Octavian's Undoing (Sons of Judgment) (28 page)

Eyes still locked with Octavian, Riley replied, “Everything. I remember…” She took a deep breath. “You stabbed a man.”

“He killed a demon,” Kyaerin said.

Riley wasn’t listening as she stared at Octavian. “You did that poofy thing again.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a humorless smile. “You didn’t like it much then either.”

“You touched him and water came out of everywhere and then you told Gideon and Magnus to burn him…” She shook her head. “I’m scared.” Any other time, the confession would have mortified her, but at that moment, it was all she could think.

The look on Octavian’s face was one of a man getting stabbed through the chest with a rusty blade. “Baby…”

Kyaerin touched her knee lightly, drawing Riley’s attention back over to her. “The reason I removed the block is because it will make what I’m about to say easier. Do you remember the first time Octavian touched you?”

Riley shook her head.

Kyaerin blinked, jerking back. “You don’t?”

“She fainted,” Octavian murmured. “As soon as I touched her, her body… it seized and then she screamed and…”

“Fainted?” Kyaerin’s dainty eyebrows folded in the middle, forming a thin crease. “I suppose maybe that’s normal for a human. They’re not equipped to handle all that power at once.”

“It was horrible,” Riley whispered. “I had the weirdest dream.”

“Dream?” Kyaerin said.

“You didn’t tell me about that,” Octavian said at the same time.

Riley frowned at him. “You never asked. When I woke up, you weren’t anywhere near me.” She felt her cheeks flame at the accusation in her tone.

“What did you dream about?” Kyaerin prompted.

“Death,” Riley whispered. “So much death and fire and suffering. It was like a horror flick of Hell. People were being tortured and skinned…” She shuddered. “I could smell their bodies burning and feel the heat of the fire, and their screams… God, their screams were…”

Kyaerin gently rubbed her hand. “It’s all right.”

“What does it mean?” Octavian demanded, turning on his mother. “Is it the oath?”

Kyaerin shook her head. “I don’t know, Octavian. This is all new to me.”

“What does any of this have to do with my arm?” Riley asked.

Releasing her, Kyaerin drew up a chair and set it facing Riley. She sat. “The night Octavian touched you, he marked you.”

Riley blinked. “Marked me for what? How?”

Kyaerin took her hand once more and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Like wolves, we mate for life. Finding your mate is a big deal amongst our kind. It’s such a rare and beautiful thing. But because of our oath, we are forbidden to love mortals, never mind mark them. What Octavian has done… it has not been done since before the war.”

Tenderly, she turned Riley’s arm over, exposing the angry welts across her forearm. She smoothed the raw area with the pad of her thumb.

“A Selkie mate can only be identified by the mark she bares.” Carefully, she released Riley and turned her own arm over, rolling up the sleeve on her blazer and exposing the pale flesh of her forearm.

There, just beneath the crook of her elbow, the flesh was raised as though someone had burned the skin with a branding iron. The intricately coiled symbol was framed by an image of a shield. The vines within were wrapped to form an interlocked circle she’d seen in Celtic designs as a symbol of continuum, of forever. No beginning or end. Eternal.

A smile touched Kyaerin’s lips as she gazed upon the mark. It was as though all her fondest memories lay etched into her flesh. “I got this the night Liam and I found each other. It’s our promise to each other that we will be together forever. We don’t have weddings in our world, so this is, in a way, our wedding bands. The symbol of our unity. Our oath to never fall for a human is keeping you from ascending. It’s trying to undo the binding, but it won’t succeed. There is no magic stronger than that of two people who are made for each other. That’s a bond stronger than time itself.”

A blinding pain speared her through the chest at the mere thought of being taken from Octavian, and even as she considered the lunacy of that thought, her soul hurt.

“I won’t let that happen,” Octavian vowed evenly.

“I didn’t say anything,” Riley murmured, aching to go to him, to be drawn into his arms and have him seal that promise against her lips.

His eyes flashed as though reading her mind. “You didn’t have to.”

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!
This wasn’t right. It wasn’t normal.

“What happens if I never… ascend?” She broke the warm web Octavian was weaving around her. “Will I die?”

“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure you do ascend,” Kyaerin soothed.

“What if I don’t want to?”

Kyaerin appeared as shocked as Octavian did at her question. “What?”

Riley shrugged. “Well, no one asked me if I wanted to be marked or… married. What if I don’t? What if I’m not ready? What if I mess it up like my parents did or do something wrong or—”

The shock melted into a soft smile of understanding. She reached over and lightly touched the side of Riley’s head, stroking her hair back from her face. “You’re thinking with your head and, as logical as it usually is, try listening with your heart.” She dropped her hand and rose to her feet. She turned to Octavian. “I’m going to send a message to the Gravedigger. If anyone knows what this means, it will be him.”

Octavian nodded, his features blank.

“Who’s the Gravedigger?” Riley asked, disliking the idea of words like Gravedigger were being thrown around in regards to her. Maybe it was just her paranoia, but it was a bit difficult to get past something that had grave and digging in the title.

“He’s the keeper of records. If anyone can help us with your mark, it’s him.”

With a kiss to Octavian’s cheek and a smile for Riley, Kyaerin left them. Riley turned to the man standing tall and somber in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Octavian glanced down at her. “For what?”

She didn’t know why, but the very thought of having hurt him had splinters of pain coursing through her veins.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “For not being ready. For it being me the imprint chose.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t be half as crazy about you if you weren’t your stubborn self and I wouldn’t pick anyone else.”

Warm fingers of heat slipped up her cheeks. “I know from what your mom said about when she got marked, she was so happy about it.”

“That’s because she was raised knowing what it was and how special it is.”

Riley sighed, reaching for the wraps Kyaerin had set aside. She rewrapped her injuries and tugged her sleeve down over it. She got to her feet.

“I’ll disappoint you,” she told him.

“Not possible.” He said it with such unfaltering certainty, like the possibility was laughable or so ludicrous that the thought couldn’t possibly exist. It reflected in his eyes and in the way he studied her as though she were the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.

“Octavian?”

“Yes?”

“Why can’t you touch me?”

His gaze flickered, reflecting the yearning and frustration swelling up inside her. “Mom thinks if we touch, it might trigger the ascension, make it fight harder to surface.”

“Is that bad?”

“Right now? We don’t know. It could be too much for you to handle. It’s a risk I am not willing to take.”

“But if this was a normal scenario, what would happen?”

“You’d get your mark. We’d be together.”

“Couldn’t we have been together if we weren’t mates?”

He nodded slowly, giving his shoulders a shrug at the same time. “Yes, but the moment I found my mate, I would leave you, even if we loved each other. I would be compelled to my other half, to the one my heart and soul belongs to. I wouldn’t be able to help it. I wouldn’t want to help it. Finding you is like…” He took a deep breath, exhaled. “Finally seeing the sun after years of cold, hard winter. You are the pieces of me that have been missing my whole life. I felt them click into place the moment you walked into the post office.”

Her heart tripped over the strength of his words, over the passion in his eyes as he stared into her soul.

“You saw me that day?”

A small smile touched his face. “Baby, I felt you. It took all my self-control not to turn around and pull you into my arms. Scared the hell out of me. Why do you think I didn’t notice my wallet missing until I walked into the diner and saw you there?”

She touched the forearm on her right arm. “Does this mean you get a mark, too?”

The hot gleam behind his eyes stole her breath away. It held on to it as he reached for the hem of his shirt, twisted it in his hands and fluidly whipped it off. Riley gulped as she swallowed hard, her eyes greedily taking in all the beautiful muscles now bared before her. Her fingers twitched at her sides, forgetting the no-touch rule in the span of two seconds.

“Octavian…?”

There was a ghost of a smile haunting his lips now, quietly mocking her as he took a dangerous step closer. “You asked to see my mark. Do you see it, Riley?”

He was torturing her and he knew it. He knew she was trying so hard to keep her eyes fixed above his shoulders.

“Not fair,” she whispered, feeling her gaze begin to slide down his throat.

“Why’s that?”

How could it be? He was dangling a chunk of steak in front of a starving lion. It was cruel.

“I should go,” she decided, but made no move to actually follow through. Her eyes had found a solid path down the center of his chest and she was trapped following it all the way down the heard slates of his abdomen to the belt restraining his jeans. A shaky exhale escaped her.

“You missed it,” he said, moving closer still. “It’s higher.”

Glad to make the trip a second time, Riley raised her eyes upward. They roamed and traveled across the broad plain of his chest.

“I… I don’t see it.”

His head bent ever so slightly to the side. “Would you be disappointed if I didn’t have one?”

Her gaze lifted until they locked with his. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking when his features were such a perfectly blank mask. She couldn’t be sure if he was teasing her or not. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of only her possessing a mark. It felt wrong that she would carry a symbol of their bond, of their unity, as his mother had called it, but not him. Shouldn’t he have it, too?

“When you get married, you exchange rings,” she said. “You both get one. If you don’t get one then it’s like you’re marking me as your property, like I belong to you, but you don’t belong to me. So, no, I’m not disappointed. I’m pissed.”

His smile was slow, spreading wider until it was enormous against his face.

“Don’t smile,” she snapped. “It’s not funny.”

That only made him laugh, which made her scowl at him. “Easy, love, I belong to you as much as you belong to me.” To prove it, he turned his body to the side and there it was, an intricately woven design just like his mother on his upper arm, etched boldly into his beautiful skin.

It saddened her for a split second to see it marring his flawless body, yet the feeling was quickly overcome by the feeling of satisfaction. The thing was just a little smaller than the palm of her hand, but its meaning was enormous. He was hers. He belonged to her. No one else could ever take him from her.

“Now what’s that look, hmm?” He righted himself, putting mere inches between them.

Bold with this new found power, Riley peeked up at him through her lashes, a sly smirk curling her lips. “I thought you could read me. Can’t you tell what I’m thinking?”