The Demon's Song - By Kendra Leigh Castle Page 0,37
in the pit of his stomach and flood him with a warmth that made him momentarily light-headed. At first he thought it might be nausea. Then he realized it was pure, simple happiness. And that he hadn’t felt such a thing in so long he might have been experiencing it for the very first time. Also, he seemed to be grinning like a complete ass.
Oh, hellfire. No.
But he was still trying to shake the warm, fuzzy feeling as Sofia turned the subject back to safer territory.
“So speaking of creatures, I got tickets to do the butterfly pavilion before we go. Do you mind? It’s right over there.”
Phenex allowed himself to be directed through the entryway of the futuristic dome that housed the butterfly habitat, hoping that maybe being bombarded by flying insects would dampen his mood. The humidity and heat they stepped into made him glad he’d only worn a T-shirt under his simple black peacoat. He pulled off the coat as he looked around, joining Sofia on a path that ran alongside overflowing banks of blooming flowers. The air was alive with brightly colored wings.
“Oh, look! I love the blue ones!”
Sofia was laughing, delighted, as a large black and blue butterfly fluttered around her head, then decided to land on her shirt, making a living corsage of itself. It pulsed its wings gently, probably trying to decide how she tasted.
Lucky bastard.
Phenex couldn’t look away—for a few moments, everything around him seemed to vanish until there was just Sofia and her butterfly, two fragile, impermanent, beautiful creatures. He had a momentary wild impulse to spread his own wings and envelop the two of them, protecting them. The need was so strong that his flying muscles ached from holding back. Every breath Sofia took, every soft rush of air beneath the wings around them, suddenly seemed to be the most glorious music, dancing, swelling, swirling around him in a way that made something long dormant inside himself stretch and stir. It filled the empty places, silenced the endless aching…
Then the butterfly flitted off again, and Sofia watched it go with a smile that was touched with wistfulness. The moment was broken.
Phenex looked around, dazed. Whatever he’d just felt had vanished as suddenly as it had come. But…it had left an echo. One he could still feel, one he’d be mulling over later, once he quit feeling as though the ground had just shifted beneath his feet. He trailed along behind Sofia, not really hearing or seeing anything, absurdly relieved when she announced she was starving and it was time to go eat.
It was nothing, Phenex decided.
Except that he was still hearing music, very faintly—a song he’d never heard, even though he hadn’t composed an original piece in over a thousand years. Something was different. And different usually turned out to be bad. But it didn’t feel bad.
Confused, but strangely elated, Phenex pulled on his jacket and walked with Sofia out into the cold gray day. When he lagged behind, Sofia looked back, grinned, and then reached to catch his hand in hers to pull him along.
“Come on,” she said. “The mountain rolls at Okada… Seriously. You don’t even know what you’re keeping me from, Phenex. They’re amazing.”
So he let her lead. And it wasn’t until three blocks later that he realized he’d left his hand in hers.
Chapter Twelve
It was dark by the time they got back to the apartment, with Phenex carrying a heavenly smelling bag of what they hadn’t been able to finish…along with a few things Phenex had decided he just had to bring back for later, even though he’d already eaten five times what Sofia could have managed at her hungriest.
“I can’t believe you’re this ancient thing and you’d never eaten sushi,” Sofia teased him. It still surprised her. She expected that he would have done everything, tasted everything. Wasn’t that what eternity was for? But whatever Phenex had been spending his existence doing, it didn’t seem that adventures in food had been his thing.
“I felt like eating a raw fish would have too much of a Gollum vibe,” Phenex said as they headed through the front door of the building and started up the stairs. “Now I’m too full to give a damn. I don’t think I’ve been this full in at least a couple hundred years. When I told you to order what was good and I’d try it, I didn’t think you’d order the whole menu.”
“You should have been more specific.” Sofia laughed. “Everything’s good.”