Page 42 of Something Handsome This Way Comes

“Pip will help kill his buns.”

“How about you leave his buns alone and take on Ralph.”

Pip hissed behind him.

“Inferior familiar. I will tear off his worm tail.”

“That’s the spirit,” Milo said, then thought better of it. “You know I’m joking, right, Pip?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” Pip said, waving a leg in the mirror’s reflection, “I understand the chasm.”

Milo flinched as he applied some salve to a bruise along his bicep.

“Hells.”

He was hurting all over. His spine felt as though someone had tied him into a pretzel in at least three anatomically questionable directions. And his hips… fuck, his hips just felt like one giant bruise, protesting every single micromovement. He had a mild headache too and…

Milo giggled to himself. He couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t help the bubble of mirth.

He looked like he’d lost a fight with a mountain troll, so then… then why was he so giddy? Even as he inspected himself, he couldn’t help the stupid grin from overtaking his face.

Because I’m a fucking lunatic, that’s why.

But instead of looking for wounds, it felt more like a hunt for pieces of a story. Clues on just how good Milo got it last night. He couldn’t stop searching for more.

“Lanterns,” Milo muttered, pulling his collar aside.

There were teeth marks on his shoulder. Teeth marks on his chest, around his nipple. A particularly colorful bruise wrapped around his hip where some eldritch horror with four fingers had apparently grabbed him hard enough to leave marks.

But of all his battle scars, his favorite mark of all⁠—

Milo craned his neck to the side, revealing the now scabbed-over wound.

His mating mark.

Milo touched it gingerly and flinched when it hurt, smiling like a masochist. Sure, maybe it meant he had a screw or two—or three—loose. But he liked that mark. That permanent impression of teeth pressed into his skin. A pleasant shiver ran down his spine at the thought of it.

He dabbed Phoenix Ash Balm on his wounds, careful not to put any medicine on his mating mark. He wanted the scar. The permanence of it. The proof that he belonged to⁠—

Behind him, the mattress creaked.

Grievance sat on the edge of the bed, looking like someone had just announced that Pumpkin Fest was canceled.

Milo’s giddy grin fell. “Stop it.”

Grievance’s eyes lifted. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face has been saying it for the last twenty minutes.”

His mate’s gaze dropped once more, settling on the bruises scattered across Milo’s skin.

The misery returned.

“Milo…”

“Grievance.”

“I hurt you.”