Inked Destiny

Her hands lifted, will and gift not entirely in accord. Inherent magic was nothing but a shimmering possibility in a span of time measured in heartbeats, a hush and stillness that disappeared in harsh, ruthless decision before either Liam or the maitre d’ could stop her—if they dared.

She shackled Laura’s wrists, inked eyes pressed to skin. Demand a sharp knife sliding through flesh and cutting into Laura’s mind. “What do you know about my mother? Where is she?”

Bitterness engulfed Etain. Fury and pain that weren’t hers and yet they became a part of her.

What do you know about my mother? Where is she? This time a compulsion, a mental demand, and Laura had no protection against it.

Standing in the memory, her hands trembled at receiving the text message. I’ve got something for you. Check email for the link.

She rose from the chair where she’d been enjoying a cup of tea, pain splintering through her chest, sickening dread and a sense of betrayal battering against the walls of her heart. It grew with each step toward her private office, feeding a hate so intense and directed that it jarred Etain, driving her out of the memory in self- defense against having the swell of it trapped inside her when she was its target.

She was vaguely aware of Portia and her sister screeching, demanding she let go of their mother, their nails digging into her arms through the fabric of her blouse as the Elves allowed it, too wary to touch her themselves and no doubt hoping the humans would manage to break the contact and stop the use of magic in the process.

Focus. Control. Eamon had taught her the rune for channeling magic away from her, but with a leap of intuition, she shunted Laura’s emotions into an imagined sigil and forced the memory forward, pulling back mentally as if she was a camerawoman capturing a scene instead of an actress living it.

It was very like the slaughter she and Cathal had witnessed in the shared dream, except this time, as Laura sat down at the desk and logged into a Yahoo mail account using a made-up name, Etain’s own emotions buffeted her, hope and happiness and anticipation.

The sender hadn’t disguised what he was. The return address was a detective agency.

A click opened the email. There was no explanatory text, only the link.

Surprise rippled through Etain. It came with the whispered sense of destiny at seeing the date. The email had been sent on the very day she’d met Cathal and Eamon.

Foresight. Her mother’s gift.

For a long moment the curser hovered over the link, the hand that wasn’t her own leaving the mouse and returning, leaving and returning until finally opening the link. Shock came first, at seeing the captain with her mother in a time-stamped recording made a little over a week ago, and then came a hungry longing. The camera lens cut through glamour so there was no sign of aging. Her mother looked just as Etain remembered.

A heartbeat, a second one, and Etain realized she’d paused the memory, freezing it outside of time, isolating it like a movie frame, like the sketches she’d always drawn upon waking from someone else’s stolen reality. Reluctantly she let go and moved forward, becoming aware of the backdrop against which her mother and the captain stood facing each other, hands clasped but bodies separated.

This time the pain invading Etain was her own. A fist of it around her heart as she recognized the shabby motel in Seattle, even the room number was the same, everything about it etched firmly in her mind and replayed over and over again, especially in those early years. She could still remember the vivid beauty of the scenery, and the excitement of traveling by rail instead of by bus, and the way her eight-year-old world had expanded in a burst of joy at meeting the man she was told was her father, only to be shattered when what she’d believed was a short visit became abandonment.

At sixteen, she’d gone back to Seattle. She’d stolen a car for part of the journey and hitched the rest of it, sure there’d be clues, answers. Believing her mother must have left something for her to find because this shabby motel was the last place they’d stayed before boarding the train and coming to San Francisco.

In Laura’s memory, her mother turned her head to look directly into the camera, jolting Etain as though there’d been a shouted scream to pay attention. See but remain unseen. This was no accident. She and her mother had the same sixth sense about cameras pointed directly at them.

An expression came and went, a dare Etain thought. Her mother looked away, closing the distance between herself and the captain with a laugh, something that put a smile on his face as he enfolded her in a hug, the act triggering a rage in Laura that took her back to the day Etain and her mother had shown up on the doorstep, humiliating her with the existence of a bastard child fathered by her husband.

Curses flowed through Etain’s mind as her ability to maintain the sigil funneling away Laura’s emotions failed, her reality submerged under another’s as she dressed for the function Isaac had bowed out of in order to spend time with his bastard, the spawn of a whore he’d probably picked up at a cop bar.

It didn’t matter that they’d been separated at the time—or so he claimed. He’d shamed her by accepting the child. He’d angered her, disrespected her family by not demanding a paternity test, by refusing to even consider it.

Hours late and the bitch hadn’t returned. Isaac hadn’t seen the obvious yet. Or hadn’t dared broach the topic but she knew what was happening. That slut wasn’t coming back for the child.

If it were up to her, she’d call Social Services and have the girl taken to the shelter. But he wouldn’t stand for it.

He’d pay for that. Not directly. She cared too much about their children to drive him away after they’d reconciled—even if he didn’t. But his little by-blow would understand she wasn’t welcome here, that she didn’t belong in their lives.

At least Parker and the girls were visiting their grandparents, grandparents who were seething at learning of the child’s existence. Measures were being taken to put this behind them. Private detectives had already been hired to locate the girl’s mother and offer a monetary incentive to make this all go away.

Stomping over to the bedroom safe she opened it only to remember the necklace she wanted was in the downstairs safe. Isaac had picked it up from the jeweler on his way home and put it there rather than make the trip upstairs with it.

Spine stiffening she left the bedroom. The sound of the child’s laughter had her silently screaming with indignation.

Her husband didn’t acknowledge her as she passed the entertainment room on the way to the den. She went to the safe and opened it.

A manila envelope lay on top of the jewelry case. Her lips thinned, suspicion coming on a wave of hostility.

Taking the envelope she opened it, nostrils flaring at the picture she pulled from it. Bitch. Whore. Slut.

Whether it was the venom of the diatribe or the emerald green of the lake in the photograph, Etain’s reality diverged from Laura’s. Her mother stood as if caught in sunrise or sunset, luminescent, heart-stoppingly beautiful in the same way Eamon had been when he let the glamour fall away as proof he wasn’t human.

She stared directly into the camera, the fingers of her right hand touched the base of her throat, making Etain aware of the collar-like necklace she wore. A message given the color of the water matched that of the Dragon? She couldn’t be sure of anything except that she was meant to find this memory.

In a furious rip the picture was torn, then torn again and again and again until suddenly the destruction was halted by the captain’s presence. Angry words were like leaves caught in wind for Etain, swept away without examination as the pieces of the picture scattered to the floor and she stared hungrily at them, seeing by the way they fell that there had been a second picture on the back of the first.

Laura’s angry exit from that long ago scene forced Etain’s attention away, drawing her fully into the memory again, the necklace she’d come downstairs for forgotten until she reached the doorway, then abandoned altogether in disgust at the sight of Isaac kneeling and gathering the pieces, bitter hurt filling her at knowing he meant to put them together and keep the picture.

Etain ceased using her gift, the need to see the second picture dominating her thoughts.

“Take your hands off me,” Laura hissed, no less venomous for having some of her past erased, or at least Etain assumed she’d stolen those memories with her gift. There was no way to know for sure without asking, and she was as ready to end the contact as Laura was.

Freeing the captain’s wife, Etain stepped to the side, noting the wall of Elven servers who’d kept what was happening hidden from casual view. Their expressions were carefully blank though she could sense their fear, not