I don’t hear her respond to the needles’ penetration, but I know they are in her flesh as the buzzing tones deepen.
Behind me, the other girls shuffle in line, anticipation crawling inside their feet. They hide excited chatter in their breath. I, on the other hand, am wary of the pain.
The wind outside the parlour suddenly howls. A moment later, Iris lifts her slim arm to display the brand. She smiles with pride.
“It’s official,” she breathes in awe. Her green eyes land on me, cruel in an instant. “But not even a brand will make you any more than Fur Born,” she says with a snarl.
I clench my teeth and hold her sharp gaze as she saunters to join the line with the other marked girls.
“Next,” the tattoo man calls, and a girl behind me bumps me forward.
Time slows.
The gap between me and the buzzing is empty, ready to be filled. The gun is suddenly louder. The man’s patience wanes as he stares at me. The girls’ shuffling is riotous in my ears, though I am quite certain they are not moving at all.
I am the one moving.
Carelessly, my heels slide backward, recoiling from the tattoo gun when a monstrous form eclipses me, and two huge hands grip my shoulders.
Someone holds me in line.
Someone enormous.
A gasp, a pin drops. Now there is no noise at all, and I wonder where all the breathing has gone… It’s too still.
The man with the tattoo gun is staring above my head at the towering figure behind me. His startled expression snaps to submission, and he bows his chin.
It can’t be…
As a statue held captive in big hands, I twist my chin and peer up. Up. Up.
To his face.
His face.
Even with his cloak pulled up and shadows dancing the outline of his strong brow, I recognise him. I’d know his face through the dense Redwind.
He is stunning.
His face is a masterpiece. Chiselled yet smooth. Square jawline. Scars that only enhance his virile features. Blue eyes that glow as he stares intensely down on me, penetrating my soul. The colour blue should be peaceful, calm, but his eyes are anything but.
They whisper of cruelty.
They demand obedience.
My king.
I turn in his grip.
Everyone in the parlour drops to their knees, but I remain standing, unable to bow with his massive hands wrapped so powerfully around my upper arms.
“My king,” I offer, lowering my gaze.
“Why do you hesitate?” he asks, his voice a deep timbre that presses on my chest, making my lungs and heart strain to work.
“I—” I stammer and force my eyes to hold the ground respectfully. Hesitate? To get the tattoo? To bow? To speak? What?
I cannot answer.
“Don’t you want my mark?”
I blink my confusion, blood draining from my cheeks. Of course, I want his mark.
And finally, I look up at him.
This cannot be real.
I’ve seen him on the big screen in the Silk Aviary—the one for Trade Updates. At least once a month, they show moving pictures of him on campaigns in The Cradle, visiting Trade men at the windmill farms, or shaking hands with lords from Trade towers.
This is so much better.
Seeing him in the flesh. Smelling him.
Stunned, I nod my head. “Yes, of course.”
His gaze holds me arrested. “Then”—he stretches the word with no mirth— “why hesitate, little creature?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “It’ll hurt.”
“Have you not been given any Opi?”
It is like the others in the room have faded away, leaving only him and me. Captured in a time apart from all others.
“The others have applied it topically, but— But I’m allergic,” I say softly.
His brows draw in as though he is recalling a painful moment or reliving a feeling, then— “I see,” he states, calm resurfacing. “Hereditary, I imagine. From your mother’s side?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Your name?”
I look at his hands, still warming my arms. Why are they still there? I like it. But why?
“Aster.” I breathe. “Like a flower.” I look up at him again. “We are all just flowers, not like you, my king. You’re a city from the old-world. Everyone important is named after a city from the old-world.”
I don’t know why I said that.
He doesn’t need a history lesson.
My head feels as if I inhaled a cloud and now my thoughts are surrounded by white and confusion.
“Just a little flower?” He frowns, the question so curt it stirs the energy around us.
I simply nod, enraptured. “Yes.”
His palms slide down the length of my arms, leaving one to circle the column of my wrist. He could squeeze it to dust, his grip so encompassing.
“Would you like me to hold your hand, little Silk Girl?”
I think I nod.
The next few moments I meander through in a dream state. He presses my wrist to the tattoo table, and I anchor myself to his gaze—almost feline. Lots of Xin De have glowing irises.
Unbinding my wrist from his grip, he moves his hand to blanket mine, pinning me to the counter.
“Gentle with my property or you’ll discover the true meaning of pain,” he orders the man, though his eyes haven’t wavered from me.
He holds my hand.
I hold my breath.
Heat from his palm radiates into my skin.
The buzzing starts, his eyes anchor me, pain from the needle fires, dark intent rolls through his gaze, and I practically moan against my conflicting senses. Warm discomfort pools in my bellybutton. Blue eyes pierce through me to my bones deeper than any needle.
Everything is hot.
Painful and pleasant.
And his eyes.
Oh my, his eyes.
“It’s all over now,” he states smoothly, releasing my hand, a cool absence sweeping across the grieving flesh.
I blink up at him, the loud fantasy of him and me and whatever strange painful, pleasure that was slips away.
Heat flares through my wrist, so I look down to see the tattoo’s burning presence. It is pretty. A purple womb created from flowers and stems. The same smile I saw on Iris’s face slides across my lips.
I am officially a Silk Girl.
Too soon, he is striding away. I am flooded with desperation that I’ll never see him again, that he’ll forget about me, that Iris and the girls are right about me being Fur Born, so I reach for him before I can think.
Gasps expel.
Eyes widen.
My fingers clutch at a piece of his velvety shroud.
“Take me with you, my king.” The words tumbling from my lips like apples from a barrel.
Shit.
He turns, a creature more predator than man, but his expression becomes one of amusement. I’m not sure I like it. It’s playful in the way an eagle might play with a mouse.
Looking down at my small hand, clinging to the fibres of his jacket, he says, “Not today.”
“I’m ready,” I blurt out, ignoring the girls who gape and the Silk Wardeness who shakes her head, scolding me silently. She doesn’t dare speak in his presence. It’s a vow. Speak only when spoken to. Never touch the king without permission…