Barrons and Ryodan both looked over their shoulders at her, and she was struck suddenly by how…inhuman they looked, their faces more savage, their movements more…animalistic and sleek, as if caught momentarily off guard, engrossed. But their masks went up the instant they saw her and then they were just Barrons and Ryodan again.
The owner of Chester’s was sitting backward in a chair, watching monitors, while Barrons sat behind him, tattooing his powerfully muscled back.
Ryodan reached for a shirt, tugged it on over his head. When he stood, he and Barrons exchanged a look, then Barrons nodded at her and said, “Jada, good to see you,” and walked out.
“You shouldn’t cover fresh tattoos,” she told Ryodan coolly. “They weep.”
He stood legs wide, arms folded, silver cuff glinting, looking down at her. “How would you know anything about tattoos or weeping?”
She was five-foot-ten now, and still had to arch her neck to look at him.
“I’ve heard,” she said. He had a tight-fitting tee-shirt on. Then again probably every tee-shirt he put on was tight because of his sheer width and musculature. She could see the delineation of each muscle in his abdomen through the shirt, the pronounced outline of his pectorals. His lats flared, his biceps were sculpted, his forearms thickly corded. For a moment she was fourteen again, looking up at him. And she finally understood and acknowledged what she used to feel. The teen had suffered an intense crush on Dancer. The superhero had been utterly infatuated with Ryodan. They’d become her world when Mac had turned her back. She’d felt safe being with Dancer. Yet Ryodan had made her feel safe.
They stood a long moment, ten feet apart, looking at each other as silence spun out.
“What changed your mind?” he said finally.
“I’m not sure I have fully changed my mind,” she said, noting his second use of the interrogative in a single conversation and wondering if he really was done baiting her all the time. “How does it work?”
He sliced his head once to the left. “If you mean the mechanics of it, too bad. Bottom line is this: if you let me tattoo you and you carry the phone, I can find you if you ever get lost again.”
“Details.”
“There are three numbers programmed in. Mine. You call it, I answer. The second one is Barrons’s number. If I don’t answer for some reason, Barrons will. The third one is called IISS.” He waited.
“I resent being cued. It makes me not want to know.”
Tiny lines around his eyes crinkled as he threw his head back and laughed.
Jada fisted her hands behind her back. She hated it when he laughed.
“Good to see you haven’t lost all your irrational prickliness,” he said. “IISS stands for I’m In Serious Shit. Use it only if you are.”
“What will happen?”
“Hope you never find out. But if you’d called it in the Silvers, I’d have been there.”
“How quickly?”
“Very.”
“What good would that have done?”
“I’d have gotten you out.”
“Who can say your way would have been better? Maybe it would have taken us ten years with you leading the way.”
“Doubtful. Maybe it would have taken ten days. And you wouldn’t have been alone.”
“Who says I was alone?”
“Do you want it or not.”
“Seriously, ten days?” She assessed him remotely, wondering if it could possibly be true. This man had awed her with his unfathomable abilities and strength. She’d never forgotten how he could out-everything her, from spying a drop of condensation on a frozen sculpture she couldn’t see, to freeze-framing faster, to always being able to find her no matter what. I tasted your blood, he’d said once. I can always find you.
She’d believed that. Even Silverside.
He sighed explosively and raked a hand through his short dark hair. “Ah, Dani. It doesn’t work in there. Would that it fucking did.”
“The tattoo?” she said, refusing to believe he’d just skimmed her mind. “Then you’re not doing it. And it’s Jada,” she corrected. “Every time you call me the wrong name, I’ll call you a wrong one. Dickhead.”
“That I tasted your blood. It doesn’t work in Faery.”
“If I don’t invite you into my thoughts, stay out of them. It’s called respect. If you don’t respect me, you don’t get to know me.” She stepped closer, moving to stand nose-to-nose, staring straight into those cool silver eyes that used to so intimidate her, but she would never have let him know that. They didn’t intimidate her now.
He inclined his head. “Understood. I won’t do it again. Much. Often, it was the only way I could stay one step ahead of you.”
“Why did you think you needed to?”
“To keep you alive.”
“You thought I needed a foster parent?”
“I thought you needed a powerful friend. I tried to be that. Are we still talking or are you ready to tattoo?”
“I still don’t understand how it works.”
“Some things require a leap of faith.”
She gave him her back and swept her ponytail aside. “Have at it.”
His fingers moved across the nape of her neck, at the base of her skull, lingering. She suppressed a shiver. “How long is this going to take?”