Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Onyx: Everyone loves these tattoos. Few know what they mean.
Staying in the background helped me in more ways than one. I knew what she was trying to do. I learned from an early age how to read people. Who was lying, who was pretending, who was bluffing, and who was just full of fucking shit. A person’s body language always told me their story.
Some of it was instinctual, some of it was learned, and some of it was bred.
Most of it was bullshit.
I still loved to observe, though, knowing my mark, knowing my enemies, knowing who I couldn’t trust for a second. Everyone had a tell, and it was usually their demise. It was easier to control someone when you knew the signs.
Defaulting into her witty personality, she teased, “You should try it sometime.”
“Dancing under the moon?” I scoffed. “Not unless you’re sharing whatever you’re on.”
She huffed a laugh, still not looking at me, obsessed with my tattoos. “It’s called nature.”
Without wavering, I baited, “Are you a witch?” I tried to see if she’d give me a straight answer.
“Why?” She smiled, her gaze now reading the font on my chest piece. “Are you scared?”
“Of fairy tales?” I taunted.
My words snapped her gaze to connect with mine.
Taking one deliberate step toward me, she sassed, “Little do you know…” She took another step in my direction.
“You burned me at the stake in 1692.” She got right in my space, moving my crossbow out of the way before getting on the tips of her toes, closing the distance between us.
My six-foot-two frame towered above her. She couldn’t have been taller than five-four.
With determination, she looked up at me. “And I cursed you to find me in every lifetime.”
Unable to resist the temptation, breaking one of my oaths, I conceded, “I wouldn’t expect anything less from a Belladonna, Hennessy.”
The wall she built came crumbling down, anxiously waiting for what I’d confess next. I had her right where I wanted her. Witnessing the uncertainty crash through her confidence made my dick hard.
When I didn’t share more, she insisted, “Keep going.”
“Tell me, Hennessy…” I threw her a bone, gathering information I could use for later. “How much do you actually know about your family’s history?”
She stepped back. “You mean my father’s?”
“I mean your bloodline.”
She shook her head, confused. “I don’t understand.”
“Good.” I nodded. “The less you know, the better.”
“Better for who? Your family? The Graves Academy? My uncle? What?” She was exasperated. “Or better yet, what do you know about my family? How about we start there?”
Using this to my advantage, I bargained, “What do I get out of it?”
She flinched. “You think this is a negotiation?”
“Everything in life is.”
“Huh,” she hummed. “Is that what your prestigious Graves Academy is teaching you? It’s called extortion. It also comes with a prison sentence.”
I argued, “Only if you get caught, and even then, just throw some money at the problem.”
“So silence is bought?”
“Yes. Especially if you’re dead.”
Her eyes widened. “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“I’m not the one who’s interrogating you, now, am I?”
She huffed out a deep breath. “The only thing you haven’t done is strip-search me.”
I held back a laugh. “Then bend over and cough for me, Hennessy.”
“You know…” Mischievously, she smiled. “Two can play this game.”
“Careful,” I warned with a slow grin that time. “You don’t know all the rules yet.”
In one breath, she asserted, “I know that I don’t like you.”
I chuckled, eyeing her up and down for a moment. “That’s your pride talking.” I leaned forward, getting close to her face. “Now let’s see if it’s louder than your curiosity since you lack basic common sense.”
“My turn,” she snapped, amusing me far more than anyone else had in a very long time.
Her stare traveled from my eyes to the tattooed sleeve covering my right arm before reaching for it.
Her fingers barely grazed the ink as she gave me her best shot. “Poseidon,” she commented.
I didn’t answer.
“Greeks believe he ruled the ocean, Devereaux.”
Hearing her say my last name with such disdain made my cock twitch, taking my entertainment wherever I could.
“Every ship that dared to cross his sea would answer to him.” Her fingers slid to the trident Poseidon was stabbing through Odysseus.
“Most people think that Poseidon was the bad guy. He was a villain, but Odysseus earned his hatred in my opinion.” She traced the waves between them.
“You’re not the hero, Onyx. You’re the god making sure everyone pays their consequences. ”
I remained silent.
“Now this”—she pointed between the two—“isn’t a battle scene.
It’s judgment. Every story needs a villain, and if history has proven anything, it’s that it depends on who is telling the story.
Their story isn’t about revenge. It’s about a debt being collected.
” She pointed at the back of my lower arm.
“You have Medusa in the form of a serpent. You’re honoring her because, like you, she had the power to turn men into stone. ”
I swallowed hard, fighting with my restraint to stop her.
Following through, she gestured to the tattoo above Medusa.
“The state of Florida, that tattoo means you have someone you actually care for who lives there, or maybe it’s just the fond memories you hold on to, which is why you have a scuba diver right here.
” Her fingers lightly traced the lining of my inner forearm.
“Is this you or someone else? Either way, the ocean is most important to you.”
I swallowed hard again, hanging on by a thread.
Reaching for my left arm, she pointed at the shipwreck on my shoulder, from the octopus below it, to the killer shark, to the jellyfish and the hammerheads, and then Ariel.
“All of these are parts of you, from the pirate that is your lineage, right? Devereaux…” She rolled it off her tongue.
“Sounds awfully buccaneer to me. It also explains why there’s a serpent crest at the top of your estate. ”
I didn’t answer, too stunned to speak.
“I’m going to guess that Ariel was your first crush. She lost her voice and couldn’t talk, for some reason. I think you’d appreciate that. A woman not having a voice makes it easier for you to control them, and from where I’m standing, that’s all you’re about.”
My chest rose and fell with each thorough analysis that left her mouth.
“Then,” she said, “there’s the skull on your chest with the same date that’s carved into the tree.
10-31-12. But that’s only part of it. You have the same initials tatted over your heart that are on your blazer emblem.
It’s different from mine. It’s different from all of ours.
You and Caspian have the same one. I’m assuming all your buddies do.
I just haven’t figured out what the initials mean, and I know you won’t tell me.
You won’t tell me anything.” She didn’t take a breath.
“These tattoos aren’t just art on your skin, Onyx.
No, they're much deeper than that. They’re your ancestry, and you wear them like an altar. ”
With my heart in my throat, I sneered, “Who told you that?”
“Told me what?”
“Any of it.”
She blinked, baffled by my outburst. “No one.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, studying her in the same way she just dissected me. “You’re fucking lying.”
“Why? Because I can read you?”
“These tattoos took me years to plan.” My tone was uneven. I couldn’t hide it now. “I designed them before a needle touched my skin. I have over a hundred hours of art done.”
Her eyes drifted back to my art. “It shows. You wear the altars well, almost like you were born with them on your flesh.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be.”
“Then answer me. Who the fuck told you all that?”
She jerked back by the drastic change in my voice, simply stating, “You did.”
My eyebrows pinched together, hearing her admit that to me.
“Your fingertips are all over those tattoos. It’s not just art reflecting back at me.” She paused for a second, rasping, “All the bright, dazzling colors, all the history, it speaks to me. Actually, it’s not speaking. It’s screaming. It’s your soul, Onyx Devereaux. It’s shouting for me.”
Something inside me broke in two. She had no idea who she was fucking with, not one clue of what she spoke about, and I was going to make sure she understood that.
“Who the hell do you think you are?”
She stood tall. “Hennessy Belladonna, and since you think I’m a witch, I’m assuming you’ve heard about my father’s lineage, but you don’t see me losing my shit over it. I wasn’t trying to—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you were trying to do.”
She winced, muttering, “Onyx—”
“You don’t get to say my name as if you know me.”
“I never said I did. I was just saying—”
“I know exactly what you were saying.” I glared at her. “Out here in the fucking woods in shorts your ass is barely covering and a top that’s doing one hell of a job at pretending to cover your tits.”
She recoiled as if I’d slapped her. “Eres un pendejo.” She called me an asshole.
A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. “Finally, you’re seeing me for who I really am.”
Hennessy
His words hit harder than they should’ve, especially when he walked away from me. His stride held nothing but determination as he grabbed my hoodie off the grass and tossed it toward me.
It landed at my feet, and I stared at it like it was a bomb about to explode.
“Put it on.” Before I could argue, he snidely bit out like the copperhead snake I just encountered, “Your nipples are in my goddamn face.”
I sucked in a breath, instantly looking down. He was right. Despite it being cold outside, heat still stirred down my spine.
Meeting his eyes again, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Problem solved.”
His stare darkened. “Not even close.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
“If that were true, then you’d know when to shut your mouth,” I spoke with conviction. “I don’t answer to you.”
“Huh,” I mocked. “Just your daddy then, or is it the Brotherhood who owns your balls?”
If he was surprised that I knew about this so-called Brotherhood, he didn’t show it.
In two long strides, he was in my face. “Go home.”
I didn’t cower. “No.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“You invaded my territory,” I called out. “You go home.”
“I am home. You’re on my property.”
I peered past him, toward my uncle’s estate. “I’m still on my tío’s—”
“When are you going to learn…” he interrupted, leaning forward, inching toward my lips. “I own everything.”
My stomach dropped. I never expected his next declaration.
With a menacing expression, he growled, “Including you, Belladonna.”