Chapter 1
chapter one
The scent of salt and sun-drenched driftwood lingered in Christine’s senses, thick and heady.
She stretched lazily, the coarse sand shifting beneath her skin, clinging to the sweat tracing slow, glistening paths down her body.
The air was warm, humming against her collarbone, her shoulders, the soft swell of her breasts.
It kissed her like a secret, something just on the edge of waking.
She let her fingers trail idly through the sand, its heat stark against the cool water lapping at her toes. The horizon stretched in an uninterrupted blue, the sea and sky bleeding together in a perfect, infinite kiss.
Then, movement.
A ripple on the water.
Christine blinked, adjusting to the glare as a figure emerged from the ocean.
A rise. A body cutting through the waves with effortless grace.
Her stomach clenched.
She’d never seen another soul on this island before.
She sat up, clutching a towel against her chest, pulse kicking up as the figure drew closer.
Tall. Towering. Too much.
The woman’s skin glowed like molten gold beneath the sun, rivulets of seawater clinging to her curves, sliding from collarbone to breast, from hip to thigh. Long, rich, dark blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, barely concealing the soft peaks of her nipples.
Christine swallowed hard, warmth blooming low in her belly.
The stranger smiled, and she felt it everywhere—a slow, knowing curve of lips, a gaze that dragged over her like the heat itself.
Christine couldn’t move.
Didn’t want to.
The woman reached out, casual and confident, and let her fingers trail between Christine’s heat-kissed breasts.
Goosebumps erupted in the wake of her touch.
The towel slipped from her grasp, falling away like it never belonged there in the first place.
The air between them thickened, dense with heat, crackling like a storm about to break.
Christine’s pulse pounded in her throat now, in her fingertips, in the space between them.
She was starving. She was ready.
Then, everything shifted.
The warmth disappeared.
The ocean breeze carried something else. Something colder.
The woman’s sunlit wheat hair darkened, strands twisting and unraveling like frayed circuitry. Her skin cracked, and deep red lines split across her face like fractured glass.
Her eyes, once luminous and blue, blackened. Spreading and swallowing the irises like ink bleeding into water.
Christine tried to move, but the sand beneath her wasn’t sand anymore. It was ash. Cold, lifeless, slipping between her fingers as the world around her decayed.
The waves receded, pulling back not just water but color, draining the horizon into grayscale, into static, into nothing.
Then, the figure lunged.
Not with hunger, not with lust, but with purpose.
Christine choked, trying to shove her away, but the weight was unbearable. A force pressing her down. Smothering. Devouring.
She gasped, bolting upright in bed.
The ocean was gone.
The woman was gone.
But the relentless, slobbery kisses?
Still happening.
“Gruit! Get off me, dude!”
Christine woke to the sensation of being slowly suffocated by 85 pounds of overenthusiastic mutt. Gruit loomed over her, tail thumping against the smart mattress, which unhelpfully adjusted beneath his shifting weight. His tongue lolled out, strings of drool dangling.
Christine gagged, jerking back so hard she nearly got whiplash. “Gruit, oh my God!” She shoved at his massive head, gasping. “I’m gonna die like this. This is it.”
Gruit, absolutely thrilled, let out a happy boof and jumped off the bed.
Christine groaned, flopping back against the pillows. “I swear to God, if this is some kind of omen, I’m ignoring it.”
Her motion-activated bedside console dimly lit up to offer morning updates.
“Good morning, Christine.
Today is January 26, 2051. The time is 5:12 A.M. It’s 23°F outside, so you better bundle up.”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Gruit’s tail wagged furiously, knocking against the bed frame.
A voice rang out from the bathroom, slightly muffled. “You awake, skank?”
Christine groaned again, flipping onto her stomach as Silver popped her head in from the hallway, a sleek electric toothbrush buzzing lazily between her teeth.
Christine squinted. Why did Silver look like she was already awake for hours?
Probably because she never went to sleep.
The woman, sharp-edged and impossible to ignore, even half-awake, leaned against the doorframe like she was carved to fit there, arms crossed, weight resting onto one hip with the kind of ease that wasn’t practiced, just ordained.
Silver didn’t move like someone aware of her effect. She held the kind of presence that didn’t ask for attention; it simply commanded it. Like gravity.
The loose tank she wore softened with time. Cut low at the sides; it draped over her frame just enough to tease without meaning to. It caught on the lean lines of her torso before slipping away again. It was effortless, unconcerned.
Tattoos curled down her arms, a seemingly unorganized sprawl of script and symbols, bold strokes and delicate details, a story written in ink, half-told and unapologetic. Her shorts sat low, drawstring loose, just enough to be decent, not enough to be fair.
And her hair, thick and unruly, in that effortless way that made it clear she hadn’t tried to make it look this good. One side spilled over her shoulder in dark waves; the other was cut short and sharp; a contrast so bold it felt like it belonged to another era.
Even the air around her felt heavier, charged, like she carried something beneath her skin that didn’t need a name.
Christine dragged a hand down her face, exhaling through her nose.
Unfair. All of it.
Christine groaned again, this time with feeling. “Skank? Me, skank? Didn’t you bring someone home last night?”
Silver smirked, flashing a grin too big, too easy, white teeth catching the dim light like she had all the time in the world. She pointed her toothbrush at Gruit, who was now scratching at the door like a convict desperate for parole.
“Your hound needs to piss.”
With a sigh, Christine swung her legs out of bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “So. No one special, then?”
Silver’s grin widened. “Define special.”
Christine laughed, shaking her head.
They knew each other too well for that game.
Once upon a time, Christine thought she might be into Silver.
That illusion lasted right up until their first hook-up—messy, impulsive, and unforgettable in the please-God-let-me-forget-this kind of way.
It started the way most terrible ideas did: cheap vodka, reckless confidence, and a party thick with beer, sweat, and the promise of regret.
Christine gripped a paper cup filled with something ominously labeled Jiggle Juice when Silver stumbled into the kitchen, grinning like she knew the cheat codes to Christine’s entire life.
“Wanna get out of here?”
She wasn’t usually into girls like Silver, all easy confidence and that sharp, boyish charm, but she hadn’t been laid in a while, so why the fuck not?
The walk back to Silver’s place was a masterclass in bad logistics: tripping over uneven pavement, fumbling with bio-scans, and somehow managing to body-check the door open before collapsing onto what could only generously be called a futon.
The making out? Chaotic at best.
There were too many elbows, too much booze, and one spectacularly failed attempt at removing Christine’s hoodie, which left her trapped inside it—except for one boob, which made a surprise escape at the bottom. Silver wheezed with laughter, nearly rolling off the bed as she helped her out.
Then, just as things were finally heating up?—
The futon collapsed beneath them with a groan of metal and regret.
For a long moment, they just lay there, stunned.
Silver wiped a tear from her eye. “Well. That was tragic.”
They lay there in a heap, breathless, Christine half on top of Silver, both barely holding it together. Then Silver snorted, loud, undignified, contagious, and suddenly, they were laughing too hard to care.
By the time they managed to untangle themselves from the wreckage, their mood had shifted. The spark had burned out before it could even catch.
Silver tossed Christine her hoodie, still grinning. “So… friends?”
Christine pulled it on, shaking her head. “Oh, absolutely.”
And that was that.
No lingering tension. No regrets. Just instant, indestructible friendship. The kind that came from knowing exactly why you should never sleep with each other.
Christine sighed, stretching the stiffness from her shoulders before yanking a windbreaker over her head. Gruit, already pacing by the door, huffed dramatically like he was personally wronged by the wait.
The display on the wall updated: Weather Alert. Cold Front Incoming.
“All right, stinky boy. Let’s get this over with.” She shoved her feet into a pair of questionably large slip-ons, grabbed Gruit’s leash, and pulled the door open.
Silver gave a lazy wave from the bathroom, toothbrush still hanging from her lips. “Have fun. Don’t let him eat anything dead.”
Christine snorted, unlocking the front door. “Tell that to the rat carcass he made out with last week.”
Gruit practically launched himself down the stairs, dragging Christine behind him like a ragdoll.
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