“There didn’t used to be any rules about sex in the sauna,” Felix said. “Now there are.”
Spence shook his head and grinned. “Yeah, as your handbooks told you, everyone present in the sauna has to be okay with you having sex in there. If someone enters and tells you to get a room, it means you should stop. Ya’ll are housed four to a room, and there are no designated areas for private sex between flock members. Most of the time, everyone’s pretty fucked out from servicing the vampires.Until Felix, we never had complaints about needing a space to fuck so you don’t disturb your roommates.
“You were given your room assignments and entry codes via the app,” Spence said, changing the subject. “Head on down and get settled in. The luggage you sent earlier in the week should be there. If the luggage you brought on the plane today isn’t there yet, it should be soon.”
He looked at his watch. “We’ll start certifying people for the fireman’s pole in about an hour, and the cafeteria should open by then. I’ll be here for thirty minutes if you have any questions.”
Emmy went down with Rhea, Toby, and Felix, one floor below the cafeteria.
Rhea punched in her code and opened the door, and the four walked into the pie-shaped room. Most flock rooms have four twin-sized beds across the back wall, but she’d told Spence she and Felix planned to push their beds together, and Spence had arranged for them to have a double-sized bed.
The narrow end near the door opened into a cozy sitting area with four chairs grouped around a low table, soft lighting, and enough floor space to stretch or sit.
Deeper into the room, the walls flared wider, and Toby’s setup was already in place at the back right of the room. His twin bed against the wall, four large monitors mounted on the wall above it. A desk stood at the foot, as wide as the bed and easily deep enough for a laptop, with a simple chair pushed under the desk.
Along the left wall was Emmy and Felix’s larger bed, with Rhea’s twin bed between.
And this was their safe space, away from vampires and other shifters. Four friends who were used to living together.
And granted, they each had their own private space in Anchorage, but they’d be fine together for three months. She genuinely liked these three people.
It would be hell to have to room with someone you didn’t want to be around.
Ten minutes later, Toby’s desk held a rugged laptop, headphones, a stack of labeled data drives, and a coffee mug with a secure lid. One of his sky-tracking apps was already open, streaming live aurora and weather feeds over the silo’s surprisingly stable Wi-Fi.
Emmy put her clothing into the drawers marked for her, and settled her bathroom caddy into the small cabinet beside the drawers. She pushed her suitcase under the bed, and wished she could check on her costumes, but they were all being stored elsewhere and would be delivered to them the morning of the events.
“Anyone want to check out the bathroom with me?” Felix asked.
Emmy went with him, two doors down the hall, and stood inside, looking it over. Ten toilet stalls across a portion of the back wall, with a huge open shower section running along the rest of the back wall and forward along the right wall. She counted fifteen showerheads with rubberized tile beneath.
Sinks lined the left wall, with mirrors and good lighting.
Not fancy, but functional and clean. With twenty-four shifters per floor, there might be a wait for the showers just after an event, but she figured outside of that, it should be fine.
“They bring the temps in the bathrooms up to around seventy degrees before and after the evening events, figuring that’s when we’re most likely to be showering,” Felix told her. “Also, the event rooms are warmed a little more for frenzies and balls, since there’ll be naked people.”
Right. The underground is kept at around sixty-two degrees, which is fine for shifters. Emmy had taken her layers off and was currently in jeans and a long-sleeved thermal shirt, and she was comfortable.
“What was that in the Lupanar? Memories of what’s happened in the past, or anticipation of what will happen?”
He shrugged. “A little of both. Thanks for the hug. It’s nice having you here.”
Before she could respond, more shifters came in, and Emmy talked to them a little before using the toilet and heading back to her room to re-organize her bathroom caddy. She’d planned to do her makeup in the room with a lighted mirror, but the lighting was so good in the bathroom, she’d be better off doing it in there.
Chapter 20
They lined up in the Aurora Ballroom six hours later, forming a huge circle around the inner perimeter, sorted from largest to smallest by their shifted animal’s body weight. Emmy’s dragon was the largest, and she was the first flock member the vampires saw when they walked the circle.
It was dark outside, with more stars showing through the dome than Emmy had ever seen in a Midgard sky, despite the dimly lit rope lights that ringed the curved wall at eye level. The Arctic night pressed in like velvet, and the glass-and-steel dome made it feel like a cathedral of ice and stars. The constellations seemed sharper, closer, and strange. Orion looked wrong, tilted at an angle she wasn’t used to, like the sky had been spun off-axis. Or maybe she was the one tilted. Everything about this place made her feel a little off, as if the vampires hadn’t just remade the town, but rewritten the sky to suit their aesthetics.
Breath fogged the air in ghostly little puffs, but the floor beneath her feet radiated a subtle warmth. Around her, the flock stood silent, signs held in steady hands. No one spoke.
Emmy stood first, her name and species spelled out in bold, white block letters on the red sign she held at chest level.
Emmy
European Dragon
