Read Online Southern Shifters: Bearing the Ink (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Black & White Book 3) by Lissa Matthews - Free Book Online Page B

lucky he was to have her. He intended to keep her too.
    He wiped at the outline of the paw print he’d transferred, bent over her leg, and touched needle to flesh. She gave a small flinch, but almost immediately quieted and Gus forced himself to concentrate. Soon, he found himself focused on the task at hand.
    Shading the paws would be the most painful for her, but nothing like what he went through when the tattoos were done to his back and arm, and nothing like what he’d put on the skin of others.
    But this was Bex. She wasn’t like any man or woman he’d ever come across. To the outside world, she may be nothing special, but to him, she was everything and he’d protect her with his life.
    “Before meeting me and all my awesomeness, had you ever thought about getting a tattoo before?”
    “No. It was definitely all about your awesomeness that I submitted and surrendered to it now.”
    “That’s what I thought. It’s a gift.”
    “That’s one way to put it.”
    “All right, pretty girl. Remember who holds the needle.”
    “As if I could forget.”
    “Does it hurt?”
    “It stings, but honestly, compared to shifting into a bear… This is minimal discomfort.”
    “Yeah. The first few times I shifted, I threw up. I couldn’t help it.”
    “You were so much younger. Were you alone when it happened?”
    “No. Mom and Michael were there. I’d watched them do it. I knew what I was, so it wasn’t a surprise, but what my body went through was. A big one.”
    “Why did it take so long for me?”
    “I don’t know. There’s something about you, your DNA that’s different. The mix of two different strains and how your mother’s body processed what was happening to her. I’m not a scientist and I haven’t got a clue about how it works, but that’s the only explanation I can come up with. That there’s no one dominant strain determining paternity. But now that you have shifted, it wouldn’t surprise me if news of it gets out.”
    “Why would anyone other than us care?”
    “Because there are shifters all over the country. Bears, wolves, tigers, lions, foxes, horses. There are many different ones and they all have their own lineage, own stories about how they came to be shifters in the first place.”
    “I had no idea.”
    “I know. There’s a lot about your history beyond your mother that you don’t know, but you’ve learned a lot the last few months and you have a family now. A family who adores you and would die to keep you safe.”
    “But it all started so violently. What he did to my mother…”
    “She never loved you any less, though, Bex. You have to always remember that.”
    “I know. I just wish I’d known more. I wish she hadn’t tried so hard to protect me. She didn’t realize it, but I saw the strain it put on her. I saw what it did to her, how people treated her and how that affected her. Like she was fragile, but that she was somehow at fault.”
    “How do you feel about Beck still being alive?”
    “Pissed. I’m so pissed that his father kept them apart like that. She’d have loved him. She wouldn’t have cared.”
    “It had to be a shock for you to see him.”
    “I’m not sure shock is the right word. It’s more than that.”
    “If I’d known, I’d have gone with you instead of sending Michael.”
    “Do you… Do you ever think about your real parents and what happened to them? I mean, with all of this going on, do you think maybe…?”
    Gus was proud that his hand didn’t falter. He’d expected her to ask at some point about his parents and how they’d died, but he hadn’t been prepared for how it would feel, how it would make his chest ache. “Yes. They were shot.”
    “I’m sorry,” Bex said softly. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
    “Why not? What happened, happened. There’s no changing it. Learning what we have from Luke and you and now Beck, yes, my thoughts have wandered there. What if the Mayor or some of his men were the responsible