Ink Exchange

by Melissa Marr

  Aislinn didn’t respond or move. Then Seth kissed her briefly and said, “Go on. I’ll see you tonight.”

  “But Niall…” Aislinn frowned as she glanced from Niall to Leslie.

  “There’s a guest in town. We need to find him….” Keenan shoved his hair away from his face, elegance gone as quickly as it had arrived. “We should’ve gone hours ago, Aislinn, but you had your classes.”

  Aislinn bit her lip and looked at everyone. Then she started: “But Niall…and Leslie…and…I can’t just leave them here, Keenan. It’s not…fair.”

  Keenan turned to Seth. “You can stay with Niall and Leslie, right?”

  “Planned on it. I got it, Ash. Just go with Sunshine”—Seth paused and gave Keenan a friendly grin that seemed at odds with the situation—“and I’ll see you tonight. We’re cool.” He tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and let his hand linger there, his palm resting around Aislinn’s cheek, fingertips against her ear. “I’ll be fine. Leslie will be fine. Go on.”

  When Seth stepped back, Keenan nodded to him and took Aislinn’s hand. Whatever those three had going on was decidedly weirder than Leslie wanted to know about, and Niall’s studious observation of the street was starting to make her feel angry. He hadn’t even acknowledged her presence. The few moments of easy friendship with Aislinn and Seth didn’t mean that she wanted to be caught up in whatever their drama was. “I’m out of here, Ash. I’ll see you at sch—”

  Aislinn put her hand on Leslie’s wrist. “Could you hang with Seth? Please?”

  “Why?” Leslie looked from Seth to Aislinn and back again. “Seth’s a bit old to need a sitter.”

  But Niall turned toward her, the movement drawing her attention to his scar. Leslie froze, caught between wanting to stare and wanting to look away.

  Niall said, “Surely you could join us for a while?”

  Leslie turned to stare pointedly at Aislinn; there’d been enough “stay away” messages from Aislinn, but all Aislinn did was look to Keenan. And he smiled approvingly at them. Maybe he’s why Ash wanted Niall away from me. Leslie shivered in a sudden rush of fear. Keenan might be Aislinn’s friend, but something about him made her uncomfortable, more so today.

  “Please, Les, could you? As a favor?” Aislinn asked.

  She’s terrified.

  “Sure,” Leslie said as a wave of dizziness rolled over her, like something in the core of her was being stretched and tugged. The force of it made her unable to move, unsteady to the point that she thought she was going to be sick if she tried. She started cataloguing everything she’d drunk or eaten or touched to her lips in any way. Nothing unusual. She stayed motionless, concentrating on breathing until she felt whatever it was recede.

  No one else moved either. They didn’t seem to even notice.

  Seth said, “We’re good. Go on, Ash.”

  Then Aislinn and Keenan got into a long silver Thunderbird parked at the curb and drove off, leaving Leslie standing there with Niall and Seth. Niall leaned back against the wall, not looking at her or Seth, just waiting on…something.

  Leslie shifted from foot to foot, watching a group of skaters across the street. They were taking advantage of the traffic-less side street and doing tail slides on the curb—not that there weren’t other places they could go, but they were content to be where they were. It was appealing, that sense of peace. Sometimes Leslie felt like she was chasing that—at Rabbit’s, at her friends’ parties. She just needed the right timing to catch it.

  Seth started to walk away, and Niall pushed off from the wall, watching Leslie with a hungry expression. Something was different, unleashed. He stepped closer to her, slowly, and she felt sure his caution was to keep her from running.

  “Niall?” Seth had stopped and called back, “Crow’s Nest?”

  “I’d rather go to the club.” Niall didn’t even glance at Seth. Instead he watched her with a pensive look, as if he were studying her. She liked it far too much.

  “I need to bail,” she said. She didn’t wait for an answer but simply turned and left.

  But Niall was standing in front of her before she’d gone more than a half dozen steps. “Please? I’d really like you to join us.”

  “Why?”

  “I like being near you.”

  And she felt a surge of the confidence she’d been filled with in fleeting moments since she’d been tattooed.

  “Come with me?” he prompted.

  She didn’t want to leave. She was tired of running every time she felt afraid. That fearful girl wasn’t the person she’d been before; that wasn’t who she wanted to be. She let go of the fear but couldn’t answer.

  He held her gaze as he lowered his head toward her. He didn’t kiss her, though—just leaned kissably close and asked, “Will you let me take you in my arms…for a dance, Leslie?”

  She shivered, confidence swirling with a surge of longing for the peace she could almost taste, peace she was suddenly sure she’d feel if she slipped into Niall’s arms. She nodded. “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Niall knew better. He knew not to allow himself so very close to temptation. He was to keep the queen’s mortals safe while Keenan and Aislinn sought out the Dark King. Protecting Seth was easy: the mortal was the closest thing to a brother Niall had ever had. Leslie was more difficult: Niall knew he shouldn’t even be considering seducing a mortal he was to protect.

  This is work, just like any other day. Think about the court. Think about vows.

  But it was hard to think about the Summer Court—or the Dark Court, for that matter. Niall had been a confidant to both kings, and now he was relegated to caretaker of the Summer Queen’s mortals. Everything had changed when Keenan found Aislinn, the mortal who’d been meant to be his queen, and despite the fact that Niall was happy for his king, his friend, there was a sudden absence in his life. After centuries of advising Keenan, Niall was without purpose. He needed direction. Without it he became…not of the sunlight. It frightened him, these too-frequent flashes of the memory of what he had been before he’d been taken into the Summer Court.

  Being around Leslie had become a reward—and punishment. His unexpectedly intense longing to be near her the past week or so was complicating an already unstable situation. He was staring at her again, and Seth noticed.

  “You think that’s a good idea?” Seth glanced pointedly at Leslie.

  Niall kept his expression carefully neutral; Seth knew him too well. “No, I don’t suppose it would be.”

  Leslie seemed oblivious, lost in her own thoughts, and Niall wished she would share them with him. He had no one he could truly share such things with. Until he’d seen Aislinn and Seth, he hadn’t realized—admitted—how he longed for that. Even Aislinn and Keenan had a beautiful bond, while Niall was increasingly disconnected from everyone. If Niall kissed Leslie, pulled her into his arms and let himself lower his guard, they’d be far from disconnected. She’d be his, willing to press her body against his, willing to follow him anywhere.

  It was both the temptation and the trouble with mortals. The caresses of some faeries, Gancanaghs like him and like Irial once was, were addictive to mortals. Irial’s nature had been altered long before Niall ever drew breath. Becoming the Dark King had changed him, made him able to control the impact of his touch. Niall had no such recourse: he was left with memories of mortals who’d withered and died for lack of his embrace. For centuries, those memories were reminder enough to restrain himself.

  Until Leslie.

  Niall could hardly look at her as they walked. If Seth weren’t with them…Niall felt his pulse race at the images in his mind, at the thought of Leslie in his arms. Not for the first time, he was glad he had Seth’s company. The mortal’s calm seemed to help Niall remember himself. Usually.

  Niall stepped a little farther away from Leslie, hoping—irrationally perhaps—that distance would bolster his self-control.

  Keenan had been suggesting Niall pursue a relationship of his own now th
at the court was strong—growing stronger by the day—but Niall didn’t imagine he’d be permitted to do so with a mortal, especially one Aislinn wanted sheltered. His king wouldn’t ask him to disobey their queen.

  Would he?

  And Niall had no intention of betraying his king or queen’s trust, not willingly. They’d asked him to keep the mortals safe, and so he would. He could resist the temptation.

  But he still had to fold his hand into a fist at his side. The urge to lay his skin against hers was a compulsion he hadn’t felt so strongly in centuries. He stared at her, looking for some clue as to why her, why now.

  Leslie realized that Niall was staring at her again. “That’s sort of creepy, you know?”

  He looked amused, the corner of his scar wrinkling as he smiled ever so slightly. “Did I offend you?”

  “No. But it’s weird. If you have something to say, speak.”

  “I would if I could figure out what to say,” Niall said. He put a hand on the small of her back and nudged her forward gently. “Come. The club is a safer place to relax than out here”—he gestured at the empty street—“where you are so vulnerable.”

  Seth cleared his throat and scowled at Niall. Then he told Leslie, “The club’s right around the corner.”

  Leslie walked a little faster, trying to move away from Niall’s hand on her back. Speeding up didn’t help: he kept pace with her.

  When they rounded the corner and she saw the dark building in front of them, she felt panic well up. There was no sign, no posters, no people hanging outside, nothing to indicate that the building in front of them was anything other than abandoned. I should be freaking out. She wasn’t, though, and she couldn’t understand why.

  Niall said, “Head toward the doorman.”

  She looked back. Standing at the front of the building was a muscular guy with an ornate tattoo covering one half of his face. Spirals and lines disappeared under hair as black as the ink. The other side of his face was inkless. The only ornamentation was a small black tusklike piercing in his upper lip, the white match of which was in the corner of his mouth on the inked side of his face.

  “Keenan cool with her being here?” The man pointed at her, and Leslie realized that she was still staring—in part because she couldn’t fathom how she could’ve missed seeing someone like him standing outside the door.

  “She is a friend of Aislinn’s, and there are unpleasant guests in town. The”—Niall paused and crinkled his face into a wry smile—“Aislinn is with Keenan.”

  “So are Keenan and Ash good with it or not?” the inked man asked.

  Niall clasped the man’s forearm. “She is my guest, and the club should be near empty, yes?”

  The doorman shook his head, but he opened the door and motioned to a short, muscular guy with the most incredible dreads Leslie had ever seen. They were thick and well formed, hanging like a mane around the guy’s face. For a moment, Leslie thought it was an actual mane.

  “We have a new guest,” said the doorman as the dreadlocked guy came outside. The door thudded shut behind him.

  Dreadlocks stepped closer and sniffed.

  Niall quirked his mouth in what looked like a snarl. “My guest.”

  “Yours?” Dreadlocks’ voice was low—harsh like he lived on cigarettes and liquor.

  Leslie opened her mouth to object to the proprietary tone in Niall’s voice, but Seth put a hand on her wrist. She glanced at him, and he shook his head.

  Dreadlocks said, “My pride is in—”

  Seth cleared his throat.

  “Go tell them,” the doorman said as he opened the door and motioned Dreadlocks back inside. “Two minutes.”

  They stood there awkwardly for a moment before the tension felt too unbearable for Leslie. “If this is a bad idea—”

  But the door had already reopened, and Seth was stepping into the shadowy building.

  “Come on.” Niall went inside.

  She went only a few steps before she stopped, unable to think what to say or do. The few people inside were all wearing strange and ornate costumes. A woman passed by with vines draped all over her arms; the vines seemed as if they flowered.

  Like the living art at the museum.

  Another couple wore feathered wigs; still others had blue faces and misshapen teeth, not like the vampire teeth the costume places sold at Halloween—but each tooth jagged, like sharks’ teeth.

  Niall stood beside her, his hand resting on her back again. In the odd blue lights of the club, his eyes looked reflective; his scar was a black slash on his skin.

  “Is it okay that we don’t have costumes, too?” she whispered.

  He laughed. “Quite. These are their everyday wear.”

  “Everyday? Are they like one of those reenactment groups? A role-playing group?”

  “Something like that.” Seth pulled out a tall chair. Like the rest of the furniture, it was a polished wood. Nothing in the low-lit club seemed to be made of anything other than wood, stone, or glass.

  Unlike the rough-looking exterior, the inside of the club was far from run-down. The floor gleamed like polished marble. Running the length of one side of the room was a long, black bar. It wasn’t wood or metal, but it looked too thick for glass. As the rotating club lights hit the bar, Leslie saw streaks of color—purples and greens—shimmering in it. She gasped.

  “Obsidian,” said a raspy voice beside her ear. “Keeps the patrons calm.”

  A waitress in a skin-suit with shimmering silver scales all over her legs and arms stood there. She circled behind Leslie and sniffed her hair.

  Leslie took a step away from her.

  Although neither Niall nor Seth had ordered yet, the waitress handed them drinks—a golden-colored wine for Niall and a microbrew for Seth.

  “No drinking age in here?” Leslie’s gaze wandered over the room. The people in their odd costumes all had drinks, though some of them looked younger than she was. Dreadlocks was with a group of four other guys with pale brown dreads. They were sharing a pitcher that looked like it was filled with the same golden wine Niall was drinking.

  A pitcher of wine?

  “Now you see why I prefer to come here. Seth cannot relax as well at the Crow’s Nest, and they do not carry my preferred vintage”—Niall lifted his glass and sipped—“at any other club.”

  “Welcome to the Rath, Leslie.” Seth leaned back in his chair and motioned to the dance floor, where several almost normal-looking people were dancing. “Weirder than anywhere else you’ll ever see…if you’re lucky.”

  The music grew immediately louder, and Niall tipped back his glass one more time. “You could relax more fully, Seth. Some of the girls—”

  “Go dance, Niall. If we don’t hear from Ash within the next couple hours, we’ll need to get Leslie to work.”

  Beside her, Niall stood. He sat his half-full glass on the table and gestured to the dance floor. “Come join the dance.”

  At his words, Leslie felt a whispering need to refuse and a simultaneous tug of impatience to go toward the small group of costumed people who were dancing almost manically. The music, the movement, his voice—they all beckoned her, pulled her as if she were a marionette with too many strings. Out there in the throng of swaying, shifting bodies, she’d find pleasure. A sea of lust and laughter floated in the air around the dancers, and she wanted to swim in it.

  To buy a moment to steady her nerves, she grabbed for Niall’s glass. When she lifted it to her lips, it was empty. She stared at it, turning it in her hand by the fragile stem.

  “We don’t drink this in anger or fear.” Niall put his hand over hers so that they were both holding on to his glass.

  It wasn’t anger or fear she felt; it was longing. But she wasn’t telling him that. She couldn’t.

  The waitress stepped from somewhere behind them. Silently, she tilted a heavy bottle over the glass Niall and Leslie both held. From this close the wine looked thick as honey. Spirals of iridescent color shimmered as it filled t
he cup. It was tempting, smelling sweeter and richer than anything she’d ever known.

  Her hand was still under his when Niall lifted the glass to his lips. “Would you like to share my glass, Leslie? In friendship? In celebration?”

  He watched her as he sipped the golden drink.

  “No, she wouldn’t.” Seth slid his beer across the table. “If she wants a drink, it’ll be from my glass or my hand.”

  “If she wants to share my cup, Seth, it’s her choice.” Niall lowered the glass, still holding her hand over the stem.

  The drink, the dance, Niall—too many temptations were in front of Leslie. She wanted them all. Despite how weirdly Niall was acting, she wanted that tumble into pleasure. The fears that had been binding her since the rape were loosening lately. The decision to get tattooed did that. Freed me. Leslie licked her lips. “Why not?”

  Niall lifted the glass until the rim was touching her lips, close enough that her lipstick smudged the glass, but he didn’t tilt it, didn’t pour that strange-sweet wine into her mouth. “Indeed, why not?”

  Seth sighed. “Think for a minute, Niall. Do you really want to deal with the consequences?”

  “Right now, more than anything I can think of, but”—Niall pulled the glass away from Leslie’s lips and curled their hands until her lipstick smudge was against his mouth—“you deserve more respect than this, don’t you, Leslie?”

  He drained the glass and set it on the table but kept hold of her hand.

  Leslie wanted to run. His hand still held hers on the glass, but his attention was no longer intense. Her confidence faltered. Maybe Aislinn had good reasons to keep Keenan’s family away from her: Niall alternated between fascinating and bizarre. She licked her suddenly dry lips, feeling denied, rejected, and angry. She shook off his hand. “You know what? I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but I’m not interested in it.”

  “You’re right.” Niall lowered his gaze. “I don’t mean to…I don’t want…I’m sorry. I’m not myself lately.”

  “Whatever.” She backed up.