She drew her legs up under her, silk robe flashing a moment of thigh before she stilled it. “Teach me.”
There was a time, not long ago, when I would have jumped at the opening—showed her the claws, the fangs, made a game of it. But tonight was different. She was scared, but she wanted something more than comfort. She wanted the truth.
So I gave it to her. “You have to accept that you’re not like them. You don’t want to be. The sooner you stop pretending, the sooner you’ll win.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. The firelight caught the edge of her jaw, the fine white scar just below her chin, the one I’d noticed the first night but never asked about. She sipped her bourbon, then set it aside and reached for the bottle. Our hands touched—her skin shockingly cold, mine hot from the shift.
“You could go if you wanted,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Could you?” I asked.
She blinked. “No.”
I caught the scent of fear in her blood, but also something else: arousal, so sharp it cut the air. I could almost see the pulse at her throat, right over the place I would eventually leave my mark.
We sat in silence for a long time. Outside, a fox screamed—high, keening, alive.
She poured us another round and this time let her hand linger on mine, just a breath past casual. “Shivs. If I go down, I want to take someone with me.”
I bared my teeth. “That’s the only way I know.”
She smiled, and in that moment, I knew she was every bit as fucked up as I was, maybe more.
“Good,” she said. “Let’s finish this bottle.”
We did.
The bourbon burned down to nothing, and when it was gone, I wanted more. But I could see in her eyes that the next move would change everything—not just for the night, but for the war that was coming.
I looked at her, and she looked right back, like the last two humans on earth waiting to see which one would break first.
The bourbon made us honest, or maybe just reckless. Either way, words came easier after the second glass. I asked her about her first fight—real fight, not the shit you see at prep school or summer camp, but the kind where someone’s got a bottle in their hand and is aiming for your head.
She hesitated, then shrugged. “My cousin at a family reunion. I called him a bastard in front of Aunt Ruth. He broke a pint bottle on the porch and tried to glass me with it. I ducked, and he got my chin. That’s how I got this scar.” She traced it, almost fond. “He cried after. He was, I don’t know, seven? Maybe eight. Mean as hell, but not a bad person. Just angry.”
I grunted approval. “Good story. My first fight was with my own reflection. Didn’t know what I was, not yet. One day, I was thirteen, and I just lost it.”
She stared at me, eyes wide. “You remember the pain?”
“Every fucking second of it.” I took another hit of bourbon, let it fill my head. “But after? I was free. No fear, no regret, just the wind and the need to move. That kid never bothered me again.”
She leaned in, elbows on her knees, the blue-white light of the moon painting her hair silver. “What does it feel like now?”
I tried to answer. “It’s like you know how a cask of bourbon holds the angel’s share? The part that evaporates? The beast takes its own share from me. Every time I change, it gets a little stronger, but I get a little smarter about how to fight it.”
She liked that. I could see it in the twist of her mouth. “So you’re half man, half angel?”
I snorted. “More like half man, half barrel-aged asshole.”
She actually laughed, and it felt like the first time she’d done it in years. Maybe ever.
She poured more bourbon, careful not to spill. “My dad used to train my palate. Blindfolded. He’d line up ten glasses, everything from raw white dog to thirty-year reserve, and make me name each by taste. If I got one wrong, he’d make me do pushups until my arms gave out. He called it discipline. I called it child abuse.”
I didn’t say anything. She didn’t want comfort, just someone to bear witness.
She swirled her glass, staring at the way the amber clung to the crystal. “I loved him. I hated him. I still talk to his ghost, sometimes, when I’m in the rickhouse alone.”
I looked at her, really looked. There was nothing fragile about this woman, even at her lowest. Her skin glowed in the lamplight, hair loose and wild, and the robe did little to hide the pulse at her throat.
