Shadowfae (32 page)

My skin glowed blue with desire. Shiny things get me all warm and wriggly. I won’t get to keep them. We owe the Valenti gang too much protection money. But just for tonight, they’re mine. And what harm ever came from something shiny?

Behind me, Blaze rubbed his cheek against my wing, sparks showering from his pretty red hair. Ooh, tingles, all down my side like sugar. I wriggled my shoulders, fluttering golden dust that danced in manic spotlights and rippled in the glassy static of glamour. Blaze is my best friend, a dazzling firefae boy with cute muscles and a naughty sharp-toothed smile, and his glamour is good. I mean, it’s really good. Humans won’t see the fine crimson wings like a dragonfly’s, the cheeky flame dripping from his fingers, his narrow fae-muscled body. They just see a cute redhead with naughty black eyes.

Me? Well, I do my best, but glamour isn’t my forte. My nose looks a bit less pointy, my hair more blond than orange, my garish yellow skin fades to human tones. That’s about it. Glamour or not, I’m still the same geeky old me.

Blaze slid his arm over my shoulder to offer his fingertip, wet and adorned with a shimmering purple pill.

Naughty boy. I giggled, licked off the pill and swallowed. It had a bitter sting, but his finger tasted of sherbet, sparkly and sweet.

He rubbed his sharp nose in my hair, and I laughed, my blood hot and urgent, my head awhirl with fizzy-sweet vodka and the thrill of our night’s work. Forget the Valentis. Forget the world. Just me and my diamonds; jumping, twirling, dancing until I dropped. Yes.

Next to me, a blue-haired vampire kid in leather and his girl were kissing, bloody spit trickling on her chin as she swayed to the music, his fingers sliding beneath her skirt. A pair of shirtless trolls scoped for girls, sweat glistening on bulging green muscles and bell-pierced nipples. One winked at me, flicking ragged black hair from shiny eyes, and I pretended not to see him.

“Spice for Ice,” Blaze yelled, sparks showering. He’s allowed to make fun of my unfortunate name. He sizzled my pointed ear with his tongue. Shivers. Mmm. More tongue, slower and wetter than strictly necessary. Bet he’s got a hard-on.

I arched my butt backwards and giggled again. Oh, yeah. He’s wearing suction-tight leather pants—how he gets those on, I’ll never know—and they don’t leave much to the imagination.

I grinned, chemical warmth already glowing in my guts. Blaze feels as good as he looks, and when he’s sparkled to the eyeballs and high from housebreaking and too much broken glass, he always tries something. But we’re just friends. We’ve got rules, and they don’t include dragging each other out back for a hot dirty shag.

Blaze is my lucky charm. Other guys will laugh at me or hit me or play tricks on me just to watch me cry. Fairy girls get that. It’s a harsh fae-taunting world out there. Every week you hear about a new fairyslasher, a sadist, a murderer on the loose. Fairies aren’t people, see. We’re whispers, shadows, irrelevancies sheathed in desperate glamour so we won’t stand out or offend anyone or make anyone feel uneasy. We’re just flotsam, bobbing on the surface of real people’s lives. We just hang out and party. It’s what we’re here for. No one cares if we die or hurt or bleed.

But I know I’m safe with Blaze, even if he is a horny little rat.

That hunky troll bumped my hip, his beady black gaze slithering down over my ass, and Blaze snarled wet sparks at him and spun me away.

I giggled, and wriggled to face him, static shifting. He tossed blood-red hair and threw me that dazzling Blaze grin. He cuts his hair short in the back and scrunches it wildly too long at the front, so he can shake it back like that and skewer you with his dirty come-taste-me stare.

But I know he doesn’t mean it, not with me. He’s just having fun. I tickled his pointy red teeth with my claw. “Go rub that thing on someone else, ya dirty whore.”

He slid bony fingers over my hip, keeping me just an inch or two away. His scent zinged my nose, fresh like a newly-struck match. Rakish golden rings glinted in his pointy ears, and his studded, black velvet jacket was cropped at his smooth hip, with nothing underneath. Sweat caressed his narrow muscles in all the right places. He flicked his smoldering gaze to the bar for a second, ruby sparks jumping from his lips. “I can taste green. Azure’s watching us. Wanna tease her a bit?”

Azure’s our other best friend; as pretty and awesome as Blaze. I looked. She was, indeed, watching him, with that shiny glaze over her eyes that meant trouble. “You’re cruel,” I said.

“You’re scared,” he shot back. He edged closer, sweat-slick skin sliding on my bare midriff. My breasts pressed against his chest, burning.

Already the purple pill flowered deep and hot inside me. It can’t be desire. I’m far too sensible to want Blaze. Indignation lifted my eyebrows. “Am not. I’m sensible.”

“To hell with sensible. Let’s be reckless. I’m good at reckless.” He wetted his plum-red lips, and the smell of that moisture tripped warm, dizzy waves in my skull. Hot fae boy. Lips. Diamonds.

I couldn’t keep the giggles in any longer, and I shoved him in the chest, tipping him backward. “What you are is a naughty boy with a hard-on. Get a girlfriend.” And I turned and pushed my way through the fragrant crowd, laughter floating from me like starlight on the swelling currents of my high.

Colors tumbled and prismed. My diamonds dazzled me, and I stumbled over my own ankles a few times as I approached the blue neon bar. Azure pointed at me and giggled, pearlescent wings jittering as she swayed on her stool. She wore a jagged-hemmed white dress that left her back bare, and she’d piled her green hair above her head in a wild nest of knots and stolen pearls, a pair of broken chopsticks, and a cocktail fork sticking out.

My purple-drugged heart swelled with love and awe. Azure’s the pretty one. Her glamour shows some weirdly beautiful supermodel, tall and willowy, with wide-spaced almond eyes. Her real appearance is the same, only with shimmering oval wings, and her skin is a dozen perfect shades of pale airfae blue.

Whereas my hair looks kinda like mango peel, half green and half moldy orange, and my wings are burnt yellow, ragged and droopy, like a sick butterfly’s.

Some girls have all the luck.

Azure poked my chin with a sharp claw. “You’re drunk, diamond girl.”

“Not true. I’m high. You’re the one who’s drunk.” I jumped up and down, unsteady on my heels, until the bar boy noticed me and served me two pink vodka lemonades without my asking. Maybe I was drunker than I thought. Still plenty of stolen cash left, though. I tossed him a crumpled twenty, waving my diamonded wrist grandly. “Keep it, peaches. Stop looking at him like that.”

Azure said nothing, and I lurched onto a stool and tickled her slender ribs. “I said, stop staring at him.”

“Who?” She tossed her pretty blue head, her wings aflutter, and concentrated too hard on stirring her drink.

“Oh, I dunno, the woolly mammoth in the corner? Who d’ya think?”

She thumped her chin into her hand and her elbow onto the bar, sea-green moisture staining her eyes. “But he’s so pretty.”

Guilt twinged my happy guts, and I patted her shoulder clumsily. “Yeah, I know. But it’s an orchid farm in here, okay? Look around. There’s other pretty ones.”

“Not like him.” She hiccupped and burst into proper tears, her wings flooding verdant.

I sighed. Last month she had the hots for some sweet blond vampire babe. This week it was Blaze. She’d get over it. But my heart still ached for her. Just because she falls quick doesn’t mean she doesn’t fall hard. And Blaze is the Court’s biggest boy-whore. He’ll only break her heart.

I slipped my arm around her bony shoulder and pointed to the dance floor, where Blaze was trickling orange flame down some laughing banshee’s spine, singeing the ends of her long silver hair. “Look at him. See that girl he’s dancing with? In the shiny silver dress? Oh, now he’s tongue-kissing her, he’s putting his hand up her . . . yeah. You really want that to be you?”

Az just looked at me.

I flushed, vodka-tainted water heating my muscles. Maybe I wasn’t quite making my point. “Okay, let’s not look at that anymore.” Firmly, I spun her back around to the bar.

She glared, wet-eyed. “You’re a real big help, Ice.”

I gulped my vodka, pink fizz shooting fireworks up my nose. “So he’s boy candy, everyone knows that. You also know what a bitch he can be. Whaddaya want me to say?”

“Promise you’ll never go with him.”

I flushed again, and this time the water burned my cheeks. “What?”

“Butterflies in the sun. I’ve seen him flirt with you. Promise me you’ll never.”

“Never flirt with him?” Discomfort twisted, ruining my high. Why dissemble? We were best friends. That’s all. Even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have the courage to pursue it further. Believe it or not, I’m not too smooth with the boys, and courage is
not
my middle name.

Azure swatted my shoulder. “You know what I mean.”

“Hide-and-seek, catch-me-if-you-can. It’s just games—”

“Promise, Ice. I couldn’t bear it.”

She stared, so earnest and brimful with tears that I couldn’t take it. “Okay, I promise. Call me a pincushion and shove safety pins up my nose if I’m wrong. It’s the rules anyway, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.” Azure gave a sad half-smile.

I hugged her, my hand slipping beneath her delicate wings. “You’ll get over him, Az.”

She hugged me back, and I felt better. I had nothing to hide. She sniffed, wiping snot on my shoulder. “I wish I was like you, Ice. You’re the sensible one.”

I thought of Blaze’s tongue in my ear and giggled. “Yeah, that’s me. Sense, dense, intense. Dripping out my ears, it is. Of course, you wanna be me. Why wouldn’t you? You’re only the prettiest, cleverest girl in the whole world.”

She kissed me, a sweet taste of sky-blue lips, and gamely wiped her tears away in green streaks. “You’re nice. Let’s get drunk and find some boys.”

Meaning, I’d get smashed, she’d get prettily tipsy, she’d find more boys than she had hands for, and I’d get the leftovers who were too plain to interest her and too shitfaced to care that she was a hundred times more beautiful than me. But what are best friends for?

“Yes, yes, yes.” I paid for two more drinks and we clinked glasses. Sugar and alcohol burst into my brain like flares, and my nose fizzed.

Azure gasped. “Raspberries and ice cream. More.”

“Careful, there’s a fairyslasher on the loose.”

She snorted. “S’always a fairyslasher. More.”

I ordered more, and we chugged again. This time the froth did come out of my nose, laced with plummy drug-charmed mirth. I laughed, splurting pink bubbles onto the guy next to me. “Whoa. Sorry, dude.” I yanked up my skirt hem to wipe his arm clean, but the frills were too short. My heels skidded out from under me and I landed in his lap in a giggling, spluttering heap.

Oops. I craned my neck up to apologize, and my laughter strangled.

Not again.

Dark blue skin, dusted with copper, so smooth and perfect it’s unreal. Black hair so crisp it curled jagged. Eyes the velvety gray of softened steel. Long narrow wings like silver-shot glass.

My senses tumbled, intoxicated with hot metal scent. Warm midnight-blue hands steadied me, and my belly melted inside me like chocolate fudge sauce on ice cream, running everywhere. I inhaled molten iron and hot fairy skin. . . .

Fluid scorched into my wing veins, swelling them tight. I held my breath. Calm, Ice. He’s touching you. You’ve practically got your face in his lap. Say something really cool and seductive.

“Oh. Um. Hi, Indigo. It’s me.”

Yeah. That
so
wasn’t it.

Effortlessly, Indigo lifted me to my feet. Rusty wing-glitter shimmered warm on my shoulders. His coppery claws grazed my wrist, and tiny electric shocks crackled up my arms, sparking my diamonds blue.

I stared, my fingerpads itching. He wore black, as usual, jeans and a sleeveless shirt that showed off lean blue arms.

I wanted to rub my cheek against them, tickle my tongue along his biceps. Metalfae are usually twisted hunchbacked little monsters with razor-sharp metal teeth and an attitude. Indigo, well, he’s tall and sculpted and moves lightly, like a cat burglar, but he’s still got razor-sharp metal teeth and an attitude. Licking is strictly off limits, especially for a no-account geek girl like me.

He surveyed me, steely eyes cool. “Nice diamonds.”