Cixi was mad at Cassian.
Now that she sat across from him with her ankles crossed and her dress drawn down over her knees and the dark mark of a rose at the side of her neck refusing to come off — now that she had spent the last twelve hours of her life turning his face and his hand and his voice over in her mind without any of his careful answers reaching the part of her chest that wanted to be told the truth — she could see, with the cool, dry clarity of an anger that had risen above the tender corner of her chest that had been hoping for kindness, that Cassian Crown had not, in any of the conversations they had ever had, answered a single one of her questions clearly.
And now this.
A tattoo. Sex was one thing. The careful arranging of two adult bodies in a shared bath was one thing. The marking of one body, on a permanent piece of its skin, by a man who had not asked first, was another thing entirely.
She folded her arms across her chest and waited for the answer.
