“He told me he didn’t know what he ever saw in me.” She squeezed both eyes shut and took a deep breath. “He told me he never wanted to see me again.”
“And you didn’t have any place to go,” he supplied. His fingers slid down to the cradle of her hips where her personal shields and spirit normally sat. What the hell? he thought, wincing from the screaming spiritual pain she was suffering.
There it was, a gaping, festering hole where all her confidence and self-worth; her soul, was supposed to be. He could practically make out the individual bite marks where she was being spiritually eaten alive. It sat right under the area where he wanted to mark the tattoo. Apparently his instincts had known where to look before he did.
The Alchemist could see several fresh bites out of her soul, some as new as the past day or so, but some of the bite marks were much older and grey with scarring. There was barely enough of her soul left to keep her from slitting her own wrists.
“I was in school at the time. I didn’t have a job,” she sighed and took a deep breath, getting a grip on herself. “And I couldn’t go home.”
“Why not?” he asked. Then a twisted and nasty feeling drifted from her very last and bottom chakra. The boyfriend had nearly finished the job, but the boyfriend couldn’t have been around long enough to cause this amount of damage. Some of the nastier, heavier scars were years old. It looked as though someone had been feeding on her soul for decades.
He dropped his hand lower to investigate. There appeared to be major blackened areas that looked like burn-marks on her lowest chakra, where sexual energy was generated. Rape, he thought. These burns are caused by hate sex. Shit, he swore to himself.
“I had stuff at home and I wanted out. That’s why I went with this guy in the first place.”
“Gotcha,” he said aloud. She couldn’t go home because a violent and abusive family member was waiting there.
I can still fix her, he thought. She isn’t completely gone yet, but she’s close. Too close. This job is going to be a bitch, but I can do it.
The Alchemist placed his hands on her naked shoulders. She tensed. Her aura and energy was so low, there was a chill to her skin. Softly, gently, he rubbed. He projected calm and safety from his thoughts directly through his palms into her body. Gradually she relaxed under his hands.
“I got a deal for you,” the Alchemist said, and then he lied. “There’s this design I’ve been working on, one of my pieces of art like what’s on the walls. I wanna put it on you.”
“Wow, really?” She looked around at his exotic and brilliant paintings. “Sure! That’d be way cool,” she said softly.
“I wanna put it right here,” he whispered against the cup of her ear and placed his palm on the base of her spine. He leaned forward and pressed his chest lightly against her spine, sharing skin, sharing body heat. Their spirits touched and entwined, sharing energy and sharing desire.
He felt the sexual energy stirring in her and shoved a bit more of his power into her, feeding her essence, her soul, directly from his. Her head came up and she shuddered under his touch but not with fear. A soft breathy moan escaped her lips.
He took his other hand and placed it on her stomach then slid his fingers up between her breasts, over her heart. He watched as her nipples hardened at the tips of the soft undernourished mounds. He could feel as excitement coiled low in her belly, sparking an answering fire in him through their spiritual link. He felt himself growing harder. The Alchemist took his hands away.
She dropped her head with an expelled breath as though released from a spell. Timidly, she looked back at him.
He locked eyes with her then peeled out of his shirt, exposing his flat stomach, muscular shoulders and the titanium rings that pierced both of his nipples. Swirls of brilliant colour and splashes of stark black marked his skin from his throat down. Esoteric sigils and glyphs, mythical beasts, flowers and flames in every shade swirled and twisted around his muscular torso and banded his arms.
He toed out of his boots, then his hands went to the button of his jeans. Her eyes dropped to where his urgency was manifestly evident and pressing against the imprisoning denim.
Watching her reactions, he unzipped and skinnied out of his snug jeans. His erection lunged out and up, full and brooding. It was tattooed with a dark red serpent.
She hissed in surprise then her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips. Apparently, he thought, she likes what she’s seeing. Her breasts rose as she took a deep, fascinated breath. A delicate flush pinked her skin and her eyes dilated.
“Turn around and lay on your belly across the bench,” he said, his voice husky with growing passion. “Put your hands over the edge and hold on to the leather strap there.” She took a last look at him then silently obeyed.
The Alchemist went to his Magikal Artes bag and spread the necessary tools and some temporary inkwells out on the small rolling table. He laid the huge Grimoire spell book in the middle. Sealed and sterile needles were placed next to the shining chrome of a filigreed tattoo gun.
Over on the counter he lit a red pillar candle and scattered incense over a hot coal in an ornate silver chafing dish. Thick white smoke filled the room with the scent of exotic resins. He set a CD in the CD-player and hit “repeat all” then “scramble”. The entire shop vibrated with brooding instrumental music.
He pulled the rolling table with his equipment over to where she lay across the bench. Carefully he pulled from his Magikal Artes bag several ornate glass bottles with the special inks from his personal collection. The recipes for his inks were hard-won and the ingredients very difficult to come by. Some of the inks glowed through the smoked glass. With steady hands he set to filling his temporary wells with brilliants.
He set everything in place on the table then raised his head, closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts. Latin words rolled from his lips in a guttural whisper. He opened his eyes and stepped directly behind her. She turned her head to look – she seemed to be panting in fright.
“Look at the wall in front of you, not at me, Angel.”
She turned away. When he placed his hands on her shoulders, she jumped. He moved his palms in slow, relaxing circles down her back, petting her. He caressed her soft surprisingly delicate skin as he would stroke a cat to calm it. Her breathing slowed and deepened as she relaxed under his touch.
“I need to shave the area I’m going to be working, so don’t freak, and don’t jump, OK?” She nodded and he reached for an antique, ivory handled, straight razor that sat next to his book. He brushed the base of her spine with the palm of his hand then lightly used the razor with quick deft strokes to clean her skin. He wiped the fine hairs from the blade on a clean rag then closed the blade and put it back on the table.
Moving carefully so he wouldn’t alarm her, he leaned over and into her, pressing his thighs and his fierce erection against the softness of her buttocks.
She widened her stance, opening her thighs and her soft vulnerable flesh to the coming invasion.
“Now comes the fun part,” he murmured to her. “I need you to hold very, very still. Don’t move, no matter what. Got it?” He shifted his cock under her and against the soft curls of her mound.
“Uh, huh,” she sighed and her body tensed under him.
He pressed his palm to her lower back then gently slid the fingers of his other hand down her spine to the seam of her buttocks then in and further down. Deeper his fingers slithered, past and over the tight rose of her anus until he touched intimate curls then damp pouting flesh. He moved his fingertips, nestling between the damp folds to dip gently into the opening of her well, touching moisture. She stiffened and a hiss escaped her lips.