Zane (Inked Brotherhood 3)

The other pictures are harder to figure out. It’s a boy and a girl, holding hands. I’m pretty sure the boy is Zane, but he’s young and skinny, his hair closely cropped, his gaze wide and dark. I lean closer, studying him. Hard to reconcile that fragile boy with the strong man he is today, but the tilt of his eyes gives him away. The girl is taller than him, obviously older by a few years. She’s smiling.

In the next photo it’s them again, only this time the girl has her arms around the young Zane, and this time he’s smiling, too. Something tells me this must be his sister.

I hear a noise from somewhere inside the apartment and freeze. I wouldn’t want Zane catching me staring at his things, so I pad out of the bedroom. The divine smell of coffee leads me to the kitchen, and I stand at the door, peering inside.

The kitchen window faces east, and sunlight illuminates a patch on the floor, bathing the room in golden light. The cupboards are old-fashioned, white with curling handles, the table round and small, littered with dirty glasses and mugs.

Zane is sitting with his back to me, reading something on a tablet at the table. He’s only dressed in a pair of khaki shorts, his back bare and beautiful, his ribcage flaring from narrow hips into those broad shoulders.

Well, bare in a manner of speaking. Most of his skin is covered in vibrant color and bold lines.

Oh my. Another dragon, a black serpentine monster covering his back, clawing at his ribs. Its long tongue and curling horns mesh with colorful flowers and insects that spill onto his arms and wrap around them in those striking sleeves I noticed on him from the start.

My naked feet are silent as I stalk closer, examining the designs. Then I really see them for the first time.

The scars.

I mean, I’ve touched them briefly, though in the moment, I barely felt them. Burn scars, Zane said. White round shapes, scattered all over his broad back, barely visible among the swirls of color. One of them is the dragon’s eye, the other a pearl held in wicked claws. So many burns. Some are clustered together, like fairy circles.

Something else catches my eye, and I bend closer. Artfully hidden in the swirling tattoos of spiders and red flowers, I see long, thin scars, as if done by a knife.

“What the hell?” Zane twists around and grabs me, hauling me back, so I smash into the table edge. “Dakota?”

Ow. I rub my hip where it collided with the table and prop my ass on the edge. “Sorry.”

He pushes his tablet away. A muscle twitches in his jaw. His mouth is pressed in a thin line.

This is a guy who doesn’t like surprises, I remember. Who likes being in control, because it keeps his demons at bay. I think again of the scars and his space-out moments and realize again how very little I know about his past—or his present.

“I read about your tattoo.” He observes me under lowered lashes, his dark eyes sharp and intent.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The Death’s Head Hawkmoth, or deathmoth for short. Like your group. It’s supposed to bring bad luck and death. Why the hell did you choose it?”

I say nothing.

He leans closer, his eyes narrowed to slits. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“It’s just a tattoo,” I mutter. “Why do you have spiders and dragons all over you?”

He shrugs. “Good luck charms. They protect me.”

“And my deathmoth protects me from death.”

“Seriously?”

“Sort of sympathetic magic, you see? Wear death on your skin, and death can’t touch you.”

And I don’t know why I’m telling him this, only that I should stop, right now.

His dark brows draw together. “Had any close encounters with death lately?”

“No.” And that’s the truth. It wasn’t lately. It was a long time ago. I see his shoulders relax. “Why so interested in my back all of a sudden?”

“I spent a good part of the night looking at your back.”

Warmth seeps into my ch