Or, you know. Scholar Thompson’s.
Don’t be a dick.
It was a little too late for that, though. Because I’d taken a touch of toxic comfort in knowing that the bitemarks I’d left on Arken’s throat this morning wereparticularlyglaring. And I wasrather proud of the one I’d left just above her clavicle, the little deep-red dots my incisors had left by just barely breaking skin.
If Arken’s instructor knew what was good for him, he would notice the girl had been claimed—and respect that she was already spoken for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ARKEN
There was a chance I had lied to Kieran this morning as I left his bed.
Just a little white lie. Mostly harmless.
I’d told him my lecture started at eleven, when really, it didn’t start until noon. There was just…something I needed to sort out first.
Just a little white lie.
Be that as it may, my gut still churned with something oily and odious as I made my way toward the destination at hand. Because I needed to see a cleric.
For…reasons.
You see, the Irrosi Arboretum was simultaneously one of my favorite places in Sophrosyne and also my own private Hel. That ethereal, wondrous space full of rare creatures and towering mushrooms from the forests overseas was perfect in every single way but one: It was so fucking humid in there, it made me want to die.
In order to have any hope of paying attention today and retaining what would surely be brilliant and fascinating information, I’d needed to dress in light and loose layers, lest that hot and sticky skin-clinging film of moisture drive me absolutely insane. This was one of the reasons why I had stopped home yesterday—I’d had this outfit prepared for myself weeks in advance, planning it out as soon as I’d received the invitation.
The scarf I was wearing, however, was not part of the intended ensemble.
The trouble was that in addition to wearing layers and cool fabrics, I would need to wear my hair up. There were few things in life more grating to me than having damp, warm curls sticking to the back of my neck. I preferred to wear the lengthy brown waves down most days, but I always wore my hair up when I trained with Kieran and in the Arboretum.
Maybe it’s not that obvious…?
Pausing in front of my reflection in a shopkeeper’s window, I tugged the patterned silk down a bit, examining my throat.Fucking Hel. Yeah, no. Nope. Definitely not.
The bruises and bitemarks Kieran had left on me last night were bordering on profane. I was going to give High Scholar Larkin a heart attack if I showed up like this.
A perverse side of me didn’t want to give them up, Scholar Larkin’s delicate sensibilities and my chance at a highly sought-after research position be damned. That darker creature within hissed with displeasure once the decision had been made, because even in the daylight, I could not deny that I loved the way that man marked me. I loved letting him desecrate my skin whenever and wherever he so chose. I loved both receiving and observing these little reminders left on my body—each one an ephemeral memento of those perfect moments in time where Kieran had made me come between his teeth and his silver tongue.
Even looking at them now, I was transfixed.
Marking up someone’s neck like this was largely seen as vulgar and gauche amongst most of the student body—a crude and immature display by lovers expected to keep that shit in the bedroom. And while I hardly gave a damn about decorum amongst the privileged noblesse, I could understand why some of them might find the sight disturbing or debasing. It was, quite literally, a wound. Most people had an adverse reaction to the sight of such contusions.
I didn’t, though.
I thought they were beautiful.
It wasn’tjustbecause Kieran had left them on me—I had always thought bruises were pretty. When your skin is paler than milk and you’ve got a habit of bumping into every stray corner in a room for lack of spatial awareness, you’ve got to learn how to love being a little banged-up.
To me, bruises had always looked like blossoming petals, or tiny cosmic galaxies beneath my skin, pulsing with shades of pinks and purples, blue and yellow.
“Morbid little thing,”Amaretta would always cluck when she caught me prodding at them, fascinated by watching them fade with time.
That said, I couldn’t exactly pin this internal conflict on aesthetics.
I didn’t entirely understand what had fueled this newfound kink of mine. Sure, my neck had always been one of my most sensitive erogenous zones—I’d discovered rather early on that I had a thing for breath play, in part due to the intense pleasure I felt with any manner of pressure against my throat. And yes, I was a masochist—I enjoyed pain, I craved it, it got me off. Kieran was hardly the first person to leave marks on my neck…But there was something different about his love bites. Something thattransformed me from woman to beast. It awakened something within me that I couldn’t name.
Sighing, I tucked my scarf back into place. These particular bitemarks were so egregious that I had to wonder if it had been intentional on his part. If it was, Kieran would not be all too pleased with what I was about to do.