To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

Outside, the world is gray and gloomy. The rain has abated, but the high-hanging clouds are preventing even the tip of my tower from catching light.

I miss the sun; the way it fills me up. I feel like my soul is dripping away—like I’m wilting.

Empty.

It doesn’t help that I woke this morning to a broken fever, which I celebrated for all of two seconds before I realized I smelled like bloody death.

Feeling like I’d peed myself, I’d peeled back the quilt, mortified when I saw a red stain that had seeped through to the mattress. Not only did the entire thing have to be replaced, but I now have a wad of thick, absorbent material stuffed in my undergarments.

Sighing, I cast my gaze across the lumpy clouds and slide off the windowsill, locking eyes with the mannequin standing by the far wall, swathed in a neck-to-floor, blood-red gown.

Wide eyes that stare at nothing.

I bristle.

Tanith delivered it this morning, and now it’s in my personal space—a constant reminder the ball, Tribunal, and Conclave are just around the corner. A trifecta of obligatory torture.

The monthly Tribunal is necessary for Rhordyn’s people to have a stage to voice their woes, but with people coming from all over the continent for the ball and Conclave, too? It’s going to be a challenging few days.

The less I think about it, the better.

I snatch a throw off the end of my bed and cast it over the mannequin, hiding the proof of Rhordyn’s insistence to inject me into society against my will. Retrieving my bag, I tip it, scattering its contents across the bed. I’m about to repack it with the bits I need for the day when all the energy sputters out of me, and I let the crochet tote fall to the bed in a heap.

I just ... don’t have it in me.

Peeling off my nightgown, I tug on some flowy pants and a loose shirt, and head for the door.

Kai will cheer me up. He always cheers me up.

* * *

I’m just settling on the rock’s edge when Kai’s head pops out of the water; hair slicked back, eyes glistening jades. His nostrils flare, brow pinches, and he wades close—powerful shoulders rising above the silvery surface as his beat taps at my edges. “You’re bleeding.”

I sigh, rolling an apple around in my hands. “Not the sort you can lick better, I’m afraid.”

His brows jack up, and he tilts his head, exposing the three delicate lines on the side of his neck. “You sure about that?”

It takes me a moment, but when it finally clicks, I toss the apple at his head.

He plunges below the surface, and the apple dunks a second later. Kai re-emerges right in front of me, fruit in hand, assessing me as he takes a crisp bite.

“What’s that look for?” I murmur, churning the water with my feet.

“You look sad.”

“Reaching sexual maturity and going back to wearing diapers in the same week will do that to you.”

“No doubt.” He smirks. “No swimming for you—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Might attract the sharks.”

I groan, and he laughs, moving closer, biting down on his apple and leaving it there. He rolls the hem of my pants until they’re at my knees, then grips me by the hips and lifts me with an impressive feat of strength for someone half submerged. Setting me down on the edge of the rock, he perches between my wide-open thighs.

Feeling like I need to draw from someone who’s not all frosty hardness, I lean forward and tip my head to the side, enjoying the way his silky skin kisses my cheek while I draw on his rich, briny scent.

There is no pause. No moment of awkwardness to pinch bits of the comfort. Though from different worlds, we’ve smudged that vivid line and made a warm, cozy home for our friendship.

My happy place.

He sweeps his arms around and locks us together, pulling me closer.

“Have I told you lately that you’re my very best friend?”

“You have,” he rumbles, fingertips brushing up and down the length of my spine like the sweep of a paintbrush, decorating me with his affection. “And nobody can ever take that away.”

Moments pass with us wound together in peaceful ease, his tender embrace making me feel a little more whole.

“Orlaith ...”

“Mmm?”

“I think I know what you need,” he whispers, hand stilling low on my waist. There’s a raspy layer atop his voice that I haven’t heard before.

“You do?”

“Mm-hmm.” His chest rumbles with the sound, and I peel back, snagged by his mischievous grin.

My heart does a flip-flop.

He tucks a ribbon of hair behind my ear, leaving his hand resting around the side of my neck, and I notice a touch of red pinching his cheeks. “It’s a gift ... of sorts.”

The skin beneath his touch tingles, sending sparks across my shoulder and around my ear. “I do like your gifts ...”

“I know you do.” He smiles, eyes glinting with a roguish sparkle as his thumb sweeps along the sharp of my jaw. “And I like giving you gifts.”

I nod, though I’m not sure why.

Perhaps it’s the bubbling nerves in my stomach—the ones that have me sitting a little straighter, conscious of my breath, thankful I had the foresight to brush my teeth before I ventured down Stony Stem.

Perhaps it’s his body—a pillar of refined brawn shored between my legs, as if he’s staking his own sort of claim.

Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s my safe space. And right now, pitted with a vulnerable heart, bound with skin that doesn’t feel right, brimming with a fiery soul yet somehow feeling utterly empty, I don’t want to be anywhere else but here. With him.

These are my thoughts as I stare up into sea-green eyes. “Well, come on,” I whisper, feeling my pulse quicken. “Hit me with it.”

A deep rumbling sound shudders out of him, and I swear his eyes flash fluorescent green. It’s the only warning I get before his lips clash with mine—roving and moving in a hungry dance that’s far from delicate.

I’m thankful for that. If he were gentle, my inexperience would be entirely exposed.

His hand slips around the back of my head, tongue spearing, and there is no room for self-conscious thought as he feeds me a hungry growl that turns me liquid.

I quake in his arms, yielding.

Exploring.

With the taste of salt on my lips, I let him fold me to his will. Let his hand burrow into my hair and teach me how to move. How to let go.

When he finally breaks the kiss, he hovers an inch from my face, breathing hard, spilling ocean essence all over me. “Now,” he pushes out, his tiding breath matching the beat of my own. “That’s how you kiss someone you love, Orlaith. Anything less and they aren’t worthy of your heart or the power to break it. Understood?”

I nod, tipping forward until our foreheads meet. “Understood.”

* * *

Climbing the jagged stairway etched into the cliff, I drag my thumb back and forth across my lower lip that’s puffy and tender and tastes like the ocean.

The taste reminds me of Kai—of playful, happy things; moments that are light and wholesome. That taste is a reprieve from the strange emotions that have taken my body hostage over the past few days.

I want to go back to being invisible. Back when I could pretend I was still just a kid in desperate need of a roof and a bed and a warm meal every night. Someone who couldn’t possibly be old enough to survive on her own outside the castle grounds.

But I’m no longer that same passive child who couldn’t defend herself. I’m a sexually mature woman, old enough to receive a cupla and leave the safety of my nest.

The thought makes me shudder.

Unfortunately, my crop of excuses to stay are growing thin.

I step through the door at the top of the stairs and nudge it shut with a backward kick, the dull thud chasing my steps down the dimly lit hall. Rounding a corner, I tuck my thumb between my lips and again I taste the sea, drawing from its calming reassurance.

Something plows into me with such reckless force that the wind is knocked from my lungs. A powerful, unforgiving mountain of muscle drives me back and slams me against the door, my head saved from the impact by a hand wrapped around the back of it.

I gulp for air, eyes wild and darting, looking up into Rhordyn’s cyclonic stare.

Pure, unrestrained fury is lashing off him like the virulent beat of a storm. I can taste its sharp, sour tang in the air. Can feel it collecting at the back of my throat.

He’s studying me—a scathing regard so cold it burns.

I finally draw a wheezing breath, but it offers little reprieve. “You bast—”

“Did you enjoy it?” The question is fired.

“Enjoy what, Rhordyn?”

He cups my jaw like I’m made of stone—not flesh and bone—then kicks my feet apart and pins me in place with the spear of his hips.

I gasp, the intake so sharp I swear it cuts my throat on its way through.

“Having him between your legs,” he growls, voice savage, and now it’s more than his hips holding me against the door.

It’s something else hard and just as brutal.

A sensual, organic warmth throbs to life in the unguarded junction between my thighs.

His thumb slides up my bottom lip, and he rolls it, watching it fold as if he’s bending the petal of an immature bud and forcing it to bloom. “Having his tongue in this mouth.”

My blood chills.

His gaze flicks up, catching me off guard and making me jump. He takes the opportunity to weave his other hand into my hair and grip.

Hard.

A little sound leaks out of me as he tugs my head to the side, baring my throat and the heaving rise of my breasts. “Having him grab you like this and take the fucking reins.”

Perhaps it’s the way he’s holding me, like I’m the adult I’ve been pretending not to be, but I spit the truth at him like it’s a pebble on my tongue.

“Yes. I enjoyed it.”

He makes a guttural sound and burrows his face into my neck again, dragging his stubble over the sensitive skin—firm enough to leave a graze. “An interesting choice of truth to serve up, Treasure. Especially when you offer so few.”

“Fuck. You.”

The assaulted skin blazes when he finally pulls back.

“No,” he purrs, tucking his lips close to my ear. “But you won’t be scratching that itch with him either.”

His words are ice and disturbingly direct.

“I—”

He nails my jaw shut, slaying me with that unforgiving glare. “And just so you know, if I catch you kissing Fish Boy again, I’ll gut him from chin to cock, poach him in milk, and serve him with a side of mash.”

The threat injects stone into my spine.

I snarl, ripping my chin from his grip. “You do that and I’ll be gone from your life forever.”

My words land a serrated blow, and I picture it sawing through his intentions, leaving them in a pile of bloody carnage between us.

I mean it. I’d be gone—something that would probably thrill him to the bone. Though I wonder if he hears the underlying implication of my threat ...

He’d never get another drop of my blood.

He snaps back, perhaps expecting me to fall to the ground without the pin of his hips holding me in place. But with the threat on Kai’s well-being, I’m more composed than I’ve been in days—my feet firmly rooted even as I watch him stalk off down the hall.

“Try it, Milaje. Just fucking try it.”