Bound by Ink (A Living Ink Novel) (10 page)

Murmur appeared in the doorway without a stitch on the glorious body he inhabited.

Hot bands of iron wrapped her chest as she tried desperately to keep her eyes from wandering the muscle-delineated plains of his chest and abdomen.

Black curls dusted his chest, leading south. Her fingers twitched with the impulse to trace that line to his growing erection.

Cheeks heating, she jerked her gaze back to his face.

He straightened and met her eye. Something superheated arced between them.

Fire jolted her core. She sucked in a shallow breath. She had to move or spontaneously combust.

“Let me—” Words clogged in her throat.
Move, Isa
. The command finally made it through the burgeoning want in her gut. She crossed to him and tried again.

“Let me show you the hair dryer.” Her voice sounded raspy.

Whether he consciously knew what it meant or not, the body he’d taken responded. Muscles twitched. His erection strained upward.

He lifted a hand and brushed fingertips along the thin white scar on her neck. It marked where he’d ripped her throat out three weeks ago.

The touch shot black heat through every fiber of her. Moisture pooled between her legs. She stumbled into the door frame, felt the heat of his hand reaching to steady her. If he touched her again, she’d melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Don’t, please,” she gasped.

“I did not want this,” he said.

For all it was Daniel’s biology, the same vocal chords and girth of chest that had produced Daniel’s voice, it was Murmur’s deeper rumble that emerged from Daniel’s mouth.

Hearing it from outside her made Isa shiver with longing to have him back. Inside her. And not necessarily in a sexual way, though they’d skirted the edge of that before he’d left her body for the freedom of Daniel’s, too.

Swallowing a ridiculous surge of stinging tears, Isa slid past him, fleeing, and said, “I’ll get the dryer.”

She set the hair dryer on the counter, then braced her hands on the cool tile and leaned in, head hanging. Distance didn’t help. It only stretched the longing twining through her heart, and alarmingly, through her genitals, all the tighter. Her body shrieked a protest at her determination not to touch him.

“Isa,” he rasped.

She looked up at the mirror.

He stood in the doorway behind her. He’d undoubtedly seen every thought that had passed over her face.

She straightened. “Let’s get your hair combed and dried.”

“Touch me.”

Oh, how she ached to. She moistened abruptly parched lips, and nodded. “Turn around.”

Stupid idea. She no longer had to withstand the scorching weight of his gaze or the evidence of his body’s arousal, but now, she had the smooth expanse of his back and the taut muscles of his seat to resist.

She couldn’t tuck her hands behind her back and still comb out his tangled hair. After she’d agreed to his request for her touch, she couldn’t hand him the comb and demand he do it himself. His hair was the safest option open to her.

She tucked a dry towel around his shoulders and flipped his wet hair out from beneath it. When her fingers brushed his nape, his muscles quivered in reaction.

The towel helped focus her. She applied the comb gently, teasing the snarls from his shoulder-length hair.

She combed with one hand and eased tangles with the other. Even that simple contact made her insides melt.

He groaned, tipping his head back. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides.

He might as well hold her insides in that grip. Stroking his hair became sensual torture. The silken strands sparked her nerves with dark energy redolent of Murmur until her knees threatened to dump her to the floor, begging him to take her and fill the empty spaces inside her soul where he’d once been.

She refused to do that to him.

He’d won his freedom.

She wouldn’t imprison him again.

He deserved better than that. Better than her.

“Okay,” Isa said. She sounded almost normal. “Stay . . .”

He spun, snagged an arm around her waist despite her squeak of alarm and her attempt to backpedal. He drove her against the bathroom counter. Pinning her with his body, he twisted his hips in an automatic move that settled the heat of his erection between her thighs.

“Touch me,” he growled, glaring.

Isa shook her head. “You need sleep.”

“I will sleep after I’ve driven away this hunger in your flesh.”

Even that half-angry, half-perplexed declaration of lust drove desire twisting into her core.

His gaze dropped to her throat. “That is the mark of my leaving.”

She nodded.

His breath shuddered when he drew it. “If you will not touch me—”

He leaned closer, his emerald eyes on her face. His lips parted.

Hers followed suit while her pulse drummed in her ears.

He slanted his mouth away from hers, instead setting his lips against the scar on her throat.

Nerves lit up, arching hard against the inside of her skin. His magic, apparently revived by the shower, swarmed hot and stirring into the echoing, empty places inside.

She choked back a cry, tipped her head to allow him better access, and leaned into him. Shaking with need, she set her palms against his chest.

Golden magic glimmered to life within her. It raced to her palms as if her magic were the moth to his black flame.

He trembled. The breath he drew hissed between clenched teeth. His arms tightened around her so she could barely breathe. Or was that the pressure of his mouth against her neck?

Savoring the feel of his skin, her hands crept around to his back.

Growling low in his throat, he nipped the scar, holding the skin between his teeth and tracing the line with the tip of his tongue.

Her senses reeled. She had to cling to him or fall.

He released the scar and straightened. “Isa.”

She opened her eyes.

“Make the pain go away.”

“I wish I could.”

“You can,” he said, shifting. “Touch me.”

She flexed her fingers into the muscles of his back. “I am.”

He shook his head, his brows twisted with frustration.

It hit her.

He was asking for magic. Delight blossomed. She could do that much for him. And for her. It already shimmered against the inside of her skin as if even the core of her spirit yearned to be closer to him.

She summoned a shield.

He sucked in an audible breath as if he felt the barrier go up.

Isa shaped magic into something specific, heat. The same spell she’d turned upon them the first time. Instead of directing it into her hands, she released it from where her body touched his.

He groaned and shuddered. His eyes closed in bliss.

Magic stumbled over desire. She shook her head. “I can’t do this.”

“I am not him.”

“I know. You need sleep.”

“I need you.”

“Daniel’s lawyer is on his way here to come get you.”

“Why?”

“If Steve finds you here . . .”

“You’ll make him understand,” Murmur said.

“How would I do that?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how you made him understand while I was on you.”

“That was different,” Isa protested. “If he wanted me, he had to accept you, too. There were no other options.”

He tensed. The muscles in his chest tightened and he drew a noisy breath. “Was that why you accepted me? You had no other options?”

“At first.”

“Now you have options?”

She stared at him.

“Don’t,” he said.

Don’t brush off the question? Don’t lie? He’d known so clearly what she’d barely had time to consider for herself.

She swallowed a reflexive protest. It stuck in her chest. Truth, then. “Now that I have options, I want you back on my skin, inside my soul. Trapped. Is that what you wanted to hear? That I am so small as to wish that on you again?”

Murmur shook his head. His grip loosened and his lips parted as if he searched for something to say.

Someone knocked on the front door.

Gus barked.

Startled, Isa leaped like she’d been stung. Magic collapsed, snapping back at her. She flinched.

Murmur turned away.

She sidled past him, fleeing to catch hold of Gus’s collar, and noticed the dog’s hackles raised. Frowning, she glanced at the door as if it could tell her who stood on the other side. She hadn’t heard the buzzer for the door to the apartment building. Odd. Not a one of her neighbors would have let someone in at ten o’clock at night. Not even Daniel’s lawyer. Still. She’d asked the man to come get his client.

The knock sounded again. Polite. Measured.

Gus barked again.

“Easy, Augustus,” Isa said. It was no mean feat getting the bolt open with one hand while bent sideways hanging on to the dog. She glanced up as she swung to door partway open. “Mr. . . .”

Not Daniel’s lawyer. Two men dressed in slacks, button-down shirts, and jackets, one brown leather, the other a tweed sport coat, clogged her doorway.

Gus grumbled at them.

“Ms. Romanchzyk, I’m Agent Ogilvy. This is Agent Phan. Acts of Magic Bureau of Investigation,” one of the men said.

She scowled. “Come in.”

“Thank you, we—”

“It’s ten o’clock on a work night and you’re talking in a common hallway,” Isa said, pulling the door wider. “If you don’t want my neighbors to lynch you, come inside.”

A footfall behind her suggested that Murmur had appeared in the bedroom door. Was it too much to hope he at least wore a towel?

“Gus,” Murmur said. “Come here.”

The dog looked over his shoulder at Murmur, his nose working. His ears and tail came up. He glanced at Isa for permission.

She released his collar.

Gus went, head lowered, to face Murmur in Daniel’s body.

Murmur had taken the top sheet from her bed and wrapped it around him, secured beneath his arms. He touched Gus’s head when the dog looked up at him.

Gus’s tail wagged.

It jolted her to see Murmur dressed like that. It had been how she’d worn a sheet while escaping from Daniel’s prison with a fresh Live Tattoo of a demon on her skin.

Isa turned her attention to the agents. “If you’ve come for my statement, I haven’t—”

“No ma’am,” Agent Ogilvy said. His glance flicked from her to Murmur and then back to her. “Ma’am. Is this Mr. Daniel Alvarez?”

“Yes,” Murmur said.

The two agents traded a significant glance.

“Problem?” Isa asked.

“Ms. Romanchzyk. Mr. Alvarez. The governor has declared a state of emergency. Per Resolution 4925, we need you—both of you—to come with us,” Agent Phan said.

“No,” Murmur said.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” another male voice said from behind the agents. Another dark suit, one exquisitely tailored and of such crisp fabric, his suit made the agents look like they were wearing old bed sheets—older than Isa’s bed sheets. “Anthony J. Delmedico, Mr. Alvarez’s attorney. If you’re indeed executing Resolution 4925, your information regarding my client is out of date. He is no longer a Live Ink artist.”

Isa glanced between the three men. “What the hell are you guys talking about?”

“Ms. Romanchzyk,” the lawyer said, meeting her eye. “Thank you for the courtesy of your call. Mr. Alvarez. I’ve brought everything you require.”

He carried a small leather suitcase. “If you gentlemen will excuse me?” Without waiting for a response, Delmedico plowed through the middle of the AMBI agents.

When Isa had set the police on Daniel’s trail for kidnapping and torturing her, she’d loathed his attorney. She hadn’t imagined that she’d ever appreciate seeing him in action.

“I trust the injured man survived?” the lawyer inquired.

That wiped the thunderous anger from the agents’ faces. They shot glances between Murmur, the lawyer, and her.

“He did. Superficial injuries,” Isa said, “that were inconvenient enough for Mr. Alvarez to get blood all over his suit.”

“I appreciate your service to Mr. Alvarez, Ms. Romanchzyk,” the lawyer said. He offered the suitcase to Murmur in so smooth a gesture that Murmur accepted the case with only the slightest hesitation.

“Mr. Alvarez saved my life a few weeks ago. If I have been of some service, then maybe I’ve scratched the surface of repaying him.” Isa shrugged, trying not to notice the twinkle of amusement in Murmur’s eyes.

“If you’d like to get dressed, Mr. Alvarez,” Delmedico said, “I will address whatever concerns the agents have.”

Murmur eyed him a moment, then turned and walked away.

“No concerns,” Agent Phan said. “Merely orders. We’re required to escort your clients—”

“Ms. Romanchzyk isn’t my client,” he corrected.

“Regardless. We’re required to escort Ms. Romanchzyk and Mr. Alvarez to protective custody,” the agent said.

Delmedico lifted an eyebrow. “Protective for whom?”

“We’re the messengers, sir, not the policy makers. Your client has two options. Cooperate or force us to exercise our authorization to place him under arrest.”

“On what charges?”

“Resisting Resolution 4925.”

The tension in the room ratcheted.

Gus’s hackles came up again.

Isa bolted for the dog.

Ikylla stood up from her spot on the sofa and hissed.

“Are your companions always so expressive, Ms. Romanchzyk?” Delmedico said, one side of his mouth canted in a smile as he glanced between the cat and the dog.

“To the point of being admissible in court,” she said.

“I’ll take it under advisement.”

“Where’s Agent Macquarie?” Isa demanded of the AMBI agents.

“Agent Macquarie is on assignment,” Agent Ogilvy said so smoothly that even Isa knew he lied.

“Nicely rehearsed,” she shot.

Agent Anne Macquarie had led the investigation when a rogue tattoo had killed her star witness in Isa’s containment studio. Isa could guess that Anne was conveniently “on assignment” because she and Isa knew each other. “Someone had better tell me what the hell is going on.”

Delmedico cleared his throat. “Resolution 4925 is a command to round up Live Ink artists in King County.”

“‘Round up’?”

“It is a protective order, Ms. Romanchzyk,” Agent Phan assured her. “We know you’re aware of the Live Ink deaths and the casualties caused thereby. This protective order is a relocation order to protect not only the public but you, as well.”

“From the torches and pitchforks sure to be forthcoming?” she said.

“Ma’am, it isn’t a request,” Agent Ogilvy said.

Isa straightened, releasing the growling dog. “Gus. Heel. Ikylla. Not your fight this time. Take it easy.”

The cat glared. She huffed, clearly offended that Isa dared to presume to know what was or wasn’t her battle.

Gus, still laying down a low-level “Rrrrrrr,” shadowed Isa to the table.

She picked up her cell and hit speed dial for Steve.

“Ms. Romanchzyk . . .” Agent Phan said.

Steve’s number rang through to voice mail. She shouldn’t have been surprised, given the investigation still under way on 520.

It didn’t stop uneasiness from rippling through her.

“Steve. I have two AMBI agents at the apartment executing what they call a resolution. Protective custody, they’re saying. Wanted you to know.”

She hung up.

Murmur opened the door of her bedroom. He wore a stark white shirt and a black suit that conformed to every ripple of muscle. Though he’d rejected a tie, he’d secured his still damp hair at the nape of his neck.

She nearly dropped the phone and discovered that she’d forgotten to breathe. Forcing her gaze away from the faint smile on that face, Isa dialed the shop.

“Ms. Romanchzyk—” the agents protested in unison.

“If you want my cooperation,” she interrupted until the shop line picked up. “Hey. Troy. I need a pet sitter. Don’t know how long. I’m being taken into custody—I know. I called him. No answer. Left a message. Just tell me . . . Okay. Thanks. For everything. Oh. Hey. Troy. The studio is sealed. If I’m not back in a week, I need you to ask Mr. Oshakagiri to go down there to my desk and call Master Masatoshi.”

“Can you tell me why?” Troy asked over the phone line.

“No.”

“What to look for?”

“And no.”

Troy grunted. “Eavesdroppers.”

“Right in one.”

“Got it.”

She hung up. She couldn’t safely tell him what he’d find in the studio. Not without tipping off the AMBI that she’d worked out a way to capture rogue Ink. Something she did not want anyone knowing. Not while it only kind of worked.

Hefting her cell phone, Isa shot a glance at the agents. “I’m guessing you’re not going to allow me to take this with.”

“It would be best if you left it here,” Agent Ogilvy confirmed.

“Best my butt,” she countered. She figured her promise to play nicely with the AMBI only applied to providing a statement about what had gone down on the floating bridge. Not what amounted to another kidnapping. “You don’t want my cop boyfriend to track me by the GPS in my phone. Which is why you’re here at this stupid hour. You know he’s immersed in an investigation.”

“Ms. Romanchzyk. You’ll want an overnight bag,” Agent Phan said.

“No,” Murmur said again, anger rolling like thunder in his tone.

“Mr. Alvarez,” the lawyer said. “I know a little about this resolution, sir. At this point in time, the only legal advice I can offer is that you comply with these agents’ request.”

“I will not give up my freedom.” Daniel’s features hardened in a way Isa had never before seen.

“You give us no alternative but to place you under arrest, Mr. Alvarez,” Agent Phan said, hand going to inside his jacket. His partner mimicked the move.

Guns.

Daniel had always had a petulant tilt to his mouth, a sly, almost secretive glint to his light blue eyes. Murmur’s possession of Daniel’s body had put lines of strain at the corners of his now green eyes, and turned those pouting lips into a knife blade smile that promised retribution. He turned it upon the two agents. Ire boiled from him in black tendrils that writhed across her carpet. Isa started. He was exhausted. Magically spent. Where had he gotten the power for that? Her heart bumped against her ribs.

He wasn’t shielded, and from the serpentine manifestation of his power, she could guess he meant harm.

The agents retreated a single step. Then another.

She sucked in a sharp breath and took a single step toward him.

“Mr. Alvarez!” Delmedico said, striding right into Murmur’s magic.
Did he or did he not know what kind of danger he’d walked into?
“Daniel!”

Murmur froze. His magic collapsed, fading into odd shadows on her carpet. He glanced at her, his green eyes wide.

Rule ten: Know when not to use magic.

It hadn’t occurred to her what it might cost him to have to become someone he’d loathed. To have to hear himself called by a name belonging to someone he’d hated.

“Give me seventy-two hours, sir,” Delmedico said. “This is a clear violation of your civil rights. So long as you’ve committed no crime, this is wrongful imprisonment. Let me work it to your advantage. I assure you my first call will be to someone I know in the DOJ. I will have a solution.”

Murmur’s gaze flicked to the lawyer. “Freedom.”

“Yes, sir.”

The emerald gaze sought hers again. An echo of dark magic traced through Isa’s psyche. He nodded.

“I’ll pack,” she said. “Ikylla. Gus. C’mere.”

Ikylla turned her golden-eyed glare from the invaders to Isa. She stretched.

Isa went for the bedroom.

Gus followed.

The cat did, too. After Isa had drawn even with Murmur at the bedroom door. Long enough after the command to make it look like following had been the cat’s idea.

Murmur stood his ground, forcing Isa to brush past. The resulting skim of his power sustained her throughout stuffing clothes, a hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a couple of sheets of stasis paper she’d tucked into her bedside drawer into a bag. She scooped up the assortment of junk that usually littered her jeans pockets. A jackknife, a granite worry stone, and loose change. The traces of Murmur’s magic couldn’t keep her eyes dry when she wrapped her arms around her cat and dog and buried her face in their fur.

She didn’t know what to promise them. And she couldn’t bear to say good-bye. She hadn’t been given that option last time. Now that she was being given the time, she couldn’t force the words past the boulder in her throat.

At the muted thud of footfall behind her, she jerked upright. Sole bonus of not having Murmur inside her anymore. He didn’t have to know or mock every single damn emotion raking through her all too human biology.

Isa shouldered her bag and strode for the kitchen. She didn’t have to tell the animals to follow.

The minute her sneakers squeaked on the linoleum, they materialized, toenails clicking in her wake.

Isa fed them.

Off schedule.

Ikylla turned up her nose in favor of parking her furry butt on Isa’s overnight bag.

Nathalie burst into the apartment. From the crack of the wood striking something, or someone, Isa gathered she’d nailed one of the agents.

“What the fuck is going on?” Nat demanded.

“Feeding the critters,” Isa called.

Nathalie came to the door and eyed the animals notably not paying any attention to their full bowls. “So I see. What’s happening?”

“A resolution of some kind. Protective custody, they said.”

Nathalie nodded. “Okay. That makes sense. Troy and I were talking about how to protect you if the Live Ink hysteria in the media got any worse.”

“It’s not like people are throwing bricks through our windows.”

Nathalie wouldn’t meet Isa’s eye.

Neither one of them wanted to remember the last time someone had thrown something through the window of Nightmare Ink. It had been a dead body. The night Daniel’d had her kidnapped.

“How long?” Nat demanded over her shoulder.

“We aren’t privy to that information, ma’am,” one of the agents answered.