His mouth left hers. “Let’s get out of here.”
Etain laughed. “Guess that means group hug time is over.”
Eamon’s hand moved upward along her spine, slipping beneath her hair to gently stroke the back of her neck. “You and Cathal are more vulnerable on the motorcycle. It would be wiser for us to leave together in the sedan. Liam can ride your bike. If increased safety isn’t incentive enough, I’ll even make you the same offer I did the other night. If the Harley is damaged in any way I’ll replace it with another of greater value.”
It wasn’t solely her decision. “Cathal?” she asked.
He nodded, and as if waiting for just that clue, Liam stepped into the doorway, a hand out, ready to take the bike key. “Myk is out back with a different vehicle. There are no obvious watchers.”
“Excellent,” Eamon said, eyes meeting hers then Cathal’s. “Shall we?”
They left, Etain pulling the Harley’s key from her pocket and giving it to Liam as she passed him. In the car Myk asked, “Where to?”
“Sean’s boat,” Etain said, the drive-by only making her more determined to do what she could to find those responsible for the bar invasion and slaughter.
Sweet,” Ernesto
“More than sweet. War on drugs means there’s some pretty toys to be had. You’re looking at a Milkor M32A1, nine grand of killing power.”
Jacko lifted the grenade launcher. “I could have me a lot of fun with this.”
“Yeah, that mother carries six rounds and I got four different types of load.”
Cyco caressed the charges like they were a woman’s titties. “One smoke. One flash-bang. Three standard high-explosive rounds. And one called a hell-HOUND. Know what that stands for?”
“No assholes left alive.”
Cyco laughed, the sound of it and the way his eyes looked doing it the reason for the street name he’d lived up too. “You got it, homie. High Order Unbelievably Nasty Destruction. HOUND. Double the killing power of the standard round.”
“They’re showing you some major respect.”
“Yeah. They know I’m the big dog when it comes to getting things done.”
Cyco’s cellphone rang. He checked the incoming number, answered by asking, “You finish it?”
A minute later the call ended. “The fucker survived. Two
“Where was he?”
“In front of some homeless shelter.”
Jacko handed off the grenade launcher like it was a pacifier. “You want me to throw in some of my crew?”
“Na, man, I got it handled. Next time Anton shows up, there won’t be any mistakes. Besides, you got your own thing to manage, killing the Irish dude.”
Jacko hefted one of the grenade launcher rounds. “Should be easy enough to do.”
The sight of Sean’s boat coming on the heels of the encounter with the captain had an ache sweeping through Etain like a small wave of salt water over an open wound.
Would it ever stop hurting?
No.
She’d only be lying to herself if she thought it would. He and Parker had once been her anchors in a world as foreign to her as the supernatural one Eamon had revealed.
Until she’d been left in San Francisco, the only permanent thing in her life had been her mother. They’d moved constantly, changing names with each move. She’d had dozens of them by the time she was presented to the captain as his illegitimate daughter.
He’d accepted the truth of it immediately, refusing to give in to his wife’s demands for a paternity test, not that it’d stopped Laura from getting it done. Even now, Etain didn’t know exactly when he’d found out she wasn’t actually his. She knew only that he had forbidden it from becoming public knowledge, despite intense pressure from Laura and her moneyed, politically powerful family.
Etain remembered those first months, rushing to the door each time the bell rang or she heard a car in the driveway. Always certain it was her mother coming back for her. There’d been no warning, no preparation for the abandonment that had marked her life, the shadows of that pain haunting her still.
The smell of the bay was a reminder of the happier times that had come after she’d finally accepted that her mother wasn’t coming back, when comfort offered had led to fierce love, for the man she believed was her father, for the older brother who was constant companion, best friend, and protector, two relationships that were now like a still smoldering and smoking ruin.
Etain became aware of the heat in her tattoo-encircled wrists, the burn flowing through the ink her mother had put on her just prior to coming to this city. Looking down, she was reminded of those moments in the shower with Cathal when the water had washed away her blindness.
She’d seen and understood that her mother wore tattoos exactly like the binding ones she’d placed on him. Now, for the first time, it struck her that the emerald green woven throughout the design at her wrists was like a long strand of interconnected sigils, one that spread upward into the tattoos on her arms and was the exact color of the Dragon.
The voice jerked her gaze upward, the motion abrupt enough Cathal asked, “You okay?”
She shook off the effects of the voice, wondering if her throat would constrict and her jaw lock if she tried to ask Eamon about it, the same way she’d only barely been able to ask for his help in preventing her from harming Parker with the touch of skin to skin. “Just thinking about how things used to be, with Parker and the captain.”
She shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do to change it.”
“You think like a human,” Eamon said.
She smiled at hearing his tone and recognizing it was very carefully neutral.
“I am human, in the ways that matter.” But curiosity didn’t allow her to leave it there. “What does thinking like a human have to do with my relationship with the captain and Parker? You weren’t exactly putting out the welcome mat for them at your place.”
“You didn’t yet know what you are, Etain. What I told Cathal applies to you as well. You will have a say as to whether those you are close to are brought into our household. Knowledge fosters understanding, and distance where there are strong emotional ties is hard to sustain when life is measured in centuries, not decades. If you make them part of our world, things can be made right again.”
There was no denying the flare of hope fanned by his words, though her mind shied away from the full ramifications that came with having that kind of choice. Of what it would be like to keep living as those she knew died not from drugs or accidents or violence, but from the causes associated with old age. To know the cycle would be repeated over and over again wherever she lived.
Maybe that’s why Eamon preferred to keep himself insulated from the human world. He avoided being touched by death, from having acquaintances become friends he would one day have to make a decision about— because the flip side of that was what happened if they declined.
Sean stepped out on the deck of his boat, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and shirt opened to expose a
