SHADOWGLa.s.s.

by ERICA HAYES.

1.

Stolen diamond bracelets glittered on my wrists in colored nightclub lights, and I laughed, my wings swelling damp in the warm crush of bodies. Midnight at Unseelie Court, dark and fragrant with smoke and sweat. Music ripped my ears like sweet razors, so loud, the air thudded in my lungs and my hair shook to the beat. Strobe lights sliced me, snapshots in time as I danced-here, there, gone.

Blaze wrapped his long white arm around my waist, spilling flames on my shoulder from soft crimson hair. I grinned and wriggled closer, his hot firefae flesh a delicious glory on my skin. Dancing, drinking, diamonds I don't own. Doesn't get sweeter than this.

The floor's packed tonight, a mash of bright fairy wings and rainbow limbs and slick vampire smiles, the air steamy with breath and l.u.s.t and chemical euphoria. Humans here, too, a few sly ones who can see, but mostly shimmer-eyed and drunk on poison glamour, here for the oblivion. A heady bubble of unreality, this club-no thought, no consequences. Kiss, embrace, dance, love, drown your cares in glorious sensory nectar. A fairy kind of place, no rules, no guilt, the air so gla.s.sy with glamour, it might shatter.

Even the name is a fairy joke: Unseelie Court. We fae have no court, no queen or princes or justice. We leave that to demons, gangsters, people who matter.

The smell alone warmed my insides. I'm waterfae, which makes me attuned to moisture, and the wet scent of all that pleasure pressed a sweet ache deep inside me. I shimmied on the crowded dance floor, my silky skirt sticking to my thighs, and lifted my arms in the candy white smoke. My new diamonds sparkled over my wrists, painted blue and green and scarlet by flashing lights. We'd filched them tonight from a glossy apartment in South Yarra, along with a pile of cash and other trinkets.

My skin glowed blue with desire. Shiny things get me all warm and wriggly. I won't get to keep them. We owe the Valenti gang too much protection money. But just for tonight, they're mine. And what harm ever came from something shiny?

Behind me, Blaze rubbed his cheek against my wing, sparks drifting from his pretty red hair. Ooh, tingles, all down my side like sugar. I flexed my shoulders, fluttering golden dust that danced in manic spotlights and rippled in the brittle static of glamour. Blaze is my best friend, a dazzling firefae boy with cute muscles and a cheeky sharp-toothed smile, and his glamour is good. I mean, it's really good. Humans won't see the fine crimson wings like a dragonfly's, the flame dripping from his fingers, his narrow fae-muscled body. They just see a cute redhead with wicked black eyes.

Me? Well, I do my best, but glamour isn't my forte. My nose looks a bit less pointy, my hair more blond than orange, my garish yellow skin fades to human tones. That's about it. Glamour or not, I'm still the same geeky old me.

Blaze slid his arm over my shoulder to offer his fingertip, slick and adorned with a shimmering purple pill.

Naughty boy. I giggled, licked the pill off, and swallowed. It stung bitter, but his finger tasted of sherbet, sparkly and nice.

He rubbed his sharp nose in my hair, and I laughed, my blood hot and urgent, my head awhirl with fizzy-sweet vodka and the thrill of our night's work. Forget the Valentis. Forget the world. Just me and my diamonds, jumping, twirling, dancing until I dropped. Yes.

Next to me a blue-haired vampire kid in leather and his girl kissed, b.l.o.o.d.y spit trickling on her chin as she swayed to the music, his fingers sliding beneath her skirt. A pair of shirtless trolls scoped for girls, sweat glistening on bulging green muscles and bell-pierced nipples. One winked at me, flicking ragged black hair from his eyes, and I pretended not to see him.

"Spice for Ice!" Blaze yelled, sparks showering. He's allowed to make fun of my unfortunate name. He sizzled my pointed ear with his tongue. Shivers. Mmm. More tongue, slower and wetter than strictly necessary. Bet he's got a hard-on.

I arched my b.u.t.t backwards and giggled again. Oh, yeah. He's wearing suction-tight leather pants-how he gets those on, I'll never know-and they don't leave much to the imagination.

I grinned, magical warmth already glowing in my guts. Blaze feels as good as he looks, and when he's sparkled to the eyeb.a.l.l.s and high from housebreaking and too much broken gla.s.s, he always tries something. But we're just friends. We've got rules, and they don't include dragging each other out the back for a hot dirty s.h.a.g.

Blaze is my lucky charm. Other guys will laugh at me or hit me or play tricks on me just to watch me cry. Fairy girls get that. It's a harsh fae-taunting world out there. Every week you hear about a new fairyslasher, a s.a.d.i.s.t, a murderer on the loose. Fairies aren't people, see. We're whispers, shadows, irrelevancies sheathed in desperate glamour so we won't stand out or offend anyone or make anyone feel uncomfortable. We're just flotsam, bobbing on the surface of real people's lives. We just hang out and party. It's what we're here for. No one cares if we die or hurt or bleed.

But I know I'm safe with Blaze, even if he is a h.o.r.n.y little rat.

That hunky troll b.u.mped my hip, his beady black gaze slithering down over my a.s.s, and Blaze snarled wet sparks at him and spun me away.

I snickered, and wriggled to face him, static shifting. He tossed bloodred hair and threw me that dazzling Blaze grin. He cuts his hair short in the back and scrunches it wildly too long at the front so he can shake it back like that and skewer you with his dirty black come-taste-me stare.

But I know he doesn't mean it, not with me. He's just having fun. I tickled his pointy teeth with my claw. "Go rub that thing on someone else, ya dirty wh.o.r.e."

He slid bony fingers over my hip, keeping me just an inch or two away. His scent zinged my nose, fresh like a newly struck match. Rakish golden rings glinted in his pointy ears, and his studded black velvet jacket was cropped at his smooth hip with nothing underneath. Sweat caressed his narrow muscles in all the right places. He flicked his smoldering gaze to the bar for a second, ruby sparks jumping from his lips. "I can taste green. Azure's watching us. Wanna tease her a bit?"

Azure's our other best friend, as pretty and awesome as Blaze. I looked. She was watching us, with that glinting glaze over her eyes that meant trouble. "You're cruel."

"You're scared." He edged closer, sweat-slick skin sliding on my bare midriff. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against his chest, burning.

Already the purple pill flowered deep and hot inside me. It couldn't be desire. I was far too sensible to want Blaze. Indignation lifted my eyebrows. "Am not. I'm sensible."

"To h.e.l.l with sensible. Let's be reckless. I'm good at reckless." He wetted his plum-red lips, and the smell of that moisture tripped warm dizzy waves in my skull. Hot fae boy. Lips. Diamonds.

I couldn't keep the giggles in any longer, and I shoved him in the chest, tipping him backwards. "What you are is a naughty boy with a hard-on. Get a girlfriend." And I turned and pushed my way through the fragrant crowd, laughter floating from me like starlight on the swelling currents of my high.

Colors tumbled and prismed. My diamonds dazzled me, and I stumbled over my own ankles a few times as I approached the blue neon bar. Azure pointed at me and laughed, pearlescent wings jittering as she swayed on her stool. She wore a jagged-hemmed white dress that left her back bare, and she'd piled her green hair above her head in a wild nest of knots and stolen pearls, a pair of broken chopsticks and a c.o.c.ktail fork sticking out.

My purple-drugged heart swelled with love and awe. Azure's the pretty one. Her glamour shows some weirdly beautiful supermodel, tall and willowy with wide-s.p.a.ced almond eyes. Her real appearance is the same, only with shimmering oval wings, and her skin is a dozen perfect shades of pale air-sprite blue.

Whereas my hair looks kinda like mango peel, half green and half moldy orange, and my wings are burnt yellow, ragged and droopy like a sick b.u.t.terfly's.

Some girls have all the luck.

Azure poked my chin with a sharp claw, her soft breeze playing with my hair. Az is airfae, attuned to air and the atmosphere. "You're drunk, diamond girl."

"Not true. I'm high. You're the one who's drunk." I jumped up and down, unsteady on my heels, until the bar boy noticed me, and he served me two pink vodka lemonades without me asking. Maybe I was drunker than I thought. Still plenty of stolen cash left, though. I tossed him a crumpled twenty, waving my diamonded wrist grandly. "Keep it, peaches. Stop looking at him like that."

Azure said nothing, and I lurched onto a stool and tickled her slender ribs. "I said, stop staring at him."

"Who?" She tossed her pretty blue head, her wings aflutter, and concentrated too hard on stirring her drink.

"Oh, I dunno, the woolly mammoth in the corner? Who d'ya think?"

She thumped her chin into her hand and her elbow onto the bar, sea-green moisture staining her eyes. "But he's so pretty."

Guilt twinged my happy guts, and I patted her shoulder clumsily. "Yeah, I know. But it's an orchid farm in here, okay? Look around. There's other pretty ones."

"Not like him." She hiccuped and burst into proper tears, her wings flooding verdant.

I sighed. Last month she'd had the hots for some cute blond vampire babe. This week it was Blaze. She'd get over it. But my heart still ached for her. Just because she falls quick doesn't mean she doesn't fall hard. And Blaze is the Court's biggest boy wh.o.r.e. He'll only break her heart.

I slipped my arm around her bony shoulder and pointed to the dance floor, where Blaze was trickling orange flame down some laughing banshee's spine, singeing the ends of her long silver hair. "Look at him. See that girl he's dancing with? In the silver dress? Oh, now he's tongue-kissing her, he's putting his hand up her . . . Yeah. You really want that to be you?"

Az just looked at me, indignant breeze dragging her hair back.

I flushed, vodka-tainted water heating my muscles. Maybe I wasn't quite making my point. "Okay, let's not look at that anymore." Firmly I spun her back around to the bar.

She glared, wet-eyed. "You're a real big help, Ice."

I gulped my vodka, pink fizz shooting fireworks up my nose. "So he's boy candy. Everyone knows that. You also know what a b.i.t.c.h he can be. Whaddaya want me to say?"

"Promise you'll never go with him."

I flushed again, and this time the water burned my cheeks. "What?"

"b.u.t.terflies in the sun. I've seen him flirt with you. Promise me you'll never."

"Never flirt with him?" Discomfort twisted, ruining my high. Why dissemble? We were best friends. That's all. Even if I'd wanted to, I didn't have the courage to pursue it further. Believe it or not, I'm not too smooth with the boys, and courage is not not my middle name. my middle name.

Azure swatted my shoulder. "You know what I mean."

"Hide and seek, catch-me-if-you-can. It's just games-"

"Promise, Ice. I couldn't bear it."

She stared, so earnest and brimful with tears that I couldn't take it. "Okay, I promise. Call me a pincushion and shove safety pins up my nose if I'm wrong. It's the rules anyway, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Azure gave a sad half smile.

I hugged her, my hand slipping beneath her delicate wings. "You'll get over him, Az."

She hugged me back, and I felt better. I had nothing to hide. She sniffed, wiping snot on my shoulder. "I wish I was like you, Ice. You're the sensible one."

I thought of Blaze's tongue in my ear and giggled. "Yeah, that's me: sense, dense, intense. Dripping out my ears, it is. Of course you wanna be me. Why wouldn't you? You're only the prettiest, cleverest girl in the whole world."

She kissed me, a sugary taste of sky-blue lips, and gamely wiped her tears away in green streaks. "You're nice. Let's get drunk and find some boys."

Meaning she'd get prettily tipsy, I'd get smashed, she'd find more boys than she had hands for, and I'd get the leftovers who were too plain to interest her and too s.h.i.tfaced to care she was a hundred times more beautiful than me. But what are best friends for?

"Yes yes yes." I paid for two more drinks, and we clinked gla.s.ses and chugged. Sugar and alcohol burst into my brain like flares, and my nose fizzed.

Azure gasped. "Raspberries and ice cream. More."

"Careful, there's a fairyslasher on the loose."

She snorted. "S'always a fairyslasher. More."

I ordered more, and we chugged again. This time the froth did come out my nose, laced with plummy drug-charmed mirth. I laughed, splurting pink bubbles onto the guy next to me. "Whoa. Sorry, dude." I yanked up my skirt hem to wipe his arm clean, but the frills were too short. My heels skidded from under me, and I landed in his lap in a giggling, spluttering heap.

Oops. I craned my neck up to apologize, and my laughter strangled.

Not again.

Dark blue skin dusted with copper, so smooth and perfect, it's unreal. Black hair so crisp, it curled jagged. Eyes the velvety gray of softened steel. Long narrow wings like silver-shot gla.s.s.

My senses tumbled, intoxicated in hot metal scent. Warm midnight blue hands steadied me, and my belly melted inside like chocolate fudge sauce on ice cream, running everywhere. I inhaled, molten iron and hot fairy skin. . . .

Fluid scorched into my wing veins, swelling them tight. I held my breath. Calm, Ice. He's touching you. You've practically got your face in his lap. Say something really cool and seductive. Calm, Ice. He's touching you. You've practically got your face in his lap. Say something really cool and seductive.

"Oh. Um. Hi, Indigo. It's me."

Yeah. That so so wasn't it. wasn't it.

Effortlessly, Indigo lifted me to my feet. Rusty wing-glitter shimmered warm on my shoulders. His coppery claws grazed my wrist, and tiny electric shocks crackled up my arms, sparking my diamonds blue.

I stared, my fingerpads itching. He wore black, as usual, jeans and a sleeveless shirt that showed off lean blue arms.

I wanted to rub my cheek against them, tickle my tongue along his biceps. Metalfae are usually twisted, hunchbacked little monsters with razor metal teeth and an att.i.tude. Indigo-well, he's tall and sculpted and moves light, like a cat burglar, but he's still got razor metal teeth and an att.i.tude. Licking is strictly off-limits, especially for a no-account geek girl like me.

He surveyed me back, steely eyes cool. "Nice diamonds."

His dark quicksilver voice broke my skin out in b.u.mps. I tugged my skirt shyly down over my b.u.t.t, my skin zinging all over under his scrutiny. My tank top was splashed with pink drink, and my nipples poked the wet fabric, painfully visible. I caught myself fiddling with my hair and yanked my hand away, embarra.s.sment squirming inside. I so wanted to be like Azure, elegant and gorgeous, instead of gangly and yellow and pointy-nosed like me.

At least I had a shiny score to impress him with. Not that it'd impress him much. He was the real deal, Indigo. Not just a petty con artist. I wanted to be him when I grew up. "What? Oh, yeah, thanks. They're not mine. You like 'em?"

He gave me a dark silver-fanged smile, and my tongue tingled. Like candies, Indigo's smiles. Make your mouth water, but you only get one when you've been a very good girl. Probably rot your teeth, too.

He tinkled a copper claw along my glittering bracelets. "Pretty. They suit you."

My cheeks sizzled at his compliment. "Yeah? Wow. I mean . . . Thanks, you look great, too. I mean, not that you don't always look gr . . . Well Well, that is. You look well." s.h.i.t.

Indigo brushed pink froth from lean denim-clad thighs, electricity arcing between his fingers.

Great. Not only had I snorted my drink on him, but I'd spilled his as well. Metalfae rust, doncha know. Good job, Ice. Well done. "Sorry 'bout the drink. I'll get you another one-"

"It's okay. I was finished anyway." He adjusted brittle silver wings, and hard fae muscles did s.e.xy things inside his shirt. I stared, my fingerpads burning to touch that narrow body packed tight with faelight flesh. He's bigger than Blaze, stronger, harder. His muscles, I mean. I can only dream about the rest.

My mouth crinkled inside. This so wasn't going the way I'd imagined it.

Every time I saw him, it was like this: I made a gibbering fool of myself and then spent the time until I saw him again thinking of all the cool things I should've said.

I licked my sharp teeth. He didn't make it easy, so dark and silent and all. Guess he was shy. "So . . . Umm . . . You got anything happening? Me and my friends, we're always-"

"Not right now." His coppery lashes glinted.

"I mean, not that you need our help or anything, but we're real good, like tonight, there was this alarm system wired into the window when we smashed it, and me and Blaze-"

"Ice." Clipped, like he didn't want to listen to me or something.

"Yeah?"

"I'm kind of in the middle of something."

I peered around him. A blond banker type, sleek black suit and golden rings, sipping a bottled green drink through a straw. He glinted black eyes at me, and ash drifted from golden lashes.

I shivered. Spooky. Maybe a client, he looked rich enough. I fluffed my wings out as prettily as I could, grubbing up the dregs of my courage. "Oh, sure. Hi. I'll wait. Maybe after, we could go for pizza or something-"

"Ice?"