Page 15 of Cheshire's Smile
A low chuckle rumbled against my face. “Apologizing to a fae, pet? You know better than that.”
“Does that mean I owe you now?” I hummed, peering up at him. “I can think of a few things I could offer as compensation.”
He hummed and brushed his nose against mine. “I like the way you’re thinking, but what I want requires a bit of an explanation.”
I pulled back slightly. “Huh?”
Cheshire cupped the back of my neck, the point of his claw tracing the vein in my neck. “When we first met, I thought the queen had sent you.”
Something tickled in my memory. “You were part of her little side project to try to stop the shadows with a half breed child.”
“You remember that?”
“No, Chess... when you were locked away, she forced him to take your place.”
His jaw tightened, a growl sending a shiver through me. I didn’t hate it.
“I know how you feel.” I stroked my hand down his chest. “But Kat already got revenge for Chess. I promise. The queen barely has any power anymore. She has to go through a council before she can make any decisions anymore. Kat keeps her on a pretty tight leash.” I smirked a bit, proud of my own hand in the queen’s neutering. “Anyway, you were saying?”
Cheshire’s grip loosened. and he let out a hard breath. “You’re right. I’ll let it go. For now. Anyway. you may not remember but... I bit you.”
His fingers stroked the side of my neck where I knew I had a scar. I’d always wondered where it had come from. Now I knew.
“Okay?” I drew out the word, not sure how this was important.
“You were so mad at me.” Cheshire chuckled, his gaze locking with mine. “Do you know why I bit you?”
“Uhhhh, because you’re a cat?”
“No.” His eyes narrowed. “Biting someone, leaving my mark on them, is how I show dominance to those the queen sends to me, so they know that though I had to mate with them, I was the one in control.”
His other hand slid down my back and cupped my backside, pulling me flush against him where I could feel him hard and ready. “Biting is also a way of marking a lover. Someone you want to commit your life to.”
I swallowed a thick knot in my throat. “And you want to do that with me? What about Mercury?”
“You’ve been with him for a year and you never noticed the marks on his inner thigh?” Cheshire smirked, his eyes full of desire.
My mouth dropped open in an oh. I actually had noticed them, but I assumed it was an old scar, not a mating claim. I didn’t know why the idea of Cheshire biting Mercury made me squirm against him.
An appreciative sound came from Cheshire, and he ground himself against me. “Alice, my love, saying I love you is not a strong enough phrase for the way I feel about you. Mercury, Hatter, we have a long-standing arrangement. There was nothing I wanted more than to be with him but, as you know, the position I was in at the time kept us from really being together. Until you.”
His thumb brushed my lower lip. “Some may think I should be jealous of you and Hatter. Worried that you would break usapart. But I don’t see it that way. You are the missing piece that makes it possible for us to be together. I am simply lucky that the female my mate loves is also one for whom I would let the shadows envelop this world ten times over, just to see her smile.”
If I hadn’t been laying down, I would have melted on the spot. “Oh, Cheshire.”
“I want to mark you.” His thumb brushed the scar on my neck. “Not in dominance this time, but as a lover would. Would you accept me, Alice Liddell? Would you be mine until the Reaper calls?”
My heart raced in my chest, and an overwhelming feeling filled my chest. A year ago, I would have turned him down. I couldn’t trust the thoughts in my own head, let alone those around me.
But Hatter and Kat had changed that. They had renewed my trust in those that cared for me.
Cheshire had proven himself more than once. The thought of belonging to him not just in name but having physical proof filled some fractured part of me that wanted nothing more than for someone to want me. All of me. Forever.
I clung to him, my fingers curling in his purple strands. My words came out in a breathy moan.
“Yes, I accept you.”
Chapter 7
