Page 29 of Dance with Me
Star wouldn’t look at Lucian or Radu, his heart breaking again for failing them. His people, even if they’d taken themselves in a different direction. The place of their birth forged their path.
“Can we visit it?” Yuri asked.
Radu tucked away his violin. “I would love to see it. It sounds like a place I would have adored in my younger years.”
“I’m sorry,” Star said.
“For what?”
“Not telling you of it.”
Radu studied him for a few seconds. “If you had, and my brother or Gabriel had gotten inside, what would have happened to it? Would any of it remain?”
“Probably not,” Lucian answered for Star. “They would have raided the city and tore it to shreds. Those artisans who live in creative splendor would have been the first fodder for the hungry nobles.”
“Then keeping it secret made sense,” Radu agreed. “How about we go tomorrow? We can spend a few days exploring the city.”
“I would love the opportunity to explore General Astarion’s estate,” Lucian added, his gaze intense.
Star swallowed, wanting to curse the pushy bastard. He wasn’t ready to reveal all his failings yet, his obsessions, and his fears. But fine, if they wanted it all stripped bare, and he got sent away, better now than when he let all his guards down. “Fine.Tomorrow then.” He headed inside, heart pounding, and trying not to race for his empty room.
Yuri caught his hand, forcing him to stop, though tears of frustration burned his gaze. He would never pull away from Yuri.
“Curl up with me?” Yuri asked.
“Okay,” Star swallowed, worried he’d be dragged back to the main room and not get a wink of sleep worrying about the men talking around himabouthim, but Yuri tugged him off to the cozy space Yuri claimed for himself. He left everyone else with honeyed words and goodnights. Star couldn’t keep his heart from hammering in his throat. It wasn’t until Yuri wrapped himself around Star in the smaller bed, blankets covering them with the weight of a giant warm hug, that he felt his anxiety ease, and sleep took him.
The morning came too quickly. Yuri fed them a breakfast of fresh bread and jam, light but filling. Theo ate only a nibble, claiming travel always made him nauseous.
Star had only left this world between twice. The first time had been fruitless as he’d searched for Yuri, the second he’d somehow drawn a slew of sentient shadows to him and found himself frozen in terror. He’d been gone long enough that they’d sent Michael to find him, who appeared in a huff, but sent the shadows back into shattered nothingness.
A handful of worlds had destroyed themselves, leaving nothing for the dark to latch onto. The Nephilim’s world was one of those, which meant the shadows from those places wandered to others searching for some place to feed. Star shivered, but said nothing as everyone gathered in the circular section of the front lawn. Lucian crafted the area as an anchor to the cottage.
“Aren’t you going to go horny?” Theo asked Star.
“What?” Star asked. Why would traveling make him horny?
Yuri chuckled. “He means like that,” Yuri pointed as Lucian and Radu came out of the cottage in their Onari forms.
“Oh,” Star said. “I won’t change until we get there.” He would be forced to change when entering Dahna. Auroi’s Onari residents had one large distinction between them and the Onari nobles of old, and that was that they didn’t have a second form. That Lucian and Radu could still change elevated them in status. But that ability had been lost in future generations, as they weren’t meant to hide.
“Does it use a lot of your energy and magic to stay like this?” Yuri asked. He squeezed Star’s hand.
“Not here. But in Dahna, I have to be the other me… it’s not a choice.”
“Oh,” Yuri said. “Do you hate it? Since it’s not a choice?”
“It’s not painful or anything. But I don’t want to frighten you.”
“I’m not afraid,” Theo said. “I love the horns and pretty skin.”
Star didn’t think his horns or skin were pretty in his other form. He didn’t have the fire beneath like Lucian and Radu, rather he felt it looked like a giant bruise as the universe swirled beneath his skin in purple and navy with hints of teal.
Yuri gave him a dazzling smile. “I’m not afraid either.”
Star side-eyed him.
“You don’t believe me?” Yuri raised a brow.
