“I’m so sorry, Zhuliya. I promise I’ll fix this.”
“How? I know nothing about mates or imprinting, but ‘imparting a piece of your soul’ seems pretty freaking permanent!”
Ilian winces. “It was an accident.”
He sounds so defeated, and I feel like a bitch. I’m letting my mouth speak without permission, but in my defense, I’m confused—and a little hurt.
I’m not Ilian’s choice, just an accident, per his words.
“Right, sorry.”
Ilian groans. “Great Ulu, please don’t apologize to me! It’s all my fault. I…I couldn’t help myself.”
“You couldn’t?”
“No. I swear I fought against my instincts, but your scent—gods, your scent. Never have I smelled anything so divine.”
This more than mollifies the ache in the pit of my stomach, and I remind myself that I don’t want to be mated to a stranger, so I have no right to feel upset about it being an accident.
“Erm, thank you. So how do you take away an imprint?” A thought comes to mind, and I pout. “I’m going to have to remove my new ink, aren’t I?”
Ilian nods. “Yes, but it’s not that simple.”
At this, I snort. For a tattoo artist to call ink removal ‘simple’ is laughable, and perhaps a bit terrifying.
“Go on.”
He sighs. “Aisyth must be the one to dissolve our bond as well as the tat.”
“The goddess?!”
“You know Aisyth?”
A scorching blush suffuses my cheeks, running down my very naked body. “Kind of…I should get dressed.”
When I don’t explain more and try to get up, Ilian presses a hand onto my spine, flattening me back down. I wheeze as the air whooshes out of my lungs.
“How do you know Aisyth?”
I tense at the suspicious note in his voice. “I don’t! I just, um, read about her briefly when I was looking up my tattoo.”
There’s no way in this frigid hell I’m confessing that I researched the man and Ithaqua months ago in an attempt to find out what his cock might look like.
Except…I maybe did in the throes of carnal monster bliss—please don’t let Ilian remember that!
“And you feel guilty about this?”
My heart stumbles over its normal rhythm. “Guilty? What do you mean?”
Ilian scrapes his claws through the patch of fur between his horns. “The tattoo connects us—bonds us—and I can sense your emotions, especially the stronger that they are.”
Elohim Adirim, does this mean he feels what I feel, specifically when I’m—
“Soyam, I beg of you, please stop squirming. Yes, let’s get you dressed so we can talk. I can’t think around your worry and arous—”
He cuts off, but I know what Ilian meant. Lovely, the man obviously knows what a horny mess I am and the nervous wreck my brain is about him realizing this.
Rolling to the right, I drop partially on the bed but mostly on the floor in an inelegant attempt to create space between the two of us.
Cue another anxiety spike.
Again, the sweet monster tries to soothe me, but I dash into the bathroom with a handful of clothes that I hope contains everything I need to cover my body appropriately.
Once I’m decent, I crack open the door to find the bedroom empty. I wonder if Ilian’s left when a sharp tug in my chest has me whipping around toward the connecting room.
Ilian is sitting on the broken couch, his back to me. His head is bent, cradled in his hands, and a pang of unease slithers down my neck.
An invisible weight crushes my lungs as I try to inhale, and I whimper at the overwhelming sensations crashing through me.
Suddenly, Ilian is in front of me, on his knees once more. He tips my head upward to meet his glowing stare.
“I can’t breathe!”
“Easy, soyam, you can breathe. Follow my lead. In…and out. That’s a good girl.”
The abrupt panic attack dissipates as quickly as it came, and now I’m more concerned that I might melt into a puddle at his feet for calling me a ‘good girl’.
“Th-thank you. That was strange.”
