Page 4 of Phoenix Falling
Hidden in the darkest night, I let my glamour fall away. Blonde hair became thick brown curls. Piercings and tattoos disappeared. The voluptuously tough figure I’d presented to the Archai, to Sun, became softer, shorter. Five-eight became five-four. I could still kick ass if I needed to, but I would never naturally be the warrior Sun thought me to be. I’d learned a long time ago that immortality or longevity or whatever this was that I had been “gifted” with didn’t come with a naturally perfect body. It sucked ass—who wanted to battle that last ten pounds for eternity?—but at least with my glamour, I could pretend to be the kind of woman Sun might desire.
Oh, did I mention immortality didn’t cure your self-esteem issues either? Thatdefinitelysucked ass.
The only thing that stayed the same were my eyes—a deep navy blue just like my mother’s. And the thick scars on the right side of my throat and upper shoulder, remnants of my change nearly five decades past, remained veiled. Those I showed to no one.
I waited as the tingles showering my body subsided. Instead of the tight dress and heels I’d presented to Sun, when I looked down, I saw the simple silk cami and tight jeans I’d put on before coming to the meeting. Boots protected my feet (and gave me a couple of inches in height). I flicked the curls off my sweaty nape, wishing my hair wasn’t so unsuitably thick for the humidity of the South, and returned to the front of the alley to slip back inside the club. The noise wasn’t ideal, but it was better than the empty silence of the dingy apartment I called home.
Beelining for the bar, I finally managed to find a bare spot. Snagging the bartender’s notice wasn’t so easy, but at my height, when I crossed my forearms on the bar top, they created a natural shelf for my D-cup breasts. The cleavage topping my cami finally caught his attention. Too bad for him that the rum and Coke he made me wasn’t getting himmyattention. Instead I took my drink and snagged a high top near a side wall, hiking myself onto the barstool that wouldn’t allow my feet to touch the ground.
Did I mention that being short was one of life’s biggest screw-overs?
And yes, I talked to myself. Half the time there was no one else to talk to. Certainly no one appreciated my sarcastic wit the way I did. After forty-five-plus years on my own, I’d come to accept it as a lovable quirk.
I refused to look toward the back, to the booth Sun and I had shared. He would be gone by now, though if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter. I no longer looked like the Risk he knew. Instead I let the bodies mingling on the dance floor become a soothing distraction to my whirling thoughts even as the alcohol in my drink soothed my tight nerves. Drawing the shadows around me was easy, a protection from the occasional guy or girl who might presume to interrupt my solitude. I didn’t want interruptions. I wanted to wallow in my rum and Coke until it was late enough that I’d actually sleep when I fell into my bed back at home. Alone. Again.
Maybe another drink was a good idea.
I was about to slide off my barstool when an electric thrill of awareness skittered down my spine. A slow turn of my head brought a dark figure into my line of vision—a tall, brutally gorgeous figure with brilliant rainbow eyes. A figure that should have been long gone by the time I came back inside, not standing at the opening of that damn booth, staring toward me as if I wasn’t wearing a cloak of darkness like a giantKeepAwaysign, glaring at anyone who dared come too close. Sun didn’t seem in the least bit intimidated. And as he started across the room, headed directly for me, he didn’t look like he was going to heed the warning.
In fact, he was upon me almost as soon as I noticed him. I stared, silent, and yes, a little afraid. Because coming to this creature’s attention wasn’t good, for me or for him. It had complications written all over it.
Maybe I was mistaken and he’d walk on by.
No such luck.
He stopped at my side, his gaze fixed on mine. Something so intense I almost couldn’t bear it stared down at me, froze my tongue in my mouth—probably a good thing since his name was on the verge of spilling from my lips. A name I shouldn’t know in my current form.
“Hello.”
The growl in his voice vibrated low in my belly. I managed to croak out a, “Hi.”
Wow, how sophisticated, Ri.
“May I sit?”
Before I could answer, he’d taken the barstool across the high top and dragged it to my side. Grabbed the side of my chair and angled it to face him. When he sat, his knees arrowed on either side of mine, caging me in. The urge to get away itched at me, warring with the all too feminine response to bask in the attention he had centered on me. I was frozen between the two, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to speak. Sun had me captured as surely as if he’d wrapped me in chains. Or his arms.
I definitely shouldn’t think about that possibility.
“I’m Sun.”
“Weird name.”
Would a facepalm make me even more awkward? Yes, yes, it would.
A breathtaking smile curved that sensuous mouth. Sun’s fiery red hair was shaved close on either side of his head, the top kept long enough to be drawn into a ponytail at the base of his neck. The strong, sexy lines of his face were bare to me, those eyes that seemed first one color and then another exposed in all their brilliance. They were normally fascinating, but now they seemed to glow, a silver hue bleeding through the irises, intensifying what was already a powerful gaze. The man’s natural sensuality combined with his massive physique to intimidate all who saw him, but for women it was a sexual threat that I imagined most would gladly surrender to. And in that, if nothing else, I was as normal as the next woman.
He didn’t address my comment, simply asked, “And who are you?”
Shit. I couldn’t tell him my name. He already knew my name, even if he didn’t know this me, exactly. I opened my mouth to feed him some bullshit story, but what popped out was, “Rissa.”
No.No no no.Please tell me I hadn’t told him that. I hadn’t told anyone that name in decades. I didn’t even use it when I thought of myself. I sure as hell didn’t give it to men I wanted to fuck. Not even Arik had been given the gift of my real name.
Rissa. Risk. Both were me, and yet neither was me. Sometimes I didn’t know if a true me existed anymore. Rissa had died a long time ago, hadn’t she?
“Rissa,” he purred. Liquid heat gathered low in my pelvis, warming me from the inside out. When Sun’s silver gaze slipped down over my face, my neck, my shoulders to my breasts, I could actually feel the nipples hardening as if reaching for his touch. Flutters started up in my belly. Tension settled in my thighs, and I squeezed them together even as confusion filled my head. What the hell was this reaction? Sun had fascinated me, yes, but this was even more than that. This was as if something else was staring out of his eyes, drawing a response from me that I’d never experienced before, with anyone.
And it scared the shit out of me.
