Parker knew that she must have looked like a crazy woman with her nose stuck in a book with a wide, goofy smile plastered almost permanently on her face, but in all honesty she didn't care. She had been away for nearly a decade and she missed this place almost more than anywhere else. Well anywhere but Sanctuary, that place truly was like a second home, but here, it was definitely one of her favorite places to visit. Her dad used to take her out for dinner to the bar, but when she had earned a special reward he would bring her here to the Café du Monde for beignets and hot chocolate. Now that she was older she could order chicory coffee just like he would always drink.
Although spending time with her dad at the Café was a treat, he wasn't the main reason that she like coming here. Since it had been decided before her birth, or her conception for that matter, that she was going to follow in her family's footsteps and become a Squire, she had been home-schooled and kept the same schedule as other Squires and Dark-Hunters from an early age. That is to say that she lived on a nocturnal schedule which meant that when she went out with her parents they missed most of the usual crowds and she very rarely saw anyone around her own age. That never really bothered Parker since she was going to be working for a Dark-Hunter who would be centuries older than herself instead of just mere decades like the humans with whom she spent the majority of her time.
It was amusing for Parker to live on the fringe of society and live outside of the norms she knew everyone else had to adhere to, but that wasn't what caused her to have such a thrill when she was at Café du Monde. No, that honor went to the man she secretly hoped to run into, or at least catch a glimpse of, anytime she indulged her sweet tooth. Well he wasn't really a man, he was a Dark-Hunter that her dad would help from time to time because he didn't have (or want to have) a Squire working for him. When she was a young girl she only knew him as 'Talon the Dark-Hunter', but at school she had done her research and now she knew how 'Speirr of the Morrigantes' had become the hunter she up knowing.
She had never told anyone (well she had confided in one person when she was too young to understand the feelings she was talking about) but she had always had a crush on Talon. It didn't happen often, but there were rare occasions when Parker's dad would have to run to help someone and Talon had volunteered to watch Parker until her father could return. Those were her favorite memories at the Café because he would tell her stories of his sister and the battles he had fought in during his mortal life. She would soak in every word while they shared beignets and she would try to steal sips of his chicory coffee. Most of all she loved that when she was there with him he would talk to her like he would most any other grown up. She never felt like he ever treated her 'like a kid'. He had been the first person to tease her that maybe she was the re-incarnation of someone he knew when he was a human because he always found it easy to talk with her. Deep down Parker always wanted that to be true, more specifically she wanted to have his wife's re-incarnated soul so that he would fall in love with her too.
Parker let out an audible sigh, staring into her coffee cup as she absentmindedly stirred it with a spoon. She knew that her feelings had been that of a childhood infatuation and that those hopes and dreams most likely wouldn't and shouldn't have carried over into adulthood. Despite her best efforts she hadn't found a single shred of evidence that she was a re-incarnated soul, let alone an ancient Celtic one. Now that she was older and had had more exposure to the world at large she understood that Talon had just been nice and kind to her like most people are with children. She had believed him when he said he was telling her the true details in his stories, but after researching his past she learned that his life had been much more brutal than he had ever alluded to when they spoke. Even worse was his death that he would barely talk about, even vaguely, whenever she would pester him and hound him to tell her how he had become a Dark-Hunter. Of course she now knew that that wasn't something that was unique to Talon. Most of the Dark-Hunters she had talked with weren't usually incline to give out details of their mortal deaths. Park now understood that the mere fact that she was meeting them as a Dark-Hunter meant that that death had been brutal and was usually the product of the worst betrayal or else their souls wouldn't have screamed out loud enough for Artemis to hear their call and offer them a moment of vengeance in exchange for an eternity of servitude to her.
Although Parker could acknowledge what she had felt as a child wasn't love like she understood it to be as an adult, she couldn't ignore that she still had feelings for Talon. Whether or not it was just those of friendship or if she truly was in love with him, she wasn't at all sure. All she knew for certain is that it was different from any of the emotions she had felt for the boys she had dated in England. But she was old enough and wise enough to remind herself that she probably wasn't thinking clearly when she reminisced about Talon. She had been a girl infatuated with one of the first males who wasn't a relative who had paid special attention to her. Parker didn't have to be a psychology major to know that that probably clouded her judgment of the mysterious Dark-Hunter, so she wanted to get reacquainted with him again as a woman so that she could reconcile the difference she knew would exist in her feelings as a young girl as opposed to those she would feel as an adult.
Not that that was the only reason why she hung out at Café du Monde every night when she wasn't working. It may have been her primary motivator, but their beignets were a very close second for getting her through the doors.
With one last large swallow she finished her drink and check the time on her phone. It was late by normal people's standards, but still early for everyone in her world. There was the possibility that Talon had gone straight to doing his patrols instead of stopping in to enjoy his favorite treats before starting his work for the night. She felt a little silly for assuming he would make the Café his first stop when she knew full well that there were enough creatures of the night that had found their way to New Orléans to keep all of the Dark-Hunters here busy, but still she had hope to catch at least a small glimpse of him. She was sure it would take just one look for her to know if any of her old feelings were still there.
Because if he felt even the slightest twinge of romantic emotions that would be a problem; a big, huge, worst thing that could happen type of problem. Squires were forbidden to have romantic relationships with Dark-Hunters. The stories she and her classmates had heard for why this was so varied, but when it came right down to it they were told that it was one of the rules Acheron had put into place so no one questioned it. Acheron was the leader of the Dark-Hunters and one of the oldest beings on the planet that Parker had ever met, so she was sure that he had made it a rule with good reason. Plus after she had had a short fling with a co-worker at the Pub she worked at in England go South, she learned firsthand why people always said that you shouldn't 'dip your pen in the company ink'. Work had become an extremely uncomfortable place to be until he quit because he was moving away for his post-secondary studies. With the Dark-Hunters it would be even worse than that because Squires usually lived with their Hunter, so that they could help protect them during the day to keep safe since sunlight would fry them as crispy as any vampire you've seen die in the movies. Nowadays there were extra security precautions Dark-Hunters could take to keep their underground or above ground lairs secure from daylight, but still a Squire could cause a lot of damage if given the opportunity. And if it was a spurned lover looking for revenge?
Parker shuddered at those thoughts and shook her head to clear them away. If she was assigned to be Talon's Squire (which was highly doubtful since he hadn't had one assigned to him in all of the centuries thus far) she would she would use what she had learned and would never let anyone know she had any romantic feelings for him. That is IF any still existed, which she was pretty sure...
Shut up brain! Parker silently yelled at herself. Don't manufacture problems that don't exist! How often have you been told that? Plus he might not be as good looking as you remember. Maybe he's a hideous ogre that will repulse you now.
Yeah... right, because a goddess would recruit hideous ogres to serve her. Parker knew that Artemis was a stickler for esthetics. She also had a theory (that she had never breathed a word of to any living creature) that Artemis even scouted out the Squires as well. Not that she considered herself to be all that beautiful, but everyone that she had met who worked for the goddess had looked like they could have made a good living gracing the pages of GQ or Vogue. Her mother had been so beautiful that she had questioned her why she hadn't been a supermodel. Even when she had been at her most ill while battling cancer, Parker had still thought her mother was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in person (up until that point in her life because she had yet to meet the goddess they served or some of the other female Dark-Hunters, but even then she still believed her mother's beauty out ranked theirs). Was her opinion biased? Absolutely, but Parker really didn't care. Due to her own insecurities Parker secretly wondered if the reason she had yet to be assigned a job as a Squire was because Artemis had found her looks to be lacking and therefore deemed her ineligible to work for her. But now she was starting to think that maybe she was just being paranoid. There weren't really all that many female Dark-Hunters, so maybe that was why it took her so long to be placed.
Parker let out a long sigh as she started to pack up her belongings to leave. If she was assigned to a female hunter then her Talon issues were completely moot. But on the other hand she might be crushed if she was asked to work for anyone but her favorite Celtic Dark-Hunter.
I am so screwed up! Why can't I...?
Parker's self-deprecating thoughts got cut-off by the sounds of a woman that was apologizing to another patron for bumping into him. Normally Parker would have just ignored such a scene and continued on with her day, but some reason she felt compelled to watch the scene playout.
The curvy, tanned skinned female with her hair in two long black braids that fell over a short sleeved, peasant style pink blouse and a dark purple matching peasant skirt was juggling a wicker bag with a number of large paintings on canvass on one arm and a box of what Parker assumed were pastries from the Café as she apologized yet again. She separated herself from the male that was waving off all of her words of apologies, while also looking like he was ready to catch anything that might fall out of her bag. Parker couldn't help but to laugh softly to herself because she was sure that she had looked just like that on more occasions than she cared to admit to during her lifetime. Maybe it was sympathy or a sense of camaraderie that caused Parker to watch her. Or then again maybe it was something else completely.
The stranger was already out the door and presumed lost into the crowd that seemed to always appeared to be present on the streets by the time that Parker moved away from her table, so Parker tried to put her out of her thoughts completely. New Orleans had more than its fair share of eccentric characters, so the young Squire was sure that someone or something else would catch her attention sooner than later.
Sure enough, as she made her way to the door she caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. When she reached the spot where it was, she knelt down to pick it up. Although it wasn't as large as the ones she had seen in the artist's bag, Parker was certain that it belonged to the clumsy stranger she had just been admiring... and who now nowhere to be seen.
As quickly as she could, Parker worked her way through the crowd that was building inside Café du Monde and rushed out to the street. At first she saw no sign of the raven haired woman, so she nearly started to panic. She looked at the painting in her hand and was immediately stunned by the beauty of the painting of a small cabin in what she assumed was the Bayou. For a brief moment Parker started to let herself get lost in the picture, but then she quickly reminded herself that she didn't have time for that right now. If she wasn't able to find its rightful owner she'd be happy to indulge herself in some art appreciation, but first she had to at least try to find the clumsy artist.
With that sole goal in mind, Parker flipped the painting over in the hopes that there would be a name of a gallery or a business card of some sort for the artist. Finding nothing like that, she cursed softly to herself and tried to think of another course of action. Instinctively she scanned the crowd to try to spot her target, but with night fully upon them, getting a visual of anything more than ten feet away was difficult. Plus with the thick crowd and her lack of being a giant or an Amazon, seeing over everyone's heads was nearly impossible.
Well I tired. She thought to herself dejectedly.
Parker then started making her way back to Sanctuary. She was hoping that someone there might recognize the artist's work and be able to tell her to whom it might belong. She knew that was a bit of a long shot, but it was worth a try anyways in her books. If that didn't work then at least she would have her laptop handy so that she could look up the names, addresses and phone numbers of art galleries to question in the morning.
Since her search had been stalled for the time being, Parker stopped on the sidewalk to admire the piece of artwork once again. Now she could most definitely tell that it was of a scene in the Bayou during a sunny day. She felt like she might know the area, but she honestly couldn't recall a time that she had ever even been to the Bayou. She had heard many stories about it, but visiting there was something she was sure that she could never be able to forget if it ever happened.
As she started to let herself get lost in the beauty of the lines painted on the canvass, Parker heard a rather loud, "Oh shoot! I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there!"
A large smile spread across Parker's face because she was sure that that was the exact same voice that had captured her attention in the Café.
Trying not to look too eager or pushy, Parker weaved her way through the crowd to try to find the owner of that voice. With a sigh of relief she found the petite, raven haired woman with another dark haired woman who was helping her repack her wicker bag with a number of canvass paintings. The second woman picked up the box from the Café du Monde and handed it the artist with a comment that was too quiet for Parker to overhear. The two women shared a laugh and then parted ways, so Parker redoubled her efforts to catch up with the woman who was now rushing down the street away from her.
Once she was out of the densest part of the crowd, Parker shouted out, "Miss! Miss! You dropped this!"
At first it appeared that the other woman was going to ignore Parker, but when she heard that she had dropped something she did actually slow down to a stop. She looked down at her hands with a look of frustrated disbelief as she mumbled to herself, "Oh darn it… what could…? I'm sure I got…"
Parker finally made it to her side and started to pass her the medium sized canvass saying, "It must have fallen out of your bag when you bumped into that guy at Café du Monde."
The artist turned and looked even more distressed as she said, "You tracked me down from Café du Monde? Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!"
Parker shrugged it off replying, "I didn't have anywhere pressing to be. Here let me just… Oh… umm…" She tried to place the artwork into the other woman's over-sized wicker bag, but she quickly noticed that it was so overfilled that it was little wonder that more of the canvasses hadn't fallen out by now. For a brief moment she thought about passing it into the other woman's free hand before she realized that neither hand was empty. "Umm… did you…? I mean, I could… or…"
Shifting the bag on her shoulder the artist said more to herself than to Parker, "He told me not to try to carry them all at once. Oh, he's just going to love gloating about this."
When it appeared that Parker had lost the other woman to her quiet, not so internal rant, she cautiously interrupted saying, "Umm… Miss…?"
"Sunshine."
Parker just stared at her, unsure how to reply to that which caused the other woman to chuckle. "My name is Sunshine."
"Oh," Parker replied with a nervous laugh. "I'm Parker."
"Pleasure to meet you too. So umm… about this… uhh…"
Sunshine gave her a nervous smile then said, "You were saying that you don't have be anywhere super important right now? So…? Would you maybe mind helping carry these home safely? I swear it isn't all that far away and I could pay you for the trouble. But to do that you'd have to come to my house because I don't have any money on me anymore, I spent it all on the beignets."
Parker smiled and gently pulled the paint Sunshine was holding out of her hand as she responded, "Why don't I take this to make it easier on you?"
"Thanks, that'd be great."
They both stood in their places awkwardly for a couple of minutes until Parker said, "Uhh Sunshine? You'll have to lead the way."
Sunshine startled in her place at the sound of the Squire's voice. She then laughed nervously and said, "Of course I do. Sorry." She turned and then started to walk away and then stopped abruptly and turned towards Parker to nervously ask, "You're not…? You aren't a serial killer or anything are you?"
Laughing softly Parker replied, "No, not a killer of any kind. I don't even squish spiders. But I get that it's weird to have a stranger follow you home, so why don't I just help you rearrange everything in your bag so that we can fit all these in it and then we can both be on our separate ways?"
Sunshine blushed then sheepishly replied, "They won't all fit. I was carrying a few of them and ran out of hands after I picked up the treats." Again they both stared at each other in silence until Sunshine shook her head and declared, "This is stupid. I need help, you're offering it… Let's just go before I waste anymore of your time."
Parker smiled softly and once again gently instructed, "Lead the way."
They continued down the road in a comfortable silence. Parker took that as an opportunity to scrutinize the second painting she was holding. It was of a church that she was sure was located somewhere near the French Quarter, but she couldn't recall its name or exact location. This one looked like it was either at dawn or dusk because the sun was only partially visible and its rays that could be seen cast a myriad of shadows over the church and its surrounding area. The colors and their virtual movement made the picture look almost as if it were a photograph instead of a painting done by a human's hand.
"Did you paint these?" Parker asked before she could stop herself.
Sunshine smiled and looked at her only briefly so that she wouldn't lose her footing.
"Just finished them yesterday. Now I have to look at the set together and make sure they actually work as a cohesive whole before I have my gallery show in two weeks."
Parker didn't try to hide the awe in her town as she replied, "They are absolutely beautiful. Is the show going to be here in town?"
Sunshine blushed again at the compliment. "No, I wish it was, but it's for a gallery up in Seattle."
"Wow. Well I'm no art critic, but these are, in my humblest of opinions, breath-takingly beautiful. If I were still away at school these would definitely have caused me to feel homesick."
"Oh! You're a native of New Orléans?"
"I wish I could say born and raised. Sadly I was born in Alaska and my parents moved here when I was a year old. Then I went to England for Boarding School when I was thirteen. But since all of my childhood memories happened here, I consider it my home."
"As well you should! What part of England was your school located?"
"Oh… it was near the Scottish border. It's a town no one has ever heard of… but I was only there a few months of the year, the rest of the time I stayed close to London. Well that is when we weren't travelling to Italy, Greece or the odd trip to Egypt that is…"
That last comment caused Sunshine to halt in her place. She gave Parker an assessing look then said, "Those are some pretty specific countries to visit."
Parker tried to shrug it off and sound nonchalant as she replied, "Oh well it was just for field trips. Y'know… umm to help us get a… uhh… a visual of the history that we were learning."
Sunshine's eyes grew comically wide at that explanation. "Field trips for school? That must have been some fancy Boarding School."
"Oh well…"
"Suddenly Sunshine stopped again. She had a chagrinned look on her face as she interrupted Parker saying, "Oh gods that was rude! I didn't mean to sound like I was judging you or anything. So you went to a fancy school? Who am I to make you feel bad about that? Seriously, just forget I said anything… please?"
Parker laughed good-naturedly. "It's alright. I too suffer from self-inflicted foot in mouth disease far too often than I will admit to you. We're good Sunshine, I swear my private schooling hasn't turned me into a snob or anything like that."
Sunshine groaned replying, "Thank the gods you have a sense of humor… and that we've made it here before I could really say something stupid."
Parker just chuckled and shook her head without replying out loud. She wasn't sure if it was because Sunshine reminded her of herself at times or what it was about the other woman, but Parker felt completely at ease with her. During her lifetime she had only had less than a handful of friends with whom she had felt this same sense of camaraderie. Unfortunately Dev and Aimée were the only ones that were still living, so Parker always felt a weird sense of fear and guilt when she clicked to easily with someone. She knew it wasn't true, nor was it completely rational, but it was almost as if she was cursed. People she got close to seemed to always get hurt. Granted most of her close friends worked and lived on the fringes of 'normal' society who knew about the supernatural entities that lived to harm humans, so their potential for being harmed was higher, but still there were times Parker almost felt like she was at fault.
She said ALMOST… and that she knew it wasn't rational.
Once again the two women fell into a comfortable silence as Parker followed Sunshine down the walkway to her home. She was so focused on her own thoughts and on not stepping on Sunshine's heels that she didn't really pay attention to the house or what it looked like at all. Although it had been Sunshine who had asked (somewhat jokingly) if Parker was a serial killer, she herself could have easily been leading the young Squire to slaughter. Luckily for Park that wasn't remotely close to any of the thoughts that were running through the artist's preoccupied mind.
When they got to the top of the stairs, they both stood and stared at the front door. After waiting for a couple of breaths, Parker's eyes moved from the house to look at the woman standing beside her. Sunshine shuffled from foot to foot but made no movements to open the door.
Parker had just opened her mouth to speak when Sunshine quietly said, "I just realized I forgot my keys. Could you maybe knock on the door?"
With a soft chuckle, Parker shifted the paintings in her hands so that they were under her left arm. No sooner had she finished knocking on the door than it was opening. She stepped back behind Sunshine trying to hold in laughter because she could see that whomever was opening the door had a set of keys dangling from the fingers of his left hand.
"You don't have to say anything, I know I'm late," Sunshine stated with a mildly angry bite. "But I did remember to get you these like I promised I would."
He chuckled as he took the box from here and then he gently chastised her saying, "I tried calling your cell to tell you about your keys, but…"
"No, I have it right… right…" Sunshine put down her bag and frantically started patting her hips and the pockets on her skirt. "No, I swear I grabbed my phone before I left."
"Grabbed it? Maybe, but I found it hanging from its power chord off the edge of the side table here by the door."
"Oh dear… I must have… I just didn't want to waste any of the daylight that was left."
"I know, butt Babe you have to slow down sometimes."
Oh shit! That voice! Parker thought to herself as she stared at the wall of a man that occupied the space of the open doorway. She couldn't take her eyes off his short blond curly hair or the two familiar braids that fell from one temple. She remained cemented in her place until his amber eyes met her pale blue gaze.
"Oh right, these are…" She hastily shoved the two canvass paintings at Sunshine. "They're yours… glad you're all… umm… I… err…. I should… since it's getting late… uhh… g'night."
Parker then turned and nearly fell down the stairs as she rushed down them. When she had first met Sunshine she had tried to play it cool, but all of that was forgotten the moment she laid eyes on Sunshine's husband. All bets were off and she didn't worry about looking like the klutz she really was. She was also so focused on getting home that she didn't pay any attention to the two people she had left behind.
"Uhh… Sunshine?" Talon asked as he watched the woman with ebony hair with bright indigo blue highlights stumble over her feet as she made her way down their pathway to the sidewalk. When he saw her punch at her messenger bag at her hip as if it were to blame for her losing her footing, he actually had to bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud.
Sunshine had started to unload her paintings, but stopped and looked towards Parker's retreating form at the sound of her husband's voice. She watched Parker chastising herself for tripping and actually did chuckle softly. She then stepped into Talon's side and wrapped her arms around his waist to hug herself against his side asking, "What is it Baby?"
"Who was that girl that was with you?"
"Oh… her?" She replied with a flippant wave of her hand. "I dropped one of my canvasses at the Café du Monde when I was picking up YOUR beignets and then she offered to help me carry everything home since my hands were full."
Knowing what he did about the evil things that went bump in the night, Talon just stared at his wife in disbelief. He loved that she was a free spirit, but she usually wasn't this nonchalant about having strangers over to their house. When she didn't to notice his eyes boring a veritable hole in the side of her head, he lout an incredulous sounding, "Sunshine."
She paused in her place where she was kneeling on the floor to look up at where her husband was standing with his arms crossed over his chest. Without consciously meaning to, she stared up at him with large doe eyes. "What? Her aura isn't perfect but she didn't insist on helping me, she actually tried to give me an out which lightened her aura a lot. So she's known darkness, it isn't like she's been the cause of it."
Talon shook his head then fell to his knees beside his wife and softly said her name before he kissed her gently on the lips.
Parker was still reeling as she continued down the sidewalk en route back to Sanctuary. She was fighting with herself trying to decide if the man she had just been gawking at was in fact the Dark Hunter she had had a crush on before she even understood what those feelings were. Sure he had the same wavy blond locks that she yearned to run her fingers through and the braids she had loved to tug on as a child, but his amber eyes. Yes, they held the intensity that she remembered, but still something was off about them.
Well not off per se… she thought to herself. They're just… different.
Parker continued to mentally take stock of everything she had witnessed tonight to try to put it into some sort of order. Maybe then she could reconcile the differences between the man she had just met and the fierce warrior she had known during her youth.
She smiled to herself when she realized that she was just a few blocks away from the safety of Sanctuary. Maybe if she got to work helping to clean up for the night, she could clear her mind enough to rethink everything that she saw and heard tonight. A clear head meant that she would have a clean slate which would be the perfect place to start on tackling a new problem.
By this time Parker was nearly skipping with giddiness because she finally realized that tonight hadn't been a total bust. Sunshine had in fact led her straight to the man she had been wanting to see the most since she was told she would be heading home. And yes, she did see the humor in someone named 'Sunshine' leading her to a creature… no a man that was forbidden to tread in Apollo's realm without enduring the worst form of torture that she could imagine; burning alive. That thought actually caused Parker to shiver as she walked on this seasonably warm night. She even pulled the lapels of her biker style leather jacket together to help to fight the non-existent cold.
His eyes… eyes… She repeated to herself as she walked. Eyes are the windows to our…
Parker's profound thought was interrupted by someone gripping her shoulder tightly and wrenching it backwards. Since her thoughts had been completely preoccupied, her lifetime of training kicked in with full force. She hadn't lied to Sunshine when she had confessed that she hadn't even killed a spider but that didn't mean that Parker hadn't been trained to use a variety of weapons with deadly force. She had just always hoped that she would never have to put that knowledge to use.
Tonight that was all forgotten as she pivoted on her left foot and used her attacker's grip on her left forearm as leverage to thrust her thin, stiletto blade towards his chest. He noticed the blade and stared at her in stunned disbelief which caused her to pause just before her forward momentum could cause the spike to pierce the leather of his jacket, let alone his skin.
Talon couldn't help the way his eyes bulged wide at seeing the tip of a very sharp, very concealed blade nearly cutting through one of his favorite leather jackets. Parker's eyes remained focused on the same spot while she panted in a few breaths to calm her racing heart until she felt his fingers convulse tightly around her left wrist. As her eyes shifted to her wrist, his did as well and she nearly started to panic when she noticed that her tattoo was now completely visible.
Although it didn't seem possible, Talon's eyes actually grew wider as he pulled her jacket sleeve even further back to get a better look at Parker's ink. "What is that?"
Parker shrugged and struggled briefly to extract her arm from Talon's grip. She quickly noticed that his grip was getting tighter and tighter with each of her movements so she stopped struggling. She was positive that she was going to have bruises dark enough that she would have to wear long sleeves to keep from being embarrassed as it was and she didn't want to make matters worse.
Feeling more like the little girl who left New Orléans instead of the confident, fully trained Squire that she was, Parker nearly whispered, "A tattoo?"
Talon all but rolled his eyes to demonstrate how unimpressed he was with that answer. Parker hated that she shuddered under the weight of what she affectionately used to call his 'dad-stare'. Then she almost laughed at the thought of any poor child being subjected to the full weight of that stare and incurring the wrath of Talon as their father, but she kept it contained. This was so not the time or place for that kind of thinking, especially since Dark Hunters were not able to father children.
He narrowed his eyes at her before he replied, "Yes, I have eyes. I can see that it's a tattoo, but why do YOU have IT marked HERE permanently on your body?"
"Well…" Parker started slowly, not really sure what to say that wouldn't anger him even further. "I chose my wrist because I can cover it up easily, even when I dress up in formal wear, and there's still a lot of people who don't…"
"No," Talon interrupted, unable to hide his incensed irritation. "Why do have THIS tattoo? And by that I mean the design… this image."
"Oh well… I…"
"Everything alright over there?" A male's voice calling out from across the street interrupted their increasingly heated discussion.
Parker felt her whole body go limp with relief at the sound of the familiar voice. To her further relief Talon's grip actually loosened when he heard the bear call out to them. He was also the only one who actually replied by calling out, "Yeah Remi, we're fine."
Talon then turned to further interrogate the woman he was holding to find out why she had Artemis' mark tattooed on her wrist. That is if she knew what she was wearing was Artemis' mark. If she didn't then he was about to give this little girl a very rude awakening.
"Alright back to -" He cut himself off when he noticed that not only was he no longer holding onto her arm, but she was now more than halfway across the street. He quickly moved to follow her path to the bar across the street. He watched in silence as she stopped by Remi's side and quickly said something to him that Talon couldn't hear. Remi just nodded in reply before she pecked a kiss on his cheek and nearly ran inside the bar.
Feeling even more confused, Talon stopped at Remi's side to ask, "So I take it that you know her, bear?"
Remi nodded as he finished tossing large, black plastic garbage bags into the dumpster in the alley. "Yeah she's been working for us ever since she moved back almost a week ago."
"She's a bear?"
A quiet chuckle escaped Remi's lips when he answered, "No, she isn't one of us. She's human."
"Oh-kay. If she's human then why is she living at Peltier house? Does she have something or someone after her?"
Talon's scowl deepened when Remi chuckled yet again. "Her? Nah she isn't on anyone's hit list… yet."
"Yet?" Talon prompted when it sounded like Remi wasn't going to elaborate.
"Yeah 'yet'," Remi repeated with an annoyed bite. "She's a Squire, so once she starts working for a Dark Hunter I'm sure either he or she will want to off her at one point or something will try to use her to get back at her boss. But who know, right? I could be wrong… again."
"She's… she's a Squire?"
"Yeah Gator Breath, that's what I said. What with the third degree here Talon? If you wanted to know all of this then why didn't you just ask her yourself instead of bugging me?"
This time it was Talon's turn to give Remi an irritated look before he replied, "That's what I was trying to do before you interrupted us."
Remi just shrugged Talon's anger off retorting, "Well I wasn't sure if you two were having a friendly conversation or not. But after I realized it was you with her I knew I didn't have to worry."
"Thanks," Talon said sounding less than impressed. "Wait! What do you mean after you realized it was me? You make it sound like I should know her or something."
Remi gave Talon a look that said he didn't know if he thought the former Dark Hunter was joking or if Talon was really just that stupid. "Well considering you spent so much time with her and her parents when she was I kid, I figured you two were catching up."
For a couple of seconds Talon couldn't speak. When he found his voice again it came out as disjointed fragments. "Wait I know… she's…" He stopped himself there to regroup then asked, "Okay this is stupid and getting me nowhere. Let's try it this way… What, pray tell, is that young Squire's name?"
Remi laughed out loud then said, "You really don't recognize her? Well I guess I'm not all that surprised, I didn't either. That my friend is the young Parker Wallace who is now all grown up."
"Parker? That's Jordan and Jimmy's kid?"
"Yep, in the flesh."
"Why didn't she tell me that?" Talon asked sounding somewhat hurt.
Remi slapped him on the shoulder a couple of time answering, "When you solve the mystery of the female mind, let me know because I'll have a few questions for you then."
Talon smirked and allowed himself a quick chuckle. "Very true. Thanks again for letting me ask you so many questions."
"No problem. And here's another bit of information free of charge; Parker isn't working tonight, so she'll be in the house if you want to interrogate her yourself." Before Talon could ask the question he saw pop into the other man's mind, Remi quickly added, "If you find Aimée, she'll show you to Parker's room."