Page 158 of Flames and Blood

“There’s one thing that bothers me though,” I admit.

“That you can’t get a mate mark on him?”

My eyes widen. “You too? It’s gone by morning. Every time.”

“Mine close over in under a minute,” she says.

I stop walking.

“Under a minute. I’ve had my teeth in that man’s shoulder, and by the time I’ve sat back there’s nothing there at all.” Her voice is dry. “You get till morning. I’ve been jealous of you for about four seconds.”

“Serenity—”

“I know.” She leans back against the paneling. “It isn’t funny. My wolf wants the entire world to know that he’s ours and we can’t make it stick.”

“What did he say?”

“He said I’d already marked him.” She turns her hand over, palm down. “He has a scar, knuckle to wrist bone, that I put there. The only scar on him in four hundred years. I opened a shutter while he was asleep, and the sun got across his hand before I could shut it.”

“You opened a shutter with a vampire in the room? What were you thinking?”

“I said I wanted to see what was outside, but if I’m honest with myself it was more. He’d paid for me, and I thought I was his prisoner. I think there was a very tiny part of myself that knew I could have escaped then.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I couldn’t. I think that’s when I knew. At least my human part knew, because my wolf had known all along.”

“You nearly killed him.”

“I nearly killed him. And that’s the mark that stayed.” She gives a wry smile. “He says that’s the day I marked him, and as far as he’s concerned, he’s officially claimed. Have you considered that there might be something similar between the two of you?”

I don’t answer right off, because I’m going back through weeks, and I’m arriving somewhere.

“He said he had visions of me,” I tell her. “Of my dragon claiming him.”

“Really?” She frowns. “When?”

“He mentioned a quarry rescue. I don’t know what that means.”

Her eyes go wide. “Ohhh! Oh, my God, that explains it! We had to get Bastien out of a facility in a quarry. We caught sight of you just as you were being driven away. I’ve never seen Crowe so freaked out.”

“He was?”

“We thought it was just because the mission hadn’t gone as planned. We’d hoped to get everyone out, but we lost some. And I knew you were among them, and I was really upset. He promised he’d find you.”

“You mean like a job?”

She shakes her head. “No, this was different. He was adamant that he was going to be the one to do it, no matter how long it took. He swore he’d get you out of there. It’s like he was fixated. Weird because he’d literally seen you once in the back of a truck.”

And my dragon saw him. And seared a picture of herself in his mind. So much makes sense now.

“We should get back,” Serenity says. “They’ll probably be done with all the logistics talk by now—and I should warn you, Aurora is all about organization and planning. Viktor’s a good man, though. He and the Collective are doing so much for those of us who don’t fit into human society.”

Everyone is dispersing as we return, and a stiff-backed older man with a heavy French accent shows us to the guest suites.

Our room has shutters on the inside of the windows, which is the first room either of us has been in that was built with Gideon in mind.

His coat is off, and his back is to me. He’s testing the catch on the shutter out of habit, the way he checks every room he’s ever walked into, and I watch him do it and decide I’m not waiting any longer.