“Stop me.” His smile was so cattish that I felt twitchy mouse ears sprout from the top of my head. He was serious. He’d chained me up, and now he was going to tattoo me. He was going to stand close to me, work slowly and methodically on my naked skin for what might be hours depending on the complexity of the tattoo. The thought made me feel light-headed, queasy.

I told myself to be calm. I would get to the bottom of this. I would talk him out of it. “Why are you going to tattoo me, Barrons?” I asked in the most reasonable, soothing voice I could muster.

“The design contains a spell, so I can find you the next time you decide to indulge yourself in a childish whim.”

“A whim?” I rattled my chains angrily. “It was no whim. You weren’t there to help me with the Shades so I made the best bargain I could with who was available.”

“I wasn’t talking about V’lane. I was talking about choosing to stay in Faery.”

My temper flared white hot. “You have no idea what it was like! My sister died without warning and suddenly there she was again, standing right in front of me. I got to see her, touch her, hear her voice again! Do you know what it’s like to lose someone? Actually, probably the right question for you is have you ever loved anyone other than yourself? Loved them so much that you couldn’t stand to go on living without them? Do you even know what love is? I did not indulge myself. I had a weakness.” And I’d gotten over it. I’d made the illusion disappear with my will. I’d seen through it. I was proud of myself for that. “People who feel things sometimes have weaknesses, but you wouldn’t know the first thing about that, would you?” I said bitterly. “The only things you feel are greed, mockery, and occasionally you probably get a hard-on, but I bet it’s not over a woman, it’s over money or an artifact or a book. You’re no different than any other player in this game. You’re no different than V’lane. You’re just a cold, mercenary—”

His hand was on my throat, and he was crushing me back with his body into the cold steel beam behind me. “Yes, I have loved, Ms. Lane, and although it’s none of your business, I have lost. Many things. And no, I am not like any other player in this game and I will never be like V’lane, and I get a hard-on a great deal more often than occasionally.” He leaned fully against me and I gasped. “Sometimes it’s over a spoiled little girl, not a woman at all. And yes, I trashed the bookstore when I couldn’t find you. You’ll have to choose a new bedroom, too. And I’m sorry your pretty little world got all screwed up, but everybody’s does, and you go on. It’s how you go on that defines you.” His hand relaxed on my throat. “And I am going to tattoo you, Ms. Lane, however and wherever I please.” His gaze dropped down over my sun-kissed, lightly oiled, very bare skin. The delicately strung together hot pink triangles covered very little, and while I’d not minded so much on the beach, being nearly naked around Barrons felt a lot like going to a shark convention lightly basted in blood.

This was a line I couldn’t let him cross. I had to own myself. I had to win this one. “If you do this, Barrons, I’m going to walk out of this place as soon as you’re done and never find another OOP for you. If you force this on me, you and I are through. I’m not kidding. I’ll find someone else to help me.” I stared into those jet eyes. I didn’t throw V’lane’s name at him because I had no desire to wave the red cape at the bull. The calm of unshakable resolution settled over me, and I injected it into my voice. “Don’t do it. I let you push me pretty far sometimes, but not this time. I will not have you put your”—it took me a moment to find the right words—“sorcerer’s brand on me, so you can hunt me down whenever and wherever you please. And that, Jericho Barrons, is non-negotiable.”

There are some lines you just can’t let another person cross. They don’t always make sense, they might not always seem like the most important things, but only you can know what they are, and when you butt up against one, you have to defend it. Besides, who knew what else the tattoo might do?

We stared at each other in silence.

This time, if we had one of those wordless conversations of ours I couldn’t hear a thing he said because I was too busy broadcasting a single, deafening word: No. As an afterthought, I felt for that strange place inside my skull, stoked it up into a furnace of flames, and tried to channel everything it would give me into the implacable refusal I was throwing his way. Tried to magic-up my “no,” in a manner of speaking, to amplify it.

I was astonished when Barrons suddenly smiled.

Even more so when he began to laugh, softly at first, but the rumble grew. I felt it deep in his chest, expanding. His hands moved from my throat to my shoulders, his teeth flashed in his dark face. He was electric, a live current up against my body, humming with vitality, burning with energy.

“Well done, Ms. Lane. Just when I think you’re all useless fluff and nails, you show me some teeth.”

I didn’t know if he was talking about my vocal refusal, or if my freshman effort to use that sidhe-seer place in my head to shove at him had worked, but he reached around me and worked at the chains binding me to the post. After a few moments, they dropped to the concrete with a clatter of steel.

“You win. This time. I won’t tattoo you. Not today. But in lieu of that, you will do something for me. Refuse and I tattoo you. And, Ms. Lane, if I chain you up one more time tonight, there’ll be no more talking. I’ll gag you.”

He unbuttoned his shirtsleeve, rolled it back, removed a wide silver cuff from his wrist, and handed it to me. I had a déjà vu moment, flashback to V’lane and the Cuff of Cruce, although this cuff was very different. I’d seen it on him many times. I accepted it and turned it in my hand. It was hot from his skin. Forged of thick silver, ornately embossed with Celtic knotwork, runes, and symbols, and lightly blackened, it looked ancient, like something out of a museum. “Put it on. Never take it off.”

I glanced up. He was too close. I needed distance. I stepped out from between him and the beam, skirting the pile of chains. “What does it do?” I asked.

“It will allow me to locate you if you disappear again.”

“Could you really have found me in Faery if I’d been tattooed?”

He looked away and said nothing. Then, “I would have at least known you were alive. I didn’t even know that.”

“Why didn’t you offer me the cuff first, instead of trying to tattoo me?”

“Because, Ms. Lane, a cuff can be removed or forgotten. A tattoo can’t. I still prefer the tattoo. The cuff is a concession, and one I’m making only because you’ve finally pulled your head out and begun exploring your…talents.” He smiled faintly.

Aha, so what I’d tried to do with that strange place in my skull had had some effect on him! That was something. It wasn’t exactly bending spoons with a thought, but it was a start. “Couldn’t somebody cut a tattoo off me?” Didn’t the ink go only so many layers of skin deep?

“It would be risky and immensely painful. I intended to hide it.”

I looked down at myself. “Just where were you planning to hide a”—I veered sharply away from that cliff—“I don’t want to know.” I examined the cuff. “Does it do anything else?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. Put it on. Now.”

I saw all kinds of nonnegotiable in his eyes and I knew he would tattoo me, and I would have to leave, and despite my bravado, I wasn’t ready to be on my own in this dark world.

I slipped it on my wrist. It was huge. I pushed it up my arm but it just slid back down, and fell off over my hand. He caught it before it hit the floor, and forced the ends apart. He placed it above my biceps and squeezed it until the ends met. I had just enough muscle to keep it where it was.