Page 41

“I knew from the moment I saw you that you’d be mine.” His fingers thread through my hair, pulling me close, taking my breath away. “Not just my captive. Not just my pet. Butminein every way that matters.”

I should be frightened by this admission—that he wanted me and planned for me from the beginning.

Instead, I feel freed by it.

“Go to the bed,” he commands, and my breath catches as he strolls to his dresser with predatory grace, opens a drawer, and pulls something out.

A dagger.

The one I tried to kill him with the first night in the bunker.

ZOEY

Aerixtwirls the dagger between his fingers, the blade catching the light in dangerous flashes.

But his eyes… they never leave mine. They strip away every defense and pin me bare.

“Do you know why I kept this?” he asks, moving toward me with measured steps.

I shake my head, unable to look away from the hypnotic movement of the blade.

“Go to the bed and I’ll tell you,” he says, and I’m there in a heartbeat, pulling my legs to my chest as if they can act as barrier between me and the weapon in his hand.

“I kept this because it was yours,” he says simply, and I relax and make myself more comfortable, angry at myself for ever doubting him. “Because your hands touched it. Because you raised it against me.” A smile curves his lips, dark and amused. “And I couldn’t let something so precious disappear.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, still turning the dagger in his hands, watching it with startling intensity.

“I loved your fire from the beginning,” he says, almost to himself. “That wild, reckless defiance. It made me want you in ways I didn’t understand. It made mehungryfor you.”

I almost reach for him, but I stop myself, not wanting to break this moment.

“And yet… you didn’t feed from me that night,” I say instead, my breaths coming faster, my hand drifting to the place on my neck that he enjoys the most.

“No. But I wanted to,” he says, his eyes darkening with need as they roam over my body. “And now…” He pauses, like whatever he’s going to say next is costing him. “I want to sign my name on you. Like I did when I transformed your painting. Except this time, it won’t be brushstrokes. It will be a scar. So I’ll always know you’re mine.”

He watches me carefully, as if the dagger will go into my heart if I reject what he’s offering. Or maybe he’ll dig it into his. I have no idea with him anymore, and somehow, I love that more than anything.

“Yes,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. “Do it.”

His eyes and wings flare with a mixture of surprise, appreciation, and hunger. And then, he’s pressing me back onto the bed and positioning me how he wants me, tracing a spot just below my hip bone with the tip of the dagger.

“Here. Where only I’ll see it,” he decides, looking back to me, watching and waiting.

“Okay,” I say, but from the way he nods, I have a distinct feeling that it wasn’t up for debate.

“This will hurt,” he warns, his body going still again as he waits for my response.

“I want it to.”

The words come out of me in a second, and his breath catches, sharp and ragged as he lowers the dagger.

The first touch of the blade is fire—a sharp, white-hot pain that makes me gasp. But I don’t pull away. Instead, I watch, transfixed, as Aerix carves into my flesh with surprisingly tender precision.

He moves with the focus of an artist, the blade an extension of his hand.

Aerix Nightborne.

Letter by letter. Stroke by stroke. Deep enough to scar.