Page 2 of Snowed In with an Incubus

The woman swallowed. “I can pay double.”

Tammy’s apologetic expression smoothed out. She twisted to give Sam a considering look.

Sam bit his cheek. His hands were steady again, but they wouldn’t stay that way. He gave it a few hours before the tremors started in earnest. Probably. He’d heard stories about what happened to incubi after they stopped taking their potion. He would be fine as long as he made it home in a few hours.

“I’m almost finished putting everything away,” he started.

“You can get it back out,” the woman tried. “Please? I really need it. It’s small! It won’t take long!”

Sam sighed. He just wanted to go home, drink his potion, feed Xena, and collapse on the couch to watch TV until it was time for bed. His cousin kept pestering him to finish the latest season of their favorite show so he could yell at Sam about it.

He looked over at Tammy. “I get to keep the extra?”

Tammy shrugged. “Sure.”

“How small?”

“I’ll let her answer that.” Tammy stepped past the woman, and the automatic doors slid open, letting the cold air in again. “Have fun, kids,” she called. Then she was gone, doors swishing shut behind her.

The woman shivered. Her coat was thick but not thick enough for Claw Haven. Sam got the feeling that she had dressed in a hurry. He’d had a few customers barge in demanding immediate tattoos, and they usually weren’t in the headspace to remember to wear layers. A breakup was the most common cause. Judging by how this woman was shaking with rage, he bet this was the case.

He stripped his gloves off, throwing them in the trash can before walking toward her with one steady hand outstretched.

“I’m Sam,” he said.

“Jaz,” the woman replied. She looked distracted, lost in whatever had pushed her into getting a tattoo in the middle of a snowstorm in a town she was just passing through. She definitely wasn’t a local. Sam would’ve remembered her. She was just as tall as him and not even slouching into it like he’d known some tall women to do. She wore her height proudly: shoulders back, chin lifted, confidence clear despite the anger and the cold. She looked like the kind of girl who walked straight up to their crush at a party, the kind of girl you’d want on your side during a barfight. She was so beautiful in anger that Sam had to wonder what the hell she looked like when she was happy.

Sam cleared his throat. His hands had started to shake again. “Okay, Jaz, what were you wanting tonight?”

“A sun,” she replied, weirdly defiant in a way he wasn’t even sure was about him. “On my arm.”

“Alright. Do you have a sketch ready?”

“Can’t you just—” she gestured at her jacket-clad arm “—wing it?”

A moment passed. Sam liked to give his customers time to sit in whatever stupid thing they’d just said.

“I’ll give you a concept book,” he said. He headed over to the waiting couch at the front of the studio to grab one and flipped it open to the page that housed several styles of moons, stars, and suns. “What about these?”

Jaz’s nose wrinkled. “Do you have something colorful? Maybe something bright. And beautiful.”

Her eyes flared again, so intense he almost expected them to burn with real fire. But they stayed green, and when he scented the air, she still smelled as human as the first time. It was good to check. All the disinfectant in this place had dulled his sense of smell, even though he’d only been working in tattoo studios since he was twenty-five.

“I can draw you something,” he offered.

Jaz sniffed. For a second, he worried she might tear up, but when she looked at him, her face was dry. “How long would that take?”

“Depends on how many designs you turn down.”

Jaz’s mouth quirked. She dropped the concept book back onto the waiting couch. “Then you’d better get started.”

She took her jacket off as he sketched. Jaz perched on the edge of the tattoo chair and began pulling her long sleeves over her hands and peering at the page.

“That’s more like it,” she said as he colored it in with red and orange swirls. “Oh, wow. You’re really good!”

“Thanks,” he said dryly. “I do this for a living. Where do you want it on your arm?”

She rolled up her sleeve and pointed. “Here.”