Page 165 of Ink Deep Devotion

I’ve been trying to outrun my darkness, but it’s a part of me. I’m ready to accept that. My world isn’t the same as Nonnina’s. I was born to be a black swan; I need to stop trying to change my feathers and embrace my colors. I’m ready to look people in the eye.

My inhale is hot, perfectly carved out of my lungs like a newly printed coin hitting the fresh air. I open the door to the art studio with my shoulders back and head held high.

Camilla’s eyes find mine. She nods towards my waiting corner chair and easel. A new mirror is resting on the stand. I drop my bag and slowly set up my supplies.

Italian heels click off the tile as Camilla comes to stand in front of me.

“I’m sorry.” I confess.

“I’m not. Never apologize for passion.”

Reaching out, I touch the mirror.“How did you know I would come back?”

“Americans are stubborn. They don’t like to lose.”

My lip tugs up.

“I know I’m hard on you. I am on all my students. I had a sister once.” Camilla’s nose tilts up, as do her eyes. “She had so many secrets. She bottled them up tighter than a vintage wine. She would watch me paint and continuously question me about my subjects. I asked her why she didn’t paint if she was so interested.”

Her eyes connect with a minuscule dot on the ceiling.“She said it was best if her ideas never left her mind.”

I lick my dry lips. Camilla finally looks down at me and taps my head,“Bottled up things tend to explode, American. That’s why I’m hard on my students. I’d rather you paint and draw than be nothing but shattered ashes tossed into the ocean or bones placed in a box.”

Shattered ashes, bones in a box.Her sister died. The image she paints is so tragically visual. My swallow sticks to my throat.“I’m sorry you lost her.”

“She lost herself, long before I lost her.” Camilla’s brown eyes twitch as she reaches up and pats down her long thick black hair.

I feel the need to be as open with her.“The only time I loved myself was when I saw my reflection in the eyes of the man I loved,” I mutter.

“So draw me that.” Her eyes shift to the blank canvas as her face beams with pride.

I do draw that. For days and days, I come back to the corner seat and draw Dash’s face to the finest of detail. It’s up close, cropped to his sharp cheekbones and angelic illusionist eyes; between the streaks of his iris is me, my face captured by my hand for the first time. I’m not smiling; I’m just looking back athim, but there is something in my eyes that suggests I’m happy, a relaxed pose of my lips that shows the viewer I’m in love.

“Now,” Camilla’s voice startles me as she sets down a new canvas, leaning it against my stool. Her eyes are on my hands, or maybe it’s my wedding band that catches her attention. I curl my fingers in hiding my ring. Protecting it from prying eyes.“Draw me someone or something throughyoureyes, American.”

White, blank, and empty. The canvas calls to me as dread and excitement churn in my belly. I remove the canvas with Dash’s point of view and replace it with the one waiting for me to draw on it. I start from the beginning, drawing myself, close up again so it’s my entire eye filling the frame; in the reflection of the eye is my mother center stage; I’m tiny, so I’m looking up at her. The stage lights are blinding, making her appear as a silhouette, nothing more than a black shadow, an old memory now that glides across the stage. She appears as a monumental figure to be idolized and praised. My eyes are watching with…guilt that I never lived up to her image. Guilt that I wasted years trying.

My eyes snap to my left hand, on my ring again, at my reflection shining back in the gold. I spin it around my finger, sinking my teeth into my lip, but then I feel a weight pressing into me. Looking up, I see Camilla watching me as I spin the ring around my finger. Her sharp eyes are clouded, lost in a fog, as her lips press into a thin line. But her attention keeps lingering on my ring and not the art she so desperately wanted a few moments ago.

That’s strange.

Chapter 61

Dash

Avery Hailstone attended Silverstone Preparatory. I never noticed her. All I cared about was Mila and saving my neck from being sliced open in The Cleansing.

Her father is wealthy and runs in the same circles as my dad. Oh, and he’s a board member on the council of The Rites of Passage.

The days of the council members remaining anonymous are no more. Funny thing, now that the council members are being killed off, those who don’t think my brothers had anything to do with it have come out in the open, begging for protection and help. Royce is one of them. The others who think we are trying to kill them have gone into hiding and are plotting out how to destroy us.

The Rites of Passage is officially in a civil war.

Royce gave up on Avery a long time ago. He would have killed her and used her younger sister as his puppet if he could have gotten away with it. The only reason her father puts up with heris because he has to. Once he dies, Avery takes his seat on the council. First-born shit and all.

My eyes are narrow as I watch Avery clench her fist; the scars on her knuckles are visible from a distance. She doesn’t like to fight; she craves it. She just has a hard time getting someone else in the ring to fight her. Pretty faces tend to do that. A man would rather slap her ass as she’s riding his cock than punch her in a fighting ring.

So, Avery has to resort to provoking fights out in the open, such as when she goes to nightclubs. She sought out bad attention in order to make her father shove her into a corner he never looked at.

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