I reached up and held his head in my hands, the tips of my claws sinking into his hairline. “So? Aren’t we both?”
He brought his mouth down over mine in a kiss that said more than words ever could.
It was with that kiss that I finally allowed my whole heart to trust him.
He didn’t hurry the connection or try to deepen it. He allowed me to end the kiss, and when I did, he took hold of my wrist and guided me back outside to the bank.
“Stand there,” he instructed as he went for the satchel, digging around to pull out a jar a beat later.
“Uh. What’s happening?” I asked, confused all to hell as I watched him pop off the cap and dip his meaty paw into black paint.
“I’m going to paint you.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s part of the ritual. For the beta to wear the alphas totem.”
I bared my fangs. “I amnotthe beta.”
“Fine. We’re both alphas. But you don’t have a totem to paint me with. Your mark will be enough.”
“If I had a totem, what do you think I’d be?”
“Depends. What would you try to shift into? Creatures with wings are the easiest and the most useful.”
“Something gothic,” I mused, tapping my chin as he began to slather paint over my body. “Probably a bat. It’s a little on the nose, but hey. Then I’d get to have cool bat tattoos all over.”
“You could have that anyway. Eros could do it.”
“Eros knows how to tattoo?”
Vincent kept his focus on my chest as his fingers moved the paint over my skin. “You saw his needle collection.” I swallowed back a cry when Vin gave a flick to my pierced nipple. “Does that surprise you?”
“I guess not.”
“He did that reaper tat on his chest by himself, you know.”
“Really?”
The fae gave a nod, the corners of his mouth twitching with the smile he held back. “I was there, watching him do it. He did it in the mirror. I bet him to do it in a silver-backed mirror. The crazy bastard did it.” The smile broke free, and my mate’s chest bounced with a deep laugh. “All he could see was the ink and the gun, but it didn’t turn out half bad.”
I watched his face, seeing hints of the same look I’d caught him wearing in Corry’s memory when Eros had asked him to use his fae blood to save Corry’s parents.
“You have feelings for him, don’t you?”
I wasn’t sure what compelled me to say it. Maybe it was the jungle heat. Or maybe I just gave fewer fucks in my monster form.
Vincent’s smile turned to dust, and his thick brows drew into a heavy mantle. “What did you just say?”
It was too late to take my words back now. “You love Eros.”
Every sinew in Vincent's body strung taught. His onyx eyes crystallized into black ice. “I care for all my brothers.”
“You know that's not what I'm talking about.”
His fingers ceased their perusal over my body, and my heart kicked up when his talons dug into my flesh, warning me not to press this topic further. He should have known by now that I wasn't very good at following verbal instructions, and I especially wasn't good at adhering to physical threats.
I smacked his hand away and bared my fangs. “You know, I wasn’t sure at first. But now I can't believe how blind I was to it. It's so obvious now. Maybe not to him or anyone else, but it is to me.”
