Page 27 of The Devil and His Sparrow

I fingered a couple keys. The piano needed some tuning, but it would suffice for this little performance. I moved my fingers over the keys. Someone must’ve paused the movie that had been playing, because all you could hear was the slow and dramatic melody filling the otherwise silent room.

This was one of my favorite songs I’d ever written, one of our earliest songs, when it was still easy to find inspiration. The words and notes and chords came easier back then. These days, I struggled to write a solid song, and even when I managed to get a good one out, they never felt as powerful, raw, and real as my earlier ones.

Something I was reminded of only this morning when my manager and bandmates asked for an update on the latest song. An update I couldn’t give them, because I still hadn’t written one.

It was that desperate need to feel my music like I used to that guided the strong, almost pleading edge to my voice as I sang about finding yourself, about not apologizing for who that was, about not letting the world tell you that you shouldn’t want what you do or be who you were. It was about embracing everything you were and standing up for it.

By the time the rock ballad ended, my voice fading into a memory and the chords dying off, everyone had somehow moved closer like moths drawn to a flame. The applause was instant, and everyone, even the stick in the mud, Patrice, looked impressed. It wasn’t their reaction I wanted to see, though.

I looked between the bodies and found Iyla. Shock. Longing. Hopelessness. Awe. It was such a dizzying mix of emotions causing her brow to furrow and her lips to part, and it made my heart pound harder.

This. This was why I sang. This was what I wanted my songs to do.

While my hands, tongue, and cock could claim her body and fill her up, my songs touched her in a totally different way. One could say, a deeper way.

“That was wonderful!”

“So cool!”

“Zagan, you’re the best!”

I smiled at all the compliments. There was a rush of people wanting photos or wanting me to sign something, and after the madness of all that, the crowd finally dispersed enough for me, Iyla, and Gemma to settle at our own table.

“That was busy,” Iyla said, looking around the mostly appeased room of people. She turned back to me with a curious purse to her lips. “Do you get bombarded like that a lot?”

I shrugged. “Comes with being in a popular band.”

“How do you know him?” Gemma asked her sister. She giggled and whispered, “Is he your boyfriend?”

Iyla’s face turned an alarming shade of red, and her eyes widened as they bounced between me and her sister. “Absolutely not. He—He’s my …” She paused to look over at me. We’d never really discussed what our story would be, but after only a moment of searching for an answer, she turned back to Gemma and said, “He’s my friend.”

Friend.

The word made me shift uncomfortably in my seat. I didn’t do friends. I only cared about myself and my own interests. “Friends” implied there was some sort of care involved between the two parties. Still, it was the only answer that made sense in this situation.

Gemma’s smile stayed in place as she stared at her sister. “I didn’t know you had such cool friends, Iyla.”

Iyla stared at me from across the table and offered an unimpressed shrug. “Meh. He’s okay, I guess.”

I narrowed my eyes and curled my lip at her, which made a faint smile appear on her face. Seeing the gesture on those plump lips made my stomach bottom out with a fresh pang of hunger. I needed to fucking eat. My dick and body were going crazy with the need to fuck her senseless.

Ready to get this show on the road, I announced, “I’m pretty thirsty after all that singing.” I made sure to catch Iyla’s eye so she understood my meaning. “Would you two like a water or anything?”

“I’d love some,” Iyla said, giving me a knowing nod. “Gemma?”

She bobbed her head. “Yes, please.”

I pushed my chair back and approached one of the nurses who was tidying up some toy blocks on the floor. After requesting some cups of water, I waited in the hallway for her. She brought me a tray with three cups of water. When she swept back into the room, I hung back just long enough to let my human guise disappear from only my thumb so that my long, black claw came out. With a quick press of the tip into my pointer finger, I let a few drops fall into one of the cups. My wound closed in the same time it took for the black blood to disappear within the drink so that it looked like ordinary water.

“Here we go,” I said when I got back to the table. I placed the cups in front of everyone, making sure Gemma got the one with my blood.

“Thank you,” Gemma said, pulling her cup closer.

I tried not to watch while she drank some so it didn’t seem like anything was amiss. Iyla was less subtle, throwing almost desperate glances at Gemma and fidgeting in her seat like fucking fireants were crawling all over her skin.

Still, as the three of us sat there, talking and working on the puzzle, we eventually finished our drinks. Gemma seemed to be fine after finishing hers. No fits over the taste. No flailing about in pain. No dropping dead. I took that as a good sign that this was going to work.

Which now meant, it was time for me to get what I was owed.

---