My skin erupts in goose bumps. He’s baiting me like I’m his prey.
SEVEN
JACKAL
Female Topi antelopes are only fertile one day a year, and during that twenty-four-hour period they hound the male antelopes to the point of exhaustion.
My mother once told me that I had an unnatural taste for the forbidden. She said it casually as she folded a pair of my boxers into a neat little square. I was fourteen and watching her from the living room floor, recovering from a hangover after drinking two bottles of stolen communion wine. She’d already delivered her punishment by then, ten belt whips to the back of my knees. She was a religious woman, never missing a church service, and so I took her assessment of my personality as a curse. In a world where you’re given everything, the thing they tell you not to want is what you want the most.
Phoenix is at the party. I spot her in a crowd wearing a dress the color of lemons, so vivid against the hues of blues and greens around her that she looks like a misplaced splotch of paint. It’s impossible to see anything but her, or maybe that’s just me. I smile to myself, but the smile is short-lived. She is standing next to Sean, chatting with a group. The governor’s hand rests possessively on her lower back, an anchor of ownership. I bristle. I have a habit of thinking something is mine before it is. It’s not the first time I’ve seen them together. Before I can walk their way, the lady of the house approaches me with a fresh drink. It’s the fourth drink she’s hand-delivered tonight. An upper-crust party, there can be only one thing she wants. She’s trying to get me drunk; I’m at my best when drunk. Phoenix was right about one thing: I’m known for turning a respectable party into an orgy. They don’t outright tell me that’s what they want:get your dick out and swing it at anyone who’s bent over.But I have buttons, and if you push them, that’s what I’ll do. It’s been years of conditioning. I don’t stay, even though her mouth is opening to say something. I head for the stairs and for Phoenix, the ice rattling in my glass.
“Jackal.” She gives me a sidelong glance.
Sean hears my name and smiles in my direction before resuming his conversation. I take her arm, my fingers curling around her bicep.
“A moment?” I say into her ear.
Her lips tighten, but she allows me to lead her away. Up close, the yellow of her dress is so luscious against her skin I can see why she chose it.
“You look edible,” I say.
“And yet no one eats me…”
I look at her in surprise. “Not even Sean?”
Her face turns pink. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Of course not.” I smile. “Though I can arrange a room for us if you’d like to be—”
She stares at me, her mouth ajar. “You really feel like you have the right to everyone, don’t you?”
“On the contrary, little thief, everyone feels they have the right to me.”
I hook her arm through mine and steer her through the crowd.
“Everyone is watching us,” she says through her teeth. “If you single a woman out like this, people will think you have a special interest.”
“I do,” I say.
We’re on the dance floor. She gives me a cursory glance before stepping into my arms.
“So, you and Sean,” I say.
“Me and Sean what?”
“He wants you.”
“So do you,” she says, “and how well has that worked out for you?”
I laugh and she bites the insides of her cheeks to keep from laughing too.
“You won’t let yourself do anything you want to do, Phoenix. Why is that?”
She raises her eyebrows, surprised. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m living the exact life I want to live. In case you haven’t noticed, I do fairly well as the Region’s prima ballerina. I have everything I could ever want.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Because you certainly don’t want a baby like everyone else.”
“No, I don’t,” she says cautiously. “That’s not unheard of for a dancer.”