Flames And Starlight

Chapter 35

The water was already ready for him when we walked into the bathroom. Probably either by his own doing or the mysterious magic of the house that continued to amaze me. He started to unbutton his black shirt. I stood in the corner acting like I wasn't watching his every move. I looked every which direction all while keeping my eyes locked on those slow and taunting hands. Those hands that had just previously been... well never mind what they had been doing.

He pulled the shirt off agonizingly slow. He knew what he was doing to me and liked to make me suffer I suppose. My mouth went dry at the sight of him. What I saw when he dropped the shirt to the floor had shocked me. And it wasn't just his beautifully chiseled body.

"When did you get a new tattoo?"

He looked at me with confusion, his dark brows furrowed together. "I didn't. What are you talking about?"

I moved towards him. "Yes you did." I pulled him to the mirror. There, on his tanned skin, stretching from his neck and continuing over his shoulder on his left side was the black swirled ink of a tattoo. It started just below his ear and stretched to his elbow, completely covering his shoulder and arm with swirling black.

"Mothers tits!" He swore, eyeing his reflection. He genuinely looked just confused as I was. He must have just been messing with me. But just as I thought that, shock and what looked like realization laced his features and he spun to look at me. "Take off your shirt."

I took a step back at the pure bluntness, the barked command. "Excuse me?"

He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head realizing how what he had said sounded. "Just trust me please. Take off my shirt."

Even though I didn't fully believe him, I did trust him so I listened and pulled the black fabric over my head and dropped it at our feet. It hit the ground between us. He had looked away to give me privacy as if we hadn't been seconds away from tearing each other's clothes off mere moments ago. It didn't quite make sense but he had a certain respect for my boundaries and had turned around despite our previous situation.

"You can look, Kyan" I rolled my eyes. Standing here in my fighting leathers wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. I was convinced some night court clothes I had previously worn revealed even more skin.

He turned around and I watched as his eyes found my skin like a magnet. He sucked in a breath. His eyes raked over my body not once but twice and he bit his lip. But his eyes caught on my own shoulder and that's when he was snapped out of his ogling daze.

He took my hand and pulled me in front of him, to stand in the reflection of the mirror. "By the Wyrd!" I screamed in horror and shock. The same exact black inked tattoo adorned my own arm. From the tip of my neck to my elbow, the skin was marbled with a tattoo. Identical to the one on Kyan's own body. Although where his almost blended into the other tattoos covering his back and chest, mine was all alone and was impossible to ignore.

"What the rutting hell is this?"

I turned to look at him. "Um, well," he stuttered as if he didn't even know where to start in his explanation. He sighed when his attempts to speak failed.

"How did this happen, Kyan? I know you know the answer so just spit it out!" My mind was racing. This was impossible. This had not been on my body last night. How was this now staining my skin?

"In the night court," he began, trying to hold my hand but I batted it away. He rolled his eyes in annoyance and stood next to me in the mirror, admiring the matching tattoo on his own body with a small smile while I tried to scrub mine away. "In the night court it is customary that every bargain or deal made between two people to be permanently marked upon their flesh."