Dangerous Temptation (Dark Dream 1)

“Go fuck yourself,” I murmured as I stared at the dove.

I didn’t need a tattoo to ensure I’d never forget Dad or who I’d been when he’d been alive, when I’d been his daughter, even if it was only in the shadows.

But it helped.

It helped a lot.

Because what was the point of art if not to give eloquence to the myriad of emotions originating in the human heart that were too immense to be translated into simple words?

“It’s pretty,” Gabriella said, bending forward, her dark head against my light, to peer at the design. “It suits you.”

“Thanks,” I whispered, my heart floundering in my throat.

“Let me see,” Elias murmured, taking my hand gently to extend it for his viewing. His rough tipped thumb smoothed under the irritated skin, his breath hot against me as he bent close to look.

That was how he found us.

A teenage boy bent over my hand like he intended to give it a kiss of admiration.

The bell over the door of the cramped shop tinkled as someone entered. I couldn’t see who it was from down the hall behind a half wall, but I could tell, somehow, by the way the air flattened like a can of old pop, like dead air space after cacophonous static.

Somehow, Tiernan had found me.

Every atom of my body stilled, held suspended in pure, fresh terror.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The sound of expensive shoes stalking down the short hallway on measured steps.

I held my breath, my blood roaring like the waves against Bishop’s Landing in both ears.

When he rounded the corner, I went cold at the cast of Tiernan’s glacial green eyes.

He filled the entire doorway with his dark presence, broad shoulders kissing either edge of the walls. In a black suit with a deep, almost black-red shirt beneath it, those diamond cuff links winking at his wrists as he crossed his arms over his chest, he seemed like some urban reaper come to collect a toll. The shadow of the door cast him almost entirely in shadow, but for the glint of those unnaturally pale green eyes.

“Oh my God,” Gabriella whispered.

She shivered beside me.

Or, I guessed, it could have been me.

“Bianca.” My voice was said like a dropped anchor—heavy, intractable.

I swallowed thickly, arrested by the awful sight of him, so magnificent and terrifying at once.

“Tiernan,” I managed to counter, but the word was stripped bare with unconcealed nerves.

“We are leaving,” he said, not moving an inch yet somehow crowding me. “Now.”

Without thought, I stood from the chair. Gabriella shrunk slightly behind me, but Elias was reluctant to give up my hand. He made to move beside me in a show of solidarity, but I stopped him with a tiny shake of my head.

“You have twenty seconds to meet me at the car.” His voice was quiet and all the more ominous for it.

I opened my mouth to say something, snark at him, try to recover some of my tattered autonomy, but his voice whipped across the space between us and cracked against me painfully. “Not a word.”

Then, he turned to the tattoo artist who was similarly still, frightened maybe and trying to hide it. “Has she paid?” A quick shake of the fauxhawked head. Tiernan pulled a money clip from his pocket, flicked off far too many crisp bills and tossed them on the floor at his feet. “Now, she has. Bianca, ten seconds.”

I was moving before I could fight against the demand. It was some small instinct for self-preservation that propelled me around the corner, Tiernan already beyond it and prowling down the hall out the door into the dark New York night.

“Uh, sorry for him,” I said with a grimace over my shoulder at my friends. “Thanks for the company. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey!” Elias called, his eyes narrowed, jaw pulsing. I wondered if he was worried about me and decided he was probably the nicest boy I’d met. I loved that he was a Constantine, that he was my impression of my family I’d never know. “Text me when you get home. He looks pissed.” He hesitated, eyes pinned over my shoulder at Tiernan through the glass. “Who did you say he was, again?”

“Tiernan,” I called out as I picked up my pace so I wouldn’t miss my ten-second window. “Tiernan McTiernan.”

If I’d waited a little longer, maybe I would have seen the look of horror on Elias’ face. Maybe I would have questioned him or he would have offered what he knew.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I raced out down the hall and out the door of the dingy tattoo parlor into the bracing cold night, then caught my breath for a second before I opened the door to Tiernan’s black Aston Martin and willingly slid inside a cage with a furious beast.

Chapter Six

Bianca

He didn’t say a word.

Nor did he let me say one in my defense.