Page 20 of Feeding Beauty (The Lost Girls #5)

Jolly Roger Rum with Rap

TALON

A ura rocks back and forth on the carpet, covering her mouth, but I still hear the stream of words from under her hand. "I couldn't have killed her. I'm still hungry. I'm still so very hungry. I couldn't have done that to her. I'm a fucking monster."

"Shh," I try to hush her. Not just to soothe her, but because I need to listen. I cross over to the bed and bend over to where Merry lays on her side, eyes closed. I hold my hand close to her open mouth. One, then two, then three little puffs of air hit my skin.

"She's alive." My shoulders sag in relief. I worried I didn't pull Aura back in time. She wouldn't stop until I literally dragged her away. I didn't want to be so rough, but I had to do it.

Aura still rocks back and forth, eyes wide, mouth covered. Something is very wrong.

I crouch down so I'm directly in front of her.

"Aurora, look at me." She still isn't responding. It's as if she's receded to some place far within her mind where I can't reach. I clench my fists to keep from grabbing her shoulders and giving her a shake.

"Aurora," I practically shout.

She blinks, finally focusing on me. "Merry is alive. She's just passed out. She's going to be okay. Take a couple deep breaths."

She does. First one, then two, then she bursts into sobs.

Driving her fists into her eyes, Aurora wails out with heart-wrenching cries of agony.

Oh fae lords, I can't stand to see her cry. Her cries rake through me, leaving my insides shredded and raw.

I can't stop it. I can't comfort her.

"Aura, please, Aura, tell me, what is it?" It could be anything, but I have to know what's torturing her. She's unresponsive again and my desperation grows. "Baby, please, tell me."

The pet name slips out before I can call it back. Another line crossed.

I've overstepped too many times, but I can't give a damn right now.

It does the trick though. Aura drops her hands so I can see her beautiful, blotchy tear-stained face.

"I'm still hungry," she sobs and hiccups. "It hurts to be hungry. And I was so scared I hurt her. I don't want to hurt her. I don't want to be like this. I don't want to be me. Oh fae lords, why can't I be anyone else? I almost can't bear it."

"I know," I say between more soothing hushes. "It's okay. Everything is okay. I know it hurts."

"Say it again," she says, squeezing her eyes shut tight and drawing her knees into her body.

I don't know what she means for a second. Then I realize. "I know it hurts, baby . It's going to be okay, sweetheart." With each pet name I let past my lips, she calms a bit more, though I immediately form an addiction to calling her every sweet thing I've always wanted to.

This is not good.

"If I could, I'd put my arms around you and never let you go,” I say, unable to stop myself.

Aura looks up at me with a beautifully hopeful expression that makes every part of me feel alive.

"You could cry all over my shoulder and I'd just keep holding you."

"Even if I’m snotty and I get it on you?" she asks, wiping her nose with her arm at the same time.

I nod solemnly. "I wouldn't let you pull away or use a tissue, even if you tried."

The tiniest of smiles breaks through and it's like sunshine after a brutal winter.

"Help me make her comfortable, and we'll go home,” I say.

"Home," she repeats, a wariness in her eye.

"To the apartment," I clarify. Aurora nods and gets up off the floor. She disappears to the restroom, leaving me for a moment. I scrub my fingers through my hair. I take a moment to process this shit show.

No. We did good.

Everything is okay.

I didn't touch Aurora.

She didn't kill Merry.

Though the hard boundaries that have always been there are no more than broken lines of sand now, and I don't know what that means or what the consequence will be, but things are changing. They are changing faster than I can control, and the worst part is I want them to.

I've regained my composure by the time Aurora returns. With her help, we reposition Merry in bed so she is comfortably tucked in. Aurora even rolled off the stockings and took off the constricting garter, saying it's not fun to wake up pinched.

We buy a couple water bottles and snacks from the vending machine and leave them on the bedside table for Merry when she wakes.

Then we're gone.

After assuring Merry was alive, we rushed to the apartment to clean up and change for our shifts at Poison Apple.

The whiplash of it sits heavy in my chest. One moment, I'm dragging Aurora off the floor, her sobs ripping through the air. The next, we’re stepping back into a bar lit up in neon and noise, pretending none of it happened. Pretending she didn’t nearly drain someone dry.

But she does it. Slides behind the bar like nothing earth-shattering happened.

I take my usual post at the front, checking IDs and scanning for trouble, but my eyes are never far from her.

At least I got her to eat. Granted she doesn’t share the unhealthy obsession for The Salty Bastard food that I have, but I had to take control when she became barely responsive.

She had half a lobster roll and some fries.

Every hour, I do a circuit. Bounce a belligerent drunk, clock the regulars, intervene just enough to keep order. But I always find my way back to the booth near the door, always keeping her in my sightline.

Aurora’s still hungry. I can see it in the way her shoulders tighten when someone gets too close, in the way her laughter always ends a beat too soon. But the wildness in her power has dulled. She’s sharper, focused. Pouring drinks and joking with the other girls.

She looks okay.

But I know better.

Earlier, Merry messaged me through the hookup app. Said the night was unreal, apologized for passing out, claimed that never happens. She offered to meet again.

That won’t be happening. That kind of contact draws attention we can’t afford.

Hours later, the night has exhaled. The doors are locked. Music hums low through the speakers, meant only for the staff now. Chairs are flipped. The scent of lemon cleaner hangs in the air.

Aurora’s still behind the bar, sleeves rolled up, practicing bottle flair with a half-filled plastic one. It slips mid-spin and clatters to the floor.

“Still not a flair master, huh?” Snow teases, perched on a barstool with a mop resting across her shoulders like a sword.

“It’s the bottle,” Aurora huffs, retrieving it. “She’s a slippery little traitor. Betrayed me mid-spin.”

Ariel, seated at the end of the bar with a bucket of clean towels in her lap, grins. “Maybe if you stop naming your bottles and forming emotional attachments, they won’t betray you.”

“I only name the ones I like,” Aurora says with mock indignation. She lifts the bottle again, narrowing her eyes. “You get one more chance, Elena.”

Snow snorts so hard she nearly drops her phone. “Elena?”

Ariel is there taking photo after photo with her camera.

From across the room, I sink back into my booth, elbows resting on the table, watching them. Letting the moment settle.

Aurora will need to feed again.

Moving here and pretending she could outrun her curse and deny her needs hasn’t panned out. We haven’t discussed it, but I doubt she’ll submit to going home.

She was not fully satisfied today which means she'll likely need to feed sooner. A matter of weeks? Maybe even days?

Can we keep doing this? Keep going to seedy motels and arranging hookups that I need to constantly yank her back from the brink of killing?

Do we become vigilantes as I try to stalk the night and find bad people that the world would be better off without?

I don't know this world. Not like our own.

Back in the Realm of Roses I had contacts, I knew when things were amiss and where darkness went to nest. Here I lack the advantage and have no idea I would get it.

I rub my forehead as a tightness forms around my skull, signaling the beginning of a headache.

A couple glasses clank down hard in front of me, causing me to start.

"You look like you need a drink."

I look up to see Rap slide in the oversized booth, setting a bottle of brown liquor with an illustration of a ship being tossed on a tumultuous ocean next to the two glasses.

"Jolly Roger Rum," she says, doling out two healthy pours. "It's good shit."

I take her offering and clink glasses before giving it a healthy slug. It's sweet and smooth with a burn that only fans my inner fire. Rap kicks back the rest of hers and waits for me to do the same before pouring again.

This one slightly dulls my thoughts, and I feel a small sense of relief.

"Already better, huh?" she asks while looking at the glass she rolls between her fingers.

How does this woman seem to see into things so well?

"Yeah. Tough. . .week."

Rap nods as if in solidarity, though she has no idea what the past twenty-four hours have been.

"So...Dragons. They have a lot of interesting features." She pours another glass for both of us. This time I only sip it, wary of the bar owner.

"Their flesh burns flesh. They breathe fire. Very few of their kind left, or so we think. They are solitary creatures."

I don’t know why she’s listing all my traits to me. It's all very conversational, but the rum buzz is really kicking up in my stomach and loosening my muscles.

"You know a lot about my kind,” I say. Perhaps she wants credit yet again for sussing me out? Though that doesn't seem right. This woman doesn't acquire information for vanity's sake. No, she gathers it for protection.

"I also know Dragons are immune to a lot of other fae powers." Her voice is low, casual, like we’re just chatting after hours, but I know better. She’s measuring me.

The bar owner swirls the rum in her glass.

"Take the Rosari, for example. Most people think they move out to those lush, peaceful lands for the slower pace of life, but there’s more to it.

" Her gaze flicks toward the darkened end of the bar where Aurora’s laugh carries.

"The Rosari are what some call energy vampires. Their regions attract people riddled with anxiety, emotional instability, burnout. It’s symbiotic—the Rosari feed off that excess energy, and in return, the humans feel lighter. More balanced."

She pauses long enough to refill both our glasses.

"But there’s a rumor among the Rosari," she says more softly. "That there is a monster in the castle."

I'm careful not to look at Aurora. "Every place has rumors. Silly myths."

"True." She tips her glass toward me. "Some people say there is a leprechaun in the Boston gardens. That the ghost of a young motorcyclist haunts Route 44. That there is a literal underground network of information in Boston, a massive black market run by fae creatures."

"A leprechaun?" I ask with a snort.

Rap nods solemnly. Then she runs a finger around the rim of her glass. "The Rosari's myth of a monster includes the fact that this monster can feed on other fae. That humans, fae, and mage alike disappear, never to be found again."

"Sounds like your leprechaun," I say, taking a heavy draft.

When I put the glass down, Rap is studying me with her cutting green gaze.

"You're not the monster the Rosari speak of, are you?” It’s not a question. “It's her, isn't it?" That one is a question.