Chapter 8 #2
Morgan was the first to go under the needle. Verion traced the outline on her upper arm, and Morgan screwed her eyes shut, breathing through the sting. When he finished, she blinked down at the design—a bear, fierce and noble, its head turned as if listening for a distant call.
Morgan’s jaw dropped. “A bear? Are you kidding me?” She looked up at Raphael, then Nico, her eyes wide with something between panic and disbelief. “Does this mean–?”
Raphael grinned, the old sarcasm automatic even as something in his chest twisted. “Looks like someone’s got a future in fur coats and fish dinners.”
Morgan shot him a glare. “If my mate ever tries to hibernate for six months, I’m buying an electric blanket and a blow horn.”
Akira snorted. “Just make sure he doesn’t eat you when he wakes up.”
Morgan waggled her brows. “That depends on what you mean by ‘eat,’ Akira.”
“I know who wears that match,” Verion said, motioning to Morgan’s tattoo. “I knew it the minute I drew it.”
Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you look shocked, but also a little pleased?”
Verion shrugged. “It’s hard to imagine this literal bear of a man with a mate. But,” he paused and tilted his head as he took Morgan in. “You might be his perfect match.”
“Who are you speaking of?” Raphael asked.
“Sebastian,” Verion said, glancing over his shoulder at Nico.
The shaman cursed. “Are you kidding me?” He groaned and rubbed his hand down his face. “We did not need this.”
Morgan sat up straighter. “Need what? What are you freaking out about? Is he crazy?”
“Depends on what your definition of crazy is,” Raphael said dryly.
“Pretty sure there’s only one real definition of crazy,” Morgan practically growled. “And that’s bat shit.”
Verion shook his head with a sly smile.
Raphael agreed, enjoying this a little too much. “Sebastion is a retired assassin for the Kingdom of Fur.”
Morgan’s mouth dropped open. Then it closed. Then she frowned. “Wait. Are you saying my mate’s a badass?”
Nico rolled his eyes. “That’s what you gleaned from that info?”
“Technically,” Verion began, “all Damarians are badasses. But, Sebastian is on another level.” He then looked at Nico.
“You can’t hold onto this info. The longer you wait to contact Fur, the worse it’ll get.
Trust me. Sebastian might be out of the game, but he’s important to King Bjorn, and he won’t like finding out you’ve had his subject’s mate in hiding. ”
“Bloody hell,” Nico cursed again.
Raphael ran a hand through his hair. “We can’t risk Morgan being snatched up or used as a pawn, but we can’t keep this quiet forever. If we go to Reese, Kingdom of Fur’s shaman, maybe we can keep it from turning into a bloodbath.”
Verion nodded. “That’s a good idea.”
“I’m mated to an assassin,” Morgan grinned.
“That sheds and eats raw fish,” Miryam pointed out.
“And possibly sleeps for at least 3 months out of the year,” Akira added.
“Nobody asked you two,” Morgan playfully slapped at the two females as she walked over to the couch, leaving the chair next to Verion empty. “You’re just jealous that my mate can probably kill your mates from 500 yards away. Cuz he’s an assassin.”
“We heard you the first three times, Berenstain,” Akira quipped.
Raphael choked on a laugh, and even Nico had to look away to hide a smile. “Focus, people,” the shaman managed.
Then it was Miryam’s turn. She rolled up her sleeve with a quiet kind of courage, jaw set, eyes fixed on some distant point.
Verion worked in silence, the needle buzzing in the hush.
When he finished, Miryam stared at the tattoo—a chain, links wrapped around her bicep, unbroken, until it reached the outside of her arm.
Then the chain was shattered, jagged, as if something impossibly strong had snapped it in two.
The room went dead silent. For a moment, nobody moved or even breathed.
Morgan leaned in, eyes huge. “Is that a kingdom emblem?"
Nico stepped closer, his usual calm appeared to be rattled. “That’s never happened before. Not that I’m aware of.” He turned to look at Raphael. He was trying hard not to look like a deer in headlights, to not give anything away. “You?”
Raphael shook his head and cleared his throat. “No. That’s not a mark that an animus would receive."
Verion’s hands were shaking as he wiped his tools, staring at Miryam’s arm as if he’d conjured a ghost. “I—I don’t understand. The magic chooses. I’ve never tattooed anything on a Damarian’s arm, animus or otherwise, that didn’t represent their kingdom.”
Miryam touched the broken links, her voice barely above a whisper. “Does it mean something’s wrong with me?”
Raphael’s heart hammered in his chest. He knew that tattoo, and he wasn’t lying that it hadn’t been on a Damarian.
He knew it as intimately as the ache in his own soul.
He’d worn the same broken chain for more years than he could count, a mark he’d never explained to anyone.
Now, seeing it on her—seeing it on Miryam—felt like the world had tilted on its axis.
But he couldn’t tell her. Not yet. How do you tell someone so pure, so good, that fate had tied her to a demon?
That the universe had drawn a chain around her arm and broken it to match the darkness in him?
He forced himself to look away, to swallow the truth and the fear that threatened to choke him.
Akira cleared her throat and thrust out her arm, as if desperate to break the tension. “Guess I’m up.” Her voice was full of bravado, but her hands shook.
Verion set to work, this time, just like with Miryam, he didn’t draw the image first. He just started working, the needle’s buzz filling the silence. When he finished, Akira stared at the symbol—eight arrows radiating from a central point, stark and strange.
Morgan squinted, and then recognition dawned on her face. “Wait . . . that’s a Chaos Star. Like . . . from D but then, neither did Raphael.
Demons had mates, but they weren’t marked the way Damarians were.
So why was this happening now? What did it mean for him and Miryam?
Would other demons experience the same thing?
Verion’s last words hung like prophecy. “This has never happened. Not in all my years. Shamans and demons with marked mates? This will change everything.”
Raphael’s mind returned to the present. Four days had passed. Four days of hiding, of restless pacing and whispered conversations, of a pressure building in the air—a storm waiting to break.
Raphael sat in the corner, watching Miryam and his own arm as if the matching tattoos would simply disappear if he stared hard enough.
He hadn’t told her. Couldn’t. Miryam was untouched by the darkness he carried.
She was hope and sunlight and the promise of something unbroken.
He was an incubus, a creature of hunger and shadows, the kind of monster that mothers warned their children about in the old stories.
What right did he have to claim her? To take her freedom and bind her to someone like him?
He wanted to run. He wanted to stay. He wanted to protect her with every last breath in his body.
Every time she looked at him, he felt exposed, raw, as if she could see right through the mask he wore for everyone else.
He’d seduced queens and tempted government officials, entranced some of the most powerful people in history in order to meet someone else's agenda, and then walked away from it all with the knowledge that he could be killed for his insolence, but this—this was the first time he’d ever truly been afraid.
Nico caught him watching, then jerked his chin toward the hallway. “A word?”
They slipped into the cramped corridor, the hush between them weighted with everything they weren’t saying.