Inked Magic (11 page)

He hadn’t bothered patting her down for weapons. If only she could get to her knife . . .

Her arms and wrists ached as she fought to get her hands in front
of her. Sweat soaked the underarms of her shirt and her jeans were clammy and cold against her thighs. Her breathing became a harsh panting the longer she struggled.

Sobs clogged her throat when she felt the car begin to slow. As it crept along she strained to hear any sound other than her heart thundering in her ears, anything that would make her think her screams would be heard.

The car slowed more, then reversed and stopped. She rolled onto her back and drew her legs up against her chest, pain spearing through her shoulders at lying on them with her hands bound behind her.

A sound reached her, like metal doors being shut. Moments later a latch popped and the trunk opened to reveal the ski-masked man.

She kicked, making contact and sending him backward with the force of it, screaming then, praying someone would hear her as he returned to use fists to subdue her.

In his struggles to get her out of the trunk, the sleeve of his jacket pushed upward, revealing white skin above black leather gloves and the bottom inches of a tattoo that went all the way around his arm. Demons, a twisting mass of faces with their mouths open, inhaling souls and terror.

He jerked the sleeve down, calling her
bitch
, his voice holding panic, his fists coming faster. He managed to grab her legs and pull her from the car. Her head struck the bumper and then the concrete floor, sending sharp pain through her skull and then a nauseating throb.

There was a quick glimpse of oil stains and navy blue paint, a mud-smeared New York license plate. She fought when she saw the shipping container, flaked green and rusted.

Splinters from the floor tore at her face as she was dragged inside and onto a bare, heavily stained mattress. The doors slammed shut, trapping her in darkness and steel.

Etaín woke in a panic, the room loud with the sound of harsh breathing, the boxers and tank sweat-soaked and her body shivering violently.

She crawled from the mattress and got shakily to her feet, hugging herself, disoriented, stumbling to the bathroom and retching, though after the visit to the hospital there was little left in her stomach. She splashed hot water onto her face and the tattoos on her forearms warmed, as if absorbing some of the shock and horror, drawing it from her as the vividness of the nightmare memory began to fade.

She forced herself away from the sink, not allowing herself comfort, not then. Usually she started with her pencils, but this time she went to the computer, typing the words as if they were her own. Speaking for Tyra, who might never have any semblance of a life worth living after what had happened to her.

When the account was done she sent it to Parker, pushing the netbook away and reaching for pencils and paper. She matched images to the written account, compulsively drawing, every scene coming to life in a sequence she couldn’t deviate from, like frames in a movie, fully captured and in color. Stark and brutal, terrible in the reality they portrayed.

When the last of them was done, she took a shower, tears for Tyra mingling with the water. She hugged herself, this time letting the heat sliding into the intricate, entangled vine tattoos weave a mental barrier.

It was like applying an emotional bandage to a nightmare reality so it was gone, but not eradicated. Separate, like horror-filled pages in a true crime novel she would always choose not to open in fear of reliving it. Compartmentalized behind a closed and locked door without guilt, so she could function, so she could go on to help others.

She left the shower and dressed though she felt far from normal. Her phone rang as she laced her boots. Parker. He must have been waiting next to his computer and held out for as long as he could before calling. She answered the phone, and by doing it, signaled she was finished drawing. He said, “I’m on my way.”

“No. I’ll come there.”

Silence greeted the statement. She didn’t explain herself. Didn’t tell
him she couldn’t spend the remaining few hours until dawn alone and didn’t want to have to make explanations to a friend.

“You’re leaving now?” Parker finally asked.

“Yes.”

“I’ll call Trent.”

The sketches were loose instead of bound. She gathered them, careful to keep them in order though she didn’t look at them as she stacked, then rolled and placed the papers in a tube.

Capping the end, she put on her jacket and left, taking a direct route to Parker’s place. He and Trent were waiting for her at the end of the narrow driveway. She stopped the Harley and pulled the strap attached to the carrier over her head, passing it to Trent because his hand was there for it first. He turned and jogged toward the front door.

“You want to come in?” Parker asked.

Her skin felt stretched tight, her insides aching, jittery. It was worse now than it had been in the apartment. She took off her helmet, affecting a casualness that didn’t exist.

“Sure,” she said, following him to the front door.

He opened it, flooding the porch with light and stepping aside to let her enter first. But the instant she was next to him he grabbed her hand, his anger and disappointment pulsing into her. “Christ, Etaín, what’d you take?”

She jerked out of his grasp, his touch and the accusation too much to handle. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re standing in bright light and your pupils are fucking saucers so don’t bother lying. You get picked up—”

Anger welled up. Hurt. She turned her back and headed for the bike.

“That’s right, fucking run away, same as always,” he yelled after her.

She felt the sting of tears and quickly suppressed them. She didn’t need his shit, didn’t need him ripping off the bandages covering the bad memories of her past.

They’d once been as close as if they were best friends, not just
brother and sister—until the dreams started, the call to ink she’d once tried to silence with drugs.

She rubbed a hand over her face, hating the way it trembled just a little bit, like she really was strung out, a junkie needing a fix. And maybe she did need one, only it wasn’t a high like the one Parker accused her of.

Cathal’s face came to mind first, bringing heat to chase away some of the chill. She touched the pocket of her jacket, feeling the cell phone beneath her fingers.

She couldn’t bring herself to pull it out and make the call. It was after hours, the club shut down for the night. He’d be in bed now, and maybe not alone.

Images from her dreams slid in. Cathal standing at a graveside. Cathal looking down at a teenage girl with a blank stare.

Etaín shivered. She needed comfort but she wasn’t sure she could bear to touch someone, even him.

Memories of Eamon came, of his pinning her hands to the wall, then behind her back.
Aware
of the eyes on her palms but inviting her to come to him day or night anyway, assuring her she wouldn’t find him with another woman.

She tugged on the helmet and straddled the bike, refusing to let the warnings of childhood or the danger he might represent stop her. She rode to Aesirs, taking the Harley over the curb and driving straight up the sidewalk to within steps of the front door. She didn’t bother locking the helmet to the bike, just took it off and tucked it under her arm, part of her half expecting to be turned away.

She heard the chimes again as she approached, a hundred tiny fairy bells ringing in her ears. Fear tried to take hold and turn her from her course, but she refused to allow that emotion. She needed what she could find with Eamon too much.

The door opened as she lifted her fist to pound on it. A man stood there, as gorgeous as any of the ones she’d seen earlier. “Lord Eamon is at his home. I’ll have a car brought around for you.”

Lord
. It fit Eamon. And maybe it explained the popularity of Aesirs, in part anyway. The masculine eye-candy still got the weight of her vote.

“I don’t need a ride. An address will do.”

“I’ll send for a car anyway. You can follow it, or ride in it, as you choose.”

E
amon stopped in the middle of one of the numerous walking bridges in the mazelike gardens of his estate. He crouched to watch the small leopard sharks swimming in the waterway, hoping the sight of them would grant him respite from the worry Etaín’s continued disappearance caused.

She wasn’t with Cathal. His home and club had been watched from the moment those following Etaín reported their failure.

The easy way she’d lost them in the canyons troubled him. Stirring misgivings and making him second-guess his decisions concerning her.

It didn’t matter she’d lived this long without being discovered by others, or that she was in his city, in his territory. Even as wife-consort, the threat of having her taken and made prisoner by another only lessened somewhat, while the worry and the need for vigilance increased as the focus shifted to keeping her safeguarded against assassination because of what she was—not just
his
, but
seidic
.

He frowned, wondering at what concern had taken her to the hospital, his resolve to extricate her from the grip of the human world strengthened by knowledge of her reason for going to the homeless shelter afterward. Bad enough that she put her ink on clients, but to apply it to all comers at an event to serve the most disenfranchised of human society . . .

Frustration washed through him. Short of imprisoning her himself, he had no way of preventing her from seeing her obligations through. He needed time with her. A chance to set hooks of desire and magic and knowledge. She’d soon stop thinking herself human, stop identifying with them.

He was prepared to take on the responsibility that came with adding a few more of them to his household, but more than a few? His mouth tightened into a grim line. He had no desire to become known as either a Lord overly fond of humans, or one controlled by his
seidic
consort.

With each human introduced to a world where Elves and Dragons and other supernatural beings not only existed, but lived hidden among them, the potential to have it become widely known expanded exponentially. There was much he’d risk for Etaín, but not exposure.

The sea breeze ripple of magic across his skin had him standing and waiting for Rhys to wind his way through the maze. “You’ve got news of her?” he asked as soon as his second came into view.

“Yes. She’s on her way here.”

The tension flowed out of Eamon, confidence returning in his choices concerning her. “I will see to her myself when she arrives.”

T
he sedan Etaín followed entered Pacific Heights. It didn’t surprise her Eamon lived in an area of embassies and mansions with multimillion-dollar views. But as they approached a walled estate doubt crept in. What was
she
doing there?

She slowed the Harley. Crashing at Derrick’s place seeming like a better choice.

The gate slid back before she could act on the thought, revealing Eamon standing in the driveway, sand-gold hair unbound and flowing over a naked, smooth chest. Hands shoved casually into loose black pants ending at bare feet.

Need returned in a hot wave, the subtle vibration of the bike between her legs heightening the desire and turning it into a craving to have Eamon’s hand push beneath her waistband and cup her mound.

The sedan continued on but she stopped just inside the gate, racking the kickstand and dismounting several car lengths away from him.

He came to her like fog moving in off the bay, his presence blocking out everything else. Enclosing them. Encapsulating time so nothing existed, nothing mattered except the two of them.

He invaded her personal space, invaded her senses. Determination poured off him. Desire.

Taking the helmet from her unresisting hands, he set it down on the seat then took her wrists as he had before, anchoring them behind her back with one hand and pulling her to him.

She felt the hard ridge of his erection and pressed more tightly to it, grinding against him.

He made a sound of hunger, using the lever of her captured wrists to still her movements so he could control the rub of her engorged clit against his cock.

“I’ve been this way since you first entered Aesirs,” he said.

“Painful. Or so I’ve been told.”

“Very. But now you’re here there will be an end to my suffering.”

He unzipped her jacket, cupping her breast possessively before capturing her nipple between his fingers and squeezing, making her clit throb. He bit her neck then sucked hard enough she could feel the pull of it between her thighs.

She closed her eyes, giving herself over to pleasure, and as if waiting for just that signal, he stopped, drawing a sound of protest from her, then one of need when he touched his lips to her ear, flicking his tongue into the canal in a heated prelude to filling her channel with his cock.

“Did you come for this?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Eamon released her wrists but captured her hand in his. Concern spiked through the desire, worry again about how she spent her time among humans.