Page 67

His eyes open, and he looks me over, his attention settling on my upper chest.

“Your skin—I would like to see it,est amage.”

I frown at him. “I’m not getting naked.”

“Not today, no,” he agrees.

His answer makes my breath catch, and his words pluck at my magic like a strummed chord.

Memnon rises from my chair before approaching me slowly, like I might take off at any moment. “You have tattoos.”

A strange hum starts up between us, a hum that’s not really a hum at all. I think it has to do with our magic, but I feel it moving along my arms and spine, and it’s making my heart flutter.

“Roxilanahad tattoos,” I correct. I have none. But now my interest is piqued.

Memnon comes up to me and gestures for my arm.

Oh, now he asks for permission before he manhandles me?

I move my arm into his reach. Slowly, as though not to scare me off, Memnon takes my forearm, and with his other hand, he lifts the fluttery sleeve of my dress, revealing my upper arm and shoulder.

I hear his exhale, and my gaze flicks to his face.

He looks…disbelieving.

One of Memnon’s fingers comes up, tracing phantom lines on my arm.

“You had a panther tattooed right here,” he says, his voice flat, controlled. “And beneath it, a slain deer.”

Sounds cute.

Memnon’s hand moves from my shoulder and settles on my chest, right over my heart. It’s an intimate touch, even though it’s only inches away from where it was.

Logic is telling me to knock the sorcerer’s hand away. Instinct is telling me to press my hand over his and anchor him to me. So I compromise and do nothing.

“You had my mark right here,” he says softly.

For a second, I think Memnon means to move the neckline of my dress aside. Instead, he reaches for his own shirt before pulling it off in one smooth stroke.

Nobody said you could get undressed in my room.

My protest dies in my throat as soon as my eyes land on his exposed torso. I swallow at the sight of his packed muscles, but it’s impossible to notice his muscles without noticing his tattoos as well. Memnon is covered in them—a deer whose horns sprout flowers, a trampled griffin, a snarling panther who seems to be clawing up Memnon’s neck. And right over the sorcerer’s heart—a winged dragon.

He touches that inked image now. “My family’s clan mark,” he says, staring at me. His eyes are raw.

Now I do tug aside the neckline of my dress, just to show him my own unmarred expanse of skin. There’s no dragon over my heart, just as there were no beasts on my arm.

I hear Memnon’s quick inhale, and for an instant, I see something in his expression that I haven’t before—despair. It vanishes a moment later.

“You removed them,” he accuses, though there’s not much force behind it.

I shake my head. “I never had them to begin with.”

“You are cunning, Roxi,” he says, and I get goose bumps from a nickname that is still not meant for me. “A few conjured photos and some bare skin might convince another man, but I have seen the extent of your mind and your magic. You will have to do better.”

“My photos arenotconjured,” I all but growl at him. Those albums are precious to me because they captured much of what my mind has lost—my past.

Judging from the obstinate set of Memnon’s jaw, I can tell this isn’t even about photos or tattoos or logic. The thought that I am not this Roxilana is unfathomable to him.