Inked Destiny

compensate with magical focal points, things usually crafted for a single purpose. The earrings I wear are such items.”

Etain touched a fingertip to the stud Eamon wore in his left ear, moved on to the ones above it, along the rim, smiling at the way his gaze heated as if remembering the feel of her tongue and lips on them. “You made them?”

“Not the base pieces of jewelry. Metal work and stone craft aren’t my gifts, but the specifications, yes. They’re bound personally to me and useless to anyone else. The majority of Elves who are able to claim and hold territory are spell-casters. It’s because of that ability, humans can be made part of our world, and their lives extended.”

“Hundreds of years added just by wearing a spelled piece of jewelry?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that. It requires a blood-oath given in a witnessed ceremony. It entails an acceptance of responsibility matched to a pledge of obedience.”

“Why servitude?” Cathal asked, a growl in his voice, and she didn’t blame him, not when the word obedience set her teeth on edge.

Eamon shrugged, a gesture almost guaranteed to end the peace if Cathal’s behavior hadn’t already announced a change to it. “Few humans are touched by magic.” Meaning, in essence, they’d never be considered equal.

Not a thought for relationship harmony. She glanced down at the pad in her lap, the emerald green a reminder of the Dragon. “What about between Elves, or between Elves and something not human? Would the sigil be used?”

“It could be.” His tone said it wouldn’t often be.

Her mother wore no jewelry, nor did she wear the mark in ink, but Etain shivered, realizing she couldn’t be certain her mother didn’t bear the Dragon’s sigil of servitude. Like the emerald green she wore, until the ordeal of the Harlequin Rapist was behind her, she’d been blinded to the truth of the marks she’d put on Cathal.

She hadn’t seen truly until she stood in the shower with him, the rivulets of water streaming down his arms turning the design into a circle in her mind’s eye, so she recognized that her mother wore the same pattern around her wrists, hidden by the entwining of other sigils—and even then she hadn’t made the connection as she did now.

Her father was seidic. Her mother had the gift of sight, she was now positive of it.

Even in paradise there are politics, and some pairings are viewed as a threat by those in power. Your mother found her way to my lake already heavy with child. She and I made a bargain, and on these shores you were born.

“What has you frowning so fiercely,” Eamon asked.

“I was thinking about my mother and the sigil.”

“You believe she wears it?”

“I think it’s possible she might be bound to the Dragon.”

“For your mother’s sake, I hope you’re mistaken. It would mean the magic controls her rather than the other way around.”

“If the Dragon isn’t real,” Etain said, though sitting in Cathal’s bed, surrounded by the everyday things of a normal world, the absolute certainty she’d felt faded as she thought about the emerald- green water rippling toward the center, like dissolved magic condensing and solidifying into an avatar that never completely emerged from the lake.

Given the stakes, she tried to tell Eamon in detail about the dream, but the tightening of her throat and freezing of her hand when she might have drawn what she couldn’t say, was warning enough, and struggle would only make her lack of control obvious.

She applied the magic lessons that had left her an exhausted lump on the couch. Imagined the sigil that would divert and channel magic away from her in a harmless loop, but freedom to speak was returned to her only when she changed the subject completely. “I need to go to Stylin’ Ink in the morning.”

“I’ll accompany you. Cathal?”

Was there command in Eamon’s voice? Cathal couldn’t be certain.

His gaze strayed to the clothing he’d been wearing, eyes lingering on the pocket where the dead gangbanger’s phone was. What the fuck should he do with it?

Taking it to the police was out, given the dead body and his failure to call them. Taking it to his father could lead to a blood bath, though he realized he’d have to visit his father too, because guilt would chew him up if Brianna was targeted for revenge and someone got to her.

Hand it off to Eamon? Like a good little obedient human would?

He suppressed a snarl. That left Sean, and a lot of dancing around the truth about where the phone came from and why it might be important.

“No. I’ve got some meetings I couldn’t reschedule. Afterward I’m going to meet up with Sean to see if he and Quinn have gotten anywhere on the drawings Derrick delivered.

“Heath, my fifth, will accompany you as bodyguard,” Eamon said, yanking the string of paranoia that existed in Cathal because of his father and uncle.

The suspicion in his gut burned hotter. Why now and not before? Because Eamon knew about the gangbanger? Because he knew Cage’s boat was moored near Sean’s?

The magic chose him. I accept the choice though I wouldn’t have made the same one. Eamon’s words, spoken to Etain. Only now Cathal considered that with him out of the way, Eamon’s options expanded.

Regardless, she’d be safe with Eamon and the guards. Safer still away from him now that it seemed just as likely the drive-by in front of the shelter was meant to take him out, not Anton.

The wrap of Etain’s arms and press of feminine curves allowed him to escape the darkness of his thoughts. What he needed was some breathing room and he’d have it in a few hours.

For now…

He captured her mouth, content to lose himself in her.

Nineteen

Derrick stood at the garage entrance. The smell of grease and oil, the blast of Mexican music and the sound of power tools along with shouts in Spanish all bringing back memories. The earlier ones were almost sweet, but the later ones, painful, though he straightened his spine, not allowing them to be more than just a scratch against his toughened emotional fortitude.

Never again! I refuse to be that needy again!

He steadfastly refused to look at the workbench where a particularly horrifying example of neediness had happened on his last visit here, when he’d tracked Emilio down after he’d been a no-show for their date.

I’m not that weak person anymore.

He touched the drawing in his pocket as proof of it. Etain needed him and here he was.

Emilio looked up just as Derrick found him among the overall-clad mechanics. His smile was cocky, as though he’d known it was only a matter of time before Derrick came around again.

Oh please! Derrick nearly rolled his eyes. Emilio was such a boy compared to Quinn.

He strutted forward, hips swaying to let Emilio get a good look at just what he was missing. This was the new Derrick, confident, strong, loved.

Now that caused a crazy fluttering in his chest because Quinn hadn’t spoken the words yet. But it was there. He absolutely knew it was.

And if Quinn hadn’t said them, Etain had. If anything, she was a much harder case than Quinn. Much, much more guarded emotionally.