Page 19 of Ink Sworn (Greatdrakes #3 | The Fae Universe #24)

V alentine left Yelena to review the sigil options he had designed and returned to his rooms to retrieve his tattooing equipment. He never traveled without a kit, not even into Faerie. It helped him feel centred when he had his guns and inks with him.

He wasn't sure how late it was, but the halls were quiet, and from the sounds coming from the rooms beside him, Reeve and Charlotte were enjoying themselves.

Valentine pulled a face. He had heard his brother's shagging far too much of late, and he made a mental note to put up some silencing wards on his rooms. Yelena had the right idea, staying in the mountain's equivalent of a tower.

He was grateful no one was around to try and stop him and 'see how he was doing.

' Did he really appear so unhinged that even Taranis's knights were keeping an eye on him?

He thought of his reflection in Yelena's bathroom mirror.

Okay, so he might have been a little manic, but he wasn't unhinged.

He thought of Yelena's taste, and his mouth watered .

"Fuck, focus on the magic," he told himself. He had never felt out of control over anyone before.

When he wanted sex, he paid for it. Like his brothers, he had never really had time for relationships and felt nothing for the people he had fucked. It was a release, and that was about it. He didn't like to be touched for too long, and non-transactional sex would require some kind of affection.

Being with Yelena wasn't like that. He practically dry humped her and came untouched. That…wasn't normal. It usually took him far longer to get out of his own head and be present enough to come at all.

His dragon growled, I have always tried to tell you she is different.

Valentine gathered the last of his tattooing gear together in his satchel and slung it over his shoulder. I know. I just wasn't ready to listen. We will fix her hand, and then maybe she will be able to help us too.

Want her. Want her. Want her. The dragon tossed an image into his mind of Yelena on top of him, licking his throat.

Valentine ran his hands through his hair and tugged on it. "I know. I feel it too. Let me think long enough for the magic, and then we will see how she feels about anything else."

She wants us, too.

Valentine ignored it. There was no reasoning with it when it was in an obstinate mood. In that way, they were the same. He let magic fill his mind, gently pushing the dragon out. It didn't fight him, knowing what had always come first for them.

Valentine had never really been interested in anything that wasn't magic, and finding that he was equally interested in a person was a new experience for him.

And he was very interested in making Yelena submit again.

"Magic, magic, magic," he whispered under his breath, trying to get his blood to cool down .

He almost felt normal again by the time he made it to Yelena's door.

All that normal unravelled as her scent hit him and he spotted her sitting cross-legged on the floor with his drawings and new ones of her own scattered around her.

There was a smudge of ink on her chin that made his mouth dry out.

"Good, you're back. Come here and explain what this design here means. I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding it," Yelena said, snatching up a piece of paper and waving it at him.

A smile was on Valentine's face before he could stop it.

His dragon tried to tell him something, but nothing existed in that moment but the girl on the floor.

If it had been anyone else, he would have cringed and tried to start tidying them up and getting them to move to a proper space.

His OCD need to have order didn't apply to her.

Valentine placed his bag down on the coffee table next to what was left of their dinner. He toed off his boots, dropped a cushion beside her, and sat down. If she needed to work on the floor, he wouldn't interfere with that.

Balance. She's the balance , he thought to himself. The balance and the opposite.

"Show me what you need help with," Valentine said, taking the sketch from her.

Yelena was drawing with her left hand and was making small, frustrated sounds every time it shook. Valentine wrapped his hand over hers.

"Tell me what you want me to do, and I will draw," he said.

"I should have kept up with my ambidexterity," Yelena complained, but let him take the pen from her.

Following some unknown urge, Valentine kissed the inside of her wrist before letting her hand go. Her cheeks went pink, and his heart stuttered .

"Let me help," he said, quickly looking away before he got distracted and tried to pounce on her again.

Yelena pulled three of his sketches toward her and started folding different sides. "You have most of it, but it's spread out. Look, like this." She put the folded pieces of paper together, and the new sigil jumped out at him.

"Oh, gods, this is what happens when I am distracted. Okay, let me start, and you tell me where to add your bits to make sure the magic connects your nerves properly," he said, excitement rushing through him like it always did when he could finally see a magical solution to a problem.

An hour later, they had cleared off the coffee table, and Valentine set out his inks, needles, and guns. The design sat in front of him, and there wasn't anything he could see that needed adjusting.

Yelena sat on the opposite side of the table and had her arm resting on a cloth so they wouldn't get blood and ink everywhere.

"Are you sure you want to do this tonight? Your arm will probably still be tender from such a traumatic wound," Valentine said.

The look Yelena gave him made his balls shrivel. "Remember what I said the other evening about how I know what my body is capable of?" she said.

Valentine sighed. "I don't like the idea of hurting you."

"I know, and you won't. I'm so full of healing potions right now that the biggest thing you need to consider is how my body is going to try to fix me as you tattoo," Yelena said.

She drank some more of the water he had set out for her.

"I'm better than fine, Val. Please, just do it.

If you were me, wouldn't you want to be able to use your magic straight away? "

Valentine shivered. "Yes. I would be worse than you about it, if I'm being honest. Although you didn't seem to have any issue throwing me out of the room the other night. "

Yelena laughed, deceptively sweet. "That was brute strength and annoyance, not precision. There's a difference, as you well know. Now, are we doing this or not?"

"We are. Tell me if you need a break. I can get a bit lost when I'm tattooing, so if I go quiet, you know why." Valentine picked up his marker and lifted her arm so it was positioned upright. "You could tell me about what kind of dragon you are, and how you can use ice magic?"

"Help me be able to access my magic, and I'll show you," she said with a sly little smile.

"I don't think I like how easily you can manipulate me," he said and started to draw over her soft skin.

"Don't make it so easy then," Yelena replied. "It's better if I show you anyway. It has the bonus of getting us out of the city as well."

"Now you are sweetening the deal. Keep doing that, and I won't mind being manipulated at all.

" Valentine sketched the rest of the sigil on her arm.

The scar that cut across it made his heart ache.

"I'm never going to be able to make this up to you.

I don't want to fight about it—I understand your reasoning—but I wish the price hadn't been so high. "

"You're a sorcerer, Valentine. You know better than most that all magic comes with a price."

"This wasn't magic, baby girl. This was torture," he pointed out.

"Fighting the fate that I saw in the vision was magic. This is the price. I knew what would happen. I paid it willingly," Yelena replied, her voice calm. Far too calm.

Valentine didn't want to fight. "That vision you had must have been truly horrific."

"You said you had one of your mother dying? You know the pain of that. Now imagine seeing everyone you have ever known and loved dead. I saw you in Midir's thrall. There was no worse future I could imagine than that," Yelena replied.

Valentine stroked a thumb over her forearm. "I'm sorry. I'm being a bastard. I just..."

"You don't think your life was worth my hand? Because to me, it is," Yelena said, and it was like a kick to his guts that she would care about him after how he had treated her. She nodded to the gun he had prepped. "Get on with, Valentine, before we start bitching at each other."

Valentine picked up the gun. She was right. She always was. It would have been annoying if he didn't like her so much. "Okay, I'm going to start. It might give you a little shock first...and you don't care. Right."

Valentine shook out his hands and cracked his neck. His magic thrummed in his fingertips, needing to get out. He dipped the needles into the ink and got to work.