A Stroke Of Midnight - By Laurell K. Hamilton Page 0,162

Rhys let himself fall back upon my body, pressing his mouth hungrily against mine. I'd forgotten the moth. I'd forgotten everything but the feel of his body pressed against mine.

Pain, sharp and immediate like tiny needles, pierced the skin of my stomach. Rhys cursed, and drew back from me, as if something had bitten him, and maybe it had.

He raised up on his knees, and showed his stomach. It looked like a bloody version of the moth on my stomach. He touched it, and it was flat, one-dimensional. The skin around the outline and colors was ridged and red, puffy and swollen, but I could see the image of the moth on his stomach.

The other men crowded round, and it was Galen who asked, "It's not the same thing we have, is it?"

"No." Doyle touched it ever so gently, and even that made Rhys flinch.

"Ow," Rhys said.

Doyle smiled. "Either the moth did not like being crushed or..."

"Yes," Frost said.

"It cannot be," Hawthorne said.

"It cannot be what?" Galen asked.

"A calling." Doyle was pulling his black T-shirt out of his pants. I was about to point out that he'd never get the shirt off without taking his shoulder holster off first, but he raised the neck of the shirt over his head so that it sat behind his shoulders, still covering his arms, but leaving his chest and stomach bare.

"What is a calling?" I asked.

"What were you thinking just before you kissed Rhys?" he asked.

"That I didn't want him to go into the dark alone, and not be able to find him."

Rhys slid off the bed, acting as if he hurt, but he was using both arms again. He noticed it, too, because he took his arm out of the sling, flexing his fingers. "Healed." He looked down at the wound on his stomach, then up at me. "It's always the doom of any relationship to get matching tattoos." He tried to make a joke of it, but his face didn't match the lightness of his words.

I touched the moth on me, and it still flicked its wings, irritated at the touch. "Mine's still alive."

Doyle crawled up on the bed, and for once I moved back from him. "Explain, Doyle." I put a hand up, not touching, but ready to keep him away from my body.

"It may be that your mark of power simply struck out in irritation. They can do such things." He was above me now, on all fours, so that his body straddled mine but did not quite touch me. "But if it is a calling, then it will enable you to do just what you wish. You will be able to find Rhys in the dark or the light. You will have only to think of him, and your mark will guide you to him. Some of them would alert the bearer of the mark if the one they had called was in danger or injured."

"A true calling could do many things," Frost said.

"There has not been a true calling among us for centuries," Hawthorne said.

"How can you doubt," Adair said, and he had removed his helmet, so I could see him smiling. He looked so sure of it all. "She is our ameraudur."

Doyle started to lie down on top of me, but I kept my hand in the way. I had more questions before we continued with our little experiment. The moment my hand touched his bare chest, the pain was sharp and immediate. But it wasn't my hand that hurt, it was my chest, exactly where I touched Doyle. Blood trickled down his chest, just below the silver nipple ring. Other than a tightness around his eyes, he didn't react to the pain at all.

"That answers one question." Nicca moved to the far side of the bed, lounging and seemingly perfectly at ease. "It isn't just the mark not wanting to be touched."

Doyle bent down to give me a quick kiss. Nothing hurt, and a tightness in my shoulders eased that I hadn't even realized was there.

He smiled down at me, a quick flash in his dark face. "You did say you wanted a kiss."

"Why does this please you so much? It bloody hurts."

The smile faded. "I am never happy to cause you pain, Meredith, but that you are marking us, that is a great thing."

"Why?" I asked.

"It means you are a power." Rhys did not look pleased. "Once I marked others, but when I joined the queen's service, she marked me. Then even that faded,