Enigma Read Online Free Page B

damage is cosmetic.”
    “What’s the Ink Shrink had to say about it?”
    “That perfection takes time. He wants to wait a few more months before messing with my ink.” It rolled off his tongue like the truth, because he needed it to be. Because he wasn’t ready to admit reality to anyone, not even himself.
    Andrew stared him down for a moment but only changed the subject again. “Got your tux yet?”
    “No. I’ve been avoiding it.” Patrick held up one arm and stared at the tattoos climbing from his wrist up under the edge of his T-shirt sleeve. “You should see the looks they give me in fancy places like that.”
    “Some people are good at passing as fancy. Then there’s the rest of us.”
    “You’re Captain America next to me, buddy.”
    Andrew smiled and picked at the label on his empty bottle. “Once upon a time, maybe, but not anymore. That’s Julio’s gig now.”
    Compared to Patrick, they were all model citizens. “Why? Because he’s clean cut and getting hitched in a couple days?”
    “And about to own a couple of big-ass houses, et cetera. He’s the golden boy of the Southeast council, even if he is marrying a coyote. The old-timers think he might just save their way of life,” Andrew explained. “They think it because they don’t know him.”
    The pieces clicked into place. “Because he was born a wolf.”
    “Now you’re catching on.”
    Shapeshifter politics gave shapeshifters a headache. They exhausted Patrick. “Well, to the rest of us, you’re a good man. It’s nice to see Kat happy with someone who’s going to take care of her.”
    “Yeah.” Judging from the man’s expression, he knew talking about Kat hurt. “I think Julio wanted to see you before you went anywhere.”
    It felt like a dismissal. Andrew’s way of inviting him to leave before Kat came back upstairs and looked at him with those big blue eyes and Patrick drowned her in the pain of missing his brother. Andrew might have broken the girl’s heart once, but he was going to make damn sure it never happened again.
    At least Patrick knew where he stood—and where he’d end up, if he ever hurt Kat with more than grief he couldn’t control. “I’ll check in with him,” Patrick said as he rose. “Tell Kat to call if she needs me, huh?”
    “I will.”
    A lie, but a polite one. Figuring he’d well and truly worn out his welcome, Patrick collected his helmet and jacket and retreated. Not to Julio’s apartment, but back to his own, where he locked the door and raided the nearly empty fridge for another beer.
    He had to get out of this building. Out of this town, and this mockery of a life. He didn’t fit here, playing at being a part of a team, pretending he belonged. Julio had fought to make a place for him, but Patrick could have Julio’s back without breathing down his neck twenty-four/seven, especially now that the man was about to get married and settle down.
    Patrick would make it through the wedding. He owed Julio that much, for the number of times the man had patched his battered ass up after he’d taken on a fight he wasn’t strong enough to win. He’d stand there in a tux, looking like a fool…
    And then he’d find a job. With Anna, without her, he didn’t fucking care anymore, as long as he wasn’t trapped inside four walls with a bunch of crusaders who rarely got their hands dirty.
    Someone had to do the wrong thing for the right reasons, after all, and he belonged in the gray area between the heroes and the villains.

Chapter Three
    The next thirty minutes were going to be the longest of Patrick’s life.
    “I’ve got the booze,” he said as he held up two bottles and used his foot to close the door. The hotel room where they’d stashed Julio before the ceremony was nice, with expensive furniture, dark, manly wallpaper…and magic. The owner was a spell caster who specialized in discreet gatherings for supernatural events, and Patrick had no doubt every room in the place was warded and