Lena laughs so hard she nearly tips over onto me.
“I mean, that sounds fun, don’t get me wrong, but no. I’m going to use this to mark you, like the marks I have. I’m going to tattoo you and give you a mating mark of your own.” She beams at me, her smile pulled wide.
A mating mark of my own?My clever mate has found a way to claim me in the ways of our people.
“So, will you let me mark you as my own?” she asks in earnest.
When I look at her face, when I think of what she’s offering me, my heart wants to explode.
“I would be honored to bear your mark, but how are these things going to help us do that?” I gesture to the box she holds.
“It’s called a tattoo. I’ll poke your skin with the needle and rub the nuite fruit into the cuts. Once it heals over, I hope it’ll be permanent. From how the dye stained the cave walls, I think it should.”
I narrow my eyes at her.
“I must love you if I’ll allow you to stick me with needles and rub food in the wounds,” I say half in jest.
“It’ll be easy, promise. I haven’t done a stick and poke tattoo since before my apprenticeship at the shop.” She’s giddy, so I don’t ask her to elaborate on what shop she’s talking about. “Should we do it tonight”—her eyes drift back down to my throbbing cock—“or maybe tomorrow, if you need me to…”
“No, I’ve waited long enough. I wish to be claimed,” I try to say playfully, showing her my palm with a smile. I cross my leg over the other, willing myself to soften.
She plops down next to me, takes one of the bottles of sanitizer, and pours some onto her hands. She grabs my hand and rubs her wet palm onto mine. I watch with curiosity as she opens the sterile bandages and uses them to wipe one of the long, thin needles and the jar of purple goop. Lena opens the bottle of nuite fruit.
“I had them boil it. I think that’s as close to sterile as we’re getting, if that’s okay.” She looks somewhat nervously at the jar.
“I trust you.”
She takes a deep breath and dunks one of the sanitized needles and eyes the skin of my palm, turning it from side to side.
“Would your mark look like my own, if I was an Andjin?” she asks.
“Yes, not every mating mark looks the same between all pairs, but mine would look just like yours.”
She nods, sucking her lip between her teeth in an act of concentration. She grazes the tip of her the needle from the middle of my palm outward, matching the swirling mark I left on her own hand.
“That was fast,” I say, shocked that it was so quick.
“I was just tracing the design out.” She doesn’t look up at me, but instead dips the needle back into the ink and places it at the center of the design.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
The needle enters my skin before I can even get the whole word out.
* * *
“People paid you to inflict pain on them like this?” I wince as she wipes at my throbbing palm. I can’t believe that humans exchange credits for this kind of pain.
“Oh yeah, I made the big bucks.” She rolls her eyes. “You know, for someone who nearly broke their own arm, I expected you to handle a little needle better than that.”
“Whatever the pain, it is worth it,” I whisper as she cleans the last of the nuite fruit from my palm.
There in neat purple lines punched into my skin, the swirling mark is so similar to the one I’d given Lena that I do a double take.
“It’s the same as yours,” I whisper softly as she wraps my hand.
It’s as if she did have her own mating barb.
