Chapter 7
Low lights and loud music greeted Charlie when he arrived at Lorenzo’s apartment. The place was filled with people, and the mindless party atmosphere immediately loosened a little of the tension in his shoulders.
Maggie spotted him and swayed over. “Hey, you came!” she shouted over the music.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Charlie shouted back. Maggie smiled a little drunkenly, her dainty tusks on display, and Charlie felt a rush of affection.
It did not completely dim his nerves about being here.
When Maggie had texted him about the party, he’d felt as if he couldn’t say no—she’d mentioned that other supes would be here, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Plus, the party sounded fun, and he was psyched at the chance to hang out with Maggie and Rachel more.
He wasn’t going to pass on any of that just because of a dream.
And who didn’t have weird sex dreams from time to time? The only reason for the awkward, prickling tension he was feeling right now was the fact that this dream had been about someone he knew. Someone who was here at this party somewhere, and who he’d eventually have to face.
And because the dream had been, well—upsettingly hot. The dark alleyway, the pulse-pounding fear that’d bled instantly into blistering need, the feeling of being crushed between a brick wall and Lorenzo’s thick, unyielding body . . .
And then there’d been the whole bite of it all.
Some of the details were fuzzy, but he knew he’d dreamt of Lorenzo either attacking him or stalking him, and he’d woken up just before getting fangs in his throat.
Something that, in the dream, he had badly, badly wanted.
Either way, it’d been piercingly, achingly intense. And no fun to wake up from.
But so what? He’d survived as a fat, gay kid in the South; he could handle an awkward sex dream about an acquaintance. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean he actually wanted Lorenzo to grab him by the neck with one hand and squeeze.
He shook his head bracingly and tried to ask in a casual tone of voice, “Is Lorenzo here?”
Maggie couldn’t hear him over the music, so he had to ask again. “Yeah,” she shouted, “I think he’s—”
He turned in the direction she was pointing and found himself face-to-face with Lorenzo, who, upon seeing Charlie, jerked violently, dropping several of the beers he was holding and the contents of a red solo cup.
As the puddle of foamy red blood spread at Lorenzo’s feet, he gaped at Charlie, then glared, and then tried to yell at him over the music.
His rant was barely audible, though, so after a few seconds, and as Charlie watched with mounting amusement, Lorenzo scowled, gave up, and stomped away, presumably to clean up.
Charlie heaved a relieved sigh. So he’d had a sex dream about Lorenzo, but that was just his subconscious; real-life Lorenzo was still a big, goofy dweeb. He had nothing to worry about. “What’s up with him?” he asked Maggie.
“He gets nervous at parties,” she said.
“Why?”
Maggie shook her head sadly, like she’d explained this many times before. “He just does.”
Charlie wanted to ask what she meant, but he was distracted when another woman walked across the room.
He could tell immediately she was supernatural—she seemed to be lit from within, putting off light as if she were a pool of water, soft and rippling.
She was tall and willowy, with pin-straight pale blue hair, and walked past them into the kitchen with an unnaturally smooth, otherworldly gait.
“Who is that?” he breathed.
“Our third roommate,” Maggie said. “Isolde.”
“What is she?”
Maggie waggled her eyebrows, drawing out the suspense for a moment, and then said: “A unicorn.”
“No,” Charlie gasped. Maggie just nodded, very satisfied to have delivered the news. “But she’s—”
“Decided to take on human form for a while,” Maggie said. “I don’t know all the details.”
A glimmer in the corner of his eye caught his attention, and he realized that there was a faint trail of what looked like dust along the floor where Isolde had passed by—dust that was glowing like something under a black light.
He bent down to rub some of it between his fingers.
“Holy shit, she emits glitter?” he said, standing up to observe it more closely.
“That’s amazing. Is this biodegradable? Wait, what am I touching right now. ”
Maggie grinned. “Want me to introduce you?”
They went into the kitchen, where Isolde was standing in front of the sink, staring at the faucet as water poured out. Rachel was standing next to her, holding a mug and tapping her foot impatiently.
“Isolde?” Maggie said. “This is my friend Charlie. He wanted to meet you.”
Isolde craned her neck to stare at him. She was unbelievably beautiful—not colloquially unbelievable, but in a way that truly seemed beyond belief.
Her skin was moonlight blue and impossibly smooth.
She had huge eyes, long eyelashes, and delicate features, and her eyebrows and lower lip were pierced with something that looked like bone.
She seemed to move less than a human would, even down to the speed with which she blinked.
Staring at her, he felt caught between elation and pure terror.
“Hello,” she said. Her voice was soft, raspy, and deep.
“Hi,” he managed. “Nice to meet you.”
Rachel shook her head, seeming exasperated. “Wait for it.”
Isolde said, “You are unchaste.”
He hesitated. “Un . . . unchaste?”
“Impure,” she said. “Sullied by your earthly hungers.”
Rachel leaned past Isolde and clarified: “She means you’re not a virgin.”
“Oh!” Charlie said. “Wow, so the whole thing about unicorns and virgins is not a myth, huh?”
“No,” Isolde said, then turned back to stare at the water pouring out of the faucet.
“Is something wrong with the water?” Charlie asked tentatively.
“No,” Isolde said softly, craning her neck just a bit. “And yes.”
“Wow,” Rachel said. “That’s profound.”
“All water is pure,” Isolde said. “And it is all impure. Just like all of you,” she finished, turning to look at Rachel.
Rachel flushed and glared at everyone in the room before stalking off, her mug forgotten.
Isolde turned back to the water and then shut off the tap before also leaving.
The sound of her footsteps was deeply unsettling for reasons Charlie couldn’t put his finger on at first, before he realized: there was nothing organic about her at all.
The sounds of her footfalls and her clothes rustling as she passed by weren’t soft but crystalline and brittle, like a machine made of finespun glass.
“Wow,” Charlie said to Maggie. “That was—wow. Thanks for the introduction.”
Maggie smiled at him. “You’re fun.”
He stayed for a few minutes to chat with Maggie, but just as they started to head back to the party, Lorenzo came into the room. Once again he stopped short when he saw Charlie, looking uncomfortable. “Hey,” Charlie said.
“Charlie,” Lorenzo said shortly. His pinched expression was swiftly devolving into a glare.
Charlie sighed. He supposed he did owe Lorenzo some sort of apology for hounding him so much over the last few days.
“Look, about last night,” he said lowly, as Maggie sidled past them back to the party.
“I’m sorry if I offended you. I realize I was asking a lot of questions, and—I don’t know. Maybe I was out of line.”
“Uh-huh,” Lorenzo said. His glare softened, but he still looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
Charlie was hit with a grim pang of genuine guilt. “Look, if I touched a nerve or something—I’m sorry,” he offered. “Really.”
“Hm,” Lorenzo said, his dark eyes darting up and then away; but some of the tension left his shoulders.
He still looked like he was itching to get away. Just then, Charlie remembered. “Oh, I almost forgot.”
He dug around in his pocket and pulled out Lorenzo’s new driver’s license. “Here you go.”
Lorenzo just stared at it, shocked. “You didn’t.”
“I did,” Charlie said, trying not to sound smug.
“But—how?” Lorenzo asked. “The rules—”
He shrugged. “I bribed a DMV employee.”
Lorenzo looked thunderstruck. “What?”
“Don’t worry, it’s still a real license,” Charlie said. “I could go to jail, maybe. But I doubt it.”
Lorenzo seemed to be having trouble processing. Charlie glanced at the license. “Good picture of you, though.”
After he just stood there for another moment, Charlie held the license out. “So,” he said, “a deal’s a deal.” As Lorenzo finally reached out to take it from him, he added, “Looks like you’re stuck with me.”
Lorenzo’s fingers brushed Charlie’s as he took the license, and the rough drag of it sent a shiver down Charlie’s spine.
He met Lorenzo’s eye, and suddenly he was right back in that dark, narrow alley, caught in Lorenzo’s arms and the lee of his body; inside the almost painful desire to have Lorenzo’s hands on him, his fangs breaking his skin, his hot mouth dragging down Charlie’s neck.
Lorenzo was staring at him, looking strangely open and lost. And for some reason that reminded Charlie of the dream too.
Lorenzo yanked his hand from Charlie’s and stuffed the license into his back pocket. “Yes,” he muttered, and bolted out of the kitchen.
Charlie swallowed thickly.