Then she felt his tongue at the base of her spine and shot out of the chair so fast she knocked it over and stumbled into the wall. She spun and shot him a furious look, rubbing an elbow that would undoubtedly be bruised. “What the bloody hell are you doing?” she snarled.

“Finishing the tattoo.”

“With your tongue?”

“There’s an enzyme in my saliva that closes wounds.”

“You didn’t lick me last time.”

“I didn’t cut as deeply last time.” He gestured at a mirror above a small cabinet in an alcove. “Look.”

Warily, she turned her back to the mirror and peered over her shoulder. Blood was running down her spine, dripping on her jeans, on the floor.

“Put a Band-Aid on it.”

“Don’t be a fool.”

“You’re not licking me.”

“You’re being absurd. It’s a method. Nothing more. The wound must heal before I set the final mark. Sit the fuck down. Unless you have a good reason you don’t want my saliva closing the wound.”

He’d removed them both from the equation with his words. Saliva. Closing a wound. Not Ryodan’s tongue on her back. Which was exactly what she should have done—seen it analytically. Many animals had unusual enzymes in their spit. She was bleeding profusely, and hadn’t even known he’d cut so deep.

She picked the chair up, repositioned it and slid back into the seat. “Go on,” she said tonelessly. “You startled me. You should have told me what you were doing.”

“I’m going to close the wound with my saliva,” he said slowly and pointedly.

Then she felt his tongue at the base of her spine, the stubble of his shadow-beard against her skin. His hands were on her hips, his hair brushing her back. She closed her eyes and sank deep into nothing inside her. Moments later he was done. He traced a final emblem with his needles and told her she was free to go.

She bolted from the chair and headed for the door.

“Choose wisely, Jada,” he said softly behind her.

She froze, hand on the panel, turned and looked at him. She had no intention of replying. But her mouth said, “Choose what wisely?”

He smiled but it didn’t touch his eyes. That cool, clear silver gaze had always seemed to stare straight into her soul. She studied him, realizing his eyes weren’t quite as void as she’d always thought. There was something in them, something…ancient. Immortal? And patient, endlessly patient, as he moved his chess pieces around. Aware, brutally, intensely alive and on point, and she had a sudden certainty that Ryodan saw right through her.

He knew. He’d known all along what she wanted.

“Why else would you let me tattoo you,” he murmured.

He’d tattooed her with full awareness of what he was doing; giving her a collar, a leash to yank anytime and anyplace she wanted, with absolutely no foreknowledge of how she might choose to use it. Why would he do that?

And in those complex, every-shade-of-gray eyes, she thought she saw something else. Thought she heard him speak.

When the time comes, trust will be your weakness.

“I always choose wisely,” she said, and left.

—

Trinity College. Jada remembered discovering it at nine years old while taking her first ever tour of the city. The sheer number of people coming and going, laughing and talking, flirting and living, had astonished the child. She’d felt like she was on fire with life. Born of a fool’s fever, her mom used to say about her, words slurring with drink and exhaustion after another long day working two jobs, still finding time at night to take lovers. Jada knew nothing of that—the circumstances of her conception, how foolish it had been or not, and hadn’t cared. She’d only known that she was born with a fever that made everything brighter, hotter, and more intense for her.

She’d been alone most of her life. People on TV weren’t the same as the real thing.

Even out in the world, she’d been more isolated at nine than most grown-ups, with no clue who her father was, her mother dead. No home. Just a yellow, mom-scented pillowcase with little ducks embroidered along the edge in a house that held an iron cage she never wanted to see again.

Trinity was college. A magical word to the child, a place she’d seen on TV, where people gathered in large numbers, smack bang in the middle of the craic-filled city, and learned fascinating things, fell in love, broke up, fought and played and worked. Had lives.

Jada moved across the campus, deciding if Dancer tried to feed her, she would go back to the abbey. She’d had her fill of people behaving abnormally today.

She found him in one of the lecture halls that either had already housed an inordinate amount of musical equipment, including a baby grand piano, and an entire computing lab, or he’d moved everything in there to consolidate efforts and save time walking from building to building on campus.

He wasn’t alone. When Jada dropped down from the slipstream and walked in, he was sitting on the piano bench, close to a pretty woman, one hand on her shoulder, as they laughed together about something.

She stopped. Nearly backed out. They looked good together. How had she failed to see what a grown man he was when she’d been fourteen? She was struck again by the idea that he’d downplayed himself for her, to hang out with the child she’d been. And now that she was grown up, he wasn’t doing it anymore.

Were he and the woman lovers? The woman looked like she wanted to be, leaning into Dancer’s tall, athletic body, smiling up at him. His dark, thick hair had gotten long again, falling forward into his face, and she curled her hands into fists. Years ago she used to wash it for him, drape a towel around his shoulders and cut it. He’d take his glasses off and close his eyes and she’d used the privacy to stare unabashedly at his face. They’d nurtured each other in small ways. In the back of her mind, she’d harbored the vague idea that maybe one day she’d be a woman and he’d be a man and there might be something magic between them. Dancer had been the only truly good, uncomplicated person in her life.