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Nate didn’t wait even a heartbeat to bend down and kiss her deep. And as she smelled those dark spices, she had a crazy thought. An absolutely insane one.
Had he bonded with her? Was that even possible?
Considering that promise he’d made to her father… it could explain why he kept breaking his word.
When they finally came up for air, she was ready to fuck off thetattoo stuff and go back to Luchas House. Or get a hotel. Or hey, there were chairs over there—the desk, maybe? She was willing to bet Amore would give them a little privacy.
“I’m sorry I was late.” Nate reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and held up a small container. “I had to get your ink.”
“You’re here now.” She put her hand up to his face. “You’re forgiven for everything.”
A darkness filtered through his face, but he covered it up quick. “So I guess you met Amore—”
“She’s in love with me, honey.” The artist sailed into the waiting area like they were riding a magic carpet, all smooth stride and fabulousness. “You’re just coming up short. But really, can you blame her?”
Nate tucked Nalla against his side. “Nope, not at all.”
“Ahh, see, that’s why you’re my favorite client. You’re not just decorative, you have half a brain.”
“Are you ready for this?” Nate asked her.
Nalla smiled. “I have no idea what I’m doing, but I gotta give that a hell yeah. Let’s get some ink done on me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
You did great, honey.”
About two hours later, Nate was hovering over Amore’s table and watching as the human made a last pass over Nalla’s shoulder blade with a rinse and a wipe-down.
His favorite female vampire turned her head and angled a stare at him. “How’s it look?”
The depiction was of an apple tree in full bloom, the branches extending out from the core in a graceful arch, each flower perfectly drawn, as if it were ink on paper, not ink on skin put there by a needle.
He knew exactly what had inspired the design.
It was the mosaic floor from the Brotherhood mansion’s grand foyer. He’d visited a couple of times with his parents, back when the First Family had lived there. He’d never felt particularly comfortable in the palace, but he knew it had been Nalla’s home for a time.
“Beautiful,” he said as he rubbed his thumb on the pad of her hand. “You miss that house, don’t you.”
A flicker of sadness darkened her yellow eyes. “Things seemed… easier there. Then again, maybe that was only because I was little.”
God, he hated the fact that he was coming between her and her father. And he could not blame the Brother.
“It’s with you forever, now.” He reached out and brushed a strand of hair back from her face. “It’s a tangible memory.”
“That’s why I picked it.”
Nate thought of his own ink. He’d done the same, but what was in his skin was his nightmare. Stupid, really. To think putting some ink on him would draw the torture out of his soul somehow. But at least the discomfort of the needle had distracted him from the real pain, at least for the hours he’d been on the table.
“I’m glad…”
As his voice drifted, she prompted, “About?”
For a moment, he was sucked into his own past, once again back in that bright white and stainless steel lab, trapped inside a cage with wire walls, staring out as hismahmen, withered and exhausted and bruised, was laid out on the exam table and strapped down even though she had been all but dead from the experiments. He had been crying, but he had not begged. The humans in the lab coats never responded to words, like he was just an animal yelping.
He hadn’t known what they injected into her. Just like he’d never known what they put in him. Viruses, diseases, poisons… a flood pushing into him and taking over his body, the symptoms that bloomed a toxic garden cultivated by his captors.
Nate cleared his throat as the old, familiar agony of recollection ached in his very bones, sure as if his consciousness had been in a devastating car accident, and though he could still walk, his mental limbs were permanently fractured.
