The question brought instant, gut-level protest. He refused to think he couldn’t. But…
Fuck. Considering she’d slept through this conversation, she knew even less than he did now about what it meant to be Elf and changeling.
And as far as trusting Eamon went…
He understood that when it came to Etain, Eamon was capable of the same level of ruthlessness his father and uncle were. Hell, he was too. He could still feel the weight of the gun he’d held and his intention to use it.
Opening his eyes, Cathal looked at the drawing, an earlier conversation playing out, Eamon saying, “Many would slaughter any human who wore your ink, with or without cause.” And Etain’s response, “You say that as if there could be cause.” Followed by Eamon’s remaining silent, which was an answer in itself.
Would she forgive him if he turned that page over, revealing the next one and the ones after it, the horrifying scenes to the dream they shared, some part of their consciousness tied to a murderer wearing her ink? Would she forgive him if he told Eamon the reason for the stops they’d made today, so she could reconnect with her past? The why of their going to Sean’s boat? Her hopes of identifying a killer, possibly even getting close enough to touch him?
Cathal shifted his attention to the woman who’d become not just important, but essential to him. He traced her eyebrows, followed the ridge of her nose down to her lips, smiling when she smiled.
He couldn’t lose her. But he couldn’t keep her safe by himself. He couldn’t stop her from pursuing this, and didn’t want to. The guilt over Vontae’s death was too strong, the pain over Kelvin’s too sharp. If she did nothing, it would destroy something inside her.
Maybe,
The thought gave Cathal pause. At least once she’d been unable to speak, to control her limbs.
Eamon leaned forward, tipping the balance, his voice that of a worried lover instead of an Elf lord making a demand when he asked, “Did she talk about the Dragon?”
“No. But there’s something you need to know.”
Cathal swallowed the last of his drink then set the glass down on the coffee table. He flipped the page, to an opening scene that soon became self-explanatory though he told Eamon everything.
Etain woke to the sound of pages being flipped, her reality sharpening as slowly Cathal’s words came into focus. She opened her eyes and everything stopped. Then a rush of horror came as she remembered. “Is Quinn okay?”
“No harm, no foul,” Cathal said.
She sat, the movement and the surroundings making her feel a little dizzy and disoriented. “You’re sure?”
Cathal took her hands in his, turning them upward to reveal the eyes on her palms. “You held on to him for a long time, Etain. A long, long time. There wasn’t anything obvious, but I only met him the one time, in Derrick’s apartment the other morning. He seemed normal.” A glance at Eamon, unity instead of its opposite. “Eamon thought the damage would be very obvious.”
Eamon moved from his chair to join them on the couch. He slid his hand beneath her hair to cup her neck. “What do you remember?”
The question alone was enough to have phantom coils tighten around her throat as if ready to choke off a revealing answer. “I went into the cabin. Quinn was there. I pitched forward. He reached out to catch me. I grabbed him. Then nothing.”
She could count on one hand the number of times she willingly tried to breach the barrier between her reality and the alternate realities created by stolen memories. “I need to remember,” she whispered. “I need to be sure. If I hurt him…”
She’d hate herself for not going back to Eamon’s estate, maybe for ever having left it in the first place. Maybe she’d come to hate Cathal and Eamon too.
Eamon stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Access the memories if you can, but be warned, Etain, you will sleep again if I perceive there is a problem.”
A smile came and went. “Lord Eamon speaks.” Gentle tease this time instead of a battle’s opening salvo. “Any suggestions?”
“How well do you know Quinn?”
“Not well. I—”
Her throat closed, preventing her from saying she’d done cover-up work on him only days earlier. At the narrowing of Eamon’s eyes in suspicion, she felt a flutter of panic and substituted a different truth. “I set him up with Derrick.”
“So if you took nothing from him at the boat, there is no reason you would have Quinn’s memories?”
She felt the prickle of sweat on her skin, remembered too well the visceral feel of a knife pushed through flesh and the image of a face in close proximity when she’d asked Quinn about the three red lightning bolts on his neck. “Only casual transfer,” she answered, as close as she felt she could get to mentioning Quinn wore her ink, though Cathal knew it.
Eamon’s expression became thoughtful. “I believe your best approach in trying to determine if you caused him harm would be to use your will as you do your gift, with razor sharp intention. Only instead of piercing flesh, imagine yourself slicing through the mental barrier you’ve erected against what you’ve taken, a precision cut with Quinn your sole focus.”
“Makes sense.” Though that didn’t keep her heartbeat from fluttering and skipping wildly at the prospect of pushing through the barrier protecting her from the horror-filled realities she’d made her own.
She closed her eyes, breathed in and out slowly, as if somehow that added to her control. The memories were like waves behind a storm wall, some lined-up, some overlapping, some stronger than others, capable of pushing more recent ones underneath in a surge of horror.
She concentrated on his face, but like ripples in a pond, that image slowly expanded until she saw the work she’d done on him, a sinuous water Dragon covering a vast amount of skin, its wings stretched and curved in flight, enfolding him as though man and beast were one.
She saw it then, the green snaking through the reds and blues and black that had been necessary to hide the AB tats.
From a seemingly long distance, she heard herself whimper and felt Eamon’s fingers on the back of her neck in response to it, there to make good on his promise to trace the sigils of a sleep spell.
The voice whispered through her mind again.
She opened her eyes. “Nothing. I think it’s all good.” Though the fear that she’d harmed him still clung to her, and probably would until she saw for herself that he was okay.
“You seized, Etain,” Cathal said, his fear slamming into her. “It’s not all good.”
Eamon leaned in, touching his lips to her ear, beading her nipples and banishing the fear. “A great deal of magic poured into you.”
“Changing me somehow?”
He hesitated. “Possibly.”
“I don’t remember any of it.” She very carefully kept her gaze from going to the tablet, with its picture of an emerald green Dragon. She was more than willing to let the heat that came from Eamon’s mouth and the apparent truce between the two men divert all conversation, at least for a little while.
She turned her head, lips seeking Eamon’s, finding them. Her tongue greeting his, desire a molten fire pouring into her with his taste, with the feel of Cathal’s gaze on them, his need untainted by jealousy.
