The Demon of Angels (Bk. 2) | ✓

ⅩⅨ

LAID AGAINST HIS side, I trailed my finger down the center of his chest and abdomen. My leg was draped over his hips while his hand rested gently on my hitched thigh, drawing small and soothing circles.

The blanket slipped lower on my back, resting just above my rear end. Zeke let out a small gasp as if tracing something there.

I shot up, my eyes wide with concern. "What? What is it?"

Zeke's eyes were as wide as mine, but his focus remained elsewhere. "Turn around, baby," he murmured, his fingers softly grazing my back.

Reluctantly, I obeyed and slowly gave my back to him. His fingers returned to tracing a circle, what felt like a star-shaped, and something else along the skin. "What is it?" I repeated.

"It looks like a tattoo," he breathed. The hitch in his voice told me he was in awe.

I whipped my head around so fast that I almost gave myself whiplash. "A tattoo?" I squeaked, horrified. "I don't have a tattoo," I argued with furrowed brows.

Zeke snorted. "Well, you do now."

I rolled my eyes, swatting at him playfully. He chuckled, and I let out a small sigh, knowing if Michael caught eyes off it, I'd be done for. "What does it look like?"

"Mmm," he hummed. "A circle, an upside star, and a strange swirly symbol in the center of both."

My mouth popped open. "There's a satanic symbol on my back?!"

Another chuckle. "I don't think that's what this is, Celeste," he whispered. His fingers never ceased their trail, earning a hard shiver coaxed from my body.

"What do you think it means? When did this happen?" I rattled off questions like my sanity depended on it– which in all fairness, I feel as though it did. No one randomly gets a tattoo in the middle of the night and not freak out about it.

Zeke's fingers momentarily stopped their path along my back, the distinct sound of his phone camera going off a second later. I turned, laying my body at his side as he used a quick Google Search to figure out what the symbol could possibly mean.

As my eyes lay upon the picture, a gasp parted my lips. It was exactly how Zeke described it; a circle with an upside-down star and an oddly swirled symbol in the center. Laid just above one of the arms of it were three black dots.

Sooner than expected, Zeke found the symbol and muttered the word. "Unity" under his breath.

I narrowed my eyes, eyeing the picture and its description below intently. The circle and upside-down were clearly demonic, but the unity symbol was purely angelic. My face went slack as I put two and two together and pieced it together like a damn puzzle.

"Hybrid Unity," I murmured, giving Zeke my full attention as I stared at him with wide eyes. Slowly, Zeke nodded. It was the only reasonable explanation and, frankly, the only one that made sense.

Remembering the moments from last night, I flushed, but something stuck out to me. "Do you remember, uhm," my cheeks burned. "After we finished, that burning we felt?"

Zeke smirked at my shyness. I swatted at him again, earning a chuckle from deep within his chest, but he nodded. "Yeah, do you think it had to do with the tattoo?"

I bobbed my head and further explained my thought process. "I think it was the tattoo," I paused. "But I mainly felt mine in my chest and thought it was just the bone strengthening."

Zeke agreed, telling me as much. "I thought so too, and I know it did because I could feel it, but I felt that burning in my back– right about where your tattoo currently sits."