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I tossed my red-orange hair over my shoulder and said, “Your girl, huh?”
Suddenly the air changed between us. We weren’t playing a game anymore. We weren’t acting.
“You’ve never called me that before,” I said, taking advantage of the stillness of the moment.
“I know,” he said, looking down. “There’s a reason for that.”
I didn’t say anything. He clearly brought me here for a reason. He was proposing something, I had only to wonder what it was.
“I want you,” he started. He looked like he had a speech rehearsed and forgot the words. “I want you to be my mate.”
“We call them girlfriends in human culture,” I said, thinking I understood him perfectly.
“No.” He smiled, still holding my hand. “That’s not what I mean. I want you to join me, bond with me. I want you to be my mate for life.”
There was something more. Something he didn’t say.
“I want to be with you, too,” I said, still unsure what he held back. “I’ll be your mate, or whatever.”
“No,” he said, looking serious. “I want you to understand. The Vinduthi, when we take a mate, it’s for life. We don’t just marry or live together. We claim our females, join our DNA with hers. She becomes bonded to her Vinduthi male in a sacred way.”
I sat there, stunned. I’d never heard of such a thing before.
“So I would belong to you?” I asked, trying to make sense of it. It was hard, this thing he was asking. I’d always belonged to one group of thugs or another. If I was going to give myself away again, it had to be to trustworthy hands.
“Sort of,” he replied. “My DNA would enter your body and join with yours. You’d still be you but enhanced with Vinduthi blood qualities.”
“Such as?”
“Once my inner teeth break your skin and enter your bloodstream, you’ll fall asleep. When you wake, you’ll be remade, almost rewritten as a hybrid. You’ll have keener senses. You’ll be stronger and have a better sense of smell. You’ll be faster, too.”
My heart raced. It was better than I thought. It wasn’t another kind of ownership. It was a new kind of freedom.
“There’s one more thing,” he said, and my shoulders dropped. “You know my tracery? The green that glows in my skin.”
“Of course,” I said, worrying that what the catch was in this dream.
“Well, you’ll have it, too. A lighter version of my sigils will appear on your skin. When you wake, you’ll look a little more like me.”
I was silent, thinking it over. He had a worried look on his face that I needed to shake away immediately. “It sounds beautiful.”
I looked down at my arm, imagining his tracery etching in my skin.
“Will I glow like you?”
“You already do.” Oh. My heart just skipped. My sweet, deadly man.
“How soon can we do it?”
“Do you mean this, Amber? This is for life, this agreement. I know what you’ve been through and I need to know now if this is something you want. Do you want me, Amber?”
“Wow,” I said. My face felt twisted into an awkward grimace as I tried to process my feelings. “You ask a lot before dinner.”
I wanted to hold him here at this moment and sit there guiltily enjoying the tortured look on his face. I knew what he didn’t. Not yet. I knew we had a long life together to look forward to, and no more games to play. I wanted fifteen whole seconds of healthy worry before I let him know how much being part of him would mean to me.
“Yes, silly,” I said, loving the relief washing over his face. “I can’t think of anything better. I want to be with you. I’ve known it for a long time. I just didn’t realize it came with perks.”
“And you’re sure you want me to bite you?”
