Page 63 of Vampire Visions

“Come on, Love. Ye can do better than that”

She groaned, pulling herself out of my lap. “It’ll be easier to show you, but let me explain the differences between the marks on my body first.” She tugged her shirt up, exposing her bra, and some of us lost a little focus. Briggs was riveted. Jack and Grim didn’t react at all.

“See these marks?” She pointed to her cleavage. “These are my mate marks. Each one will look different on me depending on your species, but the mark you get from me will look the same on each of you. I’ll get a new one with every mate I take, and it looks like they’ll all be in a line here, but that’s just a guess at this point.” She tapped twice, once on each small white mark she had. “The ones I have for Jack and Grim are way different. They aren’t mate marks. They’re more like tattoos embedded with our personal magical signature.”

Sloane sank to the ground, taking her shoes off as she continued speaking. “The first marks Jack and I shared were on the interior of our wrists. They were too easily noticed and destroyed, so we decided to move them to the bottoms of our feet. They’re never seen there, and it’s the only place the three of us have never had any damage or injuries. Half the time, I forget they’re even there.”

She lifted her left foot in the air, showing us all the bottom. Right in the arch of her foot were five symbols no bigger than the size of pennies; one horseshoe, one scythe, and the first initials of her hellhounds. Like her mate marks, they blended almost seamlessly into her skin. There was an iridescence to them, and they were slightly raised, but I wouldn’t have noticed them if she wasn’t pointing right at them.

“How do the tracking symbols play into you moving through the Void, though?” Vaughn asked as she lowered her foot, and I was thankful that he did, because I couldn’t figure that part out either.

“These are their calling cards,” she replied simply before elaborating. “We add these same nearly invisible symbols to all the places we visit regularly. That magic works like tracking. If you have my symbol, then I can come to you, wherever you are — on my own or if summoned. Likewise; if a place holds my symbol, then I can travel there freely, within a matter of a few steps, through the Void and reach whatever destination I’m aiming for. I can’t do that with places I’ve never been to, which is why I wanted to figure out teleporting.” She peered up at Vaughn before adding, “Or misting.”

Stone leaned forward, intrigued by the conversation. “And how would you teach us to move through the Void like you do?”

“Two choices,” she replied, holding up as many fingers. “I can put my symbol on you and you can track me with it, or you can put your mark on me and I can summon you to me. There’s a few other ways, but those would be the simplest. Sharing symbols is something we should all do eventually, but I want you to have an option. The tracking symbols mean that we’d be able to find each other, period. I can’t hide from Jack or Grim if I’m mad at them. I can’t just walk away without them knowing exactly where I am. And I don’t know what else would be added to that since, or after, we’ve sealed our bonds.” She tossed her hands up in an I don’t know gesture and remained quiet while we all thought about what she was implying.

With Raguel riding my back, I knew I didn’t want her symbol on me. I didn’t want to hold that kind of power over her. The vengeful angel could make me summon her right to him if he knew about this, and that was just another reason to tell her everything.

York appeared aggravated with Sloane, and before long, we were all watching his emotions play across his face. He sighed in frustration, glancing at the sky as he ran his tongue across his teeth. “So, you’re telling me…” he began before shaking his head. “The argument we had the day before I was taken was about this.”

“I’d forgotten about that until just a few minutes ago, but yeah. You know my Sight jumps around a bit, sometimes showing me the past and sometimes the future.” She gave him a sad smile. “I saw you making a blood oath with whom I now know is Stone. I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but I could see Stone’s face clearly enough to know he was worried or unhappy about what was happening. That was like a week or so before you went missing.”

York nodded his head, understanding their shared past a little more. “And if I had agreed to swap symbols, then we’d have been able to find each other without using the mate bond. The bond that I forced closed.”

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But I didn’t know that we’d sealed the bond at the time. I knew something was going on with you, and I just wanted to make sure I could keep you safe, even though you wouldn’t tell me what was happening.”

“Let’s do it now, then. I don’t want to repeat that part of our past.”

“Okay.” She patted the ground beside her. “One thing, though. Uhm, actually two. I have to use my magic for both your symbol and mine. And,” she drawled, “it feels like a bee sting.”

When Grim snorted, I knew she was lying. York blew out a long breath, eyeing her suspiciously. “It’s going to hurt, isn’t it?”

Sloane tilted her head to the left. “It doesn’t hurt me, but probably,” she conceded.

“For about twenty minutes,” Jack told us.

Sloane wrapped her right hand around the druid's wrist, and we all watched her work magic that we couldn’t actually see. She pressed her left thumb to the arch of her right foot, intending to keep her mates tracking symbols together. Her thumb glowed red as she concentrated, pushing her magic into just the pad. When she removed it from her foot, she left behind a small blistered brand shaped like an Ivy leaf.

She wiggled her eyebrows at York. “You ready?”

He turned to look at the hellstead. “Twenty minutes of pain?”

“Give or take,” Jack acknowledged, dismissing the time with a wave of his hand. “But just in that one spot.”

York scooted back, extending his leg so that his foot was in her lap. The way she grinned at him was devious, and he groaned, clearly interpreting her expression as enjoyment. She grabbed his ankle with her right hand, pressing her left thumb to the arch of his foot. When her finger began to glow again, York tried to jerk his foot back, but she didn’t let go. In total, it took about fifteen seconds. The agony on York’s face said it felt much longer.

“That feels like more than a fucking bee sting,” he gritted out between clenched teeth.

She flashed him a brilliant smile, bright eyes dancing with amusement. “Sorry,”

He narrowed his eyes at her, shaking his head. “No, you’re not.” Sloane shrugged, glancing away as she tried to straighten her lips. “It’s a skull? Your symbol is a skull, and I got a leaf?”

Grim laughed at York’s complaint. “She thinks it looks like a curse.”

“Feels like a fucking curse,” the druid mumbled.

Sloane ignored him, surveying the rest of us with wide eyes. “Who’s next?”