Page 35 of Feeding Beauty (The Lost Girls #5)

Richochet

AURORA

“ M ommy and daddy are fighting, and I don’t like it.”

I ignore Snow as I unload the glasses from the dishwasher rack, preparing for what promises to be another crazy Saturday shift.

“Yeah, it’s freaking me out,” Ariel agrees with Snow.

“We are not fighting,” I say tightly, not slowing my movements.

I’m heartbroken. It’s different.

Actually, heartbroken doesn’t even cover it.

I had him. For one impossible, perfect stretch of time, I had Talon.

His hands, his mouth, his body pressed to mine, and I thought maybe we could finally be what we were meant to be.

Then the fire came back, and he ordered us to bury it.

Bury the touch, the closeness, the hope. I hate him for that.

I hate that he told us to shove it all down, as if we could. He’s just as fucked up about this as I am, and there’s no covering it. Not with acceptance. Not with silence.

We are both split open, bleeding, wanting what we can’t touch, and it makes me furious. Because it’s not only rotting me from the inside, it’s killing him too.

Watching Lucifer curl up on Talon’s lap this morning only added to my irritation. Why should that little beast get to be so close to Talon, and I can’t?

I’ve never despised a cat like this before. Being heartbroken is making me a monster…or just more like Snow, who hates that cat more than anyone.

“Ugh, I should have closed today,” Rap says, sidling up to the bar with her laptop. Her normally sharp green eyes are dull and bloodshot. Even her rainbow Mohawk is wilted.

“You were the one who provided so many bottles of Jolly Roger rum, boss,” Snow points out.

“Which was an amazing wedding gift,” Ariel quickly adds when Rap glares at Snow. “I know Goldie and Ted appreciated it.”

Rap resumes rubbing her forehead and mumbles a word that resembles “coffee.”

I’m quick to jump on her request. When I return with a steaming cup and saucer, my boss grunts a thank you.

“Can I get one too?” another voice asks.

I don’t look at Talon even as he stands next to Rap.

I shrug noncommittally even as I turn to head to the coffee pot.

“What did you do to her?” Snow asks Talon even as I pull another cup and saucer. My motions slow.

He didn’t do anything.

No, scratch that, he did everything . And we can never do it again.

Talon remains silent. I know he’s just as twisted and torn about what’s happened, but he basically told me to get my shit together. So that’s what I’m doing. On my own.

“Take care of her tonight,” he says finally.

“We always do,” Ariel says a little sharper than normal.

I set the coffee on the bar in front of him. “Leave him alone, guys,” I say. “Everything is fine.”

“Bullshit.” Snow’s eyes volley between us.

Even Rap watches us now with a sharp eye. Or as sharp as her hangover allows.

Maybe I should tell them we were attacked by vampires.

But that would lead to too many questions.

The door flings open, and at first I don’t recognize the tall, muscular Black man in the purple satin suit. As he nears, fluttering massive false eyelashes and heavy eye makeup, I realize this is Dame Kiki out of drag. And she looks…errr…upset.

“Good, you’re here,” Rap says, rousing from her goblin slouch over the coffee. “Geanie,” she calls loudly.

“Oh this is gonna be good,” Snow crosses her arms as Ariel sucks in a breath.

Rap calls for him twice more before Geanie emerges from the back rooms. He slinks rather than walks, as if he’s fighting resentment with every fiber of his being.

Kiki pops a hand on her hip and taps her gleaming shoes. “Well?” she addresses Rap.

“Geanie,” Rap says in a low, threatening voice.

He pulls at the collar of his shirt, lips twisted as if he’s been sucking on an entire bag of lemons.

“We talked about this...” Rap pushes without subtlety.

He mumbles something.

“Come again?” Kiki cups a hand behind her ear. “I didn’t hear that.”

“I’m sorry,” he says louder.

“For...” Rap urges him to go on. She might as well have Geanie by the scruff of the neck. I almost feel bad for him, but I’m still not sure what this is about.

“For ripping off your wig during Goldie's bouquet toss.”

I turn to Ariel for confirmation, and she meets my expression with a solemn nod and a grimace that tells me it got even uglier than that.

Kiki sets her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes. “You mean before ripping the stems straight out of my hands like a petty little?—”

“Kiki,” Rap interrupts in a warning tone.

Kiki backs off, clearing her throat of whatever other nasty insults had built up there. “Thank you for your apology, Eugene .” She says the name with as much pleasure as Geanie’s displeasure. “I understand it’s hard when you feel you are getting outshined…Well, I’ve never actually felt that but?—”

“ Kiki ,” Rap says sharply this time, and Kiki drops it. “Now shake hands and get over this petty bullshit before I cut you both off from the steady supply of free drinks you both so liberally enjoy.”

Despite being rivals, both Kiki and Geanie wear a matching open-mouth expression of scandalized shock and fear. Begrudgingly, they shake hands, and Rap nods with evident satisfaction before they part ways.

I feel Talon’s eyes on me, compelling me to look at him. It hurts. It hurts to look at him. To remember what slipped through our fingers. Even if it’s not his fault.

He sets the empty coffee cup down and leaves to take his spot by the door. The night is about to kick off.

I try to swallow down the pain as I polish the bar top with extra vigor.

“Can I get a coffee to go, sweetness?” Kiki asks, sidling up in front of me with an empty travel mug she’s pulled from her glittery tote. “And if you pour a bit of that Irish cream in there, mum’s the word. Got a hot night at the Pumpkin Coach Club tonight and I’ve still got to get glam.”

I nod, feeling like a hollow doll as I go about filling the bottom with Irish cream. Kiki will be on foot, and the club isn’t far from here, though we’ve yet to have a girls’ night there.

“Pain does funny things to a girl,” Kiki says as I pour the coffee. “Can give a girl an insatiable hunger for more...if you know what I mean.”

I curse as hot coffee spills over my knuckles. I’m quick to grab a rag and clean up the mess I made. My pulse and thoughts jump erratically. She knows I’m a Succubus, which is terrifying enough, but to be speaking in code about it while everyone is milling about puts my nerves on edge.

“Just don’t forget, darling,” Kiki adds, her nails cool on my wrist. “Pain is sometimes how we find our people.”

Dame Kiki has swept off and out the door with her drink by the time I’ve swallowed down the knot in my throat. But I can’t digest what she’s said, because the music flips on at a blaring volume and the lights dim as another magical night at Poison Apple kicks off, and the doors open.

“And here’s our resident beauty, Aurora,” Genie’s voice rings out as the spotlight hits me. I twist and turn and put on the usual show as I do my Lost Girl introduction, but tonight my heart isn’t in it.

I’m angry. I’m devastated. But at least I’m full. Of Talon. That knowledge makes everything hurt all over again.

I lean forward, letting my breasts spill dangerously as I pour vodka straight into open mouths below. Cheers rise, but my focus blurs.

A ripple of warning zips up my spine before I lift my gaze. When I look further into the crowd of gyrating, swaying patrons pumping their fists in time to the music, my attention fixes on a single face. Small. Still. Unmoving.

She doesn’t dance. Doesn’t drink.

Just watches.

An Asian woman. Hard to place her age—twenty or forty—but her heart-shaped face is carved from porcelain. Electric violet eyes stare back, unblinking.

It’s the dimples that betray her. The same as King Kaison’s.

Mal.

I swallow hard, pulling the bottle back up. I try to continue my little dance and shuffle across the bar, but Geanie’s booming words and the sound of the crowd muffle as panic roars in my ears.

Maybe I’m seeing things?

I turn to look again and she’s still there. My heart thuds so hard it bruises my chest.

I’ve never seen the woman, but I know it’s Mal.

The woman in the crowd tilts her head ever so slightly as if to say, so you do know me .

It’s too much. It’s just too fucking much.

All the rage and heartbreak I’ve felt over the last several hours boils over as I face the one who cursed my entire existence.

Power rises, low and furious beneath my skin. It stretches and pushes its way out of me, reminding me of this same sensation when I faced that vampire on the docks. It’s like finding a new muscle I didn’t even know I had, so I’m not even sure what it’s trying to do.

Until it surges forward.

A crack of pink light arcs from my chest, visible, unmistakable—an aura made of hunger and curse and wrath.

The hunger that has always stayed in my bones, that always has been called via touch stretches out of my body, hungry jaws open wide, directed at her .

It slices through the air like a whip of smoke and neon, fast and bright and impossible to ignore.

People cheer. They think it’s part of the show. Part of the Lost Girl act.

But this is no act.

I give the curse direction. I give it teeth.

The barest, almost imperceptible raise of Mal's eyebrows makes it appear as if she is more intrigued than afraid.

It slams into her, but instead of devouring Mal, it whiplashes back. That surge of power I sent at Mal crashes into me.

Pain detonates in my chest. My ribs cave inward. My knees smash into glass. Shards cut into my skin but I barely feel them over the hollow tearing through me as everything is ripped out.

The curse takes. Hard and fast and wild.

I thought the pain of cannibalizing myself by masturbation was bad. Compared to this, that sensation was a lover’s caress.