“Still not a flair master, huh?” Snow teases, perched on a barstool with a mop resting across her shoulders like a sword.
“It’s the bottle,” Aurora huffs, retrieving it. “She’s a slippery little traitor. Betrayed me mid-spin.”
Ariel, seated at the end of the bar with a bucket of clean towels in her lap, grins. “Maybe if you stop naming your bottles and forming emotional attachments, they won’t betray you.”
“I only name the ones I like,” Aurora says with mock indignation. She lifts the bottle again, narrowing her eyes. “You get one more chance, Elena.”
Snow snorts so hard she nearly drops her phone. “Elena?”
Ariel is there taking photo after photo with her camera.
From across the room, I sink back into my booth, elbows resting on the table, watching them. Letting the moment settle.
Aurora will need to feed again.
Moving here and pretending she could outrun her curse and deny her needs hasn’t panned out. We haven’t discussed it, but I doubt she’ll submit to going home.
She was not fully satisfied today which means she'll likely need to feed sooner. A matter of weeks? Maybe even days?
Can we keep doing this? Keep going to seedy motels and arranging hookups that I need to constantly yank her back from the brink of killing?
Do we become vigilantes as I try to stalk the night and find bad people that the world would be better off without? I don't know this world. Not like our own. Back in the Realm of Roses I had contacts, I knew when things were amiss and where darkness went to nest. Here I lack the advantage and have no idea I would get it.
I rub my forehead as a tightness forms around my skull, signaling the beginning of a headache.
A couple glasses clank down hard in front of me, causing me to start.
"You look like you need a drink."
I look up to see Rap slide in the oversized booth, setting a bottle of brown liquor with an illustration of a ship being tossed on a tumultuous ocean next to the two glasses.
"Jolly Roger Rum," she says, doling out two healthy pours. "It's good shit."
I take her offering and clink glasses before giving it a healthy slug. It's sweet and smooth with a burn that only fans my inner fire. Rap kicks back the rest of hers and waits for me to do the same before pouring again.
This one slightly dulls my thoughts, and I feel a small sense of relief.
"Already better, huh?" she asks while looking at the glass she rolls between her fingers.
How does this woman seem to see into things so well?
"Yeah. Tough. . .week."
Rap nods as if in solidarity, though she has no idea what the past twenty-four hours have been.
"So...Dragons. They have a lot of interesting features." She pours another glass for both of us. This time I only sip it, wary of the bar owner.
"Their flesh burns flesh. They breathe fire. Very few of their kind left, or so we think. They are solitary creatures."
I don’t know why she’s listing all my traits to me. It's all very conversational, but the rum buzz is really kicking up in my stomach and loosening my muscles.
"You know a lot about my kind,” I say. Perhaps she wants credit yet again for sussing me out? Though that doesn't seem right. This woman doesn't acquire information for vanity's sake. No, she gathers it for protection.
"I also know Dragons are immune to a lot of other fae powers." Her voice is low, casual, like we’re just chatting after hours, but I know better. She’s measuring me.
The bar owner swirls the rum in her glass. "Take the Rosari, for example. Most people think they move out to those lush, peaceful lands for the slower pace of life, but there’s more to it." Her gaze flicks toward the darkened end of the bar where Aurora’s laugh carries. "The Rosari are what some call energy vampires. Their regions attract people riddled with anxiety, emotional instability, burnout. It’s symbiotic—the Rosari feed off that excess energy, and in return, the humans feel lighter. More balanced."
She pauses long enough to refill both our glasses.
