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“I can give him to the Elders with that request. They have their own prison cells, and they try to rehabilitate Witches who have tried to turn back to the light. We have been experimenting to see if we can heal the corruption that has grown inside your kind for years.”

“Would that be okay?” Her voice held a hint of uncertainty in it.

“Of course. I would prefer not to have a long staying prisoner.”

Most who entered his cells didn’t usually live for long. He didn’t want to have to feed and take care of her father like he was some kind of pet.

She pulled at the edges of the blood-stained tunic she was in while looking down at it. “I need a bath and to change.”

“Yes.” His eyes fell to the wall. “And I must tell you something.”

She tilted her head in question, but he shook his head.

He needed to show her first.

She walked beside him as they made their way back through the tunnel. His eyes often came to her while they walked.I do not know how she will react.

Rurik led her to the full-length mirror, and he stood behind her while he lifted the side of her jaw with one hand so she could see.

Across her throat, starting from the middle and trailing to the back of her neck to almost circle it completely, was a black mark. It was in the shape of a tribal Dragon.

Its tail started from the nook between her collar bones while its head came to the centre of her throat where his thumbs had trailed up the sides of her windpipe. Wings rose up to just below her jaw and fanned out to the back of her neck where his fingers had gone.

Amalia frowned as she leaned forward to see it better.

“What is it?”

“I have marked you.” She turned to him with her light brows drawn together, and he could see she didn’t understand what he meant. He came forward to gently lift her chin so he could see it and allow his fingers to softly caress over it. “I have claimed you as my mate.”

His eyes flickered up to her face. She stared up at the ceiling with her brows drawing together impossibly tighter.

“You bonded yourself to me?”

“Yes. It does not always work, but sometimes we are able to claim someone on the brink of death and bring them back.”

It was generally a last resort, a desperate bid to save someone they cared for.

She stepped away from him as her head turned down from the ceiling. He could see tears forming in her eyes, and her hands were trembling more than they were a minute ago.

“I know I did not get your permission to do this but-”

“Take it back,” she begged, shaking her head wildly and making her glossy blonde curls sway around her shoulders.

He could see she was growing more upset by the second when her breathing became sharper on quicker intakes of breath.

“I cannot take it back.”

He hadn’t known what she would do when he told her, but he’d hoped she would be happy. Rurik hadwantedher to be happy. He hoped she would be overjoyed in being claimed by him, that he was bonded to her, that he washers.

“Take it back!” she cried, stepping further away from him.

She shook her head more, and those tears started to fall in heavy drops. Each one stung his chest and bruised it.

She is rejecting me... She is rejecting my claim.Rurik didn’t like the way her rejection tasted, didn’t like how it twisted in his chest. He didn’t know how to handle this feeling or the way it ate at him from the inside.She does not want to be bonded to me.

His nose crinkled in anger while his lips tightened over his teeth. “I cannot take it back, Amalia. It is done. You are my female now.”

And he wouldn’t allow anyone else to have her.