That evening, after trying and failing to get any answers of substance out of the twins regarding their newfound Mage abilities, I was thoroughly pissed off.

“Just ease off them” River murmured, following me through to the kitchen when I was ready to pitch a fucking fit. “They are under no obligation to share their knowledge with us, so just give them time. They’ll share when they’re ready.”

I scowled at him and turned my back to brew a new pot of coffee. River telling me to back down was only annoying me even more than Caleb and Austin’s silence, so I was relieved when he left the kitchen once more.

“Hey.” Austin’s voice made me jump and almost drop the coffee I was pouring for myself after having stood there waiting for it to brew. “Isn’t it a bit late to be drinking coffee?”

“Have we met?” I responded in a snarky tone. He knew me better, though. We’d all but lived together for going on four months now, and my coffee addiction knew no time constraints.

“Good point,” he grunted. “Time to pay up, Princess.”

“Uh... what?” I stuttered, sounding like I’d just lost my brain.

“No time like the present, and I grabbed all my tools from Yoshi’s shop while we were there.” He looked at me expectantly, and I shook my head slowly.

“Um, but you haven’t really had time to think about what or where or...” I trailed off, my mouth going dry, and he gave me an unsympathetic stare.

“Quit stalling, Princess. You made a bet with a Mage. You do not want to find out the consequences of reneging on it.” He shuddered dramatically, and I chewed my lip. How the hell would I know what the consequences were? He and Caleb had given us zero answers when pressed. Did I really want to test it though? Probably not. At least I knew he was talented...

“Okay fine. Where?” I clutched my coffee cup tightly, trying not to let my nerves show.

“Dining table. I need the flat surface so you’re not moving around too much.” He jerked his head at the dining area, and I saw it was already set up with what looked like everything he might need. Not that I would know.

“I meant, where on me? Because I swear if you try to tattoo something stupid on my ass, I will kick your ass.” I tried to give him my best don’t fuck with me glare but had no doubt my nerves were showing through. What I was so afraid of, I had no idea. I wanted a tattoo, and Austin’s work was stunning, but for some reason my heart was racing and my palms had broken out in a sweat.

“Just shut up and get your cute butt onto the table,” Austin ordered. “The guys have all fucked off to give me quiet while I work, so you’ve got no one to save you. Besides, the last thing you want is for me to get distracted and write property of Austin King on you or something.”

A little speechless, mainly because he’d just called my butt cute, I did as I was told and followed him through to the table. All the while, I prayed that had been a joke. I’d have to be physically tortured before I’d willingly become property of Austin King.

“Up here.” He patted the towel laid out on the length of the table. “On your back.”

I nervously did as instructed and looked up at him leaning over me. “Where are you putting it?”

He quirked a brow, and I half expected him to make a dirty joke, but he just rolled his eyes and scooped a hand under my head, lifting it and sliding a pillow under.

“Comfy?” he asked, dragging over a barstool that put him level with my body.

“Do you care?” I replied, and he snorted, shaking his head.

“Don’t get snippy at me because you lost the bet, Princess.” He lifted my shirt up and tucked it into my bra with professional hands, exposing my abdomen.

“I know you cheated,” I sulked. “Somehow.”

“Oh yeah?” The corner of his sexy mouth lifted in a half smile. “Prove it.”

Ugh, I fucking knew it! Of course magic-Austin was an even bigger pain in the ass than human-Austin.

He smoothed a hand over the skin of my side, just below the curve of my waist and over my hip to the waistband of my yoga pants. Despite my strongest willpower, my skin tingled at the touch and gooseflesh broke out all over me.

“These need to be lower,” he advised, tugging the top of my pants down and folding them over until they were dangerously low. Seemingly satisfied with the canvas, Austin turned his attention to preparing his little tattoo gun and countless pots of colored inks while I watched in silence.

“Um, don’t you need to like... put down a stencil or something first?” I asked nervously when he looked pretty much ready to roll and had turned the power on to his gun.

“Christina, do I come on jewel thefts and tell you how to do your job?” He gave me a vexed look, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Yes, I imagine you would.” I glared at him, and he just stared back at me, his green eyes unamused. “Fine, whatever. Draw a dick, I don’t care.”

“Good, that’s exactly what I was planning.” He said it without the faintest trace of amusement, and it made me worried. “Can we keep quiet for a bit? Just while I get the outline done, and then you can chatter to your heart’s content.” He paused. “Actually, I take that back. I really don’t want to hear all about your multitude of boyfriends right now.”

“Why? Jealous?” I had no idea why I just felt the need to say that, but out it came.

“Christina,” he sighed. “You can either shut up and get a nice tattoo. Or you can yap and get a cartoon dick on your skin. Your choice.”

I shut up. For a minute, then had to ask. “Shouldn’t you have rubber gloves on or something?”

“If I were in a worse mood right now, I would make a quip about protection and the lack thereof, but tattooing is my happy place, so let me be brief. I’m an ink mage, and you’re immortal.” He laid a finger over my lips, and I desperately screamed at myself not to lick it. “Now, shhh.”

Truly not wanting to end up with a dick permanently tattooed on my body, I kept my mouth shut while he began. The little needle of the tattoo gun buzzed and picked at my skin, but given the amount of pain I had endured in my life this far, it was little more than an annoyance as I stared up at the ceiling and tried not to start talking out of boredom.

Eventually, he must have gotten sick of my huffing and sighing because he got up and flicked on the stereo. The soft, soulful sounds of cellos filled the room, and I couldn’t help myself.

“Classical?” I asked, squinting up at him where he leaned over my waist.

“It helps me concentrate,” he murmured back, not bothering to look up but also not throwing a tantrum and changing whatever my tattoo was to a cartoon dick.

“When did you start tattooing?” I asked, testing the waters to see if I was allowed to speak yet—for two reasons. One, I was bored as all get out. Two, Austin seemed in a really good mood, and this sort of seemed like a good opportunity to get some answers out of him. Maybe take a step in the right direction toward not flat-out hating each other?

“When I was about”—he paused, detailing something and blotting with the cloth in his other hand—“thirteen, I think. I had known Yoshi about a year, and he’d seen my sketches, so he knew the value of my work.”

“Wow, thirteen seems really young. Someone let you tattoo them as a thirteen-year-old kid?” I wasn’t trying for it to come out judgemental, but it sort of did and I tried to backtrack. “I just mean, if I walked in to get a tattoo and there was a kid doing it—”

“I get it,” he cut me off. “And you’re right too. I mostly just tattooed regulars who already knew me and knew my art. At the end of the day, who gives a shit what the artist looks like if the piece looks good and is well executed?”

We fell back into silence for a bit; the only sounds in the room were that of Austin’s tattoo gun and the melodic arrangements of a cello quartet.

“How long have you known you were a Mage?” I asked finally, and he sighed.

“Since I was thirteen.” I froze, not having expected him to actually answer this question, given his earlier cageyness. “Yoshi could tell I was a potential almost immediately, but he didn’t tell me until I’d been working in his shop for a year. Our aunt and uncle were raising us, and they didn’t have much. Cal and I both took cash jobs as early as we could.”

“And so he, what? Trained you as a mage with no magic?” I tried to get my head around how it all worked. Austin clearly knew how to use his magic, so there appeared to be little to no learning curve for him. Meanwhile Caleb had said he needed help gaining control so he wouldn’t hurt us?

“Uh, yeah, pretty much.” He sat back a moment, sorting through his colors before returning to my side. “Shh for a sec while I do this next bit.”

Sorting through my thoughts while I stared at the ceiling, I tried not to think too hard about Austin’s hands on me and how the magic rippled between us as though this was sexual contact. Which it definitely wasn’t. Was it?

He leaned over me briefly to pick something up, and the back of his hand brushed over my breast, causing my nipples to tighten and pebble against the thin cotton of my T-shirt.

Dammit Kit, get a fucking grip, woman! This is Austin for fuck’s sake!

“Why do you hate me so much?” The question blurted out of me without my brain filter even noticing it, and my eyes widened at the light fixture above me. Shit, backtrack! Um...

“I don’t,” he muttered, bending back over his work and seeming to be content with that as an answer.

“Um…” I frowned up at the light. “Yeah, you do. You’ve deliberately gone out of your way to be an asshole to me since the day we met, you take every opportunity to be a dick, and when Caleb arrived at Yoshi’s apartment, you literally ran out of the room so fast it looked like your ass was on fire. Was it seriously that repulsive to kiss me?”

“I’ve also saved your life more times than I can count, put your best friend in a secret rehab facility to keep her safe, and made out with you on several occasions when you needed magic. Doesn’t really sound like the sort of stuff someone does when they hate someone, does it?” He glared down at me a moment, then turned back to his work, resting his forearm against my ribs while he drew.

“Trust me,” he muttered. “Life would be a hell of a lot easier if I did hate you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, and he shushed me.

“Quiet for this next bit,” he ordered and turned back to my tattoo, leaning in close as he worked on something small. His warm breath feathered over my inflamed skin, and I bit my lip, trying to hold back a shiver of desire.

“Who’s Peyton?” I asked, not able to keep my mouth shut for longer than a few moments when Austin was all chatty like this. Who knew when I’d get another opportunity.

He made an annoyed grunt and didn’t respond as he continued working on the small details he was doing. After some time, he sat back and looked at it from a few different angles.

“You’re healing as I go, so it’s probably not hurting too much, am I right?” he checked with me, and I nodded. It barely hurt at all any more, now that I’d gotten used to the feeling. “Right, well in that case I’ll go ahead and finish all the shading now.”

“How does that work?” I asked as he bent back over my hip to continue his work. “Tattooing me when I heal so quick. Wouldn’t it just push the ink back out again?”

“Two things in play here,” he answered as his free hand held my hip firm while he shaded with his buzzing tattoo gun. “First, I’m an ink mage. Part of the reason I’m not using gloves is so that I can infuse magic into the ink directly through your skin, instructing it to bypass your body’s healing. Second thing, your own control over the healing.”

“How do you mean?” I craned my neck up a little to try and see what he was inking onto my hip, but not for the first time, he pushed me back down with a palm to my chest.

“Stay,” he ordered. “I mean your healing isn’t as mindless as you make it out to be. It’s a part of you. You control it in its entirety, so if you don’t want something healed—for example, this tattoo or your contraceptive implant or even those hickies on your neck—then it won’t be.”

My hand flew up to my neck, as I hadn’t realized there were visible hickies. Ugh, how embarrassing. Except some of them were from Austin himself, so whatever.

“Stay still,” he snapped, tightening his grip on my hip and sending butterflies into a whirlwind inside my stomach. God damn him, this truly was torture.

“Why won’t you answer me about Peyton?” I tried again. It had been a question that had bugged me since I’d overheard him and Caleb talking that day at school, when Caleb accused his brother of treating me like shit because I reminded him of Peyton. Then Lucy had mentioned her recently too, and the curiosity was eating away at me.

“It’s not a story I feel like telling,” he murmured, and his fingers dug into my hip painfully. “She’s an ex.”

“No shit.” I snorted. “Why do I remind you of her?”

He heaved a pained sigh and blotted at the tattoo with his cloth before sitting back and looking at me.

“You don’t. Not if I’m being honest. You did at first...” He shrugged. “Now, not so much.”

“Okay.” I pondered my next move. “How did you meet?”

“Uh, Omega training actually.” His mouth twisted down, and I could clearly see this wasn’t a topic he wanted to be discussing. Still, it felt really vital to where the two of us had gone wrong in getting to know each other.

“She’s an agent too?” I was genuinely surprised; I had expected she might be an old high school girlfriend or something.

“No, she never completed basic training.” He paused, putting down his tattoo gun and meeting my curious gaze. “She dropped out when she realized she was pregnant.”

My eyebrows shot up before I had a chance to temper my reaction. That was not what I’d been expecting. “So you...” I trailed off as he shook his head.

“She had a little girl. Bella. Most beautiful little girl you could ever imagine.” His voice glowed with love, and my heart cracked in two for him. However this story ended, it wasn’t with a happily ever after. At least not yet. “We were only eighteen, but I was in love, so I supported them for a full year. Set them up in an apartment near here, spent every spare moment I could with them, with Bella. Being her dad.”

There were no words I could offer that were going to sound like anything less than hollow platitudes, so instead, I slid my hand over his where it rested on the table and squeezed his fingers.

“After a year, Bella’s real father owned up. Turned out Peyton had been cheating on me from the very beginning and I never knew about it until then. He was married, though, and hadn’t been willing to leave his wife for his pregnant girlfriend, so he’d ignored the problem until his wife found out on her own. Once his marriage was in shambles, suddenly he wanted to know his daughter.” He looked down at my hand on his and turned his own over to link our fingers together.

“But what about you?” I asked gently, my heart aching for how utterly devastated he must have been. Hell, he still was, if the look on his face was any indication.

“I wasn’t Bella’s blood relative, her birth certificate didn’t list me as her father, and I’d signed no adoption papers. I had no rights. Peyton and this douchetard got back together, and they moved. No idea where to.” He shrugged, like he was shaking off the bad feelings and picked up his tattoo gun once more. “Ancient history. I’m almost done here, by the way.”

He went back to work on my tattoo, but left his free hand linked with mine, occasionally stroking his thumb down the inside of my wrist.

It was late—I had no idea what time—when Caleb crawled into bed with me. Despite how pissed I was with him, I still craved our late night cuddles, so I willingly rolled into his arms when he tugged me closer.

“Can I see your new ink?” he whispered in my ear as I burrowed my face into the curve of his neck.

“Shhh,” I murmured. “Sleep time. Going to yell at you more in the morning.”

“Please? I’m dying to see what he drew,” Caleb begged, and I mumbled incoherent curses at him. I’d been fast asleep when he’d crept in, and I really hated being fully woken up from deep sleep.

“Here,” I yawned, rolling to my side a little and lifting my shirt. Caleb was silent for a long time, tracing a light fingertip over my new ink.

“It’s too dark to see; I’m going to flick a light on,” he warned me all of two seconds before the bedside lamp flooded the room with light. I groaned and dragged a pillow over my head to block out the light but could hear Caleb snicker.

His fingertips traced over the edges of my ink once more, and I shivered, biting back a grin. The tattoo was, in a word, exquisite. When I’d lost the bet, I had it in the back of my mind that he was going to actually give me something truly awful to live with, just to be an ass. But what he had done instead totally defied expectation.

A whimsical, almost watercolor image of a red fox danced up the front of my hip, her back paws starting dangerously close to the bend of my thigh. The fox was chasing what looked like butterflies, with a multitude of little butterflies extending up the side of my belly and six bigger, more distinct butterflies, that I knew without asking represented my six dianoch. It was the most beautiful tattoo I think I’d ever seen, and I had actually teared up a little when Austin had finally shown me.

“Holy shit,” Caleb snorted. “That bastard. I knew he would pull something like this.”

“What?” I asked, popping out from under my pillow and squinting at him. “Don’t you like it? I think it’s gorgeous.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, Kitty Kat. This is one of the best things he has ever drawn, but he’s still a dick.” Caleb smiled at me. “You didn’t see it yet, huh?”

“See what?” I demanded, peering down at my stunning new ink.

“Here.” Caleb ran his finger over a section of the little butterflies. “Look closely at the negative space between butterflies.”

I stared hard at the patch he was talking about, but it felt like I was doing one of those eye-spy games. Those 3D images that you needed to squint and tilt your head to see what the picture was.

Caleb sighed, and traced the negative space he was talking about. “Right here, the space between butterflies spells A-U-S-T-I-N. Babe, he tattooed his name on you.”

That... asshole. I’m going to kill him! My initial reaction was what I expected of myself, but somehow I couldn’t seem to summon the anger to back it up. The tattoo was still a work of art, regardless of Austin-fucking-King’s sneaky hidden message.

Now if only I could work out what that message was actually trying to tell me.