Page 367 of Sins of the Heart
361
Which made sense. She’d been at death’s door for
three days. Then she’d fucked Dagan until both of them
were replete and drained. Physically, she was on her last
leg.
“Go on,” Dagan said.
Calliope stared at his arms where they wrapped
Roxy from behind. For a second, her facade cracked,
just a little. Enough to glimpse confusion behind the
mask.
“When you came to us, you had the dark mark already etched in your skin. It was perfectly executed.
Beautiful.”
Roxy swallowed, nodded. “I’d been looking for the
Daughters of Aset for a little more than a year. I’d discovered the dark mark, recognized it as the symbol
from my pendant, and I—” She broke off, gathered her
thoughts. “My mother had the same mark.”
She could summon a clear recollection of her
mother’s forearm, the skin smooth and coffee-brown,
with a raised pattern. Roxy remembered tracing her
childish fingers over the mark. She could almost feel
it beneath her fingertips even now.
“Okay, so I had the mark when I came to you. But
didn’t it occur to you to sit me down and make certain I
knew the basics? To make sure I understood what I was?
Just a nice friendly chat over a microwaved mug of
blood?”
Dagan made a choked sound, and she felt his chest
move against her back. He was laughing.Laughing.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to kiss him or hit him.
She jerked from his embrace and stood on her own,
