Page 82 of A Silent Prodigy for the Lycan Princess

PJ steps closer and grabs the box. There is a tattoo set inside. It’s always the same procedure. They get their looks altered, their hair colored mostly, and most importantly, they receive the tattoo on their wrists. He starts with the woman. She struggles slightly but, in the end, is too scared to fight him. She is wearing a silver collar similar to mine while the two men are tied up.

“What do we call her?” Night muses. “How about Ruby. Her hair is red, like her blood.”

PJ grabs the book, looking up the rune for ruby, before going to work, and tattooing it to the woman’s wrist. She flinches and winces in pain but fortunately stays quiet. They make it worse when someone is fussy. Night keeps stroking me while he is watching, having reached the region between my legs now.

I try to remain unfazed, like I don’t mind, like I enjoy it.

I feel so gross.

“Azurite,” he mutters.

Azurite, that’s my name, isn’t it?Azure, sometimes he calls me Azure. But it was Meg. Meg and something else.

Why am I even fighting? If this is my life, maybe I should finally give in. Maybe it would stop hurting.

*ARDEN*

Emilien and I came home late this evening. We both wanted to make sure that Gustave felt alright. None of us considered how traumatizing it might be to come face-to-face with a body like that. We went for a brief dinner and just talked about our findings, to help him find a more constructive approach to his fear.

Aurelia is already asleep when I get to my room, but it is nice getting into my bed with my mate already in it and feeling her proximity. With her next to me I sleep so much better, so much more peacefully.

The next morning, I wake up with her head on my arm and her hand on my chest. It’s surreal that this is my life now. Once Aurelia is up, I fill her in on what happened yesterday. The worry is instantly written all over her face. Throughout our breakfast, all we do is discuss our theories so that we are prepared for the new day of work.

“They have something on their wrists,” Aurelia mutters when we meet with the others to go through what Emilien, Gustave, and I found out. “What is this? A tattoo?”

“Yes, it’s definitely a tattoo,” I say. “I read the autopsy report, and it mentions ink there, typical ink used by tattoo artists.”

“If we only had the whole thing,” Emilien mutters. “But they removed that part of the skin.”

“It has to be important,” Leila says. “Or they wouldn’t have removed it.” She keeps looking at the photo, taking it into her hands to stare at it, then she closes her eyes, opens them, and closes them again. She looks concentrated and focused, and none of us dares to say something.

She groans in frustration.

“Don’t pressure yourself,” Aurelia says quietly.

“She is right,” Emilien says gently. “Just take a few breaths, try to free your mind, and if it doesn’t work, don’t force it.”

We remain silent, watching as Leila keeps staring holes into the picture. She is about to put the picture down when her eyes flash over, turning almost white. She trembles, the picture in her hand shaking. Within a minute, she is back to normal.

“It’s a rune,” she pants. “They are putting it on their wrists. But I don’t know what it says. I just saw them do it!”

Aurelia shoves a paper towards her. “Can you—”

“Yes,” Leila says, grabbing a pen and scribbling as if she is scared to forget it again. Once she is done, she turns the paper to us. A single rune is written on it.

“Do you know what this means, Arden?” Emilien asks.

“No, I would need to check the books we have,” I say. “I can do it now.”

“No, wait,” Gustave says. “I think this is something one of us can do. Now we know that they might kill their victims, I feel like it would be important to find another body. There are too many possible victims and even more unidentified bodies that we found during our research—endless possibilities. We need your help, Arden.”

“He isn’t wrong,” Nox says. “You have a photographic memory. You are going to be much faster skimming through the reports.”

“Alright, you all have a point,” I agree. “Here, Gustave, you search for the rune. You are good with that kind of stuff.”

“Got you,” he says, grabbing his tablet. “I have a few programs I like to use when deciphering codes. I think I could use them to figure out what type of rune it is and narrow down the search. And I will talk to the witches that work for the Council.”

It feels like everything has changed ever since our talk yesterday; everything is so much more relaxed around us. I nod at him. Meanwhile, Zoé has stayed quiet. She wasn’t able to look at the photos of Claire and instead kept researching on the net. “What are you looking for?” I ask.