Inked Destiny (16 page)

Could he trust her?

The question brought instant, gut-level protest. He refused to think he couldn’t. But…

Fuck. Considering she’d slept through this conversation, she knew even less than he did now about what it meant to be Elf and changeling.

And as far as trusting Eamon went…

He understood that when it came to Etaín, Eamon was capable of the same level of ruthlessness his father and uncle were. Hell, he was too. He could still feel the weight of the gun he’d held and his intention to use it.

Opening his eyes, Cathal looked at the drawing, an earlier conversation playing out, Eamon saying, “Many would slaughter any human who wore your ink, with or without cause.” And Etaín’s response, “You say that as if there could be cause.” Followed by Eamon’s remaining silent, which was an answer in itself.

Would she forgive him if he turned that page over, revealing the next one and the ones after it, the horrifying scenes to the dream
they shared, some part of their consciousness tied to a murderer wearing her ink? Would she forgive him if he told Eamon the reason for the stops they’d made today, so she could reconnect with her past? The why of their going to Sean’s boat? Her hopes of identifying a killer, possibly even getting close enough to touch him?

Cathal shifted his attention to the woman who’d become not just important, but essential to him. He traced her eyebrows, followed the ridge of her nose down to her lips, smiling when she smiled.

He couldn’t lose her. But he couldn’t keep her safe by himself. He couldn’t stop her from pursuing this, and didn’t want to. The guilt over Vontae’s death was too strong, the pain over Kelvin’s too sharp. If she did nothing, it would destroy something inside her.

Maybe,
probably
, Eamon had answers that would help her. If he knew what was going on with her, if she would share it with him. If she
could
share it.

The thought gave Cathal pause. At least once she’d been unable to speak, to control her limbs.

Eamon leaned forward, tipping the balance, his voice that of a worried lover instead of an Elf lord making a demand when he asked, “Did she talk about the Dragon?”

“No. But there’s something you need to know.”

Cathal swallowed the last of his drink then set the glass down on the coffee table. He flipped the page, to an opening scene that soon became self-explanatory though he told Eamon everything.

Twelve

E
taín woke to the sound of pages being flipped, her reality sharpening as slowly Cathal’s words came into focus. She opened her eyes and everything stopped. Then a rush of horror came as she remembered. “Is Quinn okay?”

“No harm, no foul,” Cathal said.

She sat, the movement and the surroundings making her feel a little dizzy and disoriented. “You’re sure?”

Cathal took her hands in his, turning them upward to reveal the eyes on her palms. “You held on to him for a long time, Etaín. A long, long time. There wasn’t anything obvious, but I only met him the one time, in Derrick’s apartment the other morning. He seemed normal.” A glance at Eamon, unity instead of its opposite. “Eamon thought the damage would be very obvious.”

Eamon moved from his chair to join them on the couch. He slid his hand beneath her hair to cup her neck. “What do you remember?”

The question alone was enough to have phantom coils tighten around her throat as if ready to choke off a revealing answer. “I went into the cabin. Quinn was there. I pitched forward. He reached out to catch me. I grabbed him. Then nothing.”

She could count on one hand the number of times she willingly
tried to breach the barrier between her reality and the alternate realities created by stolen memories. “I need to remember,” she whispered. “I need to be sure. If I hurt him…”

She’d hate herself for not going back to Eamon’s estate, maybe for ever having left it in the first place. Maybe she’d come to hate Cathal and Eamon too.

Eamon stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “Access the memories if you can, but be warned, Etaín, you will sleep again if I perceive there is a problem.”

A smile came and went. “Lord Eamon speaks.” Gentle tease this time instead of a battle’s opening salvo. “Any suggestions?”

“How well do you know Quinn?”

“Not well. I—”

Her throat closed, preventing her from saying she’d done cover-up work on him only days earlier. At the narrowing of Eamon’s eyes in suspicion, she felt a flutter of panic and substituted a different truth. “I set him up with Derrick.”

“So if you took nothing from him at the boat, there is no reason you would have Quinn’s memories?”

She felt the prickle of sweat on her skin, remembered too well the visceral feel of a knife pushed through flesh and the image of a face in close proximity when she’d asked Quinn about the three red lightning bolts on his neck. “Only casual transfer,” she answered, as close as she felt she could get to mentioning Quinn wore her ink, though Cathal knew it.

Eamon’s expression became thoughtful. “I believe your best approach in trying to determine if you caused him harm would be to use your will as you do your gift, with razor sharp intention. Only instead of piercing flesh, imagine yourself slicing through the mental barrier you’ve erected against what you’ve taken, a precision cut with Quinn your sole focus.”

“Makes sense.” Though that didn’t keep her heartbeat from
fluttering and skipping wildly at the prospect of pushing through the barrier protecting her from the horror-filled realities she’d made her own.

She closed her eyes, breathed in and out slowly, as if somehow that added to her control. The memories were like waves behind a storm wall, some lined-up, some overlapping, some stronger than others, capable of pushing more recent ones underneath in a surge of horror.

Focus on Quinn. Focus on Quinn.
It became a mantra.

She concentrated on his face, but like ripples in a pond, that image slowly expanded until she saw the work she’d done on him, a sinuous water Dragon covering a vast amount of skin, its wings stretched and curved in flight, enfolding him as though man and beast were one.

She saw it then, the green snaking through the reds and blues and black that had been necessary to hide the AB tats.
Yesss. Your gift. My gift.

From a seemingly long distance, she heard herself whimper and felt Eamon’s fingers on the back of her neck in response to it, there to make good on his promise to trace the sigils of a sleep spell.

The voice whispered through her mind again.
Peordh
. And the barriers parted like a funnel, reality becoming warm, emerald green waters with none of Quinn’s memories to be found there.

Peordh
. The word lingered, resonating like a promise given.

She opened her eyes. “Nothing. I think it’s all good.” Though the fear that she’d harmed him still clung to her, and probably would until she saw for herself that he was okay.

“You seized, Etaín,” Cathal said, his fear slamming into her. “It’s not all good.”

Eamon leaned in, touching his lips to her ear, beading her nipples and banishing the fear. “A great deal of magic poured into you.”

“Changing me somehow?”

He hesitated. “Possibly.”

“I don’t remember any of it.” She very carefully kept her gaze from going to the tablet, with its picture of an emerald green Dragon. She was more than willing to let the heat that came from Eamon’s mouth and the apparent truce between the two men divert all conversation, at least for a little while.

She turned her head, lips seeking Eamon’s, finding them. Her tongue greeting his, desire a molten fire pouring into her with his taste, with the feel of Cathal’s gaze on them, his need untainted by jealousy.

He released her hands and she made good use of their freedom. Tangling one of them in the long strands of Eamon’s hair while the other went to the front of Cathal’s jeans.

Satisfaction purred through her at the feel of his hardened cock pushing aggressively against the zipper, that satisfaction deepening when his hands joined hers, making quick work of button and zipper, granting her access accompanied by a husky moan.

She loved the feel of him. Silk over hot steel. Loved finding the tip of his cock already wet in anticipation of being inside her. But more than anything, she loved the lack of tension and resistance, the sense of rightness at being together like this.

One of his hands covered hers, controlling the up and down slide of it while the other went to the front of her shirt.

Desire was a liquid heat in her belly, an ache centered in taut nipples. The promise of longing fulfilled.

Her back arched and it was Eamon who swallowed the soft moan that was agonized anticipation and a demand for Cathal to hurry with buttons and bra clasp, so she could feel his hands and lips on her bared breast.

Her cunt clenched at the imagined feel of hard tugs and sweet suction. Her stomach quivered, retreating from the waistband of her jeans, as if providing a gap between material and skin would summon touch, the slide and cup of a masculine hand. The
torment and ecstasy of fingers on her clit, taking possession and returning pleasure, playing a game of dominance and submission as she grew wetter and wetter, her hips lifting and thighs splaying in a pleading for penetration and release.

She closed her eyes, taken over by the sensations bombarding her. The smooth satin of hair, and lips, and cock. The wet heat of an endless kiss. The rub and twine of tongues accompanied by the hot pulsing of a thick, fisted shaft.

Air caressed her breasts. And then Cathal did.

She cried out, pressing her nipple against his palm. Circled her thumb over the tip of his cock and was rewarded with the jerk of his hips, the slick flow of arousal—his, hers. She tore her mouth from Eamon’s just long enough to say, “Touch me.”

And he did, in the place that needed it most. His hand lingering only a moment on her belly, burning hot there then sliding lower to discover for himself just how ready she was to be loved.

This was magic enough for her. Having them both. Being able to enjoy them together like this. Deep relief and solidarity.

She lifted her pelvis in welcome. Her folds plump and swollen like well-kissed lips, her channel clenching with the proximity of Eamon’s fingers to it, begging to be filled by them, stretched and plundered. Her clit was erect, a knotted bundle of nerves sending fiery streaks of ecstasy all the way down to her toes with each of his strokes to it.

More. Harder. She wanted—

Her channel clenched violently, repeatedly, as orgasm came shockingly fast, her cry making the cock she stroked pulse and swell and strain. But rather than being sated and content, release only left her needy for more, for a deeper connection, a physical joining, to give as well as to receive.

She chose Eamon because they’d been separated, because he’d saved their lives today, because he’d made further inroads into her
heart, and because he’d issued a sexual taunt about having her on her knees, with Cathal serving as witness.

Her lips curved in feminine anticipation of answering that taunt now, in this moment of bliss, when there was harmony instead of dissention.

Her hand slid from beneath Cathal’s, leaving his to continue the up and down stroke to his cock. She sent him a sultry glance, a challenge. “Your turn to watch.”

His nostrils flared but he didn’t deny her, didn’t snarl or bare his teeth when she moved, one knee settling on the cushion between Eamon’s open thighs, her hands going to the front of his shirt, freeing buttons as he placed his arms on the back of the couch, a lord waiting for his due, and she laughed against his mouth because even those who ruled could be made to beg.

She kissed him long and slow, captured and sucked his tongue in prelude to going to his ear, tongue exploring the new earrings he’d added along the shell, mouth settling on the tip, lingering there.

Victory was the catch of his breath. The arch of his back and the drop of his hand to his lap to free himself, to curl around his thick erection.

Elven pheromones. The scent of arousal. The feel of Cathal watching, all of it turned desire into a burning need, an inescapable destiny.

She captured tiny masculine nipples, tormented them with her fingers and then with her mouth, kissing downward until she was finally on her knees in front of him.

His expression was fierce demand. But she didn’t answer in the way he wanted.

She nuzzled the head of his cock, tongue darting out to lick, to explore the slit in it, to lash the part of his shaft above his hand. Only when his hips jerked upward with each of her touches did she
relent, replacing his grip with hers, a tight fist that allowed her to take only what she wanted in her mouth.

“Etaín.” Growled, masculine command. Lord still.

Until she began sucking. Then the sound of her name became a pleading for pleasure and finally a shout of it as he came.

She swallowed him down, the taste of his release like molten magic. And even when liquid essence ceased pulsing into her mouth, she kept him there, worshipping him with tongue and lips as he hardened because of it, her movements allowing Cathal to see what it meant for the both of them, to be part of this world Eamon had revealed.