Tooth: An Alpha Like No Other (A Song of Starlight Book 1) Read online

  He touches my cheek. Sparks dance down his fingers over my skin. “It is a good plan,” he says with the ghost of a smile. “A very good plan.”

  “Then kiss me. Kiss me deeply, kiss me hard. Kiss me and then take me.” I pant the last sentence, lust taking over my body. I’m going to make love to this man. This hard, handsome, strong, attentive, loving, wonderful man. “Kiss me now.”

  “I couldn’t say no to the Woman of Starlight,” he whispers.

  Before I can respond, he kisses me on the lips with a passion that makes me forget about everything.

  Chapter Forty

  Lila

  A song of starlight.

  That is our lovemaking. A song that rings out through the stars. We sink into each other, give ourselves to each other. His hands move over me frantically, wanting to touch every part of me all at once. I press my lips so hard into him his long teeth graze me; beads of blood drip down my chin. I don’t feel the pain, only the pleasure of his body. The starlight inside of me calls out: Yes, yes, yes, this is what we need. This is the greatest song in the universe. The focal point of magic and the God Who Walks . . . pleasure, unknowable pleasure, the pleasure of gods!

  But though I feel the starlight, the Other, the massive pressure of the universes, most of all I feel the physical pleasure. I feel his muscles when he takes off his sweater, rock-hard and tensed. I feel his lips on my neck, my chest, moving down my body . . . I feel the power of him as he tears at my clothes, pulling at them hungrily.

  When I’m naked, I don’t feel self-conscious. I have always felt self-conscious when naked in front of men. I’ve always been trapped in my own head. Maybe it’s because I was bullied as a kid. Maybe it’s because I can’t let go of the self-hating little girl inside of me. Whatever it is, it’s always there. But not with Tooth. With Tooth, I am completely at ease. His eyes, deep black wells of longing, move over my naked body, and then the song begins in earnest . . .

  We fall upon each other. I know Tooth has never been with a woman, but it doesn’t show. He loses himself in me and I lose myself in him. We are lost to the world. We writhe and moan and claw at each other. I squeeze his chest muscles and lean down and bite his neck, moaning into his skin. He smooths his hands over my body, caressing me. As we make love, I pull at the starlight and the Other, channeling it through me and into him. The longer we go, the more I channel, until he is making love to me with the power of not one god, but a hundred. Tiredness leaves him and he unleashes himself on me. I close my eyes; an orgasm rocks me. I float atop a bed of starlight. When I open my eyes, I see that his teeth are growing longer, his chest bigger, his muscles straining against his skin.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I moan.

  I don’t know how long we sing this song for, but when it’s done, when our pleasure is spent and I’m sitting on the desk, naked and panting, Tooth is so big he has to crouch so his head doesn’t touch the ceiling. I stand back, watching him. At least eleven feet, I think. His teeth curve razor-sharp to his chest. His hands are bigger than my head. His eyes are crazed, overfilled with power.

  “Lila.” His voice is impossibly deep, the rumbling of an earthquake.

  I walk to him, my head only reaching his thigh.

  “Lila,” he repeats.

  “Tooth.” I have to crane my head to look up at him. “You are strong now. You are stronger than you have ever been. I can feel it.”

  “Yes,” he says slowly. He squints at me. “What . . . shall . . . I . . . do . . . with . . . this . . . power?”

  I reach up and take his hand, feeling like a little kid holding hands with an adult. My body aches from the lovemaking, but it’s a welcome ache, similar to how I feel after a long day dancing. His hand consumes mine, huge. I rub his knuckles, each one a solid ball of bone. “Kill every evil thing between here and the town hall,” I say. “Save my niece.”

  He nods gravely. “You . . . are . . . my . . . love.” His words come like the steady, rumbling waves of an ocean, like the rhythmic beating of time, like the march of a well-ordered army.

  “And you are mine,” I say.

  I step back.

  “Do this for me, Tooth. Kill them. Kill them all.”

  I’m shocked by the cold murder in my voice, but now isn’t the time for softness. I walk around the room, gathering up my clothes. I dress quickly. My body is sweaty, red and flushed, tired. A quiet voice far back in my mind whispers: You were sitting in a bank asking for a loan. You were going to open a dance studio. You were worried because it was almost home time and you had to pick Casey up. Your life was just like millions of other lives around the world. And now . . . you have the power to turn a man-god into a giant-god.

  I return to Tooth when I’m dressed. “Kill. Them. All.”

  He growls, a rumbling so deep it shakes the walls. Then he makes for the door, but he’s far too big for it. He looks at it for a moment, and then grunts. Bowing his shoulder, he barges it. I jump back as the brickwork crumbles like it’s made from sand, the door snapping in half. Tooth lumbers through the post office. He pushes past shelves, toppling them. Each one of his steps leaves a deep crater in the floor. When he kicks through the counter as though it’s made of paper mâché, the office looks like the aftermath of a bombing. Everything is destroyed by Tooth’s power.

  Fire and sparks fly from the front of the store as Tooth pushes through the Other-made barrier. I walk to the wrecked counter. The outline of the barrier moves around him and then, as he crosses it, fizzles out and disappears. He lumbers into the street.

  I made him, I think, watching as this giant creature of muscle and Other-power throws up pieces of pavement with each heavy step. I know that Tooth will not have to rest when this power leaves him. It is not the power he took at the school, or when he erects the barriers. It’s not the power of Tooth the demi-god pulling from the Other. It’s the power of the God Who Walks and the Woman of Starlight’s union.

  But it’s even more than that, I think, gripping the edge of the smashed-up counter. Tooth stands in the middle of the road, turning on the spot, searching. I wonder if the wizards and witches fled when they saw him. I wouldn’t be surprised. He’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen, which is made odd by the fact I’m not scared of him in the least. It’s more than our powers coming together. It’s the power of making love.

  After a few moments, Tooth faces the end of the street.

  “You . . . are . . . insects,” he booms. “You . . . are . . . nothing. She . . . is . . . everything. You . . . will . . . not . . . hurt . . . her . . . ever.”

  “What are you?” Mirkle screams, his voice pitched in panic.

  “Me?” Tooth chuckles. The world rumbles. “I . . . am . . . hers.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Tooth

  I love her. I worship her. I praise her.

  The Woman of Starlight is All, the Woman of Starlight is more important than the all-father, the Woman of Starlight holds my heart in the palm of her hand. I see her, crouched low in the post office, and I want her all over again. The pleasure was immense, almost as immense as the power she gifted me. She moved with a dancer’s grace and she moaned with undisguised pleasure. We lost ourselves. We came together like dry-tongued, rasping people desperate for a drink. We drank each other, all of each other. It was a union unlike another other, a bond like no other, a bond formed of starlight.

  These pests want to harm her! They want to kill her! They want to use her!

  She told me to kill them. There was fire in her eyes just like there is in her hair. She was cold and ruthless, and she was warm and loving. She was everything I dreamed she’d be. Running through history, I dreamed. I dared to imagine she would be perfect, strong and brave and caring and brilliant. She’s all that and more. Nobody will hurt her, ever. With the power she gave me, I will make sure of it.

  The witches and wizards stand in a line, spread across the road. Their leader steps forward, fire cracking at his fingertips. He thinks being a Dark Mage will
save him. Ha! Nothing can save him from the might of Lila.

  “What are you?” he screams.

  I tell him. What I am and what I’ve always been and what I’ll always be.

  “We can still beat you!” he roars. “You know we can!”

  I laugh. He wobbles on the spot, reaching his arms to balance himself as my voice rocks the scene.

  “Come . . . let . . . us . . . fight.”

  Teeth buzzing, muscles so large and hard they feel like they’re going to explode, I charge at them. The leader hurls a dozen fireballs at me. I bow my head. They smash onto my skull. Fire burns into my skin, cooking my scalp, but a second later the skin regrows. Faster than it ever has before. Faster, even, than when I touch the Other. He yelps and jumps out of my way, waving at his minions. “Get him!” he yells. “Get him! Get him! Get him!”

  Lightning, fire, acid, flying knives, and boulders crush into me, battering my chest and my arms and my back with such power that without the Woman of Starlight, I would surely collapse. Instead, I stand up and let out a roar. It’s a long roar, massive and all-consuming, louder than the beating of a thousand war drums. The minions fall to the quaking earth. I lurch at them, bringing my foot up—a foot almost as long as they are tall—and crush their heads and torsos. I stamp and stamp until they are a jumble of pink smeared across the concrete.

  “Hurt . . . her?” I growl, anger burning inside of me. “Hurt . . . her? Never! Never! Never!”

  I crush and I spit and I roar until most of them are dead. Only the leader remains, limping away from me, looking over his shoulder with a mask of terror. He mutters words under his breath, Other words, words meant to save him. But doesn’t he know that nothing can save him? Nothing can save anybody who presumes to harm the Woman of Starlight. I would kill a million of these pointless insects before I let that happen.

  I crouch low, aim, and then spring up. I fly like a rocket and crash into him with my fists. My hands crack his spine in half. He collapses like a boneless thing and rolls onto his back. His mouth opens and closes slowly, mechanically, like a machine in its last throes after a blackout. I kneel down and stare with burning hatred into his face. “I . . . will . . . kill . . . you . . . all,” I growl. “She . . . will . . . never . . . be . . . used.”

  He tries to speak, but I crush my hand into his head. It explodes like a water melon, showering me in specks of blood. Then I stand up and turn around. The Woman of Starlight navigates through the corpses of the Horde. She is not like any other human. She doesn’t flinch away from the scent of death, the grotesque sight of the murdered Horde. Her face is determined, the determination which got her through her childhood, which kept her strong when her brother died. A determination I admire so strongly even now, in this form, it punctures my heart.

  She stands beneath me. “We have to go now. I feel the power waning in you. You don’t have much longer.”

  Crouching, I lay my hand palm-up on the floor. “I . . . will . . . carry . . . you.”

  But that’s not the truth, is it? She’s the one who carries me.

  Lila steps into my hand. I lift her, shocked that a world-changing person, a once-in-a-universe person can be as light as her. I bring her to my shoulders. She splits her legs around my neck and holds onto my hair.

  “Go to the town hall, Tooth.”

  “Yes.” The world shakes, but Lila does not fear me. I don’t think the Woman of Starlight could ever fear me.

  I walk toward the town hall, sensing the Horde all around us. Some of them hide in the ruined hulls of stores.

  But they are too scared of the power of Lila to approach us. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a big bad wolf, the kind of wolf that is spoken about in legend. It would come out here with a flurry of claws and gnashing teeth if I were not in this godly form. But I turn and growl at it. It may have rows and rows of teeth, but I have two swords, sharp and deadly, which reach down to my chest. I pound my feet into the floor. The wolf retreats. I keep on, looking here and there, staring down the Horde, until I am standing outside the town center.

  From down the street, a loud crack followed by a zzzzzzzz sounds. Around seven witches, I see, all of them dressed in the billowing black cloaks of the Nightmare Man. Ha! The Nightmare Man . . . What use are nightmares when you have the Woman of Starlight on your side? The witches hurl magic in my direction, but they are too far away. Fire rises mortar-like and then crashes a few yards in front of me. I take Lila and place her on the floor.

  “Wait.”

  She nods. “Do it, Tooth.”

  I am yours, I think, looking down at this fire-haired woman, this forest-eyed woman I’d do anything for.

  “Hide.”

  “I will. Just do what needs to be done. For me.”

  I want to kiss her, but the power in me is too great and I’m afraid I’d break her. I step away and walk down the street. The witches’ leader, a red-haired woman of around twenty covered in snake tattoos, holds her hands up and screams: “You are outnumbered! Back down, Tooth! There are too many of us!”

  “Ha, ha, ha.”

  My laughter shakes the world. The red-haired—but not red like my Lila, this is a dyed red, a blood-red, a soaked red—woman trips and falls to her knees. Her disciples range up behind her, lift their hands, and hurl magic at me. I charge at them, smashing through lightning, fire, rock, blade, whips, snakes, horns, teeth. I would charge through a lot more for the Woman of Starlight. For her, I would charge through the universe.

  The leader gets to her feet—my hand crunches into her skull. She wobbles unsteadily, looking at me slack-jawed as though she cannot believe the dent in her head. Her disciples let out a collective roar and redouble their magic, but the Woman of Starlight has made me into something I can never be without her, something even the all-father cannot make me. She has made me into a god.

  I throw myself at the witches, scattering them like bowling pins. Two of them are slow and I pancake them into the concrete, smearing it red with their blood. The others flee in all directions, too terrified to even throw magic over their shoulders. I laugh at their backs. One of the few intact windows explodes as the reverberations of my voice shake the street.

  When the witches have fled, I look around. Lila crouches behind a car, scanning the street. I’m about to go to her when I hear a child’s whimpering behind me. I turn, search. There, kneeling in the shadow of the town hall, hidden behind some dumpsters. I walk toward her, hand outstretched.

  “Girl.”

  She looks up at me, panicked.

  “Girl,” I repeat, standing over her.

  She looks like a tiny creature, rodent-eyed, terror coursing through every part of her body. Her clothes are torn in several places and her cheeks are shiny with tears. She climbs to her feet, her little knees trembling so badly they knock together, and gazes up at me. “No,” she whimpers. “No, please, no.”

  “No?” I try to keep my tone friendly.

  But my booming voice dislodges a loose shingle on the roof. It slides free and clatters less than a foot from the girl, making her jump, hands covering her face. “No!” she wails.

  I take another step. I’m close enough to lean down and scoop her up. I need to, for Lila, for the Woman of Starlight. This terrified little girl is the most important thing in Lila’s life. She is not just a child, but a symbol. A symbol that says Lila can go on, despite all the nasty things that happened to her. A symbol that no matter what, something good and untouched by evil will survive. I realize, as I look down at the girl, that I have come to cherish that symbol almost as much as the Woman.

  “Girl.”

  Another shingle loosens, slides, shatters.

  I’m about to lean down when the girl spins around and sprints away. She runs down the side of the town hall onto the street behind it.

  “Girl!” I roar.

  I just want her to stop. I don’t want to scare her. I would never want to scare anything the Woman of Starlight cares about. I chase after her. In a moment
, Lila is at my shoulder, panting. “Where is she?” She takes a deep breath. I must be running fast, though it doesn’t feel like it; Lila’s legs are a blur.

  “There.” I point at the road. “I . . . didn’t . . . mean . . . to . . . scare—”

  “No!” Lila screams.

  Casey charges down the sidewalk, looking over her shoulder at me. She’s so absorbed in her fear that she doesn’t notice the pack of wolves.

  The anger of fires and storms and avalanches and earthquakes and tsunamis tear through me at the sound of Lila’s panicked voice. Make her scared? I think, teeth buzzing with rage. You will never make her scared!

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Lila

  The world slows and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  I hear Isaac’s voice, full of resentment: What are you doing? Why did you let this happen? Why didn’t you protect her? Remember all those times, Lila, when you were scared and alone and I came to you and held you. I protected you. I hugged you until the tears stopped and I took the beatings from Dad. I never let it get to you. I stopped as much pain as I could from reaching you. And this is how you repay me? You said you would protect her!

  Tooth bounds at them, but even his giant strides are too short.

  There are six wolves in total. Corded with muscle with dagger-sharp teeth, thick yellow claws and slathering mouths. Casey stops statue-dead when she sees them. I see the moment when the fight leaves her. She’s a child, after all, and there’s only so much a child can take. She barely lifts her hand as the werewolf swipes at her head.

  I watch, in slow-speed time, as the werewolf’s claw slices through two of Casey’s fingers. Her scream seems to take a long time to come. Her fingers—the pinkie and the ring finger, severed at the second knuckles—fly into the air, followed by a shower of blood which seems to spray slowly like mist. Casey stumbles back and, finally, her scream reaches me. It’s a scream I prayed I would never have to hear, the scream of the person I’ve sworn to protect. Anger grips me. Casey rolls onto her front. Her screaming stops. She just lies there, whimpering, as the werewolf aims another blow.