Page 4 of Fool's Bargain

“I want to try again. I think we need to consider all the factors—not just the tool used to mark me. I can breathe fire on any blade so it can cut me, but the cuts still heal cleanly once it’s done. What if the ink is somehow charmed too? And what if the tattooist is also someone with power?”

Rohan nodded, his eyes brightening. “There are dragon artists in the city. We could find one of them.”

I shook my head, brushing my palm over Bodhi’s forearm. The dragon that graced his skin rippled and twisted as if in pleasure from being petted.

“I want this artist. They must have power to have created such amazing designs. And I tested some ink on myself the other day.” I held out my wrist and showed the other men the tiny replica of the Fate’s Fools logo I’d etched into my skin in my attempt to test a theory. It was still there.

Bodhi held my hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the design. Then he licked the pad and rubbed again.

“It stuck?” he asked. “How?”

“I mixed my blood with the ink. Just a drop was all it took. All I need now is the right artist. Will you take me to yours?”

Bodhi’s eyebrows drew together and his lips tightened into a grim line. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Better to go to a dragon, like Rohan said.”

“Why not? Your tattoos are so beautiful. I want designs as beautiful as those, and as magical.”

Bodhi rolled off the bed, his shoulders tense, and grabbed a pair of shorts off the floor. “There are hundreds of artists as good as mine, angel. Why not go to one of them?” He stepped into his shorts and left the room, leaving me blinking at his curt response.

“What the hell?” Keagan asked.

I glanced at Rohan, hoping for some explanation. Some insight from his empathic powers.

“He’s avoiding something,” Rohan said. “Something that he regrets. That’s all I know.”

Reaching mentally through our soul bond, I found Bodhi huddled into himself. He didn’t respond to my gentle nudge at first, then whispered,“I’ll talk to you if we do it face to face, Deva. Not like this, and not in front of the guys.”

Sighing, I slipped off the bed and found a robe. “Give me a few minutes, guys. I need to find out what’s eating him.”

I pushed through the patio doors of Rohan’s room, finding Bodhi across from the pool on the lower tier, leaning against the railing that lined the edge of the bluffs behind the house. The wind ruffled his dark hair, and goose bumps covered his skin, giving his swath of tattoos texture they didn’t normally possess. It was a chilly day for Malibu, even in mid-December, but the morning was already promising to be sunny and bright. Except my beloved human mate was in a dark mood all of a sudden and somehow it was my fault.

When I reached him, I brushed a hand down his back, radiating warmth to stave off some of the chill in the air. I leaned close and he slipped his arm around me, nuzzling the side of my head and inhaling deeply.

“I love you so much,” he breathed against my ear.

“I know. And I love you too. Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

He sighed and stared out at the ocean. Tiny sailboats dotted the water, and a band of sunlight broke across the hills to the east, casting a stark shadow on the beach below us. Our silhouettes appeared against the sand as one shape bound together. My soul bond with Bodhi hummed with the awareness of our connection and he turned to me, his gray-green eyes wary.

“My love for you is forever. I know this, and it makes me unbearably happy when I remember—when I look at you and am reminded that you chose me. Which is why this feels so strange to admit. Almost wrong to think about.”

He paused and I frowned, waiting for him to continue. His aura didn’t convey anything alarming about what was going on inside his head other than a slight sense of shame. I squeezed his arm, encouraging him to continue.

Taking a long, shaky breath, he said, “I loved someone else once. Before I knew you—hell, before I even knew the higher races existed. It didn’t work out, clearly, but she stuck with me in a big way.” Glancing down at his tattoos, he chuckled. “In several rather permanent ways.” He shifted the arm beneath my hand and turned it over, sliding his palm into mine and staring down at his forearm and the elaborate tattoo of a koi fish swimming in brilliant turquoise waves.

“She was the artist.” I traced the koi’s red scales that faded into blue as they went up his arm. They rippled beneath my touch as if the fish itself were swimming in place. “What happened? She’s still alive, isn’t she?”

His head jerked up in surprise and he nodded. “Yeah, what happened wasn’t a tragedy or anything like that. We were together for a couple years—the whole duration of all this ink. This was the first one.” He held up the arm with the koi. “We were happiest when it was just the one. And when she did the one on my back, I thought we’d be together forever.” He turned and let me look at the flying fish that spanned his shoulders with pearlescent wings and silvery scales. A breeze blew across his back and sea spray that wasn’t really there seemed to float across the webbed membranes of its wings. “But I knew I needed more. I wouldn’t be complete without all of them. By the time she finished this one, we were falling apart.” He touched the center of his chest where the tree that covered it had returned to a stark and leafless skeleton, the image as bleak as his words.

“You regret how you ended things, don’t you?” I asked.

Bodhi studied me, his eyes searching mine, then laughed softly. “You amaze me, you know? Aren’t you a little bit jealous?”

“Should I be? Do you want to leave me to be with her?”

“No! I just... left things in a weird place.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I haven’t seen her in almost two years. We didn’t part on a happy note. I was a complete asshole to her at the end and I owe her an apology.”

“You broke up. I wouldn’t expect that to be a happy occasion if you loved each other, and the care she put into these tattoos shows her love.”

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