“Now what?” Max asked, pressing his thumb against the cut on his finger.
“I was thinking of using your back, unless you have a preference,” Caius said. He picked up one of the small brushes and stirred the mixture in his bowl.
When Max shrugged, Quinn grabbed one of the chairs from the dining table. Max hesitated, gripping the hem of his shirt before letting out a loud breath. He pulled it over his head and turned to straddle the chair, wrapping his arms around the solid wood back.
Caius barely contained his growl as he looked over Max’s back. The entire expanse of it was littered with old scars—cuts and tiny circles and the familiar pucker of a bullet wound in his shoulder. That solidified his plan. As much as he hesitated to expand his pack, he’d need more than the four of them to take out Savino.
It might take years, but Max’s father was as good as dead.
But that was a problem for later.
For now, he took a few calming breaths and stood behind Max as he dipped the brush into the bowl. When he brushed a streak of black across the center of Max’s back, Max twitched with a soft yelp of surprise.
“Fuck, that’s cold.”
“Sorry,” Caius said, watching as the ink shifted and rearranged itself in response to the image in his head. Binding marks were as close as a shifter would ever get to touching magic for themselves. As he added more ink, the mark expanded into that of a wolf, its head tipped back and mouth open on a silent howl. The black ink on Max’s skin lit up with the same orange glow, until the wolf image was completed. When the glow faded, the ink turned white like Caius’ own wolf, shades of black and gray adding texture and shadows.
Lukas snorted softly when he leaned in for a look. “Bit on the nose, don’t you think?”
Caius ignored him and stepped aside, letting Quinn take his place. He sat on the arm of the sofa as Quinn and Lukas made their own marks. When they’d finished, Max’s back had three wolf tattoos. A white wolf howling at a crescent moon. A red one curled up beneath a bloominghawthorn, pink and white blossoms littering the ground. And a black one standing on top of a cliff, eyes and ears forward, keeping watch.
As Lukas made the final brush stroke, the weight of power charged the air. Their marks rearranged and resized in a smear of ink and magic until they were connected into a single scene. It covered the entirety of Max’s back and hid most of the scars. The glow faded from the tattoo and the bowls, the sharp ozone scent of magic dissipating.
Max’s fingers were bloodless where he gripped the back of the chair, his breaths short and quick.
Caius crouched beside him, recognizing the wide-eyed look of panic from years of serving. It was the same look new recruits wore during their first mission. “Max,” he said firmly, gripping the back of Max’s neck. His skin was hot, nearly feverish, when Caius flexed his wrist to brush against his pulse point, scent marking him and claiming him as pack. “Max, look at me.”
Only when Max’s eyes snapped to his did he realize he’d tapped into the binding. He cursed silently. The one fear all mages shared was being bound to a shifter. Mages could bind other mages, like the Order did, but a powerful or stubborn mage could resist the compulsions of another mage.
But the magic of shifters and the magic of mages were fundamentally different. Mages were elemental, drawing their powers from the natural forces that made up the universe. Shifters were the remnants of divine magic granted to their ancestors millennia ago, and divine magic always outweighed the natural. At least enough for shifters to dominate a mage when bound.
There was nothing to do about that now.
“You need to breathe,” Caius said, drawing in a deep breath, holding, and slowly breathing it back out. He did it again, then a third time, before Max was able to draw a shuddering breath.
Max coughed and latched on to Caius’ wrist with a bruising grip as he struggled to steady his breathing.
“You’re safe. What’s wrong?”
“Hot,” Max choked out, the scent of smoke coming from him a moment before tiny flames sparked along his arms and hands. “Burning.”
Fuck. Caius glanced at Quinn, but he didn’t need to say anything; Quinn was already rushing up the stairs. He straightened and scooped Max up with his right arm to follow. Max felt far too light, but that was another thing to worry about later.
He went upstairs and directly into the cold shower without bothering with either of their clothes. After the incident that morning, he should have expected this. A binding increased the abilities of both sides, sharing power between them. Now that he saw that sharing in action, maybe three bindings was a bit more dangerous than he expected.
Max gasped as cold water rained down on them. It took a few moments for his death grip on Caius’ shirt to loosen and his labored breathing to ease.
Caius waited until the feverish heat faded before setting Max on his feet. “Better?” he asked, keeping one arm around the mage as he turned off the water.
With a nod, Max slumped into Caius.
Quinn hovered near the door with a fresh set of dry clothes. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Max said, though his voice was faint and he was starting to shiver.
Caius snagged the towel hanging over the curtain rod and wrapped it around Max’s shoulders before nudging him out of the tub. He bit his tongue against saying anything; giving orders was second nature to him at this point, but he wasn’t sure if the bond would turn everything he said into a compulsion. He settled on asking, “Need any help?”
Max shook his head and let go of Caius to lean against the counter instead, pulling the towel over his head and scrubbing at his face.
