I’d only ever been in one before. A human one at that.
“Just ring the bell again, Daphne,” I whispered, trying to psych myself up to touch the bell one more time.
Lifting my hand, I was just reaching for the bell when a thump followed by a curse filled the waiting area.
“Damn fucking door frame,” a deep, gruff voice that was very slightly accented complained as whoever it was ducked to get under the door frame, their horns getting tangled on the beaded curtain as they tried to hurry to the front.
“Fuck! Effie, what did I say about the beaded curtains?” the mass hollered over his shoulder before turning and giving me my first look at what, or more correctly,whohad just come through the doorway.
The man was tall, towering over me and making the waiting room seem even tinier than before. Every inch of his skin was gray, the color of stone.
Luminous silver eyes that seemed to glow in the dim light were just as busy taking in my face as I was his. He frowned, his heavy brow deepening as he finished taking in my appearance.
A pair of horns curled away from his forehead, framing inky black hair that spilled over one shoulder. As we stared at each other silently, a long gray tail lashed back and forth behind him.
This man was clearly not human, but I wasn’t surewhathe was. All of my knowledge about monsters from school seemed to fly out of my mind as I continued to gawk.
The man’s features pinched, as if he was uncomfortable with my staring. “Can I help you?”
Four
The sound of the front door bell tinkling filled the shop, rousing me from what I’d been busily sketching all afternoon. I had an appointment with a stone dragon next week and I wanted to give the guy enough options for his back piece that he tipped well.
Dragons were always flush with cash and if I wanted to re-roof the barn this summer I needed Magnus to be happy.
I almost wanted to ignore the bell. Everyone else but Effie was out for the afternoon, but knowing her, she was elbow deep in some kind of experiment upstairs and wouldn’t have heard the bell at all.
Maybe they’ll just go away,I thought to myself as I continued to sketch on my iPad. There weren’t any appointments in the book and I didn’t do any of the walk-ins. So it definitely was not any of my business.
Then they rang the bell on the front desk.
Irritation filled me as I dropped my tablet on the little desk I kept in my tattooing suite and stood, heading down the long hallway that led to the front.
Ever since our last receptionist quit because Ambrose couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, Fiero had taken on most of the front desk duties. But he was out with Heath making a house call to a pair of water nymphs that wanted their blue skin dyed.
Hopefully whoever was out front didn’t mind my cranky ass.
The closer I got to the doorway, the more I could smell. Whoever was in the waiting room was clearly human. I could smell the chemicals of the cheap shampoo and soap they’d washed with recently, but underneath that was something sweeter. Like fresh-cut strawberries.
I was so distracted by the scent that I forgot to duck, smacking my forehead on the doorframe.
“Damn fucking door frame,” I growled, rubbing my forehead and glaring at it. It was one of the few things on Dallan’s to-do list that never seemed to get fixed.
Port Haven used to be a completely human town a hundred years ago, but after the Accords the humans in the town had been one of the first to accept supernaturals. In the present day, the monsters outnumbered the humans three-to-one.
Monstrous Ink used to be a swanky upscale restaurant that served overpriced shrimp cocktails until Dallan bought it fifteen years ago. The Cthulhu had put his own mark on it, renovating nearly every inch of the place, but the damned doorway to the entrance was still human-sized.
Ducking to avoid a second run-in with the damned thing, my horns were immediately tangled in the purple beaded curtain that Effie had insisted on hanging up. She swore up and down that it brightened the ‘vibe’ of the place, but I begged to differ as I cursed and tried to untangle myself without shredding it. “Fuck! Effie, what did I say about the beaded curtains?”
Overhead, I could hear Effie’s footsteps up in the little apartment she lived in, and I knew she’d probably be on her way in a minute.
Finally freeing myself from the beaded curtain, I got my first good look at the human who was standing on the other side of the reception desk with wide eyes.
My first thought was that the color of her eyes reminded me of my favorite whiskey. A warm amber tinged with a little bit of green. I was fairly sure that the humans called the color hazel.
The woman in front of me must have been on the taller side of humans because her head came up just underneath my chest. Her face was softly rounded, framed by wisps of brightly colored pink hair that looked like it could really use a brushing.
She also looked exhausted. She had deep purple smudges under her eyes and her shoulders were hunched over as if she was carrying the weight of the world.
