Page 22 of Tethered Souls

His eyes dip to my hip, to the terrible smiley face tattoo Dayne gave me over a decade ago. “That can’t stay on you.”

“It’s a safety precaution for work –”

“You’re not an assassin anymore, Micha.” His eyes lift, drilling into mine. “All you are is my fiancee. Break the spell.”

My back grows rigid at his command. My middle finger twitches as my eyes narrow into slits. “No.”

His lips tighten. Grabbing my hand, he places it over my tattoo. “Remove it, or Dayne dies before you make it back to the car.” He presses my fingers deeper into my hip, holding my gaze without an ounce of remorse or care.

I am so fucking tempted to burn him to ashes where he stands, but there is a gleam in his eye, a challenge, a desire for me to try that catches me off guard. He has no magic. I am a seasoned assassin.

And yet, looking into eyes that bleed of death, a red tinge in his brown, I shiver.

There is something not right with Varius.

Something dark and monstrous right beneath the surface.

Lifting my chin, I glare at him. Removing the tattoo is going to hurt like hel, more so than a simple burning of flesh. Breaking magic releases dark energy; it’ll feel like rubbing salt into the wound. Then acid. And then another round of salt – if I manage to live that long; the magic will want to kill me. It’ll fry all my nerve connections there, my innate healing unable to fix it. The damage and scarring will be permanent.

But it’ll save Dayne’s life.

“Fine,” I say, lifting my chin. “Let go of me.”

He stares at me, a flash of something lurking deep in his eyes. Too deep for me to see clearly. And then his hand falls away, and he steps back, giving me space.

Sucking in a breath, I call on my innate magic and let my fire burn in the tips of my fingers. Pain explodes down my side as the smell of searing flesh, of bacon sizzling away on a pan fills my nostrils. My teeth clench hard. Beads of sweat collect all over my face. My legs sway, but I don’t let up.

Pushing my fire between the magical ink, I attack the spell Dayne left beneath my skin. It flares up against me, drawing power from my other tattoos. When he first drew it on me, it was only his power holding it to me. But then I added my own tattoos over the years, as witches do, giving ourselves cheat codes and shortcuts for the common spells we use. And every year, Dayne and I retrace each other’s location spell, binding it to our other magic, strengthening it.

So it can’t be severed.

So we can never lose contact.

Screaming, I build a fireball in my palm and shove it through every layer of skin over my hip.

The bond between us breaks.

Shatters.

Magic explodes between my fingers, and the blast tosses me back. My flesh feels like it’s been burned away to bone, and I land on my ass before collapsing back. My hand falls from my side as I curl into a ball on the forest floor. My legs kick as I spasm uncontrollably, pain flaring through every inch of me, a boiling fire in my veins.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I focus on the path the magic is taking, trying to cut it off before it reaches my heart. But my body is jerking in sheer agony, and my mind is a mess of uncontrollable jittering. Just silent screams for the pain to end. I can’t concentrate, can’t stop the dark energy from raging through my body.

You can! Remember your fucking training.

Clenching my teeth hard, I bite back the pain. Then I trace the path of burning fire in my veins, rush ahead of it, and throw up a magical dam. I stop it right as it reaches my chest, and I gasp as scorch marks blacken my lungs.

The spell slams against my shield over and over until it peters out, but not before it’s left me on my final legs, my last juices, and vomiting from the pain, I pass out.

XXX

I open my eyes to find Varius squatting down in front of me. He’s still naked, so I can’t have been out that long. But fuck, do I feel like I’ve been tortured for days.

“If you’re faking the spell’s removal,” he says simply, “I will skin off every tattoo you have.”

I force my eyes to focus on him. Double vision makes it hard, but I’m stubborn and pissed off. At him. At myself for ever thinking that just because he took the time to wait until his dick didn’t hurt that he wouldn’t hurt me.

A fool. An utter fucking fool I was.