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He wasn’t interested in me, Mom, or our family. He made that abundantly clear whenever he deigned to show up.
As I made it outside, I moved around the corner, and my face lit up when I saw Declan’s Spider waiting there. I slipped in as quickly as I could, and when I saw him, I felt my heart start to pound.
He was so beautiful.
I was working on a set of sketches that would never see the light of day because no one would ever be able to know about us, and a set of paintings with him as the subject were bound to catch someone’s attention.
“Hey,” he murmured, his smile deepening when I beamed at him. He reached over and cupped my chin, sliding his fingers over the crest of my cheekbone with those rough hands that were capable of such violence, yet could be so tender too.
He was a man of many facets, and I wanted to know each and every one of them.
“Hi,” I whispered. “Where to today?”
He shrugged. “Got a present for you.” He ducked his head a little sheepishly. “Got two, actually.”
My eyes twinkled. “Really?”
“Really,” he replied, his lips tugging into a grin as he reached behind him for something on the back seat.
When he plopped a little bag on my lap, I eyed it with glee and started to open it. Seeing a box, I laughed, and then laughed some more when I opened it up and found another box. It was long and thin, so not a ring box or an earring box. Maybe a necklace? Although, not with those dimensions.
A little nervous, I stroked my hand over the box and giggled when he asked, “Want me to open it for you?”
His dry question had me shooting him a shy look, then I opened it and my mouth gaped.
“My God, it’s beautiful,” I breathed, my fingers drifting over the jade hair stick. It had a tiny figurine on the tip, and when I peered at it, I just knew how old it was.
I could literally feel the age on it.
The jade was still as pure, as green, asregalas ever, but the carvings in it were soft, smoothed over time like sand on the shore.
“Do you like it?” he asked cautiously.
“I love it,” I whispered, beyond touched that he’d give me something like this. I gulped as I picked it up, letting the light hit it, and then I reached up, took my hair out of the ponytail I had it in, and created a loose bun. I slid the hair stick into it, and with stars in my eyes, queried, “How’s it look?”
“As gorgeous as you.” His hand moved to cup my face again, and like he usually did, he gently angled me this way and that, just like I’d done with the jade hair stick. Positioning me so that the light would hit my face, hit the angles in it, so, like the artist he was, he could appreciate it. “Beautiful.”
My smile was shaky. “Thank you.”
“Never thank me for the truth,” he murmured, his gaze distant, and I wished like hell he was standing behind an easel or with a pen and notepad in his hand, sketching me. He needed that output, needed it more than I did, but I knew he’d never let himself have it.
A tragedy.
“What’s my other gift?” I asked, because even though I wasn’t greedy, if I didn’t change the subject, I’d burst into tears.
He twisted his hand, showing me the tag on his hand. Acuig meant five in Gaelic, and a lot of the gofers had it on some part of their body, which meant almost everyone in the ranks did because you started off as a gofer and worked your way up.
“I want to mark you.”
My eyes flared wide in surprise, but I knew why he was doing it, and I knew, immediately, why he’d given me the jade hair pin first.
That was for me.
The tag was for him.
And it was tying me into what I was. What he saw me as. Not what I wanted to be.
I bit my lip and nodded, but my excitement died.
