“Yes, you did. But I had no clue how much.”
“You won’t glow,” he says quietly, thumbing over the faint gray lines at my wrist beneath the bracelet. “And you don’t have nearly as many.” His voice fades away as his fingers crawl up my arm to my shoulder, gauging lines and spaces. “But others will know who you belong to.”
“How did it happen, though?”
“Can’t say for sure. Just always knew I would brand the woman I touched. Used to scare the hell out of me. Now, I see its beauty. Nature, whatever it is, declaring in front of the whole world that you’re mine. Only mine.”
“Why doesn’t Jo have these, too?” I ask breathlessly, twisting the arm I stare down at.
He shrugs. “Dunno. Ash is several generations more human than me. You’d have to ask her.”
“I can’t believe this.”
His eyes meet mine, voice thick. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
I blink slowly, trying to find the right words to explain what I’m feeling. “Of course, it is. You’re all I want, Kael. That will never change. But you have to understand how weird this is for me.”
“For me, too,” he confesses. “Only ever heard about this in legends. And from other Wildbloods. Like my brother, Clemson.”
“Is he still alive?”
He shakes his head, face simmering. Like he’s remembering hell in one breath.
“What happened to him?”
“Ended up like my parents.
“But I don’t understand. Aren’t your kind almost immortal, like you?”
Kael’s jaw tightens. “Long-lived for sure. But not immune to violence. In my parents’ case, Sentinels. For Clemson and Ruby, it was the Wildblood hunters.”
“How did they kill them?”
“Don’t know with my parents,” he says, voice gravel. “Just that they target the mate, not the man. For Clemson and Ruby—” his voice breaks, hand going to scars on his stomach “—ambush. Shot him, which wouldn’t do nothing. But the lead killed her. He faded away after that.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, stroking his beard. “Because their lives were tied together?”
“Yes.” He eyes me for a long moment, face darkening. “But don’t worry, primrose. Won’t let anything touch you.Ever.”
“Is that why you can’t sleep? Bad memories?”
He nods once, pressing my hand over his heart. “Part of it. And it’s too quiet… after what we did.”
“What if they come?”
Kael grabs the bracelet at my wrist, twirling it absentmindedly around my wrist. “We suppress them. Like Ash and I did with the government men.”
Fear whispers through me despite his words. He squeezes me tightly. And that’s when I feel it, his mind pressing back against mine, turning worry into something like faith.
“Together, they can’t break us,” he says.
I nod, snuggling against his chest.
Tempest’s tail swishes in the distance, soft and predictable. My eyelids droop, the world dimming.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
