Page 17 of The Scribe (Irin Chronicles 1)

“Hardly ever, but this is work.”

“What do you do?” He already knew. Rhys had given him a full profile on her the day after he’d discovered her name.

“I take pictures for travel magazines.”

Ava Matheson was considered one of the top travel photojournalists in her field, distinguishing herself by her willingness to go to the most remote location and capture it for the hungry print and online world. In fact, the more remote the location, the more attractive the job seemed to be for her. She’d climbed mountains in Peru and Nepal, traversed the Gobi Desert, and boated the Orinoco. The burgeoning ecotourism industry loved her. Ava specialized in finding the luxurious in the most remote places in the world. She seemed to avoid cities unless there was a specific assignment calling her to one. Malachi had no idea what she was doing in Istanbul, as Rhys could find no record of a commission from any of her usual clients.

“Which magazine do you work for?”

“Lots of them.” Her gaze drifted off for a moment until it snapped back to his face. “I don’t want to talk about work. Isn’t that boring? I bet you hate to talk about bodyguard gigs. You probably have some great stories you can’t tell anyone though, huh?”

You have no idea.He lifted an eyebrow. “So what do you want to talk about?”

He hoped she wasn’t thinking about coming on to him. That was destined to end badly, then she’d call her parents—or whoever she thought had hired him—and start asking inconvenient questions.

“Are you Turkish? You don’t have the same accent as most of the people I’ve met.”

He could actually be honest about that one. “I am, but I’ve traveled a lot. Lived in a lot of other places. I imagine that’s influenced the accent. You?”

“All-American girl.”

“They write songs about your kind, you know.”

She laughed. “Mykind? That’s a good one. I can pretty much promise they don’t write songs aboutmykind. Not good ones, anyway. Have you been to the States?”

“I lived in Chicago for a time, but that was years ago.”

Ava leaned forward, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as the breeze pulled dark hair into her eyes. “And what did you do in Chicago?”

I helped kill the upper echelon of Grigori soldiers belonging to a fallen angel who preys on the women of the Upper Midwest. And his pack of dogs. He was pissed about the dogs.

“The same thing I do here.”

“Exciting.”

“It has its moments.”

“Did you ever guard Oprah?”

“I don’t think so.” He frowned. “Not directly.”

“So, Malachi…” She shifted again, leaning back and lifting her face to the sun. It poured over her, warming her pale skin and lighting the red in her hair. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes behind her sunglasses. “Are you an independent contractor, or do you work for one of Carl’s usual companies?”

She was subtly digging for information, but he couldn’t figure out why. He decided to play along for now. It would be less suspicious.

“I’m somewhat independent, but I work with a larger company. The headquarters is in Vienna. I imagine Mr. Matheson was referred from there.”

“Probably. He’s doing a lot of work in Eastern Europe lately. Low production costs.”

Her stepfather was a film producer, but Ava seemed unimpressed. In fact, everything about her spoke of boredom. Jaded expression. Cynical quirk to her mouth. Malachi sensed something else, though.

Lonely. The woman was desperately lonely.

“Do you like to travel alone?”

She seemed surprised that he’d asked a question. Her head tilted forward and she looked at him. “What?”

“Am I not allowed to ask you questions?”

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