I'd been hoping for a quiet night, devoid of customers asking questions that I either knew the answer to and did not feel like answering, or customers with specific requests that required some minor concentration on my part to first draw their sketch, and then proceed to create it. Special requests were always interesting, despite my reluctance for any tonight. Customers were able to ask me to produce weaponry of earthly elements like metal or sand and glass. Occasinally they'd go farther, asking for jewel inlays and diamonds to be pressed into a hilt of a dagger that had some kind of quest to kill some kind of vampire, to kill some kind of supernatural creature inhabiting the city. Truth be told, I was in fact pretty bad ass at it. I enjoyed the work, especially if I was alone.



But tonight? I was far more interested in the dagger that the shop owner had brought in.



I hadn't heard the shop door open, even though I normally kept my ears trained for it. I hadn't heard the shop owner speaking with the low tone of a woman in the main shop area, which would have surprised me too. I was normally careful, calculating... I would have noticed had I not been very preoccupied by the dagger. Granted, I still wasn't sure that it was the same one instead of a relic, but I was filled with a weird sort of glee that I had something they didn't. That the blood of my family hadn't been in vain, and I would be able to take equal blood from them. Then again... that might have been the fantasy of the boy who had watched the slaughter. A boy who had a little bit too much of a fascination with what a knife could do.



My teachers called me a psychopath, a sociopath. My doctors always agreed. And me? Well, the professionals I guess had some kind of education behind them. What was I to do but live up to expectations?



It occurred to me, though, that the shop felt different. I hadn't noticed the shadow of a figure in the corner when I had retreated into the back of the shop to examine the dagger. I didn't typically make mistakes like that, but it also occurred to me that the overpowering fantasy of mine to find the pack that had caused so much ... I sighed, realizing it was my fault I hadn't noticed, and that made my gut knot.




The snarl was low, threatening. I saw the glimmer of her eyes before I heard it; saw the dark fur that the shadows had betrayed. The wolf clearly meant to threaten me, to make my fingers hesitate when reaching for the dagger that had so recently come into my possession. Unfortunately for her, my fingers never shook and were quick to pick up the dagger. I felt my lips turning up into a slow, amused smile.




"Now, now, pet. Everything has a price, perhaps I've already paid this one," I started to say, my accent a little stronger and a little more ragged like it often was by the end of the day. With her emergence, though, the light of the salt lamp shown onto her fur, illuminating the symbol on her flank. I hadn't seen the symbol in a while, even though it covered so many things near and dear to any witch I'd known's heart. But now? Why would a were-wolf have the symbol on her? Intrigued, I leaned back in my chair, lazily lifting my feet to put on the desk, crossed at the ankles to show her I truly had no qualms dealing with an angry wolf.




Most women had an angry wolf streak, anyway.




I couldn't help feeling my smile draw greater with the evidence of her malicious intentions. She wanted me cornered, but my instincts told me to breathe evenly and counter act whatever feelings she was trying to incite. My stark blue eyes met her blue-gray ones, holding her gaze with mine drawing icier by the second.




"Yours," I said, turning the dagger over in my fingers. "I abide by a blood debt that this dagger owes me. Some things aren't for sale."