Page 30 of Feeding Beauty (The Lost Girls #5)

A Full Scale Shift

AURORA

T he air outside the club is cool and quiet, with only the sound of our boots on the wet concrete. The others we left on the bed, sleeping like the dead but still very much alive. I checked. Twice.

Talon and I don’t speak as we walk. The silence is heavy. The bound-up leash still dangles between us as I didn't bother to take off the collar.

I should be sated. I’ve never fed like that, from so many at once, but part of me still growls with hunger. Not dangerous, not ravenous…Just hollow.

I wonder how long I have before I need to come and top myself off again. That's how I should think of myself. Like a gas tank that needs to be refilled, but never to the top. Always running on less than full, but it’s doable, right?

I’m not the only one left unsatisfied.

I glance at Talon as I shift the pack on my shoulder. He didn’t come. Just tucked himself in his pants and helped me set things right.

I was able to use the attached bathroom for a quick shower, taking a moment for some semblance of normalcy even if I’m not fully sated.

My lashes flutter shut as the echo of Talon's commands still hovers in my ears before etching into my bones. I’ll forever be haunted by the fierce expression of possession and need as he slides his hand up and down his dick.

He exposed himself. Even in front of those other people. Something he’s never done before.

Talon's right. What we've been doing is too dangerous.

But I can’t stop.

I love him. Beyond reason. Beyond sanity.

My heart is so full of him, it's a wonder it hasn’t cracked my ribs open.

We round the corner of the warehouse into a long industrial corridor near the Boston Harbor, the salt tang in my nose. Rusting shipping containers line one side. A crooked blue-and-white street sign marks the dock zone ahead.

Talon slows.

So do I.

"What's wrong?" I ask quietly, but my voice seems too loud. A cold mist falls from the sky, threatening to turn into fat raindrops.

From the shadows, figures emerge—too still, too pale, too deliberate. Their eyes glint in the weak light from the flickering dock lamp. Urban leather jackets, boots, dark hoods, they look like they’ve stepped out of a street gang, not a castle crypt. Fangs bare beneath grins full of malice.

First two, then five.

Vampires.

Mal sent them. To kill me. To punish my father.

"Aura, get out of here," Talon orders, already moving to intercept.

The first vampire lunges. Talon grabs his throat mid-air. A searing hiss fills the night as his palm ignites, turning skin to blistered ruin. He hurls the vampire sideways, spine snapping as it hits the ground.

A snarling female sprints toward me from the left. Talon turns and crushes her with a backhand that sends her sailing into a rusted container with a crack of bone.

My feet are glued to the pavement as I watch in frozen horror as more appear from the shadows.

Three more vampires fall on him. He throws fists, and embers spark off him but there are too many. A fourth pushes his way into the fray. I catch the glint of steel right before a blade sinks deep into Talon's ribs.

Talon bellows, the sound raw and animalistic.

"Talon!" I cry out, lurching forward instinctively. Cold fear is washed away by red hot anger.

They hurt Talon. My Talon.

My hand closes around a length of rotted dock wood, splintered but solid. I may be a princess, but I'm also a Lost Girl now.

The words from the tattoo parlor return to me, firming my resolve.

“They'll underestimate you…let them."

“They’ll want you to play nice…don’t."

I swing wide. The beam connects with the vampire’s temple, a sickening crunch echoing through the night. My makeshift weapon snaps in two on contact. As my target drops to the ground, another vamp peels off from the fray and heads toward me.

"Aura, get out of here! Go!" Talon roars before two more vampires slam into his back. It takes six of them to drag Talon down to one knee.

Their hands tear at his skin, fingers prying between his glowing scales where the knife is lodged. One vampire hisses as he rips a scale free, still pulsing orange at the edges with heat. Blood gushes as Talon cries out.

“Shit,” I breathe, dropping the useless bit of wood left as I stumble.

My throat closes as Talon is overwhelmed and the vampire stalks purposefully toward me.

The Rosari aren’t combat-trained people. We don’t invest in armed forces because we can suck the fight right out of anyone.

All I can do is suck the life out of this guy through his dick, but that’s not exactly the scene set here, and I’m in no hurry to get in close.

I suddenly wish I had secretly trained in some kind of martial arts all these years instead of working on watercolors, horse riding, and reading books.

Talon slumps forward, fury flaring in his eyes even as his body begins to fail. He mouths to me, “ Go. ”

I don’t want to leave him. But I can’t help him.

I run in the other direction for a few feet, then glance over my shoulder. He's surrounded now, a blur of fists, claws, and heat.

Then I’m yanked back. The collar cuts into my throat so hard it breaks flesh. A garbled choke escapes me as my hands fly up to my neck.

I reach to unclasp the collar, but the vampire jerks the chain still locked around my throat and drags me down like an animal.

My knees crack against concrete. My palms scrape open. The leash bites deep into my skin.

"Talon!"

The young vampire in front of me stares down at me with a cold green gaze. “You’re not as powerful or dangerous as she said.” He leans over, yanking the chain to bring my face to his. “Best not to chance it though. Won’t let you fuck me to death, even if you are hot.”

I feel a pulse. It starts in my chest then drops lower, deeper.

Something in me rises, uncoiling from the center of my being, and I gasp.

Power—sexual, ancient, hungry—ripples beneath my skin. My lips part. The vampire holding me suddenly freezes, eyes wide. His grip falters.

I taste something electric between my teeth.

The world tilts. My power wants out. I don’t know what it’s trying to do, only that it is trying to do something .

A boot smashes into my stomach. A cough explodes from me with equal violence as I double over and cradle my center.

“What the fuck were you doing, witch?” he demands.

When I lift my head, I connect with Talon’s gaze. Another two bodies are ash at his feet, but he’s still outnumbered and overwhelmed.

My left eye just about explodes from my face as I'm backhanded. I groan, the slippery metallic taste of my own blood filling my mouth, the inside of my cheek cut along my teeth.

A blast of heat rolls over me.

Through my blurred vision, I meet Talon's eyes.

They flare with a fiery orange hue, like embers born of fury.

The intensity builds, and the orange deepens into a molten, liquid gold, swirling and shifting as if alive.

Suddenly, they burst into flames, fierce and consuming, casting flickering shadows across his face.

A growl erupts like an avalanche, shaking the very air as the sky splits open. Wings explode from Talon's back, wide and violent, soaking wet and shimmering with firelight and rain.

The storm breaks as Talon surges upward, dragging three vampires with him. His whole body pulses, orange-lit fissures racing across his scales, glowing like molten fault lines. I watch in horror and awe as heat radiates off him in blistering waves.

Bones crack like gunfire beneath his skin. His spine arches, limbs elongating. Scales rip through flesh in a rapid sweep as if his very skin is being rewritten by fire. Claws replace fingers. His jaw stretches. Horns burst from his skull.

The vampires claw at him, hissing and snapping, trying to drag him back down even as they cry out in a panic.

A whip of his arm sends one vampire crashing into the wall with a wet crunch. Another tries to leap on his back but is smacked away by a powerful wing. Another is incinerated by a blast of fire that erupts from his mouth.

My breath stops. It shouldn’t be possible, but there he is in full, complete Dragon form.

He’s beautiful. Terrifying.

Talon’s tail slams a metal dumpster into twisted shrapnel.

Then he turns, unleashing a torrent of flame into the alley.

The blast lights up the rain-slick darkness, the blast lights up the rain-slick darkness, the way sunlight floods a cathedral at high noon.

Vampires scream, their silhouettes writhing in the inferno before collapsing into ash.

One by one, he hunts them down without mercy.

The fire rolls forward, cleansing the alley of every bloodsucker in his path.

There are more than I thought. So many hidden in the shadows. The sheer number that had come for us makes my blood run cold.

The vampire who yanked my leash and dragged me to my knees tries to run.

With a thunderous flap of wings, massive claws hook under the vampire's ribs, and he lifts, screaming, into the night sky.

For a breathless second, they’re suspended above the warehouse rooftops. Then Talon tears him apart midair, flinging his halves in opposite directions. Blood rains down, mixing with the storm.

I stumble to my feet, soaked and trembling, unable to look away. The whole stretch is empty now. No more movement. No more fangs. Just scorched concrete, chunks of charred limbs, and blood seeping into the storm drains. The rain pelts metal and concrete with a steady rhythm, washing it all away.

Movement snags my eye. A vampire slips behind a row of crates, Talon’s torn scale and the still-wet blade gripped tight as he disappears.

And then Talon falters.

The flames die in his mouth. His body cracks and shudders, and shifts. Scales retract. Bones shrink.

His massive body drops like a felled tree. One wing folds in. His limbs shudder. Fire flickers, then dies.

And then the shrinking begins. The slow collapse inward. Muscle, scale, bone, folding down into a man.

I break into a sprint, heading toward him unsure of what to do. Even if I got to him in time, he’d crush me on impact.

He hits the ground several feet in front of me.

Fear pierces through me as I run to him. "Talon!"

When the smoke clears, he’s human again.

Naked. Bleeding.

I fall to my knees, not caring about the pain. My hands hover over him. Frustration roars in me that I can’t touch him. I can’t feel if he’s okay.

The half of his body covered in black scales no longer glows with orange fissures. They are dull, dark, drained. Black and lifeless, like spent coal. He bleeds heavily from where the scale has been flayed from his ribs.

He lies there in the alley, broken and burned out.

“Aura,” he gasps, lifting his head, eyes fluttering.

Whipping off my cloak, I ball it up and gingerly slide it under his head. My hands still itch to touch him, to hold him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I can’t tell if my cheeks are wet from the slow, lazy drizzle of rain or from my own tears. Seeing him hurt feels like someone has ripped out my guts and I can’t stand it.

“Shhh,” he soothes, despite being a broken mess. “It’s just a flesh wound. Don’t worry, princess.”

“Don’t worry. Don’t worry? If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have been out here. This wouldn’t have...” My words die in my throat as my senses connect to the nerve endings in my hands. They continue to hover uselessly over his body, but I realize the usual heat isn’t pulsating off him.

My heart catches in my throat.

The foreboding orange fissures between his scales aren’t there.

I hold my breath as my fingers move of their own accord.

Panic flares in Talon’s tired eyes as he realizes what I'm about to do.

“Aura, no,” he barks.

But I don’t hesitate. I slide a hand over his jaw, cupping it.

There is the scratch of his dark scruff raking over my soft fingertips. There is the firm, too warm skin that wraps around his jawline that I feel my way along, tracing the square bones there. There is the softness of his lower lip as I brush my thumb over it.

But there is no scalding.

There is no pain.

Just...Talon.

A half-hiccup, half-sob rocks my body as my other hand reaches for him, and I frame his face.

Fear and wonder battle in his dark gaze.

I stare at him in wonder. “You burned off so much energy, you’re...”

“Cool,” he finishes.

It’s true. My hand is warmer than his flesh even as I shiver in the cold pelt of rain.

“Has this ever happened?” My hope is rising too fast, too hard.

Talon shakes his head slowly. “No. It shouldn’t be possible.”

He looks at me, then down at his own chest, flexing his fingers like he’s trying to summon something long-familiar. “I’ve had power surges before. Flared too hot. But I’ve never gone full Dragon. That form…Dragons aren’t meant to shift that far anymore.”

My breath catches. “But you did.”

His eyes lift, locking on mine. “And I think I burned out all my fire doing it.”

Talon presses my palm to his chest. “Once in a tavern, I heard an old Dragon tale. About burning so hot, so fast, you exhaust your flame forever. Most don’t survive it. Those who do...they never burn again.”

My heart lurches with equal measures of guilt and hope. “You think it’s permanent?”

He swallows hard. “It feels different this time. Like I didn’t just use my fire…I emptied it. I don’t know if it can come back.”

He grips my wrist with iron strength, an urgency flashing in his eyes. He’s holding onto me for dear life. I can tell reality is slow and hard to hit.

“Aura.” The way he breathes my name breaks me into a million pieces, but I don’t mind because he can scoop up all the little pieces in his hands now.

“Talon.”

Our mouths collide.