Chapter 10 Awakening
Awakening
When I woke, the first thing I noticed was the cheerful birdsong just outside. Slowly, I sat up, blinking against the sunlight streaming in through the window.
Then the events of the masquerade came rushing back to me, and I stiffened with panic. I was in a strange bed, in a strange room, and I still wasn’t exactly sure what had happened to me.
“It’s all right,” came a deep, rumbling voice beside me. “You’re safe now.”
I hadn’t even noticed Octavian beside the bed, but there he was, his big, muscular form stuffed into a fancy armchair that must have been stronger than it looked. He reached out, putting a large hand on my arm in a comforting gesture, and I instinctively winced, bracing myself for the pain.
But nothing happened. I felt nothing at his touch except a pleasant warmth and a little quiver that had nothing to do with essence or magic and everything to do with the fact that I was a living, breathing woman being touched by a very attractive man.
“Why doesn’t that hurt?” I asked. “The last time you touched me I…” I suppressed a tremor, not wanting to relive that pain even in my memory.
“It’s complicated,” Octavian replied. “But it’s over now. You’re here. Safe.”
It wasn’t an answer, but I didn’t feel like pursuing the matter at the moment, especially since he’d lifted his big hand from my arm to my brow, where he was tenderly pushing a damp bit of hair away from my temple.
“I’m so glad you’re all right,” he said, his deep voice wrapping around me like a caress. “When I heard you screaming, I—” He cut himself off, concern welling in his deep eyes.
“You were worried about me?” I knew this wasn’t the time to go ga-ga over this strange, handsome billionaire man—this situation was way too complicated—but the logical part of my mind was nowhere to be found at the moment. “After I refused to help you?”
“I never wanted you to suffer for that choice,” he rumbled, leaning ever-so-slightly closer.
“I never wanted you to suffer at all, which was why I was willing to let you walk away.” His blue eyes traveled across my face, lingering for the briefest moment on my lips before rising to my eyes once more.
“If I were a good man, I never would have invited you here in the first place.”
“Do you still want me to walk away?” I asked, my words barely above a whisper.
“Wanting has nothing to do with it,” he said. His fingers were still at my temple, light as a kiss. “Wanting is dangerous.”
“Yes,” I heard myself agree. “It is.” This time I was the one looking at his lips, and I could still remember their taste—warm and sweet and slightly tart.
Somewhere, in the recesses of my mind, a little voice was screaming at me to get a hold of myself, to pull away from his touch and get out of this place before I did something I might regret.
But another part of me—the part that was calling the shots at the moment—decided I would regret it more if I didn’t give in to my impulses just this once.
He might have been the first one to move. But I’m pretty sure it was me who leaned in, and it was definitely me who slid a hand around his neck and pulled his face toward mine.
This kiss was a lot clumsier than the first one we shared at the masquerade.
This was more like a collision of lips, but the awkwardness only lasted a moment.
Then Octavian tilted his head just a little, slanting his mouth across mine at just the right angle, and suddenly our lips fit together perfectly, like they were made to be locked together.
I moaned as pleasure flooded me, just as wild and mesmerizing as the first time.
And he, naturally, took that as encouragement, threading his fingers in my hair and deepening the kiss, letting his tongue play along my lower lip until my mouth opened slightly and he could slip it inside.
Our first kiss had tasted like Ruby Nectar.
This one tasted like warm honey, and my head was buzzing like there was an entire swarm of bees inside.
His other hand came up behind me, circling my back and pulling my body closer to his, and all I wanted to do was melt against him, to sink into the sweet, warm pleasure and see where it might lead.
Wanting is dangerous. His words echoed in my head, but they were as soft and as insubstantial as a whisper caught in a breeze, gone again before I’d even had the chance to really hear them.
I was more than happy to lose myself in the moment, to give myself over to reckless indulgence, and Octavian seemed just as willing to meet me there.
He pushed me down on the bed, and my head sank back into that soft, deep pillow as he rolled on top of me, holding his weight up on his muscular arms. He seemed even larger in this position, dominating my entire field of vision, blocking out everything else but him.
His mouth shifted from my lips to the line of my jaw, then down my throat, his lips journeying across my skin with a slow deliberateness.
Here and there his tongue would slip out and flick against me as if he wanted to compare how I tasted from inch to inch, and I gasped whenever he found an especially sensitive spot, like beneath my ear or the place where my neck met my shoulder.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured against my skin, every word a kiss.
Meanwhile one of his hands had found its way to my side, and his fingers traced the dip of my waist before traveling down the curve of my hip.
I arched against him, silently begging for more, and he answered with enthusiasm.
He grabbed the fabric of my dress—I hadn’t realized I was still wearing it until it was suddenly in the way—and began to tug it up my body, exposing my legs all the way up to my hips.
Then his hand slid down between my thighs.
My head tilted back, another moan escaping my lips as his fingers slipped beneath the edge of my panties. A new kind of pleasure flooded my belly at his first touch there, and it was almost overwhelming, drowning out the bees in my skull and drawing me back down into warm, sweet darkness, and—
I woke with a start, jerking into consciousness so abruptly it made me dizzy.
I blinked several times, then blinked again, trying to catch my breath.
I was home, in my own bed, and though the room was mostly dark, the pale light of pre-dawn was seeping in around my curtains.
My body was slick with sweat, and my thoughts were fluttering around in my head, refusing to settle into something I could understand.
That couldn’t have been a dream, my brain insisted.
It felt too real. But even as I thought it, and even though I could still sense the evidence of my body’s desire, I knew the truth in my gut.
That encounter with Octavian had been very—very—vivid, but it had been nothing more than an invention of my subconscious.
I wrapped my arms around myself, both embarrassed and a little relieved.
I can’t believe I just had a sex dream—or an almost-sex dream—about Octavian Crestwood.
He was insanely attractive, yes, but he was still practically a stranger.
And possibly a little insane, since he either genuinely believed he was cursed or got his kicks from convincing random girls that he was.
And even though I had no problem admitting to myself that he was a fine physical specimen, throwing myself at a guy I hardly knew was not how I wanted to lose my virginity.
A thought struck me abruptly—If the almost-sex was a dream, what about the rest of it? What if the masquerade, the curse, the Nectar—all of it—was a dream, too?
But no—I was still wearing my silver gown, though it looked a little worse for wear.
And when I glanced over at my nightstand, I saw the delicate, lacy mask sitting between my lamp and my purse.
I reached over and popped the purse open, just in case, but I wasn’t surprised to find no sign of my cell phone.
Most of the masquerade had been real, then. But how had I gotten home? The last thing I remembered was writhing on the ground in pain, and Octavian’s deep voice in my ear…
I closed my eyes, rubbing my arms and trying to ignore the rush of heat that came with any thought of Octavian. My lustful fantasies could wait. There were questions that needed answering first.
And now that I was home, I realized, I had access to my laptop. Which meant I could use the internet, and contact Isaac and Esmer, and—
I was halfway out of my bed before I noticed the dark figure looming a few feet away.
“What the fuck!?” I grabbed the nearest blunt object—my bedside lamp—and swung it out in front of me. “Who the fuck are you? And what the hell are you doing in my bedroom?”
The figure shifted, and I braced myself to throw the lamp at his head, but then the pale light from the window fell across his face.
It was Alastor Crestwood.
Any relief I felt at seeing a familiar face was quickly swallowed up by anger.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded again. “Why are you watching me sleep like some sort of creep?”
“I assure you, I don’t want to be here,” he replied, and he certainly sounded like he’d rather be anywhere else. “But my brothers insisted. They thought it was necessary that someone watch over you, and I was the safest option.”
“Safest. Ha.” I’d much rather have had Octavian at my side, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Believe me, I would much rather be at home in my own bed,” he said.
“But you let your brothers boss you around instead?”
I couldn’t read his expression, but I could tell from his pause that my words had hit their mark.
“I trust my brothers’ judgment,” he said finally, and it sounded like he was talking through gritted teeth.
“So you agree that there was some sort of danger to me?” I shivered, remembering the quivering, burning pain that had consumed my body before I blacked out.
When I looked down at my arms, I half-expected to see huge welts, or patches of skin missing, but they looked perfectly normal in the dim light.
“What happened to me? That was…” Again, I didn’t want to relive it, even in memory.
“That was the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life. I thought it would never end.”
“I was coming over to wake you just now,” he said. “You were dreaming about it.”
I frowned. “No, I wasn’t.” Thank god.
“You were moaning in your sleep,” he said. “I know my presence isn’t entirely welcome, but I assumed you would have wanted me to pull you out of your nightmare.”
“That definitely wasn’t a nightmare,” I corrected without thinking. “And I wasn’t dreaming about the pain. I was moaning because—” I cut myself off at the last second, finally realizing what I was saying.
But the damage was done.
“Ah.” Alastor said. It was very knowing sound.
And for the first time since I’d met him, I detected a hint of amusement in him.
“Which one of my brothers inspired this little dream of yours?” he said.
“I never said it was one of them.”
“You didn’t have to. I know the effect my brothers have on women.
” His amusement was very obvious now—he wasn’t even trying to hide it.
“For as long as I’ve known them, they’ve both enjoyed their dalliances.
Both here and in Therador.” He tilted his head, studying me.
“If I had to guess, I would say it’s Oak who’s caught your attention.
He likes to play the rescuer. But perhaps I’m wrong. ”
“It’s none of your business,” I snapped, face flaming. I shook the lamp at him. “Either tell me why you’re here or get out.”
He sighed, and just as swiftly as it had appeared, his amusement was gone again, replaced by his usual broodiness.
His words came out in a bored drawl, as if he had better things to do than explain things to me.
”As I thought I’d made clear, I’m here at the behest of my brothers.
They believed you were overwhelmed by your body’s response to our world’s essence.
That’s why they decided to bring you back to your own home, rather than house you in one of our guest suites where you certainly would have been more comfortable. ”
“So this essence can…” I searched for the words, “build up like that?”
He was silent for so long that I was convinced he’d decided it was too much trouble to answer me.
But then he said, “It makes me think of poison ivy. The odd thing about poison ivy is that the more you are exposed, the worse each of your successive reactions can be. Your body’s response becomes more acute with repeated contact. ”
“So it’s like an allergy?” I stepped away from him, backing up until my legs hit the bed. “I’m allergic to your world and it’s only going to get worse the more I’m around you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t believe that’s it, exactly.
If you’re descended from someone of our world, as we believe, there’s been essence inside of you your whole life—it’s just been dormant.
Part of you is waking up, and your body simply doesn’t know how to handle it.
” He added, “Perhaps it’s less like poison ivy and more like one of your…
” He paused, searching for the term. “Like one of your electrical circuits becoming overloaded.”
That mostly made sense. “Wait, does that mean you agree with your brothers now? You think I can create this bridge or whatever?”
He hesitated again. “Based on what we know about essence, and what we’ve guessed about this curse, we knew we had to find someone very powerful. And you…you’re just a girl. Little more than a child. Forgive me for my low expectations.”
I felt like pointing out that he couldn’t be that much older than me—he looked thirty, tops—but that seemed like the wrong thing to focus on at the moment.
“My brothers believe that you would be a sorceress had you been born in our world,” he went on. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re as useless as the rest of us in this one.”
“She’s not useless,” Octavian’s rumble sounded from the doorway behind me. “And I believe we’ve just discovered the key to unlocking her power.”