Declan Mace has ink in his blood and a past he can't wash clean. Fresh out of prison and working in a grimy tattoo shop on the edge of the city, he just wants to be left alone-until a woman named Sera walks in, haunted eyes and bruised skin, asking for something dangerous: a black snake.When the tattoo comes alive, leaving death in its wake, Declan realizes his art is more than art. It's power. Ancient. Hungry. And it's drawn to Sera.Every mark he puts on her skin manifests in their world-visions, weapons, nightmares made flesh. But there are others who know what his ink can do. A secret society wants to claim them both, twist their bond into a ritual that could bend fate itself.Now Declan and Sera must decide: surrender to the darkness of their pasts, or carve a future of their own with blood, pain, and ink that won't wash away.In a city where skin remembers and tattoos bleed with magic, some stories are written deeper than the bone.30 Chapters**