“Okay, sure. Not a client but matching tattoos. Hindley know about this?”
“Bean,” growls Heathcliff. “Enough questions. You owe me one favor without the family knowing, remember? This is it. I’m calling it in. Otherwise I might have to tell your dad or Meemaw about—”
“Okay, okay.” Bean lifts both hands in a deprecating gesture. “It’s your business. Pick your poison.” He shifts the big binders around, then slaps one open against the acrylic countertop. After flipping a few pages, he shoves it forward. “Anything from here or the next three pages.”
The glossy two-page spread shows a selection of Celtic knots and similarly complex symbols. How did Bean know what kind of tattoo we were considering?
“You two have a look,” Bean says. “I’ll go tell Morgana you’re coming back in a minute.”
The moment he’s gone, I turn to Heathcliff. He keeps his eyes down, pretending to study the designs, so I flick his cheek. “Hey. What’s going on?”
“We’re getting tattoos.” He still won’t look at me.
“I’m not an idiot. There’s something weird going on here. Some Lockwood black magic. Are you trying to kill me? Trap me in some strange Irish marriage bond?”
He glances at me, raising an eyebrow. “You think I’m trying to marry you?”
My cheeks heat. “No, but…what is this?”
“It’s protection. For you. Nothing invasive, nothing that will affect your life at all. It’s a preventative measure, Cathy. That’s it.”
“You’re being cagey.”
He snorts a laugh. “Cagey?”
“Evasive.”
“Like I said, it’s for your protection. Hopefully you’ll never need it. After what happened yesterday…what could still happen…” He grimaces, lowers his voice. “Cathy, there is a fuckinggodswimming around near the Beaufort coastline. There’s another god who might not stay buried for long. Things are moving, changing, and it’s not good. Just do this, okay? You don’t have to believe in it—you just have to endure the pain. You heal quick anyway, so the recovery shouldn’t be too bad.”
He really believes the tattoo will help protect me. I can see it in his eyes—how badly he wants me to agree to this.
I can’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t…except the fact that I barely know him and that he’s a Lockwood, a member of the family I’ve been taught to fear. He might have some hideous agenda, and this whole stalking and seduction thing is part of a plan to destroy me.
But in my heart and in my bones, I know that’s not true. Heathcliff isn’t a good enough actor to fake everything he’s shown me of himself. I can still hear him roaring his defiance at Manannán:Let her go, you big bastard. You can’t have her.My vagina is still tingly and faintly sore from him being inside me. His eyes, his body, and his voice have told me the truth, over and over, since the night he wandered through the woods with me.
He wants me safe. I can trust him with this.
“I can pick any of them?” I ask.
He nods, lips clamped tight.
I choose a design with leaves and lilies woven among the braided lines. “This one.”
“Good choice. Bean will do mine, and Morgana will do yours. It’ll hurt.”
“Pain and I are old friends.” I smile up at him.
His gaze warms with tenderness and relief. “Thank you for doing this.”
God, are there tears in his eyes? “Like you said, it’s fun,” I say lightly. “Romantic.”
Bean saunters back into the front room. “You bitches ready?”
Heathcliff points out the design I chose, and Bean snaps a photo on his phone. “Come on, then.”
The two men vanish into the back, and a moment later a tall woman with hip-length red hair and heavily freckled skin appears. She’s wearing a blousy shirt, about twenty beaded necklaces, and a brown wrap skirt. Her feet are bare, and her pale-green eyes are so large, I’m reminded immediately of a gecko.
“I’m Morgana,” she says. “You ready?”
