Raphael choked on a laugh, and even Nico had to look away to hide a smile. “Focus, people,” the shaman managed.
Then it was Miryam’s turn. She rolled up her sleeve with a quiet kind of courage, jaw set, eyes fixed on some distant point. Verion worked in silence, the needle buzzing in the hush. When he finished, Miryam stared at the tattoo—a chain, links wrapped around her bicep, unbroken, until it reached the outside of her arm. Then the chain was shattered, jagged, as if something impossibly strong had snapped it in two.
The room went dead silent. For a moment, nobody moved or even breathed.
Morgan leaned in, eyes huge. “Is that a kingdom emblem?"
Nico stepped closer, his usual calm appeared to be rattled. “That’s never happened before. Not that I’m aware of.” He turned to look at Raphael. He was trying hard not to look like a deer in headlights, to not give anything away. “You?”
Raphael shook his head and cleared his throat. “No. That’s not a mark that an animus would receive."
Verion’s hands were shaking as he wiped his tools, staring at Miryam’s arm as if he’d conjured a ghost. “I—I don’t understand. The magic chooses. I’ve never tattooed anything on a Damarian’s arm, animus or otherwise, that didn’t represent their kingdom.”
Miryam touched the broken links, her voice barely above a whisper. “Does it mean something’s wrong with me?”
Raphael’s heart hammered in his chest. He knew that tattoo, and he wasn’t lying that it hadn’t been on a Damarian. He knew it as intimately as the ache in his own soul. He’d worn the same broken chain for more years than he could count, a mark he’dnever explained to anyone. Now, seeing it on her—seeing it on Miryam—felt like the world had tilted on its axis.
But he couldn’t tell her. Not yet. How do you tell someone so pure, so good, that fate had tied her to a demon? That the universe had drawn a chain around her arm and broken it to match the darkness in him? He forced himself to look away, to swallow the truth and the fear that threatened to choke him.
Akira cleared her throat and thrust out her arm, as if desperate to break the tension. “Guess I’m up.” Her voice was full of bravado, but her hands shook.
Verion set to work, this time, just like with Miryam, he didn’t draw the image first. He just started working, the needle’s buzz filling the silence. When he finished, Akira stared at the symbol—eight arrows radiating from a central point, stark and strange.
Morgan squinted, and then recognition dawned on her face. “Wait . . . that’s a Chaos Star. Like . . . from D&D.” She flushed, defensive. “Don’t judge me. It’s a fun game.”
“No judgment here,” Miryam held up her hands. “Everyone has their own thing.”
Raphael turned his attention to his long-time friend, Nico. The shaman was as still as a statue, his eyes glued to the mark on Akira’s arm. He could see the coiled tension in him and practically feel Nico’s emotions rolling off of him.
Akira looked up, her bravado gone. “Chaos?” Her brow rose as she stared back at Nico. “Does this mean this is where my mate is?”
Nico was still for several heartbeats later until he pulled up his sleeve. His movements were fluid and careful. As soon as the fabric reached his elbow, he turned his arm, wrist up, revealing the exact same mark on his inner forearm. “Only one person in Chaos carries that tattoo. Me. And shaman do have mates, but matching marks have never been a declaration of that.”
Verion shook his head, voice unsteady. “I’ve never done this before, nor have I ever heard of it happening. I’ve done the tattoos of many shamans and demons, but never repeated them. Just like my marks on Damarians, I only ink a tattoo one time. But matching markings are for Damarian mates. Or at least they used to be.”
“Things are changing,” Nico said, his voice distant as he continued to stare at Akira. There was intense longing in his gaze.
Raphael understood completely how his friend was feeling. He thought he’d been stupidly possessive of Miryam as soon as he met her, but now that he’d seen his tattoo on her body—that raised the bar to a whole other level.
Morgan leaned forward, eyes wide. “So . . . we’re all . . . mated? Like, that’s it? No take-backsies?”
Akira looked at her tattoo, then at Nico, her voice trembling between awe and terror. “Is that whatweare?”
Nico didn’t answer. He simply stared at the mark on the female’s arm.
Morgan groaned, pressing a hand over her heart. “If my mate ever brings home a fish he caught with his mouth, I’m making him cook it himself. And if he sheds, he’s buying me a Roomba.”
Miryam just stared at her arm, tracing the broken chain over and over. She looked as if the weight of something ancient settled over her—something she didn’t yet understand; but then, neither did Raphael. Demons had mates, but they weren’t marked the way Damarians were. So why was this happening now? What did it mean for him and Miryam? Would other demons experience the same thing?
Verion’s last words hung like prophecy. “This has never happened. Not in all my years. Shamans and demons with marked mates? This will change everything.”
Raphael’s mind returned to the present. Four days had passed. Four days of hiding, of restless pacing and whispered conversations, of a pressure building in the air—a storm waiting to break.
Raphael sat in the corner, watching Miryam and his own arm as if the matching tattoos would simply disappear if he stared hard enough. He hadn’t told her. Couldn’t. Miryam was untouched by the darkness he carried. She was hope and sunlight and the promise of something unbroken. He was an incubus, a creature of hunger and shadows, the kind of monster that mothers warned their children about in the old stories. What right did he have to claim her? To take her freedom and bind her to someone like him?
He wanted to run. He wanted to stay. He wanted to protect her with every last breath in his body. Every time she looked at him, he felt exposed, raw, as if she could see right through the mask he wore for everyone else. He’d seduced queens and tempted government officials, entranced some of the most powerful people in history in order to meet someone else's agenda, and then walked away from it all with the knowledge that he could be killed for his insolence, butthis—this was the first time he’d ever truly been afraid.
Nico caught him watching, then jerked his chin toward the hallway. “A word?”
