare at myself.
“You’ll get hurt,” I tell him, like he doesn’t know, like he hasn’t foreseen the inevitable ending. “When we go up against the council. When we try to change the way magic is viewed and used outside of the Well. You’ll get hurt because of me. Because of this.” I put my hand over the tattoo. “Because you’re bound to me, and I’m too selfish to push you away.”
Is it the same? The brand Dieter put on me, the tattoo I put on Otto?
Otto cups my face in his hands, his focus making no room for me to look anywhere but at him.
“I havechosento be here,” he says. “You know me well by now. Do you truly think there is anything I would do if I did not want to do it? You are not the only selfish one. I’m here because I want to be. Because I choseyou. And yes, I might get hurt—I probably will. But I will do so knowing that it’s for a cause I have chosen. For—”
“Damn your honor, Otto.” I try to shove back from him, but he keeps my face in his hands, which undercuts me trying to be angry with him. “You’re marked by me. Tomorrow, you’ll be bound to me. You say you know what you’re doing, but what if you want out one day? What if all this destroys you?”
My chest kicks, a sob, and Otto’s brows furrow.
