City of Dawn by Kat Ross

Author:Kat Ross [Ross, Kat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781957358055
Publisher: Acorn Publishing

They slipped across the Isle of Dreams together, hand in hand. Wild music skirled through the trees, its strains mingling with human voices raised in talk and laughter. A hundred heady scents tickled his nose. Pickled fish and perfumed throats. Smoke from the braziers and the crisp citrus notes of orange blossoms.

Lucy had drawn every eye, but now he was nothing and no one. A ghost drifting through the revelries, passing so close he felt the heat of their bodies. So close he could have reached out and plucked the sugared treats from their fingers.

They avoided the busiest pathways where large groups reeled along together, arms linked, debating which entertainment to indulge in next. Had his aunt Beleth been here, she would be among them, unable to resist the debauchery.

Balaur was different. A spider who was most at home lurking in the center of his web. Malach knew he would be at the Luban embassy. Expecting visitors.

When the compound appeared ahead, he pulled Nikola into a cluster of date palms at the lakeshore. The ley bent the light around them, but he could see her face clearly in the moonlight. So beautiful it thickened the blood in his veins, made him both sluggish and painfully aware.

“I thought of you,” he murmured. “On stage.”

She gazed up at him warily. “Not because I’m a cold-hearted bitch, I hope.”

“The contrary.” Her hands were warm in his. “I just liked the beat.”

Nikola laughed. “Here I was, so worried about you, and you were traveling with gorgeous, kind-hearted drag queens.”

“They’re called the Blessed here. And they make my own meager talents dwindle in comparison. I hope you can see Sultana perform someday. And Koko. They’re amazing.”

“What about Alexei?”

“We’ve moved on.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” She hesitated. “And us?”

“I would do anything for you, Nikola,” he said carefully. “I just want you to be happy.”

“Same here. You, I mean.”

“Is there any chance these two happy lives might coincide?”

The silver pirate tooth gleamed as her smile widened. “I rule nothing out.”

He bent his head and kissed her. She smoothed the hair back from his brow. A smile curled the corner of her mouth. “Okay, Lucy.”

He felt completely at ease with her. As if every harsh word and colossal mistake had happened to other people. They hadn’t, of course, but that was the magic of love. It let you wipe the slate clean, again and again.

“You’re my best friend, you know,” he said. “My favorite person in the whole world.”

She blinked in surprise. A bullfrog’s baritone sang in the rushes, answered by a chorus of harmonic chirps that rang like silvery bells against the surface of the lake.

“I remember that sound from Bal Kirith,” she said. “It kept me awake at night.”

“Peepers.” Malach smiled. “Beleth called them the chorum nocturno. The night choir.”

“I like that.” She spread her palm over his heart. “I hated it there, but I never regretted going with you, Malach.”

He covered her hand with his own. He hadn’t bothered to take off the long red nails.

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