Page 2 of Hers to Keep

“What—” She didn’t get a chance to ask further because Cisco grabbed her shoulder and rose to look at her back.

“Holy fuck.”

Rio groaned between them as he was rudely awakened by the movement.

“Someone explain what’s going on,” Mari grumbled.

“Dohal’s wings are marked on your back,” Cisco said after a moment.“Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Mari was about to answer that she hadn’t known, when she realized he was asking Dante.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal,” Dante said.“They look just like the ones she gave us.”

Remembering what had happened with her necklace the night before, Mari pushed against Cisco’s chest so she could examine him.A delicate platinum tattoo in the shape of a rose among briars glistened on his skin.

She ran a finger over the curves of the petals and felt her own magic flickering there.Inside her, the goddess was smug.“It’s her mark,” Mari said after a moment.

Cisco placed his hand over hers and squeezed.“It’s yours.”

“I guess it is.”She smiled at him.“I wonder if that means the necklace was somethingshedid, rather than Dohal.”

Cisco frowned, just a bit.“Well, if you manage to find him, you can ask.”

“I’ll go and look for him.”She got out of bed slowly with Dante’s help.While he was looking for his clothes, she went to the bathroom, closing the door behind her when Rio eyed her naked form with interest, before her libido could get any ideas that her body wasn’t up to.Saints, he was always horny in the morning.Usually, she was just as ready to go, but today she needed some time.

As she started up the water, she heard Rio moan, followed quickly by Cisco’s low chuckle.Apparently, Cisco had decided to defuse the situation while she washed up.

By the time she finished her quick shower and had toweled off, Cisco had Rio facedown on the bed, arms held tightly behind his back.He plied Rio with slow, deep strokes that had the puma shifter quivering under him and whispered how much he loved him over and over again in Spanish.

Neither of them noticed as she pulled a robe around herself and slipped out of the room with a soft smile on her lips.

She took a savory pastry from Giselle with a nod of thanks and waved to Dante, who was eating in the kitchen while on his phone, an exasperated expression on his face.She’d have to ask about whatever that was later.Right now, she was on a mission.

She could feel Dohal above her somewhere, his presence drawing her like a lodestone, and wondered if that had to do with the markings on her back.She’d peeked at them in the bathroom mirror after her shower.

They were delicate lines traced in platinum that were unquestionably his wings, anchored where the gemstones had implanted themselves along her spine.Surprisingly, none of that new hardware hurt at all.In fact, she wouldn’t have known they were there if Dante hadn’t said so.

Just another mystery to unravel as she munched on her delicious ham and cheese pastry and climbed the stairs to the guest bedrooms.What was he doing up there?

Mari found Dohal on a bench in the upstairs hallway, sitting across from one of the rooms with a sheet wrapped around his waist.He met her eyes as soon as she came into view, his expression softening.She noticed at once how changed he was from when she’d last seen him.

All the scars that had marked him were gone.His skin was a coal black expanse drawn taut over his muscular frame.The only mark on him was at his neck, the impression of her teeth.The fierce pride she felt over that claiming bite was probably unseemly, but she didn’t care.His horns were smaller, but still curled forward and up, red at the base and fading to the deepest black at the tips.His wings were entirely absent, and his long legs ended in perfectly normal looking human feet, which seemed a little out of place.

“You look different,” she finally said, as she closed the distance to him.

“The magic that held me in that cell also held me in that demonic visage.I’m free to transform as I like now and have assumed something that might blend in a little more.”He took her in from head to toes with a slow sweep of his eyes.“Do you not like it?”he asked, with a self-conscious shifting of balance.

“I do.But I liked you the other way too.You should look however you want to look.”She sat next to him.“What are you doing up here?”

“When the sun came up, I went outside.I had entirely forgotten how good it feels.”He let out a sigh and nodded to the door across from them.“Then I felt his pain, and it drew me here.”

Mari glanced up and down the hall.She had no idea whose room this was.Nova was at the end, then Greta.Last she knew, this room had been empty.She reached out with her senses and felt the remnants of both her own magic and Greta’s.“Luis,” she said under her breath.

She remembered how they had found him, strapped down to a table for Saints only knew how long, with some kind of machine attached to his head prying his mouth open.His pain had been excruciating.

Dohal murmured, “I’m hoping he’ll let me in to help him, but he’s not ready yet.”

Mari hugged herself around her middle.“Is he still in pain?”

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