Tooth: An Alpha Like No Other (A Song of Starlight Book 1) Page 16

  You killed my daughter, Isaac hisses. It’s your fault, Lila. You killed her. You were too busy kissing your new boyfriend to watch her. You were too busy falling in love. Guess what, little sister? This is the underbelly of your love. You were selfish, and this is the result.

  I’m running as fast as I can, but it’s like a nightmare where no matter how fast I run, I’m glued to one spot. Three werewolves crowd around Casey, their teeth bared in twisted grins, their claws raised for the killing blow. Then, they swipe. Slow, so damn slow, like a movie on one-tenth speed. Casey cries into the concrete. Her fingers lay beside her, tiny white worms, far too small and vulnerable to be just lying there, blood-smeared, detached from her precious hand.

  The swipes get closer, almost at her head. I see what will happen and it makes me sick. I see her head cave under the power of the claws. I hear her final whimper before she dies. I hear Isaac’s words, haunting me: Your fault, your fault, your fault. I have never felt so powerless in my life, even when I hid whilst Dad kicked the hell out of Isaac. Even then, curled in a ball in my closet and listening to Dad’s panting, the fleshly slap of the punches, and Isaac’s cries, I didn’t feel this powerless.

  Now they’re going to kill her., I think, watching as the claws inch closer to Casey’s head. Far back in my mind, I have ridiculous thoughts: They’ll ruin her beautiful red hair. Her hair is so much prettier than mine. Her hair is perfect. She would’ve grown up to have gorgeous hair, hair I could only dream at. She was going to be in the school play. She was going to play a pumpkin. She was proud. I remember how proud she was when she came home in her pumpkin outfit. She wouldn’t take it off before I saw it. I hugged her and told her she was the best pumpkin I’d ever seen; I told her she had the hair to match. And now . . .

  Tooth throws his fist in a roundhouse sweep.

  Time resumes its normal speed.

  Tooth’s fist catches three of the werewolves in one giant punch. Two die instantly, their heads exploding and showering the concrete in goo and blood. The third stumbles back on its hind legs, pawing at its jaw, which has fallen away from its face. It tries to push it back into place, but then the jaw tears away completely and tumbles to the floor. Tooth head-butts a fourth. The wolf’s snout smashes inward, tugging its eyes and its mouth along with it. When it falls to its knees, its face looks like an inside-out mask. He turns to the remaining two, but they are already loping down the street, tongues lolling in panic from their mouths.

  “Never . . . hurt . . . the . . . Woman . . . of Starlight.”

  On the last two words, Tooth begins to shrink down to his normal form. I feel it in my belly, the union which made him loosening its power. By the time I get to Casey, Tooth is Tooth again, naked and blood-covered, but the size of a man, his teeth returned to their normal length.

  I throw myself next to Casey, take her by the shoulders, and turn her over. She lifts her severed-fingered hand to my face. “Auntie,” she mumbles, eyes wide as though she doesn’t believe it’s really me. “Auntie.”

  Tooth rushes to join us. “Lila,” he says, voice faint. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I mutter. I’m surprised to find that I believe it. It wasn’t his fault. It was the wolf who did it, and the Horde who used her, and goddamn Abraham who brought her to this awful place. “We have to get her somewhere safe and patch her up. Now.” I take her wrist and study her hand. The cuts were clean and the blood has already stopped pumping. I try not to think of all the things she’ll never be able to do as I pick her up in my arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” Tooth whispers.

  “Don’t!” I snap, voice sharp. “Just don’t. Get us somewhere safe. Then cast your spell on it. Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Auntie, are you mad at me?” Casey moans. “I didn’t mean to go with that nasty man but he just picked me up and there was nothing I could do. Then they all fell to the ground but not the nasty man. The nasty man tried to get me but I got away and I pretended I was playing hide-and-seek and I ran all over the place trying to hide and then I got into the street and then this giant came to eat me and I got really scared and I ran and then . . .” She stops, panting. She begins to sob. “It hurts.”

  “I know, sweetie. I stroke her sweat-soaked forehead. “But you’re safe now. We’re going to patch you up.”

  “This way.” Tooth touches my shoulder. He gestures to the end of the street at a convenience store. “Follow me. I’ll clear it out.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Lila

  Tooth casts his Other spells on the convenience store and I carry Casey into a backroom.

  I lay her down on a table and pull up a stool next to her as Tooth tends to her hands. He takes the first-aid kit he found under the counter and cleans her fingers with formaldehyde. Casey whimpers and I hold her other hand, whispering to her that everything is going to be okay. I don’t know if I’m telling the truth. I wonder if it was the same with Isaac. Did he always believe it when he told me that life would get better? I can’t stop looking at her injured hand, even after Tooth has bandaged it up. A part of her is missing now. I feel sick rise in my throat. But then I think: She’s alive. She’s safe. The sick goes back down.

  “The fingers will heal,” Tooth says quietly, packing away the kit. “We just need to keep them clean and change the bandages often.” He winces; casting the wards on the store has tired him.

  I touch her forehead with my hand, moist and warm. “She needs water.”

  Tooth goes into the main store and returns a minute later with a case of water. He takes a bottle and hands it to me. He doesn’t look me in the eye. I guess it’s because of the two little white worms still resting on the street outside. He thinks it’s his fault. Maybe I would have, too, before . . . Just say it. You know the truth. Maybe you would’ve blamed him before you made love. But making love changed you both, didn’t it? Not just him. You love this man now, Lila, don’t you? And Casey is safe. She’s alive.

  I bring the bottle to Casey’s lips and she sips slowly.

  “Tired,” she mutters.

  Tooth leaves again. He comes back with two blankets still in their plastic wrapping. He opens them with his teeth and then takes one and drapes it over her. He holds the other one up, lifts her head gently, and places it down as a pillow. Casey curls up and murmurs in her sleep.

  Without discussing it, Tooth and I go into the other room. Tooth’s face is pained. He’s taken some clothes from the limited selection in the store, a black t-shirt, baggy jeans, and chunky hiker’s boots. His gaze flits anywhere but my face. We slump down just outside the door, close enough to get to Casey if she calls out. Tooth hands me a cereal bar and a bottle of water. For a while, we sit without talking. I munch down the cereal bar and wash it down with water.

  “You’re hurt,” I say when the food is gone.

  “It’s nothing. It has nothing to do with the transformation. Just the casting the ward. If it hadn’t been for . . .” He trails off.

  “Our sex,” I finish for him.

  He glances at me, his black eyes looking deeply into my face. “Yes, if it hadn’t been for that, I’d be passed out right now.”

  “Tooth,” I say, when his gaze returns to his feet.

  “Yes?”

  “Come here. Kiss me. I don’t want you to be hurt.”

  “It’s fine—”

  “Don’t make a lady ask twice.”

  Tooth grins, but it’s a shaky grin, an unsure grin. He leans over me and looks into my eyes, but doesn’t kiss me at once. His breath touches my lips. Even now, with my niece two fingers poorer in the next room, I feel a twinge of lust. I trace his jawline with my finger, and then close my eyes. “Kiss me,” I whisper.

  He presses his lips into mine. Starlight sparks. My heartbeat gets quick. My body screams out for him.

  When he pulls away, he’s no longer wincing in pain.

  “Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” he says.
/>   “No,” I agree. “Me neither.”

  I touch my lips, savoring the feel of the kiss. My body responds without me, getting hot and longing for another kiss, more than a kiss.

  “I don’t blame you,” I say after another pause. “You let them take her; you saved her life. We’re even, as far as that goes.”

  “She’s injured.”

  “Yes, she is.” I sigh. “But she would’ve been dead. Injured or not, I’m relieved.”

  “She was terrified of me.”

  I giggle softly. “Tooth, you were terrifying. I would say, I’ve never seen anything like it, but that wouldn’t mean much in this town at the moment. Every time I turn a corner, I’ve never seen anything like it. But this was something else. You were a giant.”

  “But you weren’t scared of me.”

  “No. I wasn’t.”

  “Why?”

  I search my mind for an answer. I didn’t question it at the time. Giant or not, he was Tooth. It didn’t matter that his voice rumbled the earth and one of his hands could’ve crushed my body. “I guess . . .” I take his hand. The warmth of it feels good, comforting. “It was still you. That’s why. I don’t think I could ever be scared of you.” I laugh at the absurdity of it all. “I didn’t know about any of this—what was it? Weeks ago? I never would’ve dreamed that vampires and werewolves and witches and wizards and . . .” I shake my head. “Now, it doesn’t seem strange. It’s crazy how quickly people can get used to things.”

  “I understand,” Tooth says. “I never dreamed I’d get used to you, either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think it’s hard for a human to understand how long eight-thousand lifetimes really is.”

  “It’s mad,” I say, “to think of all the things you must’ve done. To get good at one thing takes so much effort. I started dancing when I was ten—sort of, anyway—and I still feel like I’ve got a lot of improving to do.” I pause, thinking. “But I guess that’ll have to wait until after all this. Sorry, I’m rambling. Guess I’m more tired than I thought.”

  “What do you mean, sort of?” Tooth asks. “You’ve mentioned that your parents were drunks. Did they send you to dance class?”

  “No.” My cheeks grow warm at the memory. “Isaac got a job at a fast food place. He put some money aside for a car. The rest, he used to buy me dancing lessons. I swear, he would’ve been able buy that car two years earlier if it wasn’t for me.”

  “He sounds like a good man,” Tooth says. “I wish I could’ve met him.”

  “Me, too,” I say. I wiggle on my bum so that I’m sitting close to him, and then rest my head on his shoulder. Tooth wraps his arm around me and pulls me close.

  “Can we go on a date one day, when all this is over?” I say.

  “Sure,” he replies, stroking my hair. “But first we have to get out of here. I think we should stay here for the night, and then when the sun rises, make a break for it. We’ve made a good dent in the Horde’s forces. Plus, they’re scared. Some of them are leaving of their own accord. I can feel them. They’ve never seen power like ours.”

  I turn cold at his words. “No,” I say, voice dark.

  “No?” He tilts his head at me. “We need to get out of here. That was the plan.”

  “No,” I repeat. I take his hand and squeeze it, hard. “I won’t leave, not yet.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I won’t leave until he’s dead,” I growl. “That evil goddamn vampire was going to drain my niece. Because of him, she’ll live the rest of her life with pieces of her missing. There’s no way on this earth I’m letting him get away with that.”

  “Lila . . .”

  “No, Tooth.” My voice is stern. I face him. “I mean it. I won’t back down from this.”

  “I’m angry at him, too,” Tooth says. “His betrayal of me goes back a long time, but keeping you safe is more important.”

  “I’ll be safe. I’ll be here, protected by your ward. Anyway,” I go on, “what if we leave him alive? You saw how devoted those people were to him, all dressed in black, chanting his name, worshipping him like a cult leader. Surely a man like that is our worst enemy? What if he gathers more followers? What if he comes after us? What if, next time, he kills Casey?” I pause, reflecting. “You wouldn’t even have to go out there. We could enter that star-dance again, or whatever you want to call it. I don’t care about the pain—”

  “No, I won’t put you through that again. Plus, he survived it. He’s strong.” He grins tightly. “Lila, before I met you, I promised myself I would do anything I had to for your safety. I would kidnap you, gag you, whisk you away. I would put you in a cell if that was what was required of me. But now I see you, now I kiss you, now I love you, I feel powerless.”

  “I don’t.” My voice is not my own, not the voice of a girl scared of her out-of-their-heads parents, not the voice of a woman worried about her loan application. It’s strong and full of iron determination. It’s the voice of the Woman of Starlight. “I feel powerful. I feel more powerful than I knew a person could feel. If I could harness the power myself, Tooth, I’d be out there in a second. I want him dead. I want him to pay for what he did. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

  “We’ll be doing that anyway,” Tooth points out. “There are always more Horde.”

  “Then I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder for him the rest of my life!” I exclaim. I point at the door to the other room. “There is a girl in there who relies on me to keep her safe. Before, I could do that by myself. What did I have to keep her safe from? Hard days at school, bullies, scraped knees at the park. I’m a realist, Tooth, and the reality is that I can’t keep her safe on my own anymore, not from all this madness. I’m asking you, as the second half to this fire in my belly, to kill the goddamn man who took her fingers.” I snarl the last words.

  When I look into Tooth’s face, I see that he’s smiling.

  “What is it?”

  “You,” he says. “I’d wait another eight-thousand lifetimes for you.”

  “Now isn’t the time for compliments,” I say, but I feel myself blush. This is what it feels like to be looked at by a man who loves you with everything he has, I think.

  He groans. The groan of a man who’s going to give into his woman. “If I’m going to do this, I might as well kill as many of the Horde as I can. Give us the best chance to get out of here. So, here’s what I think we should do. Wait until nightfall, fuse our energy, and then you and Casey wait here under my ward whilst I fight them. And then—”

  “We begin our new lives together.”

  He nods. “Yes. Have you given any thought to where you want to go?”

  “No,” I admit. “I haven’t thought much further ahead than staying alive. As long as Casey is safe, I’ll go anywhere.”

  We fall quiet as we wait for nighttime to come. Casey wakes up and I take her some food and water. I sit with her awhile, and then she falls back to sleep. I return to Tooth, who stands at the door, muttering Other words. The setting sun glints orange-red off the jagged broken windows.

  “I’m renewing the ward,” he says. “It will last until deep into the night. You and Casey will be safe. My family will be—” He cuts short.

  I go to him, take his hands. “We are your family,” I say. “You don’t have to second guess yourself about that.”

  “I’ve never had a family before,” Tooth whispers. His grip tightens around my hands. “There’s the all-father, but in truth I know little about him. Just whispers and half-memories. I never had a mother. A child. A partner.”

  “Two out of three isn’t bad.” I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him on the mouth.

  “No,” he says, lifting his hand and smoothing a stray piece of hair from my eyes. “It isn’t.”

  We hold each other until the sun sets and the store fills with darkness. Tooth says: “It’s time.”

  “We have to be quiet.” I gest
ure at the door behind which Casey sleeps.

  “We will.”

  Before I can reply, Tooth grabs me by the waist and carries me to the desk. He sets me down and starlight explodes between us.

  The song begins.

  We tear into each other once more. I think: I could get used to this. Tooth makes love to me with passion, quick and hungry. I give myself to him completely. He’s my man, I think. He’s my man now and nobody can take that away from us. We’re one. We kiss long and hard. Tooth moves his hands down my back, tickling me, and when the song begins in passion, it almost instantly reaches a crescendo. I squeeze down on his immense muscles as the orgasms roil through me, over and over, cascading through my body. Starlight and Other power joins as our bodies join. The universes spin around us. Time stops for us. Reality pauses. Then, when I open my eyes after an orgasm that rocked me to my toes, I see that Tooth is no longer Tooth.

  He is god-Tooth, truly the God Who Walks, tall and strong with sword-teeth and huge hands.

  “Wait,” he says. The shelves tremble. Cans roll to the floor.

  He turns slowly and lumbers to the exit. He smashes through the door, crumbling the wall, and pushes through the barrier. This time, it doesn’t shatter, but closes behind him like an electric door.

  Panting and exhausted, but with a smile on my face, I rush to the hole where the door used to be and watch him.

  Kill him, I think. Kill him and then come back to me.

  A moment later, Casey calls from the other room. “Auntie Lila! Where are you?”

  “Right here, baby,” I call back, as Tooth stamps out of view.