Page 313 of Split or Swallow

But that moment did not have to be now. They laid together, their breathing in sync, and Leo’s fingers brushed over the little claw necklace. Tem hadn’t bothered to take it off.

“Tem,” he whispered. “How did you find out about…who you are?”

She noticed how he said ‘who’, rather than ‘what’.

It was progress.

“Caspen told me I was a Hybreed.”

“A Hybreed?”

“Half human, half basilisk.”

“How did he know?”

Tem raised her hands, showing Leo the freckles on her palms.

“These,” she said as he looked at them. “My father has the same ones. He passed them on to me.”

Leo pressed his lips to the freckles.

“And he could talk to me using his mind,” she said. “That capability is only between basilisks.”

They were silent for a long time. Tem simply breathed Leo in, smelling the way his cologne mixed with his skin, feeling the way his body felt against hers. She brushed her fingers up his chest, to his shoulders, then around the back of his neck. She paused.

There was a ridge there—a firm line of scar tissue. When Tem touched it, Leo flinched.

He pulled away. Tem pulled him back.

“Leo,” she said. “Turn around.”

He shook his head. “No.”

Tem sat up, and so did he.

“Leo,” she said again. “Now.”

To her surprise, after a pause, Leo obliged.

He turned slowly, kneeling on the bed so his back was to her. The moment the firelight hit his skin, Tem reached for him.

There were four ridges, she saw now, each about three inches long, two on either side of his spine. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed them before.

“What happened to you?” Tem whispered.

“Carriage accident,” he said quietly.

Of course it was a lie. He’d said that about the scar under his chin, but that one was jagged and irregular, befitting an accidental injury. The scars on his back were purposeful—almost surgical—and they looked like they had been administered fairly recently.

“Leo,” she said. “Tell me.”

“It’s nothing, Tem.”

She brushed her fingertips over the scars, and he shuddered.

“It doesn’t look like nothing.”

Without thinking, she leaned forward, pressing her lips to each scar.