Inked Destiny

Sixteen

Eamon watched her sleep, his chest expanding with feelings of tenderness, and though he lay next to her, their bodies touched intimately together, it was not enough contact. He had begun to believe that state wouldn’t be remedied until he wore the same tattoos Cathal did.

“You enthrall me,” he whispered, a dangerous admission as he leaned down to whisper kisses along her neck. “In centuries I have not experienced a day like this one.”

From harrowing fear to wild crests of ecstasy.

From distrust and alienation to the promising spread of harmony and unity.

Progress had been made with respect to their future as a cohesive family unit. But with respect to her gift, her magic…

Uncertainty remained. Grave uncertainty. And the chill of it made him give her more of his weight, the feel of breasts with their sweet-wine nipples against his chest fanning the flames of hunger, though the burn of it did not completely diminish the ice of his fear for her.

Her artistic ability had given her an advantage in learning the complex sigils, but it had still been grueling work. He’d taught her the bare minimum a changeling raised among them would know about channeling and containing magic, and about shielding herself to lessen its voice. But he wasn’t sure it would be enough, not given the old, old feel of her magic and the violence of the seizure that had taken her. It had seemed to him that magic forced its way into every cell with pounding fury, while at the same time, created an impenetrable shield around her so that his spells burned away at contact.

He’d come to worry that he didn’t grasp the full truth of her connection to the elements, and wouldn’t begin to without wearing her ink. A dangerous prospect for the both of them, one that might well hasten the moment when duty would require him to render his judgment.

A fist closed around his heart, his mind locking out images of her death by his decree. There were answers to be had about the seidic, costly answers with no guarantee any of them would lead to her survival.

He looked away from her, gaze settling on the picture she’d drawn, the way magic presented itself to her, seeking control rather than to be controlled. The Dragon suggested a tie to water and fire, his elements, and yet on the boat, close to so much water, the power he drew from it hadn’t made a difference, and though he’d recognized the pour of fire into her, he’d found nothing of what burned in her to redirect or cool.

The Dragon stood for other things as well. Chaos. Upheaval. Drastic change. That her magic presented itself in those terms…

His arms tightened on her. Need slammed into him, a desire transcending the physical. He took her ear lobe between his lips, pulled with tender sucks. Fierce satisfaction burned through him at having her hips cant immediately, her leg climbing over his so she could press her heated mound to his hardened cock, craving the joining of their bodies despite being submerged in sleep by utter exhaustion.

His smile dissipated as the barest disturbance in the wards surrounding the city reached him. It was a small, nearly imperceptible ripple. One he might not have noted at all if he hadn’t strengthened the magical alarm system after she and Cathal left the estate, and one, even now, that gave nothing away as to what had passed through the barrier. The disturbance was so minute it might have taken hours to ripple its way through the wards until it reached him.

The chill returned. There were assassins, the queen’s among them, who were said to be able to move through wards without triggering a warning.

Fierce protectiveness gripped him, and the spell to trap Etaín in sleep rather than risk her refusing his order hovered on his lips and tingled in the fingers touched to her skin. It was madness to continue allowing her any place other than the estate or Aesirs.

Cathal could be persuaded to his side and to his view. And yet…

Eamon hesitated. His will not sufficient enough to hold the spell or direct it. The trust brought by the events of the day was too precious a thing to risk. Not only Etaín’s trust, but Cathal’s, who’d left expecting to find her here when he returned, and who might well view with suspicion the claim she had to be moved.

The argument could be made that in allowing Etaín to remain, he demonstrated his care for her wishes as well as Cathal’s. He had no real evidence she was in greater danger now that the rippled note of passage had reached him.

Eamon stroked the soft nape of her neck rather than trace a sigil onto it. His mouth returned to hers, swallowing sleep-murmured sounds of pleasured welcome.

His hand went to her breast, cupping its weight, her back arching with the brush of his thumb over a nipple drawn tight with the need to be suckled.

Forcing his lips from hers was a prelude to levering his body up and away from the paradise his cock sought. He caressed her lobe with his tongue, daring a shallow thrust into her ear canal then brushing his mouth against the still-rounded tip before finally managing to separate from her.

Etaín whimpered in protest at the loss of his attention but didn’t wake. He left her alone only long enough to dress and retrieve the comforter from Cathal’s bed. A kiss followed his covering her with it, the light touch of lips to lips because he couldn’t bear to part from her without it.

Straightening, Eamon gathered a strand of her hair, the gold of it like captured sunshine twined around his fingers. Using words of magic, he summoned Liam, calling him through the shadows, this type of binding dangerous to his third because it could be used to trap him.

“Sire,” Liam said.

“The city wards reacted to something passing through them. I need to pinpoint the place of the breach and see what can be learned there.”

Liam glanced at the sleeping Etaín. “Given the presence of the other changeling at Aesirs, I assume you want her taken to the estate.”

“She’ll remain here.”

“It’s not a choice you would have made in the past.”

Eamon heard increased concern beneath the none-too-subtle questioning of his decision, that he was being unduly influenced by his seidic intended, perhaps even altered by her uncontrolled magic. “You will better understand the desire to avoid unnecessary conflict when you meet your match.”

“An unlikely event, Lord. Made more so by what I’ve witnessed of your courtship.”

“Your time will come. For now I’ll leave you to guard Etaín. In all likelihood, the ward was tripped by the arrival of a tourist possessing some small, native amount of magic, or by an artifact.”

“And if you’re wrong about what passed through the wards?”

“Do you question your ability to prevail should a would-be assassin or kidnapper come for Etaín?”

“Hardly. You’ll take both Myk and Heath with you?”

“No. I’ll leave Myk outside with orders that no one except Cathal is permitted entry.”

Cathal shifted restlessly in his chair. He’d handled the most urgent items of business and prepared for the meetings he couldn’t put off tomorrow morning.

Doing anything more required a level of concentration he couldn’t find. And that lack of focus left room for scenes from the couch and the hot tub to flicker across his mental screen, heating his skin and sending molten blood to his cock.

Were they done with the lessons yet?

He grimaced, hearing in that question a kid’s voice asking “Are we there yet?”

But it was no child’s fantasy that came with a possible “yes.” Thoughts of what Etaín and Eamon might be doing at the moment bombarded him. Images of them in his bed, their bodies joined.

A shaft of fire streaked through him, pooling in his balls. He clenched his fists to keep from reaching down and freeing himself, from jerking off. Jesus.

He’d rolled his sleeves up while he worked. Now he looked down at the tattoos she’d placed on his forearms. Honeysuckle and thorn she called them, an apt description encompassing sweet pleasure and sharp-tipped jealousy. The latter had abated, but in its stead had come the ambush bleeding away of confidence, the worry it would one day matter that he was only human.

He wanted to go back home. He refused to.

It stung his pride to admit that Saoirse, the club that had been his dream and sole focus for so long, couldn’t hold his interest against the craving to be with Etaín.

It’ll fade into something manageable, he told himself. Not for the first time. It’s just the newness of the bond and a natural reaction to nearly losing her.

Christ. He’d nearly died himself at the shelter. If not for Eamon…

Only it wasn’t Eamon’s acts at the shelter playing out vividly in his mind. It was Eamon thrusting into Etaín’s body, her back arched and breasts flushed. It was her midnight-colored eyes drawing him to her, making it impossible to care she was wet for another man, wet because of another man as he shoved into her seconds after Eamon had spent himself following the erotic display of magic.

The clench of Cathal’s buttocks drew him out of the memory, a curse escaping when he saw his hand in his lap, circling his cloth-covered erection. “Fuck.” Then fuck again, this one silent as remembering the sensation of being inside her sent a pulse of sheer need through him, forcing his hand up and down on his length.

He broke the hold of lust when pre-cum escaped, more of it leaking at remembering the way she’d made him come like someone getting his first hand job. “Jesus.”

To distract himself, he checked in with his father.

“You at home?” his father asked.

“I’m at the club.”

“I don’t like it. Whoever nearly killed you is still out there, unidentified and on the loose.” Meaning none of his father’s sources had come through with a likely suspect in the drive-by.

“Wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. Had to be connected to what happened in Oakland.”

“Probably. I’d feel better if you let me arrange for a couple of bodyguards.”

“No.” The last thing he wanted was to give the authorities additional reasons to believe he was involved in his father’s business.

Etaín’s brother and father had already convicted him. Having mafia soldiers as bodyguards would be a piece of incontrovertible evidence to them.

For Etaín’s sake he didn’t want to do anything to make the situation worse than it already was. She might be willing to sever her relationship with the captain and Parker over him, but he didn’t want to carry that load of guilt, not when he knew how much the estrangement hurt her.

You think like a human.

That’s because I am one. Will always be one, he argued in his head with Eamon.

Distance where there are strong emotional ties is hard to sustain when life is measured in centuries, not decades.

He didn’t want to contemplate the kind of lifespan ahead of him, ahead of them, or the choices that would come with it.

“I better get back to club business,” he told his father, and pocketed the phone, the restlessness returning, the heat that came with carnal images of Etaín.

“Ten minutes,” he said out loud as a way of firming his resolve. Pathetic an internal voice chided, but he couldn’t make himself care.

He rose and moved to stand in front of the screens monitoring what was going on inside Saoirse as well as at the entrance and exit. The place was packed with no shortage of attractive, available women.

It wasn’t arrogance to know he could have his pick of them. Until Etaín, he’d never had to work at gaining female companionship, never struggled with jealousy or possessiveness. The one and only time she’d come to Saoirse, he’d hustled her to the office and taken her on the desk, then needed to stay close afterward, alarm bells going off in his head at the uncharacteristic behavior, but he’d ignored them.

No regrets. Though he grimaced at the effort it took not to check the time to see how many moments remained in the self-imposed wait. He was hard and horny, his club full of gorgeous, available women, but they held zero temptation for him against the hot flame of desire he felt for Etaín.

A flash of red caught his attention, causing him to focus on one particular woman. Her black hair tumbled down her back in a mass of thick curls. Elf? None of the views captured her face, but on every screen the ring she wore on her thumb glowed in an unnatural way, a deep red captured by cameras that had never enhanced a piece of jewelry.

He studied those patrons standing near her, but there was no evidence any of them saw what he saw. Magic? He rubbed his forearms, palms gliding over the tattoos, curiosity compelling him to investigate.

Shock rippled through Cage at seeing Cathal Dunne step from what he assumed was an office. There was no mistaking the ink on Cathal’s arms as anything other than a binding of a human to an Elven seidic.

What game played out here? What part belonged to Lord Eamon?

Since arriving at Saoirse he’d seen no Elves nor felt a hint of their magic, and given the wealth of shadow, he couldn’t imagine the lord’s assassin wouldn’t have used the opportunity to make his presence known.

The only whisper of magic at all had come from the dark-haired beauty who’d entered a short time earlier, though what magic she bore emanated from the ring she wore. An artifact he didn’t immediately recognize, though he’d already made the decision to examine it more closely and at his leisure while her naked body lay beneath his.

He glanced in her direction, frowning when he didn’t see her. Cathal too was on the move, but so much in demand by the patrons of his club, that every few steps he was halted. Cage settled against the bar, following Cathal’s progress.

The music segued into a slow, sultry song. Verses ripe with heated imagery that drew couples to the dance floor, their mouths seeking and finding as bodies melded in grinding, steamy embrace.

He was not unaffected by the flood of human pheromones or the evocative music. Nor, apparently, was Cathal.

Cathal headed toward the club entrance, firm strides signaling an intention to leave, or to at least step out into the cold, ocean-wet air.

Cage abandoned his place at the bar, timing his pace to intercept the seidic’s mate just as he reached the door. In close proximity, heat radiated from the human, magic flaring along the marks on his arm, both familiar and strange.

“Am I correct in thinking you’re Cathal Dunne?” he asked, stepping out into the night behind his quarry.

“Yes.” A smooth, courteous answer as befitting a club owner.

“I am Cristo Cajeilas. Cage.” He offered his hand, both curious and wary as to what the brush of magic against magic would produce, his interest in the seidic deepening at the seemingly sentient stroke and taste, as if in the distance she took his measure, though the human showed no reaction.

“You are much talked about, as is your mate, Etaín.”

Suspicion hardened Cathal’s expression. Cage shrugged it off, making a show of glancing downward at Cathal’s exposed forearms. “I am a collector of the arcane. I recognize what’s been written in ink. Are you curious to learn more?”

Lips firmed and body tensed in response, but Cage had sought treasure for the entirety of his existence and easily recognized the flare and gleam of temptation in another’s eyes. A glance toward the club, the barest hesitation marked with a flicker of concern, preceded Cathal’s saying, “I’ll listen to what you have to say on the way to my car.”

In the alley, the burner phone vibrated, flooding Lucky with adrenaline. This is it. Time to show Jacko he was a man of his word, a man who got the job done without trouble.

He angled to the left, wanting to take this rich bastard out quick. He thought he could make out the sound of approaching footsteps but couldn’t be sure. The city was too loud, the club casting off the muted sounds of the band inside it.

He stroked the trigger. Jacked, wanting to pull it.

Come on. Come on.

Cage’s strides easily matched Cathal’s. This was not quite the chat he’d envisioned, but he found he enjoyed the intrigue, the added challenge, and in truth, he was hampered by ignorance when it came to how much Cathal knew of the supernatural.

The ink suggested intimate familiarity with it, but the lack of any type of protection served as a sharp contradiction and a warning against making assumptions. It left him to pick through possible openings until finally choosing to say, “Are you familiar with Aesirs?”

Cathal’s pace slowed though not dramatically. “Yes.”

“And the man who calls it his?”

“Eamon.”

Not Lord Eamon. Interesting.

The blade sheathed at his back drew Cage’s attention with a hungry wave of anticipation before he could tease out an interpretation.

Kestrel’s focus was on an alleyway ahead, and so that became Cage’s as well.

Ah, there it was, the rabbit beat of a prey’s heart, the smell of adrenaline and drugs. A human with dark intentions, a killer whose death would be enough to satisfy Kestrel—for now.

He could easily halt Cathal with a low indication of trouble ahead but allowing the attack was far more advantageous. A step closer and Cage raised his natural shield, expanding it to include Cathal, the ability an evolutionary adaptation arrived at over millennia.

A murmured spell gained in a bargain with Lord Eamon hid them from cameras. The disappearance from view could, in itself, be dangerously revealing in this technology-addicted world. But it was a necessary risk as he drew Kestrel and sent the blade flying in the instant darkness became the form of a man with a gun.