29. The Tattooist
THE TATTOOIST
Seraphina
The jagged stone wall outside The Rec digs into my back where I lean against it, waiting for Khali and Az who swore they would be right behind Reiva and I.
I can’t help noticing how it doesn’t irritate my scars like it would have before the healing.
Still, I’m close to scratching off my own skin with impatience, ready to enter the bar I swore I would never step inside again and get this over with.
It’s the only way, I remind myself.
It’s been almost a day since I met Nyrielle and made her a promise. One full day of kata’s, training dummies and sparring. Normal stuff.
The small talk was different though. Lots of small talk, complimenting my fellow cadets on their tattoos and planting seeds that I’ve been thinking about getting one without outright saying it.
I haven’t lied, but I haven’t corrected any assumptions either.
Especially not when Az suggested I join them in The Rec tonight because he’s thinking about getting Khali’s eyes tattooed on his ass cheeks.
A good chance to ‘let bygones be bygones’ with my ‘ex,’ he’d said.
To ‘discuss designs with him like adults and not teenagers who once did the naked dance on a bed of feathers.’
He’d taken my eye roll as confirmation I would come and moved on to perfectly hurling a throwing star directly into our training dummy’s heart.
The sun is barely set, and I’m regretting that eye roll.
The desire to make up another excuse like I have been all week, leave Reiva here and head for Silver’s turret, almost has my feet moving of their own accord.
Footsteps on the stone floor just past one of the suits of armor further down the corridor make my pulse jump. My gaze flies their way, looking for my friends and fully expecting mussed up hair and rosy cheeks from their own ‘naked dance’ that’s doubtlessly held them up.
Instead, Silver walks toward us, holding two frothing tankards.
I almost expect him to chastise me for not showing up in the foyer at nightfall, but he nods to us both. “Draven. Scar.”
“Overlord.”
His eyes dart between me and the noisy bar I’m clearly about to go inside of. “Busy preparing for tomorrow's game I see.” Is that disappointment in his voice?
“We’re not here on a session, Sir,” Reiva promises. “Going to talk to a nephilim about a tattoo. Scarvo wants one.”
Silver raises a dark eyebrow. “You do?” he asks, stopping directly in front of me.
“Az wants to get Khali’s eyes tattooed on his ass,” I mumble, not wanting to bare-faced lie to him if I can help it.
Silver’s eyes flit between Reiva and I. “And you’re getting his?” his voice is tight with something I can’t place. More accusation than a question.
I look between Reiva’s dark, demonic eyes, and Silver’s stunning swirling pools of liquid silver and gray.
If I was to tattoo another person’s eyes on my ass, which I never would, but hypothetically, if I did…
Reiva scoffs, and if I’m not mistaken, blushes?
I shake myself, not liking where my train of thought had been going and focus on Reiva instead.
It’s easy to forget how he was shy and quiet when we got here.
“She’s already got that at the top of her spine.”
“No, she doesn’t,” Silver states.
I lift my gaze to find his already on me.
Reiva shifts, obviously confused by Silver’s words. “How—”
My own cheeks flush with heat, remembering exactly why our Overlord knows that. “I haven’t decided. Besides, it’s none of your business what I am or am not getting tattooed on my own body,” I snipe, glad to have cut Reiva off before he can ask Silver outright how he knows my back so intimately.
My visits to Silver’s turret are private. Not even Khali or the other Overlords know from what I can tell.
Sure, most of the sparring yard had gotten a glimpse after what happened with Lilliana, but there’d been so much blood that day, and my hair had covered some of the skin.
It’s not like I use the bathhouse with the rest of them either. Not even since my secret came out. I know the quietest times now and make sure I bathe then.
“Thanks for the idea, though,” I add, not sure why I’m poking the tamer of beasts.
Silver moves out of my personal space but doesn’t leave. Instead, he leans back against the wall across from me. “You’re welcome. I didn’t even know you were into tattoos.”
My lips part. “They’re growing on me.”
Truth.
He flinches, glancing over his tattoo free arms.
The pale markings covering his skin are magic made, not man made. To me though, they are even more magnificent than the most intricate tattoo.
Silver’s mouth quirks upward for a heartbeat when he catches me staring. “Khali. Thorne,” he says at the distant sound of fresh footsteps. “You’ve got a game tomorrow. I’d rather none of you die in it. Understood?”
Reiva snorts. “Understood. Survive or die trying.” He visibly sighs in relief as he looks past Silver to where Az and Khali are walking toward us, straightening their hair and clothes.
The doors to The Rec swing open and I turn, focusing on the figure standing in the doorway.
Pale hair, pale eyes, pale skin.
A tray of drinks balanced on one hand, held just above his shoulder.
“Here he is,” Az says.
“Who?” Silver asks, frowning as he takes in the nephilim man, looking totally unimpressed.
“The tattooist,” Reiva says.
“Not just any tattooist. Vulcaris’s one and only, and the man who’s going to capture every detail of my Khali’s beautiful eyes when he carves them onto my fine ass,” Az says, then like it’s an afterthought, “Oh, and he happens to be Scarvo’s fuck buddy.”
I glare at him.
“Sorry,” his hands go up in front of him, palms facing me. “Ex fuck buddy.”
Both liquid Silver and pale blue eyes land on me at once.
My cheeks heat and I have to force myself not to drop into a fighting stance.
Not wanting to work out why Silver’s entire body has gone rigid, I focus on the farmer’s son.
“Elias,” I nod. “Good to see you again.”
I’m feeling vengeful and blood thirsty enough for the statement to be true.
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is,” Khali cuts in. “Think you can keep your bullshit from the past in the past, and tattoo my girl?”
“What about my ass?” Az complains.
Khali gives him a look. “You don’t need my eyes tattooed on your ass.”
“True,” Reiva says. “The real things are always on it anyway.” He rolls his eyes.
Az seems to grow a foot taller at Reiva’s words, then taller still when Khali shrugs in obvious confirmation.
Turning to me, Elias looks me up and down, still in my training leathers smeared with ash from sparring this afternoon.
“I guess we all deserve forgiveness at some time or another,” he says, holding his free arm out to the side.
I swallow the saliva building in my mouth, feeling sick to my stomach.
The last thing I want is to step into this man’s embrace, but I can’t keep my promise if I can’t get close enough to him.
I step into him and hold my breath as his hand gently strokes up and down my back and he whispers something about accepting my apology.
All I can think about is what might be in those drinks he’s taking out of The Rec.
And of Silver’s dagger tucked inside my boot.
The second I can move without it seeming rude or strange, I step back.
Silver is gone.
Good. He’s a distraction I don’t need.
I’ve been patient all day. I’ve done my due diligence. I spent the day asking around to see if there are any other tattooists in Vulcaris.
Elias’s name was the only one that came up.
And now, seeing that tray of drinks… It's the final confirmation I need.
He’s guilty.
He’s unrepentable.
And now, he’s my next mark.
“Where are you going anyway?” Az asks. “I thought we were meeting in there?” He nods toward The Rec doorway.
“It’s quiet tonight,” he says. I’m not surprised on the eve of a game. “They don’t need us all behind the bar.”
“Hot date?” Reiva asks, nodding to the glasses of different sizes and shapes filled to the brim with colorful and toxic looking cocktails.
Which one fills the drinker with insatiable lust?
“Something like that.”
Lilliana again? I want to ask, but bite my tongue. Whatever she needed to get out of him she already succeeded. The scene in the sparring yard last week was proof of that.
Any information he may have given her about the journal, I guess I’ll never know. Not while Lilliana is keeping her cards close to her chest and making it impossible for me to work out her next move.
“She won’t mind us trying one of those exotic looking cocktails would she?” I ask. We may be letting bygones be bygones, but I can’t let him take those drinks too.
“Of course not. Anyone want one?” Elias asks, but as he lowers the tray, he suddenly jolts like someone’s pushed him.
The entire tray crashes to the floor, glasses smashing.
“Shit!” Az calls out, dropping to the ground with Khali and Reiva to help pick up the pieces.
While they do that, I keep my eyes on Elias’s face, which isn’t at all surprised or concerned by his supposed clumsiness. “Not like you to be clumsy,” I say, thinking about how he would carry trays full of food and drink up my turret and never drop so much as a wayward grape.
“Not like you to wear leather and get tattoos.”
Fair comment.
“I guess people can change,” I say, crouching to help my allies with the mess.
He nods, crouching down beside me.
My fingers twitch, desperate to be wrapped around the dagger in my boot.
“Tomorrow,” he says, distracting me enough to forget the dagger for now. “If you survive the game, meet me in the library at sunset and I’ll do your tattoo.”
“I loved that library.” It’s meant to be a thought kept to myself, but the quirk of Elias’s blond eyebrow tells me I said it loud enough for him to hear.
“Before I learned of the darkness among its shelves,” I clarify. Not a lie exactly, I just omitted the parts where he and his sadistic, predatorial, abuse are the darkness among the shelves.
“Seraphina has been reading a lot about Luxuria this week,” Khali explains.
Most of Ferrum are convinced that tomorrow’s game will be a test of lust and chastity. Hence Az and Khali’s attempt to ‘Get it out of their system’ tonight.
I’m not sure but welcome the chance to learn more about Luxuria anyway. About the castle Silver had grown up in and the family who’d once owned him.
I’ve not asked him to talk about it again yet. Not since that first night he opened up. He’s not offered any more of those soul twisting, gut churning memories either.
I will ask him, but first there is another man who needs my undivided attention, and he’s just chosen the time and place he wants to take his last breath.
Now, time to go and talk to Diana’s dagger like I promised her I would last night before meeting another nephilim girl whose story had changed everything.
Nyrielle.
She’d woken the assassin in me and I won’t be satiated until Silver’s dagger is coated in Elias’s blood.