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I leave my wife to face the witnesses and move behind her. On the small table beside the tattoo equipment is a pair of leather cuffs. I take them. Apart from making fists of her hands, she doesn’t resist as I bind her wrists together. I take the second set of cuffs, and when I draw her elbows together and wrap the leather restraints around them, she turns her head to look back at me. Her breath is ragged, and her eyes are wide as I lock her arms behind her back. The position forces her tits out.
Lifting her hair, I set it over one shoulder and pick up the collar next. It’s a thin, silver collar with a fine chain hanging from the small loop at the front. She gasps when I set it against her throat and trembles as I close the clasp before moving to stand in front of her.
I take my time to look at the sight. She is fucking beautiful. Hell, maybe I’ll keep her bound and collared all night long.
I meet her gaze and, true to her word, I can read her curses in her eyes.
“Kneel,” I say, my back to the witnesses.
“Never,” she says only for my ears.
I grin and lean closer. “Are you sure about that?”
“As sure as a heart attack.”
I get the feeling she’s wishing one on me now. I set my hands on her shoulders to lower her to her knees, crouching with her. Taking hold of the chain dangling from her collar, I draw her down, down, down until I can hook it into the ring in the ground. She’s bent so low I have to tilt my head down to see her eyes.
“Ready, Little Witch?”
“Fuck you.”
“Oh, I will fuck you. But what I meant was, are you ready to take my mark?”
Someone chuckles. I guess I’m not as quiet as I think.
“I hate you.”
“How you feel about me makes no difference.”
Her eyes betray her fear as she scans the shoes of the men all around us.
I get up to take my place behind her. She kneels bound before me, her back already bared as if just for this. Just for me.
I touch the vertebrae at the back of her neck. She shivers as I trace the line of her spine to where the corset stops me, and I realize how much I want more. I want to see all of that soft, smooth skin. To touch it. Taste it. Lose myself in her wet heat when I take her. I want to feel her body open for me the way her lips did in the church—because it will. She may want to hate me, but her body will betray her.
And I will relish it.
But first, before we can get to all of that, it’s time to place my mark on her skin.
Instead of taking the throne-like seat prepared for me, I push it away and instead, set my knees on either side of my wife to be closer to her, to touch her. I listen to her inhalation of breath as my thighs close around her small frame. I bend my head to the curve of her neck to draw in a deep breath of my own, feeling the quickening of hers when my lips brush skin before my teeth do, my cock hard at her back.
When I draw away to clean the skin where I’ll place the tattoo, her body tenses at the touch of the cool cloth, the scent of alcohol sharp. For all her bluster, my wayward bride is readying herself. Once the skin is cleaned, I press the stencil into her skin and peel back the sheet. Already I like the look of my mark on her.
The needle buzzes to life and I begin my work. It takes time but it will be worth it. First, the circle encapsulating a triangle representing strength. Within it is the sword of Shemhazai, flames like the black feathers of the angel’s wings pulsing with power. Beneath it is the symbol Isaiah Delacroix added once Elizabeth Wildblood had muttered the words that laid the Wildblood curse upon us: the crescent moon turned upside down and split by the sharp blade of our sword.
At the foot, I place the letters IVI as required by The Society and draw back to look at my work. At the seal completed, like that circle, ensnaring her and me both. Branding her as mine.
When it’s finished and I draw back, setting the tattoo gun aside, Willow exhales, her muscles relaxing at last. I hear her shaky breath, and I wish I knew the thoughts that went through her mind as the needle bled its ink into her skin.
I undo her bonds and she stretches her arms, turning her hands then rubbing her wrists. I get to my feet and move around her to undo the chain, then the collar. I remain crouched before her, and her eyes meet mine. The skin around them is pink, a little damp. I wipe the residue of tears away, my gaze never leaving hers. The blue hue is so vivid, so full of emotions I can neither put words to nor look away from. This binding ritual has a strange power. I understand better now why this is the custom of IVI.
