"You take care of him." Mattaniah says it quietly. "He takes care of me, and you take care of him."
"Someone has to." I press a band-aid over the deepest cut. "He won't do it himself."
Dominic says nothing, but his hand reaches out and finds Mattaniah's ankle. His thumb tracing circles against the bone.
We rearrange ourselves in the bed, Mattaniah pulling the blanket up to his chin and tucking his bandaged feet between Dominic's calves for warmth. His hand reaches behind him and finds mine, threading our fingers together.
Mattaniah
MyfeetstingbeforeI've opened my eyes, the cuts from last night pulling against the bandages when I shift under the sheets.
Dominic is already gone. His side of the bed is cool but his scent lingers in the pillow, leather and smoke pressed into the cotton from years of sleeping in this exact spot. Amos is still behind me, his arm draped over my waist, his breathing slowagainst the back of my neck. The sting brings last night flooding back in sharp, glass-edged fragments.
My chest tightens at the memory and I press my face deeper into Dominic's pillow to hide from it. The scent helps. It always helps, which is embarrassing because three weeks ago I would have rather died than admit I was face-down in an Alpha's pillow on purpose.
"You're thinking too loud." Amos' voice is sleep-rough against my neck. His arm tightens around my waist and pulls me back against his chest. "I can feel it vibrating through the mattress."
"I'm processing."
"Then process quieter." His mouth presses against the spot behind my ear that makes my toes curl, and the contact sends warmth flooding through my belly despite everything. "Or process out loud. I'm a good listener before coffee."
"You two are actually bonded, not just dating or together, like... you two have actual bond marks."
Amos goes still behind me. His arm stays around my waist but the lazy warmth of half-sleep evaporates, replaced by something more alert. "You never mentioned that you saw anything."
"I didn’t really know how to? I’ve seen Dominic’s but yours… I haven’t done a lot of exploring." I roll over to face him and his expression confirms everything. "But now I know I'm right."
Amos exhales through his nose and a rueful smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. "Walked right into that one."
"Where are they?" My hand reaches for the hem of his sleep shirt before the question is fully formed, my fingers finding the fabric and pushing it up. Amos catches my wrist but doesn't stop me, his grip loose enough that I can keep exploring if I choose to. I choose to.
His shirt rides up and I see it. The scar sits along his left ribs, a crescent of raised tissue about two inches long that has clearly been there for years. The skin around it is smooth and healed,the edges soft with age, but the shape is unmistakable, Dominic's teeth pressed into Amos' body hard enough to leave a permanent mark in the exact spot where Dominic's hand rests when they stand close together.
The intimacy of touching it makes my face heat but I can't make myself pull away. My fingers trace the scar and Amos shivers under the contact, his breath catching, his body responding to the touch on his bond mark the way mine responds when Dominic's thumb finds my lower lip.
"Six years." Amos' voice has gone quiet. "He marked me six years ago in a hotel room in Montreal during his first rut after we admitted what this was."
"Six years." I trace the curve of the scar again and Amos' eyes flutter. "You've been hiding this for six years."
"We've been hiding everything for six years. The mark just happens to be the part that would get us disowned if Father saw it." His hand comes up and covers mine against his ribs, pressing my palm flat against the scar. "Now you've seen it."
"Where's his?" My eyes move to his face. "Where did you mark him?"
"Over his heart." Amos' smile carries something private. "Left side of his chest, right over the nipple. I'd show you but he's already downstairs and he'd kill me for revealing the location without his permission."
"Over his nipple." I press my lips together to keep from laughing and fail. "You bit Dominic Hale over the nipple."
"It seemed romantic at the time." Amos' ears go red. "In my defense, I was in the middle of an extremely intense bonding rut and my aim wasn't exactly precision-calibrated."
The laugh escapes me, loose and loud enough to surprise me. Amos watches me laugh and his expression shifts into something unguarded enough to make my throat close.
"Stop looking at me like that," I mutter, turning my face back into the pillow.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm something you're afraid to break."
"You're something I'm afraid to lose." He says it simply, and my throat tightens because I've heard Alphas say things like that before but never while looking at me the way Amos is looking at me right now. "There's a difference, Niah."
