by Jory Strong
Seer’s daughter. Seidic’s daughter. Some pairings are a threat to those in power. It was followed by urging instead of a hijacking of body, her focus shifted to Quinn. The first righting of old wrongs.
Oh shit, she thought, snagged on the word first until finally the conversation around her burst the bubble of her inattention with Eamon’s asking, “And the bodies?”
“All four incinerated,” Cage said, with no small measure of satisfaction. “I had to occupy myself while my brother Quinn rediscovered his human form.”
“You searched them first?”
Cage snorted, emphasizing the reaction with flame and smoke. “No. They possessed no treasure of interest to me.”
“We would have valued their identities,” Eamon said, projecting the smooth of a calm ocean though inwardly he raged. He wanted this human business done, behind them.
“They are dead,” Cage said, slanting a glance at Cathal. “They are of no concern though I recognized one of them from outside of Saoirse.”
Both Cathal and Etaín went rigid, taking the blame for this upon themselves, but if there was blame at all, it was equally shared. He’d allowed the events set in motion by the Dunnes to play out. He had believed that, in the end, they would serve him, driving Etaín more fully into his arms.
“Derrick will be able to tell us what we need to know,” he said, a subtle reminder that this would be set to rights.
His hand tightened on Etaín’s, a gesture of reassurance for her and a battling of the sorrow that threatened to well up inside him. The unhealed tattoos on his arms were a raw wound piercing heart and reaching soul.
It changes nothing, he told himself as he’d told her. She would still be his consort-wife, her gift used for their people.
Her ink, visible on the bare-chested Quinn, a man who’d been human days earlier, served as harbinger to a great deal of change. If this was one of the abilities of the seidic then it added another cause for assassination. Dragons had always symbolized chaos for the Elven, and threat, because they were magical beings his kind couldn’t sense.
Twenty-eight
Etaín watched the miracle of Derrick’s body being knitted back together and smoothed into its correct shape by the glide of hands and concentrated magic. It awed her to witness this gift and be part of a world where wielding it was natural.
A laugh bubbled up with her radical shift in perspective, escaping when Quinn jerked the covers up to Derrick’s hips, the instant the healer moved above them. “He’d enjoy the ogling,” she joked.
“Well I don’t.” Dragon growl present in his voice, the exchange a tension relief for all of them, levity to carry them until Derrick whispered, “I fucked up. I just wanted to help.”
A thick stream of smoke erupted from Quinn’s nostrils, unseen by Derrick whose eyes were still closed. “I told you no.”
“Well sue me.” Little more than a mutter, but hearing the Derrick she loved had Etaín kneeling next to the bed, asking, “Who were they?”
“Marc Sleepy Ruiz and friends Drooler and Puppy.” Beneath closed lids, Derrick’s eyes rolled at the street names.
“Why you?” Etaín asked.
He turned his head, struggled until finally his gaze met hers. “I had a lead on Ruiz. I pursued it.”
“Instead of just turning it over to Quinn and Sean?”
“Strength is my new middle name.”
“That self-help book is going in the trash the next time I’m at your place.”
His laugh turned into a whimper and gained her a stern look from the healer and a growl from Quinn.
“They kept asking me what happened to Lucky. What Cathal did with Lucky.”
“Fuck,” Cathal said. “Fuck.”
“I’d love to,” Derrick said in a prim voice. “But Etaín and I never share lovers.”
“There was a fourth guy,” Quinn said. “Older. Did you get a name?”
“Jacko.” Derrick lifted his arm, his hand settling on Quinn’s chest but not remaining still. “I think I was hallucinating at the end. You got shot. You were dying.” His voice hitched and tears shimmered in his eyes. “And then Tall Dark and Predatory picked you up and threw you into the bay.”
“I think that’s our cue to leave,” Eamon said, tugging Etaín to her feet.
Outside the bedroom, she said, “Anton gave me a name. It’d be better to ask Sean to run with it.”
“You’re done with this, Etaín,” Eamon said.
It’d be easy to play the promise card. To point out she’d be foresworn. Instead she moved in to him, tracing lips firmed into an arrogant, lordly line.
“I have to see this through. I have to finish it. That’s who I am. Becoming Elf didn’t make me any more or less than what I was as a human. It didn’t suddenly separate me from the world I’ve lived in all my life.”
“Etaín—”
She pressed firmly. “Together. We do this together, with a little help from our friends.”
“Sounds like a rock song,” Cathal said at her back. “But I’m in. And afterward maybe we can stay in bed for the next week.”
Eamon resisted. His will silently battling theirs. More form than substance given Etaín’s determination and the respect that had grown along with his love for her.
It very nearly amused him, how simple he’d thought their courtship would be. How easily he’d thought to bend her while not bending himself. “Your plan?”
“Unchanged since this began, except now we go at it from a different direction, from the top down to a crewmember I can touch just long enough to get something useful for Detective Ordoñes.”
She hesitated, old habits clinging until she shed them, giving him the full truth. “The Dragon can follow my ink. It…she…can see through the killer’s eyes, enough to get a location but not necessarily an identification. I’d rather have that going in.”
And he knew what she meant by going in. “It’ll require a concession.”
“Yes.”
A muscle spasmed in his cheek, resistance radiating off him like the rays of a dark sun, but he said, “I trust you to handle it.”
She brushed her lips against his, heart singing. Eamon’s hand tangling in her hair held her as he deepened the kiss in a promise of what they’d share after this was behind them. When they parted, she gave Cathal the name Anton had given her.
He made the call.
“What’s up?” Sean asked.
“There’s a name for you to run, specifically to see if there’s a connection to any of the guys wearing Etaín’s art.”
“Hold on.”
Cathal heard Sean crossing the deck, then the sound of a computer waking up. Key taps followed, Sean logging in to a law enforcement database in all likelihood. “Let me have it.”
“Street name Cyco. Last name Chalino.”
Sean’s low whistle seconds later said there’d been an immediate hit. “This is one bad dude. I’m shooting you a picture now.”
“Shit,” Cathal said. “This is the guy in the Jag.”
“Responsible for the excitement at your place after I talked to you last?”
“Yes.”
“Says here he’s wanted in the United States for murder, a home invasion with a body count of three. Escaped to Mexico where he’s believed to have done work for one of the cartels. Got caught there and tossed into jail but Mexico wouldn’t extradite since he’s facing the death penalty in Texas and the Texans don’t back down. Escaped prison five months ago, but here’s cause to tie him to the slaughter in Oakland. He’s suspected of doing the same in Mexico. Twenty-five dead when he and his crew raided a whorehouse and drug distribution house run by a rival cartel.”
“Known associates?”
“Getting there.” Keystrokes followed, then a, “Damn. His cousin in Roberto Spooky Jimenez, wanted by the Oakland PD on suspicion of murder. Fled to LA, possibly Mexico.”
“Looks like he’s back, with a traveling buddy.”
“Then I’d say they�
��ve got a pretty tight support network. I ran Spooky’s name past my snitches as well as the cops I reached out to. No hint of him being back in the area. Not going to be easy finding him or his cousin.”
“I think we have what we need. Go ahead and send the bill.” Better all the way around if Sean didn’t discover Lucky’s associates were now missing too.
“You’re passing the information on to the cops?”
“Yes.”
“Consider me done then.”
Cathal hung up. Etaín said, “Roberto was a friend, not just someone I knew. We used to hang out at Vontae’s house together. He wasn’t a gangbanger then, didn’t have a street name, but there was a certain inevitability. I can see it now. He was obsessed with cred and respect.”
She touched a place above her heart. “He idolized his uncle. I did a memorial tat of him. Later someone told me the guy was involved with one of the cartels and was killed during an ambush of newly sworn-in Mexican police officers.”
Eamon’s tight expression mirrored the hard knot in Cathal’s gut. Even knowing Liam would shadow her, he didn’t like the thought of her being around guys who had so little regard for human life.
He voiced what Eamon was no doubt thinking, “Spooky’s wanted. Give Ordoñes his location, it might be enough. There’s a good chance they’d get Cyco too. Your obligation to Anton would be met.”
“Even if that’s true, Spooky and Cyco won’t give up the others, and without the guns, there’d be no hard evidence linking any of them to the bar hit. That’s assuming the police act immediately. And if Cyco isn’t with them when the police swoop, he’ll be in the wind and probably out of Eamon’s territory, making it a lot harder to put the deal I made with Anton behind us.”
He knew she was right, had known it when he proposed the easy, less risky course of action. Christ, he just wanted this done. “Eamon?”
“She’s correct. My territory doesn’t extend into Southern California nor beyond the Northern borders of this state, and even then it’s not all inclusive.”
“Let’s get it over with then.” It should be safe enough, though he caught himself rubbing his forearm when he saw the quicksilver flash of pain in Eamon’s eyes.
Fuck. Maybe when this was done they could approach Cage and bargain for access to the information he claimed to have about the seidic. There had to be a way for Etaín to shove magic into the ink on Eamon’s arms.
“Ready?” he asked Etaín.
“As I’ll ever be.” She sat in the hallway, back to the wall, and closed her eyes.
Before Eamon, she hadn’t spent much time contemplating magic, though if she had, she would have drawn from the stories she’d read and assumed practicing it required some type of circle, possibly with salt, and probably with candles.
It seemed anticlimactic, lacking in ceremony to simply reach out mentally, to imagine herself walking the path of the sigil starting from the point where it touched the ink on her wrists then moving forward, twined gold and green beneath her feet becoming less prominent as sunshine filtered through the dark, ancient trees of a primordial forest smelling of rich loam and magic.
She followed the trail to the lake and the emerald green Dragon waiting there. “You expected me.”
Yesss.
“You know what I want.”
The killer.
“And the cost?”
Flame accompanied amusement, a fiery snort. Seidic born. Elf who is bound to a human, the magic at my command is not the only magic to touch you. What cost? I cannot know other than my price.
“And that is?”
Your ink on one of my choosing.
She’d assumed that would be the cost. But a hard shiver went through her at not knowing the full cost. Her heart raced, aching with the remembered images of Cathal’s sightless eyes and Eamon’s fading image, the sundering of his magic and gift.
Trust yourself. Trust your gift. It took several repetitions because the fear of losing either Cathal or Eamon overshadowed and overwhelmed the confidence forged during the years when she didn’t know about Elves or Dragons or magic, and had still managed to find her way after answering the call to ink.
“Not your gift to see the endpoint of magic. Mine,” the Dragon had told her during the struggle to determine the bond they would share. Etaín looked down at her hands, wondering if she dared, deciding yes she did. “You can watch the killer?”
Yesss.
“You could call me here if you saw him with another man?” She held the picture Sean had sent of Cyco Chalino in her mind. “Of this man?”
Yesss. My price is tripled for such a task. I am no dog to set to watch.
Amusement in the voice, a purr of satisfaction. Enough to ease some of Etaín’s worry about surviving the payment.
“If there’s a danger of more people dying, you’ll summon me even if it’s only the first killer.”
Yesss. But the bargain stands. Three of my choosing.
“Agreed,” she said, needing only to open her eyes to leave mystical place for a real one.
“Got it?” Cathal asked.
“Not yet.” She accepted Eamon’s hand and the tug to her feet. Her arms went around both men, pulling them to her, the desire delayed earlier returning in a rush. “It may be awhile.”
“You’ll tattoo someone of the Dragon’s choosing?” Eamon asked.
“Three people. In exchange for being able to snag Cyco Chalino along with Roberto.”
Eamon’s smile of approval warmed her though it didn’t fully dissipate the chill of concern. “It might be dangerous to you and Cathal.”
He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand. “I believe we will survive it. Peordh. Predestination. I have come to accept it where you are concerned. I believe that’s why the magic chose Cathal, because he is of this world. A true anchor to it.”
Her throat closed. She squeezed Eamon’s hand but there was no promise she could make, that her magic would choose him as her heart had.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she said. To the bedroom, they heard, dark heat in their eyes as they accompanied her there.
No worries, she told herself. Embrace the moment. Embrace these two men who were more than she’d dreamed possible.
Clothes fell to the floor, shed in an impatient rush next to the bed. Then skin touched skin, fevered need reflecting a deeper one as masculine lips touched her neck, Eamon in front of her this time, with Cathal at her back.
“Together,” she said. “I want you both inside me at the same time.”
Skin didn’t lie to her. Neither did the hard cocks pressed against her. A pulse went through rigid heat that thickened, swelling with the desire for that ultimate expression of how their lives were joined together.
Cathal’s lips brushed across her ear. “Eamon’s magic might make it possible to do this standing, but I’d personally prefer the comfort of bed.” Husky amusement rather than the growled possessiveness that had sounded the first time she’d teased him with the possibility of this.
“Comfort it is, then,” Eamon said, he and Cathal maneuvering Etaín onto the mattress with the physical contact unbroken, each of them with a leg draped over her open thighs, hands roaming, lips alternating the claiming of hers.
Perfect. Or nearly so, Eamon thought, disappointment and pain there to dim this celebration of life and love if he allowed it.
He ruthlessly suppressed thoughts of the unhealed, inert tattoos. He’d spoken the truth, lack of a bond through them didn’t change what they signified, didn’t change the shape of their future.
With each kiss, each swallowed moan he felt the twine of his magic to Etaín’s. It was enough. She would always be enough, and Cathal, no longer a complication but a necessary partner.
His hand stroked downward, leaving a tightly furled nipple to rub across her clit, satisfaction surging through him at the instant lift of her hips in a feminine demand to give that pleasure center his attention.
She was wet, always wet for him.
For Cathal.
His cock spasmed, liquid arousal escaping, making him laugh softly because she so easily made him ready for her as well.
Her breath came fast as he stroked slick fingers over her clit, took it between his fingers, pumped, and Cathal’s hand joined his between her thighs, plunging into her slit before moving to her back entrance, preparing her. Heat and need built until it became impossible to remain separate.
“Now,” Cathal said, hand circling his cock, a fist necessary to maintain control, masculine pride nonexistent when it came to Etaín.
A touch of her hand to his chest, a little bit of pressure and he was on his back. His hips lifted and his cock went unerringly to her opening when she straddled him. The hot slide into tight heat accompanied the press of luscious breasts to his chest.
Her mouth covered his. Their tongues twined as fingers interlocked, palm to palm and he didn’t fear what she might see with her gift.
Then Eamon was there, and the squeeze of her channel became tighter, pheromones or the brush with death or magic turning the awareness of another man’s cock against his, separated only by a thin feminine barrier, into something erotic, compelling, necessary. Natural. And they found their rhythm as if they’d always shared her this way.
There was no holding back. No possibility of it. Desire and need were raging fire and howling storm and crashing ocean. And release was a volcanic eruption, a lava-hot pour of molten semen and the awareness that Eamon spilled himself inside Etaín at the same time.
Rapture came as Eamon did. Physical. Emotional. A soul-deep, irrevocable joining of all that he was to Etaín, and through her, because of her ink, to Cathal.
Ecstasy was the fierce burn of the sun, golden rays piercing him with Etaín’s cry of pleasure, pouring the magic of Elfhome and Dragon and this world into him. Magic not constrained by physics, magic demanding closure, completeness, traveling into the tattoos she’d placed on him in a surge of joy and irrevocable joining. The barrier between their minds thinning with the shimmering promise that they’d be able to communicate telepathically in the future.
