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Amalia clasped her hands to her chest as quick tears pooled in her eyes. He frowned and immediately retracted his hand.

“You are so soft these last few days. I did not think this would upset or sadden you to tears.” She could hear in his voice he was stemming the want to roll his eyes.

Amalia ran and leapt to him, wrapping her arms around his neck while her legs trapped his arms to the sides of his torso. He took a step back, startled when she impacted to cling to him.

“I am not crying because I am upset, you absurd Dragon. I am crying because you told me you love me.”

Then she grabbed his face and crashed her lips against his to take his mouth in the way he often took hers – with hard, unyielding passion.

She felt his hands move to grasp the underneath of her thighs to help hold her up when she began to slip. His mouth moved eagerly, and his tongue was quick to slip against hers.

She eventually pulled back but didn’t get down.

“I thought I made that quite obvious.”

He shook his head like he didn’t understand how she couldn’t have known.

“Yes, but you have never said those words to me.” Sure, it had only been a few days, but he’d never told her directly. “My feelings are not new. I have felt them for a while.”

She’d just never admitted them to herself because she hadn’t seen the point before. She never thought he would return them. Once he told her that he’d chosen her as his mate, they’d bloomed freely.

Her words made him grin. “So, I will have your Witch's mark on me.”

“Well, when do you want to do it?”

She turned her head to the book when she finally released him.

“Today, if possible.”

“Really?” she asked with a bright smile, walking over to the spell book to pick it up again. It was a fairly simple spell to do. She figured he worried about getting the words wrong. “All we need to do is tie rope to each other in the way we want the design to look and then we do the chant.”

He came up beside her to point at a footnote. “It says multiple colours can be used. What do they mean?”

“Our marks will turn out black.” She frowned for a moment. “I actually do not know if I will obtain the marking since I technically already have one, but the colours are for symbology. We can just use normal rope if you have it.”

He nodded and started to go through his array of items before he grabbed a ball of brown twine.

“I will need to plait it.” She tied a knot at the end of the three very long pieces and got him to hold the end for her while she did. Once she had a few metres of plaited twine, she explained the rest to him. “We find the middle and take turns wrapping each other’s forearms. It can be simple, or it can be elaborate, knotted or unknotted. It really depends on what you want to see your mark look like on me. It makes each one individual.”

With his hand balled into a fist, he thrust his forearm forward and waited. She laughed, realising he truly wanted to do this.

Amalia was happy that he did. She wanted to return the bond that he had created with her.

Rurik watched her intently while she started wrapping his wrist and then forearm while making crisscross patterns. He seemed to be absorbed in watching her work as she tried to design it how she wanted to. She double wrapped his wrist and occasionally made crossing sections thicker as well.

Her wrappings came up three quarters of his forearm.

“I was wondering, will others be able to see this on your scales?” she asked when he started doing her arm, having a little more trouble since one of his arms wasn’t as free.

“Most likely since my kind’s marks can be seen. If our scales are dark, like mine, it will appear much lighter. If they are light, it will appear darker.” He paused to look at her arm, twisting it one way and then the other before nodding. “I am done.”

She turned to the book so she could see the words she needed to chant. Only one of them needed to be a Witch in order to fuel the spell, but they both had to chant the binding vows.

Repeating each word after she said them, in the way she said them, the plaited twine began to glow multi-coloured. Glittering magic came from it and cascaded over their arms.

When they stopped chanting, she could feel it tingling her skin. It continued to radiate magic since the spell was still working to complete itself.

Holding up his arm in the air, he shook it, making her connected arm shake as well.