Page 104 of A Bond in Blood

I dropped my eyes.

“Tell me something about yourself, Brenna,” he said, sitting beside me. “We spend so much time in each other’s company either fighting or in silence.”

I shifted away from him. “I do not have much to tell.”

“Why the bird?”

My cheeks warmed. “Men always want to talk about one topic and one topic only.”

“I’m not asking because I want to see. I’m asking because it appears to mean something to you.”

I turned to him, staring into his eyes. “What do yours mean?”

He was standing suddenly, pulling his shirt from his body. My breath stopped while I watched the fabric fall to the floor and he bared his torso to me.

I rose to my feet, hands trembling while he motioned for me to come toward him. His shoulders rose slowly with his breaths while I circled him.

The beasts—they did not meet in the middle in the way I had originally assumed. No, one had the neck of the other in its throat, but there was no inking of blood or gore. Neither creature appeared in conflict, at least not angry with one another. Instead, their eyes were so full of sorrow it made my heart ache.

I continued circling, finding the beasts’ two different sizes on his back. One slightly larger than the other. Surprisingly, the smaller one was the one holding the other in the death bite.

I followed where the limbs wrapped around the front of him and the tails, twisting from his back, over the bodies, down the edges of the shoulders and coiling down his forearms.

I studied the markings.

Running up the tails were miniscule symbols, reminding me of the ones carved into the stone in the clock room.

I appeared before him again and jumped when his hand grasped my wrist, placing my palm against his chest.

“What are they?” I asked, tracing the tear-lined eyes of the one whose mouth grasped the neck of the other.

“There is no word in the fae language for them,” his voice whispered above me.

“What are they?” I repeated.

“Dreki,” he muttered, stopping my hand from tracing the ink any further.

My eyes snapped up to his, finding that same burn from before. I opened my mouth but he shook his head.

“These symbols?”

“Death, Fate, Freedom, Friendship, and Battle,” he muttered, staring into my eyes.

“What?”

“No more questions,” he replied, removing my hand from his chest.

I stepped away. Then a creature, a foolish, wild creature, took control of me. I made my retreat, keeping my eyes on the king until my knees hit the edge of the bed.

I was sure he’d stopped his breaths when I pulled at the hem of my gown and slid it over my head. Leaving me in only my thin chemise.

I motioned to him, as he had to me while I laid back on the bed, lifting my thin skirt, revealing everything most intimate.

He was before me in an instant, dropping to his knees as I bared myself to him, revealing the ink on my skin.

His eyes didn’t once venture below my hip while his fingers traced my smallest, most insignificant secret.

“A bluebird,” he whispered.

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