Sometimes, I sit beside him and lay my hand upon his arm. This seems to soothe him and after a while he turns over and hunches up, growling every so often from the pain. It is during these moments I am at my weakest, his muscular back clearly outlined beneath the Christmas sweater. I want to grip the muscle, feel it, massage it. The muscle of a god. But I stop myself. Yet I can’t deny the attraction is growing stronger.
Casey gets bored. No Horde stumble upon our hideout, or if they do they pass by without so much as a sniff, and Casey seems to take this as a sign we’re safe now. She pads over to me and throws herself in my lap, every inch of her radiating the Little Madam, one of her favorite personalities. The Little Madam is impatient, short-tempered, and detests grownups who don’t give into her.
“Auntie.” Her head is held high. “I want to go out.”
“We can’t go out.”
“I want to go out. It’s boring in here and there’s dust in the air and it’s too dark even in the daytime because you won’t even open the curtains properly. Just a tiny bit you said, because there are bad things out there. But it’s been ages now and there aren’t any bad things so I want to go out.”
She finishes her speech with a smug grin, an I’ve-got-you-now grin.
I shake my head. “The curtain shouldn’t even be open at all.”
Tooth told me we could open the curtains as wide as we liked; the low-level Horde won’t see us anyway, and if a high-level stumbles by, they’ll do more than open the curtains. But I keep them closed for Casey’s sake. I don’t want her peeking out one morning and seeing something monstrous.
“I won’t be long. I’ll just play for a little while and then I’ll come right back in, I promise.”
I stroke her cheek. Wet with tears, I realize with shock. I get the unnerving feeling that she’s about to throw a temper tantrum. Her body begins to tremble and her tiny hands clench into fists. She explodes from my lap like a firecracker.
“It’s not fair!” she rages, circling around the dance studio, tapping her fists against her thighs. “It’s not fair! It’s not fair! I don’t want to just sit in here in the dark and get scared and bored and angry and, and, and—I’m angry!” She stops pacing and collapses onto the floor like a crumpled blanket. Burying her face in her hands, she sobs.
I’m about to go to her when Tooth sits up with a groan. I watch as he rises to his feet, limps across the studio, and kneels next to Casey.
“Girl,” he says, voice deep, a voice which seems to rise out of history and plunge into the present. It’s not loud, but it fills the room.
Casey turns her red eyes up to him. “Mr. Tooth?”
“Are you bored?”
“Very. And Auntie is being a—”
“Lila is doing exactly what she has to. But if you’re bored, I can tell you a story.”
Casey sits eyes him suspiciously. “What kind of story?”
“The best kind. A true story.”
“Does it have dragons in?”
Tooth glances up, as though searching his mind. “Yes, I have a story with a dragon. It is about a small dragon which was really the spirit of an old soothsayer. The dragon was bound to the earth and causing all sorts of problems for a village. I heard about it, thinking it was Horde magic, but when I got there I discovered it was one of the rarest things in this universe of ours. A winged spirit. Rarely, so rarely they turn to myth almost as soon as they leave, the spirit of a magic-wielder will linger behind as a winged creature. Sometimes fairies, sometimes cherubs, and sometimes dragons.”
Casey lets out a gasp. Unable to stop smiling at Tooth—look how quiet he’s made her, look how gently he handled it—I join the two of them. When I take Casey’s hand, she doesn’t fight me. She looks up at Tooth with complete attention.
“Did you slay the dragon, Mr. Tooth?” Casey urges.
“I was going to. But when I saw it, I couldn’t. It wasn’t a very big dragon. Do you have a . . . uh . . . what’s it called, micro . . .”
“Microwave!” Casey says eagerly.
Tooth nods. “It was about the size of a microwave with wings twice as big as its body. Its neck was long and its head was as small as a golf ball. I captured it, it was easy enough, and I held it in a cage. But I didn’t take it back to the villagers because I felt it in the Other. It was not a dragon. It was a person. I sat down with it and we had a talk.”
“A talk? How did it talk?”
Tooth taps the side of his head. “It talked to me up here. It—she, I should say—told me her story. She was a soothsayer for the village, a fortune teller, but she never charged for her services and supported herself by sewing fine, functional dresses. She never lied and she even advised the people on how to be happier. But then a lumberjack from the village wanted to . . . eh, marry her, and she refused. She didn’t like him very much. And when she refused, he . . .” Tooth looks at me. “Maybe this isn’t a story for children.”
“What did he do?” Casey gasps. “Please, Mr. Tooth, tell me!”
“He killer her, sweetie,” I say quietly, stroking her cheek.
“Dead. Like Mommy and Daddy?”
I feel a stab in my belly. “Like Mommy and Daddy.”
Casey’s forehead creases. After a second, she beams. “And then the lady became the dragon because she was so sad!”
“That’s right,” Tooth says.
“And you saved her?”
“Yes. I sent her on her way.”
“How?”
Tooth considers. I know what he did without having to ask. He killed the man who tried to have sex with the soothsayer, who slaughtered her when she refused. He killed the lumberjack and the winged spirit flew into stardust. Instead, he smiles down at Casey and says: “I sang her a song.”
“I’m tired now,” Casey announces to the room in general. “Auntie, tuck me in, please.”
I mouth thank you to Tooth, scoop Casey up, and tuck her into the nook. I pull the curtain and return to Tooth, holding him by the arm as he limps to the edge of the room. “Four more days, I think.” He groans as I lower him to the floor. “Four more days, and my strength will be back. We can make a push for the border, get out of here, and then . . .”
“And then . . .”
“And then I keep you safe.”
I realize I’m still holding onto his arm, leaning into him. I realize, too, that my lips are parted and my tongue is hovering in my mouth, tingling, expecting. The muscle of his arm is like steel through the thin fabric of the sweater.
He watches me, a pained expression on his face. “I need to rest.”
He knows what I want, I think. He knows I want to kiss him. I can feel it. And yet he pushes me away. Why? Perhaps he is not attracted to me. Possible, but I don’t think that’s it. I can feel it in him. And not just because we are linked. I can feel the lust radiating from him as any woman can tell when a man wants her.
I watch him for a long moment and then return to the other side of the room.
I feel his eyes on me as I walk, tracing the curves of my body. But when I look over at him, his gaze is fixed on the ceiling.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tooth
For a day and half the night I fight a war inside myself.
She wanted to kiss me.
I could see it in her face. I could feel it, too, an atmosphere around her, hot and hungry. The Woman of Starlight wanted to kiss me.
But I couldn’t do it, can’t do it. I don’t know what will happen if I do, and in my long years I’ve learnt that if something has an unexpected result, the result is usually bad. Life has lots of tricks up its sleeve, but treats are rare and often turn out to be tricks in the end. Perhaps that makes an old demi-god cynical, but if I’m cynical the world has made me so.
But despite everything, I am a man. A man who’s lived longer than any other man. A man with vampire-sharp teeth. A man with inhuman strength. A man with magical abilities. A man who can touch the fabric of the universes. But a man all the sam
e. And lying here, my man’s body yearns for Lila.
I find myself looking across at her, watching the way she folds her lithe legs beneath her, gazing at the curve of her neck, looking into her determined, beautiful, fighter’s face. She leans over to close the door of the toilet, and I watch her, the bend of her body, the way her pants hug her.
I watch as she walks across the darkness back to her sleeping position on the other side of the room. I think of Casey, blanketed and cozy behind the curtain, and then of Lila, cold and alone on the other side of the room. I have no need of warmth; temperature is indifferent to me. But Lila, alone and unembraced in the autumn air, shivers in her sleep and wraps her arms around herself.
She is cold. The Woman of Starlight does not deserve to be cold. You are a man. You are the only man in this world who can ever fully understand her. You do not have to kiss her, Tooth, you can just hold her . . .
“Lila,” I call across the darkness, careful to keep my voice low lest I wake Casey.
“Yes?” she whispers.
“I . . . uh . . .” And here we come to the biggest joke about you, Tooth. Not my voice now, but the voice of the all-father, mocking. You’ve waited so long for your lady made of stars that you never bothered to learn about women, did you? “Are you cold?” I blurt.
Lila giggles softly. “Yes, I’m cold. I’ve been cold since we got here. And Casey likes to keep her nook to herself.”
“I know.” My chest is tight. “I was wondering . . . if you want . . . I could hold you . . .”
Lila laughs again, kindly. “I was hoping you’d say that one of these nights.”
She walks across the room to me. It is dark, but my eyes pick out each one of her movements. As she walks across the studio, I imagine her dressed in her dancing gear, flying across the tiles. She drops next to me, folds up a blanket she found in the nook, and lays it under her head. Then she shuffles into me, her waist near my crotch.
Awkwardly, I drape my arm over her.
“Are you okay?” she asks uncertainly.
“Yes, it’s just . . .” I swallow. Dammit! “I’ve never been this close to a woman.”
Lila turns. “Really?” she says, shocked. “Have you seen you, Tooth? I mean, have you ever looked into a mirror? Here, I’ll show you.” She points to the wall-mirror. “You’re tall, muscular, strong, brave, kind, and funny. You’re good with children. And you’ve lived longer than any man. Much longer. How is this even possible?” There is no meanness in her voice, just curiosity.
“All my life,” I say, “ever since I was even younger than Casey, I have dreamed of the Woman of Starlight. Women have shown interest in me, of course—”
“Of course?” Lila winks.
I grin, her playfulness disarming me.
“For all the reasons you just said. But I have never thought about taking another woman. Whenever I got close, it didn’t feel right. No, more than that. It felt like I was about to step over the edge of a cliff. It felt like life would end, my purpose would fly away, if I stepped over that edge. Only her—you—would change that. So, yes, ladies and shield-maidens and geishas and tribeswomen and poets and even a queen have shown an interest in me, but I never wavered. It didn’t matter that the Woman of Starlight was not yet born. In my mind, I would still be cheating on you.”
Lila’s expression changes from playful to something I cannot read. I wonder if I’ve scared her in some way, but then a soft smile touches her lips. She can have no idea how much something as simple as a smile means when it comes from her. Her smile is the sweetest tune from a harp, each plucked string tugging at something deep and older than time inside of me.
“Wow,” she says. “Just . . . wow. I’ve got to say, I’m . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“Let me hold you. Just let me hold you and listen to your breathing as you go to sleep.”
She touches my face, and then nods. She turns over and I wrap my arms around her properly, one arm underneath her and the other around her torso. I pull her into me and she nuzzles her face into my arm.
After a few minutes, something strange happens.
I hug her closer and closer until she is pressed right against me, and then, with a lurch, I feel the Other inside of me shoot out of my belly and connect with the starlight inside of her. Two streams—and they collide.
I know we’re not floating, can’t be floating, but it feels like we are. Hooks and chains and steel encase the bond between us.
“What’s happening?”
“I have no idea,” I respond.
But the bond spreads warm hands of pleasure throughout me. And if Lila’s sighing breaths are anything to go by, the same is happening to her.
We float, higher and higher. I know I should let go. I know something unknown, unknowable, is about to happen.
But I can’t let go.
She is too full of warmth.
I am helpless before her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lila
I am the only woman he has ever wanted, I think as I press myself against him. He has waited all his long life for me. Nobody else. Think of all the popular girls at school, Lila, all the girls who made fun of you because your clothes were cheap and booze-stained and sometimes you hadn’t showered and your red hair was a tangled mess. Think of all those girls and the way all the guys chased them like dogs. Tooth wouldn’t want any of them, wouldn’t even look at them. He only wants you.
I get warm with the thought. I don’t doubt the truth of it for a second. It’s there, inside of him. No, not inside anymore. And my starlight . . .
The energy inside of us leaps out, connects, fuses, until we are bound. Not just connected as we were before, but bound, as though with shackles.
“Tooth . . .”
My voice is suddenly faraway. I realize I’m floating above myself. I look down at me and Tooth, holding each other. Our eyes are closed and our chests rise and fall softly. I try to flex my fingers, my toes, but the prostrate woman on the floor doesn’t respond. After a moment, I realize I have no fingers or toes; I don’t have a body. The starlight inside of me, the Other inside of Tooth—it has thrown us skyward.
“I’m here.” His voice is impossibly distant and yet so close it’s like he’s speaking inside my head. A voice thrown across the universe.
“What’s happening?” I ask, floating higher.
I—whatever I am—float through the ceiling of the cabin and up into the night sky. I float toward black clouds. The town of Love’s Spring grows small. I see Main Street, the cabin, the school, the suburbs, the fields and the roads, all laid out like so many toy bricks. I puncture black clouds and ascend through the atmosphere. I should be scared, but I’m not. Tooth is here. I do not have a hand, but, somehow, he holds my hand. His energy touches my energy and we join, twist together, and fly.
“I don’t know,” his close-yet-far voice says. “This has never happened, in all my years.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know.”
Now, we are above Earth, a round green-blue bosom, the clouds and the mountains and the craggy lines of countries staring up at us as though from a picture. I want to reach out and touch it, but it seems so small and vulnerable. I feel Tooth’s arms around me. He nudges me away from Earth. We turn and soar through black space to Mars, a blood-soaked tennis ball. The sun throws out explosive rays, a thousand nuclear explosions cascading silently into the abyss.
“This is your power. His voice is full of wonder. “Lila, all of this . . . it is not even a fraction of your power. Do you see it? Do you feel it?”
“Yes.” If my voice existed, if it was powered by a voice box and air and lungs and a tongue, it would be awe-filled.
We fly faster, hurtling past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, speeding by them at millions of miles per second. We fling clear of our solar system and surge through open space. We fly faster and all at once a thousand stars explode in a fiery mess of light and soundless majesty
around us. Tooth directs my gaze here and there, ricocheting lances of star-made energy coughing into deep space. We spy planets, too many to count, some with leaves and trees and seas like our planet, others dead and barren and lifeless, endless expanses of icy cold and yawning vistas of red-hot stone.
We dart down into the atmospheres of new planets. “You are a god, Lila. Or . . . something close to a god. You can see all. There is great power inside of you. You are the most important person who has ever been born. I don’t . . . We should go back.”
We drift between forests unlike anything on earth, leaves every color of the rainbow, animals with absurd legs and arms, too many eyes, birds the size of dragons, furred beasts the size of dinosaurs. We delve into deep crags, whizzing past ice and lava and fire and frozen seas and giant paintings on the stone. We ascend to space, and we spin over and over until we are at another star, another solar system, another galaxy. We reach the ends of the universe in less than a second, time shrinking.
As we soar, I feel Tooth inside of me, his power surging through me, and mine through him. A union which is beyond anything I imagined possible. A union of starlight, of distant lands, of the incomprehensible vastness of the universe, all laid out inside us like two halves of a puzzle.
“Why?” I ask.
I see what looks like a huge, universe-shrouding sheet of pure white. At first I think it’s a star, but as we get closer, I see that it’s not a star but a blanket the size of a billion billion suns, thrown over the edge of the universe. I try to peer through the blanket, but the light is too bright. If I had eyes, I would squint. But all I can do is gaze and search.
“This is the Other,” Tooth says. “This is the fabric of the universe. This is what the Horde want to tear apart. They want to use you to do it, Lila. I see it all so clearly now. I have never seen the Other like this. Lila, the power inside of you . . . I used to think of you as a nuclear bomb. You are far, far, far more powerful than that. You are to a nuclear bomb what a nuclear bomb is to a cherry bomb.” He stops. I imagine him taking a breath. “We have to turn back. I fear what will happen if you touch the Other. I fear the power will overwhelm you.”
Tooth: An Alpha Like No Other (A Song of Starlight Book 1) Page 9
