Page 88 of Veil of Shadows

A sly smile lifted the prince’s lips, the first genuine smile I’d seen on his face since Bowan had burst into our chambers this morning. “Then why are you asking?”

My brow furrowed, and I pushed my mostly empty plate away. “What do you mean,why am I asking? All of your friends seemed to find something on my neck surprising, yet I have no idea what’s there.”

His smile lessened, and he turned to face me more. Broad shoulders stretched when he also pushed his plate to the side.

“You told me you wanted me to rut with you,” he said quietly, yet I still knew everyone heard him even though Phillen went into the kitchen, Lars following.

The others began talking to one another as if they were having normal conversations, except for Trivan, of course, who was blatantly staring at us, and I could have sworn that Bowan was hanging on our every word.

“Yes, I did,” I replied in a hushed tone, but I didn’t know why I bothered considering I was surrounded by shifters.

Jax’s eyebrows slanted together until a wedge appeared between them. “And you said you knew what that meant.”

“Right.” My frown grew, and an unsettling feeling crept into my stomach. “It meant you wanted to take me from behind,” I all but whispered and then wanted to die when Trivan snickered. “Goddess, do we have to have this conversation here?”

But if Jax cared that all of his friends were listening, he didn’t show it. Instead, a storm of emotions unleashed upon his face. “Elowen,” he said sharply,toosharply. “What is your understanding of rutting?”

“Um, you know, when a male stag shifter takes a female”—I mouthed the next words—“from behind.”

The smirk on Trivan’s face died, a more troubling look taking its place, and a brooding scowl descended upon Alec’s. He wasn’t even trying to pretend he wasn’t listening anymore.

The Graniteer House noble shot Jax an accusing glare. “Are you serious, Jax? She doesn’tknow?”

I scowled. “Know what?”

“Oh, shite, this isn’t going to end well,” Bowan said quietly before he raked a hand through his hair. Any mirth he’d shone earlier had vanished.

My chest heaved as I studied all of them, but as much as I tried to control my response at being left in the dark, I couldn’t stop my growing sense of dread. “Will someoneplease tell mewhat you were all talking about in the clearing this morning?”

Jax scrubbed his cheeks.

Heart pounding, I demanded, “Jax, what’s going on?”

The worry on Jax’s face increased. “I...” He opened his mouth and then closed it. A soft growl rumbled in his chest. “We...Gods and Goddesses. I thought you knew.”

“Knewwhat?” I swallowed the ball of anxiety that threatened to work up my throat. “Jax?” I whispered. “Tell me.”

“Oh, for stars’ sake,” Alec bit out, still across the room. “He claimed you, Elowen. That’s what happened when you rutted with him. That’s what rutting means. It’s not just a stag shifter taking a female from behind. It’s a male stag claiming his female.”

Confusion swam through me. “Claimedme? But we didn’t fully enact the bond, so how could you have claimed me?” But then the fact that Jax was a stag shifter hit me, and that maybe what Stonewild fae did was different from what Faewood fae did when a mate bond was formed. Maybe holding my magic backhadn’tstopped us from forming the mate bond.All blood drained from my face. “You mean you...” But I couldn’t say it. Because even if Jax was my mate, it still didn’t change our future, yet if he’d claimed me...

I grabbed his hands. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

Devastation rippled across Jax’s face, and in a sweep of his arms, he was carrying me away from the other males. He didn’t stop until we reached his bed chambers, and then he slammed the door closed behind us.

He set me down and then paced a few steps back and forth in front of me. Finally stopping, he faced me, then scraped his fingers lightly across my nape. His touch made goosebumps shoot down my spine.

“Do you know what’s here?”

I couldn’t breathe. “No.”

Nostrils flaring, he tugged me into the bathroom.

Inside the bathing chamber, he grabbed a mirror off the counter, faced me away from the large mirror above the sink, and held the handheld mirror up for me to see. He swept my long chestnut hair to the side, revealing my nape in the handheld mirror.

My breath sucked in.

A silvery-inked mark, like a tattoo that probably shone like stars in the sun, revealed a stamp upon my nape in the shape of a stag’s antlers.

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