Page 192 of Tracked and Taken

“Then why is yours—“

“In my palm and not at my throat.”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“Because, by the protocol some hundreds of years older than my grandfather, the male does not put his own disc on. The male hands the disc to the female. The female puts the disc on the male. Or.”

“Or.”

“Or she does not.”

She looks at me.

Her dark eyes hold mine.

“The protocol allows her to refuse?”

“It does.”

“Has any female, in those hundreds of years, refused?”

“Some have, sweetheart.”

“And what happens, in the protocol, when the female refuses?”

“The male keeps the disc. He does not, by the protocol, ever put it on himself. He carries it. The disc waits.”

“For what?”

“For her to change her mind. Or for him to die.”

She looks at the disc in my palm.

She looks at me.

“Tael?”

“Yes, sweetheart.”

“Hand it to me.”

I hand her the disc.

She takes it.

Her hand on the brass. The cord at her wrist. The disc, in her palm. Her hand closes. Her dark eyes are on mine.

“On your knees, Vosk.”

I am, in half a second, off the bed and on my knees on the floor in front of her. My bondmark at my throat under her gaze and my hands at my thighs

She kneels up on the bed.

She is naked. The blanket at the bedclothes behind her. The disc at her own sternum, warm already. Her hair at her shoulders. The matched disc, mine, in her palm.

She lifts the leather cord.