Page 44 of Feeding Beauty (The Lost Girls #5)

Going Home Again

TALON

W aking up to a drag queen healing me was only a little less of a surprise than realizing I was going to live.

“There ya go, hot boy,” Dame Kiki coos. “Right as rain. You just need a little rest, a truckload of food, and you’ll be breathing fire in no time.”

The Fairy Godmother gets up from her kneeling position next to me, and I realize I’m lying on a cot in Rap’s office. My boss is standing behind Kiki, arms crossed, expression tense.

I feel…wrong. Like my body’s been stitched together with thread too thin to hold. The heat inside me is gone, not smothered, but distant, buried under layers of cold ash. My limbs ache in ways no healing spell can fix, and my chest feels hollow where the fire used to burn. But I’m alive.

“Aura?” I ask, my voice cracking.

“Just outside,” Rap assures me. “I’ll get her.”

“We’ll give you two some space.” Kiki winks. She’s about to follow Rap when she pauses at the doorway. Kiki’s acrylic nails tap the doorframe a moment before looking back at me.

“Loving someone is hard,” Kiki murmurs, eyes soft now, her usual sassy attitude giving way to something older, weightier.

“But you two…I’ve never seen a bond like it.

It’s not tethered—it’s interwoven . That kind of love doesn't come around often. And once it locks in? Baby, not even death can unfasten it.”

I try to absorb her words, but my head is too foggy and I’m too anxious to see Aurora. Before I can ask her what she means, the Fairy Godmother has gone.

Aurora sweeps in, and I struggle to sit up.

“Stop,” she orders, pushing me down with her bare hand against my chest.

“Guess I’ve cooled off again,” I say, my hands instantly closing around hers.

Fucking fae lords. I bring up her hand and kiss each of her knuckles. I revel in being able to touch her again.

“It won’t last,” she says gently.

“I know,” I say in between kisses. It’s why I have to take advantage of every moment we have.

I have to be pushed beyond the physical brink to cool to a touchable level. Some part of me is already thinking of ways I can achieve this in the future.

“Stop it,” she says.

“What?”

“You aren’t going to hurt yourself just so we can touch.”

I scowl at her, even as I pull her on top of me.

“I don’t think the cot can—oof.” She lands on me hard, but the makeshift bed holds underneath us.

I wrap my arms around her, laying my cheek on her head. Aurora nuzzles in, and all of our limbs naturally seek and find the hollows and swells between us until we fit so perfectly, I’m certain we were made for each other.

We breathe in for several breaths, just holding one another. Assuring ourselves this is real.

“I’m the most self-involved person in the world.” Her words are muffled against my chest.

I crook my head to try and catch her expression, but it’s hidden.

“Mal must be after me,” she says in a parody voice. “Oh, she must want to finish the job. She must want to kill the princess.” She snorts. “What kind of narcissist am I?”

She lifts her face so she can look at me. I see her frustration, her regret, as if it was written on her forehead.

I brush the back of my knuckles along her cheek. “We both thought it.”

She shrugs, still agitated. “We’ve spent so much time focusing on me, when you are a true wonder, a true...” She searches for the word. “Specimen.”

I can’t help but full-on grin at that.

Aurora rolls her eyes. “Oh fae lords, now this is going to your head.”

I pinch her side and she yelps before swatting my chest. The simple delight of getting to touch her and tease her like this will never lose its novelty. People take for granted those little points of contact.

“You said it, not me.” Then I frown. “But they did go for you. You were targeted as well.”

“To take me out. Turns out Mal expected me to use the gift she gave me against her.” She throws air quotes with her fingers even as she tries to remain wrapped around me. Then her expression darkens. “And I finally found a way to use it.”

Before I can ask what that means, her fingers clutch at my chest. “I called my parents.”

I can’t help but massage her hips. Somewhere deep inside me, I already feel the whisper of my fire kicking up. Our time to touch is limited. “What did they say?” I ask.

“Well, for one thing, they said the only thing keeping them from coming after me and dragging me home by my now pierced ears was the regular letters you sent them, updating them on what was happening.” Her eyes narrow.

“Did you want them to come after you?” I ask her pointedly.

She pouts even as she shakes her head, knowing I have her.

“I didn’t tell them… everything ,” I say.

Unable to help myself despite all we have to discuss, I pull her down and kiss her. Tangling my hands in her hair, reveling in the taste, the feel, of her.

The heat inside me is rising quickly. Time is slipping through my fingers. I grip her tighter until she’s plastered to me and I’m delving deep into her mouth, finding my favorite spot in the universe. The one that makes her groan and claw at me like she can’t get close enough.

The door creaks open, breaking us apart.

“Hey guys—whoa,” Snow says, shielding her eyes. “When you’re done banging in your boss’s office, we’ve got food here.”

“What?” comes a sharp exclamation from Rap somewhere behind her.

“We aren’t having sex,” Aurora says, sitting up, though I don’t let her get far.

Snow drops her hand, nervously looking between us as if still expecting to find our privates exposed.

I sit up despite the soreness in my muscles and fatigue. My stomach lets loose a vicious growl at the thought of food. "Food would be good.”

Everyone is eating and chatting amongst themselves at various tables, giving me time to refuel at the bar with Aurora.

After five lobster rolls and three sides of fries from The Salty Bastard, I almost feel like myself.

Too much like myself. The heat hums under my skin again, deep and steady, licking along my ribs and tightening my chest. I’m aware of it now the way a man is aware of an old wound waking up in the rain. Familiar. Inescapable.

Aurora reaches out to touch me and I step just out of her grasp. Her eyes widen before I look down pointedly at my bare chest. The faint orange glow between my scales has returned, flickering softly beneath my skin like coals in a dying hearth.

“You’re all better,” she says with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. Her fingers curl into her palm before she tucks her hand to her body.

That small, careful gesture guts me more than it should.

I swallow against the tightness in my throat. I want to reach for her. I want to draw her in, kiss her slow and deep until we forget all of this, but that’s not possible.

Now that I’ve regained my strength it’s time I share what I know, and there doesn’t seem any use waiting until we’re alone anymore. Apparently, everyone in this room knows the score, and I can’t think too hard on how that makes me feel.

I clear my throat. “Aura,” I say, “I overheard Mal’s vampires while I was chained up.” The memory is still sharp, still sour in my gut. “They were preparing to leave soon. Tonight, I think. They said something about fire covering the sky.”

Aurora stiffens. “What does that mean?”

The chatter around us quiets.

“I don’t know. But it can’t be good.” I push away the empty food cartons. “They weren’t just talking about a few of them. They’ve been gathering more. A lot more. Not just a handful like the ones in Boston.”

“She’s planning to take a horde of vamps into the Realm of Roses.” Aurora’s words come out hollow, but certain. Her gaze drops to the table, and her shoulders draw tight, like she’s bracing for a hit she knows is coming.

“What?” Kai shoots to his feet, chair scraping loudly against the floor.

I don’t flinch at his outburst.

I’m still not used to the King of Midnight sitting here like an ally, but as Snow pointed out, he paid for the food and stopped being an asshole to Aurora. That earns him…a sliver of respect.

Maybe.

Rap’s phone rings, and she barely glances at the screen before taking it and striding off with it to her ear.

“But the Rosari can drain vampires of their energy, put them to sleep,” Kai says, frowning. “Vampires wouldn’t get far. Why would she bother?”

“The Rosari aren’t fighters,” Aurora says, her voice sharpening. “They can drain the vampires, sure, but it’s not like snapping fingers. It takes time, effort, proximity. Meanwhile, Mal has likely trained those vampires to rip people apart. There would be a lot of bloodshed.”

“The vampires are a distraction, a means to an end.” My jaw tightens at the memory of Mal’s teeth sinking into my throat.

“She’s not just bringing a squad of bloodthirsty idiots, she’s bringing an army she’s thralled.

They’ve been turning people. Stockpiling.

Preparing to flood the borders with bodies, overwhelm the Kingdom by sheer numbers so she can get what she’s really after. ”

“My parents.” Aurora’s hand curls into a fist on the table. A thrum of protectiveness rushes through me, visceral and immediate.

“To kill them,” I confirm. Because that’s what Mal has wanted all along. To punish those who rejected her, who got her exiled. And she needed my blood to help her do it.

“Well, how do we know when she’s going to make her move?” Snow asks, tapping a fry against her lip. “If we’ve got time, we can come up with a real plan?—”

“We’re out of time.” Rap’s voice slices through the conversation. She crosses back to us, sliding her phone into her back pocket. Her face noticeably pale beneath the armor of dark eyeshadow and matte lipstick.

“Vampires are already flooding the Realm of Roses,” she says.

“Shit.” That came from Cinder this time.

“She’s going to waltz past the chaos and kill the King and Queen,” I say. “Because she drank from me. She believes my blood has made her immune to Rosari powers. The Royal guard is unarmed except for their feeding abilities.”