A Perfect Blood

my arm a squeeze as Emojin slid from her stool. “Thank you,” he said earnestly. “I know this means more to me than you.”
    Uncomfortable, I winced. “I’m sorry it took me so long, but at least now I know it will last.” I shook my arm with the silver band, and a hint of worry crossed his expression.
    Moving slowly, Emojin joined us. “So, all I need to know is where you want it.”
    I blinked, remembering a demon asking me the same thing. “Uh . . .” I said intelligently. “Where would you suggest?”
    She exhaled, tired. “You’ve not given this any thought.”
    Wayde had started our way, and he pulled his collar aside, saying, “A real Were would put it here, where everyone could see it, but since you don’t want to show affiliation—”
    “Mr. Benson,” David growled, facing him with his hands clenched.
    “That’s not it at all!” I said, angry as well. “I just didn’t want to get one only to have it vanish after some stupid demon transformation curse! They don’t last through that, you know.”
    Wayde stopped a good eight feet back, slumped with his weight on one foot in a maybe-show of submissiveness, but his jaw was still clenched defiantly. Smirking, Emojin stepped between them. “I’d suggest an arm or an ankle,” she said as if the two weren’t ready to face off. Training or not, Wayde would lose badly. The only reason David had asked for Wayde’s help was because David had a problem forcing me, his alpha, into anything.
    Emojin shook the paper to get David and me to look at it. “You’re going to want to show this off on request. Putting it on your ass might be a bad idea.”
    I laughed to help defuse the tension, and both men turned from each other. “The ladies have put theirs on their front shoulders,” David said. “It’s very showy.”
    But I didn’t want showy. I wanted subtle, and my stomach started to hurt.
    “With your fair skin, this is going to look fabulous,” Emojin said, seeing my hesitation. “I may ink this myself. Can you hold still when something hurts?”
    I nodded, remembering the needles from when I was a child. God, I hated needles. “Yes,” I said, trying to find a way to meld my desire for subtlety with David’s wish for show. If it wasn’t where someone could see it, there wasn’t much point to it as far as he was concerned.
    “I’d like this on the back of my neck, high and almost behind my ear so my hair covers it most of the time,” I said, taking the drawing from Emojin. “And the detached fluffs coming around the front somewhat. One on my neck by the main piece, one on my collarbone where everyone can see it, and a third where you think appropriate.”
    I looked up, fixing on David’s eyes. “If someone knows it’s a pack tattoo, they’ll recognize it flat out. And if they don’t, then they won’t need to see the larger one.”
    David thought about that, and Emojin took the paper back. “Like an open secret,” she said, pleased. “Rachel, this is good. I’m so pleased that you came in. This is going to be one of my more satisfying pieces.”
    “Why?” Wayde asked, his stance belligerent. “Because she’s been such an ass about it?”
    Emojin stopped, turned, and nailed him with her glare. “Because she’s making this one piece all she’ll ever need to show the world who she is instead of coloring her body with random images and needing thirty expressions to show her soul.”
    My lips parted, and I stared as she paced to him, looking as if she wanted to smack him.
    “She might have come in sooner if she had had something to mull over other than you men telling her it isn’t going to hurt, because she knows it is, and to believe otherwise is stupid.”
    Wayde backed up another alarmed step as the shorter woman faced him. “I told you to bring her by for a drawing session first,” she said. “Rachel may have been an ass for standing me up, but she did come in.” Turning, she made a last huff, then smiled at me. “Men,” she said as she took my arm and led me to the brightly lit room. “They forget we need to see the outcome of pain before we willingly put ourselves through it. How else would we suffer nine months to have a beautiful child? We already know we have guts. Getting a tattoo to prove it means little. You’re going to like this. I know it.”
    She patted my arm again, inviting me to follow her into her small/big world of ink and needles and expression of soul. And this time, trusting her,