Inked

Chapter 6

Night was sweeping away the dusk, leaving a solid layer of stars overhead. As we slid through the streets, Trillian kept hold of my hand. My mind was racing with thoughts of Roche, of finally catching him and skewering my boss when I told the YIA that he’d been in on the perv’s escape.

But, overshadowing everything was the lingering tingle of my skin, the memory of what had happened between Trillian and me. There are legends that sometimes a Svartan will meet another Svartan with whom the mesh is so right that they spontaneously bond. For good. It’s rare, but it does happen.

His words reverberated through me. What did this mean? But I already knew. Something—by fate or chance—had brought us together. I’d known since our first meeting. And now we were bound, whether for good or ill, I didn’t know yet. My father was going to have a field day with this one.

“There,” Trillian whispered. “Calisto’s.”

As we watched, a figure emerged from the gloom. He was the right size and shape and an alarm sounded that yes—it was him. I clutched Trillian’s arm.

“It’s Roche,” I said. “I know that energy!”

We waited until he’d entered the building, then we slipped past the rawhead who had passed out, an empty bottle of booze on the counter. The stench of stale vomit filled the air.

As we tiptoed up the stairs, I steeled myself. Roche was up there. Roche, who liked to carve up women and children. Darynal’s warning came back to me—Roche wouldn’t play by the rules, so I wasn’t going to either. Whatever it took, I was taking the dude down. Hard.

As we reached the top of the stairs, Roche had already disappeared into the room and we could hear the sounds of fighting from behind the scarred door.

“Come on! Darynal’s in danger.” Trillian slammed open the door and rushed into the room. I followed.

“Stop or I’ll kill him!” Roche whirled, holding Darynal by the throat, a knife with a glinting razor’s edge poised at his jugular. He stared at us for a moment, looking totally confused. “Who the fuck are you?”

Darynal was limp, but alive. I could tell he was doing his best to relax into the hold, a good way to fool your opponent. Only Roche wasn’t the sanest peach in the pie, so what might work on a normal psycho wasn’t necessarily going to do the trick for him.

First things first—get Darynal out of Roche’s grasp. I whipped out my knife from the sheath circling my thigh. The leather strap looked like it was fastened around the illusionary trousers I was wearing.

Praying my voice had changed along with my looks, I said, “Give us all your money—jewels, whatever you got.” Yep, my voice had deepened, thank the gods. If we played guards-and-bandits, we just might confuse him long enough to throw him off guard.

Trillian took my cue and pulled out his own knife, a dangerous-looking kris. “Whatever beef you got with this guy, we don’t care. We’ll go through him to get to you if you don’t give us your money. Now!”

Roche frowned, but apparently the magic of our disguises was top-notch and he slowly lowered his knife and pushed Darynal to the ground. “You can take my pack over there.” He nodded to the table.

“Empty your pockets on the bed,” I said with a snarl, waving my blade toward his face. As he began spilling his pockets on the bed, I suddenly felt the energy shift. The camouflage was breaking. Shit, we just needed a few more moments. While Roche was focused on Trillian’s blade, which was dancing around his midcenter, I dropped my knife and whipped out the death scroll from my bag.

I had barely unfurled it when the illusion broke. Roche bellowed and grabbed for what looked like an amulet around his neck. Trillian thrust with his blade, but Roche darted away from him. He caught hold of the pendant and stared at me, his eyes gleaming as he shouted something in sorcerers’ tongue. A whirling orb of energy blasted out of the talisman.

A blink of an eye till impact. No time to leap out of the way. I steeled myself for the flames. But before I could stop him, Trillian pushed me to the side and took the blast right in the chest, shouting as the magical flame burned through his clothes.

“No!” I swung around to face Roche, bringing up the scroll. “Enough mayhem. Enough murder. Enough! Mordente dezperantum, vulchinin, mordente la saul ayt Roche!”

Time seemed to slow. My voice hung heavy in the air, the words trickling out like honey on a cold morning. Roche’s eyes grew wide and he dropped the knife. His head fell back and his mouth opened, as a black smoke poured out of his throat. Above our heads, a swirling vortex opened and sucked the smoke into it. With one last solitary shriek, Roche tumbled forward as the vortex closed.

Ignoring Roche’s body, I dropped to my knees beside Trillian. “Trillian, Trillian, are you okay?”

Darynal kicked Roche once, very hard, then joined me.

Trillian groaned, wincing with pain. There was a platter-size burn on his chest—the material had melted to him. “I’ve been better.”

“We should get a doctor—” I glanced over at Darynal.

He shook his head. “I’m skilled at healing. I have to be, living out in the woods on my own. Let me look at it.”

Within minutes, he’d stripped away the burnt clothing and was smoothing the skin with his hands. A crackle of magic told me that his healing abilities weren’t limited to herbs. The pulsing heat of Trillian’s burn began to fade. After a few moments, it was bright pink, but the worst of the blisters were gone.

“How’s the pain?” he asked Trillian.

Trillian closed his eyes, then shrugged. “Bearable. Much better. Thanks, druneh.” He took Darynal’s hand and slowly rose to his feet.

I hesitantly moved toward him. “You saved my life. You took the hit that was meant for me. Being half-human, it would have probably killed me.”

He gazed into my eyes, then reached out and stroked my lips with one finger. “How could I not? After what’s happened between us? We’re linked—I don’t know how or why, but it happened. I’m not sentimental, Camille. You’ll find that out very quickly. But what’s mine, I protect. And you are mine.”

Normally, I’d snap off a quick fuck you to any man who said that to me, but Trillian wasn’t playing testosterone games; he wasn’t being the macho he-man. He meant it, and it was true.

I slowly kissed his fingers, then bit them lightly. “And you are mine.”

“You should get the body back to headquarters now.” He motioned to Roche. “You bagged your killer. This should shut up your prick of a boss.”

“Aren’t you coming with me? You’re the one who made it possible for me to catch Roche. Without you, I’d still be trying to figure out where he was.” I wasn’t the kind of woman who took credit for other peoples’ work.

“No. I want no mention in this. You take him back, you tell them you managed to track him down, and you get that idiot off your back. Or I’ll take care of your boss in my own ma

I nodded, slowly. I didn’t like lying, but in the greater scheme of things, what mattered most was that Roche was out of commission. “Thanks,” I said slowly. “I owe you one.”

Trillian shook his head. “Camille,” he said softly, “that’s another thing you’ll learn about me. With you, I won’t keep score.” He held out his arms and I slid into them. Once again, he held my heart. And in that moment, I knew what I had to do. What we had to do.

Lathe stared at Roche’s body. I’d hired a wagon to haul him back to the palace and then dragged him through the halls by the scruff of his collar, ignoring the trail of blood as his body bumped over the rough marble. I was determined that my boss wasn’t going to take credit for the catch and I made sure that every agent, guard, and noble that I’d met on the way to Lathe’s office knew that I’d taken Roche down and brought him in.