Page 69 of Deathless
We let out a sigh once we found a place to settle, relaxing into each other for the first time in what felt like years. But even while nestled against him, my mind couldn’t relax.
“Did you ever find out what happened to your birth parents?” I already knew the answer but had to start the conversation somewhere.
“No.” Torr’s thumb traced the dip in my waist. “Why, what’s up?”
His patience was saintly as I worked up the nerve to speak. “She told me.”
His thumb abruptly stopped moving. “The Dark Mother?”
“Yes.” My fingers curled into his shirt. “I’m so sorry, Torr. I couldn’t believe this cult had affected your life too.”
“Tell me.”
He was quiet as I relayed what the Dark Mother had told me. Like me, Torr’s body became gradually less relaxed. His hand drifted from my waist up to my shoulder, which he squeezed almost painfully when I said where his mother was now, the condition she was in.
“They never abandoned you.” I smoothed a hand over his chest, trying to read his expression. “They knew the cult would kill you or worse, torture you to set an example. They didn’t have many choices, but they gave you the best possible chance of survival.”
He might as well have turned to stone for how much he was responding, so I continued running my palm up, down, and across his torso. “And I couldn’t be more grateful to them for doing that, for being brave enough to lead the cultists away from you.” My hand stopped while I stared up at the side of his face. “Because if they hadn’t, I might have never had you in my life.”
After what seemed like an eternity, Torr brought his lips to my forehead. “Will you help me find them? After all this is over.”
I hugged tightly around his waist and felt the crush of his arm against my shoulder. “You know how I am about family. I’ll be happy to.”
It wasbiker club tradition to throw a raging party the night before a long ride, or especially, a big battle. Said party would usually consist of, but not be limited to getting tattoos, drinking, and fucking. By sundown, I had started at the top of the list and planned to work my way down as the night carried on.
The kitchen table served as my father’s tattoo station. I was sprawled on my back, shirt and bra straps pulled down and off my shoulders to give Shadow access to my chest, where he proceeded to ink the vengeful god, the icon of my club.
“It really needed to be this spot, huh?” Shadow grumbled over the buzzing of his machine as he traced the pen drawing below my collarbones.
“Don’t be weird,” I snorted. “You’ve inked tons of womens’ titties.”
“I’m nowhere nearthatarea, daughter mine.”
“All the more reason for you to not be weird about it.” His brooding silence continued without answer, brow furrowed over his eyes, rapt with concentration on his work. “Are you mad at me, Dadow?” I asked in a softer voice.
He straightened with a heavy sigh, and the buzzing machine quieted as he lifted the needle from my skin. “I’m not mad, I’m—”
“Don’t say disappointed. That’s even worse.”
He let out a dry chuckle while resuming his work, touching the needle down to my sternum. “I distinctly remember telling you to stay away from this cult.”
“I didn’t know who they were until after the whole thing with the resort,” I argued. “Besides, it’s not like you gave me any context or reason. ‘Watch out for the men-hating psychotic bitches’ would have been a great heads up.”
Shadow shook his head, eyes following the lines of his ink. “I thought I was being paranoid. I never thought you’d actually run into them. I never—shit.”
He straightened again, setting the tattoo gun down as he started at some blank space on the wall.
“They were never supposed to touch you,” he said after a long silence. “You were never supposed to know a world with this kind of evil. Fuck, Rori. I never wanted this to beyourfight.”
“But it is,” I told him quietly. “This is what I was chosen to do. To finish what you started.”
Stubbornly, he shook his head again. “We should have protected you from this. Years ago, Grudge and I should have done this ourselves rather than burying our heads in the sand.”
“You didn’t bury your heads in the sand, you were healing.” I sat up, swinging my legs to dangle over the edge of the table. “You were being our dad, Mom’s husband. Running your tattoo shop, taking care of your family. You did everything right, Dadow. By living so well, you told this cult, ‘fuck you, right in the eyeball’.”
He chuckled softly at that. “I wanted you and your siblings to have what I never had. We all wanted that. You grew so fast and we loved you so much, I never wanted to miss a single moment.” His face darkened again. “But if I had taken a damn minute to consider the future—”
“You couldn’t have predicted a damn thing. Seriously, Dad.” I angled myself to face him head-on. “I really believe this was how it was all meant to play out. You were meant to escape them, to live and survive. To meet the love of your life and become a heroand a father. Then it was my turn to carry out the next phase. So that’s what I’m going to do.”
