Chapter 22 #4
“Mm.” He looks far too satisfied with himself. “Don’t get used to it, little mouse. I’ll come back for that answer later.”
I trace one of the tattoos winding across his chest and tilt my head. “When did you figure it out?” I ask. “That you liked men too?”
A short laugh escapes him. “That’s quite a jump from accusing me of being a playboy.
” His eyes scan mine, amusement flickering there.
“But I’ve always had a healthy appetite, mouse.
Men, women—it doesn’t matter to me as long as they’re interesting.
” He tilts his head, his gaze sharpening.
“Why? Is it not common on Düren to have partners from both genders?”
I stiffen at the question. On Düren, things are different. More rigid. More controlled.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I haven’t really explored the options, as you know.”
“Well, you’re exploring now,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. He pulls his bottom lip between his fingers, his eyes darkening.
My blood simmers at the thought of everyone else who has seen him like this. He’s the first for me, and the fact that I’m just another entry in his history makes my skin crawl. No matter what he says.
“How about you?” He releases his lip. “Think you’re bi?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” I look away, unable to hold his stare. “I don’t think the gender matters as much as the pull.”
He turns toward the bathroom with a faint huff, and I forget how to breathe. Not just because of the sharp line of his spine or the strength moving beneath his skin, but because of the ink.
The dark tattoo curling across his chest doesn’t end at his collarbone like I first thought.
Black lines trail over his shoulder and down his back, the creature stretching across him in pieces like something too large to be contained in one place.
It looks less like a collection of tattoos and more like a warning carved directly into flesh.
A long black shadow-cat curves beneath his skin, sleek and elegant, something between a panther and one of the predators from old Reach folklore.
The artist worked the ink around the natural contours of his body instead of hiding them, hollow eyes fixed forward, teeth barely bared beneath strands of thorned wire.
The creature looks patient. Predatory. Like the kind of thing that waits in silence before it strikes.
Dark crimson lines weave through the rest of the tattoo, threading around sharp geometric shapes and the outline of a jagged mountain split by a hidden opening near the center.
Ciaran glances back over his shoulder and catches me looking. “See something you like, little mouse?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “That thing is horrifying.”
“Why? It’s a Virel shadow-cat.”
“Of course your family tattoo is a nightmare.”
A faint smile pulls at his mouth. “It’s an old Virel legend. Granddad used to tell it to us when we were kids.”
My gaze drifts back to the creature curling across his ribs. “What kind of legend?”
His fingers hook beneath my ankle, dragging me a little closer across the sheets. “The shadow-cat waits until the mouse thinks it escaped,” he purrs, his gaze locking onto mine. “Then it follows the heartbeat home.”
And just like that, the name clicks into place.
Little mouse. All this time I thought it was teasing, a way to needle me for being small and easy to fluster.
It isn’t. It never was. It’s the creature on his skin, patient and certain, and me the warm thing it has decided to follow home.
Something cold threads through all the heat still humming in my body, because I already know another set of eyes has been tracking me through the dark.
I’m no longer sure which predator found me first.
“That’s an interesting story. And a little concerning.”
A faint smile touches his mouth. “You still climbed into bed with me anyway.”
My gaze follows one of the crimson lines disappearing beneath the sharp curve of his hip before he finally reaches a hand out toward me. “You coming? You’re staring again, little mouse.”
“Your ego is already inflated enough.”
“And yet you still can’t stop looking.”
Heat climbs higher into my face, which only makes his grin sharpen. I follow him into the bathroom a second later, and he leans one shoulder against the dark stone wall beside the sink while steam still curls faintly through the room.
“You know,” he says, “most people are terrified of Virels.”
“I am terrified of you.”
Something softer moves through his expression at that. “No,” he murmurs. “You stayed.”
And the terrifying part is that leaving no longer feels safer.
Somehow, impossibly, Ciaran Virel feels safer than the shadows waiting outside his door. Despite the danger curling around him like smoke. Despite the secrets. Despite the feeling that getting closer to Ciaran Virel might genuinely ruin my life, I stayed anyway.
And standing there half-undressed beneath the moonlight with that predatory shadow-cat twisting across his skin, he looks less like a mistake and more like the beginning of one.
I’m just no longer sure whether I should be running from him or following him deeper into the dark.