Page 8

DOLION

Someone had spray painted my toes, claws and all, in the time between when I climbed on top of my Steorra’s crypt and when I cracked an eye to check she was sleeping and found she wasn’t there.

No stranger to graffiti, only in this new form, I’d discovered with Sebastian on an early evening track upon arrival in New Orleans, the night he outfitted me and we found our accommodation.

The state of the city’s underbelly might have disgusted me had I not seen so many cities in states of deshabille over the centuries, and played warden to them all from my perch above.

Often, I had ignored the plight of the homeless population, protecting only that which was mine under the roofs where I stood sentinel with my brethren until they died out over the years and I traveled with Sebastian to the new world.

Other times, I became involved.

Never had I found the latter course of action to my benefit. Hatred was always the outcome. And after a time, I chose to step away from the people who feared my twisted face and stone colored skin, retreating with my own kind until a girl with pale ringlets captured my heart.

But the woman who stood before me, her heat rising, was not Minette.

Ash’s bronze hair brushed her shoulders in impossible metallic glints.

She looked as far from this world as It was possible to be, the brightness of that hair and those glimmering eyes that darted about my face.

Her lips curled as her gaze dropped and she spotted my toes and?—

Laughed.

Sweet, and high and contagious.

The corners of my mouth tugged upward. I danced for her, wiggling my bare feet I'd crossed the city on, seeking first her then, when I couldn’t find my Steorra, Sebastian. A boon to find both of them together, though in a different circumstance than I would have hoped.

“Please let my fallen star go,” I requested my friend politely. “I don’t need to threaten you. While I am immune to her stunning flame, I don’t think your kind is.”

Sebastian looked at me in alarm that his immortality might be threatened by the slip of a woman he held. “I beg your pardon?”

Ash giggled and batted at his hand. “Let go of me, you old relic. Before I singe you.”

The vampire blinked at her, then released her arm, offering me a rueful look. “I understand why you’re taken with her.”

“Do you?” I tipped my head to one side. “Would you like to tell me how to get the pink paint off, please?”

She glanced down and shrugged. “I mean, it suits you? But I can find you some product to remove it if that’s what you need. I have money stashed for food and things.”

“Money isn’t an issue.” Sebastian passed a wad of currency I didn't recognize in my direction.

I glared at him and waved the phone in his direction. “And yet you made me use this.”

Tears actually flowed from Ash’s eyes. “Oh, this is precious. What are you, five hundred years old? Six?”

I pocketed the phone distastefully and took the cash Sebastian offered for good measure. “I was born of a stone seed in 1379.”

Ash did a quick calculation in her head. “Okay, so five to six hundred years old sans rounding. You?” she directed the same question at Sebastian.

He shrugged. “Give or take.”

I knew he expected her to answer in kind, but I wasn’t quite so naive.

“I’m sure you don’t want to spend the night in an alley.

Can we go somewhere nicer to clear the air that is less…

pressure on you?” I held out a hand, willing myself not to raise it to touch the lips that had grazed mine, the craving to contact the place where she had kissed me too great a temptation to ignore.

My slumber had crept on me almost immediately, heavy and hours overdue.

But that light touch of skin on stone ripped through my psyche, tearing me out of my sleep.

I strove not to flinch as she laid her lips on mine in the barest contact, then stepped away.

But my mouth burned with need and it had taken everything in me not to wrap my hand around her throat and haul her back to me, crush our mouths together and find out what she tasted like with my stone tongue.

A part of me still did crave that twisted need.

I was so lost in the memory, my hours old fantasy, that I nearly missed her answer.

“There’s a coffee house a few blocks away.

It’ll be busy, but it’s not stressful. Why don’t we have dinner and coffee there and you can…

tell me who you think I am and exactly what you think I’ve done?

” She cast a curious glance in Sebastian’s direction, then curled her fingers through my hand in the clearest statement she could make.

And I was here for every moment of her sass.

The quaint coffee house Ash picked out was squashed between a nightclub and a mechanic’s workshop that Sebastian explained to me.

Both businesses looked like they had existed for at least as long as the other in utter disgust of the neighbor that should never have been.

One was covered in grease and oil, the other all flowy curtains and spicy scents.

“Turkish?” I murmured, lacing my fingers through Ash’s, careful not to hurt her.

Black velvet draped her from neckline to toes, covering her sandaled feet, except for a strip of translucent soft mesh across her middle, baring her stomach and lower back to me.

The effect was seductive as she sashayed her way along the street.

Standing next to her tiny frame, I became all too aware of how small her body was next to mine.

My fingers spread hers wide apart. I closed my hand slowly, giving her the chance to pull away.

My Steorra flexed in my grip then folded her fingers tight against mine.

One of those soft sighs I didn't think she knew she made slipped from her lips.

“A strange mix of scents and spices and languages, this place,” she admitted, leaning slightly into my side as we walked.

Sebastian made a huffing sound behind us that I ignored.

I would wear his poor humor later. “Creole, French, American…and others. We all exist here together. Accepted,” she said, looking down at our joined hands.

Her golden skin wound around my slightly paler version, now that my stone patterns had faded. Her thumb brushed the caved marks on my wrist.

“I was born that way,” I murmured, all too aware of Sebastian loitering behind us.

“And your friend?”

My grip flexed around her hand. “He was…created. Not his choice. Or at least, he didn't quite understand the choice at the time. But that’s not my story to tell,” I murmured.

Ash fell silent as the vampire in question dropped back a dozen paces, his footfalls fading as we approached the small coffee shop. “He has some good manners, doesn't he?”

“On occasion.” I held the door for her, and she smiled at me.

“You have some, as well.”

“I suspect you come from a time when etiquette was crucial, though a lot older than either of us.” I inhaled the scent of her, pure starlight, as she walked beneath my arm.

Ash’s eyes fluttered shut as she stood in the doorway of the coffee shop.

Her hand untangled from mine and I let her go, still holding the door, bemused.

This side of her was something I hadn’t seen before as she seemed to absorb the ambience, the heat and warmth and energy of the overcrowded coffee shop.

For just a moment, it was as though the only person in the place was her, the scents tangible as they flowed around her like visible golden threads of spice drawn into her soul.

Then the slipped out of my hand, clanging shut and the moment broke.

“Thanks,” Sebastian said dryly, pushing his way inside as I guided Ash toward a table an attendant motioned us toward, menus wielded like a shield against the thrum of conversation that once again filled the small space.

Fragments of words bounced from wall to decorated wall, shattering and reforming in an epitome of fragrant white noise.

“I thought crowds bothered you.” I settled on a large floor pillow, folding my legs beneath me.

Ash curled at my side, apparently perfectly comfortable at ground level.

Her black velvet skirt formed a circle around her, though her toes peeked out as she slipped her sandals off and tipped her head back, once again lost in her personal show of bliss.

And took me along with her for the ride.

I trailed my hand down her spine, pleased when she neither flinched nor pushed me away. “What do you recommend?”

“The apple tea. Iced,” she replied promptly with her eyes still shut.

“And the spiced scones. Though your friend may have other tastes?” I waved a hand to pass her order on to the staff as Ash opened one wary eye, wrinkling her nose when several shawls obscured our vision of the table. “Don’t you have a bar to tend?”

The witch stared at her with two wide eyes. “There mustn’t be much room in that little cemetery you hide in. And yet you manage to appear well groomed for a grave rat.”

Ash offered a one shouldered shrug, much like the woman opposite her, sans the shawls. “I have other— a spare crypt.” She caught the slip before she gave her secret away in full, her spine stiffening.

I leaned back, keeping my face carefully blank.

When we agreed to head off to the coffee house, Ash disappeared between the graves, leaving me in a brilliant flash only to appear literal moments later, clean and completely changed into the velvet dress she wore now.

I held back my suspicions that she kept a house of some sort nearby, but that was her secret to keep.

Sebastian broke the heavy silence that descended over us, his gaze flickering between the two women. “Tifa, Ash. Ash, you know our local witch.”

“I know she wants to cage me. Or something.” Ash picked up a cinnamon stick encrusted with sugar crystals and nibbled on the end.