Dublin Ink (Dublin Ink #1)

by Sienna Blake

To found families. To those who need them. And those who take us in.

Just a few problems: one, I didn’t have enough money for food most nights, let alone an attorney. Two, I didn’t exactly do quiet. And three—and this one’s the kicker—I wanted to make thing worse.

Because I was mad at myself. That felt a whole lot better than being mad at the world, at my father, at the fates that robbed me of a mother, a stable childhood, a chance at happiness, mad at my teachers, mad at the system, mad at Dublin, cruel, cruel Dublin, mad at the way men looked at me, mad at the way they possessed me but didn’t protect

me, mad at my friends, Jack and Lee and Mia, mad at them for leaving me, mad at everyone for leaving me, mad at everyone for always, always, always leaving me.

Her fingers would come to rest on my forearm. And it would be all over just like that. I would take her. I knew I would.

If I was going to remember pain from my childhood, it was going to be my own.

The last thing I remembered thinking before I thought no more was this: Conor had called me a little thief. But he was the one who had stolen something from me. And worse. I had let him.

I guess to admit how horrible it was would be to admit that I needed saving from it. To admit that I needed saving from it

would be to admit that no one had saved me from it. And to not be saved when you needed saving…well, what else was there to believe other than that you weren’t worth saving?

Oh, the irony. I thought I was gaining a lover. Instead I got a father. And he’d just sent me to my fucking room to finish my homework.

We were better in the dark. But it was too late. For light, damning light, was coming.

Conor’s response came with a smile against my ear, “I never said I was to be quiet.”

So that was what I was to him. Not someone to bring alongside his life. Not someone to join Dublin Ink. Not someone to share his friends with. Not someone to create art with. But a sleeping pill. A healing tonic. A prescription for a good night’s sleep.

“That phoenix of yours died the day Shannon and Nick betrayed you, the day you

had a chance to actually rise from something,” I said with nothing but sadness now. All the anger slipped away with the rain down the drains. “That phoenix inked forever in your skin isn’t a reminder, Conor. It’s an obituary.”

“It’s not wrong if it’s love.” His words came out of nowhere. I stared up at him. His gaze up at the ceiling, a small smile at his lips. “What?” I asked.

“There’s going to be a lot of people with opinions. A lot of people who want to paint us, what we have, as something ugly. But…I love you.”

“Sadness,” she explained, keeping her gaze fixed on mine. “Sadness that someone I loved wasn’t there for me to love. Sadness that someone I wanted to give my everything to was someone who didn’t want it until it was too late. Sadness that I was right here. Always right here.”

I had my sun. I had my little thief. My Aurnia.