I glanced up nervously at him.
“Don’t worry, I take my job seriously. His will go away, but yours won’t. You sure about this?”
He had already drawn the outline—no sense in turning back now. Finn sat on the other side of me, holding my right hand. When I had told him I was getting a tattoo, I made him swear up and down not to tell a soul, especially Logan. Christian was going to alter his memory of what I got tatted on me anyhow. I needed someone with me besides Christian, someone who wouldn’t ruin the experience with jokes.
Justus wouldn’t understand. Adam was out for personal reasons, and Sunny once told me that she’d disown me if I ever got myself marked up like some biker chick.
All my resources were tapped, except Finn. He was curious to see how the whole process worked. I thumbed through the designs while Finn stood in front of the television watching rap videos for twenty minutes.
According to Paul, Breed tattoo parlors operated a little differently. I had to sign a consent form promising not to sue, maim, or kill him since I was paying extra for liquid fire. Paul instructed me to remove my pants, and that didn’t fly well with Finn. Once he calmed down, Paul covered up the important parts with a towel. He claimed he was the kind of artist who didn’t like stuff in the way.
Personally, I think Paul was just a big ol’ perv. He looked intimidated by Finn—a curious reaction because Paul was also a Shifter, although he didn’t reveal to us what his animal was. Finn wasn’t an intimidating kid.
Kid. I kept calling him kid because something about him exuded innocence. He once guessed his age to be in his lower twenties, but something else to consider was that Shifters aged slowly.
Finn stood an inch taller than me, had beautiful hazel eyes, unruly hair the color of cinnamon, and an elfin smile that made him seem as if he’d sprung out of a fantasy book.
He squeezed my hand.
“I’m okay, Finn. You look more nervous than I do.” I bit my lower lip.
I didn’t consider that this might have been upsetting for him, but a couple of times, he touched his arm where the brand was.
“Is it that important?” he asked in a low voice.
I replied in a soft breath. “Yeah.”
The crinkle of a wrapper sounded from across the room and I lifted my head. Christian tossed a yellow piece of plastic into the wastebasket and popped a butterscotch into his mouth. “I’d never be caught dead with a tattoo.”
“People get inked for all kinds of reasons,” Paul piped in as he switched on the needle and began. I grimaced. “Some like to decorate their body like a work of art, others want to remember a moment in their life. And for some, it’s private. It’s like wearing a visible scar that marks their heart. Sometimes the stories are good, and sometimes they’re shitty. And sometimes they don’t tell me a damn thing.” His eyes fixated on the moving needle. “Then there’s love.”
“Feck love,” Christian spat. “Love fades and then you’re stuck with a rabbit or someone’s name on your arse.”
Paul shut off his pen and burned Christian with a hot gaze. “Unlike a human, you can’t have a tattoo removed when liquid fire is applied. If you haven’t met a woman worth marking your body for in her honor, then you know diddly shit about love.” He lifted the sleeve of his shirt and displayed a beautiful tattoo of a flower with a name on it. “You haven’t lived until you’ve met that woman who will spark your fire and turn your entire world upside down. The one who makes you reconcile with your past and become a better man. If love fades, it was never meant to be. When it sticks to you like gum on your shoe, then that’s lasting love. It’s the one you weren’t expecting, the one you can’t scrape off no matter how hard you try. It will either destroy you or fulfill you, but it will change you. You think when I ink a name on someone’s skin that it means nothing? That the person wouldn’t bleed and die for that name? You haven’t lived unless you’ve loved.”
Christian rolled his eyes and crunched on his candy.
“Can we get this over with?” I asked. “He’s just trying to provoke you so I’ll end up with a blob.”
Finn stroked my hair to the side.
“How do you like Lucian?” I asked him once Paul resumed his artwork.
Finn shrugged with an uncertain expression. “He’s different.”
“How so?”
“He’s book smart but he’s kind of an a-hole. I mean, he says whatever without thinking because in his mind he’s always right.”
“Ah, one of those. Doesn’t have a filter; reminds me of Simon.”
“No,” Finn corrected. “Simon’s funny. Lucian is… I don’t know how to describe him. He’s kind of my height, so he doesn’t look like the others. And his hair is blacker than yours.”
My brows arched. “Really?”
No wonder his older brothers were so protective of him. Lucian would have been singled out for sure. Not just because of his hair, but also his height.
Finn rubbed his nose against his shoulder. “Uh huh. He’s just scary smart. Like a mad scientist or something.”
“That’s dramatic,” Christian mumbled.
“Let’s see you live with him,” Finn snapped back. “He’s got insomnia, so he paces at night and my animal can’t get out,” he said, flicking his eyes at Paul. Finn didn’t reveal to just anyone what his animal was, but I had a feeling Paul knew. It explained his strangely submissive behavior when Finn spoke or looked at him.
“That’s not a bad thing, is it? I never got the impression from Logan that Lucian was a bad seed.”
“Naw,” Finn said, relaxing in his chair. “Lucian’s just different, that’s all. He’s strict with the tutoring and always thinks he’s right, even when he’s wrong.”
“That sounds familiar,” Christian blurted out. I gave him a frosty stare and he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, studying the cracks.
“I like him,” Finn continued. “But his insomnia is starting to make me nervous. I need to get out, if you know what I mean.”
His wolf needed to get out. A Shifter wasn’t supposed to cage their animal when it wanted to play or else it would try to take over and not allow them to change back. A streak of rebellion, if you will. So there had to be harmony between man and animal since they shared the same spirit. I could already sense that Finn was restless from not having shifted—he was more temperamental than usual.
A slow rap song came on and Paul’s needle hit a sensitive spot. I sucked in a sharp breath and actually wanted to smile. It was empowering to mark my body with something that would last forever. A feeling I hadn’t known since Tarek walked into my life. I reflected on the permanence of some things, and the impermanence of others. It gave me hope that maybe a few hundred years from now, I’d be at a different place in my life.
“Does it hurt?” Finn asked, the needle buzzing in the background. I sensed hostility in his tone. When his eyes flicked over to Paul again, I squeezed his hand.
“Hardly. You should see what Justus does with me in the training room,” I said with a snort.
“You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, honey.” Paul looked up and grinned.
Tattoos covered him from neck to wrists. Everything from one of those justice scales to a bleeding heart. But there weren’t any animals on him, such as dragons or snakes.
“This is the easy part,” he said. “The liquid fire is going to burn like a sonofabitch.”
“Will you shut up?” Finn growled.
Paul lowered his head and continued with his artistry.
“How come you don’t put the liquid fire on the needle?” I asked. “Seems like you could kill two birds with one stone.”
Paul laughed. “Doesn’t work, honey. Liquid fire won’t hold to metal for long; it’s funny that way. Otherwise, we’d all be walking around with daggers coated in that shit. Life just can’t be that fucking easy. Plus, I want to make sure you’re happy with the final product before we seal it.”
“So put it in the ink,” I suggested.
&n
bsp; He swung his eyes up to mine. “You’d be screaming, and we’d have one hell of a mess tatted all over you.”
I sighed and looked over at Finn in his dark blue sweatshirt. “Logan says you’re into law.”
He gave me an impish grin and his eyes sparkled. “Yeah. I kind of like reading about the different Breed laws. Some of them don’t even know that they contradict one another.”
“You going to pursue that? You should. I think you’ve got a lot of potential in you, kid. I’d be proud to see you—ah!” I hissed between my teeth as the needle hit a sore spot.
Faster than I could track, Finn shifted into his wolf.
“Jaysus wept!” Christian shouted, standing on the counter. “Get your fecking puppy under control, Silver.”
“Shut up!” I yelled back.
Finn’s red wolf snarled as he stalked around the table and sat beside Paul.
I’d never seen a man sweat so much. He carefully wiped his brow and lifted his eyes to mine. Finn growled, and Paul immediately lowered his gaze.
“Do me a favor, Mage. Try not to make a peep and upset your friend. I’m just a guy trying to earn a living, not get himself torn up by an alpha.”
***
Justus tightened a loose pipe beneath Page’s sink, listening to the sound of her fingernail clicking against the kitchen table.
“It doesn’t matter what you want anymore, Justus. You can’t take over the steering wheel when someone else is driving without causing a wreck. Silver has to make her own choices and her own mistakes. I have to agree that it doesn’t make sense, but I’ve seen people make poor choices before, so she wouldn’t be the first. Maybe he has changed; I know how some of you immortals turn a new leaf. Do you think her feelings for him are genuine?”
“No,” Justus bit out angrily from the floor. He peered down the length of his body and noticed her bare feet. She had on a pair of grey sweatpants and a loose shirt; Justus was dumbfounded by how attractive she looked in something so casual.
“What did your friend Simon make of it?”
“He’s stealth at the moment, working on another project. I haven’t spoken with him about this, and not sure I want to.”
Page sighed—the breathy kind that had no answers. She mystified him, and his chest tightened whenever she looked at him with those chocolate eyes.
Women had always been nothing more than piranhas, nipping at him everywhere he went. Page didn’t nip. She listened. She responded. She occasionally disagreed, and he could barely comprehend how much that actually appealed to him.
“There’s nothing to decide, Justus. You must go to the party. If you don’t, your relationship with her could be damaged. Maybe she won’t be in your custody, but as her Ghuardian, she’ll always have a connection to you. Don’t sever that. Men come and go. She may need you someday, and you should be there for her. If Silver means anything to you, then accept her decision even if you don’t agree with it. I lost a friend that way once. She got involved with some loser and I kept going on and on about how she needed to break it off with him. It was back in school and the sort of thing friends argue about—except she suddenly stopped talking to me. They broke up a few months later, but she never let go of the judgment I held. That’s when I learned that I can’t be a stoplight in someone’s life; I need to be a welcome sign.”
The phone rang and she reached around.
“Hello?” She waited a few seconds. “Hello?” Page pressed her lips tightly together and slammed the phone in the cradle. “Want something to drink?”
The abrupt change in topic signaled something was wrong and Justus slid out from beneath the sink. Page pulled open the fridge door and analyzed the contents while pursing her lips.
“Who was that?”
“No one important,” she said, grabbing a small can of grapefruit juice. “All I’ve got is juice or coffee, unless you don’t mind a glass of water?”
“Number one: You need to keep this place stocked with food and drinks. You don’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Take care of myself.” She laughed softly and sat at the table.
“Number two: How often are you getting those hang-up calls?” He placed his strong forearms on the table and leaned forward.
She peeled the top off the can and flicked it in the trash. “Every night, but it’s nothing to worry about. I know who it is.”
If Page hadn’t been in the room, his fist would have slammed against her flimsy table. Instead, he sat down and smoothed out the edges in his voice. “Is it Slater?”
“He’ll stop when I change my number, but right now he’s having issues letting go.”
“Has he come by?”
“No, he couldn’t get in if he had a bulldozer,” she said with a chuckle. “Not with the deadbolts you installed on my door.”
Page was too relaxed about the situation. Justus had lived a long life, long enough to know that men who displayed this type of obsessive behavior were unpredictable and unwilling to give up what they coveted.
“Let it go, Justus. Some people just take longer to get the point.” Page sipped her drink and grimaced. “Yuck. They say this stuff is supposed to help you lose weight, but I don’t see that happening with my fast-food runs. I might as well go back to soda and live a happier life.”
All Justus saw was a slim figure with lovely breasts.
He arched a brow. “You don’t need to lose weight. I would prefer it if you—”
“Wait a second,” she said, throwing up her hand. “If you tell me that you would prefer me packing on a few pounds, then we’re ending this little chitchat.”
“In my time, a full-figured woman was revered.”
“Let me know when they invent a time machine, because I’ll be sure to reserve a seat on that ride.” She wobbled the can between her fingers on the table. “I’m not really obsessed with it either way.”
Justus wanted to argue, but a small barrette clipped in her hair distracted him. Page had a lovely curve to her neck where it met her shoulder, and she had a habit of resting her fingers on that spot and lightly stroking it during casual conversations. Instead of glossy tresses, Page kept her hair short and practical. Her attire at work was professional—nothing like the revealing outfits that many women wore. It reminded him of a time when it was scandalous for a woman to show her ankle, and clothing left a lot to the male imagination.
“The orchids were gorgeous.” A smile tugged at her lips, but she shyly studied the juice can. “Truth be told, no one’s even given me a rose. Getting just one would have been romantic—not those bouquets with all that tacky baby’s breath. It’s a shame such a lovely phrase was wasted on garnish that looks like a wild weed. Baby’s breath—isn’t that a nice thing to call a flower?”
“It was nothing,” he said dismissively, but his chest tightened.
“Nothing? I bet they cost you a fortune,” she said, rising from her chair. It was the same tone Silver liked to use—the one that implied he was materialistic.
Certainly the flowers were expensive, but he was not about to waste his efforts on something cheap. A thoughtless gift is a display of indifference.
By the restless way she fumbled with her shirt, Justus anticipated that he was about to get the boot. Since the night he kissed her, the energy between them had changed. He sometimes caught her looking at him, only to quickly look away. But she made no attempt to rekindle that fire. She wasn’t a Mage, but Justus was attuned to the spike in energy whenever they shared a quiet moment.
“It’s getting late, Justus. I have appointments in the morning and I don’t want to keep you. I’m glad that you stopped by to confide in me about Silver.”
“Will you accompany me to the party?”
“Um… maybe,” she said, ruffling up her hair. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a definite answer, but my schedule can be so unpredictable. Don’t think twice about asking someone else. I’m busy playing a little catch-up. Plus, I have to get things in order with my separation from… um�
�” She touched her cheek, as if she’d said something wrong.
Page had a duality to her that he enjoyed. Edgy and strong willed, yet at the same time she could be blushing and thoughtful.
“I’m on call twenty-four hours a day; this is my life.”
Justus approached her and she backed up. Maybe he was assertive, but that’s what a few centuries will do to a man.
Page stood with her back against the wall and when her lips parted, he heard her draw in a deep breath. In the quiet kitchen, he listened to the sound of her feet nervously shifting on the sticky tile floor. Justus did something he’d been thinking about ever since he noticed that barrette in her hair.
He took it out.
After slipping it into his pocket, he ran his fingers through her short hair in an upward motion, exposing her unblemished neck. It ruffled a scent in the air—a subtle sweet flavor on her skin. Was it her natural smell, or a cream? Maybe it was her shampoo.
He wanted to know.
“What are you doing?”
He liked the sound of her breathy voice, and a pale rose tinted the apple of her cheeks.
Justus placed his heavy palms on the wall behind her, leaned in close, and froze. An intense scarlet spread rapidly across her collarbone and neck.
When Page blushed, she blushed all over.
Her arms hung lax at her sides and Justus moved a little closer, finding her presence to be extremely engaging. He tilted his head and placed a delicate kiss against her soft neck.
One. Small. Gentle. Kiss.
The heat from her blush warmed his lips. That’s when his heart unexpectedly fired off in his chest, and he was so certain she could hear it that he released a slow sigh to calm himself. Page shuddered.
With expert hands, he placed the crook of his finger below her chin and moved her head to the right, exposing the left side of her neck. Justus brushed his knuckles very tenderly across her jaw and neck, listening to the soft hiss of their skin coming in contact. Page’s nervousness showed in her quickened breaths. He watched every minute reaction, from the flutter of her long eyelashes to her dilated pupils. The telltale sign of arousal was never more evident than when she slowly blinked and then finally closed her eyes.
Gravity (Mageri Series: Book 4) Page 17