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None of the smiling, colorfully dressed waiters who brought over their drinks so much as blinked at the lines of glittering white powder Fury arranged with a sweep of her hand or the plumes of smoke that rippled from Bryce’s parted lips as she tipped her head back to the domed, mirrored ceiling and laughed.
Juniper had a studio class at dawn, so she abstained from the powder and smoke and booze. But it didn’t stop her from sneaking away for a good twenty minutes with a broad-chested Fae male who took in the dark brown skin, the exquisite face and curling black hair, the long legs that ended in delicate hooves, and practically begged on his knees for the faun to touch him.
Bryce reduced herself into the pulsing beat of the music, to the euphoria glittering through her blood faster than an angel diving out of the sky, to the sweat sliding down her body as she writhed on the ancient dance floor. She would barely be able to walk tomorrow, would have half a brain, but holy shit—more, more, more.
Laughing, she swooped over the low-lying table in their private booth between two half-crumbling pillars; laughing, she arched away, a red nail releasing its hold on one nostril as she sagged against the dark leather bench; laughing, she knocked back water and elderberry wine and stumbled again into the dancing throng.
Life was good. Life was fucking good, and she couldn’t gods-damn wait to make the Drop with Danika and do this until the earth crumbled into dust.
She found Juniper dancing amid a pack of sylph females celebrating a friend’s successful Drop. Their silvery heads were adorned with circlets of neon glow sticks chock-full of their friend’s designated allotment of her own firstlight, which she’d generated when she successfully completed the Drop. Juniper had managed to swipe a glow-stick halo for herself, and her hair shone with blue light as she extended her hands to Bryce, their fingers linking as they danced.
Bryce’s blood pulsed in time to the music, as if she had been crafted just for this: the moment when she became the notes and rhythm and the bass, when she became song given form. Juniper’s glittering eyes told Bryce that she understood, had always understood the particular freedom and joy and unleashing that came from dancing. Like their bodies were so full of sound they could barely contain it, could barely stand it, and only dance could express it, ease it, honor it.
Males and females gathered to watch, their lust coating Bryce’s skin like sweat. Juniper’s every movement matched hers without so much as a lick of hesitation, as if they were question and answer, sun and moon.
Quiet, pretty Juniper Andromeda—the exhibitionist. Even dancing in the sacred, ancient heart of the Raven, she was sweet and mild, but she shone.
Or maybe that was all the lightseeker Bryce had ingested up her nose.
Her hair clung to her sweaty neck, her feet were utterly numb thanks to the steep angle of her heels, her throat was ravaged from screaming along to the songs that blasted through the club.
She managed to shoot a few messages to Danika—and one video, because she could barely read any of what was coming in anyway.
She’d be so royally fucked if she showed up at work tomorrow unable to read.
Time slowed and bled. Here, dancing among the pillars and upon the timeworn stones of the temple that had been reborn, no time existed at all.
Maybe she’d live here.
Quit her job at the gallery and live in the club. They could hire her to dance in one of the steel cages dangling from the glass ceiling high above the temple ruins that made up the dance floor. They certainly wouldn’t spew bullshit about a wrong body type. No, they’d pay her to do what she loved, what made her come alive like nothing else.
It seemed like a reasonable enough plan, Bryce thought as she stumbled down her own street later with no recollection of leaving the Raven, saying goodbye to her friends, or of how the Hel she’d even gotten here. Taxi? She’d blown all her marks on the drugs. Unless someone had paid …
Whatever. She’d think about it tomorrow. If she could even sleep. She wanted to stay awake, to dance for-gods-damn-ever. Only … oh, her feet fucking hurt. And they were near-black and sticky—
Bryce paused outside her building door and groaned as she unstrapped her heels and gathered them in a hand. A code. Her building had a code to get in.
Bryce contemplated the keypad as if it’d open a pair of eyes and tell her. Some buildings did that.
Shit. Shiiit. She pulled out her phone, the glaring screen light burning her eyes. Squinting, she could make out a few dozen message alerts. They blurred, her eyes trying and failing to focus enough to read one single coherent letter. Even if she somehow managed to call Danika, her friend would rip her head off.
The screech of the building buzzer would piss off Danika even more. Bryce cringed, hopping from foot to foot.
What was the code? The code, the code, the cooooode …
Oh, there it was. Tucked into a back pocket of her mind.
She cheerfully punched in the numbers, then heard the buzz as the lock opened with a faint, tinny sound.
She scowled at the reek of the stairwell. That gods-damned janitor. She’d kick his ass. Impale him with these useless, cheap stilettos that had wrecked her feet—
Bryce set a bare foot on the stairs and winced. This was going to hurt. Walking-on-glass hurt.
She let her heels clunk to the tile floor, whispering a fervent promise to find them tomorrow, and gripped the black-painted metal banister with both hands. Maybe she could straddle the banister and scoot herself up the stairs.
Gods, it stunk. What did the people in this building eat? Or, for that matter, who did they eat? Hopefully not wasted, stupid-high, half-Fae females who couldn’t manage to walk up the stairs.
If Fury had laced the lightseeker with something else, she’d fucking kill her.
