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He smiles, but he doesn’t answer me. At least, not with words.
Instead, he reaches for the hem of his shirt. His intent is obvious. He’s totally about to take his shirt off.
And, yet, I still find myself demanding, “What are you doing?”
“Showing you something. You stopped me last time, so I picked a shirt without buttons this time. That way I can do this”—he pulls the tight black tee over his head before I can squeak out a protest— “before you get the chance to do so again.”
Swallowing that almost-squeak, I turn it into a scoff. “You’ll take any excuse to start stripping in front of me.”
His eyes seem to spark beneath the sunlight. “Any fucking excuse. But I think I’ve got a good one,” he says, tapping his chest.
What the—
At first, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be looking at. His chest is so sculpted, it looks like it belongs in a museum as the work of one of the masters. Though he’s an alpha, he’s completely hairless. Though his arms have black hair like his fur, but his chest is bare.
Well, except for—
No.
No, no, no.
Maybe.
I blink.
Now, shifters heal almost as quickly as vampires. While Aleks had to replenish with six bags of Charlie’s blood after his fight with Ryker, if he’d actually fought back, Ryker would’ve just needed a little time to recover. We have great regenerative properties. Someone can stab me, and unless it’s with a silver blade, I’ll be one hundred percent by morning. I won’t have a single mark, single scratch, single scar on me.
Not Ryker.
That’s what I’m looking at. That’s what’s there. Forming a circle around his left nipple, I see five perfectly space, perfectly even scars that would indicate where his heart is. And unless he goes around, pissing female shifters on purpose to that they’ll threaten to tear the heart right out of his chest, I know exactly how he got those marks.
I know when. I know who.
And I know that those marks should’ve been healed a year ago…
“What… where did you get those?”
“Don’t you remember, sweetheart? You gave them to me.”
Oh, I remember all right.
“Why are they still there?”
“You gave them to me. I kept them.”
The only way to preserve a scar like that is on purpose. It’s a weird male thing, usually. When they want to show off some wound, like a fight they got into, a special blend of silver and some other herbs slapped into the mark will create a reminder. They call it a shifter tattoo, and most females go crazy over that type of markings, no matter how crude they are.
But this one isn’t crude. In fact, it almost looks like—
No. He wouldn’t have. No way.
It’s impossible.
Isn’t it?
I goggle up at him. I won’t know unless I ask him. “But why?”
His smile widens. I’m not so sure why, since I feel like I’ve just had the earth pulled out from under me for the second time today. He’s smiling. I’m probably staring at him in ill-disguised horror.
