"Abby, it won't hurt you." His fingers ran over the scrolling mark. The demon inside him howled in triumph at the symbol of ownership, but he was wise enough to keep his expression sympathetic. "It's… like a wedding ring. A symbol of my love for you."
"A wedding ring can be removed. I'm marked forever."
Dante didn't need her blood to sense the tension that hummed about her stiff body. A frown tugged at his brows.
"Abby? This isn't about the brand, is it?"
She shivered as she forced herself to meet his searching gaze. "It didn't seem real until now. It's frightening."
"Me?"
"No, of course not. It's just that I never thought about spending my life with someone. After my parents' marriage…"
At last realizing the source of her sudden bout of nerves, Dante put an arm about her shoulder and pulled her close.
He hoped her father was burning in hell.
"We aren't your parents," he murmured softly. "I could never hurt you. Never."
She pressed her face into his chest. "I don't know how to be a mate. I've been alone all my life."
"Is that what you want? To be alone?"
He felt the shudder that raced through her. "No, but what if I disappoint you?"
Dante touched his lips to the top of her head. "Do you love me?"
'Yes, I love you."
"Then that's all that matters."
She pulled back, her face pale in the moonlight. "What if it's not enough?"
His hand cupped her neck. "The brand isn't a prison sentence, Abby. There is nothing to keep you from walking away whenever you want."
"And what about you?" she demanded. "What does the brand mean to you?"
He hesitated a moment before confessing the truth. "You are my mate. There will never be another."
His soft words seemed to catch her off guard. Then amazingly he felt the tension begin to ease from her body, and a rueful expression settled on her face.
"I'm sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me," Her arms encircled his waist. "I'm not usually the hysterical type."
Dante savored the feel of her heat pouring into his body. He wasn't sure how or why he had allowed her to become such a vital part of his life, but he knew he would never survive if anything happened to her.
"I can't imagine what's wrong," he teased, his fingers tangling in her hair as the familiar surge of desire began to harden his muscles. "It's not as if you have acquired an unwanted spirit or been hunted by demons or nearly sacrificed by a dark wizard."
She gave a reluctant chuckle as she snuggled close. "I think it was the tattoo that made me a little wacky."
"Not the thought of being my mate?"
A welcome amusement entered her eyes. "That depends."
"On what?"
"A mate isn't the same thing as a wife, is it?"
He gave a vague shrug. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it does. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life being some sort of unpaid servant to you."
Abby his servant?
He choked back a laugh of disbelief.
"Don't worry, lover, I'm fairly low maintenance," he assured her with a guileless expression. "Once you're done scrubbing the floors and washing my clothes and serving me blood while I sit in front of the television, you will have plenty of time to do your darning."
Her elbow dug into his side. "Darning? More likely I'll be sharpening my stakes."
With a chuckle Dante tapped the tip of her nose. "I've been taking care of myself for centuries, lover, and to be brutally honest, if I wanted a servant, I could enthrall any human to do my bidding."
"Enthral?"
"A trick that all vampires possess."
Her brows lifted. "Did you ever try to enthrall me?"
His finger moved to outline her lips. "Never."
"Why not?"
"Because I liked you," he said simply.
She blinked. 'You liked me?"
"I liked your innocence, your honesty, your refusal to feel sorry for yourself despite the rotten breaks you'd gotten, and of course"—he slowly smiled—"that delectable body didn't hurt anything. I didn't want you to become a mindless sycophant. I wanted you."
"Oh." She sucked in a deep breath. "You keep surprising me."
"And how is that?"
"When we first met, I expected you to be arrogant and dangerous and sexy."
"All true. Especially that sexy part."
"I never expected you to be kind."
Dante glanced down in astonishment. Kind? He had never been accused of that before. And with good reason.
Until the witches had captured him, he had been a hunter who preyed upon anyone foolish enough to cross his path. And even after being leashed, he had been a lethal warrior who could kill without mercy.
It was only with Abby that he discovered the softer emotions he didn't even realize he possessed.
"I wasn't until you."
They stood holding each other in the darkness, absorbing the pleasure of simply being together.
Abby at last pulled back with a grimace. "Do you want to go in search of the witches?"
"What I want is to have you naked and sweaty beneath me," he murmured.
She nudged him with her elbow. "Maybe I want to be naked and sweaty on top of you."
"God." Dante went hard at the visual. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"I thought you were immortal?"
"Not even immortals can take that sort of torture." He bent his head to snatch a brief searing kiss. "Let's go before I forget what the hell I'm supposed to be doing."
Abby absently allowed Dante to lead her back to the shattered mansion. A part of her knew that she should be on guard. She should be preparing for anything from zombies to hellhounds to wizards to leap from the bushes. Hell, at this point, she wouldn't be surprised if a leprechaun popped out to do a jig.
Her sense of self-preservation at the moment, however, couldn't compete with strange tattoos that shimmered with crimson fire beneath the moonlight
Mate. Holy freaking cow.
Abruptly stopping in the shadows of the mansion, Dante turned to regard her with a smile that looked suspiciously smug.
"Stop scratching at it, lover. You'll make it sore."
"It looks strange." She held up her arm. "How am I supposed to go out in public like this?"
The smugness deepened. "No one will notice."
She shook her arm before his eyes. "Are you kidding me? I look like I got drunk on tequila and ended up in Shanghai."