|Author's Note: This book is the continuation of Sylas and Jaxon's story from Stolen Sign.|

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~ Jaxon ~

There's a beautiful man in my bed.

He's sleeping, and I'm careful not to disturb him as I slip beneath the covers at his side. When I pull aside the sheets, though, the sight of him transfixes me.

His skin is like cream in the moonlight, his hair is black as midnight shadows spilled about his face, and his lips are flush with sleep. He's enchanting, and I'm fully under his spell.

His name is Sylas Lovecraft, he's twenty-three years old, I've known him for a little over three months, and I would die for him.

Dramatic, but true.

He and I are Crafters—people able to channel magic through soulbound objects called Signs. My Sign is a small knife; his is the silver pen that once belonged to my Ancestor, Griffin Spellwright.

Our Ancestors—the men from whom each of our family lines sprung—were lovers long ago. Some say Sylas's Ancestor, Amarias, was an incubus, but we'll likely never know. Either way, my ancestor murdered him.

In a fit of jealous rage, Griffin killed Amarias. Then, with a dark ritual, he harvested his power and bound it to his own Sign—which, through a strange twist of fate, is the same silver pen that Sylas now wields.

Whatever his Ancestor might have been, Sylas is the same. His magic is bound to his life, and using it leaves him dangerously drained. To replenish himself, he 'feeds' on the energy of lust—mine, specifically—which awakens even now as I gaze down on his unconscious form.

I'm always attracted to him, but this is something more; this is something that sets hooks in my heart and pulls hard.

A dose of annoyance poisons my desire as I realize he must have been practicing again.

We'd talked about this.

We'd agreed he wouldn't Craft unless we were both prepared for the consequences.

At least, I thought we had. Maybe Sylas thinks what I don't know won't hurt me.

If so, he's wrong.

Three months ago, he'd Crafted a spell so powerful it almost killed him. I thought it had, for a moment, and every time I see him like this, drained and unconscious, that fear comes back to haunt me.

And that's what hurts. Sylas knows he wouldn't be the first man I've loved and lost— though he's certainly the first I've loved like this: like I can't breathe when I look at him, and like I'd rather die than look away.

Pain and desire make a fool of me, and I decide to show him what happens when he plays with fire.

Kneeling over him, I lean down and kiss the side of his throat, one hand slipping beneath the hem of his shirt. He sighs and shifts in his sleep, but doesn't awaken yet. I slide my hand up his smooth, warm skin as I breathe the subtle scent of him. I kiss him, and his lips part in unconscious welcome against mine.

Then he wakes up. Or his inner nature does.

He sits up slowly, hands pressed to my chest, his blood-red eyes locked with mine. Licking his lips, he moves to straddle my hips, molding his lithe form to my body, and makes a soft noise in his throat as he deepens our kiss.

I lose myself in the heat of him, the feel of his skin, the sounds me makes and those he draws from me, and my heart accelerates as pleasure floods me like a drug.

He moves a bit, rubbing against me, and I gasp. I'm rock hard and blood-hot, and he knows it.

He pushes me down, and I give way beneath him. Then he leans away and slowly lowers himself to my lap.

I catch at his shoulders and hold him back.

"Sylas, whoa—wait a minute."

I hadn't meant for things to go so far—not when he's only half awake—but his eyes flick up to mine, and he smiles. A strange paralysis seizes me. My muscles relax, I fall back beneath him with a soft gasp, shivering with want. At the same time, the odd sensation of something being drawn from me tugs at the base of my ribs.

Whatever I had in mind when I started this, I'm powerless to stop it now.

First I feel his hands, slim fingers gently freeing me, stroking my length; then his mouth, and the silky fire of his tongue as he takes me deep, slides off, and sucks me in again.

I can't catch my breath, my heart beats triple time in my chest, and the slow build of pleasure demolishes my mind.

"Sylas—" I gasp, lifting myself on my elbows and trying to warn him. "Sylas, I'm—fuck—!"

He makes a humming sound in his throat, and I'm done. I come hard, blinded and breathless, and he swallows around me as I pulse repeatedly. Spent, I fall back against the pillows, gasping for air as he sits up, a smirk on his salaciously slicked lips. 

Then his expression shifts, the bright blood-red of his eyes dims to near black, and he wakes up for real.

Because Sylas isn't himself when he's like this.

Or he is, but the part of his nature that feeds off desire isn't fully integrated with his conscious mind. When it's dominant, and he's low on energy, he isn't entirely aware of what he's doing. He acts on instinct—takes what he needs—and I can't resist him when he does.

That's why we'd agreed to work together—to be sure that when he needed to take what I have to give, we're both able to make that choice.

Which is why, looking up at his pale face as he registers what just happened, I know we've both made mistakes.

I'd given in too easily, and for the wrong reasons. But he shouldn't have Crafted without me.

"Sylas..."

I sit up. He knows I love him. He knows I'd never hurt him. It's himself he doesn't trust.

"Shit." He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. "What did I do?"

"You Crafted alone, that's what," I say, unable to keep the traces of anger from my voice.

"I just wanted to see her," he whispers. "I just want to know she's okay, Jaxon. I was only scrying."

I release my breath and feel the corners of my mouth dip with displeasure. Scrying—using a mirror or other reflective surface to see things—is still magic, and it's still dangerous.

Especially for us.

Three months ago, our lives collided in a disastrous, tangled wreck. My mother and younger brother, Marcus, had orchestrated the events that led to Sylas and I bonding as the Ink and Quill. Using dark, forbidden knowledge, my mother had harvested the magic of dead Crafters, enhancing her own Sign, and intended to sacrifice Sylas on the altar of her lust for power.

Then Sylas had woven an immensely powerful spell, and unraveled her enchantments. Rather than surrender, though, she'd triggered a deadly curse and killed herself.

And then I'd trusted someone I shouldn't have.

My mother might have been the one with the power, but it was Marcus pulling the strings; and behind him, another, larger threat loomed like the shadow of something monstrous.

He'd framed me for the murders of my parents and a prominent Crafter judge, and we'd been on the run ever since, hiding out with my associates, Dominic Honeybird and Yumi Chiba, in an old house at the city's edge.

Worst of all, Sylas' sister, Lyssa, had sided with my brother over her own.

Sylas is convinced she's Spelled—that Marcus enthralled her with his silvered words—but I'm not so sure. I have too much experience with familial betrayal.

"Sylas, you know how dangerous that is," I say, frowning at him. "If the Inquisitors have anti-scrying charms on Marcus' place, they could track you—or worse, you could have triggered a counter-curse."

He's still watching me with wide, spooked eyes, and answers in a barely audible voice. "I just wanted to see her," he says again.

I sigh. "Then go online. She's all over the celebrity gossip sites, and she looks just fine."

She did, too. Lyssa Lovecraft and Marcus Spellwright had emerged, in recent weeks, as the newest, hottest couple in Crafter society. With Marcus basking in attention at being the partial heir to a vast fortune, as well as the victim of terrible tragedy, he'd brought Lyssa into the spotlight at his side. They'd been seen together at all the best places—restaurants, parties, even hotels. Never mind the fact she's seventeen to his twenty-six. Sylas says she's mature and experienced for her years, but that doesn't make it right, even if she isn't Spelled.

That's another thing. Lyssa might live up to the Lovecraft name, but when Sylas isn't overcome by his nature and an instinct to survive, he has very little interest in sex.

"Hey, are you sure you're alright?" I ask, trying to soften my tone. "You should have waited, anyway."

"You should have waited, too," he returns, and I hear a hint of accusation in his tone.

I shake my head. "You know I can't. You're too strong. I don't have a choice when you're like that."

His expressive features show surprise, followed by anger and hurt, and I immediately regret my words.

He moves off the bed and stands, and I follow, reaching reflexively for his arm.

"Wait—that's not what I mean. I love you, Sylas, and of course I have a choice. It's to be with you, and—"

"No, you don't, Jaxon," he says quietly, pulling free of my grasp. "That's why I've been practicing without you. If I can learn to control myself, or if we can find a way to break this bond between us, then you'll have a choice. As long as we're bound as the Ink and Quill, you don't. Neither of us do."

He retreats to the bathroom and shuts the door, and a moment later I hear the shower running.

I blow out my breath and collapse to sit on the edge of the bed, resting my head in my hands.

I fucked up. Again.

I've been doing that a lot lately. 

The thing is, finding myself bound to Sylas was the only good thing to come out of that shitstorm. My gut tells me we should embrace whatever it is that makes us the Ink and Quill, and if it were up to me, I'd never let him go.

 I also know there are plenty of ways to lose someone you love. 

One of which is holding on too tight.