Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75193 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I growled in frustration.
“Peek,” I snapped, starting to stand.
Freya took my hand and placed her face against the back of my neck.
“Sit down. He’s just trying to make sure I haven’t coerced you into doing anything that you didn’t want to do,” she whispered with a laugh in her voice.
“I know,” I growled. “Sorry.”
My body was warring with itself.
On one hand I wanted to get the tattoo. I’d always wanted them, but I was fucking terrified of needles.
Then I’d gotten the one on my hand and hip, and I’d started to feel this itch.
An itch that went against everything that I used to represent.
Everything that Aerie used to like.
The buzzing of the needle had my heart starting to race, and it took only a few seconds until I felt the first press of the needles to my skin.
Long moments followed where I all but forced myself to stay in the chair, but then Freya pressed her body up against mine, and I turned my head to bury my face into her stomach.
She smelled like flowers, honeysuckle to be exact.
I used to have honeysuckle growing all over my childhood home, as well as the home I was in now.
It was a great flower, very resilient.
I knew because Aerie had me tear all the honeysuckle vines down when we’d moved in. She’d wanted all of the ‘weeds’ gone from the back fence, even though I’d told her that they weren’t weeds. At least not to me.
She’d asked for me to get rid of them anyway, and each and every spring I’d go out there and tear the vines down.
However, each year they’d be back.
I still, even though it’d been five years now, hacked them down each spring.
But smelling that smell right then, I didn’t think I would ever do that again.
Not anymore.
“This is going to look so cool,” she whispered.
I made a content sound.
“Why’d you pick this?” Griffin asked, taking Freya’s attention away from me and to my brother that sat in a straight backed chair in the waiting area.
“Because it fit him,” Freya replied simply.
I wanted to question her more, ask her why she’d chosen what she had, but then I’d know what she gave me.
I was worried if I knew what it was, I’d ask Peek to stop.
I still wasn’t quite sure why I was allowing Peek to do this. It was stupid, sure.
But I wanted to do it.
I had no explanation as to why, besides the fact that it was Freya’s idea.
Freya’s thoughts and design.
Peek had added to her design, and I had let her have at it.
I sat there like that, for three long hours, as everyone talked around me.
The pain of the needles had become just a minor level of irritation against my skin, and soon I didn’t even notice it.
My eyes had drooped, and I was lightly dozing when Peek finally announced that he was done.
“Finished,” Peek sat the tattoo gun down. “Whatcha think, girl?”
Freya got up from her seat that was next to my head and walked around the chair, then stared fixedly at my back.
“Oh,” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”
I didn’t doubt that it was.
“Whoa,” Wolf said. “That’s fucking freaky.”
That had my interest peaked.
For Wolf to say that meant it really was freaky. He had a plethora of tattoos, and some of them were fucked up beyond belief.
“Let me see,” I ordered.
I pushed up, my muscles stiff, and walked to the triple mirror like the ones dressing rooms had.
Then turned my back and looked over my shoulder.
“Holy…shit,” I murmured as my eyes landed on the newest tattoo on my back. “That’s…amazing.”
I smelled her before I saw her, turning to her in surprise to find her that close.
“Do you really like it?” she wanted to know.
I nodded.
“I’ve been working on that since I saw you that first night. When you helped me hang up my Christmas lights,” she whispered.
“You did a great job drawing this,” Peek said. “I didn’t even have to change or alter much. It’s one of the best pieces I’ve ever done.”
“Are you finished?” Griffin asked. “You gonna add anymore?”
I said “No,” at the same time Freya said, “Yes.”
I looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “I am?”
She nodded emphatically.
“You are,” she concurred.
“How do you know that?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
The movement had my back pinching slightly, and I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder again.
“Every time you feel like you did something good, you should add another feather,” she explained.
I looked at the new ink on my back.
It was interesting and original; I’d give her that.
One half of my back was taken up.
Wings looked like they practically grew out of my back like an angel, but where an angel would have a full set of wings, the ones tattooed on my back were mangled.
Only a few of feathers remained, but at the very top you could see that perfect feathers were growing back in between damaged ones.