My lips part as his eyes sink from my gaze down to my mouth, his thumb still right beneath my lower lip. Fist still beneath my chin.
My heart hammers inside my chest, begging for him to lean in a little closer. To warm my lips with his own. I’ve kissed before—it wouldn’t be the first time. And yet the shiver of anticipation that courses through me is like reliving a first experience all over.
He drops his hand from my chin.
My heart drops along with it. Perhaps it was foolish to think he might do something like kiss me. Maybe he was only being courteous—friendly?
Clearing his throat, he waves a hand, and within a two-foot radius, all the roses disappear. He plops back to sit down. “Would you care to sit with me?”
Nodding, I slowly fall forward onto my knees, sitting back on my heels while I twirl the blue rose in my fingers. Working to slow my heart rate as I distract myself, I slide my fingers up and down the rose’s stem. Then slow. Tilting it to wash it in moonlight, I notice not a single thorn protrudes from it.
Odd.
“This…this is a dream? Isn’t it?” I ask, looking up from the rose and almost laughing now that I see it. Now that it’s all starting to make sense.
He cocks his head to the side as he leans back onto his palms resting on the ground. “Why would you say that?”
“Because none of this makes sense.” My statement slowly begins to twist into questions.
Squinting, I peer over at the hills behind each of us. Then back to the rose in my hand. “How did we get through the wall? How did those roses appear? And…and how did they disappear? Why…” Swinging my attention left and right. Everywhere but him, as I become well aware of the humming again. “Why…the roses don’t have thorns? Why do they glow? And they’re blue?—”
“The Gods’ flower, remember?”
“This isn’t real,” I laugh as I stand. All the confusion leaves me in an instant, now knowing it’s a dream. I turn my back to him to look up at the stars and test the constellations against my memory. I lift a finger and point up at the heavens, looking for a telltale sign. “You see, if?—”
My breath leaves me on a simple breeze, brushing all of my hair off my neck and shoulders into the air. A cloud of warmth brushing against the back of my neck trails goosebumps across every inch of my skin. I drop my hand. Slowly, I turn my head toward my shoulder, toward the sensation that I realize isn’t a simple burst of warmth on my neck.
It’s him. Drawing in a breath against me, his lips teasing my skin near the back of my ear. I turn to face him, ready to confront the building tension we’ve drawn tight between us.
All the blood in my body drains to my toes.
His pupils are slitted. Draconic. My blood turns cold in an instant, matching that iciness that’s hung in the air throughout the night. I fumble backwards, tripping over my skirts, and I catch myself back on my palms.
“This isn’t real,” I whisper, shaking my head as he drops to all fours and I try to crawl backward.
His head rolls to the side, body shifting and contorting into something bestial. His skin cracks and splits to reveal scales, his limbs elongate. Twisted dark horns begin to grow out from his skull.
I scream.
Then kick out at his face before I flip onto my stomach andcrawl as quickly as I can. Through the glowing blue roses until I’ve found my feet, I grab my skirts andrun.
Pain explodes within my skull like a crack of lightning, sending me straight to my knees.
“You cannot run from me,”a voice as deep as the ocean’s trenches, rough as the edge of a knife calls out.
Animal.
Monster.
I grip my head like I can contain the agony ripping through me, forcing me to curl in on myself. Despite trying to convince myself to keep moving, I can’t even think straight around the pain. I collapse face first into the grass.
Its presence draws near. The weight of it rises behind me like a cresting wave.
In my panic, I flip onto my back. My skull is splitting with pain as if the creature has already struck me. “This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real,” I mutter to myself over and over.
Looming up over the hill is a shadow. Is darkness itself, with two white-slitted eyes centered on me. Within a blink the creature is climbing on top of me as I scream.
“You cannot run from me,”the voice repeats, now inside my head, and it snaps forward, jaws closing around the front of my throat?—
