He cupped her cheek. “They didn’t do anything to me.”
“You’re bleeding from the ears, Ian.”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine. But you were—” The words caught in his throat.
“I’m fine. The doctor gave me stitches and a clean bill of health.”
“Stitches,” Ian said. Mere stitches wouldn’t have repaired the damage from the stab wound.
She eased back, lifted the edge of the over-sized scrub top to reveal the bright pink line of fresh scar tissue. “Fine,” she repeated.
She shouldn’t be fine. The binding hadn’t worked. At least not the way he’d experienced before. If she was healed—and it seemed she was—the spell had done something else entirely. He needed to think about that, to process it. But there were more pressing concerns.
He looked Harm. “You have someone here who can cast a cloaking spell?”
“That would be me,” said the warlock.
“You should have it done immediately,” Ian told Marley.
“What about you?”
Ian ran a hand down her arms, resisting the urge to pull her in for a more intimate embrace. “I don’t need one. They can’t track me like they track you. This is the thing we’ve been after.”
“I’m not going without you.” She lifted her chin in a mutinous expression Ian was positive she didn’t realize was a mirror of her father’s.
Harm nodded his assent. “A minute, Ryker.”
“A minute,” Marley repeated, glaring at her father for emphasis before moving to the shaman.
At the door, Corin asked, “You aren’t afraid of needles, are you?”
Her faced paled a little. “Only when I’m the one wielding them. Why?”
“Because you’re about to get inked,” said Corin cheerfully and offered his arm. “Got any tats, Marley?”
“No. I’m not averse, but I could never make up my mind what or where.”
“I am a fan of the classics,” he said. “Double hearts on butt cheek or biceps?”
The door shut on Marley’s surprised snort of laughter.
“If you truly care for her,” said Harm quietly, “you’ll just walk away. You know it’s what’s best for her. Don’t make the mistake I did. Don’t be selfish enough to think the worst won’t happen. Because it will. It’s not worth the risk.”
Ian closed his eyes for a moment, saw again the pool of blood surrounding her. His fault. He saw, too, Alarik’s face as he aimed for Marley’s heart. A bullet he couldn’t have stopped.
He met Harm’s steady gaze. “I’ll do what’s best for Marley.”
Chapter 14
Marley swiveled in front of the dresser mirror and examined her new tattoo. Courtesy of some kind of healing spell, the ink was set and perfect, the edges crisp. Diego had explained that the elegant, hard-edged symbols were sigils for invisibility, hiding her from prying eyes on every plane. Everyone in the compound had them in one guise or other, each slightly modified for the bearer. Hers were artfully masked by a cherry blossom branch she’d designed herself that Diego had executed with brilliance down the left side of her back. Studying the bold twists and curves, she decided that, after everything she’d been through, it was exactly right.
Exhaustion dragged at her limbs as she shrugged back into the robe someone had loaned her. Passing out for a week on the bed behind her was high on her priority list, but that could wait until she’d talked to Ian and found out how the “conversation” had gone with her father. He’d headed straight for the shower when they’d been shown to their quarters somewhere in the subterranean caves making up the compound.
The bathroom door swung open. Ian stepped out in a cloud of steam, already dressed again. He paused when he saw her. “I thought you’d be sleeping.”
“Not yet.”
Misery rolled off him in waves as he crossed the room to his pack. She could feel it as certainly as she felt her heart beating with a quick rat-a-tat of anxiety. She moved to him, slipping her arms around his waist and laying her cheek against his stiff back.