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But I couldn’t.
Last night I had slept deep and dreamlessly. Still recovering from all that sleep deprivation. By all rights I should be tired still. I tried to sink down, but my eyes only popped open again. Speared by starlight.
Maybe I slept. It felt as though I hadn’t, my dreams filled with hallucinatory night skies. I definitely needed to pee, however. Groggy, I peeled off the blankets and stumbled a few feet away. Some fires were still burning, long-limbed silhouettes gyrating around them.
Where to go in this open meadow?
I trudged off a ways, the lush dew-damp grass brushed my bare feet and pulled at the hem of my white gown. It clung to my calves as I walked, the diaphanous material now sticking to my flesh, now billowing away. My hair hung heavy down my back, a silk cape.
The grass beneath my feet gave way to cool, damp leaf litter when I entered the forest. Trunks of trees stood sentinel around me, starlight sprinkling down though the whispering leaves above. The night glittered with it. My blood sparkled, too.
I lifted the Stargazer lily to my face and breathed in the heavy sweet scent of it. Thick as opium, it made my head swirl. I smiled, my breasts tightening with anticipation.
And there he was.
Black on black, Rogue leaned against a tree. His hair hung loose, like so much satin Spanish moss, blending into the ancient wood behind him. Shadows fingered over him, sliding through the lines on the one side of his face. On the clear side, his dark lips curved into a smile.
“Beautiful Gwynn,” he whispered.
The sheer gown shifted over my tight nipples as I walked to him, the blossom clasped in front of me, a bridal bouquet. When I neared, I held it out to him. He wrapped his elegant fingers around my wrist, pulling my hand down to his side, so that I came up against him, stretched against the length of his thighs. I braced myself on his chest, my hand over his heart. I could feel the alien rhythm of it through the black velvet he wore. Almost a waltz beat.
One…two, three.
One…two, three.
He cupped my face with his other hand, holding me as he bent his head. I could see the deep blue of his eyes now. If lava were indigo, it would be like this. Rogue’s ebony hair fell around us in a glassy curtain and I swayed at the first touch of his lips. The kiss pulled me under and I drowned eagerly. His lips moved hot and sparking over mine. I fed off of his mouth eagerly, dry dirt soaking up spring rain. Mace filled my head. My bones melted away.
I moaned and he pulled me tight against him.
“My lovely Gwynn,” he murmured against my mouth, “I have missed you.”
I heard a hissing sound and the gauzy gown I wore fell away, pooling at my feet.
“See?” Rogue said. “Already you are mine.”
I looked down and saw the thorns piercing me. Black thorns, glass-sharp, wove into my skin, white in the starlight. My blood trickled from them, dark and glossy.
The flower fell from my hand, tumbling to the ground in slow-motion spirals.
I sat bolt upright, choking on a scream.
Darling blinked at me in disapproval and yawned widely. The sky arched overhead, the stars fading, the horizon brightening with iridescent sunrise. My pulse throbbed through me and I tasted cinnamon in my mouth. I still wore the traveling gown I’d lain down in.
The Stargazer lily rested on top of my bags, luminescent, violently blue in the breaking dawn. A gauntlet thrown down in challenge. The rage rose up through me. A cold and terrible anger. And now he thought to play games with me.
Fine, then. Let’s play.Rogue wouldn’t know what hit him.
I packed the lily away, not caring how I crushed it into the bottom of my bags.
Even so, I dreamed again the next two nights. Every time I went to him and let him strip me, as helpless as I’d been with my trainers. Every night he showed me that I was already his.
And every morning the lily greeted me, perfect in its sinister beauty.
Though the dreams fell into tatters in the bright light of day, they drained me. As if I had spent every night walking the forest. He thought to take me from one imprisonment to another. Perhaps he, too, thought I had been permanently broken.
He was in for one hell of a surprise.
*
