"Help me be able to access my magic, and I'll show you," she said with a sly little smile.
"I don't think I like how easily you can manipulate me," he said and started to draw over her soft skin.
"Don't make it so easy then," Yelena replied. "It's better if I show you anyway. It has the bonus of getting us out of the city as well."
"Now you are sweetening the deal. Keep doing that, and I won't mind being manipulated at all." Valentine sketched the rest of the sigil on her arm. The scar that cut across it made his heart ache. "I'm never going to be able to make this up to you. I don't want to fight about it—I understand your reasoning—but I wish the price hadn't been so high."
"You're a sorcerer, Valentine. You know better than most that all magic comes with a price."
"This wasn't magic, baby girl. This was torture," he pointed out.
"Fighting the fate that I saw in the vision was magic. This is the price. I knew what would happen. I paid it willingly," Yelena replied, her voice calm. Far too calm.
Valentine didn't want to fight. "That vision you had must have been truly horrific."
"You said you had one of your mother dying? You know the pain of that. Now imagine seeing everyone you have ever known and loved dead. I saw you in Midir's thrall. There was no worse future I could imagine than that," Yelena replied.
Valentine stroked a thumb over her forearm. "I'm sorry. I'm being a bastard. I just..."
"You don't think your life was worth my hand? Because to me, it is," Yelena said, and it was like a kick to his guts that she would care about him after how he had treated her. She nodded to the gun he had prepped. "Get on with, Valentine, before we start bitching at each other."
Valentine picked up the gun. She was right. She always was. It would have been annoying if he didn't like her so much. "Okay, I'm going to start. It might give you a little shock first...and you don't care. Right."
Valentine shook out his hands and cracked his neck. His magic thrummed in his fingertips, needing to get out. He dipped the needles into the ink and got to work.
19
The light, stinging buzz of the tattoo gun sent shivers all over Yelena's skin. Valentine had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, showing off his own tattoos on his strong forearms.
Yelena had nowhere else to look but at him, and she unashamedly admired the elegantly shaped hands and ink-stained fingers. There was a slight crease in his brow, and faint lines around his eyes. The tips of her fingers itched to stroke his nose, his cheeks, his lips.
She really wanted to taste those lips. The bite on her neck throbbed, and she tightened her thighs at the arousal building between them. She needed to control her increasingly filthy thoughts. The intensity of them was surprising and would have been unnerving if she hadn't also been so aroused that she could barely think straight.
Valentine shifted her arm and kept working. If he noticed her close study of him, he didn't show it. There was a slight haze of scarlet around him like an aura.
"I can feel the magic tying together. It's working, Valentine," she said, wetting her dry lips.
"I learned some new techniques when I stayed with the elves over midsummer," he replied, not looking away from his work. "Their ink shamans are amazing. They create beautiful designs for their mates."
"I know. I've seen Layla's. They are lovely." Yelena ignored the dragon in her chanting 'mate' every time she so much as looked at Valentine. She was distracted enough. She needed to steer the subject away from mates altogether. "Tell me about your adventures in France? How is Apollo?"
"Ridiculous, now that he and Lachie have finally admitted their feelings for each other. At least Bas and Bridget keep all their gross stuff telepathic. Apollo is like a cat that got into the cream," Valentine replied, but Yelena could tell he was happy for them.
She sat as still as she could as he worked and talked about everything that had happened with the alchemist blood mages who had been kidnapping and experimenting on creatures. It was despicable.
Yelena found the human world a combination of great wonder and cruelty. Faerie could be as bad, but there was something about the cold science that repelled her.
"I'm glad you rescued all of those prisoners. I wonder where the griffon came from? I have never seen one of those," Yelena said once he had finished.
"It's living with Killian and Bron at his castle here in Faerie. They didn't want to keep something as rare as that in the human world. A lot of the prisoners are in bad shape, but they can at least talk about it. The griffon can't, so it's best it's in an environment where it can fly and be free as it needs to be," Valentine replied."If you like, once this business with Midir is over, I can take you to see it."
Yelena's stomach flipped. "I would really like that."
"Then I'll make it happen." Valentine's neck was a little pink, and it surprised Yelena that he would be shy about asking her. She knew he didn't let anyone close to him, and she would have to tread carefully to make sure she didn't accidentally say the wrong thing and push him away. She was done pretending she didn't want to be with him, but the aggressive side of her possessiveness needed to be tempered.
"You look worried all of a sudden. Do you need a break?" Valentine asked, glancing up at her.
Yelena shook her head. "No, I'm fine. I'm not worried. Just thinking."
