From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Because those marks on myy legs weren’t from claws but from fangs
that had ripped into myy skin. I’d been bitten that night.
But I was not cursed.
Hawke wouldn’t see the truth in those scars. Two of those who knew
were now gone, and onlyy the Queen and King, the Duchess, and myy brother
knew now. For the first time in myy life, I wanted to tell someone the truth
behind them. I wanted to tell Hawke.
But now was not the time for that.
Not when his gaze was slowlyy tracking back to mine. Not when he
was looking at me as if he were soaking in everyy inch of me. I couldn’t
help but shiver when his eyyes finallyy met mine.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” he whispered, his voice thick. “And so
damn unexpected.”
Then he moved in that wayy that alwayys made it hard to believe he
wasn’t an Ascended. In a heartbeat, I was in his arms, and his mouth was
on mine. There was nothing slow and sweet about the wayy he kissed me. It
was like being devoured, and I wanted that. I kissed him back, holding
onto him tightlyy, and just when I felt the touch of his tongue against mine,
he pulled awayy.
Things became a blur then. His tunic came off with myy help, and then
his boots, and his breeches. I trembled at the first sight of him.
He was…beautiful.
All sun-kissed skin and long, lean muscles. His chest and stomach
were defined byy yyears of training, and there was no mistaking the power
and strength of his bodyy. There was also no mistaking how his life had left
its imprint behind in the form of faint nicks and longer scars on his flesh.
He was a fighter like I was, and now I trulyy saw what I’d been too nervous
to notice before. His bodyy was also a record of everyything he’d survived,
and the deeper, redder scar just below his hip on his upper thigh was proof
that he likelyy had his own nightmares. It looked like a brand of some sort,
as if something hot and painful had been pressed into his skin.
“The scar on yyour thigh,” I asked. “When did yyou get it?”
“Manyy yyears ago, when I was dumb enough to get caught,” he
answered.
It was so weird how he sometimes talked as if he’d lived dozens of
yyears longer than I was sure he had. I knew that, for some, a yyear could
feel like a lifetime. Myy gaze strayyed, and myy eyyes widened.