Inked Destiny

fix.

How had she missed the brush of his magic against hers before today? She could probably get high just closing her eyes and soaking it in.

Yesss.

Not just high, totally hallucinogenic. She was not going there right now.

The draw of like to like and magic aside, desire pooled and spread through her, a hunger made sharper and fiercer by separation. Need solidified by visceral memories of what it was like to be with him. With them both.

She introduced Justine to Eamon and it occurred to her that maybe that’s what he needed, more contact with humans outside his insulated world. That maybe if he spent time with her and Cathal, he’d come to understand the whole Lord thing worked against him when it came to them. And that Elf or changeling, this was still who she was and she had no intention of walking away from the important things in her life: the shelter, Stylin’ Ink, the crime victims she could help, her friends, including Derrick, Bryce, and Jamaal, who were family in the way she wished Parker and the captain could be.

And the changes in her gift? The question sent her optimism plummeting.

Sssafe. The word came with a flash of fire through the inked bands at her wrists.

Hearing the Dragon’s voice in her head suggested the opposite. But…A new day, a new start. It was what Justine preached here, making this the perfect time and place to reach out and take Eamon’s hand.

His smile had need rippling through her, not just lust but a desire for peace, for a relationship that was fun instead of filled with anger and discord. “I want to give you a tour of the shelter.’”

A goodbye to Justine, and Etain stepped from the office, her free hand capturing Cathal’s when he might have walked ahead of them, consciously or subconsciously denying Eamon’s presence with a turned back.

The hallway was empty, though sounds from the first floor filtered upward, several babies crying, an overlay to conversation and the laughter of children. The sound of pots and pans, of the cooking staff joking, the lingering scent of breakfast mingled with that of too many people in one building, not all of them freshly bathed.

“We lost our shadow,” Etain said, noting Liam’s absence.

“He waits outside, along with Myk.”

Eamon halted near the stairwell, his hand tightening on hers, forcing her to stop walking. Cathal choosing to do the same rather than release her hand.

It amused Eamon, and in truth he had no objection to it. The magic had chosen Cathal, and there was no denying that the human’s presence heightened his own desire for Etain. Lust and magic were inextricably tangled, as they had been from the first moment he’d looked down onto the terrace and seen the two together.

Turning to face her, Eamon cupped her cheek, the sultriness that slid into her eyes an indication she didn’t intend to avoid the touch of his lips to hers. “It was a long night. Unbearable even.”

“You brought it on yourself.” Bold challenge, not words spoken in anger.

His thoughts flashed to deadly ocean waters and another changeling. “You can’t know how important you are to me, to those who will call you Lady.”

He claimed her mouth, wanting a response other than spoken words from her, needing it far more than he intended to admit, though his body didn’t care if she knew his desperation.

A moan escaped in the first sharing of breath and taste and heat. Relief and satisfaction came with her tongue greeting his in a sensual, taunting slide.

Her pelvis pressed to his, the rub of her mound to his erection causing the fire that was his element to pool in his testicles and become a hot furious roar in his cock. Desperate for a deeper reassurance after the way things had ended the night before, he pushed her against the wall. His hand went to her breast, his pleasure doubled at encountering the hardened nipple, at having her whimper and arch her back.

He’d feared that Etain would be greatly weakened after nearly dying at the hospital. Instead, raw, wild magic poured into him, changeling magic unfettered by any sense of control. And he, who understood well the danger of it, of her particular gift, allowed it to continue. Believing his protections would hold, he deepened the kiss until he forget where they were, his hand leaving her breast, but only to go to the front of her shirt and the buttons there.

A moaned protest and then the wrenching of her mouth from his stopped him, bringing grungy walls into focus along with the smell of hardship and despair, sweat and meals prepared in bulk, as well as the sound of a building crammed with humans.

“I won’t spend this night away from you.” The quick cooling of her eyes was a reminder that he needed to be cautious in his choice of words and tone.

“Careful, that sounds a lot like Lord Eamon talking.”

He hadn’t thought courtship would be such a tricky undertaking, but he was nothing if not a quick learner. He smiled, brushing his lips over hers, the slight turn of her head in denial only making it easier for him to nuzzle her ear, to caress the lobe and murmur, “If I’m not mistaken, Etain, there have been times when you enjoyed going to your knees in my presence. Do you deny it?”

She laughed, his misstep forgotten, the husky, amused sound of her voice lightening his heart in a way only she was capable of. “I don’t deny it,” she said, rubbing subtly against his erection, fingertips brushing over the additional earrings he now wore and sending a spike of hunger through his shaft.

He rewarded the truth with the fuck of his tongue into her ear canal, with a quick suck to the lobe, and then another, at the tip still rounded, but an erogenous zone for her as it was for the majority of their kind. “Maybe Cathal would enjoy witnessing it.” A small sexual taunt as he stepped back and away from her.

It took less than a second for his curiosity about Cathal’s reaction to be satisfied. And Etain the same amount of time before another man’s lips captured hers in a possessive, raw demonstration of a more primal magic, one every bit as potent as that defining what the Elven were.

Eamon, for his part, enjoyed the show, enjoyed knowing he wasn’t the only one who could be accused of a lack of control around her. His desire heightened in a wash of Elven pheromone and carnal heat, a dare forming, a challenge he might put to Cathal—which one of them could last the longest while pleasuring her.

The images accompanying the idea hardened him further, as did her husky, “Let’s shelve the competition until we get back to your place and the clothes can come off.”

Eamon caught the flash of Cathal’s teeth, a quick baring that had his own lips curving upward as he followed her down the steps, content that when she took neither his hand nor Cathal’s, it was simply to improve mobility.

He had not truly seen the humans he’d passed upon entering the shelter to find her. Now she forced him to as she stopped to chat with the workers, with the homeless she knew by name, asking questions about others who weren’t there and lingering in rooms that shouldn’t contain even one child, much less seem crowded by them.

If he had a weakness at all when it came to humans, it was the very young. But while there was no escape from this lesson Etain seemed determined to teach him, and he understood it was a lesson, he wouldn’t undo his earlier successful efforts at courtship by telling her this would change nothing.

She could hold him hostage here during this grace period of freedom. His focus on her, and those she spoke to, would remain unwavering because she was changeling, seidic, and he intended to keep her safe from magic and gift. But at the end of the week, he would set the terms.

If she’s still alive.

He rejected the possibility she’d be otherwise though he couldn’t prevent himself from sliding his hand beneath the thick fall of her hair so his palm rested on the smooth, warm skin of her neck.

“Where next?” he asked, given that they were now at the end of their tour of rooms. “Cathal’s?”

The subtle tensing he felt beneath his hand was warning enough he probably wouldn’t like her answer.

“No. We’re going to visit a friend of his. We could hook up afterward though, at Cathal’s place.”

He elected to be amused rather than aggravated—or far more uncomfortable, hurt, giving her an easy smile and avoiding a reminder that her promise to spend a week with Cathal entitled him to be present too. “I think not, Etain. So far I’m enjoying this outing among humans. It is proving enlightening, as you no doubt intended. Would you have me cut it short?”

“No.”

He leaned forward, his lips claiming hers in an acknowledgement of just how thoroughly she enthralled him.