“What are the risks in this?” I asked Caleb when we were alone once more, but he just shrugged.
“Nothing really for you. If it doesn’t work, then you’ll just have another non-magic tattoo. Which, really isn’t the worst thing when it’s Austin’s work.” He paced in front of the fireplace, probably not even noticing he was doing it. For all his forced casualness, I could see the lines of tension in his face.
“What about for you?” I prompted, not missing his phrasing that there was no risk for me.
Caleb scrubbed a hand over his face, but it was Austin who replied for him, coming back into the den with his tattoo equipment in a small black case.
“There’s no real risk for him either,” Aus informed me. “He’s just being a little bitch because it’s going to mean explaining more about his magic to you.”
“Oh.” I frowned at Caleb and tried really hard not to be offended. “So... you don’t want to tell me more about it? That’s...” I trailed off, not really sure what the hell to say. Considering I shared everything with the guys these days and I was still stinging from the twins hiding their knowledge of magic from me... well, it sucked.
“Yep,” Austin said under his breath as he unpacked his tools onto the coffee table. “I’d feel like that too. Even I’ve been open with you since Yoshi’s shop.”
“Fuck off,” I chastised him. “Quit trying to interpret my feelings. We have an arrangement to ignore those, remember?”
Actually on second thought, we had never discussed the arrangement. It was more... assumed.
Austin gave me a funny look, and a small spike of amusement shocked through me. “Do we? I guess that explains some things then.”
“Kitty Kat,” Caleb groaned, coming to perch on the edge of the couch and biting at his lip. “It’s not that I don’t trust you or anything. It’s just...”
“It’s just what?” I pushed, trying not to sound defensive and hurt but probably failing miserably. “You don’t think I’ll understand? What happens when we bond, Cal? Isn’t this all information I should really have in advance?”
Caleb stared back at me for a long moment, his mouth downturned and a deep furrow between his dark brows.
“Moot point now, Princess,” Austin offered. “Come on, bro. I’m ready for you. Let’s get this spell done so we can accelerate these lessons. Ideally it’d be good if Christina can complete a few more bonds before we need to abandon this location.”
Caleb nodded sharply and leaned forward to slide a blade out of an ankle sheath. He met my gaze briefly, then turned his down while he sliced a deep cut across the palm of his hand. Carefully, he then tipped his hand up and let the blood drip freely into each one of Austin’s open ink pots.
As the blood hit the surfaces of each color, a flare of light glowed and dimmed on each one. I was so entranced watching the effect that Caleb’s blood was having on the inks that I didn’t notice the change in him until he was finished, withdrawing his bleeding hand from above the table, and curling his fist closed.
“Cal,” I gasped, seeing exactly why he’d been so sure he’d need to explain things. No way in hell was I letting this one slide.
“I know,” he growled in a husky voice, thick with emotion.
“Give him a sec to get it under control,” Austin advised me quietly, placing a hand lightly on top of mine where it rested in Tyson’s neck fur.
I didn’t dare blink. Instead, I watched with fascination while Caleb’s pupils slowly returned from reptilian slits to normal, circular, human pupils, and his elongated canine teeth shrank back up once more. Once the changes seemed to be reversed, he shut his eyes tightly for a moment and took a few long breaths before opening them again and looking at me.
His gaze was so full of fear and self-loathing I could almost feel my heart breaking for him. He hated what he was, and I was the only one to blame for it. Well... me and Jonathan, seeing as he had orchestrated the car crash that had damn near killed Caleb and Wes.
“Give me your hand,” I demanded in a harsh whisper, noticing that he still held it clenched tight. As far as I knew, Mages didn’t have the natural healing ability that the dragons did.
Caleb did as I instructed, opening his palm out and letting me take it to heal the gash, then he wiped the excess blood off on a cloth his brother handed him.
“Hit me,” Caleb said, eventually. “I’ll answer anything the NDA will allow me to.”
Nodding slowly, I stared at him. Where did I even begin?
“So... fangs, huh?” Okay, so not the most intelligent question I’d ever phrased in my life. Austin snorted a laugh while I mentally cringed, and I smacked him in the arm. He was sitting on the floor beside me, finishing off whatever the fuck he was doing with the freshly blooded inks, so he was in easy reach for a swat.
“Uh.” Caleb quirked a tiny smile. “Yeah. Fangs. I take it you saw the eye thing too?” I nodded, and he sighed. “Yeah. So, as a Blood Mage, I can create magic with blood. But it’s more than that. Blood is literally a source of power for me, so when I see or smell a lot of it, the uh, fangs happen.”
Austin took my wrist in his hands and turned it over so that it was face up on the table in front of him. I spared him a quick glance, but was more interested in Caleb’s story. Besides, I actually did trust Austin not to tattoo a dick on me, so he could do whatever he wanted to get the spell done.
“So, you’re a vampire?” I asked, feeling like that chick from those books. The one where the vampires sparkled in the sun, which, by the way, would be a pretty cool trick.
Caleb gave me a tiny smile. “No. Not really. Sort of.”
“Oh, that was as clear as mud.” I quirked an eyebrow at him as I felt the buzz of Austin’s needle on the inside of my wrist. “Care to elaborate?”
“Blood Mages are technically where the legend of vampires came about. In the past there have been Mages who lost control of their desire for power and went a bit nuts. Publicly. Like Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, who were two separate guys by the way. Once they’d let their desires for power take over, they lost their minds and a whole bunch of people got slaughtered before they were taken out by the Ink Mage of the time.” Caleb ran a hand over his face once more, then wrinkled his nose. “Do you mind if I just go wash my hands quickly? I can still smell it...” I nodded, and he flashed me a quick smile before ducking out to the powder room.
“Why haven’t you told me any of this?” I asked Austin in a quiet voice while he worked on my new tattoo.
“Because it’s not my place to tell you. It’s his. Just because we’re twins doesn’t mean we’re not entitled to our own secrets.” His words were soft but chastising, and he was absolutely right. That was rude of me to expect he’d spill his brother’s secrets, but it had been a gut reaction. “Does it change how you feel for him?”
I huffed a small snort. “You already know it doesn’t. I’m just getting really tired of everyone keeping secrets from me when you all demand I keep none from you. It’s a double standard, and it’s beginning to wear thin.”
Austin paused, removing his needle from my skin as he met my gaze steadily. “I get it. We can’t change the past, but at least you know it won’t happen in the future. I couldn’t keep secrets from you now even if I wanted to.”
“You couldn’t?” I repeated with a frown. That was news to me.
“Honestly”—Austin clicked his tongue as he returned to his work—“you need to pay closer attention to your own magic.”
Caleb reentered the room then, still wiping his damp hands off on a little pink hand towel before sitting back on the sofa and looking at me expectantly.