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My first impulse was to struggle, but what good would it do?I was helpless, pinned beneath him, with my arms over my head and no way out.Taking a deep breath, I turned my head to the side, baring my neck for him.

I didn’t know what else to do.

I felt sharp teeth sink into the vulnerable side of my throat and he sucked hard, as though tasting me before taking a bite.For a long moment I waited as Saint held my pulse like a piece of candy between his teeth, waiting to see if he would rip my throat out.

At first, it seemed he really would.The teeth bit down harder and harder, actually breaking the skin.I winced at the pain but didn’t dare to move.

Oh please,I thought.Oh please, oh please, oh please…

“Saint!”I begged hoarsely.“Saint,please…”

Slowly, the teeth relaxed.

“What do you want me to do?”Saint’s voice—it washisvoice again, not his Drake’s, and his skin was cooler as he covered my body with his own larger one.“You don’t want to submit to me—don’t want me inside you.But my Drake demands that I make you ours!He saw the way the other Drakes were treating you today—the way they all wanted you.”

“That wasn’t my fault!”I protested.“That was a stupid spell Megan put on the Drakes to make them all act nicer.Only she got it wrong and it turned into some kind of love spell.I didn’t want any of that weird attention from the other Drakes—I swear, Saint!”

“None of that matters.”He pulled back for a moment and looked into my eyes, searching them with his own.“You cannot reason with my Drake, Avery—he only knows how much he wants you and now it seems to him that every other Drake at Nocturne wants you too.”He squeezed his eyelids shut for a moment, as though struggling with the thing inside him.When he looked at me again, I could once more see flames dancing in his eyes.“Avery,” he said hoarsely.“I must satisfy him in some way—he isinsanelyjealous!”

“There has to be another way to show him I belong to you!”I insisted.“Other than…doing something neither one of us is ready for.”I nodded down at my open trousers.“Because I’mnotready for that, Saint, and I don’t think you are either.”

Honestly, I wondered if he ever would be.It seemed to me that his Drake was driving him to do all this—I wondered if they shared any of the same inclinations at all or if Saint was just at the mercy of his cursed Drake’s desires.

“I know…” Saint stroked my cheek, looking down at me with those blazing eyes of his.“I’ll Mark you,” he murmured.“Then everyone will know you belong to me.Thatshould satisfy my Drake.”

“What?”I protested.“A Blood Marking?But Saint—males don’t mark other males—you know that!”

“I know it and I don’t give a fuck,” he growled.He bared his teeth, which grew long and sharp at once—another partial change to show how close his Drake still was, I thought numbly.Then he pressed the pad of his thumb to one razor-sharp point, drawing a drop of ruby blood.

Before I could say anything else, he was pressing his thumb to my forehead, right between my eyebrows.

This can’t be happening,I thought.And then it felt as though my whole body was naked and I had been plunged into the middle of a snow storm.I could feel every separate snowflake as it caressed me and melted on my bare skin.

Slowly, the sensation faded and I knew that Saint’s Mark on me had taken.I hadn’t been sure that I wanted it but my body had accepted it anyway.

Can’t believe this is happening,I thought again.But it was.I was Marked as his and by the ancient laws of Magic, he owned me now, in a very specific and special way.No one else could touch me without incurring his wrath—it was as though Saint had put a “private property” sign on my forehead.

When I opened my eyes—which had been squeezed shut during the Marking—I saw him looking down at me.

“Is…is that enough?”I asked, my heart still pounding.

Saint shook his head.

“Not quite.Now you Mark me.”

“What?”I stared at him.“But…but Saint, that’s going to besomuch more visible—onbothof us.”

It was true—with just his Mark on me, it would be hard for people to see unless they were looking for it.Kind of like wearing a flesh-colored bandage.But if I Marked him back, it was going to be blatantly obvious to anyone at all in the Other community that we were saying we belonged to each other.And, as I had pointed out before, males,didn’tmark males—it simply wasn’t done.

“Everyone is going to look at you and think you’re mine, which means they’re going to think you’re a, er, ‘lover-of-men,’” I pointed out to him.“Which you keep telling me you’renot.Are you sure you’re up for that?”

Saint frowned, his black brows drawing low on his forehead.

“It’s the only way to satisfy my Drake and keep others who want you away,” he said.

“They’ll stay away now that Megan has broken the spell,” I told him.Well, other than wanting to come after me and knock my teeth down my throat.But I didn’t say that.

“They’ll stay away because I’ve Marked you and you’ve Marked me,” he insisted.Before I could reply, he had taken my thumb and was pressing the pad of it to one long canine that was still razor sharp.