Page 90 of Stardusted

Got it.

“So I guess to answer your question, Rae,” Sky said, tilting his head and relaxing back against the counter again, “I’m as human as you are right now.” He held my gaze. “In all the ways that matter.”

Something about the way he said that made me blush. I tried to ignore it. “But you’re not. You sure as hell weren’t earlier at Oasis. What happened there?”

For a second, it drifted back again, the image. That strange glittering of his skin, like he was decorated with tiny crystals. Those depthless black eyes. My stomach swooped.

“No, you’re right.” Sky pursed his lips. “I don’t know exactly what happened back there. The synth-skin malfunctioned. I’ve never had that happen. Not once in all my years here.” He shifted against the counter, and his attention slid to my hand. “I’ve got some theories, though.”

I grimaced and followed his eyes, constricting my fingers around the mace. He didn’t know for sure what had caused the glitch, but we both suspected. It had happened after I touched him. With my palm covered with strange markings.

“Okay.” One thing at a time. I forced my parched throat to work. “So with this synth-skin thing, could you touch, say…a house cat, and morph into one of those?”

“Uh.” He blinked. “What?”

“Animorphs. Old book series,” I muttered. “Never mind. Probably before your time…on Earth.” Which, while we were on the topic—how longwasthat?

“Ten years,” Sky said, like he’d read my mind. Lightning streaked outside the window, illuminating the room in a brief flash of white-blue. “I’ve been here ten years.”

Wow. Ten years. How oldwashe then? I’d have been fourteen when he landed here. I had so many damn questions. They were crowding over themselves, trying to get out.

Focusing on the important ones, I rubbed my forehead with the back of my mace hand. “Okay, back to the human suit. That’s it? No other forms…?”

Like, say, a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em from hell? I braced for his answer. If he turned into some kind of killing machine right now, I was toast. Pepper spray wasn’t going to cut it.

He was frowning at me now. “I can’t shapeshift into other people, if that’s what you’re asking. Or any other races. That’s not how the DNA sequencing works. I’d have to go through the removal of this suit—which is a long, painful process and not always successful—then bond with a new one programmed to the new species. And it only works if they have similar mass. This is my form now.”

He looked down at himself then back up at me. “Is that what you mean?”

No.I was asking if you turn into a murder-y robot.

I shook my head jerkily.

“Okay.” He hesitated, the grooves in his forehead deepening. “Well, this skin does let me alter my appearance one other way. Only slightly, but... ”

He backed into the shadowy corner of my living room. I stiffened, tensing to run. I waited for metal limbs, for claws, for horror.

Instead, his outline shimmered. Darkened.Blurred.

His shape smeared, like pencil shading smudged along the edges. My jaw dropped. He was still there, but hard to see, harder tofocuson. His body bled into the darkness until he became a living, moving shadow.

Essentially, he disappeared.

In a way I’d totally seen before.

I gasped and swayed, colliding with the kitchen counter. Sky snapped back into view, and I lifted the mace in a trembling hand. “You!”

Sky halted in place and eyed me warily. “Me…?”

“The lab…and…last night,” I rasped, the can wavering. “In the trees across the street. Have you beenfollowing me?”

He shot a glance at my shaking hand. That muscle in his temple tightened and released. “It’s not what it looks like. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay. You seemed upset when you left Crescent.”

Upset. That was an understatement. “So what—youstalkedme like some creepy alien peeping Tom?”

His sigh was barely audible over the storm—and the blood roaring in my ears.

“Just tell me,” I ordered, lifting the mace.