Inked Destiny (21 page)

In centuries past, Cage had killed humans as young as this one. He would prefer not to do so tonight, though he played out the deadly game of chicken, his path taking him close to the boy.

The teen did not reach for the gun Cage smelled in passing. And the blade’s hunger for blood was not met. Nor would it sleep again until it was sated.

He’d known the likelihood of it awakening. But he enjoyed not just collecting the arcane, but using the things in his possession rather than merely hoarding them.

His puzzlement returned as he crossed the street to Saoirse. The mystery of Etaín and whatever game was being played here had deepened after watching the news reports of a drive-by shooting at a homeless shelter.

Now that mystery was made even more tantalizing as he entered the club. There were no wards here either.

He moved through Saoirse, aware of the desire-filled glances given him by more than one beautiful woman, and they were exquisite creatures, though despite the long hair several of them wore, none of them were Elves. When it became clear that Cathal Dunne wasn’t present, he found a spot affording him a good view and stopped.

A lovely brunette rose from her chair and approached. He smiled, prepared to amuse himself with a different type of hunt as he waited for his main quarry, Cathal, and through Cathal, Etaín.

*   *   *

L
ucky took another drag on the joint then passed it to Tracy. He could hear Sleepy fucking Rosena in the bedroom next to the one he was in, grunting while she moaned and screamed.

“You want to do it again?” Tracy asked, her hand zeroing in on his dick.

He took the reefer back, thinking he wanted a blowjob more. Tracy was good at giving head. And besides, she wasn’t nearly as nice to look at as Rosena.

His cellphone rang before she’d even gotten him half hard with her hand. “Yo,” he answered.

Puppy said, “That guy showed up. He just walked out of the parking garage but Drooler and me didn’t see him drive in. He must have come in from the side we weren’t watching. You close?”

“No.”

“He’s gonna walk right past me on the way to his club. You want me to do him?”

“No, man. You did good. Time for you to get out of there. Sleepy will pick you up after he lets me out. Talk to you later.”

He called Drooler.

“Come on, man, let me kill this
pendejo
,” Drooler pleaded, dying to do something that’d earn him a new nickname. He hated the one he’d gotten when he’d first started hanging around and they saw him drooling after he got drunk and passed out on the couch.

“No. This one I have to do personally.” He didn’t mention Jacko’s name. Only Sleepy knew that’s where this job came from. “Get eyes on the club entrance. Text me at that number I gave you when this guy leaves then haul ass. I’ll be waiting for him between the club and his car.”

“Puppy tell you we don’t know what he’s driving? We didn’t see him going into the parking garage.”

“Yeah. Puppy told me. No problem. It’s not going to matter what car he’s got in a little while. The garage has cameras in it anyway. Stealing his ride is out. Later, homie.”

He hung up and left the bed. “Hurry the fuck up!” he yelled to Sleepy. “We need to roll!”

“You gonna be back here later?” Tracy asked, the sheet falling away when she rose to her knees.

He got a boner looking at her tits and pussy, her acne-covered face out of the picture. “Sure.” Why not? Maybe after he snagged the blow from Jacko, they’d invite some others and have themselves a party.

He dressed, pulling the burner phone from his pocket and muting it so he wouldn’t have to remember later. Rosena let out an “I’m coming” scream as the bedsprings really cranked up their squeaking. He went to the car, stashing his personal cell under the seat.

A few minutes later Sleepy came out of the house, strutting after having done it with Rosena. She didn’t give it up to just anybody. “I want me some more of that,” he said.

“I hear you, man.” Though now he was jonsing for a different kind of action.

He aimed the gun at Cathal Dunne’s picture, pulling the trigger in his mind. “I hope I don’t have to wait all night for this rich
pendejo
to come out of the club.”

“As long as you get it done.”

“No problem.”

A couple blocks over, Sleepy did a double park long enough for Lucky to stuff the gun into the waistband of his jeans and get out. “Later
ese
. Soon as I off this guy and get to a good place, I’ll call for a pick up.”

“Later.”

Lucky headed to his hiding place as Sleepy drove off. A day of waiting for this guy to show up had given him plenty of time to scope the area and notice where the cameras were.

If he missed some of them, he missed some of them. Ending up in prison didn’t scare him. He knew he could handle himself there. He had before. He would again. And fuck, if things got hot here, maybe he’d end up heading south with Jacko or Cyco if they split.

Ducking into an alleyway on the route between Saoirse and the
parking garage, he had a view of a Jag hugging the curb in front of a Tesla and behind a BMW. Fucking rich bastard with his fucking rich club crowd.

Come on. Come on.

Waiting was the hard part.

Lucky let his mind drift while staying aware of his surroundings, a lesson he’d learned doing time.

Jacko had chosen the right
camarada
for this job. It didn’t matter why this guy needed killing. All that mattered was getting it done.

The Jag and the Tesla and the BMW had him dreaming about getting a crew together and going in, taking out a shit load of people the same as Cyco had down in Mexico. Fuck man, he did that, he’d be a legend too, and after becoming a made member, he’d get a territory to tax. He’d be rolling in the money, maybe even buy himself a bad-ass car, something better than the ones he was looking at.

He pulled the gun from his waistband.

Come on. Come on.

Sixteen

E
amon watched her sleep, his chest expanding with feelings of tenderness, and though he lay next to her, their bodies touched intimately together, it was not enough contact. He had begun to believe that state wouldn’t be remedied until he wore the same tattoos Cathal did.

“You enthrall me,” he whispered, a dangerous admission as he leaned down to whisper kisses along her neck. “In centuries I have not experienced a day like this one.”

From harrowing fear to wild crests of ecstasy.

From distrust and alienation to the promising spread of harmony and unity.

Progress had been made with respect to their future as a cohesive family unit. But with respect to her gift, her magic…

Uncertainty remained. Grave uncertainty. And the chill of it made him give her more of his weight, the feel of breasts with their sweet-wine nipples against his chest fanning the flames of hunger, though the burn of it did not completely diminish the ice of his fear for her.

Her artistic ability had given her an advantage in learning the complex sigils, but it had still been grueling work. He’d taught her the bare minimum a changeling raised among them would know about channeling and containing magic, and about shielding
herself to lessen its voice. But he wasn’t sure it would be enough, not given the old, old feel of her magic and the violence of the seizure that had taken her. It had seemed to him that magic forced its way into every cell with pounding fury, while at the same time, created an impenetrable shield around her so that his spells burned away at contact.

He’d come to worry that he didn’t grasp the full truth of her connection to the elements, and wouldn’t begin to without wearing her ink. A dangerous prospect for the both of them, one that might well hasten the moment when duty would require him to render his judgment.

A fist closed around his heart, his mind locking out images of her death by his decree. There were answers to be had about the
seidic
, costly answers with no guarantee any of them would lead to her survival.

He looked away from her, gaze settling on the picture she’d drawn, the way magic presented itself to her, seeking control rather than to be controlled. The Dragon suggested a tie to water and fire,
his
elements, and yet on the boat, close to so much water, the power he drew from it hadn’t made a difference, and though he’d recognized the pour of fire into her, he’d found nothing of what burned in her to redirect or cool.

The Dragon stood for other things as well. Chaos. Upheaval. Drastic change. That her magic presented itself in those terms…

His arms tightened on her. Need slammed into him, a desire transcending the physical. He took her ear lobe between his lips, pulled with tender sucks. Fierce satisfaction burned through him at having her hips cant immediately, her leg climbing over his so she could press her heated mound to his hardened cock, craving the joining of their bodies despite being submerged in sleep by utter exhaustion.

His smile dissipated as the barest disturbance in the wards surrounding the city reached him. It was a small, nearly imperceptible
ripple. One he might not have noted at all if he hadn’t strengthened the magical alarm system after she and Cathal left the estate, and one, even now, that gave nothing away as to what had passed through the barrier. The disturbance was so minute it might have taken hours to ripple its way through the wards until it reached him.

The chill returned. There were assassins, the queen’s among them, who were said to be able to move through wards without triggering a warning.

Fierce protectiveness gripped him, and the spell to trap Etaín in sleep rather than risk her refusing his order hovered on his lips and tingled in the fingers touched to her skin. It was madness to continue allowing her any place other than the estate or Aesirs.

Cathal could be persuaded to his side and to his view. And yet…

Eamon hesitated. His will not sufficient enough to hold the spell or direct it. The trust brought by the events of the day was too precious a thing to risk. Not only Etaín’s trust, but Cathal’s, who’d left expecting to find her here when he returned, and who might well view with suspicion the claim she had to be moved.

The argument could be made that in allowing Etaín to remain, he demonstrated his care for her wishes as well as Cathal’s. He had no real evidence she was in greater danger now that the rippled note of passage had reached him.

Eamon stroked the soft nape of her neck rather than trace a sigil onto it. His mouth returned to hers, swallowing sleep-murmured sounds of pleasured welcome.

His hand went to her breast, cupping its weight, her back arching with the brush of his thumb over a nipple drawn tight with the need to be suckled.

Forcing his lips from hers was a prelude to levering his body up and away from the paradise his cock sought. He caressed her lobe with his tongue, daring a shallow thrust into her ear canal then
brushing his mouth against the still-rounded tip before finally managing to separate from her.

Etaín whimpered in protest at the loss of his attention but didn’t wake. He left her alone only long enough to dress and retrieve the comforter from Cathal’s bed. A kiss followed his covering her with it, the light touch of lips to lips because he couldn’t bear to part from her without it.

Straightening, Eamon gathered a strand of her hair, the gold of it like captured sunshine twined around his fingers. Using words of magic, he summoned Liam, calling him through the shadows, this type of binding dangerous to his third because it could be used to trap him.

“Sire,” Liam said.

“The city wards reacted to something passing through them. I need to pinpoint the place of the breach and see what can be learned there.”

Liam glanced at the sleeping Etaín. “Given the presence of the other changeling at Aesirs, I assume you want her taken to the estate.”

“She’ll remain here.”

“It’s not a choice you would have made in the past.”

Eamon heard increased concern beneath the none-too-subtle questioning of his decision, that he was being unduly influenced by his
seidic
intended, perhaps even altered by her uncontrolled magic. “You will better understand the desire to avoid unnecessary conflict when you meet your match.”

“An unlikely event, Lord. Made more so by what I’ve witnessed of your courtship.”

“Your time will come. For now I’ll leave you to guard Etaín. In all likelihood, the ward was tripped by the arrival of a tourist possessing some small, native amount of magic, or by an artifact.”

“And if you’re wrong about what passed through the wards?”

“Do you question your ability to prevail should a would-be assassin or kidnapper come for Etaín?”

“Hardly. You’ll take both Myk and Heath with you?”

“No. I’ll leave Myk outside with orders that no one except Cathal is permitted entry.”

*   *   *

C
athal shifted restlessly in his chair. He’d handled the most urgent items of business and prepared for the meetings he couldn’t put off tomorrow morning.

Doing anything more required a level of concentration he couldn’t find. And that lack of focus left room for scenes from the couch and the hot tub to flicker across his mental screen, heating his skin and sending molten blood to his cock.