"Did you think my marks would be simple?" He moved to the bath's edge, testing the water with casual familiarity. "They're seeds, essentially. Without proper binding, they'd spread through you until you became another decoration for my halls."
She stared at him. "You marked me with something that could kill me?"
"I marked you with something that marks you as untouchable." His eyes met hers, still carrying that banked fury. "Nothing in my domain will dare what the garden attempted. Not when you wear my claim beneath your skin."
She looked back at the water. Perhaps it was lingering fear, or frustration at being put in such a precarious situation, but Briar was feeling irritated and bold. "Leave so I can bathe."
"No." He settled on the bath's edge. "The binding requires precision. Unless you'd prefer to slowly transform from the inside out?"
Heat flooded her face, but the patterns pulsing beneath her skin decided for her. With great reluctance she turned her back and began unbuckling the leather with stiff fingers.
When she finally slipped into the water, dressed only in underthings and defiance, the heat engulfed her completely. But beneath the warmth was something else, a power that made her mark sing and the thorn-patterns pulse with new life.
"All the way under," he instructed. "The binding needs complete immersion."
She hesitated at the water's edge, remembering how the bathwater in her room examined her too closely. This would be worse—this was his magic, his binding. But the patterns beneath her skin pulsed with increasing urgency, demanding completion.
Drawing a deep breath, she slipped beneath the surface, and the world changed. In the water, she could feel every pattern beneath her skin, connected by threads of his magic. Eliam's power surrounded her, but so did something else. That warmth in her chest blazed, meeting his forest claim with equal strength.
When she surfaced, gasping, he was staring at her with an expression she couldn't read.
"What?" she asked.
"You're fighting it."
"I'm not—"
"Not consciously." He leaned closer, studying her face. "But something in you resists proper binding. That warmth..."
His hand dipped into the water, fingertips tracing one of the patterns visible through her wet skin. Where he touched, gold flickered briefly beneath the green before his magic reasserted itself.
"Interesting," he murmured.
"What's interesting?"
"Nothing that concerns you." But his eyes said otherwise. "The binding is adequate. Dress and I'll return you to your rooms."
"That's it?"
"Would you prefer more elaborate rituals?" His smile was sharp. "I could make this far more intimate, if you insist."
She sank lower in the water. "Rooms. Yes. Rooms would be good."
"As you wish." He rose, turning his back with surprising courtesy. "But remember, little thief, those marks are mine. Those thorns beneath your skin won't fade, and they don't forget. Every time you see them, you'll remember who put them there. And why."
The patterns pulsed in agreement, and that warmth in her chest whispered questions she didn't want to answer.
Chapter ten
Sleep was a mistake.
Briar woke gasping, sheets twisted around her legs, the taste of someone else's death thick on her tongue. The moss memories clung with stubborn persistence. It wasn’t her pain or her terror, but borrowed agonies that felt just as real.
She'd been the woman slowly drowned. Then the man whose bones the marrow vines had hollowed out over weeks. Then the child who'd been transformed so slowly she'd had time to carve her name into her own hardening skin.
The thorn patterns beneath her skin pulsed with each frantically beating heartbeat, spreading heat through her veins. She pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to block out images that lived behind her eyelids now.
"Stop," she whispered to the empty room. "Please stop."
