Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
“You think I’m sick?”
“I think you’re obsessive. Murderous. Maybe worse.”
“Obsessive is just another word for consistent.”
“And murderous?”
“You tell me.” His hooded copper eyes dip to my mouth. “You chopped up Sitka’s beloved heart surgeon without blinking an eye. That wasn’t survival. It was pleasure.”
I pause, the sharpie frozen above his skin.
How the fuck does he know about the doctor?
“Don’t pretend you’re the gentler animal.” He drags his tongue across his bottom lip. “You think if you play hero to a woman with scars, no one will notice the ones you’re trying to hide?”
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me.” Reflexively, I clench my scarred abdomen.
“I know enough.
“How did Dove get her scars?”
“How did you get yours?”
“Your hacker skills didn’t divulge that?”
He sighs.
I return to drawing, pressing harder, making the lines bolder. More jagged. Less art. More confession. “She’s not a prize to fight over.”
“No,” Jag says. “She’s a battlefield, and we’re the soldiers.”
“We’re not the same.”
“Not when it comes to her. You hold her hand. I hold her by the throat.”
“And you think she wants that?”
“She came to Sitka. For me.”
“To kill you.”
“She had multiple opportunities. Yet here I am.”
I finish the sketch in silence, swap my gloves for a fresh pair, and grab the machine.
With a quick glance at his nude form, I confirm what I already assumed. This will be his first tattoo.
But I notice something else.
A scar.
Faint, old, but not forgotten by the flesh, it lives just below his rib cage. A thin line, no longer angry but stubborn in its permanence. The width of my thumb. Clean entry. No fraying at the edges. Someone knew how to hold a blade, and they sank it deep.
A kill shot.
Whoever did it meant for him to bleed out.
I’ve seen stab wounds. Too many. Dozens mar my reflection in the mirror. I know how they age, how they change over time. This one is ancient history.
Who put it there? An ex-lover? A job gone wrong? Dove?
I hope it was her.
The buzz of the machine is the only warning I give him before driving the needle into his knee.
It’s an excruciatingly sensitive spot, but his body doesn’t flinch. Eyes half-lidded, breathing steady, he takes the pain like it’s a cigarette break.
The only sign he feels anything is the way his fingers flex against the chair, slow and rhythmic, syncing with the pulse of the needle.
“You like hurting me,” he says after the initial shock of pain passes.
“You deserve worse.”
We lock eyes.
The buzz returns.
The ink sinks deeper.
Neither of us speaks for a long time, but I feel his gaze pressing against my skin, stroking, burning, never leaving.
“Watching your artist work?” I don’t look up. “Or are you undressing me with your eyes again?”
“I can multitask.”
“Yeah, well, keep your fantasies to yourself. You’re not my type.”
“Sure about that?”
“You’re not even your type.” I wipe away a bead of ink and angle the machine higher, tracing around the outline of the heart. “She told me you used to scare her.”
“I protected her.”
“By fucking her fiancé?”
He’s quiet a breath too long. Then… “Dove and I survived things together. Things you wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
He shifts, the motion subtle. Not discomfort. Something else. “We were hunted. Homeless. Starving. On the run. I was sixteen. She was eight. I kept her alive.”
“Hunted by whom?”
“The police. Social services. The people who murdered our parents. You name it.”
“Who murdered your parents?”
“Monsters. That’s all you need to know.”
“So you went through some shit together. Doesn’t explain why you look at her the way you do. Like she’s not your stepsister.” I grind the needle a little deeper, intentional, watching the skin respond.
He doesn’t flinch. “Maybe you should pay attention to how she looks at me.”
“She seems more interested in disappearing from your life entirely.”
“You assume she knows what she feels.”
“And you do?”
“I know she needs me. That’s never changed.”
“You’re the reason she sleeps with a knife under her pillow.”
This time, he does flinch. “You protect her like you know her.”
“I protect her because I recognize a cage when I see one.”
“You think I’m her prison.” He tilts his head.
“I think that’s your plan.”
The machine buzzes against his skin as I begin detailing the circuitry veins running along the jaguar’s spine.
His eyes remain on my face, studying, curious. Carnal.
“Why didn’t you let your vicious brothers kill me?” he asks.
“Dove doesn’t want that, and for now, that’s enough. But don’t mistake my patience for forgiveness.”
“I don’t think you want me dead, either.”
I pause, glancing at his swollen, broken wrist resting on his abdomen. “Nice hand.”
Fury ignites in his eyes, reminding me who I’m tattooing.
“Touchy.” I wipe the ink away with more force than necessary.
“Speaking of touchy, have you touched my sister?”
“Yes. But that’s not what you’re asking.” I meet his gaze evenly. “You want to know if I’m giving her the ol’ in and out.”