Chapter Text
For as long as Feyre remembered, she had been fascinated by the tattoos on her arms. One arm was coated from palm to her elbow in intricate black swirling vines and flowers almost like deep shadows. The other was filled with blossoming roses that twisted up her arm. The tattoos appeared on everyone’s arms at some point in their lives. The ink would start slow and grow until a full pattern emerged, unique except for one other match in the world. One arm matched the person that matched the soul. A soul mate that was meant to complete a person in ways they had never known. The other was trickier. Some said it was a mortal enemy. Others said it was the person destined to be a person’s greatest betrayal. Feyre supposed they might equate to the same.
The only problem with these tattoos, was no one knew which side was which. Some matched their soul mates on the right and others on the left. Some threw themselves at their enemy in hopes it was a soulmate and others withheld themselves never sure if they had found their perfect match or their greatest betrayal. Scientists tried finding methods to determine which was which and were never more than close.
One thing everyone knew for sure was the tattoos appeared when their match entered the world. Some didn’t have tattoos appear until they were much older. Some stopped their entire lives to search for their matches as soon as they appeared. Both of Feyre’s had existed since her birth. The ink spots on her arms had spread and full tattoos had been formed by the time she had been only a month old.
But despite having had her tattoos for all of her life, she had never met anyone with tattoos remotely similar to hers. And despite being fascinated with her tattoos, she had never felt the need to search out her matches. Some turned to social media with pictures, letting their tattoos go viral to seek their matches. Others gave up everything to search the world. But Feyre mostly stuck to her art, drawing and painting her world.
Her eldest sister, Nesta, despised her tattoos. No gods were going to tell her who she belonged with. As far as she was concerned, she belonged with no one. She had even gone so far as to get her tattoos illegally covered in flesh toned ink as soon as she had found someone willing to do it. But Feyre had immortalized them in her art long before Nesta had done away with them.
Her second eldest sister, Elain, romanticized her tattoos. She had always claimed to be saving herself for her soulmate. She swore the ash leaves imprinted on one arm marked her soulmate. It had to be, when she was so attached to plants and gardening herself. The solar flames on the other arm had to be her enemy. Flames were the enemy of plants, weren’t they? Feyre had no doubts Elain would marry the man with the ash leaves the moment she met him, regardless of whoever he was.
It was her fascination with her tattoos that had led her to her art. She had started trying to map them, duplicate their intricate designs at a young age. She drew the tattoos twined together, apart, tangling with each other in battle. She drew them into borders and as added designs on other paintings and drawings. They had become her motif that no one even seemed to notice she had.
No one except Tamlin Spring with the rose tattoo to match her own. And when he swept her away with over the top romance and grand gestures, she couldn’t help but believe this was the man meant to love her. And no matter how the flowers and vines seemed to call to her very heart, they had to belong to her enemy.
It had all been a mistake, Tamlin had assured her again and again. A mistake that he had thrown her. A mistake that he had hit her. A mistake that he had left bruises on her arm when dragging her away from whatever she was invested in. A mistake he had trashed her painting when he had found the vines and flowers of her other tattoo hidden in the shadows. And now it was a mistake, an accident, that he had locked her in her room like she was a grounded child. It was definitely a mistake. A mistake that she had ever believed that a man like Tamlin would ever be for her.
His constant controlling ways under the guise of cloying romanticism had her drowning on dry land. She could barely breathe under his ever watchful eye. She couldn’t walk on her own, talk to anyone, call her sisters, or even wear her own clothes. And now she couldn’t even paint what she wanted. Only things that pleased Tamlin. Only roses.
Well fuck that.
It was a mistake that she had broken the window. A mistake that she had jumped out of it. A mistake that led to a twisted ankle and a lack of care as she made her way towards the stupid wall that surrounded the manor Tamlin kept. A mistake that she slipped through a hole covered by vines that she had mistakenly found shortly after arrival and had mistakenly forgotten to point out to Tamlin or his security team. A mistake that she had walked away without a care for the security cameras likely watching her leave the property.
It wasn’t like Tamlin was there to look at them anyway. He had left on a business trip. Had locked her in her room to make sure she wouldn’t go anywhere unapproved without him or his faithful side kick while they were gone across the country. And by the time he would be able to return home, she would be long gone.
And as she stormed down the street as best she could with a twisted ankle, she realized it was likely a mistake to not have brought any money with her. She had nothing but what she was wearing. It was a mistake to have left without a plan at all. But with Tamlin there was no other opportunity. This was her moment to make a break for freedom, to escape him. She had loved him once, and he had loved her, but what it had become was not love. This was not what a soulmate was.
And as Feyre looked down at the tattoo covering her other hand, she almost laughed. She wasn’t without money. Not truly. She was covered in very expensive jewelry. From her diamond earrings that Tamlin claimed he never wanted to see out of her ears, to the diamond bracelet wrapped around her wrist, to the emerald studded pins in her hair, and the stupid emerald ring marking her engagement. She was wearing thousands of dollars of gemstone and gold that she had no desire to keep that had been gifted to her. Half of her wished she had thought to take more of those stupidly expensive jewels that Tamlin had thrust upon her, had stuffed them in a designer bag along with some of those stupid designer gowns that she knew would bring top dollar. But it was no use wishing and she would be set with what she had.
Feyre smiled as she looked around the gallery space she had managed to get herself a show at. It had taken three years to rebuild herself, to get over the soul crushing abuse that Tamlin had pushed on her under the guise of love and romance. Three years where she still wasn’t fully recovered but recovered enough to have started painting again. Recovered enough to have a small bit of confidence in going to galleries to try to get a show. And recovered enough that she was only slightly fidgeting in the short, black, skin tight dress that Tamlin would have hated as the gallery opened for her show.
The walls were lined in her work. The work that had always called to her. Her tattoos echoing in every painting. More so the twisting vines and flowers than the roses now. As much as she still liked her roses on her arm, she hated who they connected her to. When the tattoos battled on her canvas, the roses were always losing and she couldn’t bring herself to make it any other way.
Champagne in her hand, she wandered past groups of wealthy people looking at her paintings and making comments about what they thought each painting meant, or her skill in her colors, brush strokes, or lines. She took it all in, listening and feeling that unease in her chest settle. They liked her work. In fact, they seemed to be wanting to purchase her work which she welcomed. The money from Tamlin’s jewels was long gone. Spent on an apartment, new clothes, painting supplies, and therapy.
“Can you believe it?”
A whisper drew her towards a group near the back of the gallery. The two very well-dressed women and three men in slick suits all holding glasses of wine, were staring up at one of her largest paintings. It was simply the tattoo of her soulmate spread out across the canvas showing the details of the twisting vines, little flowers, and the shadows she envisioned twined among them. In her own way, it had been her call out to her soulmate though she highly doubted they would come to some unnamed artist’s first show at a small gallery.
“Rhys, it looks just like—”
“Do you think it’s possible that—”
“Of course it’s possible. It’s right there,” the smaller of the two women snapped at the other woman and the bulkier of the three men that had started speaking at the same time.
“I’ll see if I can find the artist. See if she could tell me where she saw this design before,” another of the two men turned, his hazel eyes scanning the room. Then they landed on her and Feyre was well aware he knew she had heard the question. Even more so, she didn’t need to answer because his hazel eyes trailed to her bare arms, and the tattoo that was openly on display. He tapped the last man on the shoulder to make him turn and Feyre was struck by the sudden need to paint what she saw.
The man had to be the most beautiful person she had ever laid eyes on. His raven black hair was slicked back and looked so soft. His face looked like it had been sculpted by a master, perfect in every angle of golden brown skin. And his violet eyes, they slid over the room until they too landed on her, not her arm, but her face. A smirk lit his mouth and she almost forgot how to breathe.
She blinked and he was before her, his wine missing from his hand. Then he was reaching down to her hand, bringing it up so he could twine his fingers between hers and kiss her knuckles. As he did so, she caught the edge of his own tattoo, a match to hers, on the hand that held hers.
“There you are, Darling,” he purred in a deep, sensuous voice. “I’ve been looking for you.”