Rhys
escorted Jen back to his beat up pickup truck.
Jeremy sat with his head back and his eyes closed leaning up against the
passenger door. Rhys gave Jen a hand up
into the cab before stowing her bag in the tool box bolted to the bed.
Once on
the road, Jen felt as if she could breathe a little better. Something seemed to whisper to her that this
would not end until Cullen’s arms wrapped around her neck. She vowed to herself never to let him go
again. Then, either insane recklessness
or unabashed bravery kicked in.
“Rhys.”
“Yes,”
his eyes never left the road.
“Where
did those tattoos come from?”
“Which?”
“Well. I could see several on your shoulder. Either that or it’s one complex tattoo. I couldn’t quite tell, but I’m thinking it’s
at least two different pieces.”
“There
are actually three.”
Jen
waited. Just when she thought Rhys was
not going to say anything else, he glanced over at her and spoke again.
“Two
are mine by choice. The third was not.”
“A drunken
frat party type tattoo?”
“Not
exactly.”
“So?”
Jen
could see her prompt had not missed its mark, but there was something Rhys was
holding back.
“Look. I haven’t run screaming in panic, tried to
douse you in holy water, or stab you with silver. Whatever it is probably won’t be too huge of
a shock anymore.”
Rhys
blew out a long breath, “The third was from a group who practiced a rather
rancid religion, not exactly one of the major world religions if you know what
I mean.”
Jen nodded.
“By the
way, none of that stuff you mentioned works to stop us.”
“What?”
“The
silver, the holy water, et cetera. None
of that actually works. It’s part of the
werewolf lore that sprang up when the Romans wanted to control everything, but
could not control our kind.”
“Okay. Do the two have anything to do with each
other?”
“What? The crackpot zealots who forced the tattoo on
me and the Romans?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Other than both were attempting to dominate
the wolves.”
“Oh.”
No one
spoke for quite a while. The radio
played in the background, soft enough to be soothing but loud enough to provide
a distraction from talking.
“How
did they keep you to tattoo you? And
what does the tattoo mean if you didn’t choose to have it?”
“There
are a few rare herbs that can drug us to sleep.
And the occasional wizard, for lack of a better way of describing them,
can conjure a spell strong enough to subdue us.”
“Which
one got you?”
“The
herbs.”
There
was something in the way Rhys gave his answer that told Jen there was more to
the story than just that. It also told
her that now was not the right time to be asking about it.
“The
tattoo is a mark of property. They
sought to control me through the herbs.
It didn’t work.”
Jen
snorted, “Clearly.”
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