Nothing would ruin this. Not a dead god or a missing Angel.
We hadn’t seen much of the Prime Warriors since we’d done away with Echnid. Most resided in their own territories, doing Spirits knew what. Damien allowed us to retain Damenal. He came by from time to time, and we had a temporary truce despite how they’d used me, but it seemed they were all processing their existences in their own ways. Damien needed solitude in his mountains.
I let the Angels handle that. It was their mess to clean up, and I was done being their toy.
I wanted to be here.
“Ophelia! Tolek!” Marxian, the tattoo artist, greeted us as he emerged from the back room of his shop.
“It’s good to see you,” I said, hugging him.
Tolek shook his hand. “The parlor looks great. Are the window displays new?”
“They are.” Marxian nodded. “Our latest apprentice drew them herself. She’s trying to bring in some younger clientele.”
The burly warrior shrugged, but a fond smile hid beneath his dark beard. I glanced at the displays hanging behind the fresh glass window—replaced after the Battle of Damenal tore through the city. Two long scrolls dangled from the ceiling, each baring a number of tattoo designs.
Marxian had always operated on word of mouth, not caring much to decorate the space, but it added a nice touch. That, plus the mural now taking up one wall, depicting a vibrant phoenix and gryphon tangled artistically, along with what I thought might have been a dragon. I sure as Spirits hadn’t woken one ofthose, though, so I assumed the artist worked off a myth.
“They look wonderful,” I added. “She must be talented.”
“She is,” he agreed, crossing his arms. “So, what can I do for you two, this time?”
Marxian had inked our Band tattoos along with those of our friends months ago, before the parlor had been redecorated. We each had a string of peonies and delicate vines around our upper arm now, declaring our high rank among the Mystique Warriors.
I looked up at Tolek, his broad smile forcing one out of me.
“We’re ready for the Bind,” I stated.
Just saying the words had my wings fluttering and Angellight curling around the feathers. I fidgeted, rising up and down on my toes. Tolek laughed, bringing my hand to his lips. Where he kissed, my entire body heated.
“You’re sure?” Marxian asked, brows raised. His eyes dropped to the North Star on my arm.
“We’ve waited a year,” I reminded him, “to see if there were any lingering effects. But there haven’t been.”
The North Star Bind Malakai and I had received as teenagers was well and truly severed, the strands of our souls ripping apart in his death.
Marxian’s gaze flitted skeptically to Tolek, and I knew he was thinking of when he’d inked the Bonds on the back of our necksnearly two years ago. Tol’s had been incredibly painful for him, and it was part of the reason I put off the Bind, but his Band had been easier.
“We’re positive,” Tolek confirmed, no hint of doubt in his voice.
Marxian nodded, and even he smiled. “Then by all means, show me the design.”
As he prepared his supplies, Marxian asked, “If you’re receiving the Bind, will there also be an official ceremony? Vows and name changing and all that?”
“Sure will,” Tolek said proudly, holding my stare. “Call me Tolek Vincienzo Alabath until the Spirit Realm takes me, Marxian.”
My cheeks heated with the intention in his voice. Warrior couples and their children took the last name of the most prominent, powerful family in the pair.
And Tolek Vincienzo, the boy who had been so spurned by his father but reclaimed his name for him and his sister, wantedmyname attached to his. To make something our own. To be mine, infinitely.
Tol settled on the table first. His tattoo was going to be larger than mine, starting on the inside of his forearm and winding both down around his wrist and hand, but also up around his arm and torso.
The tips of the gold wing tattoo he got in Xenovia gleamed beneath the mystlight, waking something predatory and anticipatory within me.
I held tightly to his other hand as Marxian worked with the imbued ink, but Tolek didn’t so much as flinch. He just watched me with that heated gaze that scorched all the way to my toes.
When I laid on the table, discarding my loosely fitting top and listening to the steady hum of the needle, I studied the way the ink wove across Tol’s skin. And as the very same dark patternwas etched into mine, as the magic that built a Bind sank into my flesh, I gasped.
