He looked toward the shop door angrily, prepared to give whoever was standing there a piece of his mind.
“We’re closed!” he barked.
“Oh, shit! I’m sorry!”
Bracken blinked as he locked eyes with the intruder. She was tall, taller than Cassie anyway, with dark hair that rippled out from under an oversized knitted beanie.
Her wide blue eyes were surprised and wary. He could smell her apprehension and a hint of embarrassment... and something else.
“Oh fuck, I made you drop— Let me help you!” She rushed past the counter before he could say anything and grabbed a roll of paper towels as she strode toward him. “Can you spray it with something?” she asked as she dropped to her knees and started to wipe at the bright green puddle.
“Uh, sure.”
He grabbed for the spray bottle of soap he kept at his station and fired a few spritzes of it at the floor. He’d have to mop anyway, this was just an annoyance more than anything.
“You don’t have to—”
The woman smiled as the ink soaked into her paper towel, and then she sat back on her heels and grinned up at him.
“There. Good as new.”
“It’s tile... it would have come up anyway.”
“Sure, but now you don’t have to work as hard.”
“Uh-huh. Look, thanks, but we’re closed...”
“I know,” the woman said as she clambered to her feet. She held out the ball of green-soaked paper towel. “It’s the damn sun, I can never tell what time it is.”
Bracken glanced at the clock on the wall. It was almost 9pm. “Late enough,” he said roughly. He wasn’t usually this surly with people who wandered into his shop after hours, but his bear was on edge and it was making him prickly.
“Right,” she said hastily. She hesitated for a moment and then seemed to make a decision. “Can you cover scars?” she asked.
Bracken sighed inwardly. A potential client... She looked, acted, and dressed like a tourist, and he’d never heard an accent like that.
“I can cover scars,” he said. “But I’m scheduled pretty far in advance.If you’re here on a cruise ship, it’s not going to work out.”
She shook her head and tucked her scarf tighter around her neck. “Oh, no. That’s fine. I’m here for a while.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you really that cold? It’s spring...”
She shoved her gloved hands into her pockets. “Are you sure? Feels like a freezer to me.”
He shook his head. He had ditched his ‘winter’ jacket a few weeks earlier. Newbies were always so easy to spot.
“I’ll take your name and number, and Cassie will call you to schedule something, okay?” He felt like he had to soften his tone a little. They’d gotten off to a bad start, and if she was going to be putting money into his hand he should probably be a little nicer.
“Can I leave a deposit now?” she asked as he pointed to the front counter.
“For what?”
She shrugged. “Artwork? I don’t know how it works.”
“I won’t say no to a deposit,” he said. “If you know what you want—”
He went behind Cassie’s counter and flicked open the iPad’s booking system, frowned at it briefly, and then grabbed for a pad of lined paper and a pen.
“Name?”
“Danika,” she said. “With a ‘k’ instead of a ‘c’.”
This was going to take forever. He pushed the pad toward her and held out the pen. “Name and phone number.”
She smiled awkwardly and took the pen. He watched her carefully as she wrote down her name and then paused on the phone number.
“I don’t have a phone yet,” she said after a brief pause.
“Cassie needs to call you to set up the appointment.”
“Can’t you just tell me when you’re free?”
He shook his head. “Look, I have to keep track of everything, otherwise people get pissed off. If we have your number, Cassie can call you if there’s a cancellation.”
She frowned briefly and then pulled a small canvas wallet out of the back pocket of her jeans. She slapped a one hundred dollar bill onto the counter and tapped her fingers on it meaningfully before pushing it toward him. He hadn’t meant to look, but he couldn’t help noticing just how full of cash her wallet was. Who the hell carried cash these days?
He grabbed the bill and stuffed it in the front pocket of his jeans.
He pushed a hand through his hair. “I need a way to get in touch with you, otherwise you just gave me a hundred bucks for the honor of wiping my floor.”
She nodded and pulled a business card out of her wallet and set it down on the pad of paper next to where she’d written her name.
He raised an eyebrow. “Alpine Motel?”
“Room 209. It has a stunning view of the brick wall of the building next door. And the parking lot. Just until I get a phone... and a real apartment. Did you know you need a physical address to get that shit? It’s ridiculous.”
“Sure.”
He knew that he should be wary of this woman, but there was something about her that made him second guess what he knew he should be feeling. His bear was intrigued, too. That surprised him more than anything.
“Have you thought about placement?” He moved out from behind the counter and walked over to his drafting table. He pulled out a few sheets of tracing paper and a sharpie and beckoned her over.
She blinked at him. “What?”
“For the tattoo. Where do you want it?”
“Oh.” She looked around awkwardly and started to peel off her layers. A puffy down jacket, a long scarf, two sweaters, and her gloves landed on a nearby chair. Her cheeks were slightly pink, whether from embarrassment or something else, he wasn’t sure.
In jeans and a long sleeved Henley, she looked much smaller than she had when she’d first come into the shop and he suppressed a chuckle.
“Don’t judge me,” she muttered. “I wasn’t born on an ice cube.”
He raised his hands in defense and took the cap off the sharpie. “Ok. So, where do you want it?”
He didn’t want to ask what kind of scars she wanted covered—that was for her to tell him.
“Here,” she said and pressed her hand against her side just under her bra line.
He frowned briefly. Ribs were a touchy spot, even for tattoo veterans. And working over scar tissue was no joke.
“How big?”
“Enough to cover this bullshit,” she said and tugged up the hem of her shirt to reveal her torso.
Bracken’s eyes widened and his bear reared up in his mind.
So that was what he had smelled.
She was mated... and she wanted her mate mark covered?
“Uhh...”
“Can you do it or not?” she demanded.
“I mean, yeah. Of course I can.”
“Good.”
Bracken pulled on a pair of gloves and sat down in his drawing chair to get closer. It wasn’t cold in the shop, but her flesh was covered in goosebumps. He kept his eyes on the scar on her ribs and not on the edge of the electric blue bra that peeked out from under her shirt.
The scars weren’t fresh, but they’d healed roughly.
A bite.
She’d been mated to a wolf.
“Just... just cover it,” she said. He could hear barely concealed tears in her voice and he felt immediately protective of her.
“Sure thing,” he murmured. He pressed the paper against her side and traced around the scarring. It would be a large piece, and unless she was really tough it would take a few sittings.
“What do you want for the design?” he asked as he pulled the paper away and laid it on the drawing table.
“Aconite,” she said firmly. “It’s a flower. A purple flower.”
He raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I know what it is,” he said. “Anything else?”
She shook her head and pulled down her shirt to cover h
er torso.
“Nope. Just the flower.”
“Do you mind if I add a few other things? Some other plants?”
The woman shrugged and began to pile on her layers again. “If you think it works.”
“Leave it with me,” he said. “I’ll have Cassie get in touch with you in a few days, okay?”
She wound her scarf around her neck and shoved her hat down over her hair. “Sure. Thanks for letting me in. I’m sorry to take up your time after you’ve closed up.”
“It’s fine,” he replied. “Sorry for growling at you.”
She shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
He felt a pang of regret as she walked to the counter and grabbed one of the shop’s cards. “If I don’t hear from you, you’ll hear from me,” she said with a smile that looked a little tight at the edges.
“You bet.”
The bell jangled sharply as the door closed and Bracken threw his sharpie on the drafting table, then let out a breath as he watched her through the shop window. Her breath fogged in the air and her dark hair tumbled down over her jacket.
His bear paced in his mind and he shook his head to push away whatever the hell was going on.
His day had been going just fine, great, in fact. He liked his life to be simple and uncomplicated, but now he wasn’t sure about anything. First his family, and now this...
“What the fuuuuuck,” he groaned and pressed his forehead against the drafting table. He took a deep breath. There was nothing normal about anything that had happened in the last two hours, and he had a feeling that his quiet, simple life was about to be turned upside down.
Chapter 3 - Danika
Danika tried her best to get her breathing back under control as she stood on the sidewalk and waited for the light to change.
She hadn’t expected to encounter quite so many shifters during her first days in Anchorage, but she also knew that was a stupid thing to be surprised about. Shifters were everywhere. They were more than fifty percent of the population according to the last census, a fact that her mother had found more than a little humorous.
A large black bear ambled into the Town Square Park followed by two cubs who tripped over their feet as they wrestled with each other and tried to keep up to their mother. Danika shook her head in disbelief.
Texas was filled with wolf packs and big cat prides, but she hadn’t given any thought to what might be farther north. This was going to take some getting used to.
Alaska was bear country, and not just cuddly brown bears like the ones she’d seen on TV. These were big animals. Black bears, massive Kodiaks, and polar bears... And when they weren’t shifted, their human forms were large and imposing.
The guy who ran the motel was a bear, and the guy at the tattoo shop was too. She would see it in their eyes—a double shine in a certain light, as though there was someone else watching her from behind their eyes.
Gideon’s eyes were like that too, but his wolf’s eyes were golden yellow behind the dark brown eyes that had held her captive for so many years. It had always felt vaguely threatening,and exciting, but seeing it now just put her on edge.
She hadn’t meant to choose a shifter tattoo shop, and the name should have been a dead giveaway, but the place had felt right, like she’d been called there.
But Danika didn’t believe in any of that bullshit—not anymore.
The shop was closest to her motel and the art on the windows had been good enough to draw her in. It was as simple as that. At least, that was what she kept telling herself.
She’d never even considered having a tattoo before. But on her journey north she had thought about it a lot. She thought about what it would feel like not to have to see the scar on her ribs every time she looked in a mirror, not to feel it under her fingers in the shower, or have to think about it when she undressed in front of someone.
She couldn’t remove it, but she could get it covered. And that meant more than she could explain. She was a survivor, and survivors commemorated their victories...
Anchorage was definitely different from Dallas, and the temperature would take some getting used to,but she could do that... Maybe.
BACK IN HER MOTEL ROOM, she sat on the lumpy bed in thermal leggings, two pairs of wool socks, and a massive sweater as she waited for the clunky heater to do its job.
Her teeth chattered as she pulled the card she’d taken from the tattoo shop out of the pocket of her discarded jeans.
Bracken Quinn
Owner/Artist
“Bracken... Like the ferns?” she wondered aloud. And then she chuckled. Even in Alaska there were hippie parents intent on ruining their kid’s lives with awkward names. She had a feeling he didn’t have any nicknames, either. He didn’t look like the type.
She turned the card over and looked for some kind of Clan symbol or Pack affiliation, but there was nothing. The card was matte black with the text embossed in a shiny smooth black. She traced her finger over the shop name and number and thought about what business cards said about the people who used them.
The motel card she’d given to Bracken was emblazoned with the owner’s Clan symbol, and every shifter-owned business she’d seen in the city had been marked in some way. Shifters were proud of their affiliations, but Bracken didn’t seem to care.
Simple and uncomplicated.
Maybe she needed more of that in her life.
Gideon had been insufferably complicated, and she’d always felt like it was her fault that they weren’t more in sync.
At least now she knew the truth.
Any guilt she might have had over leaving had been burned along with every single thing she had owned. They’d be looking for her now, and she was far enough away that she felt like she could relax—just a little. She knew she should call her mother, but her mother adored Gideon and wouldn’t believe anything she said in an attempt to mar that image.
Besides, she still hadn’t figured out how to tell her mother that she’d fallen for the oldest lie in the book.
She’d grown up learning about Mates, how every shifter was granted one life partner by their Mother Goddess. Of course, every single one of her friends wanted to be a Mate. Who didn’t want to be adored without question and live a life they had only dreamed about? Wolf, cougar, bear, coyote... it didn’t matter.
Danika had spent her teenage years, and most of her first two semesters of college, ‘chasing tail’ with her friends. A few months before she met Gideon, her roommate had gotten lucky—one of her hookups proved what she’d talked about all along; she was a Mate. They moved away a month later, and she and Danika had fallen out of contact.
When Gideon had come into her life, Danika had been lonely and spent way too much time thinking too much about her friend’s pregnancy announcement. Luckily for Gideon, she had been vulnerable and less wary of bullshit than usual.
Danika groaned, tossed the card onto the small bedside table and opened the single drawer to look inside. As usual, there were two Bibles. Blue for humans, green for shifters. Gideon’s translation for the weary traveler, full of red letters and strangely filmy pages, and The Word of the Great Mother. She sighed heavily and closed the drawer again.
“I’m going to have to buy some more books,” she muttered as she picked up the remote control, pointed it at the small television, and turned it on. The remainder of her cash was scattered on the bed beside her and she pushed her fingers through the bills and coins absently. “I’m going to need a job, too,” she said with a grimace.
Running away from your life was expensive, and she’d blown most of her money on new clothes and boots to keep herself from freezing to death, plus a month’s advance rent on the motel room.
Her stomach growled.
“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered.
She needed to get her new life sorted.
First, she needed pizza.
Then she could think about getting some new books and paying for her tattoo. Then she could find a job. Something boring and
predictable would be ideal.
Her life could finally be simple and uncomplicated.
And all her own.
“Do you have any experience?”
Danika set her elbows on the lunch bar and smiled up at her interrogator. He wore a grease and food-stained apron, and his gaze was nothing short of skeptical. He was bored, exhausted, and overworked. The diner was almost full and it wasn’t even time for the lunch rush.
“I can take orders, I have a good memory, and I can count cash like nobody’s business,” she replied. “Besides, does anyone really need experience to work in a diner?”
The big man snorted and glanced around the room. He pulled a full pot of coffee off the machine and slid it across the lunch bar at her.
“There’s a hundred other girls in this town looking for work,” he said.
Danika looked around the diner and then back to him. “Really? Good thing I got here early.”
The man snorted and Danika bit back a laugh at his obvious frustration.
“Have you always been a smartass?” he asked.
“Since I was a child,” she replied quickly.
The big man looked around at the diner again and this time, the door chimed as someone else walked in. “Make yourself useful, if you’re still here at six, we’ll talk about it.”
“By three you’ll be begging me to stay,” she said.
“We’ll see,” he said with a snort, but Danika could see that he was curious about what she could do.
Thankfully, she’d spent a whole semester of college waitressing at a hole in the wall diner just like it off the PGB turnpike—even the smell was familiar. The only difference between the two was that The Golden Horn was a shifter owned diner. She wasn’t sure what kind of shifter the guy in the greasy apron was, but she had a feeling she’d find out sooner or later.
Despite the fact that she was rusty as an old saw when it came to working a real job, it all came rushing back as soon as she tied an apron around her hips and took her first order.
“Well, whaddya think, Sal?” she asked as she slapped another order onto the passbar. His only reply was a grunt and Danika smiled at the stern shifter. “Oh, come on. You need me. The girl that was supposed to show up two hours ago didn’t even call.”
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 53
