It wasn’t a bone needle,but a metal one didn’t exactly make getting a neck tattoo more comfortable.
He didn’t mind, though. Kaz was just glad he was finally allowed to turn his head toward Atria’s chair. For the past hour, he’d been forced to look everywhere but her as the tattoo artist worked on the collar that wrapped around his neck. Smelling her blood in the air when he couldn’t see her might have driven him insane if it weren’t for the bond humming hot and bright between them.
Even when he couldn’t see her, hefelther there deep in the part of him he hadn’t even realized was empty.
Kaz met Atria’s eyes from across the tattoo parlor. A heavily tattooed fey was diligently buzzing away at her neck, putting the finishing touches on the Rione clan ink that she’d insisted on.
His lips twitched at the sight of her languid expression. Speaking in front of a crowd was like pulling teeth, but getting her throat inked was a step up from taking a nap, apparently.
Seeing his smile, she playfully wrinkled her nose. Her easy affection glowed inside him.
The tether had taken some getting used to, but the bond was as natural as breathing. His mate was part of him, had always been a part of him, and having her magic coursing through his veins somehow made her emotions less foreign. With the tether, it was like they’d lacked context, making large bursts of feeling a little disorienting. With the bond, he could feel her inside his mind —allof her, not just what she felt from moment to moment.
He was shit with words, so he couldn’t describe it even if he wanted to, but he cherished it nonetheless. Just as he cherished every other aspect of their life together.
Having the bond, waking up to her every morning, watching her pad barefoot through their apartment to feed the parrots roosting on their balcony at sunset, even backing her up when she tried to strong-arm Fracture into dinners inside… Kaz didn’t take a second of it for granted. He even liked it when she left half-empty mugs around, since she usually got distracted by work before she could finish her coffee in the morning.
Since their rushed return to the EVP, escorted by a veritable army of elves and one extremely surly sovereign couple, they hadn’t quite had a chance to settle into a routine, but they were getting there.
Between picking up his duties again — though heandhis team were grounded until Theodore cooled off some — Atria’s sudden stardom, and their continued search for Ruby, they didn’t exactly have a lot of down time. They managed, though.
Every night, they went to bed in their recently renovated nest. Every morning, she made coffee while he cooked breakfast. He didn’t like having a blind spot, so he’d spent a good amount of his downtime in Montague learning how to make food for his little human mate. The look of delight she wore whenever he presented her with something new was so deeply satisfying, he’d started trying to one-up himself every morning.
That day, he’d tried his hand at blueberry pancakes. The berries burnt in the pan, but Atria didn’t complain. Her eyes went all misty when he scooped the pancakes onto her plate and asked, “Do you want syrup?”
She’d barely taken a bite before she hopped up on the counter, pulled him between her legs, and kissed the breath right out of him.
Every day he felt how much she loved him. Every day he understood how grateful she was to have him as her mate. And every day he tried to tell her how he couldn’t live without her.
That was why they were in the tattoo parlor on a drizzly Thursday night.
After some discussion over a bottle of wine and a long, drugging evening in the nest, they’d both decided that a marriage seemed awfully superfluous. Despite Atria’s upbringing, she wasn’t particularly religious, andhecertainly wasn’t, so really, there wasn’t a reason for them to go through the trouble of arranging a ceremony, despite the fact that they had a friend in Petra Zaskodna, the High Priestess of St. Emaine’s cathedral.
The only reason they would even consider it was to get a marriage sigil. They both liked the idea of getting marks that showed their commitment — ones they chose, not just the kohl. After a lot of hashing it out, they settled on something they both had experience with: tattoos.
Orcish tradition held that mates integrated their partner’s clan tattoos into their own. Since he obviously couldn’t get Bonded tattoos andshedidn’t relish the idea of a full Rione clan chevron on her chest and back, they decided to modify the tradition to suit their needs.
A collar for him. A collar for her. A final vow not to a god, but to one another.
By the time they left the parlor, their necks swathed in ointment and clear, rubbery bandages, both of them were nearly vibrating with the weight of that vow. Kaz held an umbrella over his mate’s head as they hustled across the empty parking lot. Neon lights shimmered in puddles and caught increasingly frequent raindrops as he stooped to open her door for her, his gaze sweeping out and around restlessly.
They were safe, of course. Per Theodore’s orders, they went nowhere without a full complement of guards. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there, ever-watchful and obedient to their sovereign’s firm command.
Kaz didn’t let it bother him. Much. The old version of him, before Atria, would have lashed out about the supervision, but the new man he was understood it. As uncomfortable as it made him, Kaz knew he would do the same thing.
He’d disappeared on his brother. For as mad as Teddy was about Kaz’s disobedience, they both knew it wasn’t really about that. It was about the cold, hard fear of losing someone he loved.
After everything, Kaz thought he understood that fear better than anyone else.
So he didn’t gnash his teeth whenever he felt the gazes of elvish soldiers sweeping over him. He quietly endured it and was grateful for the extra protection that had been provided for his mate, though his instincts still grumbled about how that washisresponsibility.
That instinct might have been hard-wired into his psyche, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d learned his lesson. Without his family, without Fracture, withoutAtria,he was lost. One could not exist without the other.
That didn’t mean he needed to get cozy with his guards, though. Especially when Atria was giving him a look likethat.
When she was safely inside the car, Kaz hustled around to the driver’s side. He’d barely snapped the umbrella closed, tossed it into the backseat, and climbed in before the sky opened up. Rain pelted the roof of his car and splashed against the windshield, turning the neon signs of the tattoo parlor and the liquor store beside it into nothing but colorful smudges.
He felt a small twinge of sympathy for their guards for all of a second before he recognized the rain for what it was — cover.
