Page 17 of Under a Wicked Moon
Maybe they were testing her biology and his, like they were lab rats.
His moments of non-drugged lucidity over the past month were consumed with waiting in the cell. The last time they had him out of the cell and inthe room—the one where they strapped him onto a table—they hadn’t physically hurt him but inflicted pain while asking questions, mostly about magic. He’d given the fuckers nothing. It was enough for the humans to know abouthis kind. They weren’t capable of handling knowledge of magic.
He scratched at his right shoulder. The sensation of something gliding over his shoulder didn’t disappear. He whipped up his sleeve.What the…
An intricate tattoo of an angel in armor kneeling while holding a broadsword in front of him spanned his biceps up to his shoulder. He craned his arm as much as possible to look at it. The angel’s glittering pale eyes seemed to stare at him. Almost judge him. The eyelids blinked.
He gasped.
“I’ve lost my bloody mind.” Ky gripped his head and cradled it in his arms. “It wasn’t blinking. Not possible.”
A quick look for the tattoo again and… It wasn’t there.
“Officially lost it,” he muttered.
Something slid across the skin of his opposite shoulder. He didn’t breathe as he lifted the sleeve.
The ink had moved.
“What are you?” He gulped in air.
It didn’t speak. As if a tattoo could speak. Well, it could move. So why not talk?
This time, he could see its details clearer. It looked like… “Michael?”
It blinked at him and bowed its head.
“How’s this possible?”
“Weg von der Tür!”Move away from the door, an electronic voice boomed in German.
He flinched and dropped his sleeve but didn’t move off the bench. The voice was new in dealing with him. This was the humans’ new tactic, since he’d started rushing whoever entered. He once made it about twenty yards up the hallway before they activated the electronic collar. Sure, he knew he had no chance of escape, but the drive to try hadn’t died.
His collar tingled its warning strike a half setting down fromlevel one—enough to shoot jolts through his shoulders but not enough to knock him down.
Did they see the tattoo? Were they going to try to cut it out of his skin to study it? Better question was why he assumed they hadn’t done something to put it there. Deep in his gut, he understood, it had nothing to do with this place or the humans and everything to do with the angel to whom he’d prayed for decades.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” he whispered.I’m talking to a fucking moving tattoo now.
Locks unclicked, this time electronic and not deadbolts. The assholes got smart about keeping him incarcerated. Lights suddenly at full strength blinded him.
His heart lurched. He shielded his eyes. Someone was shoved inside, but he couldn’t see enough to make out if it was her. All he smelled was the stench of sweaty humans who acted brave with their electronic control of them but reeked of fear.
Let it be her.
The door latched and his eyes acclimated to the dark again. One sniff. Tingling started in his chest and powered outward to energize his nerves. He felt weightless and unable to hold back the smile.
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Vivi said as she took up her post on the opposite side of the room, sliding to a sit on the floor. She gave him a half smile, but the lines of her face signaled exhaustion.
He stood, his vision still adjusting to darkness after the burn of bright lights at her entry. “Take the bench.”
“You stay this time. I’m good over here.”
Once he could see, he drank in the sight of her. Same athletic, skin-tight outfit. Same fit curves. He steeled his heart to suffocate anything vulnerable from surfacing.No attachments.
Yet she was brightness in his never-ending hell.
He was so relieved to see her that his mind emptied of everything else. They were both already half dead with little hope of seeing this beyond another few weeks or months, at least for him. His body grew weaker each day, each hour.
