Rejected (Shadow Beast Shifters #1) - Jaymin Eve Page 0,119
It’s the only ‘ink’ that circumvents our healing abilities.” He gestured to where Len was now bustling around, placing two shimmery jars on the tray table. Both jars appeared to house a mini Inky of swirling, smoky darkness. “I managed to bring a small sliver with me, and over time, it has continued to grow. So we slowly add to my piece.” He turned to his friend. “Len can infuse it into my skin using fae magic. He’s here to finish off my backpiece.”
My breathing was a little heavy. I’d always been a sucker for tattoos on men, especially when they were ripped as fuck with ink across their entire backs. I was shallow like that.
I’d caught sight of the ink on Shadow a few times, and I’d definitely wondered how he’d managed to mark his skin—looked like I was finally getting an answer to one of my questions.
Shadow looked smug as he stepped around me, his eyes taking in my facial expression, which was probably giving my thoughts away. Just as he was about to move to the chair, he leaned down and murmured near my ear, “I could scent your arousal anywhere now, Sunshine.”
Biting back a curse and a moan, I clenched my thighs and forced myself not to think about it any longer.
“Stop flirting and get your shirt off,” Len commanded. “I only have a few hours before the family requires my presence.” He grimaced when he said that, and I had a feeling he wasn’t too into family gatherings.
Shadow reached over, grabbing his shirt at the nape, yanking it up and over his head. It was one swift movement, and then all I could see was inked skin draped over muscles. While Len had lithe muscles, Shadow did not—he was big without being too bulky. With perfect abs, broad shoulders, and thick definition in his upper body, he looked like a work of art, and I meant that in more ways than the actual artwork on his skin. Being so long-limbed, it should have been hard to build heavy muscle, but he was clearly not a human or shifter and had managed it very nicely.
I had to bite my tongue to stop the drool from escaping.
“You have a lot of ink already,” I noted, thankful I didn’t sound as breathless as I felt.
Shadow glanced down at the scripted words—at least I assumed they were words since they weren’t in English—dancing across his chest. Below them there were multiple images of what looked like beasts and monsters. “These were done back home,” he said quietly, brushing a hand over them.
The tattoos moved with his touch, the dark ink swirling. Part of me wanted to reach out, too, and see if they would do the same thing for me,
“In the chair, Beast,” Len said, interrupting. He’d adjusted the chair, making it flat, and Shadow lay face down.
When he was settled, shoulders spilling over the edge of the chair, I stepped closer and eyed up the tattoo half-done on his back.
“Amazing.”
Seriously fucking amazing.
It was a tree of death, a huge single piece that depicted a dark shadowy scene, where multiple skulls were either growing or nestled in branches of a smoke-swirled tree. There was space near the top that wasn’t completed, and it was here that Len started working.
He nestled one of the jars in his hand, and when he released the silver clasp, the smoke twirled out. It looked like it was going to escape, but Len’s magic caught it before it could, the two infusing together as he rotated his hand across Shadow’s spine. No needles or machinery were involved, just some fae magic that was clearly the key to marking shadow smoke into unmarkable skin. At least outside of Shadow Realm.
The next two hours passed in a blink for me as I watched the magic unfold. Shadow and Len chatted, the sort of old friends who knew each other so well and had a million stories of shit they’d gotten up to over the years. It was nice to just sit and watch them together, listen to their banter, and by the time Len had to leave, the image on Shadow’s back was almost finished. It was going to be beyond spectacular when completed.
“I’ll see you soon,” Len said, kissing my cheek again before he all but stepped off the side of the building. I must have looked freaked out because Shadow shook his head. “He’ll be fine.”