Page 2 of Spicy Little Curses (Scared Sexy Collection #3)

Two

Dax

Ink-Stained Fate

N ah,” said the mouthy little brunette, staring at my arms with big green eyes that might have been pretty if they weren’t so filled with suspicion. “I think I’ll stick around until the rain lightens up, if you don’t mind. What’s your cat’s name?”

“Luce.”

“As in Lucy?”

“No, as in Lucifer. Don’t pet her, she’s allergic to people. And I do mind. Like I said, Petra, we’re closed.”

Her suspicious gaze slanted sharply up from my arms to my face. Her tone held a challenge. “How’d you know my name?”

The same way I knew her face. Knew her scent. Knew the husky-sweet sound of her voice, though I’d never met her before this moment.

I’d been seeing her in my dreams for months.

Not that I was about to fucking tell her that.

“The press pass,” I snapped. “So long, Notebook.”

Get out, go away, go back to wherever you came from!

I knew from the second the bells on the shop door jangled that things were off.

And when she stepped inside, my ink stirred, a creeping sensation on my skin that happened sometimes when I worked on a piece tied to something dark, a sigil bound too tightly to a client’s fate.

Now, with her standing in front of me, staring at me like she wasn’t afraid of what she might see, my ink burned .

I turned my back to her, rolling the tension from my shoulders as my ink itched, crawled, whispered her name in my ears. The weight of something ancient and wrong pressed down on me, sinking deep into my bones.

This was bad. This was so bad.

And every cell in my body knew it.

“Hey, Miss Congeniality,” said an amused voice from behind me. “You got a restroom I can use? My bladder’s about to explode and soak us both in Red Bull and vodka.”

I forced a smirk and turned to look at her again. I had only two options: Play it cool and get her out before something terrible happened, or tell her the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

As I’m not the gambling kind or a fan of sharing my family’s dark secrets, I went with the first.

“Toilet’s broken, but there’s a gas station down the block. Have yourself a nice evening. Somewhere else. Far away. Preferably on another planet.”

She didn’t leave. Of course she didn’t.

“I’m curious,” she said, tilting her head again in that way she had that made her look like a puzzled puppy. I guessed she wasn’t anywhere near as innocent or harmless. “Since those stories are such bullshit, why do they bother you so much?”

My muscles locked. I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t just a journalist looking for a Halloween fluff piece. She was someone willing to get her hands dirty to dig for the truth.

Which meant she was dangerous.

“You’re looking for ghosts and monsters, Notebook,” I said, keeping my voice low and controlled. “All you’ll find here is a guy who wants to be left alone.”

“Nice sidestep.”

“It wasn’t a sidestep.”

“I can tell you’re purposely being evasive.”

“And you’re purposely being a pain in my ass,” I growled. I pointed to the front of the shop, no longer making an effort to conceal the tension stiffening my body. “There’s the door. Use it.”

Instead of obeying my order, she took another step forward, bringing her within touching distance.

My entire body reacted to her closeness.

The air crackled and became charged. Another gust of wind rattled the windowpanes. The shop fell eerily silent, as if the walls themselves were watching us in anticipation. The whole room felt like a held breath.

Only Luce remained calm, her sleek black tail lazily furling and unfurling, her canny golden gaze fixed on Petra with no hint of surprise, as if she’d foreseen her arrival and only wondered what had taken so long.

Petra did something unexpected then that made my stomach drop. She reached out and touched me. Her fingertips brushed my forearm, where black ink curled into a serpentine pattern before it disappeared beneath my elbow.

The second she touched my skin, everything stopped.

Time. The pull of gravity. The whistle of the wind outside. The hum of the city beyond the walls faded until nothing remained but the sound of my thundering heart.

A jolt of something sharp and wicked struck me, like lightning straight to my spine. My tattoos writhed, ink twisting as if reaching for her. Then the whispering started, a thousand urgent voices that sounded as if they rose from a bottomless pit.

I jerked back, breathing hard.

My skin was on fire. My heart slammed against my ribs. That had never— never —happened before.

Who was this woman?

She frowned, pulling her hand back and flexing her fingers as if she’d felt something too. “What the hell was that?”

“Static electricity,” I rasped, staring in horror at my own skin, at something that shouldn’t be there.

A new line of ink, bold, fresh, and burning white-hot like a brand, had appeared on the inside of my wrist.

It was her name.

And I knew without a doubt that this woman who walked out of my dreams and into my shop on a rainy October night was always meant to show up.

Because, somehow, she was part of the curse too.