Page 46 of Phoenix Falling
“So”—Risk pushed back the hair falling over her face, her hand trembling—“I told you about the guy I went on a date with.”
“Yeah.” I stiffened. Jesus, had she been attacked? “Did he do something, Risk? Did he hurt you?”
Her laugh was strained. “Oh, he did something, all right. Just not what you’re thinking.”
Okay, she hadn’t been raped, but there were about a hundred degrees leading up to that ultimate violation. My nerves didn’t relax. Fear and concern added an edge to my impatience. “Would you spit it out before I lose my mind?”
She gave me what she probably thought was a reassuring smile—it wasn’t—took a big breath, and heaved it out. “The guy isn’t—exactly—human.”
“What?” What did she mean, not exactly?
She shushed me, glancing around to be sure we hadn’t caught anyone’s attention. “It’s okay.”
“Risk.” On that, she was wrong. “It’s anything but okay.”
“It is.” She rubbed her fingers over her forehead. “Remember I told you that there are good vampires and bad vampires?”
I didn’t believe her, but that was beside the point. “Yes. What does that—”
“He’s a good vampire.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Or I thought he was a good vampire. Except last night…”
Flashes from the night I’d been attacked, the night Risk and I had first met, did a slideshow in my mind. “Did he hurt you?” I asked again.
“No. No, he didn’t.” Finally meeting my eyes, she reached for my hand. “But the thing is, I found out last night he’s not exactly a vampire.”
“Not a— What? What does that mean?”
“See…I might have tried to follow him home.”
Fear sent a chill skittering through my body. So, so many things could go wrong if she were discovered, sneaking around these…creatures. She said there were good ones, but were there? I’d never met one, that was for sure.
“Anyway, I was following him after our date last night—”
“You were knowingly dating a vampire? More than once?”
“Yes,” she said impatiently. “A good one.”
“What you thought was a good one,” I reminded her.
She dropped my hand, waving away my words. “The point is, I followed him through an alley.” Her palms landed on her thighs, and she began to rub them up and down her jeans. “God, I can’t even believe I’m about to say this, but…I saw him…”
“Saw him what?” Had he hurt someone else?
“I saw him…change.”
Change? “I don’t understand.” So much of this conversation, but for now, the wordchangein particular.
Risk took another deep breath, letting it out slowly this time. “I saw him change…from a human into a—God, am I really saying this?—into what I think was a phoenix.”
“A phoenix?” I said slowly. A…phoenix.
Risk shook her head. “I know it sounds crazy. Trust me, I know. I’ve said and seen some pretty damn crazy stuff in my life. But I swear to you, he took all his clothes off and stood naked in the moonlight and all of a sudden”—she chuckled, but the sound definitely wasn’t amused—“there were these huge flame-colored wings and a bird’s…head and silver eyes and…”
I had no idea what to say. I just sat there, stunned. I’d thought when Risk told me that vampires existed and that was what had attacked me, that it was the craziest shit I would ever hear. Up till then, it had been. But this…
I shook my head.
“I know,” Risk said, her laugh getting louder, taking on a slightly hysterical edge as she glanced at my face. If she’d been worried about someone hearing us before, that concern seemed to go out the window. “That’s exactly how I feel. Well, not exactly how I feel. Here I was admiring a guy I knew was not technically a guy, but man, can he kiss, and his naked body was…” She raised her brows. “Yeah, he was getting naked in an empty courtyard not far from downtown, which was weird, but that body…” The laugh came again. “Not anything to sneeze at, that’s for sure. And then he sprouts wings. It was—” She shook her head, seeming almost as bemused as I was, and lapsed into silence.
