Ambrose’s gray-brown skin flushed a darker blue that spread out across his cheeks and nose. “That has nothing to do with this. I’m trying to look out for Cash before he ends up on the wrong end of a hunter’s crossbow for fucking around with a human.”
As Ambrose finished speaking, the bell over the front door of the shop tinkled and Effie and Daphne stepped inside. They were giggling about something, Daphne looking more animated than I’d ever seen her.
Effie glanced around the room, her happy expression fading as she looked at each of us. “Uh-oh, who died?”
Ambrose just let out a frustrated sigh and stomped for the door, his shoulder bumping into Daphne as he left and nearly knocking her over. Luckily, Effie’s vines were already steadying her on her feet.
My first instinct was to follow after him and give him a piece of my mind, but Daphne’s confused expression rooted me to my spot.
“What the fuck is wrong with him?” Effie asked, glaring after the elf.
“Don’t worry about it,” Dallan grumbled, the tentacles on his face lashing back and forth as he shook his head. “We’ve got a busy rest of the day, so let’s just get ready for it.”
He shooed a morose Heath and a still pissed-looking Fiero back down the hall, shooting me a look that said we’d be having a conversation later about what had just gone down.
“Daphne,” he said turning to face her, a jovial expression on his face that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ve been doing a fine job, just ignore Ambrose.”
Daphne’s pink lips pulled down into a frown. “So I take it whatever he’s mad about has to do with me?”
“No it doesn’t, he just has his own shit to work through, try not to take it personally,” I hurried to say.
Effie gave Daphne a little nudge. “Why don’t you go up to the supply closet and grab Cash what he’ll need for his next appointment, there should be a tub labeled ‘draconian.’”
My next tattoo would be on a half-stone dragon, half-human. We’d be tattooing him in his dragon form, which required special ink and a very hot needle.
Daphne glanced between the three of us, looking as if she wanted to say something, but eventually she just shrugged and headed up the stairs to where we kept all of the supplies for the shop.
Once she was gone, Effie turned her glare to me.
“I don’t know what the fuck that was all about, but Ijustgot her to go out to lunch with me. You two need to keep that damn elf in check or I’ll hex him into the next century,” she whispered harshly before stomping up the stairs after Daphne.
“I didn’t evendoanything,” Dallan muttered. “So why am I always the one getting shouted at?”
I ignored him, my eyes still on the stairs as the melody in my chest hummed in time with my heartbeat. My earlier anger at Ambrose fading with Daphne’s presence in the shop.
It looked as if I’d need to go see Ronan much earlier than I’d originally intended. I wasn’t sure how it was even possible, but I was pretty sure that the shy human upstairs was my heart song.
The one I’d been waiting nearly three hundred years for.
The one that, prior to Daphne’s appearance less than a week ago, I was convinced didn’t exist.
* * *
“So explain to me, in detail, what is going on with the wee human that we’ve hired at the shop,” Dallan said, his tentacles parting so he could take a sip of his beer.
It was much later in the day now and we were sitting at the bar of the Dive together. It was the middle of the week, so the place was pretty empty of its usual regulars. Instead, most of the people littering the place were local supes that spent most of their waking hours in the bar anyway.
Ambrose had come back an hour after his tantrum and had proceeded to finish his appointments and leave for the day. He didn’t speak to anyone save Dallan, and had avoided the lobby and Daphne entirely.
Fiero and Heath had left separately, something that rarely ever happened. Apparently Ambrose, in his decision to butt in where he didn’t belong, had also caused issues between the usually tight pair.
Effie had driven Daphne back to my house without a word of confirmation from me. I assumed that Daphne finally confided in the specifics of our situation, a fact that filled me with a mingled sense of relief and disappointment. Somewhere deep down I liked that it was our very poorly kept secret.
I shrugged. “What is there to say? I’m sure you’ve noticed that she’s staying with me at this point.”
And if he hadn’t Effie had definitely told him because he seemed unsurprised by my words.
“I’d gathered that much. I have to say I’m surprised, you don’t typically get involved with anything outside of the shop and the animals. Why help her?” Dallan didn’t seem upset, just curious.
