by Honor James
“Stop that,” Volker’s voice behind her was sharp. Then his hands were on hers and turning her to face him. “Stop pushing like that. I can smell blood, Luna. You are hurting yourself trying to force a memory. You can’t keep doing this. If the memory wants to come it will come to you, don’t push.”
She frowned and reached up to touch her nose, a light tickle telling her that maybe snot was coming out, but it wasn’t. She looked at her fingers for several seconds in complete shock. “I’m bleeding.” She hadn’t bled for a very, very long time. “I’m not trying to push but they are beating at me today. The foggy memories from before I was Luna Black.” She whispered and then felt like crying. “I don’t even know who I am. I took the name Luna Black because I couldn’t be Jane Doe anymore.” She didn’t think that they would understand, she wasn’t sure what all they knew about her, but it seemed they knew a lot. “How can I not push when it felt like such a good memory? The ones I don’t want come at me at night, that’s why I never sleep. I always dream of blood and death, horrible things. Things that simply aren’t possible.”
Grabbing a napkin he pressed it to her nostrils gently. “Hold that there,” he said, and let out a heavy breath. “If you get a memory just let it flow. Your brain will only give you what it thinks you can handle. They may be good memories to begin with but you don’t know how they end, that may be why you feel such pain and agony when you push, it’s your mind telling you to stop before you see something you might not be able to handle.”
“Then why do I dream as I do? The horror that I see in the night, it’s crippling.” Which was why she didn’t sleep. “I wake up hurting after those dreams.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I seem to be again just babbling.” She couldn’t seem to keep her mouth closed around these men, she was so screwed and neither would tell her why.
“It’s likely your memories of whatever happened to hurt you,” he said. Stepping in closer he wrapped an arm around her and gently stroked her hair. “But you can’t fight them either. And really, it’s a remembered pain that you are feeling, if it is from the event. But you didn’t have it last night, did you?”
“No. Not at all. I don’t think that I dreamed at all last night.” Which was good. Granted she never recalled her dreams, but she always knew when she had nightmares, always. “Why?” she asked, no she demanded softly. “I need to know why you two are different. Why do I not shock you, why do I feel so calm, safe with you both? I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before last night and yet I lean into you. I need your touches. I crave them. I feel as if the hole in my soul has been filled and I don’t understand. At all.”
He and Kristjan shared a look, something passing between them and, apparently, they came to a decision. Volker released her and stepped back a little. He pushed up the long sleeve on his left arm and undid the clasp holding the wide leather and silver band onto his wrist. Pulling it off, he turned his hand so she could see the inside of his wrist. Dead center was a crescent moon and all around his wrist were thick black bands of swirls and sharp points creating a very interesting piece. Kristjan was there a moment later and showed her, the exact same thing on his wrist.
Luna touched the markings, and was shocked by them. They shocked her. “What is this?” she whispered quietly. She had a vague memory, one she tried not to push and whispered. “I’ve seen something like this before.” She couldn’t think of when. It was before, that was all that she knew. “I don’t understand.” It was her name, that much had clicked. But why would they have her name tattooed on their arms and then cover them with beautiful ornate cuffs. “Wait.” She whispered. “Why do all of the men from your side of the Veil wear cuffs like the two of you do?” She hadn’t met many, but she did know that Byrne wore one as did Artaxis. Why though?
“These are the mating marks denoting who our mate will be. We get them when we come into puberty and we cover them with the bands to protect our mate’s identity. You name is truly Luna Black,” Kristjan said. “Either that or the Universe knew back when we both went through puberty that you would be in an accident and choose the name. I’m not sure which is stranger but.” He shrugged.
“What?” She looked at them both now. “That’s why you don’t hurt me, why I don’t hurt you.” She felt the tears start, she couldn’t help it. “You fit. Both of you,” she whispered. “Three,” she said suddenly. “Two men, one woman. They had marks like this. Well, not exactly but on their wrists like you do. In the before. I see a beautiful place. Clean, clear, amazing,” she whispered in shock. “But I’ve never been anywhere but here.” She felt the memory slide away and didn’t chase it, for once. She looked back to these men and uttered, “Crap.” There was that damn word again. “Is that why you took this job or did Byrne know something and wasn’t about to share it? Did you know already?” It wasn’t bad if they did, she just felt like an idiot. “And that’s why you keep the nightmares away. Because you are part of me.” Weird, but it felt true.
“We’re your mates,” Volker said quietly. “When Byrne told us your name we volunteered. We had to tell him why we wanted the gig and he was understanding, as he should be. And you can’t hurt us because we are your mates, you can’t cause us harm any more than we could cause you harm, it would hurt us too much.”
“I don’t know what to think,” she whispered softly and ran her fingers over their markings once more. She felt a visceral connection to them, each touch to these men seemed to pull her closer and closer. “Can you leave them uncovered? At least here? I.” She chewed her lower lip, her hesitation clear. “I kind of like seeing it,” she confessed very, very quietly.
“We’ll leave them uncovered while we’re here. Out in public though we will cover them, it’s to help protect you from those that are not always so kind to our people. Kristjan, your bacon is beginning to smoke,” Volker said, his tone droll.
“Shit!” He ran around the island and pulled the pan off the burner. “It’s only a little singed, it’s fine, perfectly edible.”
Luna laughed. “I like mine really crispy so I will take those pieces.” She told him and then looked up at Volker again. “Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Maybe.” She chewed her lower lip and then looked at the markings on their body again. “Maybe you can tell me what was tattooed on my back? I’ve never found out what it is, the doctors say that I came in with the markings. It’s along my spine. If I show you, will you tell me?” Because it looked too much like their markings to be a coincidence. She had never asked anyone to look at the markings before. She had made inquiries, but always hit a solid brick wall. Literally setting off alarms and her computer telling her that she had reached a restricted site, so perhaps they might know.
There was another pause, where they shared another look, and then he nodded. “I should be able to tell you what it is if it’s anything like what we have on our world. Do you want to show it to me now or do you want to wait until after we’ve eaten?”
“Let’s wait until after we eat because if you tell me something bad I don’t want to lose my appetite. I love bacon too much to do that. Even though my curiosity is piqued, I can wait,” she told him with a smile. “But thank you. I’m hopeful you might know what it is or even where I can learn what it is because all attempts so far have only nearly gotten me arrested.” Which was sad but true.
“Okay, you can’t drop a bomb like that and not explain,” Kristjan said. He passed her a plate with a waffle and the slightly singed bacon on it. He then passed her the peanut butter and syrup she preferred for her waffles. “So, tell us just what you’ve been up to that’s nearly gotten you arrested.”
“Well, you see, it’s like this.” She buttered and peanut-buttered her waffle and then covered it in syrup. “I don’t know what these markings are, but they are effectively cut off from humanity. Each time I try to get past a restricted website, I get tagged. Well I guess I pushed too far one time and the police came to my house. My computer was snagged, which was fine since I had
just fried the darn thing in frustration anyway. They told me that should I try again I would be arrested, but didn’t say why. It was surreal, but whatever. I’ve wanted to ask some of the people that I know from the other side of the Veil but I have never felt fully comfortable allowing anyone that close to me.” She shrugged and added. “And now here you both are so I really hope that maybe the writing is from your side? Maybe I was drugged up or something and got the tattoos or something. Heck, who knows.”
“Well, we’ll do our best to help you figure it out,” he said with a smile. And then he wrinkled his nose at the concoction she was now eating. “That is just so very wrong and I can’t even say why either. But it is.” He shook his head and moved back to the bacon he was still cooking.
“That’s okay. I love it,” she said with a shrug. “And if I love food then I stick with it. Sometimes food makes me sick, this doesn’t. This. This is good stuff.” She took a bite of the waffles and sighed. “Oh this is very, very good. Thank you for making us food, Kristjan.”
“You are welcome, but weird,” he said, smiling and winking to take any sting from the words she was sure. “But we have come to learn that in this world some things are just plain strange.”
“Yep, that’s for sure. Look at me for example. A human without a past, working cryptology with a steel plate in her skull. I’m totally strange.” She knew she was, she accepted and embraced it as well. “Now, I need more bacon please,” she asked and held up her plate with a grin.
Laughing at that he gave her some more of the bacon. “You want anything, Volker?”
“No, I’m good for now,” he said. “Not one of my days to eat so go right ahead and eat all of that bacon between the two of you. And while you do that, I’m going to go and get some sleep since I only had a few minutes last night.”
That had Luna blushing and she reached out to touch Volker. “I’m sorry I kept you awake. You should have pushed me off of you or woken me and sent me to bed or something. You shouldn’t have sacrificed your sleep for me.” She felt like a fool, an idiot because she had kept him from sleeping. Not good. At all.
“I was more than willing to hold you all night,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, you were sleeping very peacefully and I didn’t want to interrupt your slumber. I’m a night person naturally so it wasn’t any hardship. But now I’m going to go and try to get a couple of hours while you and Kristjan keep yourselves entertained.” Getting off his stool he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Okay.” She gave his hand another squeeze and smiled. “I will make Kristjan look at my back and see if he can’t tell me what crazy me before had tattooed on my back. Maybe by doing that I can find the tattoo parlor and retrace who I might be.” That’s all she wanted. She wanted to know who she was and still believed that the tattoos were the key.
“Maybe,” he said. “If you need me, just wake me up,” he added softly. Stroking a finger down her cheek he let his hand drop and then he turned and left the kitchen.
As she watched him walk away she heard Kristjan shift and clear his throat. “Did you want some more?” he asked. “Or are you good with what you have there?”
“Actually I’m good with what I have here. This is perfect.” She looked at her food and continued to eat. “I might need like three more slices of bacon though,” she added suddenly, grinning when she did. “Did I mention I love bacon?”
Chapter Six
Laughing softly he passed her three more pieces. “You did mention that, which means we should put it on the list to ensure we don’t run out.” Smiling at her he made up a plate for himself and turned off the waffle maker as well as pulling the pan from the bacon onto a cool burner.
“Yes, that’s a very good idea. We don’t want to run out of bacon because that would make me sad. Sad me is not a person that you would like to see.” She was teasing him, the sparkle in her eyes showing them just that.
“Uh-huh,” he said, shaking his head slightly. Moving around the island he sat on the stool that Volker had vacated earlier. “I don’t think I’d want to see you upset at any point. Probably wouldn’t go all that well over with Volker either. He gets all weird with tears and that shit.”
“Well I will do my best not to go into tears. Tears are not good and we both know it. I hate to cry because I get all puffy and red faced and all that fun stuff. It’s not good. I know it. I don’t like to cry so hopefully you will never see me crying.”
“Good, because I don’t really do all that much better with crying women. Don’t tell Volker that though, he seems to think I do and I do have an image to uphold.” He shot her a grin before nibbling on a piece of bacon. “So, what plans do you have for today once I get a look at your back?”
“Nothing at all. I have someone who wants to kill me for some reason. Remember?” She hated that fact as well. “Hopefully you will be able to read it and you have computer access and can check all of the tattoo parlors for me to see if perhaps one of them did my tattoo sometime in the past?”
“We have full computer access here,” he assured her with a smile. “And so do you since you’ll be living here for a time. We got one of the new heavy-duty systems that should withstand even you. It’s a prototype so we’re technically in the testing phase, but the techs have high hopes.”
That had her laughing. “Why in heaven’s name would they be making one that would withstand shocks? I mean seriously? The building that we are in is fully insulated against lightning strike so why would they need insulated computers as well?”
“You aren’t the only one in this world with the same issue with electronics. We’ve actually found there are a large number of humans and several of the races that have the same troubles. It’s been one of their pet projects for a while now. But with you having one of the worst cases they figure if they can get it to survive you then everyone else is a piece of cake.”
She snorted at that. “Do you know that they had to go into archives and find me an old-fashioned typewriter? I swear I think that the technological geeks totally hate me because I keep frying their lovely toys,” she teased, well mostly teased.
“I’d heard that rumor, thought it was just a bunch of shit,” he looked at her. “I’m going to guess, from your expression alone, that it wasn’t. Well, we have a new toy for you to try and fry. And they were told to come up with it because the Captain’s daughter has a similar condition to yours, not as bad, but she ends up cooking most of her electronics over time. And with a computer being one of the more sensitive contraptions, it was voted in as the first guinea pig for this trial. We also have six of them around here, in case you cook the first one.”
“I didn’t even know that he had a daughter. How strange is that?” she asked with a frown. “It makes him seem, well, it makes him seem almost human to know that he actually has a child and that there is a woman out there that loves him enough to have given him a child. Don’t you think?”
“He is human,” Kristjan said. He was sliding his last piece of waffle around his plate, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth as he concentrated on getting every last drop of syrup up. Popping it into his mouth finally he chewed with a happy look on his face. “At least Volker says he is, and really, I’m going to trust the Vhampire on that one.”
“Oh he is human, but so many of his mannerisms put people off like whoa crazy. I guess that’s what I meant when I made the comment that I did.” Leaning back she watched him eating and then asked. “Are you trying to put this off because you don’t want to look at my back? I don’t have many scars back there, I really don’t. I have a few but honestly not many,” she said with a shrug. “It’s the tattoos that I want to know about.”
“Not in the least, just trying to get myself in a frame of mind that I don’t jump your delightful body,” he said. Popping the last of his bacon in his mouth he grinned. Wiping his fingers and mouth on a napkin he waved a finger. “Spin around and show me your body, uh, back.”
She snorted in laughter and shook her head. “What’s so bad is that I don’t think that I would turn you away. I have no idea how the mating trio’s happen but I’m sure that the two of you know, right?” She asked with a smile. Turning around she gave him her back, unsnapped her bra and pulled it up and off and then pulled her shirt up. She pulled her hair up so that he could see the weird tattoos along her spine and looked over her shoulder at him. “Well?”
He was frowning and had his head tipped at an odd angle. “Quit twisting,” he said. “It’s a little hard to read with you looking at me. I know the language though, so straighten up for a minute and let me get a really good look.”
“Sorry.” She looked forward once more and waited, chewing her lower lip as she did so. “Come on, you are killing me here,” she whispered after several long and too quiet minutes. “Kris, do you know what it says or not?”
“Uh, yeah.” He cleared his throat. “You sure you really want to know?” he asked. When she dropped things back into place and turned on him he let out a breath. “Right. Well, it basically proclaims you as the princess of one of the houses of the Spiryte’s. Your one of the races, Luna, not human at all. That’s not a tattoo, it’s a marking from puberty.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Her head felt fuzzy, she felt sick. “That’s not possible. I’m human. The hospital would have known if I were Spiryte, right?” She couldn’t even think about what he said to begin with, at all. “The Spirytes would have known if I were one of them, right? Why wouldn’t they have come looking for me?” Okay so her tears began to slide down her face, she couldn’t help them, at all.
“Aw, hell,” he muttered. Then he pulled her into his arms and wrapped her up close to him. Rocking her slowly he stroked her hair. “They may not have known, Luna. The house the markings indicate is quite far from the Veil passages. But we will send a messenger and see if we can’t find someone that knows you and can help. But know this, you are our mate and that’s all that matters, even if you don’t have family over there, you have us and always will, Luna.”