Surrender of a Tattooist: Obsessive Dark Romance Alpha Bad Boy (Tattooist Series Book 2) Read Free

didn’t have a single adult goal in her life. She’d always prided herself on being free-spirited and living in the moment. Now she was wondering if she was going to find herself living in a homeless shelter at some future date.
    Her college education was good, and there were jobs she could apply for. She’d always wanted to be a teacher, but even she had to admit that competing with fresh-faced people with hair dyed more acceptable colors and with a wardrobe that screamed grownup was probably not going to win her a job.
    Cliff took another turn and they ended out on a long road the left side of which was a sheer drop into a deep canyon. She scooted over a little and he chuckled. “You won’t fall out. I fixed that door.”
    Her eyes went to the door and she gave it a suspicious stare. Was he kidding? She hoped so, but to be on the safe side she pulled her seat belt tighter and double-checked the buckle.
    The sign near the road read Raptor Sanctuary. She frowned and asked, “Raptors? I didn’t know this was here.”
    “Most people don’t. When people think of rescuing animals they usually think of cats and dogs, and that’s it. I thought you’d get a kick out of this.”
    She stared at the low buildings and the high trees as they got out of the car. A few people were about and they all greeted Cliff by name as they walked toward what appeared to be the main building. The woman behind the desk smiled at them and asked, “You looking for Randy?”
    Cliff said, “If he’s around.”
    “He is, out in the eagle’s nest.”
    As they left the building and headed around it toward another, Pixie asked, “Eagle’s nest?”
    He nodded. The sun shone down on his golden-brown hair and lit up the striking angles of his handsome face. His muscular, heavily-tattooed arms flexed as he pointed toward the sky. “Yes; they try to rehabilitate them and return them to the wild, but not all of them can go back so they’ve learned to fly them like they fly the falcons.”
    “Wait, you mean like they fly kestrels and peregrines?”
    “And owls.”
    Her eyes widened. “They can fly owls?”
    “They can.”
    Her mouth dropped open. Pixie loved all animals but she gravitated to the wildest. She’d never rescued a bird, other than Caligula, and the birds they were discussing now were as wild as they came.
    Raptors.
    Soaring and dangerous and beautiful.
    They went into a building with a tall, highly-arched roof. A thick smell met her nose and she looked around. It was obviously not a free-fly aviary, and with good reason. Owls and Harris hawks sat on their roosts, regarding her with their glabrous eyes.
    They moved past them and further down they found the eagles. They were giant, much larger than she would have imagined, and a man stood in the center of one cage, fearlessly tending to an eagle that looked listless and limp.
    Cliff called out, “Hey there, Randy!”
    Randy, an older man with a beak of nose and thin lips, smiled and waved. “Hey, yourself. Be right with you.”
    Pixie clung to the mesh steel that created the front of the cage and stared at the eagle. “What happened to him?”
    “Lead.” Randy shook his head. “Folks out there shooting out lead bullets never think maybe what they shot and lost, say a rabbit or a rodent, might get eaten by a raptor. They do, though, more and more. Then the bird gets lead poisoning.”
    Sorrow wove through her body. “Will he make it?”
    “She might.” Randy carefully set the eagle back into a warming incubator and turned to face her. “Who’re you?”
    “I’m Pixie.”
    He came closer. “Of course you are. Cliff finally got you to say yes to a date, huh?”
    She blinked, then glared at Cliff. “Did you tell everyone I said no to you?”
    “I did,” he said with a disarming grin. “I mean, I was trying to find out how you could keep resisting me.”
    Randy snorted and came out of the cage. “What do you think?”
    Pixie looked upward. The roof was high and there