11. Skull Tattoo #2
“Impressive.” I whistle, then waggle my eyebrows. “Flexible and a high pain tolerance? Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
“Asshole,” she grumbles, fisting her hands together. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”
“Only for you.” I wink, and a blush blooms over her ivory cheeks.
Everyone says she looks like her mom, but to me, the differences are stark. Her eyes are lighter, her smile wider, more carefree in their similar porcelain features, and she’s slimmer with a more athletic build, gliding everywhere she goes—except the woods, apparently.
And her sass? That’s all Luna, and I love it. Meek and mild ain’t for me. That’s more Hatch’s speed. The way she cares for her friends and snarls at her enemies makes her perfect for me.
Finding what I need from the SUV, I balance the items in one arm while I force down what once was an automatic trunk door and then kick it shut. Hatch would kill me if he saw me do that, but I’ll fix it later.
Not taking any chances, I prowl around the woman who has no idea she’s in my trap.
Wary eyes analyze the plastic bag and one child’s arm float swimmy, but then her gaze lands on the crossbow on my back.
“Why do you casually have a crossbow?”
“Ain’t nothing casual about it. I hunt.”
“So, you’re one of those guys who sits up in a hut all day and drinks beer?”
I scowl. “I’m a hunter, not an aimer. Those guys set up bait, then point and shoot. I like the chase.”
“The chase? You brought that thing to New Orleans,” she snorts. “What were you gonna hunt there?”
I can’t help the smile that breaks free. “My wife.”
Her eyes widen, and I chuckle. “In all seriousness, I’m the oldest in my family, which means once King steps down, I’ll be the head of the King Fury line.
Until then, I guess you’d call me an enforcer, or a second-in-command.
We all protect each other, but Hatch and me are more…
hands on. Me especially. Dash is the one who’ll actually be something someday. ”
She frowns. “So you’re saying you hunt people. With a crossbow? That’s ridiculous.”
“Caught you, didn’t I?” I flash a grin.
She rolls her eyes. “Why can’t you use guns and knives like everyone else?”
I almost laugh at the phrasing, like everyone else . Only people in our world think “everyone else” is as strapped and ready to fight as we are.
But her question brings a lump to my throat that I have to clear. “I do have those things. But I guess you could say the crossbow’s got sentimental value.”
Her eyes narrow on my face this time. I don’t know what she sees there, but they soften at the edges, a balm to that ache in my chest, before she sighs.
“You’re weird.”
I snort. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before. That’s usually reserved for Hatch.”
“Yeah, well Hatch didn’t kidnap me, nearly kill my family twice, or insist I marry him, a complete stranger. So, you know, just going by sheer facts on this one.”
I laugh. Laugh . Last night was the first time I’d even smiled, let alone laughed, since I can remember, and I haven’t shaken this goofy grin since my little tyrant woke up.
It feels… good. Lighter behind my ribcage where I’ve been heavy for years. Momma would’ve loved her for that alone.
My heart jolts painfully. Fuck . It’s usually easier to not think about it, but I don’t know, Luna makes me feel all types of things. Shit I’d hoped I’d buried.
I swallow past the hurt in my chest and drop the tracker into the plastic bag from the last barbecue we had on Fury land. Which was… ages ago. My cousins are old enough that they don’t even need the arm swimmies anymore.
After sighing at that depressing thought, I inhale and begin filling up the airless plastic float.
“What’re you doing?”
“Blowing up this here swimmy.” I hold it up before I blow another lungful into it.
She huffs and leans back against the SUV with a thunk , looking around the forest behind me. Then she fixes her gaze on me again.
“Why do you call your own dad ‘King’?”
I speak through puffs. “It’s how we identify the branches of our families. Just easier to call him that when we use it all the time anyway.”
“You call your mom Queenie too?”
Call . Present tense.
Guess she doesn’t know.
I look toward the trees. “Nope. Just Momma.”
There’s a beat, then she asks again. “So you’re the King branch?”
“Inquisitive little bird, aren’t you?”
She grins proudly. “Am I getting on your nerves?”
“Nope.” I pop the ‘p’, taking pleasure in her fresh scowl, then answer. “We go by patriarchs and matriarchs as heads of families here. There’s lots of Fury kin. Good, bad, ugly?—”
“You’re the ugly ones, then, huh?”
Giving more breaths into the plastic floatie, I give her a once-over before saying, “Didn’t think I was too ugly last night, did you?”
She smirks. “Only because you were wearing a mask. Now that I see you in all your ‘glory,’ I know exactly what kind of Fury you are.”
I fill up the rest of the floatie then stuff it inside the bag before dropping it to the ground.
“Is that so?” Standing to my full height, I stalk toward her. “Because there’s another kind of Fury. The dangerous ones. The ones who will do anything to protect what’s theirs.”
She swallows, and some deep part of me craves the flash of fear in her eyes as she backs into the SUV.
“So let me ask, after last night… which one do you really think I am?”
And another part of me craves the rest of her reaction as the fear disappears quickly and defiance takes its place.
“The only thing I really think is that you need to take me back right now, because I don’t want anything to do with you and I…” she drifts off as I close in around her. “…w-won’t… marry…”
Leaning around her, I rest my hands on the roof rack as I cage her in, taking over every angle of her vision. Her breath hitches, her skin flushing down to her rounded tits.
“You gonna finish that sentence?”
The first droplets of rain hit the top of my head, but my position protects her from the chilling moisture that drips down the back of my neck. I tower over her, nearly a foot taller, and with my leather jacket open, I easily shelter her small frame.
“I-I won’t… marry?—”
I cut her off by slipping my knee between her thighs and planting my foot on the running board, lifting her up and forcing her to straddle my leg.
She clutches my shirt for purchase, one sharp nail digging into my abs.
I shift to press my cock against her hip, and her pretty river eyes flutter closed as I let her feel the full extent of the want I have for her. The need I have to taste her again.
“ Orion ,” she breathes, and fuck , do I want to claim her right here and now. But I’ve already waited this long, I can handle another day.
I can’t help taking a little for myself, though.
I haven’t stopped wanting her since I almost came at the taste of her last night.
Having her only a few feet away the past several hours but being unable to touch her was a special kind of torture.
The truth is, from the moment I arrived in New Orleans the day after her eighteenth birthday, when I finally saw her in person, I’ve only wanted this rebellious girl.
My hand drifts down her body, the other gripping the rack like it’s the only thing stopping me from hoisting her onto my cock. There’s a purpose for what I’m doing right now beyond taking what I want, and the only way to keep her safe is to hold back and remember that.
Ruby red flushes up her chest, but she doesn’t stop me, not even when my fingers trail down her tulle skirt. Our gazes lock in this battle of wills. I’m testing how far she’ll let me go. She’s daring herself to keep pretending not to care.
When my fingers brush her thigh, she breaks, grabbing my shirt and scratching my abs with one of her sharp nails. I groan at the sting and hike her leg around my waist, pinning her against the SUV to fully cage in my little bird. She bites her plump lip, and her thigh tightens around my hip.
I stroke over her garter, stopping at the crease of her hip, right over the stunning ink staring up at me.
“You’re gonna keep fighting me, and I crave it. But what you don’t realize is you’re already mine. You wear my mark.” I squeeze the tattoo hard, earning a gasp.
Her eyes go from half-lidded to angry in an instant. “Skulls are the Bordeaux mark.”
I nod. “Furys too.”
Letting go of the rack, I tug down my shirt’s neckline, revealing the birthmark above my heart, a skull marred with a scar through its crown.
Her mouth parts as she studies it.
“The Fury birthmark,” I explain. “An odd phenomenon that’s lasted generations.
Anyone born into it has one, and anyone sworn in—married or otherwise—gets a skull tattooed.
You’re ahead of the curve, pretty bride.
And isn’t it so very interesting that yours…
” I brush my thumb where the blush roses and wildflowers highlight the crack through the skull’s crown.
“Is exactly like mine? Down to the eyes. Almost like someone planned it.”
I circle my thumb over each eye, one a swirl of dark green ringed around brown, the other its mirror image.
“No…” she breathes, gaze darting from my birthmark to my eyes, then down to her tattoo and back.
“Just putting it together? Bet you thought my eyes were familiar from somewhere, didn’t you?”
“But… how—” She tries to push me away with her closed fists. “What the fuck ?”
I chuckle. “You were reckless that night. Raising hell on Bourbon, swearing you’d go to anyone brave enough to tattoo you. So I called a girl Hatch knew up the bayou and told her what to give you. Once you called the rideshare, I helped you get there.”
“But you couldn’t have known where I was going! The driver got lost and took me to a different artist…”
“Or maybe he knew exactly where he was going.”
She groans. “That was you too?”
I nod. “You really should double-check your rideshare info. Any ol’ depraved bastard could drive right up and steal you.”
“There’s no way that was you,” she scoffs. “That was forever ago!”