Inked Destiny

magic at my command is not the only magic to touch you. What cost? I cannot know other than my price.

“And that is?”

Your ink on one of my choosing.

She’d assumed that would be the cost. But a hard shiver went through her at not knowing the full cost. Her heart raced, aching with the remembered images of Cathal’s sightless eyes and Eamon’s fading image, the sundering of his magic and gift.

Trust yourself. Trust your gift. It took several repetitions because the fear of losing either Cathal or Eamon overshadowed and overwhelmed the confidence forged during the years when she didn’t know about Elves or Dragons or magic, and had still managed to find her way after answering the call to ink.

“Not your gift to see the endpoint of magic. Mine,” the Dragon had told her during the struggle to determine the bond they would share. Etain looked down at her hands, wondering if she dared, deciding yes she did. “You can watch the killer?”

Yesss.

“You could call me here if you saw him with another man?” She held the picture Sean had sent of Cyco Chalino in her mind. “Of this man?”

Yesss. My price is tripled for such a task. I am no dog to set to watch.

Amusement in the voice, a purr of satisfaction. Enough to ease some of Etain’s worry about surviving the payment.

“If there’s a danger of more people dying, you’ll summon me even if it’s only the first killer.”

Yesss. But the bargain stands. Three of my choosing.

“Agreed,” she said, needing only to open her eyes to leave mystical place for a real one.

“Got it?” Cathal asked.

“Not yet.” She accepted Eamon’s hand and the tug to her feet. Her arms went around both men, pulling them to her, the desire delayed earlier returning in a rush. “It may be awhile.”

“You’ll tattoo someone of the Dragon’s choosing?” Eamon asked.

“Three people. In exchange for being able to snag Cyco Chalino along with Roberto.”

Eamon’s smile of approval warmed her though it didn’t fully dissipate the chill of concern. “It might be dangerous to you and Cathal.”

He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. “I believe we will survive it. Peordh. Predestination. I have come to accept it where you are concerned. I believe that’s why the magic chose Cathal, because he is of this world. A true anchor to it.”

Her throat closed. She squeezed Eamon’s hand but there was no promise she could make, that her magic would choose him as her heart had.

“Let’s go upstairs,” she said. To the bedroom, they heard, dark heat in their eyes as they accompanied her there.

No worries, she told herself. Embrace the moment. Embrace these two men who were more than she’d dreamed possible.

Clothes fell to the floor, shed in an impatient rush next to the bed. Then skin touched skin, fevered need reflecting a deeper one as masculine lips touched her neck, Eamon in front of her this time, with Cathal at her back.

“Together,” she said. “I want you both inside me at the same time.”

Skin didn’t lie to her. Neither did the hard cocks pressed against her. A pulse went through rigid heat that thickened, swelling with the desire for that ultimate expression of how their lives were joined together.

Cathal’s lips brushed across her ear. “Eamon’s magic might make it possible to do this standing, but I’d personally prefer the comfort of bed.” Husky amusement rather than the growled possessiveness that had sounded the first time she’d teased him with the possibility of this.

“Comfort it is, then,” Eamon said, he and Cathal maneuvering Etain onto the mattress with the physical contact unbroken, each of them with a leg draped over her open thighs, hands roaming, lips alternating the claiming of hers.

Perfect. Or nearly so, Eamon thought, disappointment and pain there to dim this celebration of life and love if he allowed it.

He ruthlessly suppressed thoughts of the unhealed, inert tattoos. He’d spoken the truth, lack of a bond through them didn’t change what they signified, didn’t change the shape of their future.

With each kiss, each swallowed moan he felt the twine of his magic to Etain’s. It was enough. She would always be enough, and Cathal, no longer a complication but a necessary partner.

His hand stroked downward, leaving a tightly furled nipple to rub across her clit, satisfaction surging through him at the instant lift of her hips in a feminine demand to give that pleasure center his attention.

She was wet, always wet for him. For Cathal.

His cock spasmed, liquid arousal escaping, making him laugh softly because she so easily made him ready for her as well.

Her breath came fast as he stroked slick fingers over her clit, took it between his fingers, pumped, and Cathal’s hand joined his between her thighs, plunging into her slit before moving to her back entrance, preparing her. Heat and need built until it became impossible to remain separate.

“Now,” Cathal said, hand circling his cock, a fist necessary to maintain control, masculine pride nonexistent when it came to Etain.

A touch of her hand to his chest, a little bit of pressure and he was on his back. His hips lifted and his cock went unerringly to her opening when she straddled him. The hot slide into tight heat accompanied the press of luscious breasts to his chest.

Her mouth covered his. Their tongues twined as fingers interlocked, palm to palm and he didn’t fear what she might see with her gift.

Then Eamon was there, and the squeeze of her channel became tighter, pheromones or the brush with death or magic turning the awareness of another man’s cock against his, separated only by a thin feminine barrier, into something erotic, compelling, necessary. Natural. And they found their rhythm as if they’d always shared her this way.

There was no holding back. No possibility of it. Desire and need were raging fire and howling storm and crashing ocean. And release was a volcanic eruption, a lava-hot pour of molten semen and the awareness that Eamon spilled himself inside Etain at the same time.

Rapture came as Eamon did. Physical. Emotional. A soul-deep, irrevocable joining of all that he was to Etain, and through her, because of her ink, to Cathal.

Ecstasy was the fierce burn of the sun, golden rays piercing him with Etain’s cry of pleasure, pouring the magic of Elfhome and Dragon and this world into him. Magic not constrained by physics, magic demanding closure, completeness, traveling into the tattoos she’d placed on him in a surge of joy and irrevocable joining. The barrier between their minds thinning with the shimmering promise that they’d be able to communicate telepathically in the future.

Tears welled in Etain’s eyes at seeing the spread of color and the healing of Eamon’s tats. Emotion pounded into her with the fast beats of their hearts, the touch of skin to skin. Satisfaction. Pleasure. Intimacy. Permanence.

“I love you,” she whispered against Cathal’s lips and had the words returned to her, repeating it with Eamon after he rolled to his side, freeing her to slide off Cathal.

They sat to view the changes in the tattoos. Purple had been added to the ones she and Cathal wore, as well as to the bands on Eamon’s biceps.

“The color of Cathal’s aura,” Eamon murmured. The glittering green of Dragon scales now manifested in a sinuous line at the center of the design she’d put on him, the other colors were made more vibrant with the bond.

Pleasure suffused her, a bright glow needing expression. Connection. She touched her palms to the ink on masculine skin. “It doesn’t get any better than this. The worst is behind us now.”