Dark Lies (Magic Side: Wolf Bound 3)

28

Jaxson

When I got back to my penthouse, Savannah was gone.

That wasn’t entirely surprising. The woman was possessed by the gods of chaos themselves and went wherever she wanted.

I should have never given her back her keys.

Calling and texting her proved useless. The damn woman never answered her phone—which I’d bought for her specifically so that I could contact her.

Fantastic. Dragan was going to try to release the Dark Wolf God that night, and she was nowhere to be found.

At least I’d had the foresight to install an emergency tracking app on the phone.

I turned it on and braced myself for the results, desperately hoping she hadn’t gone off to Michigan on her own to hunt down the bastard.

Luckily, she wasn’t far, only a few blocks over in the Midway Dens—demon territory.

While the Midway boss and I maintained a fragile truce, he wouldn’t like to have me in his domain uninvited. Again.

Screw it.

I drove past the Rift, the demon bar that Sam had rescued Savy from two nights before, and headed along Razorback Avenue until I got to 53rd. I turned right and pulled up in front of a shop with a dark wood façade and its name etched on the glass windows: Devilish Inks.

Savannah was inside. I could feel her pull on me, a whirling vortex drawing me in. It was getting stronger every day, which was both a blessing and a curse.

I gripped the steering wheel of the truck and took a deep breath. My father’s words had shaken me to the bone, almost as much as what Laurel had done to Savannah had shaken her—a crime I would never forgive, no matter her justification.

We did it to protect her from your father.

I slid out of the cab and slammed the door. What a godsdamned mess.

Two steps took me to the front door of the tattoo parlor, and I pushed inside.

The place was clean and tidy with white plaster and brick walls, faded black furniture, and pale wooden floors. The sound of buzzing tattoo needles filled the air. Framed artwork, oil paintings, and photos of completed tattoos hung on the walls. The work was impressive.

That was a good sign, at least.

As I stepped in, Sam looked up from the long wooden bench she was sitting on—an old church pew, by the look of it. “Shit. So much for the surprise.”

“This is surprise enough,” I grumbled.

Savannah was in the back in a parlor chair, under the needle. A she-devil with horns, short black hair, and a pierced lip bent over Savy’s right arm. I could sense my mate’s discomfort as if it were my own.

“Why don’t you ever answer your phone?” I snarled.

She looked up, and her eyes dilated.

“What are you doing here?” Savy grunted through her clenched teeth.

I pushed through a low decorative gate and strode over to her chair. “I’m tracking down a rogue wolf. Want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

“Getting a tattoo, obviously. You were gone this morning, so where were you?”

Speaking to a man you can never meet.

“Gathering information.” Irritation writhed beneath my skin. I wasn’t going to let her put me on the defensive. “What on earth possessed you—”

“Sam said that we had time before—” She cut off her words with a glance at the tattooist. “Well, before we head to Michigan this afternoon, and since I didn’t know what you were up to, I decided to take advantage of your absence.”

“Seems rash, considering—”

She bared her teeth. “This isn’t something out of the blue. I’ve wanted new ink for a while—I’ve just been broke.”

I swallowed uncomfortably as a modicum of guilt tugged at me.

Sam put down her magazine and grinned at me from the waiting area. “I think you’re going to fucking love it when it’s done, Jax.”

I ground my teeth. Her body, her choice, yes…but part of me still wished I’d had a say in the matter. It wasn’t like tattoos were permanent.

I stepped forward. “Fine, let’s see it.”

The she-devil paused her work and met Savy’s eyes. Savannah nodded, and the tattooist leaned back. Although the woman was only two-thirds of the way through the outlines, I could see the whole design from the residual imprint of the thermal stencil.

The face of a wolf. And not any wolf—Savannah’s wolf.

My breath caught.