Page 116 of Caging Darling

“I’m not confused.” It’s the first time in my life I feel as though I can say that honestly.

His look is full of pity. “I know you aren’t, Darling.”

He doesn’t. He truly doesn’t.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “You’ve spent two years trying to find me, but when I wander into arm’s reach, you do nothing.”

“Is that what you want, Darling?” he asks. “For me to draw you into my arms and make you mine?”

My heart falters, but my mouth doesn’t. “No. I choose Peter.”

Sorrow lines his eyes. He swallows. “That’s my fault, I believe. That Mark of yours talking. If you think it hasn’t crossed my mind to hope that if the Mating Mark were taken away, you would want me, you’d be incorrect. If you think I don’t lose myself at times in the foolish hope that if it weren’t for Peter,there’d be nothing in the way, nothing getting between the two of us, you’d be wrong. But Darling, it’s not Peter who ruined us. So no, I didn’t think it worthwhile to tell you I’d been searching for you. Because all I ever hoped to gain from finding you was making sure that you were safe. And I don’t have to win your forgiveness to ensure that.”

“Charlie and Maddox,” I say. “They said you were sick for a while. That your hand was infected. I—I hurt you too.” It’s the most I can say without betraying Peter. Without choosing Astor over him.

“If you’re worried about me forgiving you, I’d say it was less punishment than I deserved.” He twists his hook, looking down at it pensively.

“There was something they weren’t telling me,” I say. “About the infection.”

Astor continues to stare at his hook, though he stops moving it about in the moonlight. The way he has it angled reflects a ray back to his chest, where one of his new tattoos creeps out of his shirt. When he glances up, he catches me staring and swallows.

“Can I see them?” I ask.

“That’s most certainly a request I should deny of a woman who belongs to another.”

I laugh, my voice shaking. “Should. But if I had to guess, won’t.”

Astor smirks half-heartedly. “You’ve gotten to be so forward.” All the same, he goes to unbutton his shirt, but when he fights with the top button, his fingers, unassisted by his missing left hand, struggle.

“You’d think I’d be better at this by now,” he says, somehow sounding sheepish. “I know you found me a scoundrel that night at Vulcan’s, but the buttons truly are more difficult than anything else.”

I take a step forward, and his hand stills. He doesn’t move, doesn’t blink as I approach him, pressing my fingers to the button and sliding it through the eyelet.

The moment the first bit of fabric releases is when I realize that Astor’s chest isn’t moving, that he’s no longer breathing.

When I first laid eyes on the tattoos, I’d thought they were vines. I still can’t tell what the design is, not without seeing the rest, but the edges truly are blurry. I’ve seen tattoos like this on former militia, meant to cover scars or burn marks.

Astor has a burn mark on his chest, a brand from the orphanage warden, but it’s far enough to the right to be covered by his shirt. If these tattoos are an attempt to mask the brand, they’re overkill, and decades late.

Still, there’s something graying underneath the skin, buried underneath the ink, but not fully. It’s the same gray of his Mating Mark, below his wrist, where it withered when the Seer transferred part of it to Peter.

I take my fingers and press them to his tattoo, running my fingers over the curved but blurred edges.

“Darling,” he says, finally taking in a breath, his voice a half-hearted warning.

“Charlie said you contracted an infection,” I say, my voice as distant as a ghost’s. “She wasn’t talking about a normal infection, was she? She wasn’t talking about your hand, your wound.”

“As it turns out,” Astor says, voice still tight, chest hardly moving underneath my touch. Like he’s using the minimal amount of air possible. “Mating Marks aren’t particularly fond of being severed.”

I trace my hand down to undo another button, but Astor latches his fingers around my wrist. “I’m going to need you to stop that, Darling.”

When I glance up at his face, his eyes are closed, his jaw gone tense.

I nod, embarrassed now. “Okay,” I whisper, and he nods in return, but he doesn’t release my hand before opening his eyes again. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“For the record,” he says, “there’s never a need to apologize for touching me.”

I flush, then go to take a step back, but his grip is still tight around my wrist. As if we’re both thinking of the moment he trained me how to get out of a grip like this one, he trails his fingers up my wrist and maneuvers them between my hand and his chest. The movement serves a dual purpose—a steady barrier to bar me from touching him further, while also keeping me from pulling away.

---