Inked Destiny (23 page)

Cage read him. Or guessed. “So they’re lovers already.”

Cathal forced himself to answer. This was the truth of his life unless something changed. “Yes. They’re lovers.”

Cage understood then the lack of Elven wards or presence, a large piece of the puzzle sliding into place. Among the supernatural, be it territory or jewels or in this case, a mate, you possessed only what you could hold against challengers or thieves or any
manner of other predator, though death was not generally a consequence of failure when it came to the long-lived.

He would not have thought Eamon ruthless enough to play such a game with this bound mortal, but to gain full control of a
seidic
, a truly powerful one…

Cage felt no compunction in pointing out the obvious, in using it to his advantage. Indicating the body he said, “Eamon has apparently chosen not to protect you by assigning a guard. It suggests to me that blame wouldn’t have fallen on him if this human had been successful in taking your life. It’s an easy way to get rid of a rival, wouldn’t you agree? An easy way to free his lover of one choice in order to make a more advantageous one should he wish to share her at all.”

Suspicion returned with a hot burn, though not directed at Eamon. “Yes,” Cathal said, crouching next to Cage and wondering again if this was a setup to gain his confidence. Familiar paranoia gripped him, a side effect of being a mafia don’s son and one only heightened by the presence of a corpse.

“The
seidic
could be yours alone, unless it’s you who prefers an arrangement that includes another man. I have books in my possession, knowledge to ensure she survives the change. It would require a move to Seattle. I can keep you both safe there from Lord Eamon as well as other Elven threats.”

Cathal rolled his phone in his hand, for the first time becoming aware of having pulled it from his pocket. He’d instinctively meant to call 911 but hesitated because he was in the presence of the supernatural, because it was easy to anticipate Eamon’s reaction. It was easier still to envision Eamon attributing the reason for the attack to the Dunnes and using it as an excuse to remove Etaín from harm’s reach, his power one Cathal couldn’t hope to either challenge or defeat.

Noting the phone, Cage said, “The spell I cast hides us from cameras only, not from prying eyes. If you intend to call your
human authorities, I’ll be on my way and leave you to explain what happened here. Or say the word and I will ensure the corpse is not discovered. In exchange, I ask only that you consider what I’ve said and arrange for an introduction to Etaín.”

“No demand for secrecy?”

Cage shrugged. “What do you think will occur if Eamon knows of either my interest in your mate or my offer to help you escape his control?”

Incarceration.

Cathal pocketed his phone in answer, going through the dead killer’s clothing and finding a cellphone, but nothing else of interest. He removed it, asking, “How would I get in touch with you?”

“I believe you were at the marina earlier in the day, or if not, then your mate was, visiting Quinn and possibly his lover. Am I correct?”

“We were there.”

Suspicion and paranoia faded beneath the memory of Eamon’s warning that the magic causing Etaín to seize would draw the supernatural like a beacon. “What are you?”

Cage’s eyes flashed red. “That’s an answer to be gained in a meeting other than this one. Time is running out. Do you wish me to take care of the corpse?”

“Handle it,” Cathal said, standing and walking away, misgiving filling him with each step, bordering on regret.

The dead man’s phone was heavy in his hand. Choice and consequence. Innocence and guilt and the ominous weight of what was right and what was wrong. This was why he’d never wanted to take that first slippery step into his father’s world…and yet doing it had led to Etaín.

He managed to get home before the shakes started and he had to battle a wave of nausea. Christ. Christ. He’d nearly died. He’d watched another man get killed and he’d walked away. But those weren’t the only reasons for the twist in his guts, the uneasiness.

Hard to miss Myk outside the house and Liam inside it. Bodyguards because Etaín was important.

Suspicion gnawed at him as he climbed the steps to his bedroom. He braced himself, and didn’t bother denying the relief he felt when he saw Etaín alone.

I could have her to myself.
He liked Seattle. He could open another club, have someone else manage the one in San Francisco. It’d put distance between him and his father and uncle. He could have Brianna come to stay with him, away from the truth she’d eventually piece together.

Temptation rode him, made fiercer when Etaín kicked off the covers as if sensing his arrival. Jesus she was beautiful.

He stripped, gaze roaming her body, dark pink nipples and splayed thighs, woman’s folds and a small triangle of golden hair pointing to her clit and opening, though he didn’t need anything to guide him to heaven.

His cock was already hard and insistent. He could lose himself in her.

Hell, he already had. He’d been out of control from the moment he stood outside Stylin’ Ink and saw her through the window.

“Maybe it’ll be simple,” his father had said after leaving Caitlyn’s gravesite, that day his involvement with her had begun.

Simple? Cathal’s silent laugh was a rough, sharp scrape over raw nerve endings.

He got on the bed next to her, the jostle enough to have thick eyelashes fluttering to reveal eyes so dark they seemed black.

“Eamon?” she murmured, and his lips pulled back, a baring of teeth because her greeting ripped away the barrier that jealousy and possessiveness had been secured behind since her seizure on the boat.

“I don’t know where the fuck he is.” He didn’t care. Eamon was probably getting an update on the events at the club.

Wouldn’t
Lord
Eamon know Cage was in his territory? Wouldn’t he have had Elves stationed outside the shelter and at the marina to see who showed up, given all the dire warnings about magic drawing others to investigate? Wouldn’t he have had Cage followed?

Fuck it. He didn’t want to think about Eamon, though suspicion crawled deeper into his gut.

“He doesn’t matter. Not right now.” A growl to match the baring of teeth, his mouth slamming down on hers, his body covering hers, vibrating with the need to dominate, to drive any thought of another man out of her with the pounding thrust of his cock.

Her legs went around his waist. He surged into her.

Not deep enough.

Not deep enough.

Everything inside him demanded more.

He pulled out, experiencing a primal satisfaction at her whimpered
no
.

Wrenching himself upward, breaking the lock of her legs, he slid his arms under them, the position rendering her more vulnerable, allowing him to have what he wanted. Needed.

He pushed into her again. It didn’t matter how many times he had her, she stayed tight and hot, internal muscles clinging even as they resisted, making him work for it, making him feel like a well-hung stallion.

She’d probably call him a bull.

And still she met him thrust for thrust. His equal in this because despite how her body might soften, or the whimpers and cries he could draw from her, she wasn’t submissive at her core.

It didn’t matter. All that mattered was this.

She was his.

His.

His.

The word reverberated with each thrust.

Again and again and again. Becoming a primal scream when her channel clamped down on him, release and demand at the same time, her orgasm triggering his own.

He came in a scorching blast only to discover when his head cleared that it wasn’t enough. Might never be enough.

Adrenaline. Elven pheromones. Nearly dying. He’d already hardened again inside her, the sultry expression on her face a claim of female victory, a challenge that had his nostrils flaring.

He pulled from her sheath, the exodus creating a flood of semen and arousal. He followed it to the tight rosette, watched smoldering eyes flash with a hint of erotic fear.

“Have you ever let a man take your ass?”

“No.”

His cock thickened in anticipation, as something primitive and dark took hold of him at being the first. He’d promised her this, though he took the time to prepare her. And then he claimed her, fingers working her clit, making sure she came before he did.

Eighteen

S
leepy Ruiz was too amped up to worry about being pulled over by the cops or getting caught cruising through territory that belonged to other gangs. Where the fuck was Lucky? He should have called by now, should have called a long time ago.

Something bad had gone down in that alley. Something real bad.

“We gonna keep cruising all night?” Puppy asked, passing a beer up to Drooler who was riding shotgun.

“Pull the phone out from under the seat,” Sleepy said.

Drooler did it, handing off Lucky’s cell.

“Tell me again,” Sleepy said.

“It’s like the tenth time already. The guy left his club with another dude and headed toward the parking garage. They were talking, totally into their conversation and not paying attention to what was going down around them, which was nothing, man. Nothing. I texted Lucky and split, like he told me to do. He should have let me take the guy. I could have done it no problem.”

Sleepy wanted to tell him to shut the fuck up. What mattered was Lucky. No way Lucky cut and ran. No way. This was nothing, an easy hit compared to taking someone out behind bars.

He stomped on the gas pedal, leaving rubber behind. This was personal now. He didn’t have the in with Jacko, not the same way
Lucky did, but he wasn’t going to let this go, not without a direct order.

Scanning through Lucky’s phone numbers, he found Jacko’s and pulled over. He got out of the car, not wanting Puppy and Drooler to hear. A few steps away, he made the call.

*   *   *

J
acko gave his companion a thumbs-ups. He was the man here, getting things done.

“Yo, Lucky. Tell me something good,
camarada
.”

“It’s Sleepy.”

His high deserted him. “Where’s Lucky?”

“We don’t know. It was all set up. He was in place, only needed the Irish
pendejo
to walk past him. He was supposed to call for a pick-up. That was like hours ago.”

“The police involved?”

“No. We’ve been cruising. It’s like nothing went down.”

“He shows, he calls me.”

Jacko hung up. Lucky had vouched for Sleepy, but he didn’t know him well enough to trust him right away.

“Your
camarada
fail you?” Cyco asked.

“Cathal Dunne must have taken him out.”

“You sure he didn’t run?”

“Positive.”

Cyco leaned over, lifting the grenade launcher. “Say the word, I’ll do you a favor.”

*   *   *

E
taín woke, or would have said she did except for the lake in front of her and the thrum of magic against her senses, the beat of it pulsing through the soles of her feet. It took her a second to recognize the cadence, to compare it to the absence of sound that had been testament to a heart silenced.

Relief filled her. This was no post-death visitation. Though as the water rippled toward the center, green condensing and yielding to blue, solidifying in a precursor to the Dragon’s forming, she understood that if not a visitation, then this was a summoning, and she, the one summoned.

The beat against the bottom of her feet quickened. Involuntary reaction rather than panic or fear, there was no point in either. She’d be dead if the manifestation now rising from the lake wanted it so.

Sunlight caught on emerald green scales and turned droplets of water into glistening rainbows of color. It was hard not to be awed by the sight, harder still not to take a step backward as the Dragon approached.

In its presence, she couldn’t accept that this was an avatar. The Dragon’s laughter was a snorted puff through her mind.
I exist as you do
.

“Where am I?” Etaín asked, hoping to learn something though doubting she’d been summoned to satisfy
her
curiosity.

The beast cocked its head.
The place of your birth.

“Figuratively speaking or literally?”

Clever changeling. Your mother found her way to my lake already heavy with child. She and I made a bargain, and on these shores you were born. In these waters you were bathed after taking your first breath, and for a time you both remained here.

“This is Elfhome?”

Fire came in answer, exhaled in a snort, though its flame parted when it reached her, making her aware of bare skin and her own nakedness. Fuck. Not that she was self-conscious about her body, but she’d prefer to choose who got to see it.

Another blast of flame reminded her that in this place—at least for now—her thoughts weren’t hidden from the being who’d summoned her.

She considered drawing the glyph of containment Eamon had taught her but discarded the idea.