Inked Destiny (20 page)

Eamon’s gentle pull and twist of her nipple returned her to the present. “Does the Dragon guide your actions?”

Yes. No. She couldn’t deny there was a cause and effect, but it was easier, and more reassuring to say, “It doesn’t tell me what to do.”

“It will. Today only my presence prevented another changeling from killing a human boy.”

“What happened?”

Fear slid into her veins and traveled down the ink in her arms to settle in the eyes on her palms like ice as he told her about his visit to the fishing boat and how Farrell had become the unreasoning vessel for wild, raging elemental magic. She balled her hands into fists against masculine thighs, chest so tight she could barely breathe. There had never been any real doubt that the killer had been aware of Vontae because they both wore her ink, but now she whispered, “What if I’m responsible for the slaughter. What if because of the ink—”

“Bullshit, Etaín,” Cathal growled.

“Unlikely,” Eamon said, abandoning her nipple to take her hand and straighten it from its tight fist. “Magic does flow through your ink. That is why many would kill any human wearing it. You empower humans with your art, giving it a specific focus. Doing it siphons away magic, which is perhaps another reason the barrier against the memories you’ve taken has grown thin. But I don’t believe humans wearing your ink will hear magic’s voice or be victim to it in the same way we are.”

He carried her hand to his mouth, pressed a kiss to her palm. “There are sigils of shielding, of deflection and channeling, as well as one to produce the glamour that will become necessary to hide what you are after the change.”

“Spells?”

“No, more like mental patterning taught from a young age because of the complexity of the sigils and the difficulty in memorizing their shapes.”

“Do you know any of them?” Cathal asked her. “Did your mother hide them in a game maybe?”

She remembered all the times she’d traced the tattoos on the backs of her mother’s hands and curling around her wrists, the sigils she now knew were hidden there, asking,
What do they mean?
Always getting the same answer.
See but remain unseen.

“No.”

“Start tonight,” Cathal said. “I’ll go to the club for a while and work. I can’t lose you, Etaín. That seizure…Jesus.”

He leaned in, kissing her. Lips and tongue working in sensual persuasion, the hand on her breast creating an ache for explorations of a different kind.

She murmured “Okay,” when his mouth lifted from hers, standing when he did, pressing her mound to his rigid length, teasing him, the prospect of arduous, mental exercise making her say, “If I have to suffer, you do too.”

Cathal’s laugh verged on a pant. “And that’s fair somehow?”

“Who said life was fair?”

Fifteen

S
ean glanced up as Quinn ushered Derrick into the boat’s cabin. “I hope you’ve got good news. I called Cathal but it went directly to voicemail. He hasn’t gotten back to me yet.”

“Good news and then some,” Quinn said, heat creeping up his neck as he made the introductions even though he didn’t use the word boyfriend, not that he needed to, considering the show on the dock and the cameras he hadn’t been able to care about.

Fuck, better get used to people knowing
.

His mind shied away from imagining what it was going to be like introducing his family to Derrick, and the conversation that had to precede the event.

Later. Put it away for later.

“Derrick stopped by Cathal’s place. Etaín seemed fine to him, not that any of them mentioned the seizure. She brought him up to speed and sent him with some goodies.”

“Excellent.” Sean motioned toward a counter between the desk he was working at and the one he’d given Quinn. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Derrick.”

Derrick pulled the drawings from his jacket pocket, carefully unfolding six sketch-pad-sized pages and lining them up on the counter. Twelve faces in all. Some were identified by legal name,
others by street name, all of them included at least one picture of a tattoo and a note about body placement.

Sean whistled in admiration. “Damn. I wish she worked for me. These are good enough to run through the facial recognition program.”

Pride surged into Derrick on Etaín’s behalf. “She’s incredibly talented. These are nothing compared to what she can do on skin. Has Quinn showed you the artwork she put on him?”

“Not up close and personal, but I got a good look at it when he met up with you on the dock.” Sean’s smile was deliciously wicked, and totally at Quinn’s expense.

The blush returned. Derrick couldn’t resist saying, “So you watched?”

“Hey, I gave Quinn fair warning. Guess he forgot in the heat of the moment.”

Derrick preened. “When you’ve got it, you’ve got it.”

“True enough. Your friend Etaín definitely has it, enough for Cathal to be willing to risk his life for her, but more telling, enough for him to overcome his social conditioning and share her with Eamon.”

Surprise had Derrick gaping. “You knew?”

“Not until earlier today.” Sean moved over to his desk, swiveling the computer monitor toward the counter then picking up the keyboard and returning. “Let’s see what shakes out by running the names first.”

Within minutes they ruled out five of the men.

Sean cut a look in Derrick’s direction. “All in prison. All gangbangers. She hung with some rough kids.”

Derrick felt defensive on her behalf. “These aren’t all people she was tight with. Some are known acquaintances of Vontae, one of the dead bikers. And others…” His chin went up. “She traded art for drugs. It’s not something she’s proud of, the acting out, the rebelling when things got rough at home. But you’d understand why
it happened if you’d ever met the nasty stepmother and equally atrocious stepsisters.”

Sean laughed. Quinn said, “I take it you have?”

Derrick shuddered dramatically. “A horrid accidental encounter at the de Young Museum and not one I’d like to repeat in this lifetime. You’d think Etaín and I were unwashed winos off the street from the looks we got and the whispered conversation that followed. Bitches, and I don’t mean that in a friendly way. Not that Etaín will talk about any of them, her father and Parker included, but I think Bitchzilla and her demonic daughter spawn probably made Etaín’s life a living hell while she lived with them. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when they find out she’s snagged the owner of Aesirs.”

Sean laughed again. “And Saoirse.”

“True.” There was immense satisfaction in imagining them seething with envy and fuming at her good fortune—until Derrick considered how they would no doubt do their best to make Etaín out to be a whore.

Not that it would matter to Etaín. She didn’t travel in their social circles.

Right now
.

That would change because of Cathal and Eamon.

Fear edged in, a milder form of the one he’d felt earlier, that he could lose her. He shook it off, going quiet as Sean typed another name into the law-enforcement database.

The results came a few moments later, Tony
Shank
Medeiros, suspected of having fled to Mexico after being implicated in a drug-related murder. The same was true of the seventh person Sean entered, Roberto
Spooky
Jimenez.

“Always possible they’re back in town,” Quinn said.

“Can’t discount it.” Sean typed in another name.

The results came back noting a sealed juvenile record for Torrey Baker. It was the same for Luis Galvez, while Jose Estrada,
LaQuann Terry, and Marc Ruiz had done time in jail as well as in juvie.

Derrick felt himself getting defensive on Etaín’s behalf again. “They’re not all friends or people she ran with. Some of these she met at the shelter and tattooed because Justine asked her to. They’ve gotten right and want to stay out of trouble.”

Sean took a pair of scissors from the desk and separated the images so instead of six sketch pad pages there were twelve. “Etaín give you anything on the guy who was the target of the drive-by?”

“Anton Charles. No. But he’s gotten a lot of work done at the shop.” Derrick pursed his lips, deciding against sharing the delicious secret of how Anton had helped identify the Harlequin Rapist. That was need to know, and unless Etaín said otherwise, not something to blab.

“Is Anton affiliated with a prison gang?” Sean asked.

“Probably.” Derrick hesitated. “I don’t know for sure. He doesn’t have gang tattoos, at least not that I’ve seen and noticed. Jamaal would know. Etaín too. Can’t you just do a search?”

“The Curs are too hot right now.” Sean gathered the pictures of the men currently in prison and set them on his desk along with the scissors. He reordered those remaining, leaving a wide space between the two groups, three pictures against four.

“Guys whose home turf is San Francisco on the left, those from Oakland on the right. I’d expect retribution by now if the Curs thought they knew who was behind the bar invasion.”

“Unless this is Curs against Curs, like Vontae’s grandmother thought it could be,” Derrick said. “And those responsible are in hiding.”

Sean nodded. “True. It doesn’t track that way for me. But this hit makes zero sense. It’s like something that would happen across the border, in the cities where the cartels are battling for territory.”

He checked the time. “It’s late. I’m good with wrapping things up for the night. Tomorrow I’ll do some face-to-face time with
cops on the Oakland side. See what I can learn, and if I’m lucky, find out if Baker, Estrada, and Terry are still in the area or if there’s word that Jimenez has slipped back into the US. If you’re not needed at home, Quinn, why don’t you concentrate on the three from San Francisco?”

Derrick straightened, his shoulders going back. “I can help.”

“No,” Quinn said, a growly answer that sent a little thrill through Derrick.

He imagined his lips zipped because this wasn’t the end of it, though there was nothing to be gained by arguing in front of Sean. And besides, he wanted to bask in Quinn’s protectiveness.

Quinn made copies of the relevant drawings, adding notes before the two of them left the boat. Derrick’s heart fluttered in his chest at having Quinn’s muscled arm go around his waist as soon as they were on the dock.

“I’m leaving later than I intended,” Quinn said. “I can’t—”

“I understand.” Derrick’s heart sank momentarily then buoyed at remembering what they’d done earlier. “I’m partly to blame for your being late anyway.”

Tall, Dark, and Predatory wasn’t on his boat. There were no lights. No doubt Mr. TDP was on the prowl, and not in a gay bar. His loss. He didn’t know what he was missing.

They reached the bike far too soon as far as Derrick was concerned, but despite Quinn’s need to get home, the first goodbye kiss wasn’t rushed. Nor was the second, or the third.

He was breathless by the fourth, aching for so much more than a good fuck by the fifth, though he’d welcome that too.

“I really can help you and Sean investigate,” he said, nibbling along Quinn’s jaw. “And it’s not just an excuse to hang out with you. I know people, I can—”

“No.”

Derrick pouted. “You don’t think I have the cojones.”

Quinn’s laugh was husky. “Oh, I know you’ve got balls.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not just a pretty face.”

“Definitely not.”

Quinn’s mouth covering his prevented further argument. The rub of tongues and press of cock to cock elicited a moan from Derrick, taking the fight out of him but not draining his determination.

“I’ll call you,” Quinn said, finally stepping back so their bodies no longer touched. “If you want to do something, keep tabs on Etaín. Okay? That seizure was really bad.”

“I’ll check on her tomorrow.” He’d do more than that.

Quinn turned and walked away. And with Quinn’s back to him, Derrick touched the pocket containing his copies of the drawings. It was time for him to step up. And thinking about the picture of Marc Ruiz, he knew just where to start. There was something in the eyes that reminded him of Emilio Delarosa, not that he’d ever imagined visiting that asshole or asking for a favor but…

Derrick tugged on his helmet. He’d do what he needed to do. Emilio no longer had the power to hurt him.

*   *   *

C
age approached Saoirse with caution, though that caution had little to do with the young human loitering up ahead. He kept expecting to feel the sting of Elven wards or perhaps even the cool edge of an assassin’s blade against his skin, not that such a thing could easily penetrate his natural shields.

Few blades could, and many of them had already been found and made part of his hoard, including the one he wore at his back. Kestrel.

He smiled at what the elders of his race would call his foolishness. Or perhaps his arrogance, though even he had been tempted to find a way to destroy the blade when he’d finally located it.

Kestrel woke hungry half a block away from the boy. And as if sensing it, the teen turned, his gaze clashing with Cage’s, the
blade’s judgment validated by what Cage saw in the boy’s face. There was no innocence remaining. This child had already been consumed by a culture of violence and drugs and the power both offered him.