The flyers for the grand opening party of Immortal Ink are one hundred percent top class. I’m envious of the buzz it’s getting in the neighborhood. Everyone’s talking about it.

Thankfully, no one is coming in and canceling their appointment in my shop to wait for her.

All my research leads me to the conclusion that Nyve is right. She’s just another unique style of inker and her shop opening right across from ours isn’t direct competition but good for business, as it opens more options for clients to choose from.

The fact that she’s working alone means that she’ll have a waiting list. Not everyone is willing to wait months to get ink done. And here’s our shop, sitting ready for their business.

Once I came to these realizations, it was a little easier to sleep at night. Having to close up shop isn’t as large a specter hanging over my head these days.

Nyve takes the flyer from my hand to study it. “So, what’s your decision, then? Are we going?”

“We can’t not go,” Varos says as he sprays down his chair to clean it before his next client. “It’d be so damn rude.”

“But how desperate will we look if we do go?” Sako is the one who found the flyer beneath the wiper blade of his Jeep and brought it in. “Especially if all of us show up at once. It could look like we’re trying to intimidate her.”

“Sako makes a good point,” Bronaz shouts from the storeroom.

I’m still chewing over the pros and cons and shoot Nyve a glance. The big guy gives me a half shrug. “You’re no help,” I tell him.

“I’ll support whatever decision you make.”

Both Sako and Varos are correct. Having a shop right across the street from her and not going is just plain rude. But if we all show up at once, it could be misconstrued as an aggressive show of force.

“Alright. Some of us will put in some face time. I have a few days to decide who goes. Everyone keep your schedules clear because those who don’t go will have to cover the work here.”

Everyone seems to be in agreement with that and I let it go for the moment. We have almost two weeks to figure it out. In the meantime, it’ll give Varos time to work his social media magic and get more intel on what they can expect.

With that decision, I expect the heavy weight that’s dragging me down to disappear. It doesn’t.

I still feel out of sorts.

Of course, I know what my problem is.

I can’t get Nosko out of my mind. I honestly believed that once I finished his tat, that would be the end of it.

It’s been almost a week since I talked to him and I’m feeling it.

Feeling it bad.

I heard fighting against your fated mate can be difficult. I really thought I could handle it. The ache in my heart is more than an emotional hole. It’s a physical ache that has no definition I can pin down. No definitive place in my body.

It weighs me down. I’m sore and sluggish. Restless sleep and drowsy days.

There’s a lot of shit I can walk off. I pride myself on being solid and stable and letting things roll off my back.

If finding someone I want to spend the rest of my life with, even though it is at the worst time possible, is going to be this much trouble, maybe I should give up dating all together. I don’t need this aggravation.

I don’t want it.

I wish it were that easy.

I do want kids someday. I do want a mate to settle down with.

I do want it to be with Nosko.

I thought following my heart meant putting the shop first.

God, I’m such an idiot.

After my self-revelation of idiothood, I was at least able to clear my thinking, get my head in the game, and get some work done. It’s the height of tourist season in the city with a jazz festival in full swing downtown. A lot of little jobs stream in as clients want to get ink to commemorate some momentous occasions.

A few minors try to sneak in and I let Bronaz handle them. He’s more of a people person than I am.

The shop is jumping and business is looking fine when Sako claps me on the shoulder. “Got someone here to see you,” he whispers to me.

“Tell them I’ll be right up.” I’m almost finished with the ivy vines circling this grandma’s ankle. Considering ankles are a tough place to work on, and the pain is higher on the scale than most other body parts, she’s bearing up nicely until I put the finishing touches on it.

She follows me up to the counter to settle up and get her care instructions when my breath catches in my throat.

Nosko is here. He’s standing at the window looking out and across the street toward Immortal Ink.

Now I’m distracted and I think I repeated myself to the old lady a few times. I’m not positive I charged her right. All of that doesn’t matter.

My dragon is too busy turning circles at seeing Nosko here.

I walk up behind him and our gazes meet in the reflection of the glass. I smile at him. He smiles back, and I honestly can say that’s the best I’ve felt all week.

Hey, he mouths in the reflection.

Hey, I answer.

He turns and tips his head to look up at me, and those lips, those sweet lips, call to me. It takes everything I have to resist taking them in a kiss. “I’m glad to see you,” I say.

“Yeah. Me too.”

The silence is awkward. “So… what’s up? Does your tat need some work?”

Nosko looks down at his arm. “Um, no. It’s fine. It’s healing pretty good. I think.”

“Let’s go in the back and let me have a look at it.” Anything to keep Nosko there.

He follows me as we head back to the storeroom. Once I shut the door, the music softens to a dull thump and we don’t have to talk so loudly to be heard.

“Let me see.” I motion for him to roll up his sleeve.

Seeing the dragon on his forearm stirs up all my feelings again, against my will. The good and the uncomfortable.

When I cradle his arm in my hands, that electric spark is back, as if my body is reminding me. It shoots through my body like lightning, tingling down my limbs and making the hair stand up.

That immediate, unmistakable connection with my fated mate.

I really am an idiot.

Nosko gasps at our connection. “Taran, I need to talk to you.”

Yes. Yes, absolutely we need to talk.

I cut him off. I need to say this before I lose my nerve and fuck things up again. “I’m a dumbass, Nosko. I’m a huge fucking dumbass.”

Nosko laughs suddenly. “Well, yeah, you kind of are.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed you away. I shouldn’t have told you that my shop came before my fated mate. I thought my reasons were sound. They made sense to me at the time.” I sag against the door, dragging him along so he leans against me.

Having his body flush to mine is a balm to my soul. My dragon sings.

“I’ve been miserable being separated from you,” Nosko says. He presses his face against my chest. His fingers curl in my shirt. I cradle him close, not wanting to squander this moment.

Does this mean there’s a second chance in the offing? Dare I hope there is?

“I came,” he continues, his voice muffled, “to try to talk to you. Actually to beg you to please give us a try. I’m so pathetic.”

“No. No, you aren’t.” I cup his face so I can look into his incredible eyes. How could I possibly think I could walk away from this incredible man?

Because I’m a dumbass, that’s why. A dumbass who was so wrong.

“You’re the only one who has any sense at all,” I tell him. Closing the distance, I slant my mouth over his and kiss him deeply. Passionately. Putting everything that I am and everything I feel into it.

An apology.

A request for a second chance.

When we part, Nosko sighs and buries his face against my chest again.

“I need to make you mine.”

Nosko’s head jerks up to look at me. “What? Like… what?”

“Like officially.” My fingers touch the spot just behind his ear, where the mark of claiming will go when I claim him as my mate permanently.

Nosko’s fingers touch lightly over mine. “Are you serious?”

That stings just a bit, but I really deserve it. I was the one who let him go to begin with.

A mistake I’m not about to make again. “I am very serious.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll let me claim you officially.”

When Nosko falls quiet, a moment of panic spears through me. Have I screwed this up beyond repair? If he says no…

Well… no is not going to be the answer. I’ll convince him however I have to, to make it happen.

“Yeah,” Nosko says slowly. He looks up at me and the smile he gives me melts my heart. I want him to look at me like that all the time. “Yeah, I want it, too.”

My dragon is doing back flips. My heart is pounding so hard I feel like it’ll rip through my chest. I’m light headed, and want to fly up into the clouds to roar my happiness to the world.

“Good. Good. We’ll… make it happen. Soon. Really soon.”

Soon can’t come fast enough for me.