Page 5 of Zodiac Monsters

This all seemed rather damning when laid out like that.

I opened my mouth to speak, but with absolutely no good retort, I just awkwardly stared at him in extended silence. After it had become adequately uncomfortable, I finally muttered, “So you still think you would have… uhh… did stuff with me in human form too?”

“Ha!” Marcus’ laugh came out like an accident, and he rubbed my shoulder way too cordially. “You thought I was inviting myself to your room to play scrabble?” He was entirely too amused by this. “Now I have to know what you imagined in that pretty little head of yours.”

“I-I mean, maybe you just wanted to talk and get to know me better,” I lowered my volume to something I could barely even hear. “And maybe make out a little bit.” And maybe it would have escalated from there, but only maybe…

Fuck, no wonder I’d been a virgin for so long. I was as smooth as a cheese grater.

But then, shouldn’t it have been awkward for him to sleep with me knowing his brother had been with me already? There had to be a literal bro code against that, right?

Marcus snorted, and I didn’t know what was so funny. “Oh sweet little Lila, welcome to my family.”

“I just threw up in my mouth.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I hate you.”

“Also not true.”

Why was he always right?

“Because I can still read your mind, Baby Doll.”

I jumped at the intrusion directly into my headspace, having nearly forgotten about that little ability of his. This motherfucker right here.

“That language is unbecoming of a lady.” He said aloud.

I accidentally snort laughed, before I forced a serious expression back on my face. “Whatever.” I sighed heavily, knowing I’d basically already forgiven him, while also resenting myself for being so easy. He should be groveling right now, begging for my grace and mercy, but the worst thing he did was get me off until I wanted to cry.

Well, he also almost drowned me. And he drained my blood without asking.

Dammit, no, he did a lot wrong. Just because I liked it, and he’s hot, and I like hanging out with him, and he’s good at… things—none of that excuses the rest.

Or does it?

In all fairness, he’d been holding in a lot of heavy truths, and it wasn’t reasonable to ask all those things as a new acquaintance in an unofficial ‘maybe, kind of hanging out’ situationship that had only gone on a couple weeks. Was I being naïve or being ridiculous to think he owed me so much?

Rein in the crazy.I lambasted myself.

“So then, this is your mark, huh?” I tilted my head to the side, letting my hair drop over my opposite shoulder to better reveal the Leo symbol on my neck.

Marcus nodded but didn’t elaborate.

“When did you put it on me?” I was sure he sensed my nerves as I asked, because he seemed hesitant to answer. Maybe because he obviously knew even better than I did what kind of ritual it entailed. “It requires a blood exchange to mark someone, right?”

He nodded, swallowed, inhaled, then exhaled. “S-so, one more confession.” One more inhale. “The reason I knew what happened last full moon wasn’t because my brother told me about it. We don’t actually get along very well, and I wouldn’t say we share things with each other. Definitely not intimate details.”

I scrunched my nose, confused by where he was going with this, while having an increasingly sinking feeling that I wasn’t going to like the answer. “So you guys don’t talk?”

“No.” Marcus was far less brazen and aggressive than he’d been last night. His words seemed tentative, and his demeanor carried a sense of shame. I suppose that was to be expected when the influence of the moon was gone. He’d already told me the moon changed him in the past, even if I hadn’t interpreted it literally before. Hell, even I had to admit I’d felt a bit different last night. He drew in yet another slow breath before he answered, “I found you splayed out on the lunch table sometime after the… event.” He admitted, before releasing that held breath. “Adrian had left you there, and I didn’t want you to wake up somewhere public and exposed, so I took you back to your room.”

“O-oh.” I didn’t know how to process even one part of that, other than the fact that now the professor was going to be the one earning my forgiveness next, because seriously? He just left me on that table, naked and—A full body shudder made its way up my spine. “So you just decided to mark me?” Still trying to put this timeline together. Still determining who the biggest douche canoe was. Marcus had already told me he unlocked the door for me that night, so he had probably come back to re-lock it. That would explain how he found me.

But for Adrian to have literally put me in the position that I might have woken up exposing myself to the lunch lady—that was going to require a very compelling apology. Clearly their parents had fucked up the both of them.

“I had to, or I couldn’t have entered your room. Vampires require an invite to enter another person’s space. Since you were unconscious, the only way I could get that was to share blood with you. Otherwise I would have had to either take you home with me or leave you naked in the hallway, and both of those seemed like they would have been traumatic sprinkles on top of your melted sundae.”