Natalya
Present
The ceiling above me keeps changing.
Every time I blink, it’s different. Sometimes it’s concrete, cold, and unfeeling. Sometimes it’s white and sterile, or too clean. And sometimes it ignites without warning—flames licking across the surface, devouring the space above me while I lie perfectly still beneath it.
I don’t move and I don’t scream. I just wait. I wait for the fire to reach me and take me too.
But it never does. My mind just plays tricks on me.
It always stops just short, as if my mind enjoys the cruelty of interruption. I blink again and the fire is gone. The ceiling glitches, the darkness recedes along the edges, and the room melts back into something that almost feels safe.
I try to remember where I am, but I’m really bad at it lately.
In the hospital, someone always told me. There was a woman whose perfume was so soft and comforting that I decided I’d believe anything she said. She smelled like meadows.
But then he started visiting. And he felt more familiar, so I decided I’d believe him instead.
I realize there’s a fireplace in the room with me. The wood is calmly crackling there. I turn my head, slow, careful, afraid the image will collapse if I move too fast. There’s warmth beside me, solid and broad, unmistakably human.
He’s not asleep. I can sense it.
His breath brushes the sensitive skin on my neck and my eyes fall shut on instinct. I let the sensation swallow me whole without thinking. I just yield.
Maybe I will regret this.
I don’t care. The longing has already won.
His hand lingers on my stomach, so I guide it lower, between my thighs, silently asking him to take me. I need the weight and the proof.
There’s the letter N carved on his finger.
Did I open my eyes?
I’m not sure.
The bliss is too strong.
His fingers slide inside me, gentle at first, filling me completely when I moan out loud. Suddenly he’s above me, kissing my neck. I can feel his hair grazing my skin. I reach up into the curls, tangling my fingers there and pressing him more into me.
When I open my eyes, the ceiling is glitching again, so I quickly shut them. I don’t want to ruin this.
My hand trails down his neck, searching for the thing my fingers remember by heart. I know the silver cross should be there, I know it, but my fingers find nothing. I trace the hard lines of muscle instead, the curves and tension beneath my touch.
He’s beautiful. I want him to tell me I’m beautiful too. I know I am.
Before I realize we’ve moved, he’s already inside me.
The fullness is instant and overwhelming. I keep my eyes shut but my mouth betrays me. His name slips out, reflexive and automatic, like a memory engraved into muscle and bone without the brain realizing it.
Suddenly his hand closes around my neck. Not the way it usually does and not gently, but possessive. This time it’s too tight, just wrong. The air is ripped from my lungs in a sharp, panicked gasp and my body reacts before my mind can catch up, nails digging uselessly into his wrist.
He never does it like this. He never does it hard enough to hurt.
“Adrien, that’s too much,” I force out, the words tearing through my throat, mangled and thin.
The impact comes without warning. A brutal realization once the air is cut off. Once the force around my neck becomes too unfamiliar, my vision glitches once again, ripping me straight out of the fantasy.
I open my eyes and the strength leaves my throat instantly.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, too fast and sharp. His voice cuts through the silence like ice. “What was it?”
“Nothing,” I say weakly.
“Look at me,” he says.
His fingers clamp around my jaw, merciless, forcing my face back toward him. My neck strains, my spine arches, and suddenly the ceiling is white. It’s clean and perfectly still, as if nothing in the world is wrong.
I finally find his eyes and a cold jolt shoots straight through me.
Sparkling blue.
“Who’s fucking you?” he grits out.
His grip slides back to my throat, firm now but deliberate, leaving me just enough air to answer.
There’s no silver cross on his neck.
There’s no letter N inked into his ring finger.
There are no dark curls falling over his forehead.
“Lucien,” I breathe, my voice betraying me by trembling on the name.
He drives into me more and more. Each movement is slow and methodical. The pressure inside me builds, inevitably curling tight in my lower stomach like something alive.
“Who’s fucking you, my angel?” he asks, quieter this time, with that tone that’s nearly ominous.
Yet it somehow sharpens the coiling orgasm inside me.
The ceiling disappears and I can’t see past him anymore. I can’t see anything at all except the broad lines of his shoulders and the tense muscles beneath his skin. Suddenly it doesn’t matter where I am. It never really did.
I look at him instead—at his fair skin and razor cheekbones.
“Lucien Devereaux,” I force out, each syllable scraped raw from my throat.
“That’s right,” he says, a small smile ghosting over his mouth before he thrusts into me more, the movement making me tremble.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasp between breaths, between the relentless rhythm.
“That’s okay, angel,” he murmurs, his mouth close to mine now, intimate and devastating. “We’ll get there.”
My whole body reacts too soon against my will, the orgasm building up too quickly for my liking. I tighten my legs around his waist and roll us over.
“Uh-huh,” I wheeze, my legs caging him beneath me.
My head falls backwards, my back arching with the sensation.
Suddenly I smell the fire as it creeps in at the edges of my senses, thick and suffocating.
The mansion is burning again. I look up just as my inner walls clench, tight and desperate, but now the fire is real.
It’s licking across the ceiling above us, orange and violent, devouring everything in its path. Smoke crawls into the back of my throat, leaving only bitterness to swallow.
I can’t breathe.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it? I wanted to be there too.
Then choke. Stop fighting. Burn with them.
I cough instead, harsh and frantic, forcing the smoke out of my lungs as panic claws its way up my chest. I hastily roll over and force my eyes open.
The fire is gone and the ceiling is different yet again.
Vast and gothic. Almost too high. It stretches upward so far it makes my stomach drop, like I woke up falling even though I’m perfectly still.
I try to focus on the scents or sounds, anything to tell me what world I woke up into this time. Those usually play tricks on me as well, but right now, all I can smell is a fresh, cool breeze, slightly wet, like damp autumn leaves after rain.
For once, it doesn’t make me panic.
The moment I turn my head to the side, every muscle in my body locks.
I’m not alone.