He clenched his teeth and didn’t utter a sound as Katie etched the cayenne permabrand into his arm. Over the months, he’d had a number of tattoos. This was not the same. Adding the cayenne was like adding molten anguish. “Easy.” Katie wrapped gloved fingers around his arm, but he could barely appreciate her touch. His heart monitor beeped rapidly, recording his stats for risk assessment. “Harry, the belts aren’t enough. Hold him still. June, if you could remove the blood. I can’t see my outline.” Marcus realized he might not have been complaining, but he had been inching away from Katie and her father’s gunlike tattoo machine she wielded to such painful effect. The makeshift straps that bound his torso to the heavy chair hadn’t prevented his involuntary twitches. “It’s a one-inch circle. The outline doesn’t matter,” Marcus told her. Pain ebbed and flowed like his pulse, diving beneath his skin and resurfacing. The healing components in the brand would offset blisters and burns but not all the hurt.
