Inked Destiny (14 page)

“For now. I’m putting you into protective custody.”

“No.” It wasn’t even a remote possibility. “Eamon’s got top-notch security. He’ll keep me safe.”

Her father pulled away. “For how long? Until it no longer suits the Dunnes?”

“Despite what you think, Eamon is not involved with Niall and Denis any more than Cathal is involved in their business.”

“I’ll cede you Eamon, but not Cathal. I’ll believe you didn’t knowingly become an accessory to murder, but he made you one regardless. Don’t let the Dunnes destroy you. It’s not too late, Etaín. I can help you out of this mess. The first step is going into protective custody.”

The burst of warmth she’d felt at his greeting and hug faded. Ugly suspicion crept in.

If she was in protective custody, rumors could be circulated, making her bait, a target for Cathal’s father and uncle, a trap set. Or the prospect of having those rumors circulated, and the possibility of an ordered hit, could be a threat used to get her to admit to having touched Brianna then drawn the scenes from her memories and given them to Denis.

Etaín couldn’t forget those moments of fear and horror when the police had arrived at her doorstep, dropping her to the floor and cuffing her. Of being taken to a place that held remembered terror and locked in a small confined space, as if they’d known it could break her. As if they’d been told that by the man in front of
her, or by Parker. The captain had never been shades of gray when it came to the law and his duty to it.

She jammed her hands into her pockets, because she couldn’t risk touching him. “I don’t want to argue with you. Am I free to go now?”

“Etaín.” He swallowed, and her own throat tightened at the tears she thought she heard in his voice.

Reaching out, he gripped her upper arms, and though it wasn’t skin-to-skin contact, it seemed as though his fear was real, pulsing into her, creating a fist around her heart that squeezed and released in time to the subtle tightening and release of his hands. “You’re going to get yourself killed. It’s a miracle you didn’t die today. You can’t count on surviving the next time.”

“There won’t be a next time. Today I was in the wrong place with the wrong person. I admit it. Okay. Satisfied?”

“No.” He shook her to emphasize the point. “This drive-by may have had nothing to do with the slaughter in Oakland. The Dunnes killed four boys, one of them was a Brazilian diplomat’s son. You can’t know that boy’s family didn’t have ties to one of the South American cartels. You can’t be certain this drive-by wasn’t retribution. Accept the offer of protective custody. Please, Etaín. Right now. We leave immediately.”
While she was separated from Cathal and Eamon. While there were plenty of cops on the scene.

“I can’t.” She nearly added Dad, but knew that’d only make what she had to say next even worse. “I
am
going to marry Cathal Dunne. Disappearing isn’t a possibility for him. He’s got a club to run.”

The hands on her arms fell away. “This is just the beginning of the trouble, Etaín.”

He left the room first. She followed, searching the shelter and finding Eamon and Cathal together after passing the officer who’d apparently been making sure they remained at the far end of the building while she was taken into protective custody.

They came instantly toward her, emotions rising like a tidal wave and slamming through her at their approach. She wrapped her arms around their waists the instant they arrived, closing her eyes and savoring their heat and strength.

There hadn’t been time for this after the shooting, with the rush of witnesses and the need to get out of sight of cameras and reporters. “My fault,” she admitted. It seemed her past was coming back in a dark rush.

“Bullshit,” Cathal said, slamming his mouth down on hers, tongue surging past quickly parted lips to rub and twine with hers. He didn’t care who saw. Who knew he was sharing her with Eamon, because Eamon’s kisses along her neck made it plain they were both her lovers.

Jesus. They’d all come close to dying.

Not the truth. Not today with Eamon and the other Elves present. Intellectually he understood there’d never been any possibility of it, but that didn’t prevent his body from believing otherwise.

He wanted to take her back to his place and make love to her. More than that, he wanted to keep her there, safe from her own choices. And the fierceness of that desire, and that it was so similar to Eamon’s, was enough to bring him up short.

His mouth left hers. “Let’s get out of here.”

Etaín laughed. “Guess that means group hug time is over.”

Eamon’s hand moved upward along her spine, slipping beneath her hair to gently stroke the back of her neck. “You and Cathal are more vulnerable on the motorcycle. It would be wiser for us to leave together in the sedan. Liam can ride your bike. If increased safety isn’t incentive enough, I’ll even make you the same offer I did the other night. If the Harley is damaged in any way I’ll replace it with another of greater value.”

It wasn’t solely her decision. “Cathal?” she asked.

He nodded, and as if waiting for just that clue, Liam stepped
into the doorway, a hand out, ready to take the bike key. “Myk is out back with a different vehicle. There are no obvious watchers.”

“Excellent,” Eamon said, eyes meeting hers then Cathal’s. “Shall we?”

They left, Etaín pulling the Harley’s key from her pocket and giving it to Liam as she passed him. In the car Myk asked, “Where to?”

“Sean’s boat,” Etaín said, the drive-by only making her more determined to do what she could to find those responsible for the bar invasion and slaughter.

Eleven

S
weet,” Ernesto
Jacko
Munoz said as Cyco opened the case to reveal the weapon inside.

“More than sweet. War on drugs means there’s some pretty toys to be had. You’re looking at a Milkor M32A1, nine grand of killing power.”

Jacko lifted the grenade launcher. “I could have me a lot of fun with this.”

“Yeah, that mother carries six rounds and I got four different types of load.”

Cyco caressed the charges like they were a woman’s titties. “One smoke. One flash-bang. Three standard high-explosive rounds. And one called a hell-HOUND. Know what that stands for?”

“No assholes left alive.”

Cyco laughed, the sound of it and the way his eyes looked doing it the reason for the street name he’d lived up too. “You got it, homie. High Order Unbelievably Nasty Destruction. HOUND. Double the killing power of the standard round.”

“They’re showing you some major respect.”

“Yeah. They know I’m the big dog when it comes to getting things done.”

Cyco’s cellphone rang. He checked the incoming number, answered by asking, “You finish it?”

A minute later the call ended. “The fucker survived. Two
camaradas
emptied their guns and they didn’t hit him.”

“Where was he?”

“In front of some homeless shelter.”

Jacko handed off the grenade launcher like it was a pacifier. “You want me to throw in some of my crew?”

“Na, man, I got it handled. Next time Anton shows up, there won’t be any mistakes. Besides, you got your own thing to manage, killing the Irish dude.”

Jacko hefted one of the grenade launcher rounds. “Should be easy enough to do.”

*   *   *

T
he sight of Sean’s boat coming on the heels of the encounter with the captain had an ache sweeping through Etaín like a small wave of salt water over an open wound.

Would it ever stop hurting?

No.

She’d only be lying to herself if she thought it would. He and Parker had once been her anchors in a world as foreign to her as the supernatural one Eamon had revealed.

Until she’d been left in San Francisco, the only permanent thing in her life had been her mother. They’d moved constantly, changing names with each move. She’d had dozens of them by the time she was presented to the captain as his illegitimate daughter.

He’d accepted the truth of it immediately, refusing to give in to his wife’s demands for a paternity test, not that it’d stopped Laura from getting it done. Even now, Etaín didn’t know exactly when he’d found out she wasn’t actually his. She knew only that he had forbidden it from becoming public knowledge, despite intense pressure from Laura and her moneyed, politically powerful family.

Etaín remembered those first months, rushing to the door each time the bell rang or she heard a car in the driveway. Always certain
it was her mother coming back for her. There’d been no warning, no preparation for the abandonment that had marked her life, the shadows of that pain haunting her still.

Run and keep running. See but don’t be seen.
Those were her mother’s lessons. And yet she’d brought her to San Francisco, left her at an age when it was impossible to either run or remain unseen.

The smell of the bay was a reminder of the happier times that had come after she’d finally accepted that her mother wasn’t coming back, when comfort offered had led to fierce love, for the man she believed was her father, for the older brother who was constant companion, best friend, and protector, two relationships that were now like a still smoldering and smoking ruin.

Etaín became aware of the heat in her tattoo-encircled wrists, the burn flowing through the ink her mother had put on her just prior to coming to this city. Looking down, she was reminded of those moments in the shower with Cathal when the water had washed away her blindness.

She’d seen and understood that her mother wore tattoos exactly like the binding ones she’d placed on him. Now, for the first time, it struck her that the emerald green woven throughout the design at her wrists was like a long strand of interconnected sigils, one that spread upward into the tattoos on her arms and was the exact color of the Dragon.

Yesss
.

The voice jerked her gaze upward, the motion abrupt enough Cathal asked, “You okay?”

She shook off the effects of the voice, wondering if her throat would constrict and her jaw lock if she tried to ask Eamon about it, the same way she’d only barely been able to ask for his help in preventing her from harming Parker with the touch of skin to skin. “Just thinking about how things used to be, with Parker and the captain.”

She shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do to change it.”

“You think like a human,” Eamon said.

She smiled at hearing his tone and recognizing it was very carefully neutral.
Lord
Eamon just might be learning his lesson.

“I am human, in the ways that matter.” But curiosity didn’t allow her to leave it there. “What does thinking like a human have to do with my relationship with the captain and Parker? You weren’t exactly putting out the welcome mat for them at your place.”

“You didn’t yet know what you are, Etaín. What I told Cathal applies to you as well. You will have a say as to whether those you are close to are brought into our household. Knowledge fosters understanding, and distance where there are strong emotional ties is hard to sustain when life is measured in centuries, not decades. If you make them part of our world, things can be made right again.”

There was no denying the flare of hope fanned by his words, though her mind shied away from the full ramifications that came with having that kind of choice. Of what it would be like to keep living as those she knew died not from drugs or accidents or violence, but from the causes associated with old age. To know the cycle would be repeated over and over again wherever she lived.

Maybe that’s why Eamon preferred to keep himself insulated from the human world. He avoided being touched by death, from having acquaintances become friends he would one day have to make a decision about—because the flip side of that was what happened if they declined.

Sean stepped out on the deck of his boat, dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and shirt opened to expose a gorgeous, tanned chest and tight abs above well-fitted jeans. She couldn’t help herself, she sighed, because damn, he still had the whole
Johnny Depp playing a pirate
thing going on.

Her fingers twitched with the desire to touch that lovely skin, though in her defense it was a fantasy born in ink rather than a
carnal one, not that she couldn’t appreciate a nice looking man despite having two stellar specimens of masculinity on either side of her.

Cathal hooked her with an arm across her shoulders, pulling her against him so their heads touched. “You remember you’re taken, right?”

She laughed. “
Taken
. I like the sound of that. It’s shades of some kind of wicked erotic scene. Maybe we could act it out when we get back to your place.”

“I’m up for it.”

That had her attention dropping to the front of his pants. “So danger turns you on.”

“You turn me on.”

The huskiness of his voice changed the nature of the heat burning at her wrists and forearms, moving beyond the ink to settle in her nipples then sliding downward into her labia to become a liquid reflection of desire. Fierce need, not just for him, but for Eamon too, accompanied a hope that they’d overcome several hurdles in their relationship today.