by Jory Strong
Rhys’s exhale was warning enough that another unpleasant revelation was imminent. “I read up on this rapist before coming to you. There are rumors of an artist, possibly a psychic, visiting the hospital and the latest victim.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. She met the taskforce agents there. It took seeing the men a second time for the couple I have watching her to feel certain they should recognize them, and to start actively trying to determine their identities. Knowing what’s being said on the news makes me suspect she’s been taken to a safe house. There’s an additional reason for protective custody. She’s a fit for one of the victim types this Harlequin Rapist chooses.”
Eamon rose from his chair and began pacing. His emotions running the gamut, cycling from anger to worry to fear with each pass around the office.
If she’d been removed from his territory and was discovered . . .
If something happened to her . . .
Rhys forced the chaos of thought and ceaseless movement to a stop by stepping in front of him then going to one knee with his head bowed. “This failure is mine for not anticipating the skill set necessary in keeping her watched. I will accept the full punishment for her disappearance.”
Eamon took a deep, even breath, drawing on the level of control necessary to survive as spell-caster and Elven lord. “I took the risk so I bear the responsibility. Ignorance is rarely rewarded and often punished. Find out everything you can about her life among humans.”
“And her current location?”
Eamon looked down at the diners, among them humans whose acquaintance had been cultivated by those in his service. “That would require calling in favors. I think the risk of drawing attention to her by doing so is too great. If you’re correct, and she’s been placed in protective custody, then I will have to put my faith in the FBI agents to keep her safe for the moment. Regardless of where she is now, I believe she’ll return for the fund-raiser.”
Twelve
Quinn ushered her into Room 213 without her having to knock. Clothing covered everything but his hands and head. His scalp bristled from hair punching through formerly shaved skin.
He would have looked good bald, she thought. And not many men did.
She guessed he was in his early thirties. He could pass for an ex-con. He had the look, the honed muscles of a prison stint turned into gym sessions.
“Where do you want to set up?” he asked.
“Show me what you’ve got first.”
He grinned. “Now there’s an invite. Too bad all the work’s above the waist.”
He stripped off the shirt, tossing it onto the dresser. Three jagged lightning strikes done in red streaked down the sides of his neck. Swastikas, three leaf clovers, the number 666 and initials AB were the predominant images on his chest and arms. The ink color on some of them a clear indication they’d been done behind bars. It made her wonder if Trent had leveled with her about Quinn being undercover from the start rather than recruited in prison.
She moved around him. There was more work on his back, the same symbols in addition to an eagle, its wingspan spreading from shoulder to shoulder. Not an easy cover job, though in his favor, the work wasn’t dense.
The tattoos were more lines than filled-in areas, some of it crude, some done by talented artists. She wouldn’t have been able to stand any of it on her skin.
Seeing it, she was glad she’d be with Cathal later. After hours spent inking Quinn, she’d be ready for a different kind of touch.
“Why not laser this shit off?” It’d be painful, much more painful, and a hell of a lot more expensive, but worth it.
“I’m not a good candidate.”
“Based on the Kirby-Desai Scale?”
“Yeah. I went in for a consult. It was my first stop after being officially arrested, charged, convicted, and shipped off to prison where I reportedly got shanked by another inmate and bled out.
“The guy I saw said my score put me in the questionable range for successful removal, and it’d take more treatments than I had time for. You think you can do this in one session?”
“I don’t know.” She walked around him again, seeing the skin as a large canvas marred by ugly spots that needed to be hidden.
On the next pass she cleared her mind, opening it to inspiration. As she continued to circle, an image flowed in. Merging and melding and obliterating what was already there, turning it from something shameful into something empowering.
“Sit,” she said. “On the corner of the bed.”
“Jesus. Glad to. I was starting to feel dizzy.”
Locked on to the image she wanted to capture, she couldn’t spare the concentration for a response, or the time it would take to sketch everything out on paper first.
She opened the kit and dug into it, pulling out a box of markers. “Stay as still as possible,” she told him, waiting for his nod before touching the tip of a pen to him and transferring the art in her mind to the canvas of his skin.
When it was done she stepped back to give it a critical once-over. “You can look in the mirror.”
“I’ll hold out and be surprised. Trent says your work is incredible.”
She wondered when Trent had seen any of it, then shrugged the question off. He probably based the praise on the drawings from Tyra’s memories.
“You should move around a bit while I get set up. Stretch out. Get some water. Go to the bathroom.”
Quinn laughed. “Yes, Mom.”
She shook her head. “Are you sure you’re a Fed?”
He rolled his shoulders, loosening up the muscles. “Who said I was a Fed?”
“Then I’ll rephrase, are you sure you’re in law enforcement?”
The amusement slid away, replaced by a somber expression. “Was in law enforcement. Past tense. Are you going to be able to cover everything up in one session?”
“Depends on how much pain you can stand.”
“I can take the pain.”
“We’ll start with your chest. Probably the easiest way to do this will be with you lying on the bed, then either sitting in a chair or on the floor, so you can brace your hands against something if you need to when it’s time for your back.”
“You’re the boss.” He dragged the dresser close to the bed. Then picked up her kit and set it down next to a tattered paperback copy of Bride of the Fat White Vampire.
“Great book,” Etaín said.
“Yeah. Laugh-your-ass-off funny. You ever read The Android’s Dream?”
“Sure. I love Scalzi’s stuff.”
She emptied her kit of the things she needed, arranging them and checking the ink against the colors she saw in her imagination.
“You okay with country music?” Quinn asked.
“Sure.”
He found a country station and turned it up loud enough to mask the sound of the tattoo machine.
“Ready?” she asked after getting the ink caps set up.
“Yeah. I’ll assume the position.” He sprawled on the bed, arms spread.
She made quick work of shaving his chest and coating the first area with a light layer of Vaseline. Stretching his skin she said, “Stay as still as you can. If it gets too much for you, or you need a break, let me know.”
“You got it.”
She outlined in silence, content to listen to music. Thoughts of Cathal slipped in. And Eamon. Her labia grew flushed and swollen, her nipples taut as she imagined lying in bed between them, hands and mouths roaming, limbs tangled. Both of them inside her at once, or just one, while the other watched.
The explicit fantasies made it difficult to concentrate on what she was doing. She distracted herself from them by asking, “So why the hurry to get these tattoos covered?”
A burst of love and worry poured into her bloodstream, accompanied by the image of an older couple, a white man and black woman.
If not for the steadiness developed over years of using the machine, the force and surprise of having the picture come whi
le she was awake would have made her hand jerk and deviate from the line she inked.
“My dad has been diagnosed with cancer. My stepmom is African American and I have a kid sister who’s mixed race. I don’t want to show up with AB tats.”
“They don’t know you’ve been undercover?”
“They know, but not the details. I’d rather not risk having them walk in unexpectedly and see the tats, then start thinking about what I might have done and said so I could pass for a brotherhood member.”
“How long have you been under?”
“Five years. Five long, long years. I haven’t seen my sister since she was seven. Haven’t seen any of them except for the photo album they keep online.”
“They’re here in San Francisco?”
“Close by.”
She took the hint and didn’t press though she didn’t need to. Worry and protectiveness flooded into her along with the image of a house, the hills behind it recognizable as East Bay, Livermore or Pleasanton probably.
Her hand trembled slightly, blurring a line. She had no way of knowing if she was stealing his memories or not. The taste of fear filled her mouth at this additional proof Eamon might be right about her losing control of her gift.
She finished the outline and released Quinn’s stretched skin, wondering if putting a second glove over the first would make a difference. “You need a break before I start shading?”
“No. I’m good.”
She opened and closed her left hand, torn between fear and curiosity. Was her gift changing? Or did the images come because Quinn was somehow projecting them?
She swapped out the liner for the shader, unplugging one from the power source and substituting it for the other. “So what are you going to do now that you’re out of law enforcement?”
“Don’t know for sure. A buddy of mine is a PI, Sean McAlister of McAlister Investigations, in case you ever need one. He wants me to come onboard. I’m thinking about giving it a try, see if it’s a fit.”
Etaín put a second glove over the first on her left hand then immediately pulled it off, hating the slippery feel of it. It had taken her a long time to be able to tolerate wearing the latex at all.
The call to ink came with a call to touch skin-to-skin. She’d known from the start that the eyes on her palms were meant to see. What they were supposed to see was a trickier question, and what she was supposed to do with the knowledge . . .
Familiar discomfort arose, the same she experienced every time Justine asked her to do one of the special tattoos. Deep-seated denial came with it, at the prospect of any type of monklike existence, be it abstinence from sex or living in some remote location and having people make pilgrimages to her.
She picked up the shader with the resolve not to ask additional questions, or think about her gift. She didn’t want it to be changing.
Not even if it meant a future with Cathal and Eamon in it?
She frowned the unwanted question away and placed her hand on Quinn, stretching the skin then touching the shader to it.
Like Jason earlier in the day, Quinn slipped into a kind of subspace, embracing the pain so the endorphins fed a desire that was definitely sexual in nature. It poured into her bloodstream, where earlier in the day the residual effects of being with Eamon had seemed to give her a respite from Tori’s and Jason’s emotions.
She didn’t mind the flow of desire. It helped her work quickly, to go for longer periods without breaking.
Her resolve not to ask questions lasted through the work on his back and chest and upper arms, but broke when she got to the three red lightning bolts on the side of his neck. “I caught a documentary on TV about the Aryan Brotherhood. I thought they said these symbolized kills and—”
Her breath caught with the visceral feel of pushing a knife through flesh and the image of a face in close proximity. She jerked away, breaking the contact reflexively at the same time Quinn came out of subspace.
“Sorry about that. Must have zoned out,” he said, his expression tight.
“Hang in there just a little longer. We’re almost done.” Words for the both of them.
Fighting the urge to rub her gloved palm against her skirt, she forced herself to touch him again.
Relief settled into her. It felt as though a mental barrier had slammed down between them, walling off any leak of emotion or thought.
It made her think what had happened between them was more about him unintentionally projecting and her being a prime candidate to receive, than about her gift changing into something more dangerous than it already was.
The premise seemed validated when she touched the shader to his skin, applying ink but remaining free of his emotion, same as she’d been with Tori and Jason—thanks to the mind-blowing sex with Eamon.
A shiver of need went through her. Her own, coming with thoughts of Eamon, then mingling with those of Cathal as the lightning bolts on Quinn’s neck became the final touches of a sinuous water dragon covering a vast area of skin, its wings stretched and curved in flight, enfolding Quinn as though man and beast were one.
She turned off the machine and put it down with a sigh, glad to be finished. “Go ahead and stand up.”
He stood, holding his arms away from his side and making a slow rotation. “Satisfied?”
“Very. Ready to see if you are?”
“You bet.”
He stepped in front of the mirror, lips parting in a gratifying show of astonishment then curving upward in a genuine smile. “Trent wasn’t exaggerating when he said you did amazing work. I’m glad I couldn’t get that other shit lasered off.”
He turned, looking over his shoulder to check out his back again with a little hitch in his breath, a slight show of pain. Etaín cleaned up and repacked her kit, letting him relax for a few minutes.
Pleasure hummed through her, satisfaction at the way the dragon had turned out and at having managed it in one session. Eamon would probably claim magic was responsible. She thought it was entirely because of Quinn. Not many clients could have handled getting so much ink at one time, but then not very many would have been as highly motivated as he was.
When everything was taken care of but the aftercare, she said, “Okay gorgeous, enough ogling yourself in the mirror. Let’s wrap this up.”
He grinned. “Gorgeous, huh?”
She rolled her eyes. “Get over yourself and come sit down.”
He glanced at the antibiotic ointment and the small stack of bandages, not nearly enough to cover everything she’d done, but enough to hit the major spots. “No point in wasting the bandages. I’ll have them peeled off before you get to the elevator. I’m hitting the Castro tonight. I need it before I show up at my father’s place tomorrow.”
Despite what Trent had said in the car, Quinn’s destination coupled with the sexual need that had poured into her as she worked had her asking, “You’re gay?”
He inhaled loudly enough for her to hear it. The exhale was quieter but it came with shoulders going back and a spine straightening. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Time to stop living a lie. I’m up from undercover and out of the closet at the same time. Dad’s cancer changed my perspective.”
A smile returned to tilt one corner of his mouth. “That and five years of banging women who shout ‘Heil Hitler’ when they come.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Seriously. And as infrequently as possible. Don’t think I could have managed it except for some first class pharmaceuticals and a desperate need to get up and off like your All-American white supremacist so I wouldn’t blow my cover.”
“A soldier in a different kind of war.”
“Yeah.”
She started to ask what the prognosis was for his dad but another thought headed off the conversation. Quinn needed a distraction without complications and so did Derrick. Besides that, the last thing Quinn should be doing after taking on so much new ink was hitting the club scene or drinking. “Do you have a car?”
“You need a lift s
omewhere?”
“Yes. It’s not far.”
“No problem.” He touched a hand to his back pocket, pulling out his keys and his wallet. “We need to settle up for the work, too. Cash okay?”
“Always.”
At Derrick’s apartment, she went for simple. “You mind coming up with me? My friend is going through a tough spell and I’m not sure what I’m going to find up there.”
Eamon stopped in front of a Monet gracing his office wall. Usually he could lose himself in contemplations of it but not today. Since Etaín’s disappearance there had been no escape from thoughts of her, not in the beauty he surrounded himself with, nor in the work that came with his duties as Lord.
Noble intentions of allowing her freedom and winning her through courtship warred with possessive desires, the need not only to have her as wife-consort so her gift could be used for the benefit of those he ruled, but to have her ensconced at his estate for his own peace of mind, so he would know at all times she was safe and cared for.
A battle raged inside him, giving him respite from his fear for her by burying it under the assumption she would soon be back and affording him the opportunity to decide what he wanted to do about her. It quieted only when the subtle touch of magic announced Rhys and Liam.
He turned from the painting, relief at seeing their expressions nearly making him stagger. “You’ve found her.”
The sun dangling from Rhys’s earlobe swung with the slight shake of his head. “Not found. It would be more accurate to say she returned on her own. She just arrived at a coworker’s apartment in the company of an unknown, but recently tattooed man.”
Rhys’s stiff posture and tone revealed his dismay over erring earlier about her likely whereabouts. His silence beyond the facts showed his hesitance to compound it with further opinion.
Eamon closed the distance and placed a hand on his second’s shoulder. “Your analysis was a sound one, though I’m happy, in this case, it proved incorrect. Of far greater importance is the reasoning behind your initial thoughts on her disappearance. Those facts haven’t changed.”