He ran the handheld nozzle, water as hot as I could stand, over my head, careful to avoid the patch where they’d shaved me for the stitches.
He lathered up my hair, then applied the purple conditioner I liked. He massaged my scalp, slow, with fingers that felt magical, making my brain fizz out at the edges.
“You smell like a spa,” he said, nuzzling into my neck. “Is this your secret weapon?”
“That, and coffee. The true lifeblood of the hacker.”
He set the bottle down, but kept working the conditioner through my hair. His voice dropped lower. “I have to tell you something.”
I tensed. He felt it, and held me tighter.
“When you were out, I called Menace. I asked about that angel—the one that saved his life. Your brain kept swelling. Didn’t look like it was going to stop. I asked Menace if he might contact him to see if he might give you a little touch.”
I blinked. “Did he do it?”
“Got a message back from Menace saying he spoke with him.”
“Did he say anything else?”
Wrecker shrugged, but I could feel the hope trembling in him. “I didn’t have a chance to ask. Doc came in and said the swelling was going down. Said you should have died, but you didn’t.”
“When I saw my mom, I remember being scared because I didn’t know how to get back to you. That’s when she told me to listen. The only thing that mattered to me was getting back to you.”
His hands stilled. The water sloshed, the only sound for a long second.
He pressed his lips to the nape of my neck. “I should have claimed you before all this. If I’d been stronger—”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said, cutting him off. “You didn’t wait. It’s not like we started on steady footing.”
He let out a shaky laugh. “That’s true. You’re sure you want me to do it. To mark you? Claim you?”
I twisted around in his arms, ignoring the ache in my ribs. “If you don’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life tormenting you about it. Is that what you want?”
He grinned, but there was a glassiness in his eyes, a grief I’d never seen before. “No, Wren. That’s not what I want.”
I tilted my head forward, letting my wet hair fall over his face. “Then do it. whenever. I don’t need a ceremony.”
He kissed me then, a slow, careful thing. He tasted like love and agony. His hands roamed up my back, one finger tracing the line of my spine. He paused when he got to the place around my right ear.
“What’s this?” he said, gently parting the hair.
I reached up, fingers finding the patch where the nurse had shaved a coin-sized circle. The skin underneath was weird—slick, smooth, almost plastic-feeling. I tried to catch my reflection in the faucet, but couldn’t see it. I scraped at the patch and it tingled, a faint, static electricity sparking up my arm.
“Look at it,” I said, tilting my head for him to see.
He leaned in. “Holy fuck. That’s new.”
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer right away, just stared.
“Hand me a mirror.”
He reached over to the vanity and pulled out the drawer. He pulled out a handheld mirror and handed it to me. I held it up and pulled the hair back. Just behind my right ear was a spot. Thepatch was faint blue, pale as glacial ice. Under the bathroom lights, it almost glowed.
He ran his thumb over it, gentle, reverent. “Looks like a scar. But not. Maybe it’s where the angel touched you.”
I snorted. “That’s stupid.”
