“Or?” he presses when he’s ready.
“We learn how to use them so they can never be used against you or your people again.”
A spark of uncertainty alights in his gaze.
“I’m going to break the Vow, Zeph,” I tell him, the words a promise. “Once that’s done, the magic that bound the Gryphons to the Ouphe is dead. I’m not sure what each mark on our bodies can do, but if any one of them can help us bring down Lazza and what he represents, then maybe it could be worth it to wear them for a while.”
“For a while?” he questions.
“Speak to Wekun, find out what all of this means, and then decide what’s best for you,” I encourage him, trying to help him see that he can take back control over these runes on his body. He can decide if they’re allowed to mark his skin or if he wants them removed.
After a minute, he nods. His hands tighten slightly around me, and I’m abruptly aware that my thighs are wrapped around his torso, my lips a feather’s width away from his, and my maroon tank dress is floating up around my waist, meaning there’s only his pants separating his bits from mine.
We’re tangled in a very intimate position, but our connection to each other couldn’t be any further from intimate if someone strapped it to a rocket and sent it hurling off in the direction of the moon.
I’m pressed tightly against him, and oddly, it didn’t feel weird until just now. My body responds to him despite my head saying oh come the fuck on. Unfortunately, in moments like this when Zeph peels back the layers and shows that there’s more to him than anger and brutality, it’s hard not to get reeled in by the other facets of him.
But my reality is that the tenuous connection that existed between us has been beaten to a pulp. As much as part of me wants to close the miniscule distance between our lips and slide his hands over to cup my breasts, I’ve played with his fire already—and been burnt to cinders. I won’t risk it again.
Zeph’s eyes stay fixed on mine as I shutter myself against him. His honeyed gaze flashes with penitence before resolve takes over. His large hands skim down the sides of my ribs, testing my will power.
I wish I didn’t know what he felt like pressing himself inside of me or what it was like to kiss him. It would be nice to no longer remember the feel of his chest beneath my palms as I ride him or what his weight is like on top of me as I orgasm.
It makes all of this so fucking complicated, because my body feels right against his. I just wish my soul did.
I climb out of his lap and ignore the way his fingertips skim down the side of my bare hips and thighs as I do. I can see that he wants to press for something physical between us right now. Like he wants to fuck the vulnerability he just experienced away, replace the trauma he just suffered through with connection and orgasms.
I can’t lie, there’s a part of me still that wants that too, but I refuse to be used and trampled again. I need to talk to Wekun and find out what went wrong, see if there’s a way to fix it. I want more than hate fucks and help me forget intimacy. I want the way Moro looks at Tysa after they kiss, like she’s oxygen to him, like his world couldn’t possibly exist without her. I’m not stupid enough to think I’ll ever find that here.
12
Zeph lets me go as I step back and put distance between us. Cold air saps the warmth of the water from my body immediately as I step out of it, and I start to shiver. I think of the bed in Wekun’s tent for some reason, piled high with furs. In a flash, I’m no longer standing ankle deep in the bathing pools, but dripping water on Wekun’s fur covered bed.
What the fuck?
“Oh good, you’re back,” Wekun exclaims from the pile of pillows he set up for my magic retrieval. He looks exhausted, practically dead on his feet as he gets up and gestures toward the front of his tent. “The other two left not too long ago in search of you,” he informs me, pulling a dry shirt from a trunk and chucking it at me.
So it wasn’t just that dream thing I can do, I realize as I look down at my dripping body.
“What the fuck was that?” I demand, completely unnerved.
“You’re a slipper,” he tells me as he falls back onto the bed I’m now climbing out of.
“Say what?” I ask, heading to the screen I changed behind earlier.
“There’s a mirror in the corner behind you. It’s not the best, but it’s all I could find out here.”
I look behind me at his instruction and find what looks to be a slightly tarnished piece of reflective metal. I pull off my sopping top and stare at the distorted reflection I create in the makeshift mirror. I have runes everywhere. My arms have the same three bands of markings, spaced out on my forearm, that Zeph—and I suspect Treno and Ryn—now has. Above my elbow are four more spaced out bands, but these are much thicker and prominent.
I have a little flower-like symbol with four petals just under the nail of my ring finger, and three other runes that run down the digit. A thick black band, which looks to be a garter belt of runes, encircles each of my thighs. The markings sit high up on my thighs, and I turn to see they wrap all the way around.
Treno’s marks run vertically down my calves, and I spot the same skinny
