Page 45 of Catch a Tiger

“Rune is my third,” Samuel explained. “And he’smine.”

The possessive tone over something that washerswould normally enrage her, but Rune was her mate. She’d already scented the bond on him, and she could feel the thin thread of silver connecting them. It pulled on her chest whenever she thought about him, telling her exactly where he was.

If the alpha was so possessive over him?—

Samuel pulled her out of the water way too easily, and she realized he’d already climbed out himself. He wrapped a huge towel around her, ignoring his soaked pants and the way they dripped onto the floor.

“Stay here and dry off,” he told her. “I’m going to change and then I’ll be back to dry your hair.”

Vix dropped down to a crouch, missing the water already. She watched as Samuel turned and headed toward the door – light from outside glimmering off the ink on his back.

Symbols in a language that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.

Fae used a very similar writing form as angels and despite the truths she’d told him, Vix had always been able to read, write, and speak the language of faerie. They were considered blasphemous, but Vix didn’t know why when the two species were practically mirrors of each other.

She felt something dark settle into her skin as she read those symbols. Then her entire body went cold when she realized what exactly they said.

Names.

The god of war and winter had stitched fae names into his skin and it wasbrimming.

He owned more souls than she did.

Vix reached back and pressed her hand to the scar on her shoulder where she hid the names she’d stolen…carved into that ruined flesh with nothing but a silver feather and a mirror. Every name she took was written in her skin over a place that ached more than all the others.

Why she put them there, she didn’t know. All she knew was they belonged there for the same reason that scar decorated her skin.

Carving them herself always felt like atonement, and one was missing.

Eliel – Tauriel’s divine sacrifice.

She would have to wait. Making the phonetic symbols small enough to carve his glyph into her skin so no one else could see it…only her special magic could reveal them, that silver feather or angel blood.

Slowly, she stood and turned her back to the mirror hanging over the sink. Vix let the towel fall from her shoulder, exposing the scar that took up nearly the entire left side. It started just below her collarbone and went all the way down to her mid-back, thinning out at the bottom to something that looked like scratch marks.

It was difficult to ignore the harsh thumping—pumping of her heart as she reached back from the bottom, lining her claws up with those marks.

They fit perfectly.

Why had she done that? She’d told Mylo it was silver, but that didn’t seem right. It also wasn’t wrong. Had Gabriel buried silver in her body?

…maybe.

A tiny flick of magic had the glyphs on her shoulder lighting up, so tiny and flawless, written in perfect lines from top to bottom unlike Samuel’s swirling patterns. Hers were as straight and impeccable as the books full of poetry in Japanese and Chinese kanji she liked to read sometimes.

The longest line of names went from the back of her neck, down the left side of her spine, all the way to her lower back. Each one was shorter the farther left they went, some of them uneven since it wasn’t often she got names of higher value.

Vix didn’t remember taking the names that went down her spine. It was the first one – the one that didn’t touch her scar at all.

Each line after that first one was done by rank and regiment. It helped her keep track, but she was still at the bottom. No names on the farthest column from her spine. Nothing above the 13th regiment.

Her thoughts scattered like frightened birds when she suddenly felt the alpha’s attention.

Vix found him staring at her in the mirror with an unreadable expression. It freaked her out how easily she lost herself around him. Her bones were convinced she was safe in his presence – protected.

That simply wasn’t true even if they were mates.

His dominant tiger was born to protect and care for her, and his wildness was the deepest bass. It thrummed in her mind with darkness and despair, and he was drawn to her even if he didn’t like it.

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