Things are getting a little out of control in the body of seventeen-year-old Aurora Destiny Drakeward, and I don’t know how to handle it.
The old man shuffles out, as Taliesin does a gesture, moving his hand to and from his newly shorn chin.
It’s all…strange.
As soon as Spigot is gone, I quirk an eyebrow. “Who was that?”
“Spigot,” he grunts in reply.
“No shit, but you know what I mean. He wasn’t very chatty.”
He runs a hand over his buzzed hair. “Spigot is deaf, Rory. He’s one of the facilities guys here. Comes by every month to clean me up. He does Lay’s hair too.”
Interesting. “How do you pay him? Or does he do it out of the goodness of his own heart?”
Taliesin snorts. “I put word out that he’s not to be harmed on the Digger block, that’s his payment.”
Hmm, I guess that’s definitely worth a shave or two. “So, like, he’s your inside guy?” I ask, still curious.
“Inside guy? No. He may be good for a haircut, but that old shit would sell his grandmother if it benefited him. Why do you think he has the name Spigot?”
“I don’t get it.”
“He runs hot and cold. He’ll be smuggling in tobacco one day, then reporting the recipient to the guards the next. He’s a snitch with a side-hustle. Not, and I repeat, not to be trusted. But he can cut hair, and I’ll stop the guys on the block from giving him a hard time—unless he deserves it.”
I move out of my cage and plonk myself down on his cot for a change of scenery. “I hadn’t thought about how you kept yourhair short. It’s crazy how much one takes for granted, when you don’t have to, you know, figure it out for yourself.”
Taliesin leans closer to me and ruffles my mess of blonde hair. “That why you haven’t kept up your manicure, and all that posh shit?”
I wrestle his arm off, laughing. “I’d settle for a fucking hairbrush, think Spigot could get one of those? Finger-combing is failing big-time. Have you seen my dreads?” I turn and pull up the back of my mane to reveal a hideous amount of knots.
“Shit, Princess. You got a family of mice living in there?” Suddenly, the mattress dips. He drops down onto the cot directly behind me, his large frame radiating a heat that I can feel through my thin uniform. “Here, let me pick it out. I used to do this for Chloe.”
My heart does an annoying, jealous lurch. “Chloe?”
“Cousin. She had thin hair like you.”
“I do not have thin hair!” I exclaim, wincing as he finds a particularly stubborn knot. “It’sfinehair. There is a very big difference between the two, and if you don’t want to get in shit with the ladies, Taliesin, don’t muddle that up.”
“Potato, pot-ah-to. Stop wriggling or I’m going to pull.”
I do what I’m told.
Sitting still, I allow Taliesin to groom me. As his fingers work methodically through the tangles, I close my eyes, lulled by the steady, calloused rhythm of his hands. Every time his knuckles graze the sensitive skin of my nape, a shiver shoots straight down my spine.
Neither of us speaks.
But this silence is nothing like the one between him and Spigot.
Taliesin leans in closer to get at a particularly nasty tangle near my ear, his chest brushing my shoulder, and for a split second, I feel, almost feel, maybe feel—the press of his warm lips againstthe curve of my neck. It’s so light it could be my imagination, or a stray breath.
But it makes heat pool throughout my body.
“Oh, the frequency in here is absolutelyyodeling.”
I jump, nearly ripping a hunk of hair out of Tally’s grip. Layla and Jolene are in the doorway. Jolene’s eyes are wide and, fuck, I don’t know, lusty? It’s weird.
“The pheromonic energy is staggering,” she continues, her hand gliding down to the crotch of her coveralls. “It’s like two tectonic plates grinding together. If you keep this up, the collective alignment is going to result in an orgasm that’ll open a celestial portal.”
