Page 19 of The Royal Street Witch
“The way it builds…” he says, and yes, the way it builds.
“It’s a subtle crescendo, one that could be missed if you’re not paying attention.”
“That’s because it starts out kinda lazy like. Like that jazz that’s just too cool to care. We would dance the hell out of this song back in the day…” Then he looks surprised by me. And I don’t know why, but something pushes me to surprise him more. I grab his hand and spin under his arm. His eyes squint and he doesn’t set my hand free—no, he only holds on tighter. “You Lindy?”
“A little.” It’s not common for girls my age to know the Lindy Hop, but I nod, hand still in his, suddenly aware of the contact I initiated.
“Well, then come on. It’s not often I get to cut a rug these days.” And he spins me and I draw right into his embrace, a cool hand on my waist and the other clasped around mine. And we move smoothly and slowly to the rhythm of the song, and my bones feel like they could fly right out of my body.
My hand sits on his shoulder, and I have to look up to see his eyes. Because so much of dancing is in the eyes, the direction taken, the moves you’re about to make. He leads me and I let him, with my chest pressed against the thin cotton of his shirt, my fingers resting on the smooth skin of his shoulder.
At first, we are quiet, learning each other’s style. I step incorrectly a time or two, but then our eyes meet, and his squint with curiosity.
“Who taught you?”
And I’m twelve years old again, in my mother’s arms, her tapping my feet with hers, directing me where to go. And I just miss it so much. Dancing with my mother. Dancing like this.
“My mom loved to dance. She said dancing is conversing with your body.” I spin myself out for some air, but he pulls me right back in.
His fingers tighten around mine. “Well, she’s right.” He looks up for a moment and then back to me. “Nicola calls her the Wild Witch, all the vampires do.”
That instant protective shield closes in on me, a need to stand up for my mother when her behaviors are underserving at times. “Not just the vampires. Seems like all of New Orleans does.”
He spins me, slowly out, then pulls me back in, but instead of clutching my waist, he wraps his arm across my entire lower back. “Why? What did she do?”
There’s a gentility in his expression and the way he’s holding me, and I shake my head to clear my mind. “My mother doesn’t like to conform to anything. I mean, being forced to have me at eighteen didn’t help. Only made her rebel more.”
“Forced to have you?” His upper lip cinches into a slight snarl. It’s so easy to forget he’s a vampire, but there are flashes like this, a snarl or a growl that remind me what he drinks for fuel.
“How was she forced?” he asks, jarring my thoughts, and I shouldn’t tell him, I would be stupid to give my enemy more of our secrets. So what do I do? I tell him. I open my big fat mouth and tell him because we’re dancing and he’s looking at me like he actually sees me, and I give zero fucks about family secrets right now.
“Witches must reproduce. She wasn’t ready to have me, but she did, forced by her coven because we are on the verge of extinction.”
“I’ve heard that. Do you have any siblings? To help with the bloodline?”
“No, my mother was truly grateful she had to have an emergency hysterectomy after me. My birth was close to catastrophic for both of us. The upside was she wouldn’t have to birth any more children. She named me Aster because she said I came like an asteroid.”
The brightest ball of fire, my little Asteroid.
I clear my throat, needles pricking my tongue from the memory.
“I can see that,” he says with a wink. “And your father?”
“If the relationship works then the fathers stick around. But for me, I have no idea who mine is. We are encouraged to procreate with good matches, then erase their memories. Love and relationships complicate our lives. Make things tricky.”
He pauses, his bare feet coming to a stop, his head tilting with interest. “Tricky?”
“Men tend to make things very tricky, yes.”
And he spins me, faster than any human could—the strength and speed that vampires possess is something I must always remember but tend to forget.
“I see,” he says, ignoring that he just took my breath away. “And does that mean you have to…reproduce soon?”
What is wrong with me? Am I drunk? Spilling this kind of classified information is not like me. I step back, our hands swinging between us, and look him straight in the eyes, because divulging that was a mistake for two reasons. One, I’ve just let a vampire know our vulnerability, and second, I’m getting too comfortable with him.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I think I have the answer.” And at that, he pulls me in tight and we move together, quicker, in unison, and I try not to smile at how fluid we feel, how I like the way his hands feel against my body.
