Page 87 of Creatures that Breathe

“It’s better than it was,” I defend. “And it doesn’t matter. Creatures see me, like to see me, but they don’t care who I am, if I have a name or dreams. If I’m smart. If I’ve read anything juicy and interesting lately. They see a body for them to use or leer at or hate.”

Cross’s arm wraps around my shoulders, fingers dipping into the collar of my sweatshirt, knuckles stroking down my neck, dripping heat into me. We’re close. Breathing the same air, he smells a bit like the orange slice, and barley.

He frees an azure tendril of hair of its prison, and curls it around his finger, watches it with avid fascination.

Plates have materialized on our table, the salt burn of home fries, and cut sausage.

“Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable,” he murmurs as his forehead touches mine. I swell up in my seat, tilt to him.

He takes a sharp inhale, and then, shutting his eyes, shakes his head. “Unfortunately, there’s a line between using intimacy to throw the eye, and being so affectionate, you draw it.”

I follow his gaze to the couple at the table next to us, outwardly embracing.

Us, if this were a date.

She’s dewy-eyed, with arms like an octopus, coiled around her beau—middle aged man with gel streaked in his sandy hair and a tan that says Ibiza. Her leg is thrown between his knees, half sitting on his lap as she sucks on his tongue. Two plates of cold pasta die in front of them, and… This is why people request the back tables when they aren’t on the run.

Because they’re desperate for each other. Hungry.

“Tell me about the black flames,” Cross says.

I tense over my food. Rummage through the fries for the crispiest, wondering if Yaya is screaming in up at me from Hades.

“How familiar are you with Phoenix?” I ask, hating the word on my tongue.

Cross shrugs, plucking crispy fries and maneuvering them to my plate, scooping up the floppy rejects in exchange. “They’re extinct.”

“What else?”

“Sometimes I think, Leni, that you like holding all the cards. Let’s agree that you have the wits, I have the bloodthirst, and we split the rest down the middle, yeah? Stop kidding ourselves? Tell me what you know.”

I can’t even appreciate the compliments. My blood has frozen, my heart stopped. I wish I were back in the rain, with my blisters, with no fries. “When a Phoenix dies, they burn. And the flames are not red.”

“Are they not immortal, then?”

“What are you?” I ask. “Two hundred years old?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Ignore the heartache. “They’re not immortal like you,” I explain carefully. “It’s ironic, actually. They invented the written word with the Phoenician alphabet. They wrote the stories of the heroes, the battles, Homer was rumored to be a Phoenix, but honestly, I read The Iliad, and if he was kicking around in Ilion, it’s much more likely that he was a—”

“Leni.”

“Sorry, off topic.” I snatch the mermaid salt shaker, stare at my plate. “Where was I?”

“You admire the Phoenix and are much better read than I am.”

I do, he’s right. Is that what I’d said, though? “Anyway … the Phoenix didn’t write about themselves, so it’s not clear exactly how long they lived. I found records of over four hundred years.”

Cross nods, pensive. “And this elderly Phoenix—who’s definitely not Homer—you believe they burned black?”

I accidentally pepper my fries. Apparently should have intuited that purple seashell bra signifies pepper, not salt. “They wouldn’t be elderly. They could be as young as us. When a Phoenix dies, they’re reborn at their prime age, the same way ichor in immortals selects the pinnacle of a creature’s beauty to stop aging.”

“So they die and regenerate.” He lifts one eyebrow. “That sounds better than immortality.”

You’d think. “You drank ambrosia to gain your immortality, right?”

“You don’t need to ask rhetorical questions to involve me.” A cunning, amused smile. “I’m listening, Leni. Always.”

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