Unbound

Once inside the bedroom, they wasted little time. The kid reminded him that it was imperative to return his aura within twelve hours, then, making it look easy, shrugged off his aura as simply as he’d remove his clothes. His body elongated into a shimmering outline of JJ’s, thinning to a finger’s width to achieve the same height, the transformation reflected in the mirror across from them. The boy’s glimmering form deepened to opaqueness, so that his features disappeared. Now JJ’s could appear through him.

What are you doing?

JJ, watching all this as though from a distance, immediately dismissed the voice. He was being transparent, that’s what he was doing. Being truly seen, perhaps for the first time since Solange had looked at him across the distance of his parents’ broken bodies. How appropriate that it was she who would see him again now, not as an enemy or superhero, just him and her and the child they’d created between them.

He stepped forward, through the elongated form, and felt the aura mold to him like wet gauze, healing and cool. He avoided looking in the mirror as he made sure the boy’s now lifeless body was safely cradled on the bed before heading upstairs. He wanted his wife to be the first to see him. The first in years.

She killed in black silk. Though the staircase surprisingly led to a rooftop terrace that mirrored an outdoor bedroom with the sky spread above, and downtown Vegas winking below, he marveled only at her. It was a toss-up as to what possessed a deeper sheen, her hair or the chemise, or perhaps, JJ thought, it was her eyes, fixed on him as she handed him a glass of champagne, then clinked her glass to his.

“To quintessence,” she said softly.

“To relevance,” he added, which made her smile. She lifted to her toes, mouth open and inviting on his. JJ moved to deepen the kiss, but she pulled back and held him at arm’s length, studying the man who was really her husband.

JJ shifted under her stare. “Well?” he finally asked, sipping nervously at his glass as her eyes trailed him from head to toe. He felt vulnerable, small beneath the night sky they both loved. Though he knew the stars were there, they were unreadable from the city, and he had a sudden flash of being suspended amid all that dark matter, not knowing if he was on an upswing, or a down.

What are you doing? His inner voice again, more ur-¥?gently, but his eyes had already slid to Sola’s smooth legs as she poured more champagne, the black silk rounding out her behind, cutting low on her back to reveal the ridges and muscles and strength he so loved. He caught his reflection in the oval floor mirror and startled at the sight. But he was only sizing himself up in relation to her, and in his eyes—scotch-colored, the same as always—they were a perfect fit. And that’s what she commented on.

“She’ll have your eyes.”

He lifted her, kissing her neck as he dropped her to the center of the bed, also draped in black, so only her limbs shone in the ambient light. Her lips and eyes were dewy, and so was her body as his mouth trailed downward. She was his drug, he decided, as he grew dizzier with her taste and scent and sight. Her moans echoed like a shifting wind as he lingered at her thighs, her desire driving his need. Champagne poured over her torso, and he licked it clean on the way back up to her mouth, where he entered her, dividing her twice. She spread her limbs like a five-tipped star, encouraging him to mirror her with her hands and hips. He did, and she sucked and sucked at him, like she was trying to pull his soul loose and bury it inside her. Already dizzy, he actually became breathless, but her need was relentless. She wouldn’t stop.

And he couldn’t stop it.

His eyes winged wide—sent another wave of dizziness through his head—and found she was already watching him. He tried to pull away. The strong arms he loved tightened, and her heels hooked around his. She sucked harder.

The wine.

More dizziness as the realization coursed through his body, and into his loins. Too late now, he couldn’t help it. He came. She took—his seed, his breath and, he realized as he finally passed out, the changeling’s aura from his body—all in a small, inaudible pop.

His last thought before all faded to black? The small things mattered the most.

He searched. God, did he search. And as he did—stumbling across the highway, racing down stinking alleyways, and canvassing all the places he knew Solange had once been—the scales fell from his eyes.

Solange had convinced him to gain the changeling’s aura, knowing full well the boy, as one who championed the Light, would never trust her. It made sense that she hadn’t tried the same with the Shadow changeling. That would compromise their side, angering her leader, and it was obvious now—as it should have been all along—that she was still very much a Shadow.