LITMIR.BIZ

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her face, her body and her hair. Though the light had dimmed considerably over the years, there was no way to mask what was left of it completely. Throughout time, mortals had been mesmerized by its vibrant energy and lingering afterglow.

      “Calm the hell down,” she silently sent to the guy to dim his growing interest. He obeyed that directive the way most humans did when she messed with their minds. She’d have to erase this guy’s thoughts completely once they were done.

      Running a hand along the edge of the sleek metal counter’s iron and tin compounds served to sharpen her focus by making her fingertips burn. She blew on them, more for sport than comfort, long practiced in dealing with forbidden metals.

      “Two minutes,” the artist announced.

      Two minutes, and then what? Avery asked herself. Peace actually would descend? Did she actually expect that kind of outcome?

      Sound...

      Jolted by a sudden lash of nerve burn that instantly heated her face, Avery turned to the door.

      “I will wait.”

      A voice had seeped under the crack.

      “I will be waiting for you.”

      “Son of a...” Striding to the door, Avery rested her hand on the wood. She had been right. Someone was out there. Not just anyone, either. Somebody powerful enough to reach her with a threatening call.

      All she had to do was open this door to find out who it was.

      Or not.

      The flush of volcanic heat and the staccato uptick in her pulse that followed that call paved the way for a streak of fiery intuition. Only one kind of presence in the world had the ability to affect her like this. Seven things, actually...which meant that one of Castle Broceliande’s Blood Knights was somewhere nearby. And he had found her.

      Fired-up nerve endings were tingling en masse. Avery stifled wicked four-letter oaths. Imagining she could stride through the shadows of this city undetected had been foolish. London had always been overrun by monsters. At least one of those Knights could potentially have been on guard, protecting the city’s humans from things that went bump in the night.

      While she...

      She was a sitting duck in this small enclosed space, if she had indeed been made by one of them.

      Damn Blood Knights.

      Guardians. Overseers. Monster killers. That’s what the dangerous Seven had become. Seven physically perfect specimens of immortal manhood had been created to be as much like her as possible, and their Makers had outdone themselves. Due to their skill with alchemic machinations, the Blood Knights existed unchallenged to this day by any who stood against them—immortals unable to die by any normal means. Immortals unknowingly built on a foundation of pain.

      Still, despite the agony the creation of the Knights had caused her, Avery yearned for their company with every fiber of her being, and always had. They alone, out of anyone on Earth, would come the closest to understanding her, and yet could never be allowed to. Misplaced longings for them were never to be addressed. Urges like want and need had to remain tucked inside her. Only when her mission had been fulfilled would she be strong enough to get what she required from them.

      “I know you’re there, Knight. Leave here. Leave me. Honor my wishes.”

      “What did you say?” The tattoo artist asked.

      Hell, had she spoken those words aloud?

      “Have you changed your mind?” he queried.

      “No change,” Avery replied.

      “Good. All done here.” To the girl in the chair, he said, “You remember what I told you about how to take care of this, right?”

      The girl nodded and slid to her feet, careful to avoid putting too much pressure on her foot right away. She winced as she rolled down the hem of her jeans. After pulling on her jacket, she headed for the door without looking back.

      “Will you look at that. No thank you at all,” the artist muttered. “Good thing she paid up front, but what’s the world coming to?”

      Standing, he turned, careful to avoid meeting Avery’s eyes. “Now, what do you have in mind?”

      “Wings,” she said.

      Speaking the word produced a flutter deep inside her chest.

      The guy nodded. He would have noted the husky voice she had taken decades to perfect and the slim, leather-encased body only partially hidden by the black leather hoodie. He had to be wondering about the sunglasses.

      To his credit, he merely said, “Wings are popular.”

      His eyes roamed over her—not in a sexual way, but as a painter might look for the best angle with which to fully see a model’s potential. Almost strictly business now that her silent directive had calmed him down.

      “Lower back?” he asked.

      She shook her head. “Upper.”

      That disclosure interested him. His eyebrows quirked. “Shoulders?”

      “A full span.”

      His gaze shifted to the counter. “I can do up a design for you or show you some pictures so I can see what you have in mind.”

      “No need. I can sketch what I’m looking for if you have a pencil and paper handy.”

      Avery wasn’t sure which of the two beings in this room would be affected the most when she bared her skin for the needles. Her nerves were like white-hot pulses whispering along over-strung wires.

      There was also the question of whether that Blood Knight outside would leave her alone, and if the ward she had set up at the door would protect her.

      “Here.” She was handed paper and a blue felt-tipped pen. “Have a go at what you mean.”

      Pen in hand, she began to draw from memory a rendering of the tattoo she wanted. Tonight’s session would actually be an act of camouflage, using art and color to disguise the ridges left over from where the real pair of wings had been cruelly cut from her back.

      She was going to replace one set of wings with another.

      Each stroke of her pen across the paper intensified the chest flutter. Tension balled in her stomach. How long would the Knight give her before figuring those protective wards out?

      The artist nodded at the image she had drawn. “I can do this. When would you like to start?”

      “Now.”

      His shaggy-haired head shook. “This will take a long time. Two or three sessions, at least.”

      Avery pulled out a wad of folded one-hundred dollar bills and laid them on the counter. “Now,” she repeated.

      He looked at the money and back to her. “No one can handle all this ink at one time, not to mention the discomfort of so much coverage. That design will reach from shoulder to shoulder?”

      “All the way across. And I’ll manage.”

      He shook his head again. “I’m sorry...”

      His voice trailed off because she had removed the sunglasses and lowered her hood...to give him a first look, a glimpse, a mere inkling of what one of God’s angels who had fallen to the Earth centuries ago, and stayed, looked like.

      The poor sod’s wheeze of surprise was audible, but he quickly got hold of himself with a little mental nudge from her bag of tricks. He hadn’t asked any of the questions that had been crowding the tip of his tongue. She also had put a damper on that.

      Following him to the back room of the shop, Avery glanced twice more at the front door. Wary, dealing with the craziness of being trapped, she knew that she had only postponed getting caught with her pants down by one of the only beings on Earth who knew what to do about it.

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