Page 33 of Claiming Starlight
“Yes, I will remember.”
“Good. Then it’s done, yeah?” He let his hand rest lightly on her cheek, and they continued their trip in comfortable silence, the matter settled as far as he was concerned. She thought through the conversation, thought about her preconceived perceptions. Thought about how to keep an open mind for this man making room for himself in her life.
It never occurred to her it was okay to like the things he did to her when they felt so foreign and wrong, she certainly never thought he’d be able to tell how she felt about it when she didn’t even know. He was a shifter, though. More sensitive, instinctual. Of course he would know. What he did to her was unexpected and scary, but exciting and strange. It was all so confusing.
They didn’t drive far. As one of the few cars on the street, only rough roads and debris slowed them down. The vampir in Hyde repaired the roads they used with forced labor, and every brood house owned various kinds of transportation for themselves and their underlings, but South Bloc lacked an organized self-serving power structure.
When they stopped, it was on a street with so many people she could hear them before she sat up. Festive music and the hum of voices filled the air, along with a cacophony of delicious smells that made her stomach growl.
“My baby has a beast in her belly. Listen to that. Well, Avó will love feeding you.”
Out of the car, Micah drew her close, kissing her forehead, his hands spanning her waist in the thin dress. He squeezed her like he couldn’t resist, his thumbs touching the underside swell of the breast that had suffered the most from his pinch, igniting a raspy, needy feeling.
Shedidlike his touches. All of them.
“So fucking pure you are almost a holy thing.” He murmured against her ear. “I can’t wait to get back to the den and fuck you proper.”
Sophie made a small sound, her womb clenching And heat spreading from her cheeks all the way down to her breasts, her embarrassment and want glowing on her skin clear as day.
He took her hand and put it over the now-hard cock in his jeans. “Feel this? You did this. We go in there; I want you to remember you did that and not one of them bitches in there who I knew before you. They don’t like strangers and might hate you on sight. No one gonna be happy we are standing together. Every guy will be jealous of what I got and what I’m keeping, a fucking starlight unicorn like you. Out here,in the middle of this hell? So you remember what you do to me and who you belong to, si??”
“Yes, okay. I will remember,” she said, flustered.
They were on a street that time forgot. Although she saw houses with blacked-out windows, the three directly across from them sported polished brass oil lanterns and people in every window. One was wood with a sloping roof and wrap-around porch. The next was gray limestone, a plain version of the brownstone she shared with Katya, and the third was a brightly painted three-story home, taller than it was wide.
All the porches had people on them, sitting, standing, talking. The front steps all met the sidewalks, had flower boxes filled with flowers and greenery. Scattered clusters of chairs and little tables held guests eating and drinking or playing cards. Everything was old and mismatched, but welcoming and homey.There was so much life and cheer here, more than all the rest of South Bloc put together, Sophie imagined.
In the middle of the street, a big black metal thing spit smoke and smelled so divine it made Sophie’s mouth water. Two men and a woman in a dress tended it. She had never smelled food like that, didn’t know what it was. She couldn’t wait to taste it.
The people were mostly human and shifter with the odd one-off creature thrown in: a troll, a cyborg, some unseelie. It was the mismatched neighborhood community gathered together in one place. Micah had said it was for Avó’s birthday. Everyone must love her, she thought. It didn’t matter where they came from.
As they approached, people shouted familiar greetings at Micah. He her hand, holding her close as they crossed the street to the brightly painted house where the music was loudest.
It was like something from stories she’d read. The type of party no one had anymore. A crazy, colorful event for families, friends, and community. Most people dressed one step up above everyday casual. The men had button-down shirts in bold flower prints, with the odd patterned tie here and there.
The women wore dresses. Some, like Sophie, had light, strappy summer dresses, with layers of jewelry at neck, wrist, and ankle. They had on make-up too, more than she was used to, with red lips and extra-long eyelashes.
All the human children were in buttons and bows, mimicking the best dressed. Those who had obviously already eaten wore a few new stains. The shifter children she saw wore pants and nothing else.
With her pale skin and pale hair, holding Micah’s hand, Sophie stood out. Glaringly so. She had to force herself not to cling to him and let them look their fill, the way she did whenever she had to walk past groups of vampir or sorcerers.
But she was with Micah, and every person knew him and did not know her. Up the stairs to the house, there were many greetings, pats on the backs, fist bumps, and shoulder nudges of welcome. Only the tallest of men, two or three of them, gave the shoulder nudge, which she thought was a bit like a hug for shifters too manly to do that sort of thing.
Inside people danced under pretty circles of lantern light to music played on instruments by five guys in the dining room corner. Sophie did a double-take on sighting the band. One was the wraith who rudely told her to get out of his bar. But now, his bloodless, crusty face was intent as he played an impossibly fast trill of notes on his fiddle.
On the other wall were tables piled with food, more kinds and flavors than she had ever seen in her life. “We give our respects, we eat, then we leave and I fuck you all night long. Have you picked which hole first yet?” Micah whispered in her ear, taunting her.
She shot him an incredulous look, not believing he’d ask that when she was still a virgin. She tried to hide her helpless embarrassment as Micah pulled her along behind him through the throngs of people. On their way to the kitchen, Micah lifted her off the ground with a hand around the waist, swinging her to the side as a pack of children suddenly appeared, running full force. Missing Sophie, they ping-ponged off dancing couples until they made it outside.His reflexes were something else.
In the kitchen, a lady between the age of sixty and a hundred and sixty sat at a table playing cards with a group of other mature women. They all looked old enough to be Apocalypse Day survivors. Before they could reach the table, though, another shifter stopped Micah to talk.
Beyond his shoulder, Sophie watched a red-blood woman wearing an apron covered in poppies slam her cards down. Laughing good-naturedly, she said, “I’m out. You play too rich.”
She abandoned the table and ambled over to the counter nearby where other women were messing with food and dishes by a red enamel stove, patting a teen shifter boy washing dishes at the sink on the head as she walked by.
One by one, the women in the kitchen took notice of Sophie. There were a couple of female shifters in the mix, athletic and statuesque, among the much shorter, caramel-skinned, black-haired humans.
A blue-blood with them wore a glamor spell, a witch-magic shimmer so common that Sophie barely registered it at all. At a bar-style counter, mixing dressing into what looked like a noodle salad, the witch-cast-spell hid antlers that almost touched the high ceiling, her black deer nose, and speckled tan hide from everyone else Doe eyes regarded Sophie curiously, both of them wondering why the other was there, no doubt. The antlered woman’s lips pinched in disapproval at Sophie’s presence, but Sophie didn’t judge why a creature so out of place as the deer-woman would be here.
