Amid Stars and Darkness (The Xenith Trilogy #1)
Chani Lynn Feener
FOR MATT AND LISA
CHAPTER 1
“Do we really have to play this game?” Delaney asked, the question coming out halfheartedly. She already knew what the response would be.
“Come on,” Mariana pushed. “I’m nervous.”
“You’re never nervous.” The two of them had been friends for four years now, so she would know. “Besides, I’m terrible at this. You always win. Hence, why I’m here standing in line, waiting to get into a place I have no interest in.”
“Don’t be so dull, D.” Mariana bumped Delaney’s shoulder playfully. “Any time with me is fun time. Now”—her deep chocolate eyes homed in on a man standing five paces ahead of them—“us or them?”
Delaney made a big show of staring at the back of the guy’s head before shrugging pointedly. “Us?”
Ignoring the fact that Delaney’s heart clearly wasn’t in it, Mariana pondered a moment before disagreeing. “Definitely a them.”
“How can you even tell?” Because chances were very good that her friend was right.
“It’s in the set of his shoulders.”
“It is not.” Or, if it truly was, Delaney couldn’t see it.
The heavy thrum of music from inside the large warehouse building vibrated around them, the waves rumbling up through their feet. True to its name, club Star Light was a glittering beacon off the fringe of Portland, Maine. The building itself was made of faded brick, and had once been home to some sort of manufacturing company. That was many years prior, and it’d been renovated into one of the hottest dance clubs in the state about half a decade ago.
“Tell me again who you’re hoping to meet up with?” Delaney asked as the line moved another foot closer.
Being that it was Friday night, it came as no surprise that the place was packed. A curvy stretch of people trailed from the two metal doors all the way to the start of the parking lot to the right. Because Mariana and Delaney had traveled the forty-five minutes from their small town, Cymbeline, to Portland earlier in the day, they’d snagged a prime parking spot in front of one of the buildings across the street. At least leaving would be easier. Too bad they’d spent so long at dinner that they hadn’t gotten here at opening.
“I’m not hoping anything,” Mariana answered, though her wide grin gave her away.
“Right.” Delaney rolled her eyes jokingly. “That’s why you’re ‘nervous.’ What’s this one’s name again? Starts with an O? Owen? Otto?”
“Ottus,” she corrected, a strand of annoyance slipping past her deep-red-painted lips. “Which you totally remembered. His name is Ottus. And you’re supposed to be here for moral support. This is our first time meeting in person, and I want it to be perfect.”
“Oat-us,” Delaney sounded it out, and made a face. She remembered seeing the spelling of it flashing on Mariana’s phone last week. It wasn’t done in the traditional way; it was strange.
But of course it would be, considering Ottus was an alien.
It’d only been three years since the revelation of extraterrestrials. Apparently, they’d been visiting Earth for millennia, and no one knew quite why they’d decided to come out of hiding now, only that they had. After exposing their existence, there’d been talk of a merger, which of course the humans had protested. They’d attempted to fight, but their weapons were toys in comparison to the technology those from Xenith had.
“He’s Vakar,” her roommate said then, excitement brimming behind her smooth brown eyes. “He told me he used to be a soldier.”
Mariana was obsessed with the aliens, who she’d dubbed Them. Like they were rock stars she couldn’t get enough of. It was the one thing Delaney was looking forward to now that they’d graduated high school and moved into an apartment: separate rooms.
She loved Mariana, but she didn’t share her interest in the otherworldly. Still, she was glad her friend was so excited to meet someone, even if he was an ex–alien soldier.
“And now he’s a bartender,” Delaney said, making sure the teasing lilt to her voice was apparent. “How impressive.”
“Shut up.” They moved less than a foot closer to the door. “If you’d just give him a chance, you would like him, I promise. But not too much. I don’t want to share.”
“I don’t have anything against aliens,” Delaney said for what felt like the millionth time. “I’m just not enthralled by them like you are. I’d prefer to go about my life per usual and pretend the invasion never happened.”
Mariana was quick to defend them. “They didn’t invade.”
Done with this conversation, Delaney scanned her mind for anything else they could talk about. Literally anything. There was a bickering couple directly behind them, and for a moment their argument about whether or not waiting to get in was worth it was entertaining enough to hold her attention.
At this rate, they were never getting in and Mariana would never get to meet the bartender.
“Moral support, huh?”
“Yes,” Mariana agreed.
“All right.” She stepped to the side of the line. “This is taking forever.”
Delaney ignored the six people who’d been standing in front of them, locking eyes with the bouncer. She’d watched him more closely over the past ten minutes and had noticed his bored expression and slouched shoulders. If she had to guess, he and his lack of enthusiasm were the main causes for the slow line movement.
Flashing a grin at him, she made sure to have his full attention before slipping a twenty from her pocket. Angling her body to keep the rest of the line from seeing, she held the bill out and motioned toward Mariana, who was still waiting in their spot.
“My friend is running late for a date,” she told him. “Help a girl out?”
He was about three times her size and didn’t appear to be the nicest of people, so she kept her smile firmly in place. He glanced between the two of them once before motioning Mariana forward with a finger.
Plucking the twenty from her hand, he absently asked for her ID, barely bothering to look down at it once she’d held it out.
She was a bit disappointed by that fact—the fake had cost her a decent amount of money, and using it had been the only part about coming to this club that had excited her. Then they were through the doors and Mariana swung an arm over her shoulder and they both laughed.
*
THEY’D SQUISHED THEIR way into the center of the crowd, relishing the flashing of neon strobe lights and the surrounding heat from the other patrons. It smelled like sweat and beer, and Delaney’s ears were already burning from the heavy beat that thrummed from large speakers situated all around the rectangular room.