“And I can’t wait until you clean up the storage room and swab down the toilet,” Oz said, not missing a beat. “Watch the f**king cursing, while you’re at it.”
Ozzy was more father than boss, a role the old man had somehow slipped right into, even though he had no children or family of his own.
Like any sullen son, Eddie grumbled over the reminder of his chores. As he shuffled to the back of the shop to do as he was told, Nova paused her own work, glancing over to admire her mentor’s most touching tribute.
“Beautiful work,” she said, giving the old man a warm smile of approval.
Ozzy grinned with pride--a rarity--then went right back to finish cleaning and dressing the fresh ink.
Nova turned her attention back to her client, just as a dark-haired, muscular man in black fatigues walked up to the smoked glass window of the studio’s entrance door.
No, not simply a man, she realized in that same instant.
A Breed male.
A vampire.
Even worse, one of the members of the Order.
He came inside, large and menacing, even without saying a word. Nova didn’t startle, but the human client in her chair flinched as soon as his gaze lit on the big, heavily armed warrior.
Given the backgrounds of the majority of Ozzy’s regulars, even if they’d been keeping their noses clean, none of them would be eager to cross paths with the Order’s cadre of lethal peacekeepers. Nova didn’t exactly welcome the intrusion either.
Before she could tell the Breed male he was obviously lost, Ozzy leveled a narrow look on the warrior from across the small studio. “Appointment only. No walk-ins. Got nothing for you, friend.”
The vampire cocked his head, unfazed, in the direction of the surly greeting. Thick, wavy brown hair set off striking, pale green eyes in a face too handsome and aristocratic for his rough profession. That unnerving gaze skated over Nova, then past her, settling on Oz. “I have a few questions for you and the other artists who work here.”
The accent wasn’t English like hers, but American. Boston, if she had to guess. His voice was cultured and deep--as firm as the muscles she could see rippling under his fitted black combat shirt and thigh-hugging pants as he strode farther into the studio, refusing to take the hint that he wasn’t welcome.
Nova’s inner hackles rose in warning. She sent a glance toward Ozzy, whose challenging stare had flattened into a glare now.
“Question-asking requires an appointment too,” he told the warrior. “Right now, we’re booked up until sometime after hell goes glacial.”
While Ozzy confronted the warrior, his client made a casual, if hasty, exit out the back door of the shop. The guy in Nova’s chair seemed to want nothing more than to flee too, and likely would have if she hadn’t already gone back to work on him.
Ozzy stood up, crossed his tattooed arms over his chest. “Unless you’re here for ink, you got the wrong place, friend. Even then, you got the wrong place.”
The warrior grunted, dark amusement in the sound. “Not very helpful.”
“Helpful ain’t my line of business,” Ozzy growled.
“What about you?”
It took Nova a moment to realize he was talking to her. She lifted her head and was blasted by his shrewd green gaze. Those eyes bore into her, as piercing as any needle.
She watched him take in her two-toned hair and the dozens of piercings that studded the rims and lobes of her ears. She didn’t blink as his gaze moved down, over her tattooed shoulders and full-color sleeves that continued down onto her gloved hands, her extensive body art accentuated by the black leather vest she wore to work that night. It zipped up the center, showcasing even more tattoos that rode the faint swells of her br**sts.
She couldn’t care less what he thought of her or all of her ink and metal. She wasn’t intimidated by his stare or his certain disapproval.
“What about me?” she tossed back at him irascibly, as his prolonged visual appraisal continued.
Finally, his eyes returned to hers. “I’m looking for an artist who did some specific work on someone recently. Maybe you know something about it that could help me.”
He held his expression neutral, carefully so, but the dark power in his stare was unmistakable. This man, this Breed warrior, didn’t have to resort to bellowing or brute force to get what he wanted.
No, he was all the more dangerous for the way his calm demeanor coaxed her interest, her trust.
And just because he was attractive and cool-headed didn’t mean there wasn’t a monster lurking behind his knight-in-shining-armor good looks.
She’d gone up against worse than him and emerged unscathed.
Well, mostly unscathed.
“Nova’s busy with a client, as you can see,” Ozzy interjected. “She don’t have time for your questions either.”
Intrigue sparked in the Breed male’s eyes. He was intelligent, to be sure, but at the moment, Nova read a note of suspicion in his keen gaze. “If the Order were to shut this shop down tonight, you’ll both have nothing but time on your hands.”
Ozzy snarled under his breath, but let the warrior continue. Without waiting for permission, the vampire took his comm unit out of the pocket of his black fatigues and flashed a photo on the device’s display. “This look familiar to anyone?”
It was a close-up of a tattoo, an incomplete piece. The Celtic cross portion of it was older, a finished work, but the star behind the cross was only an outline with partial coloring applied.
“Not sure? Here’s a different shot.”
The warrior clicked to another photo, this one taken slightly farther away. A wide enough angle to show the full length of a man’s bare arm from below the short sleeve of a sodden, dark T-shirt to the tips of his thick fingers. Against the colorful ink and black lines of his many tattoos, the man’s skin was unnaturally ashen and waxy.