Vex: Mythical Ink Series (book 1): An Exotic Ink Novel

by LS Anders

  In the scheme of his lengthy life, he had only known her for the blink of an eye, but she had such a profound effect on his life. He had always been close to Lucian and in his own way loved the male, and of course, Sevin was like his own offspring having raised him from a pup.

  But, his fairy?

  She was a love of an entirely different variety. All-consuming, an unequivocal acceptance of who he was that knew no bounds.

  He held her in the same high regard. She was perfect in his eyes. A lovely slice of his own heaven that was now as unattainable as a drink of water in Netherworld. A yearning that would never be satisfied as he pined for his female.

  He knew Alea would care for Kat, but he would miss her soft fur and haughty catitude. He would never again look upon his furry faced friend with her luminous green eyes.

  Gone. Life as he knew it was all gone in the beat of a heart.

  A tide of emotions washed through him as he finished dressing and made his way to the entrance of the holding arena. As always, it was a flurry of activity.

  Transporters were dropping off the souls of the newly departed. The good were ushered over towards Utopia while the bad were herded toward Netherworld and to the First Sentry for sorting.

  The males horns thick and long, gleamed in the false, defused white light, making order out of the unruliness, sorting through the varying shapes of gray. It was like he had never left...well, except he no longer held the same lofty title he once had.

  As a custodian, he took his place behind the lower sentries, and began lining up and recognizing the damaged souls being pushed his way. Instinctively, he knew with a mere glance which cube each soul belonged.

  He had never questioned the origin of the knowledge, he’d just always known what to do. This time was different. He performed his duties with no enthusiasm whatsoever, whereas before, he conscientiously made a tremendous effort to excel at his duties.

  Now all that kept him standing in the holding arena was a sense of duty that seemed to be forced inside his brain, because he honestly didn’t give two fucks about being here.

  Looking around for the angel amongst the other transporters zipping around overhead, Lucian was nowhere to be seen. Once he was convinced he alone had been returned to the Realm of the Dead, it was his only solace. At least Lucian was there to watch after all the ones he’d been forced to leave behind.

  Standing in the one place he’d always wanted to return to, he wished with everything in him that he’d never come back. Throwing his arms wide, arching his back, he tossed his head back and roared shaking the very ground he stood on.

  Like an action movie set to pause, every being in the place came to a screeching halt. All eyes locked on him, he couldn’t care less about the attention. Let them stare. He didn’t give a shit if they thought he’d lost his damn mind. He no longer belonged here.

  Determination locked tight into the square set of his jaw, he was going to figure out a way to return to the Realm of the Living. And, back into the arms of his fairy.

  Realm of the Living

  Alea couldn’t believe it had been a week since Vex had disappeared into the night. Lucian was positive he had been sent back to Netherworld. Vex’s presence in this realm had always been a unique, one-sided connection for the angel. Like a homing beacon suddenly silenced, the bond to the other otherworldly being was severed.

  Sitting in her usual place at the front desk of Mythical Ink, she tried and failed not to look back at the place where Vex used to work. The space now being occupied temporarily by Gabriel.

  All the artists at Exotic Ink had become new friends and had each volunteered a day off during the week to fill in at Mythical Ink until Jason returned.

  She frowned at Gabriel’s dark mohawk that was so similar to Sevin’s as he was bent to his task. His tattoo gun buzzing away as he finished up a chest piece for a walk-in.

  It was a double whammy of sadness. One was the loss of her demon, and the other a hairstyle reminder of the silver strip that Sevin sported.

  God, she missed those males.

  Gabriel must have felt her stare. Switching off his machine, he set it aside and looked over at her before reaching for a clean cloth to mop up the excess ink from the piece he was working on.

  He knew as all the Exotic Ink crew did that Vex had gone missing, but not the actual reason why. The humans had made the assumption that Vex had been the victim of the bikers that had been after Evana and had put Jason in the hospital. Keeping with the assumption, Lucian had elaborated and claimed he had made out a missing person’s report.

  Sevin’s absence was closer to the truth. They had said he had been hit by a car crossing the street and had broken his femur. Taking time off to recover, he was supposedly staying with a relative while he recovered from his injuries.

  The story was beginning to grow thin the longer the shifter stayed away, but there was no help for it. She had doubled her efforts to find him in the Realm of Dreams, but to no avail. He had to sleep, so eventually she would find him, but so far, she had turned up a few brief sightings and not much more.

  Kane walked in from the office. His sketch pad in hand, a piece of transfer paper held between two fingers waving like a flag as he made his way over to Sevin’s work space. Taking out a piece of synthetic tattooable skin, he laid out the design and got to work.

  Lucian had taken him on as an apprentice, like his half-brother Sevin, the male seemed to have a natural talent for art.

  Turning to face the front, she slumped forward, throwing off the urge to lay her head down on the counter and pout. As Gabriel and his client came around to the front to be rung up, she forced the fake smile she plastered in place for the benefit of others.

  For her, there was no joy, no happiness, no reason for any of it. Time had become irrelevant, days passing as every other day had since Vex left. She meandered her way through life as it was. The only thing that seemed to keep her going was the need to locate Sevin and see him safely home.

  Gabriel gave her a sad smile and seemed to want to say something to her, but he just breathed a heavy sigh and patted her on the shoulder before walking away to clean up his area.

  Close to quitting time, she hoped no other clients would wander in. She was getting antsy to leave. But, why? To go back to Vex’s apartment and curl up in one of his shirts as she cried herself to sleep?

  That was about the extent of her existence. A humdrum string of tasks that took her from one sunrise to the next.

  Everyone said their goodbyes and thanks to Gabriel.

  Closing down the shop’s cash register for the night, she did a passing glance at tomorrow’s schedule. Looked like Rayna would be coming in tomorrow to fill in.

  She liked the blonde, so pretty and quiet, she was a soothing soul to be around. Rayna was a new mom, and she wondered what it would be like to have a child that looked like Vex. At least she would have had something left of him to hang onto.

  Flipping off the neon sign in the front window, Lucian and Kane were the only ones left, the two males having the same discussion as every evening. Where to stop and grab a bite before heading home.

  They had long ago stopped asking her as her answer was always the same. She couldn’t care less about what went into her mouth. There was no pleasure to be had in even the simplest of things. Not even her love of gourmet coffee held any appeal despite several attempts made by the angel to entice a smile from her with large cups of the rich, steamy liquid.

  Locking the door behind them, they all headed off in the same direction. Their destination the same as they had all moved into Vex’s apartment.

  Lucian had tried to talk her into moving into his place so she wouldn’t be alone, but she was holding onto a kernel of hope that if Vex returned, he might come back there. So, the angel had moved himself along with his new roommate, Kane, into the demon’s small apartment.

  Kat greeted them at the door. She lifted the sleek feline from the floor and cuddled her as she crossed to the
kitchen to refill her bowls.

  Lucian forced a styrofoam container of…what was it tonight?

  Opening the lid, a tangy puff of marinara invaded her nose. A beautiful bouquet of Italian goodness wasted on her as she unceremoniously unsheathed her plastic fork and twirled some of the spaghetti around the disposable utensil.

  After a few bites, Lucian was satisfied she was making an attempt to eat and started on his own food.

  Fed and showered, she made her bed on the loveseat as the males shared the bedroom. Laying on her side, Kat curled up close to her chest. Wrapping her arms loosely around Vex’s beloved pet, the animal seemed to crave the comforting as she too was mourning the loss of the demon.

  Closing her eyes, tears were an inevitable part of the evening. Falling unchecked, they were absorbed by her pillow. She didn’t make a sound as she wept, and her lip had ceased its quivering days ago.

  Left with a hollow pit in her soul as her never ending sorrow was shed, she fell into a light trance and searched for Sevin before sleep finally came to claim her.

  Realm of the Dead

  Making the rounds through his assigned sector, Vex kicked himself in the ass for the thousandth time since having been returned to Netherworld.

  Grumbling a string of obscenities as he wove his way through the maze created by the cubes, he paused to witness another building block being set into place on one of the newest editions to the ever growing stacks of tiny prisons and wondered what the person had done to warrant another block.

  Continuing on his path, he pondered how foolish he'd been wasting all that time he could have spent with Alea instead of fighting off his attraction to her while clinging to his virginity. And, for what? To land his ass back in this desolate shithole?

  His plan had worked all too well.

  So, here he was feeling sorry for himself for getting what he'd wished for while shuffling his feet along the well-trodden path that would ultimately land him back where he’d started. The holding arena.

  Once there, he would take his place behind his assigned sentry and collect the new influx of the damned and deliver them to their eternal prisons. Then he’d walk the sector, making certain the souls stayed within.

  He was sure he'd done this same routine hundreds of times already since his return.

  So, around and around he went on the same endless loop until his feet would give out from under him and he would drop where he stood. His mind and body giving out as he was forced to rest before waking and doing it all over again.

  A fresh inhabitant that he'd just delivered on his last go around reached out to him as he drew near. The specter inside writhing away from some unimaginable pain, its first tastes of the horrors only it could see.

  “Please, help me,” the soul begged of him. “I want out. I don't want to be here anymore.”

  Stopping his shuffle, he turned taking a few steps until he was right up on the clear block wall. Lifting a hand, he rapped his knuckles against the enclosure sending the soul into a frenzy.

  Settling down, the soul pressed its translucent hands and face flat against the transparent wall like a starfish stuck to the side of a fish tank. Didn’t it realize that Netherworld is forever?

  Laughter suddenly bubbled up out of his throat when, unexpectedly, that ages old De Beers slogan played inside his brain. Many a half-time commercial he’d watched and scoffed at, about love being as eternal as a sparkling stone made of compressed carbon.

  That company had claimed, “A diamond is forever.”

  Well, ironically, so was where he was at. Before his fairy had come along, he was convinced that that kind of love would be hell. Now that he found himself trapped in an eternal prison while the infinite love he had discovered with Alea was out of his reach, it did in fact prove the company’s claim that love was everlasting.

  Sobering from his own folly, he spoke to the damned soul, “Sorry, you gotta stay. Netherworld is a dead end but, it never hurts to ask, huh?”

  Resuming his journey, he mumbled as he stepped away, “Yep, you just never know until you ask…”

  An idea bloomed inside his head, halting him in his tracks.

  Why had he never thought of this before now?

  He'd been looking for a way out since he'd gotten here, but the place had proven to be escape proof. He’d checked for weaknesses along the solid stone walls hoping to find a fissure or some small crack that he could make larger to aid in his escape, but there was nothing. The stone proving to be impenetrable.

  He'd even tried swan diving through the portal the transporters used to deliver the souls to the Realm of the Dead.

  That had gotten him nothing more than a splitting headache.

  Apparently, none of the sentries could pass through the portal. There was some kind of barrier in place that prevented that from happening.

  Obviously, he wasn't the only one with ideas of jumping ship, otherwise, there would not be the need for the precaution.

  Not once did he ever consider reaching out to the unseen force that had returned him here and simply ask to go back.

  Opening his mouth, he took a deep breath...then immediately gave up, clapping his lips shut, feeling ridiculous that his ticket home could be as simple as asking a question.

  Trudging forward, he made it back to the entrance of the holding arena. Peering through the tightly woven bars at the gaggle of damaged souls already beginning to pile up, his entire body went limp.

  He just couldn't keep doing this. Maybe if he just quit, refused to work, then he would serve no purpose. There would be no reason for him to remain here and he’d get sent back home. To his Alea. Then again, what if he was struck down, destroyed, ceasing to exist?

  He would prefer the former, but he would accept the latter. Death was preferable to this bullshit.

  Plopping his butt down onto the solid ground, he pushed his back against the wall next to the gate, stretching his legs out in front him.

  There he sat, refusing to move even as the sentry rode him to get up off his ass and get to work.

  He had no idea how long he stayed there doing absolutely nothing, but it felt like a thousand years. Unable to tolerate even his own breathing any longer, he finally hefted himself up off the stone floor.

  His ass felt flatter than a pancake. A prickly, tingling sensation took over as blood rushed to the flesh that had been compressed for so long.

  Finding his voice, he had no clue what made him decide to resurrect the idea he had abandoned.

  “Look,” he began speaking to the cave in general. “This isn't working for me anymore. At one time, I felt differently. I felt like I was serving some kind of purpose. And, I'm not saying that a sentry doesn't have a purpose, because keeping these pieces of shit locked away is damned important. But, it's not for me anymore. I had a life in the Realm of the Living. Friends, a male I thought of as a son, a female that I loved…”

  Walking in a slow circle, he coughed into his hand clearing the emotion from his voice before he could continue, “A female that I will always love. It was my own damn fault that that soul got loose. Lucian should have never been cast out because of me, but for the record and just so we're clear, that angel does not want to be returned. He’s happy where he's at, so leave him the fuck alone.”

  Rolling his eyes at himself, who was he to be making threats to the powers that be? But, he was on a roll, and he still had some shit to get off his chest even if his words went unheard.

  “Anyway, I was banished to a place I didn't want to be and now I want to go back. More than anything. I just want to go back and be with my family that was left behind.” He held his arms wide, his demon blood beginning to boil over his irritation at himself and his now useless existence. “Please. Please, just send me back, because if I stay here, I'm not doing jack shit. You hear me? I'm not working here anymore. There's no reason for me to stay. I can do more good in the Realm of the Living. I can help more innocent people like Jason and Evana if you'll just send me the fuck bac
k—”

  His head was suddenly twisted to the side. Welcoming the searing pain of his dehorning, he let his body go loose. Was he going to get what he'd just asked for, or was he about to be destroyed?

  Whatever was happening with him now, he would accept his fate.

  With a deafening crunch, his vision dimmed as his bony projections were ripped from his skull. His body was picked up by unseen hands and tossed to the ground, landing hard on the stone floor with a bone jarring thud.

  Tears of pain and anguish ran freely from his eyes as he lay there. It didn't appear he would be going anywhere.

  The warmth of an embrace surrounded him before he was lifted from the ground. Cracking open his lids, he had to blink hard against his blurry vision to get a clear image of the transporter that held onto him tightly.

  As beautifully flawless as Lucian, with an amazing set of feathery wings, that's where the similarities ended. This green-eyed male had short, blond hair and a huskier build, but still perfect in every way like all angels were.

  Only a slight flapping of the transporter’s wings glided them through the gate and into the holding arena.

  Was his destination to be Utopia? Because, if it was, he knew exactly the fantasy world he would create for himself.

  Veering off to the left, he was being taken away from the gate to Utopia and flown towards the portal he had tried to depart through and failed. Clinging tightly to the transporter as they drew nearer, he was determined to make it through this time no matter what pain he had to endure.

  The transporter beat his wings faster picking up speed as he began racing them towards the swirling fog-like circle. Bracing himself for the impact he’d felt before proved unnecessary as they slipped easily through.

  Vex embraced the sudden drop and the nausea that came along with it. Down they went in a controlled plunge that ended in an abrupt halt that turned his insides into a quivering mess.

  Swallowing back the bile that stuck in the back of his throat, he opened his eyes he hadn't been aware of closing during the descent. Familiarizing himself with his new surroundings, he was still being held in the arms of the male.