He dabbed his finger against the metal edge, yanked his handback with a hiss, and stuck his finger in his mouth. “Perfect.”The uncertainty must have been written on her face because he wiggled the object in the air. “You’re going to hold this here,” he instructed, positioning the cutter over his heart. “Place your palm on the flat part, wrap your fingers under it, and push.”
She recoiled.“I’m not fucking stabbing you!” she yelled. “Are you crazy?”
He looked between her and the cutter in his hand. “Yes.”
Gaping at him, she was too stunned to move or speak. He wouldn’t dare.
“If you won’t, I will,” he warned her.
He would.
“Fine,” she agreed reluctantly. She killed people as a hobby; stabbing her boyfriend shouldn’t be an issue. “What is the picture?”
“You’ll see,” he replied and positioned the blade over his heart.“Grab the handle,” Caius instructed.
With an exaggerated sigh, she stepped forward and grabbed the smooth wood. The organ in her chest was about to give out, and when she realized where she was about to stab him, she dropped the cutter like it was on fire.“You’ll die.”
Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he picked up the cutter and placed it against his chest. “Don’t!” she screamed, losing her composure. ARoyalcould only be killed one of two ways, and one of those was stabbing them in the heart.
Caius hissed as he lodged the cutter into his skin, and Rory screamed as she grabbed his arm to yank it back. Blood dripped from the weaponized kitchen utensil, but it was nothing compared to her mate’s chest.
“No,” she cried as she yanked off her nightshirt to staunch the bleeding.
A warm hand engulfed hers. “I think I’ll live.”
The amusement in his voice brought her to a halt, and when she saw him holding back a laugh, she wished she’d been the one to stab him. “It’s not funny,” she snapped. “What if you’d stabbed too deep?” She motioned wildly to the cutter on the ground. “Do youknow how far into the chest a mystic’s heart is or did you eyeball that monstrosity and hope for the best?”
“No,” he admitted, “But I know ribs exist, and while this cuts like a scalpel,” he said, grabbing the cutter to brandish the bloody blade. “It can’t cut through bone.”
The only thing worse than admitting you were wrong was having to admit you were wrong to your significant other. He afforded her the small mercy of not having to when he grabbed the shirt from her hand and cleaned himself off. “Come have a look.”
When she studied his chest, she gasped. Caius looked at her with such tenderness that it was hard to turn away from his gaze.
But when she looked back at the sigil marking him as hers, she couldn’t take her eyes off it.
It was cut with surgical precision, but the blood continued to flow, obscuring the design a bit. “I can’t believe you did this.” He was quiet as she stared, letting her assess his handiwork. It looked like an incomplete circle with a fancy ‘A’ in the center. “It’s a really nice circle,” she joked as she straightened.
He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth as he grinned at her. Oh shit, she knew that look. Looking back at the picture, she tried to figure out what the hell it was.
“It’s a moon,” he murmured, exuding raw sensuality; he always had, but the way he looked at her tonight was entirely different. “Do you remember the first Plenilune we spent together?” She shivered. It was impossible to forget. At her first Plenilune ball, he chased her through the garden.
His smirk grew into a devious smile as his eyes moved to the bite mark on her neck. “It was the first time I heard you scream my name.” He leaned forward and nipped at her skin, and she bit back a moan. “Now that I know what wearing your mark is like, I will never be without it. If it is gone when I wake, I will hire anAlchemistto curate a potion to keep it from healing when I do it again.”
No words came to her, only rapid breaths. It was the sexiest, sweetest, and stupidest thing she’d ever heard in her life.
Hesmoothed the hair back from her face with an affectionate smile. “Do you like it?”
“You’re ridiculous,” she breathed.She loved it.
He grinned and softly pecked her lips as the room shimmered. “Time to wake up.”
37
VINCULA
Caius ranhis hand over his chest and felt slightly raised lines marring his skin.
He jumped out of bed and looked down at the scar with a disbelieving laugh. “It worked.”What did this mean?
