Page 32 of Hunted Ink

I pulled him with me toward the shower to wash off the filth, knowing full well that we would get dirty all over again. We have a lifetime of this, I told myself, but I reached up to cover his Order tattoo with my hand. A lifetime… as soon as we were free of the Order.

Chapter 20

Apollo

“I could get used to this…” I drawled, dancing my fingers down Kedi’s spine and watching as goosebumps chased my touch. The sheet was draped over the cusp of his shapely ass, and I was thoroughly enjoying being the one to do the teasing.

We still hadn’t gotten out of bed, and it was after ten. Living in the Order, there was no such thing as lazy days. There was always work to be done, gardening, feeding the chickens, training… and killing. Just lying in bed with my mate was the most welcome change to my routine.

“What’s this one?” I asked.

Kedi craned his neck around as if he could see what I was pointing at from that angle. “Which one?”

“The one that looks like a banana.”

He snorted. “It’s a banana, obviously. Duh.”

I laughed, tickling his armpit and making him roll away with a shriek, curling up in defense. “Why did you get a banana tattooed on your back?”

He flopped over and pulled the sheet up to his chin to protect himself from me. “It’s a long story—or a short one I would rather not admit to—but I will tell you it involved lots of wolfsbane and a dare.”

I shook my head, grinning lasciviously as I yanked the sheet straight back down to his waist and continued my perusal of his ink. “You don’t have to do something just because someone dared you to, you know.”

He glared at me with mock insult. “It was a triple-dog dare. Everyone knows you can’t turn those down.”

“Right…” In fact, I did not know that, but I suspected it had something to do with how I’d been raised. I’d missed out on so many things, but I had Kedi and his pack to help catch me up to speed.

Before he could wonder why I’d gotten quiet, I blurted, “Maybe I should get a tattoo… or another one, I guess.” I sighed, looking down at the Order crest on my chest. While it was meant to be a mark of pride, to me, it was nothing more than a brand to remind me that they saw me as their property.

“What would you get?” Kedi asked lightly, propping his chin up on his clasped hands. His eyes missed nothing, and I knew he saw the darkness of where my mind was headed, and he’d offered me a way out, like a ray of sunshine in the middle of a thunderstorm.

I would always pick his sunshine. I let myself grin at him. “Maybe I should get a banana, like yours.”

“Nah, skip the euphemism and just get a giant dick, how ’bout right here?” He dragged a finger down the center of my throat.

“Hmm, yeah, maybe,” I drawled, before we both burst out laughing.

I moved my attention on to the next tattoo, this one in grayscale of a silvery full moon half disguised by drifting clouds. It was so realistic, I could almost feel the breeze that was tugging those clouds across the velvety night sky. I paused before allowing my fingertip to barely skim over his ribs. There was just something about it… something magical that made my skin tingle. “What about this one?” I asked.

Unlike last time, Kedi didn’t need to look to see which one I was talking about. His smile softened. “Well, that one’s for you.”

He said it so matter-of-factly that it took me a second to register what he’d said. “What… what do you mean?”

For a second I wondered if it had been some childhood memory he’d been hanging on to, but then he said, “That is the exact image of the moon on the night we found each other again.”

I blinked slowly, heart skipping a beat. “But that… that’s impossible.”

“You met North last night.”

“Joel’s mate?”

He nodded. “He’s the tattoo artist who gave me this, and he has… a gift. A touch of the sight, maybe? Fairy magic? Exposure to radioactive waste? However it works, when he tattoos someone, he sees a vision of their fated mate, whether that be past, present, or future. People wait years for a seat in his chair…” He trailed off, his smile melting away. “I got that tattoo at a point in my life when I was really struggling. I was lost. I didn’t know who I was, who I was supposed to be. Sierra’s always done her best to hold us all together, but without a true Alpha, the pack was… drifting.” He shrugged like his pain was nothing to worry about, and my heart hurt in my chest for him.

Kedi gave a sniffly laugh. “Anyway, when he gave me that tattoo, it felt like an anchor. A place in time, somewhere in the future, where I knew I belonged. It gave me hope on those dark days, knowing you were out there. That I was fated to meet you—whoever you were—and that I wouldn’t be alone forever.”

My throat felt tight with emotion, and all I wanted was to pull him into my arms and change the past for him. For us both. We deserved better—we deserved each other from the very beginning—and I would spend the rest of our lives making up for lost time.

I wrapped an arm around his waist and dragged him across the mattress, tucking my nose into his pink hair. “I wish I’d known you were out there too.” I pulled back enough to pepper kisses across his stubbly jaw, his damp eyes, the tip of his nose, and finally landing on his lips. “Hmm, I wonder what kind of tattoo North would give me about you.”