Page 63 of Red Dragon’s Flame

He turned to Devon. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you.”

She patted his arm as Michelangela dug into the Cheetos. “It will be fine. You’ll love it.”

“I just hope she keeps the Cheeto dust out of the tattoo,” he muttered, and left them to it.

Mikah had hoped for a quiet morning—and he almost got it. Just when he was starting to think about lunch, there was a commotion outside, full of shouts and growling and a demand to see Tristan himself.

Who, of course, wasn’t there. Sighing, he got up and walked to the door.

One of the she-wolves from the village was coming through the atrium, literally dragging her son by his ear. Arielle, Mikah thought her name was. The village had grown so much, he didn’t know everyone personally anymore.

She looked around the room. “Where is Tristan? He’s got to get control over that troublemaking niece of his. This time she’s gone too far.”

Oh, hell. The boy looked about Mikey’s age. Had she gone and seduced him, or what?

The kid looked embarrassed and terrified. “Mom, come on, it’s not that bad.”

She stopped, one hand on her hip, the other still pinching his ear to keep him from running off. “Not that bad? Not that bad?”

She ripped the collar of his shirt open. There, on his chest, was an absolutely stunning tattoo of a dragonfly.

Shit. Mikah rubbed his hand through his hair. “Well, I can understand you’re upset, if your son got a tattoo without permission. I’ll speak to Michelangela—”

He broke off. The dragonfly’s wings rippled, and then they moved. They actually lifted out of the boy’s skin, shimmering to life, and it raised its head. Then the wings settled down again and became a tattoo once more.

Mikah stopped, his mouth open, just as Tristan and Emon walked into the atrium. Arielle stomped up to Tristan. “Your niece has got to be stopped,” she said. “She’s got no call to be running around giving magical tattoos to minors—”

“Magical tattoos?” Tristan said.

“Michelangela?” Emon asked.

“Look!” Her voice quivered with outrage. The boy turned, and the dragonfly’s wings rose out of his chest again, quivering with iridescent light.

For a minute, no one spoke. Then Mikah realized what Michelangela was probably doing right that minute.

“Shit,” he whispered, feeling the blood drain out of his face.

“What is it?” Tristan asked. “Are you okay?”

“Mikey’s in our room right now,” he said. “And she’s giving Devon a tattoo.”

A tattoo that was probably magical—whether Mikey knew it or not. On a woman who already had some kind of magical being inside her that didn’t like to be messed with.

He saw the understanding of the implications flash across the others’ faces. As one, they all turned and raced for the stairs.

Michelangela had designed a beautiful tattoo for Devon. An intricately feathered and braided wing to go on her left pectoral, right above her boob, similar to the one Mikah had on his right pec.

Only hers had a heart at the bottom, where the wing attachment would be.

When she held him in her arms, when they made love, it would be two wings, one heart. She hoped he understood what she meant by it—all the things she couldn’t say, about her feelings and her future.

He was her heart and her wings. Her hero.

However long the future was, she wanted to spend it with him.

Michelangela had done the outline of the wing, and was filling in the heart. Suddenly Devon felt her breath catch, and the fire rose up within her.

“Mikey, get back,” she said.