A Message For Iris : (Gods of Olympus Book 3)

by elda lore

  “I guess I’ll see you around,” she said, searching through her clutch for a key. Not likely, I figured, as I didn’t hang out with the local crowd like my brother did. I preferred to keep to myself. It was safer that way.

  “Yeah, see you,” I lied, as I stepped away from her porch, waiting briefly while she walked inside and shut the door, knowing in my wildly beating, borrowed heart, this was the way it was supposed to be.

  3

  Iris

  Once inside the door, I collapsed against it, feeling the erratic race of my heart. I didn’t dare risk a peek out the side window, despite the desperate need for a second glance at him—that floppy hair, sexy and disheveled, and those piercing eyes, playful and teasing. Shaky fingers fluttered over my lips, still pulsing with the pressure of his on mine. Like chocolate-coated candy, the man was a mystery. Under the buttoned-up clothing was a struggling beast. I felt it pressed against me. A pulse leapt between my thighs, eager to tame him. The roar of his truck’s engine startled me and signaled he’d left, driving off in the dark night. I sighed a heavy breath of relief before sorrow filled me.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” I voiced quietly to myself in the unlit house, my heart still hammering to match the growing beat in my lower abdomen. I couldn’t get involved with a human again, I reminded myself. I wasn’t built like Violet. Being here had a purpose, and relationships were not one of them. Yet, my fingers continued to outline my lips, tracing over the firmness still imprinted on them. Riordan was sweet, his lips deceiving me with that first brush. The moment they touched mine, I couldn’t breathe. He was air. And I nearly attacked him on my front porch. I giggled at the thought. My insides tingled with a familiar brightness, brought on only when I was doing one thing.

  “How strange,” I whispered again. I’d never felt this way before, not even with Ben. All glittery and light inside, as if color would spring forth while I stood against the door. I shook my head with wonder. Wanting to seize the sensation, I pressed off the door, heading for my small office. My house was a Hawaiian bungalow, complete with two bedrooms, one of which I converted into a studio for my drawings. There I found peace from the unstable life I led. At the beck and call of others, I didn’t know where my next mission would lead, but having a space to call my own was heaven on earth.

  I settled in to draw some designs—art to be applied to the skin. The human body was a canvas, and I enjoyed painting it, enhancing its beauty, with a variety of colors. Working on humans built up my immunity to them, but my mind raced back to Riordan. The subtle curve of his lip as it first grazed mine was as gentle as the tip of my pencil on the unmarked paper. As my hand quickly worked stroke after stroke, the memory of that kiss, only moments old, enhanced the fervor with which I brushed over the naked page. Adding color ignited the design, bringing to life the image like his kiss brought sparks to me. The feeling was only too brief. With exhaustion, I stopped sketching, halting abruptly just as Riordan had severed our connection. I scowled at the image, frightened by what I had drawn. The image was wrong—a black butterfly pinned to the page.

  I dropped my pencil and covered the gasp escaping my lips. I’d never do such a thing to a beautiful creature of the air. I had my own set of wings etched on my shoulder blade, a symbol of the power within me. My eyes narrowed, my forehead furrowing. I sensed the pinned butterfly was more of a statement about Riordan, not me.

  “What happened to you?” I wondered aloud, staring down at the sad picture as my thumb outlined the clipped wings.

  I was exhausted. A storm hit the shoreline during the young hours of the morning, too early for me to be called home, so I went to my second home, Indigo Ink. The previous night’s sketch still haunted me, as did Riordan’s kiss. I washed away both thoughts with strong Kona coffee and flipped on the lights of my sanctuary. The front of my business housed the tattoo shop. Violet worked here with me, and together we had a steady clientele of islanders, as well as those vacationers deciding to memorialize their holiday on their body. In the back of the shop was the private office, the second metaphor for Indigo Ink. Here a large table contained a basket in the center filled with letters, each beginning the same way.

  Dear Iris.

  A plea followed to take a message from one loved one to another. Someone dead. Someone missing. Someone absent from the heart. The stories were heartbreaking. Sometimes they sought advice on love. Other times, they simply wanted their story told. I had a small team of women who helped me answer them in human terms. I couldn’t use the age-old advice I’d received in my upbringing—Fate. She was the answer to everything, but humans wanted more details, and so my ladies offered it.

  Perky and flirty, Violet answered the letters to the younger set, which included questions about dating and captivating a mate. Lorna was our resident expert on marriage and engagement, as she had been married for thirty-six years and was the mother of eight children. Resident romantic nurse Molaiha answered letters about death and those struggling with cancer, AIDS, and other incurable diseases. I tackled the remaining mismatches and any dealing with the loss of a loved one.

  As the hour was still young, I decided to sit and read through a few letters, taking time to thoughtfully address the painful words inside, the unanswerable question of why, and the doubt that love could be found again. I was so entranced in responding that I nearly jumped out of my skin at the rapid knocking on the front door. Dear Iris was a covert operation, one held private, respecting those who addressed us. I hastily stood and locked the office door before heading down the hall for the front of the studio. Writing on the calendar hanging in the hall caught my attention. We had an interview scheduled for a new tattoo artist. The thumping on the door continued, and I swiped my hands down my pencil skirt.

  “Hold your horses,” I muttered, rounding the corner and noticing a man with his face pressed to the glass, his hand held as a shield over his eyes, trying to see inside the studio.

  “Violet,” I grumbled. She knew my preference was for a female artist. I wasn’t trying to discriminate. It’s just with Dear Iris in the backyard of the shop, I didn’t want to risk the invasion of a misunderstanding male, although we received plenty of letters from the opposite sex. As I took my time to cross our waiting area, the man turned his back to the door. His head fell forward, and he swiped through unruly hair.

  I snapped the lock, pressed forward the door, and stood, shocked still, as the interviewee turned to face me.

  “Riordan?” My eyes dragged the length of the man before me in a black T-shirt, leather jacket, and dark-wash jeans, with heavy biker boots covering his feet. A thin sheen of scruff covered his early morning jaw. Heavy green eyes met mine, and in the light of day, a new man presented himself. He looked edgier, harder, flustered.

  “Shit,” he muttered, hanging his head again and shaking it side to side. Instantly, my shoulders fell in a strange sense of defeat. One hand came to rest on my jacked-out hip.

  “Why shit?” I asked, suddenly defensive.

  “You’re Iris of Indigo Ink.” His head shot up to look at me, appreciatively roaming down my body. But I wasn’t having his appraising attention with the attitude in his tone. My eyes blinked while my lips pinched.

  “Well, obviously.” His responding gaze undressed me. There was no other way to explain it. Starting at stiletto-covered toes and climbing my bare shins to my uncovered knees, he curled his gaze over my hips in my mini-pencil skirt and the tight-fitting tee, lingering on the fullness of my breasts, and then noticing the full sleeve of bright color down my left arm.

  “I’m Charlie Riordan, the interviewee.” All color must have drained from my face because Riordan swiped a hand through his floppy bangs. “I knew this was a mistake,” he muttered, looking off toward the street.

  “Why a mistake?” I questioned, growing more defensive, and slightly irritated.

  “Because I kissed you last night, and now you’ll never hire me.” His hand slipped from his hair, and he slapped at his thigh. My
brows pinched as I took in his body language. His jaw clenched, accentuating his already chiseled cheeks that were additionally highlighted by the facial hair on his jaw. Shoulders hunched forward, his fingers tapped rapidly at his thigh, as if he did this when he was thinking. He wanted to get away from me. Escape was written in his eyes. “Well, I don’t see how a kiss, that won’t ever happen again, should be a cause for discrimination,” I replied, letting my agitation get the better of me. I wasn’t typically like this toward people. I liked humans in general, always searched for the best in them. Yet, something about Riordan had me on edge. Especially after that kiss, that I really didn’t wish to forget and he clearly wished he could. In addition, I was still unnerved by the dissected butterfly image I drew, and my heart fluttered at the potential connection of that image to Riordan.

  Darkening green eyes narrowed in on me.

  “You’re saying you’re willing to forget that kiss?” Uncertain if the question was a plea to wipe it from my memory or a concern that I would, I decided to go for the first option. I ignored his inquiry.

  “Why don’t you come inside? Let’s see if you even have a shot at the job, based on other skills.” I let my tone tease, trying to recover from the negative energy between us. The night before, colorful sparks crackled and creaked around us. I wanted that sizzling sensation to return. Positivity was important. In my covert line of work, I had to be.

  I pressed the door further open and leaned against it to allow Riordan to enter. I directed him to take a seat on one of the two plush, lavender-colored couches. I selected the one opposite him and searched around him for a portfolio, but he didn’t have one.

  “Typically, I like to see sketches and samples,” I began, but I’d hardly finished my statement when he started removing his jacket. My mouth watered like a summer mist. His sculpted arms were covered from wrist to shoulder in intricate images of black and gray.

  “Interesting,” I muttered, unable to draw my eyes away from the designs of brimstone and fire, a phoenix rising up from the ashes, a heart stabbed through the middle and bleeding rose petals into a puddle. The designs went on and on, telling a story. One that intrigued me.

  “I don’t usually accept the artwork of others as testament to your skill.”

  His eyes pierced mine, and his head tilted. The stare lingered too long, and I worried I had something on my face. The tip of my finger swiped at the corner of my lips as I prepared to ask that question, but he interrupted my thought.

  “Your eyes. They aren’t really blue after all. They’re…they’re purple, like an iris flower.”

  Without thought, I opened my eyes wider, as if to emphasize the correctness of his observation and show them off. I didn’t typically respond this way. Instead, I’d look away, not wanting someone to notice the odd coloring compared to the average browns, blues, and greens in the world. His tone spoke of intrigue and disappointment like he hadn’t noticed them properly the night before, and he was upset with himself. I shook away the thought, cursing myself for reading too much into his comment. I blinked, and his own lids snapped once, as if breaking through a spell.

  “Anyway, I can’t hire you based on—”

  “I did this art myself,” he interjected. “The designs are all mine, and I did what I could reach.” He twisted his forearm and flicked his wrist from side to side. He held up his bicep to show me the underside. Every inch of him was covered, but without a single, bright color.

  “You only work in black and white?”

  “What other colors should there be?” he snapped, a little too harshly for my liking.

  “I see. Well, I only ink in color so—”

  “So, what you need is someone who only works in black ink,” he hinted at me, tipping up his chin for emphasis, as if stating the obvious.

  “What I need is someone personable and respectful of what a customer may desire on his or her body,” I retorted.

  “What you need is a good—” The lock snapped on the front door, and I noticed Violet struggling beyond the glass with a tray of disposable coffee cups. Riordan stood instantly and opened the door, taking the slowly tipping tray from Violet’s hands. I stared at Violet’s physical reaction. She blinked. She swallowed. She smiled. Her eyes never left his face. Then they travelled south, and a new expression crossed her cheeks.

  “You’re Charlie Riordan?” She choked as her eyes shifted from me to our interviewee. “The guy who applied for the open position?”

  Riordan slowly smiled a full wattage beam, and Violet remained ensnared.

  “Please tattoo on me,” she whispered as if in response to a question, her breath sultry and low.

  “Okay,” I stood, swiping my hands over my hips, “and that’s another reason we can’t hire you.” He couldn’t make all the girls so swoony, or we’d have some of those tattoo groupies on our hands, girls who became regulars just to feel the sharp sting of a handsome man working on their naked canvas.

  “That’s discrimination,” he teased, but a lingering hiss followed.

  “He’s so pretty, Iris. Let us keep him,” Violet purred. The tension snapped, and Riordan laughed, a hearty chuckle, strong like the patter of rain on pavement. The rhythm captured me, and a beat traveled my naked canvas, leaping under my skirt and settling between my thighs. I clenched my knees together, and Riordan didn’t miss the movement. A crooked curve curled his lips, the same lips I promised I would forget. The ones I said I would ignore. The ones I threatened to never touch again. I swallowed hard in defeat of my attraction.

  “I don’t know…”

  Riordan surprised me, by stepping forward, still holding the tray of coffees.

  “Please,” he whispered, and something in his plea dropped my stomach. “I need this job.” He leaned forward and set the coffees on the low table before us. He swiped a hand through those longish bangs, taking a moment to consider something. It was impossible to prepare for what he did next. He reached for the hem of his shirt and dragged the black material over his head. Before me was a stomach cut from marble, etched with the smallest fractures of dips, accentuating each ripple, six in total. His chest was flat, the perfect curve under each muscle, detailing the broad expanse. He was covered in more black ink, but what struck me most was the large scar down the middle of his chest. It was as if he’d been sliced open. Dissected. My eyes could take in nothing of his artwork, only the raised skin, puckered and taut, highlighting the center of his breastbone. What happened to him? I wondered for the hundredth time. Suddenly, the pinned butterfly image returned to my mind.

  “Oh. My. God,” Violet squealed behind him, and before I could utter a word, she hollered, “You’re hired.”

  4

  Riordan

  She couldn’t stop staring at me, and I wondered what she saw. Did she see how creative I was? I loved to draw. Ever since I was a little kid, I’d always be sketching in the margins instead of doing schoolwork. In time those designs lead to studio art, and then a professional graphics gig. That was all before. Before my life changed on a dime, and I decided to go a different route. Skin became my new canvas. The greatest personal connection I’d allow myself, until last night.

  But as she prolonged her stare, I decided she only noticed one thing—the scar. The telltale sign that changed everything. The extravagant rip of my chest, sewn back together, held my heart inside. A heart I didn’t deserve but received anyway. A heart with its own scars, as reckless as the one tattooed on my bicep. My eyes fought to grab hers, seeking unforeseen comfort in that mesmerizing color, but fearing I’d find them filled with pity. I didn’t want that from her. Blowing out a breath in frustration, I straightened.

  “You’re hired,” I heard behind me. Violet, that was her name, but I wanted the words to come from Iris. For some reason, I wanted her approval, and I needed the job. I promised Cash. I’d get a job. I’d pull my weight with him.

  “Iris,” I whispered, and her eyes shot up to mine. I cleared my throat ready to explain everything b
ut shifted my thoughts. “I did this work myself. It wasn’t hard to tattoo the images upside down, but it did take time. The outlines had to be made first and—”

  “You’re hired,” she whispered in response, holding up a hand to stop my explanation. A quick shift of her eyes explained. She did feel sorry for me. I was getting the job out of sympathy, exactly what I didn’t want, and it pissed me off. I didn’t want her pity. The reality was that I wanted her. I couldn’t explain it. I hadn’t wanted anyone since Henny. Beautiful, lively, lying Henny. Shaking thoughts of her from my head, I stared back at Iris.

  “You can begin today. Violet will get you situated.” Iris stepped around me and then paused. “And it’s periwinkle. The color of my eyes.” My eyes met hers over my shoulder.

  “My new favorite color,” I muttered, but I wasn’t certain she heard me. She spun around a corner and disappeared in an area I assumed held the tattoo stations. I reached down for my shirt and hastily swiped it off the floor.

  “Don’t get dressed on my account,” Violet purred behind me. “We might have more customers if you went without.” I turned in time to see her eyes sliding down my body. Almost a twin to Iris, she was unique in subtle ways. Her eyes weren’t as brilliant, her hair not as crisply black, but her body had some curve to it. She was very pretty, but Iris was stunning.

  “Is business not good?” I asked, shrugging on my T-shirt, worried the job might be a mistake after all.

  “It’s decent. We have some competition, of course. Everyone thinks they’re a tattoo artist lately.” She rolled her eyes and placed her bag behind the front counter. “But Iris does the best color work on the strip.”