She didn’t sense that her attempt to have a quiet drink alone was about to be interrupted. Delightfully, Cornbread was there to catch her up. The Potoo Griffin’s claws dug into Cressida’s shoulder. In a reflexive attempt to shake off the pinching talons, her spine twisted away from him like a bent pool noodle. “Hey. Hey! Watch it.” Her fingers fussed in the air in front his chest feathers. A wing smacked her upside the head, knocking loose a generous string of Russian cursing.
“What?” She growled, prohibited from seeing he who dared trespass on her end-of-work decompression by a wall of flapping pinions. Flattening Cornbread’s wing against his side, Cress blew air between her lips to dislodge a downy insulation feather stuck to her crimson lipstick, and finally managed to spy their interruption. She understood Cornbread’s alarm ... and shared it.
Beside a hungry Cheetah, a man well above average height stood—with what appeared to be a boiled goat’s head covered in charred runes for a face. Its eyes closed, the blistered goat appeared to be sleeping. She retched in the back of her mouth, and wide-eyed, snatched at her glass to wash away the bitterness.
“And I’ve heard Merrick wears a red lace-up corset, but I don’t believe everything I hear,” she returned, setting her glass down with a thunk like punctuation. The sting of the well alcohol didn’t bother nearly so much now. In fact, she might have another. Pointedly not looking at the stranger from The Island of Dr. Moreau, Cress jabbed her temples with her thumbs, shushed Cornbread’s nervously warbling with a dull hiss, then pinched the bridge of her nose. Before she chanced another look, she screwed her eyes shut so tight that scarlet spots like fever bloomed behind her lids.
“What do you want?” Her eyes cracked open at a squint, Cress straightened on her stool as though an old Madame had requested first position at the barre. Again she tried to assess her uninvited company with a skeptical side-eye, and rather than a demonic idol for a face, she found an XXL blond with kind eyes, a visibly steady manner and a face for GQ. Le Cirque had to have a subclause for attractiveness somewhere in their revised contract. And as she’d recently discussed with Jaime, pulchritude meant fuck all here: case in point. Impatient to reclaim her solitude, the Oracle drummed her nails beside her cane.