“Not even when you were a kid? This was going on back then?”
“I—don’t remember being a child. I suppose that’s a bit peculiar, isn’t it?”
“Maybe not. Maybe it only happened after puberty. If it’s a dissociative disorder, that might make sense. Maybe something traumatic happened to you around the time you got the tattoos.”
“Except it’s not a disorder. I told you that was bullshit Leo the Dull made up to explain me away. It’s Leo’s self-righteous hugr going off to be self-righteous without me.”
“That’s how you see it, anyway.” She realized she was leaning toward the mental illness hypothesis after all.
“And you’re back to analyzing me.”
“Maybe I am. You’re right, I am. Sorry.”
“I’m not objecting. I just find it interesting. Because it means you find me interesting.” He grinned broadly. “Which I can’t imagine is something I share with Leo the Dull.”
“Or maybe I find your tattoos interesting. It is kinda my thing after all.” But she did find Leo interesting, with or without his hugr. “They’ve been there as long as you can remember, and they’re home jobs with significant fading—at least the two on your forearms. The other one looks professional.”
“The other one?”
“On your upper arm.” He was staring at her blankly. “The Midgard Serpent.” He’d worn the long-sleeved Henley today, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. What he couldn’t see, apparently, he wasn’t aware of.
Leo’s face clouded. “He’s marked me with the serpent? That son of a bitch.”
“What’s the significance of the serpent?” She’d noted it with some trepidation. Serpents seemed to be intimately bound up with the Carlisle sisters’ lives. It all went back to the Lilith blood.
“The Midgard Serpent—Jörmungandr—it’s supposed to bring about Ragnarök. The twilight of the gods. The end of the world. Jörmungandr rules the waters surrounding the visible world. It’s a sea serpent. A dragon.”
Of course it was a dragon. It was always dragons.
Rhea sat on the stool once more, rolling it closer to the chair. “So why is it significant that he marked you with it?” It was no use trying not to differentiate between the two of them. “Is he trying to end you?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’d love to. But that’s not it. It’s a way of containing my energy just as Jörmungandr contains the world. I assume it encircles my arm and swallows its tail?”
“I only glanced at it, but, yeah, I think so.” She pondered for a moment. “Do you want to see it?”
Leo’s eyes danced with amusement. “I don’t see how you’re going to be able to get my shirt off without undoing the restraints. Or are you planning to cut the shirt off me?” He looked hopeful.
“Yeah, nice try.” Rhea wheeled the stool up next to him and pulled down the right shoulder of the stretchy fabric, baring his upper arm. “Take a look.”
Leo’s breath was warm against her hand as he stretched his neck to see the tattoo. “Can you pull it down a little more?”
As she did, her hand brushed the ink, and the vision from the allrune came back to her, only far more forcefully and in vivid detail. Where her earliest visions had encompassed a series of images answering a question in the client’s mind, the ones she’d had without the client’s awareness were more like impressions, a peak into memories or desires swirling about inside the person’s head. But this...this was like actually being there.
Ice-cold air rushed up at her as she plunged toward the frozen ground, and the force of the impact knocked the air from her lungs. Blood made a spattered trail in the snow ahead of her—her blood. She struggled to stand, fumbling headlong toward the frozen thicket while the groans of the dying and the clash and thud of conflict sounded on the hill behind her.
Her feet were becoming numb as her boots sank into the snow, the creak and crunch of her weight compressing it the only evidence she was still touching it and not floating above the ground. Her chest ached, her lungs having trouble taking in air, and blood was flowing from a hole between her ribs. Blood and sweat ran into her eyes, and she collapsed into the snow and muck and mud, a yard from the covering trees. And from within them came the howling and snarling of wolves.
“What the hell was that?” Leo’s growl penetrated the vision, tearing her out of the icy snowbank and grim daylight into the warmth of the heated shop and artificial light.
Rhea broke her grip on Leo’s arm and staggered backward off the stool. “What was what?”
“Don’t give me that. What just happened? Are you going to pretend you didn’t see any of that?”
Rhea was still trying to catch her breath without showing she was doing it. “Why, what did you see?”
“Snow and blood and a pack of wolves.”
“Have you ever seen this before? Do you...remember any of it?”
“Why would I have seen it?”
“Because it’s your memory. Your reading.” Rhea sighed. “I wasn’t trying to get a reading. It’s an ability I have—I read tattoos. I’ve been trying to avoid doing it lately, especially when the person hasn’t asked for a reading. But when I get anywhere near your tattoos...it just sort of happens.”
He scrutinized her face, maybe trying for a reading himself. “It happened with Leo? I mean, when he was occupying the skin?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“And what did he say about it? Is it something that happened to us?”
“He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. I don’t know if he saw it. Sometimes it’s like that, especially if the person hasn’t asked for a reading.” Rhea paused. “It’s not always a memory. It could be a premonition.”
“So I may be stabbed and eaten by wolves in my future?” Leo scowled. “Do it again. I want to see more.”
Rhea kept her distance. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
“Why? It’s not as though seeing something is going to make it happen. I want to know what’s going on, where the wolves are, who stabbed me.” He gestured with his head. “Come over here and do it again.” He seemed to realize his tone wasn’t being appreciated. “Please.”
Rhea sighed. “I can’t guarantee it will be the same vision. I don’t even know if it is a premonition. I’m still trying to get a handle on this ability, which is why I haven’t been doing it lately.” His sleeve had slipped back up over his shoulder, and Rhea pulled it down again. The amber-resin-and-spice scent he’d exuded before rolled off him in waves, a personal pheromone designed just for her. Rhea bit her lip and let her hand move down the firm musculature toward the knotted pattern of the snake.
This time, there was no snow, no blood, no fighting. Only Leo’s body under hers, hard and hot...and naked. They were both naked, in this very chair, and Leo was bound to it while Rhea straddled his lap, full of him, riding him, moaning as he pumped his hips into her, grasping for his mouth with hers as the beating of their hearts and their rapid breathing rose toward a crescendo. She arched her back and tilted her hips deeper into his lap, feet off the ground and hands gripping the chair behind her as Leo dipped his head and closed the heat of his mouth over her breast, sucking the nipple in roughly against his teeth. And with a melodic shout, she—
“Holy fuck.” Rhea sprang back so forcefully she slammed into the cabinet behind her and hit her head on the corner of the shelf above it.
Leo’s eyes were on her, warm with amusement and desire. And his erection,