Page 51 of The Broken Wolf's Redemption

He’d done his research well ahead of implementing any kind of plan. He’d always sensed that Seren and Becka had a special bond and he’d found out that they were best friends. Becka was the reason Seren got into tattooing after her divorce.

She stood now, a raven haired she-demon. Okay, so she was a vampire, but it was pretty much the same in his mind. As a wolf, he’d always been leery about vamps. Every shifter was. They drank blood. That was a whole different universe than just spilling it. Becka defied convention. She walked around at all hours of the day and he’d seen her, over the years, eating regular food. The blood thing was certain, but it appeared that the other lore about vampires was straight up myth. People thought that wolves could only shift on a full moon, or that it caused a shift against their will. Although, maybe that was werewolf stuff, and he’d yet to meet one of those. As far as he knew, they were just legend, but he could be wrong.

Becka snapped her fingers the second he walked through the door. There were two younger women, probably early twenties, in the waiting area. They looked over at him and immediately scowled and took out their phones.

God fucking damn society and cellphones.

Walking over, snatching the things out of their hands and crushing them under his boot probably wasn’t good etiquette, and he’d come to make a point.

He’d come to apologize.

That was pretty much a first.

It was Friday morning. He’d had all week to think about what happened in his office on Monday evening. The closer it got to the weekend, to the allotted time with Waverly, the worse it got. He had to do something or Seren wouldn’t show, and Waverly would be crushed. She was just a little girl. She didn’t know the difference and she didn’t deserve to be punished for his sins. He’d arrange it so he didn’t have to be there if Seren would accept, but he knew he had to talk to her. He was a bastard, an unfeeling, despicable bastard. He knew he had no right to ask for her forgiveness, but he had to tell her what he’d done. Maybe somewhere buried under all the assholeness, he did have some honor.

It took him all week to try to come up with a solution and find the right words. It took him all week to figure out how one even went about saying sorry.

It wasn’t that he didn’t mean it. He just couldn’t figure out a way that Seren would agree to see him and hear him out.

Showing up at her work was all wrong. He knew Seren would be immediately incensed at his bold, egotistical move, but cornering her outside of work seemed even worse.

“I’ll call the cops, I swear.” Becka had her phone out now. The two girls on the couch were definitely recording the whole thing. They weren’t even being discreet about it.

Rome knew Becka wouldn’t get the police involved, but regular human witnesses were another thing. He had to keep calm. No wolf action allowed.

He wasn’t going to be able to rationalize with the vampire guard dog, so he took the next best course of action and stalked past the reception desk. Seren’s room was just down the hall, second door on the right. She’d fully renovated the building when she bought it and everyone got a nice, homey, clean room of their own.

Becka thundered after him and he wouldn’t be surprised if the other two were on her heels, documenting the chase.

Seren had a client in her chair. A large dude with his shirt off. She was tattooing his chest, which was of course allowed and she was completely professional about it, but Rome went into raging bull mode. He saw straight red.

How fucking dare this prick walk in here and sit down in Seren’s chair? Take up her time? How dare he position himself so she was so near, so intimate, her body hovering just inches above his, her hands on his skin.

That was her job and they were gloved, of course. Tattooing was about bodies and sometimes they were half naked and it was all very much part of the job, but that didn’t matter to him. He couldn’t be rational.

All he saw was some fucking guy in there with the woman who was his.

Mine, mine, mine, fucking mine. A thousand fucking times mine.

While wrenching the guy out of the chair and ripping him to shreds would have been exceptionally satisfying, he settled for grabbing the man’s shit off the side bench in the corner of the room, tossing it at him, and roaring like a rabid beast.

“Out! Now!”

That bastard in the chair might have had a hundred pounds advantage on him, but he shrank back immediately and then burst into action. Not many people liked picking fights with someone who looked like they enjoyed dragging assholes up through throats and out mouths to create a brand-new species of shifter. They just wouldn’t be able to shift back so easily.

The dude’s outline was about half finished, but he raced out of the room with his shirt, wallet, and shoes in hand.

Becka burst into the room at the same time. “I’m seriously calling the police, Rome. You’re finished.” She raced to stand by Seren, who was standing against the wall. She’d laid her machine down calmly and was now watching him like he’d made good on the butt for a face trick with her client.

Neither woman had trouble glaring him down. They’d perfected the killer look and would have eviscerated him on the spot with very little trouble.

Thankfully, that wasn’t a shifter or a vampire thing.

“It’s okay, Becka,” Seren ground out. There was no mistaking the fact that she was fuming. “I can handle this.”

“Ugh, are you sure you don’t want me to hypnotize him and get him into the chair so you can tattoo something rude as a warning to everyone else in the world? Blackmailer? Pervert? Creep? Voyeur? Sex Fiend? One Hundred Percent Walking Menace?”

She hadn’t mentioned murderer, so at least Seren hadn’t told her about that.

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