Page 10 of Claiming Starlight
“No. Older.”
“How old?”
“It’s hard to tell with shifters. Younger than you. Older than me.”
He tapped a finger on his cheek. “That’s it?”
“On their hands, they had diamond shapes. And black bands that looked like the old bar codes.”
He grunted again.
“You know who they are?”
“Not mine. I know all who are mine. Diamonds are not mine. The tattoos are from this world, so the red-bloods can get a clue. You’re not from around here, which means there’s a fuck lot you don’t know about shifters and who is on the side of what.” His big hand caught her wrist, her own fry held aloft in the air. He brought it to his mouth, lips enclosing the food until they touched her fingertips. Soft and warm. Sophie froze a second too long, the exchange too fascinating. Micahbotheredher. She shouldn’t feel this flutter anywhere on her body, under her skin, in her chest. The back of her neck shouldn’t grow hot, and her nipples, suddenly and inexplicably, should not feel raw and hard.
“Not yours?” she repeated numbly.
“No. I keep only stars.”
“Are you going to take me home? What is this? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know, Sophie. What is happening?” He was still holding her hand, much to her dismay.
She shook her head. She wasn’t sure, but it was frightening.
“You come to the worst part of the city, a sweet, clean, virgin thing. A lost little kitten wandering where the worst of the mangy wild dogs roam. You come here looking for a brother, trusting a troll for fuck’s sake, and now you’re stuck with no money. Your guardian doesn’t know where you are, does she? Nobody knows, because they don’t like their little lambs wandering from the fold.”
Sophie whimpered. She couldn’t help it. His eyes burned her skin. Dangerous, Knowing. Below the table, her legs twitched with a primal need to flee. But there was no place to run. He was a werewolf thug big bad wolf. He was a man who took what he wanted and didn’t second-guess himself.
And he wanted her.
Chapter Two
Micah
The girl was so fucking innocent and clean. Micah couldn’t believe she actually existed. Small, curvy, and young added up to bright fucking starlight. With blue eyes that reminded him of robin’s eggs, clearer than his own, and hair that didn’t know if it was platinum blonde or pure, valuable silver. She lit up the night.
He’d known she’d be there, out on the street. When he could finally get in the guzzler and go see what the fuss was about going around the neighborhood, her surreal glow smacked him hard in the gut and squeezed his cock to attention in a way he wasn’t prepared for. His watchers told him pretty. They didn’t say glow in the dark, incredible smelling, perfect little kitten.
Fool girl who didn’t know that eyes followed her from the moment she crossed the border, keeping tabs at every place she stopped and paying attention to every question she asked. Sophie might live with blue-bloods famous for chessboard like game power plays, but she did not know how dirty and low a true animal played the game.
He thought at first it was a setup; a girl dangled before the hungry like poisoned meat, set up by Micah’s own enemies to distract him from all the other shit happening in his territory. Then he got word her troll ride turned up parked crooked under eyeninety. His watchers found the ecocab at the curb with a caltrop stuck in one wheel and the dead, throat-chewed driver hanging out the front seat, unable to complete his deal and pick up sweet-bait Sophie at the agreed upon time and place.
He let her do her thing all the good long day, thinking the culprit who killed her driver would come out of the woodwork to snatch her.
When it got dark, Micah could wait no longer. Maybe the troll killer knew him well enough to know he had eyes on her and that’s why they hadn’t sown. He didn’t know, but there were other hunters–mindless fae-related animals with brains one step above leeches–that came out on wet rainy nights to feed. He wasn’t going to waste a gifted human leaving her to chance.
Sitting scrunched up against the door and as far away from him as she could get after they’d eaten and piled back in the car, one might think the future professional virgin didn’t like him. But Micah knew firsthand she liked him well enough. His touch made her pant, made mating-scent ooze from her every human gland, made her skin prickle—curious and afraid. Girl might have recognized him as a wolf before he got out of his car, might have some kind of crazy relationship with magic he didn’t understand fully yet, but she had no resistance at all to natural sexual chemistry.
He made her squirm, sit up, take notice. It was hard not to love that. Not the first red-blood to find him attractive—it went with the territory as an alpha—but she was such an incredible, bitable morsel of innocence that he found himself enthralled. If it were as simple as just wanting to dick her down, he could let her go after he was done, but two seconds after meeting her, he knew it was more than that. Much more.
She glanced at him, scented him like a drug addict, then looked back out the window, chin tipped down, blood rushing to the surface of her skin, and was ashamed of herself. He knew it. She didn’t want to want him, told herself he was dangerous, and she should run, kill that growing curiosity about him before it got out of hand. Her thoughts were all over her face, body, and scent. She hid nothing.
He could respect her feelings. They were legitimate. He was dangerous, and she’d be better off not having met him. Too late, though. Finders’ keepers. He wasn’t letting clean, innocent, and deliciously sweet like this walk away easy as she pleased.
Sleeping together was going to change her life irrevocably. She’d deal. The cut-and-dried plan mapped out for her yesterday by her masters was no longer a workable proposition for her. He wasn’t letting starlight escape his fingers.
He glanced at his knuckles. Stars were his.
