Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

About Rio.

"What, um...what happened to you...to your face?"

He threw a scowl at her, one that said of all her many questions, this one angered him the most. She didn't miss the way he turned his head slightly to the left, an almost unconscious move that helped to hide the worst of the damage. But Dylan had already seen the burn scars and pebbled skin. From the look of them, she guessed that they had to be combat wounds. Very grave, frontline combat wounds.

"I'm sorry," she said, although whether she meant she was sorry for asking or sorry for what he went through, she wasn't totally certain.

He reached up with his left hand and raked it through the thick hair at his temple, like he didn't care if she stared now. But it was too late for him to call back his initial self-conscious reflex, and no matter how darkly he glared at her, Dylan knew he was bothered by his condition.

And as he moved, she caught a glimpse of an intricate pattern of tattoos on his forearm. They peeked out on both arms from under the rolled sleeves of his shirt, quasi - tribal markings done in a unique, variegated color blend of pale scarlet and gold. On first glance, she thought maybe they were some kind of membership markings, like the kinds American gangs used to show their allegiance.

No, not like that, she decided the longer she stared at them. Not like that at all.

The markings on Rio's arms were very much like the symbols and strange writings that were on the walls and crypt inside that cave.

He brought his hand down and the flash of warning in his eye all but dared her to question him about them.

"Tell me what they mean," she said, looking up to meet his hard gaze. "The tattoos. Why do you have the same kind of symbols on your body that were in that mountain cave?"

He didn't answer. In silence, he stood there unmoving, looking even more dangerous in his civilized, tailored clothing than he had in the tattered rags he'd been wearing before. She knew he was immense, tall and broad and covered in lean, hard muscle, but he looked even more so as she approached him, determined to have this answer.

"What do the markings mean, Rio?" She took hold of his arm. "Tell me."

He stared down at her fingers wrapped around him. "It doesn't concern you."

"Like hell it doesn't!" she replied, her voice rising. "Why would you have the same kind of markings on your body that are in that cave - on that crypt?"

"You are mistaken. You don't know what you saw. Then or now."

It wasn't an argument so much as a complete refusal to take the conversation any further. And that really pissed Dylan off.

"I'm mistaken, am I?" She grabbed her long, loose hair and lifted it around to one side of her neck. "Look at this and tell me I don't know what I saw."

She bent her head, putting the exposed base of her neck - the patch of skin that bore her unusual birthmark - in plain view to him.

The silence seemed endless.

Then, finally, a hissed curse.

"What does it mean?" she asked him, lifting her head and letting her hair fall back in place.

Rio didn't answer her. He backed up as if he didn't want to be near her for another second.

"Tell me, Rio. Please...what does all of this mean?"

He was quiet for a long moment, his dark brows low over his eyes as he stared at her.

"You will know soon enough," he said softly as he went to the door and stepped outside.

He closed her in, then turned the lock, leaving her in there alone and confused, and very certain that the path her life had been taking had just irrevocably changed course.

Chapter Nine

A Breedmate.

Madre de Dios, but he hadn't been expecting that. The small crimson birthmark on the nape of Dylan Alexander's slender neck changed everything. The teardrop-and-crescent-moon skin marking she bore wasn't something that occurred very often in nature, and its meaning was indisputable.

Dylan Alexander was a Breedmate.