Inked Destiny

“This guy have a fucking tracking device on you?” Anton asked, standing, ready to draw his gun.

“Don’t,” Etain said, putting herself between Anton and the Elves to prevent violence from erupting in Greg’s home.

Eamon’s demeanor was ice but the anger she sensed in him was as hot as the fire he commanded. He wouldn’t tolerate a threat or insult, not in his current mood and especially not from a human.

“Let’s go,” he said, extending his hand, imperious command in gesture and tone.

He was every bit the Lord and she bit back the flash of her own anger. Took a step toward him, undecided on how far she was willing to acquiesce until he tipped the scales by saying, “Cathal is waiting at the estate. There was an attempt on his life.”

Her throat clogged with sudden emotion then. She took the offered hand, not turning to acknowledge Anton as he called after them, “Be hearing from you soon, Etain.”

Twenty-six

Eamon had too much pride to rage at her in front of Myk and Liam in the sedan’s front seat. The hand he’d taken inside he’d released the instant she slipped into the car and perversely she felt its loss like a gaping wound, her anger fading. She’d never been good at holding on to it.

No surprise there, she thought, looking out the window and remembering the times she’d done the same, sitting next to her mother. The prospect of a new city, a new, temporary life, no longer an adventure but an ache she rarely put into words because she already knew the impossibility of staying in one place long enough to make permanent friends. Anger had been pointless when her mother was all she had.

She could call that anger now, using the captain’s revelation about Eamon’s having her apartment cleared out and the threat of denied access to her, but her stomach roiled at the prospect. She didn’t want to cloak herself in that emotion, to use something she no longer cared about to strike out at Eamon with.

Guilt crept in as the icy silence continued, as the distance separating his taut body from hers seemed to grow larger despite the finite length of the seat. Regret came, intensified by memories of those moments preceding their stepping into the kitchen at Aesirs, by the joy of their time at Stylin’ Ink, the closeness, the satisfaction at having him wear her ink.

Her hand crept to the necklace, fingers rubbing over smooth stones. It’d be a lie to say she was sorry for anything she’d done after he’d left to chase Farrell, but she was sorry for this. Another estrangement.

Tears came, the ache of what had happened with the captain joining this one. She blinked them away, mind scrambling for something to say that would breach the gap, not finding it, not with an audience.

She moved away from the window as they got closer to the estate, stopping in the middle of the seat rather than crowding close, reaching out, hating the tentativeness she felt, the vulnerability, scabs still thin over old wounds caused by rejection, loss, and fear of it.

She placed her hand on his thigh, the weight of it there like a feather easily brushed aside. Her chest tightened, nerves stretching taut, urging her to snatch her hand back and resume her study of the passing scenery.

His hand covered hers before she lost her nerve, and with it came hope fiercely embraced instead of warily circled.

“The encounter with the Cur couldn’t wait until I was available to accompany you?”

“I wanted to get it behind me. Behind us. You caught up to Farrell?”

“Yes.”

“He was terrified of me. All your Elves were.”

His hand tightened on hers. Ours. But it’d be a lie to say she felt that way so she merely amended. “All of them except for the bodyguards and Rhys.”

“You’re seidic, Etain, capable of stripping memories and gifts, reason enough for fear. But a changeling out of control is cause for terror.”

His anger bit her, the calm icy waters parting to reveal it in his voice. She jerked reflexively, a tug to free her hand from beneath his.

“I wasn’t out of control.”

“You used your gift in full view of others. You stripped a human’s memory without regard to consequences.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been ruthless.”

He grabbed her wrist. “Ruthless, yes. But foolish? Not until I met you. Time and time again I’ve allowed —”

“Don’t go there, Eamon. I thought we’d gotten beyond that.”

His fingers tightened on her wrist. “I’ve allowed myself to believe that you could separate the man from the lord, yet understand I am both. I’ve been foolish enough to hope you might consider how your actions reflect on me, and what they mean for all those who’ve bound themselves to me, who could find their lives a lot worse because I’ve tied their future to yours.”

I didn’t ask you do it. I don’t want the responsibility.

A defensive reaction to the pain threading through his voice, to her own guilt at having fled Aesirs, reacting to an order she’d known even then was given out of concern for her, but using it as an excuse to run. To keep running and in the process, add to his worries and put others in danger. The captain. Greg and his family. Anton.

Gifts came with responsibilities, of that she was certain, though the refrain was the captain’s influence, not her mother’s. And the want, the need, they weren’t one- sided.

How Eamon had come into her life didn’t matter. Peordh. Predestination. She wouldn’t change it if she could. She’d change only this, the misunderstanding, the hurt.

“What happened with the captain’s wife, my mother set that in motion. She foresaw the encounter and what would happen because of it. There was a clue for me in Laura’s mind. The Dragon is real, Eamon. It’s real.”

His leaned in, eyes stormy. “The changeling you asked about threw himself into the ocean, the magic a siren song promising him gills and tail if he surrendered to it rather than allow me to catch him and help him gain control of it. He’d be dead now if I hadn’t been close enough, strong enough to reach out with a spell, with my own command of the elements.”

She tugged at her wrist to free her hand and retrieve the picture showing Dragon and woman and sigil. He tightened his grip, reading denial. She stopped, seeing the flash of pain in his expression and it hurt her.

Leaning forward she brushed her mouth against his. “I see the man and the lord, Eamon. I’ll work harder at meeting you halfway. Halfway. I won’t lose the part of myself that’s human. I don’t think I’m meant to, otherwise why would the magic have chosen Cathal?”

His free hand lifted, fingers sliding through her hair. He caressed her cheek, cupping it, the soft touch a blossom of pleasure and hope, an acknowledgement of her point.

“You’ve told me not much is known about the seidic,” she said. “You’ve told me that my magic feels old to you. When I look at the bands my mother tattooed on my wrists, I see the Dragon’s green. When I face it, that green travels up my arm as though the sigils making up its name are written there like inked destiny.”

“Etain.” Her name held his doubt, his worry, the wealth of his desire as the estate gate slid back as it had the first night she’d come here, revealing Cathal waiting there instead of Eamon.

Eamon released her so she could get to Cathal, but sudden imperative held her. “Trust me to do the right thing,” she said, before taking the freedom he offered. Her arms were around Cathal an instant later, her mouth fused to his.

Cathal couldn’t get enough of her. He was as desperate for her as he’d been after the encounter with the gangbanger, except this was honest, with no agenda other than to celebrate life and love.

His mouth ate hungrily at hers, his cock about to tear through the front of his jeans to get to the place it