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She reluctantly turned back to the stage below when the lights went down and a hush fell over the crowd. A spotlight beamed onto the edge of the stage to reveal a girl with long white hair. She wore a short black gown that looked like a giant bird’s nest, and she swung her arms about wildly, making her dress flutter.
Kaia propped her hands onto Orion’s thighs to lean forward, craning her neck for a better view. She batted away the offer of another glass as strange music rose from a bare whisper to a loud, bone-penetrating hum that resonated through the entire chamber.
She’d never heard anything like it, and her suspicions were confirmed when a platform moved up from the floor along the side of the stage, with dozens of instruments in different shapes and sizes operated by men and women in white suits.
“They do love their orchestras,” Orion murmured in her ear, and Kaia waved him away. Nothing,nothingwas allowed to interrupt this. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, then spilled over. Before she could bat at them with the back of her hand, Orion did it for her, fingertips tracing a slow line of heat along her cheekbone. She couldn’t quite think of a reason not to tilt into that warmth, nor did she try very hard or maybe at all, as her eyes remained fixed on the performance.
Over the course of the two-hour show, Kaia saw people flying, contorting themselves into impossible shapes, and singing notes no human should be capable of. She sensed there was an overarching storyline in the music and the display—electronic wisps began to thread their way through the acoustic orchestra, exquisite voices and bodies tinged with aggression in mock combat. Otherworldly clothing melted together with utilitarianism that reminded Kaia ofColossal.
The show never did come to a formal close. It morphed into some twisting, dark, electronic thing that grew with the escalating voices of the crowd. More kerogel packets were being passed around down there, and eyes kept turning up to the booth. She felt both like a voyeur and an animal being watched in that position, and when she spotted a man ripping off someone’s shirt, exposing a flash of pink, Kaia drew back. Her back collided with a hard chest behind her, and only then did she remember that she was still seated on Orion’s lap—Orion, who was handing her another glass of the fizzy stuff, only this time it wasn’t golden but a bright, shimmering cyan, just like his eyes. She took it.
Kaia’s head thrummed with the music and goosebumps prickled her skin as a deep bass line built. The skin at her plunging neckline grew hot as she threw back her head and swallowed the sweet liquid. Twisting to look over Orion, who had reclined beneath her, Kaia found the waif’s group. They writhed in uncoordinated movements that nevertheless somehow matched the psychedelic beat hammering the air. They looked like the sound was moving through them. Kaia wondered what that felt like. She gnawed her lip, thinking faintly that she probably shouldn’t stare like that, and yet continuing her unabashed observation.
Orion bent toward her, a hand splayed on the small of her back. He brought his mouth to her ear. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER35
ORION
Orion pulled Kaia to her feet, supporting her meager weight as she stumbled on wobbly legs. He guided her down the chute into the crowd below. The energy of the throng hit him immediately, making his spines itch. It was different up in the box—you were in it, but notin it.
And Kaia wanted to be in it.
Orion led her through the manic crowd. She moved in that dress like it was designed just for her, and she didn’t even know it. Her hips swayed with the music under the snug fit, ethereal fabric shimmering green along the slender curves of her body in the strobe-lights.
Despite her hard edges and sharp tongue, all reminiscent of his home colony, Kaia’s body was made for theZenith.
He slid his hands to her waist and tugged her closer. Her head lolled back to peer at him through half-lidded eyes, and then, with a small giggle, slumped forward into his chest. He took the opportunity to let his hands wander over her ass, exploring while she remained loose against him.
She shivered as his lips found her ear, then traversed down to nip at the tender spot right beneath her jaw. He breathed in her arousal and squeezed her closer, their hips meeting. The way her sloppy hands came up to interlock at the back of his neck, agitating the spikes there, made black seep into the edges of his vision. He closed his eyes, picturing his forest. Pines against a clear sky.
When someone bumped into Kaia, jolting her to tense and bring her head up in groggy alarm, Orion swung out and smacked the idiot in the head. The man careened backwards into the throng of bodies.
“Wha—” She blinked at the spot where the guy had been a second before.
“It's nothing.” Orion traced a finger down her jawline until she focused once again on what she should have been focusing on all along: him. He smoothed a strand of wild red hair from her face, a little moist from the sweat glistening on her brow, and her pink lips parted in a silent sigh.
Orion shuffled them toward a glass column shimmering technicolor a few feet away, positioning her against its surface. Her pupils were already blown out in that way he liked. He took the invitation, because that was what it was. What else could it be, when she licked along her bottom lip like that? When the droplet of sweat running down her throat broke as she took a hard swallow? When the red flush creeping up from that dress was just begging for teeth?
Orion dipped down to that redness, savoring the goosebumps that rose to meet the spikes on his tongue. She shuddered beneath him, and her fingers, still around his nape, plucked at the inflamed spines there. She was careless. He felt her skin break under his sharp tips. She would be bleeding, but she didn’t seem to care. Even through the blackness encroaching on his vision, Orion had the wherewithal to be impressed.
When Kaia tipped her head to bare her neck for him, a keen growl rose in his throat. He pushed his hand beneath the delicate hem of her dress, sliding up her inner thigh. She yelped into his shirt, her cry muffled by the music and the fabric against her lips, but relaxed with a slow quiver as his mouth trailed up her jawline.
When his fingers found the heat between her legs, her arousal had soaked through the fabric of her panties. He found himself clenching the side of her dress hard enough for a long ripping sound to indicate its destruction.
“You’re drenched,” he muttered into her cheek, breaths coming sharp against her face.
She was shaking beneath him, and Orion pulled back just to see what this was doing to her. Whether it was lust or fear that made her shake, he would be witness to it.
He glanced to the side, where a starfield of hungry eyes watched the scene. “Look. Everyone sees how hot you are for it.”
She looked, and he didn’t think his cock could get any harder, but there it was, swelling at the perverse flash in her eyes.
When he snatched her panties aside and slid a finger along the length of her slit, she cried a sharp yelp that he caught with his mouth. He forced his tongue between her lips, and though she tensed, her hips rolled forward against the thumb he’d pressed to her clit. His spikes raked against her tongue, interfering with whatever the fuck she was trying to mumble as she crumbled against his hand.
She was starving for it, her slickness coating his fingers.
“Mmm… W-wait,” she tried to stammer against his lips, but her body made a different request and one that he much preferred to her damn mouth. It was writhing, chasing the pressure of his fingers against her pussy.
