Page 62 of Bonds of Starfall

"Alright, then, Blackfall." With that, the pilot ambled down the dim hall of the hotel to the sleek elevator door wrapped in black-tinted glass.

Rin shut the door with a sigh, head falling on it.

Just for tonight, she needed to vanish—into neon, into noise, into nothing.

In a place where she could be blissfully ignored.

This had been a bad idea.

The streets were crowded, sweet-smelling smoke drifting from immaculate alleys and oozing from under doors, filling the whole block with shades of purple and blue. It clung to her black silk dress, dulling its pitch-dark singularity.

The hem stopped at her upper thigh. Ever the Hunter—even if still a trainee—she’d tucked a holster against her right thigh, her Echogun snug inside. The weight comforted her.

Sibeth was relatively safe, so long as you stayed far away from the gambling dens and didn’t speak out of turn about the King. There was a law that protected traveling humans from being fed against their will by succubi or incubi. But laws were just words.

"Pretty human, look at you," a tall succubus with flame-red hair and purple eyes purred as she leaned against a metallic black pole. This side of the street was cast in deep, flashing shadows, as overhead, a train screamed past on the floating rails. By the succubus’s side was an incubus with hair dyed a deep green, spiky edges tickling his angular chin as his purple eyes drank Rin in.

"It’s been a while since I fed from a human. I say five minutes tops until I make you forget your name," the green-haired incubus purred.

Rin kept walking, dull shock pounding in her chest. She had taken her medication before she left, so the clamminess in her palms was from… excitement? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that it felt wonderful to be on a whole other planet, with no one there to care about her and everyone wanting a piece of her. On Sibeth, everyone wanted something from someone else. You would think that would be stifling, but it was freeing. To be desired so much that you could be replaced so easily.

The fire-haired succubus tutted as Rin walked past, her voice growing distant the further she walked. "Not interested, then. That’s a shame, pretty girl. Come back if you want a taste."

The pair was long forgotten among the throng of others. Propositions were thrown at her as if the words were worthless. Or as if she were worth every price demanded.

She wasn’t sure what she was searching for. Every club was the same. Pulsing, flickering lights, glittering signs, and lines wrapping down the dark streets.

She spotted the occasional human stumble about, drinks in hand, hanging off the arm of some succubi or incubi. Her bare arms prickled with chill as a club door opened in a waft of frozen, icy smoke, revealing the thud of music and red, flashing lights within, before the double doors slammed shut again.

On the street, amid the crowd, bodies bumping into hers, Rin paused, head tipping back to look at the sign.

Forget You Not.

The twisted callback to the flowers Lucien had pressed into her palms drew her attention with a force unable to be denied.

The double doors ofForget You Notloomedlike a mouth waiting to swallow her whole. A lone bouncer was perched against the side of the club, leaning against the black cementwall, one leg propped behind him as he took a deep drag of some drug that made her eyes water.

There was no line. She wasn’t sure if that should drive her away or propel her forward.

Something about this place felt electric and cold, like shocks of ice water poured over her head.

She stepped toward the doors.

The bouncer mumbled around the rolled-up stick in his mouth, purple eyes falling from her red-painted toes peeking from her heels, to the tips of her white hair, the pulsing lights catching in the stray hairs around her head, giving her a strange halo.

"How much for entry?" Rin asked, hoping it would be a price she could pay.

The bouncer smirked. "No price here."

She hid her surprise. The clubs on Sibeth were notorious for asking for strange things instead of money for entry. A wish, a kiss, a treasured item, a buried secret. Incubi and succubi lived off sex, but if pleasure was their main course, other emotions were light snacks.

Perhaps if she had been paying better attention, she would have noticed the flickering, man-shaped shadow along the wall. Too different a shape to be from the incubus before her.

The bouncer stepped to the side, waving a hand to the doors. "Have fun, human. Don’t let time get away from you."

With those foreboding words, Rin placed her hands on the doors and enteredForget You Not.

Cold fog wrappedaround Rin’s body, icy vapors curling low over the floors and seeping upward along the walls. The inside ofForget You Notwas encased in black metal, reflecting the pulsing lights. The far wall was made entirely of glass, andbehind it, fire licked up the sides, taunting the inhabitants with the idea of being burned alive, while the frigid smoke nipped at their heels like hungry little teeth.