Page 22 of Jacinth

I looked at her sharply, flinching as she withdrew the needle quickly to avoid stabbing me.

“What do you know about it?”

She shrugged.

“Well, firstly, I’m trying my damnedest to give you the protection rune you want instead of tattooing a certain female’s name on your calf. I totally see a tattoo with her name and a heart around it. Just say the word.”

It took all my restraint to grunt a reply instead of trying the whiplash maneuver again.

“I read a spelled book, though I didn’t know about love spells, or magic, at the time. I just thought it was a steamy romance. Of course, it led me to my own steamy romance.” She winked at me.

“I saw that book in action this morning. Not sure that I would want anything to do with it.”

Dahlia gave me a withering look before she went silent. For a long while, the only noise in the quiet shop was a conversation about what to order for dinner between Milo and Gray, and the incessant drone of the needle tracing patterns of fire across my skin.

Niko. Skyler. Jacinth.

Fates, too much was happening far too quickly.

I felt untethered.

Out of control, and that was no good for anyone.

“You got time to do another?” I asked, a note of desperation clear to my own ears.

Dahlia pushed back the blonde hair that had fallen out of her clip. “I’m working my way into a third. There’s one more you need, too. Why didn’t Skyler give you the heads up on everything that is going down at the moment?”

“My brother barely knows what day it is.”

She snickered and nodded before the quiet resumed.

As Dahlia was wrapping things up, she handed over the aftercare instructions we both knew I wouldn’t adhere to and led me to the counter to pay. She cleared her throat in a way that told me she was about to offer unsolicited advice, which she was known for. I held out a hand to stave it off.

She shook her head quickly and glared at me through her black-rimmed glasses.

“I know you have the whole ‘I am an island’ thing going for you, and that you think no one could possibly connect with where you’re at, but I want you to consider this. That book ended up being the best thing that ever happened to me. This spell could be that for you.

“I’ve seen the girl—well, I’ve seen her in a dream—but regardless, I think she would be great for you. For all of you. You just need to shake your training and do what is right for you, rather than what you have been taught is for the greater good. You deserve this, Orion. Don’t get in your own way.”

I blinked dumbly for a moment and held out my Amex as though there was some suitable segue in there toward paying for the new ink.

Her speech was nearly identical to the one Skyler had hit me with this morning, and I was unsure how to handle the effect the reinforced message was having on me.

She chuckled knowingly and swiped my card, handing it back with a probing look.

“Oh, and you’re going to need to grovel. You pissed the girl off good. How many shiny things can you get into the cemetery?”

CHAPTER 18

Skyler

So the dog had arrived.

Good, I thought as I wandered slowly down the road. That was good.

My mind was too messed up with the things I had seen over the previous twenty-four hours, or was that three decades?

All I knew was the need to see Jacinth was undeniable. I strolled the couple of blocks toward the cemetery and brushed past someone in a rush on my way through the gate. The effect was similar to being unexpectedly immersed in frigid water when in the middle of a desert.

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