“Should I have exploded?”
“I wish you had,” I muttered under my breath.
“That’s not very nice, baby.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said but the maniac just grinned wider. I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. Why couldn’t it have been Vlad or even Acheron who’d followed me? Why did it have to be this asshole?
“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice deep and soft and it made my soul purr.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
“I’m fine,” I snapped. I needed to get away from him before I killed him, but I didn’t think my legs would be up to the task just yet. They still felt like jelly.
I’ve never been this bad after a vision before and it worried me that they were getting worse. What if the next one pulled me under and never let me go?
“Are you okay?” I asked Byron.
“Worried about me?”
I rolled my eyes at him and sighed. “No, just want to make sure my burst of magicisn’tactually going to kill you.”
Not sure how I’d explain to my sister why I’d been sent home in disgrace for accidentally murdering one of the greatest assassins ever to live. Not that I’d ever tell Byron that. His ego was big enough already.
Although now I was really looking at him, there was a faint mark on his black shirt. “Take your shirt off.”
Byron’s eyebrows hit his hairline. “We’ve not even had our first date yet.”
“Just do it. I need to see if my power left a mark, asshole.”
Byron chuckled as he unbuttoned his shirt and I pretended to not be a little excited about the prospect of seeing what he looked like beneath his clothes.
I tried to ignore the way my heart rate picked up speed as Byron slowly undid the top few buttons.
“You sure you don’t want to eat me?” Byron asked.
“No,” I replied quickly.
Maybe too quickly.
Especially if Byron was smiling likethat. Like he knew something I didn’t.
He finally parted his shirt, and I gasped.
“I know,” he said smugly. “It’s a work of art and—”
“Not that, you asshole.” But he was right. He was toned and gorgeous but that’s not what I was looking at. In the centre of his chest, right between his well-defined pecs, was a sigil.Mysigil. A mutation of the ancient Fear No Foe sigil which roughly translated to Protect Me and Mine.
Byron was holding my magic like a human shaped cookie jar.
He should be dead.
Byron looked down and flinched. “What the fuck is that?”
The mark on his chest flickered with forks of violet lightning. It was strangely beautiful to watch. “I think it’s my magic.”
Byron snapped his gaze to mine. “Your magic?”
“Yeah.” I reached out and placed my palm on the sigil. My skin instantly hummed with the vibration of magic, familiar and warm. “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this.”