Page 156 of Creatures that Breathe

“Since we kissed, Cross. How long?”

My skin heats. “Twenty-four days.”

Leni doesn’t let me disappear in the answer, doesn’t let me drown in the misery. She takes my face in her hands and she kisses me.

I wish she’d shoot me again. I keep my hands fisted while my heart pounds, while my curse screeches. Do not touch her.

Too soon, she releases me, pulls back. She seems disappointed. Even if she’s breathless. Her eyes dilate, deathly blue getting boxed out by black.

Some complex emotion crosses her face. I lock up, fearing a memory, ready to soothe her, but she shakes it away. Arranges my hair with the softest touch. “I did some research,” she says. “Actually, Rune helped me a lot. I need more internet training, but we found it. The most painful place to get a tattoo.”

Holding my gaze, she tears open a sanitizing wipe and sweeps it across her cheekbone, just under the curve of her eye. “I’ll need you to do it,” she informs, retrieving a stencil from her impossibly tiny pocket and unfolding it. “Zeke did the design. He’s quite good.” She flattens the paper against her cheek, presses tightly, and removes it. “What do you think?”

On the rise of cheekbone in blue outlining ink is my name, a word mangled by the delicate calligraphy, the sweeping arc of the letters, the conjoined s’s. It’s brutality sweetened over.

I can hardly speak past the lump lodged in my throat. “No.” It comes out like a threat, rough and ragged.

Leni doesn’t bristle in the slightest. “Yes. I can’t forget you again.”

“You won’t,” I let out with a growl. “I’ll never let you die again.”

“But you’re worried it might happen,” she returns, the voice of reason. “Or you wouldn’t be taking notes. You wouldn’t give me a code. This realm is not friendly to us.”

“I will protect you,” I croak.

“Well, I want to protect you too,” she breathes out, earnest, beautiful. “Even if that means giving all this up. You’re not the only one with power here. In fact, you’re the one with the lame dead-means-dead power.” She turns on the tattoo machine and hands it to me. “Press hard.” Not advice. An order. “I can take it.”

Anything. I promised her anything.

And she’s remembered.

Leni keeps her eyes open the whole time, blue lashes barely flickering at the press of the machine on her fragile skin.

I try to be quick and steady, but part of me toils, terrified of the blank look on her face, of her flinching back from me. Part of me wants to make it last. Extend the pain.

I am every bit her monster.

As I trace the letters, I tell her things I need her to remember. I’ll never let harm come to her. I’ll never underestimate her, never ask her to be less than exactly as bright and gleaming as she is. I tell her if she ever asks me to choose between anything and her, I will choose her.

“I love you,” I finish, voice little more than crushed gravel as I pat away the thin drops of shimmery pink blood.

She’s breathing hard, icy eyes glistening as she allows me to be tender, as if she knows I need to fix it. Seal it, wrap it, kiss the bandage.

Then it’s done. And everything that I’ve been holding back from her sinks between us, raw and exposed.

Her eyes speak for her, narrowed and glassy, as they fixate on me, more satisfied and prouder than I’ve ever seen her. “You love me.”

I’m resigned to the truth. No gentleman’s approach now. “You knew I did.”

Watching her grin slowly unfurl is pure eroticism. Her free hand tangles in my hair and draws me into her. “Yes, but you were never going to admit it. Thus the plan.”

We’re at a good angle like this. Her perched on the chair, my knee pressed to the leather between her calves. Honeysuckle and blood. I silently bless the Fates. “The Plan?”

“The Plan.” She presses her forehead up to mine, obviously pleased with herself. “Chase you down in the club, lure you in here, make you realize that you’re a part of me, forever.”

My heart hurts. “Ah,” I rasp. “that plan.”

She steals the air between us to laugh. Rakes long fingernails over my scalp. Whispers, “I love you too.”

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