To Bleed a Crystal Bloom

by Sarah A. Parker

  “Well,” he purrs, and although his voice is treacle, I get the sense of a snake preparing to strike. “Consider this your religious lesson for the day. Believe me when I tell you, any Gods worth worshiping would take more pride in their position, and they certainly wouldn’t leave it to someone else to clean up their mess.”

  He flicks his wrist and the book goes fluttering over his shoulder.

  I squeal, jolting as it lands in the belly of the mammoth fireplace atop a stack of blazing wood. Sparks explode, embers crackle, and I feel like it’s my heart he just lobbed into the raging inferno. Flames gobble up the rich tapestry of ancient culture and beliefs, and my eyes sting as I watch the pages blacken and curl—all those beautiful, telling pictures falling victim to a fiery demise.

  “That was a beautiful book,” I whisper past the lump in my throat, feeling a tear dart down my cheek.

  “And it made fantastic firewood,” Rhordyn snips before charging back to his seat.

  I wait in patient stillness, watching the pages burn, listening for sounds of him filling his plate. It’s a hollow hope—the sort that’s aching for sustenance to fill its void and give it something to feed on.

  The sort of hope that leaves me winded when those sounds never come.

  Unable to watch any longer, I turn from the book, haunted by the hungry crackle behind me as I wipe the swells of my cheeks. I clear my throat, lift my chin, and try to focus on a platter of fruit, searching for any sense of appetite. Trying to ease my mind from the heartbreak flaming at my back and the internal smolder that’s threatening to offer me a similar fate.

  “Eat, Orlaith.”

  I very nearly scream the same thing back, but think better of it. He just burned a relic of ancient lore as if it were nothing but trash. Who’s to say he won’t toss me in the fire, too?

  That’s a bit dramatic, but his extreme demonstration set the trend.

  Hand trembling, I pluck a peach from the pile and rest its furry, sunset skin against my parted lips ...

  Rhordyn’s stare is a cube of ice being dragged down the side of my face, a vast contrast to the fire blazing in my belly; shifting lower ... lower ... spreading across my belly button like the stretching wings of a bird.

  Perhaps the Gods are punishing me for leading Te Bruk o’ Avalanste to a fiery demise?

  Battling to keep my hands steady, I set the peach in the center of my otherwise empty plate and roll the sleeves of my sweater. When that doesn’t cool me down, I peel the entire thing off, seeking an ounce of relief from this small sun dawning in my abdomen, setting my skin alight.

  “Laith. Are you feeling okay?”

  I look to Baze watching me with narrowed eyes, a slice of meat pinched between his fingers that seems to be forgotten about. He’s dressed in a thick sweater while I’m considering whether it’s socially acceptable to strip down to my chest wrap and panties at the dinner table. Because this button-down, these pants ...

  They’re suffocating my skin.

  “It’s just a bit hot this morning. Can someone douse the fire? How are you bearing this heat wearing all those clothes?”

  I wiggle in my seat, trying to temper some innate itch I can’t seem to pin down. The friction makes me quiver from the tips of my toes all the way to my fluttering lids, but does nothing to quell my smoldering skin.

  If anything, it makes it worse ... although now I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop.

  “I’m not hot,” Baze murmurs, frowning when I clear my plate and start using it as a fan.

  Rhordyn makes this low, abrasive sound that arcs my spine, shoving my breasts forward. I glance at him, lungs compacting when I see his hands gripping the arms of his chair like they’re the only things binding him to this world.

  His nostrils flare, eyes full-bellied moons, and there is no color in his cheeks. No light in his features. Nothing but cold, astute awareness.

  Something in those depthless eyes reminds me of Shay; of the way he perches in a slab of shadow, waiting for me to toss his fleshy feast so he can pounce.

  “What’s your problem?” I ask, working my plate-fan to a frenzy.

  Baze makes this high-pitched choking sound. “Oh ... fuck.”

  “Out,” Rhordyn snaps, but Baze just sits there, watching him with wary eyes.

  “Do you think that’s wise?”

  “I said out.”

  His brutal command vandalizes the air, and Baze curses, eyes to the ground as he stands and pursues the door.

  I pause my fanning. “Why are you—”

  “And clear the north wing of all males!” Rhordyn bellows, his voice a clap of thunder.

  “Was already on it,” is Baze’s nasally response before he disappears.

  I frown, glancing at Rhordyn. “What the hell is going on?”

  Ignoring my question, he waves a hand at Tanith. She peels off the wall and sways toward him, her movements a dance I usually admire—

  I don’t realize I’m snarling until Rhordyn growls, long and menacing, and I pry my gaze off the approaching female.

  “No,” he berates, eyes skewering me in place.

  He seems bigger—broader—his pressing essence commanding me to yield.

  I’m just about to stand when he rises like a mountain shoving out of the ocean. “I said no.”

  The words power out of him and snip the flame off a candlestick in the middle of the table.

  Though my chin is jutted, something inside me curls.

  “Tanith,” he grates, keeping me impaled with his emphatic regard. “Cast your eyes to the floor. Now.”

  I study the pretty female who is staring at the ground, paused a respectable distance from the table. The sight has my shoulders softening, upper lip no longer peeled back from bared teeth that were ready to chew.

  “A cold bath needs to be drawn in Orlaith’s tower,” Rhordyn flings at her, attention aimed at me. “Notify Cook that she’ll be taking meals in her room for the next week; simple, palatable food. And she’ll need some rags prepared and brought up, seeing as she won’t be able to retrieve them herself when the time comes.”

  Hang on ... “What?”

  Tanith curtsies, then hurries from the room.

  “But I don’t want to take meals in Stony Stem for the next week,” I plead as Rhordyn sinks into his chair. “Whatever this is, my answer is no.”

  Silence stretches. The man’s not even breathing. So, I take the chance to validate my point while rocking back and forth against my seat.

  “Look, I know you think I don’t have much of a life, but I do. And I have things that need tending. There’s just no way I can spend an entire week trapped in my tower. Much as I like it there,” I quickly tack on. “Wonderful view. Fantastic housekeeping service. The stairs are a bit much after a long day, but who am I to complain?”

  His eyes drift shut, lips stamp together. Even his shoulders look heavier ... but I disregard that in light of my own barreling emotions.

  “I’m sorry. As thankful as I am for Stony Stem, it’s just not possible for me to cloister myself up there. I mean, I’m not sure how you were expecting Baze and I to find the space to train.” I fan myself with the plate again, matching the beat of my jerking hips. “We’d be right on top of each other.”

  Rhordyn’s eyes open, and I suck a breath.

  His face looks sharpened by a whetting rock, his eyes flat like twin sheets of slate.

  Suddenly, I feel like a fat, overfed kitchen mouse hanging by its tail.

  “There will be no training.”

  My head kicks back as if he just slapped me. “Why the hell not? You’re the one that said—”

  “Because you’re going into heat.”

  My heart stills.

  The breath in my lungs becomes heavy like mortar, and even the sensual fire boring deep into my groin seems to abate a few degrees.

  I know what a female’s heat is, only because I stumbled on an anatomy book when I was thirteen.

  But that’s about all I know
.

  Two paragraphs into the chapter, I skipped to the next, cheeks aflame. The medis who wrote about the experience made it all sound so ... so ...

  Sexual.

  I thought I’d avoided it. That perhaps the caspun had successfully warded it off—one of the side effects I’d noted while studying the herb in a medicine book I found in Spines. One of the only adverse side effects I was actually pleased about.

  Suddenly, my chest wrap feels too tight. Too constricting. My body’s desire to mature despite the hurdles has cast light on the fact I’ve been punishing it for far too long, blind to the nail-biting pain that comes with having my budding breasts flattened.

  “Can I ... can I stop it?”

  Please say yes.

  “No, Orlaith. You can’t.”

  The words land like rocks in my stomach, certain to weigh me down for the rest of my life.

  “I need you to walk out of this room, go straight to your tower, and stay there.”

  Stay there ...

  Not only is my body rebelling against my mind, but I’m also being shunned to my tower—being ordered to stay for the first time in my life.

  I need something normal to cling to or I’m going to fall apart. Maybe not straight away, but eventually the noose of anxiety will slither in and steal my breath, just like it always does when I feel like I’ve lost control.

  “Surely exceptions can be made? I’m not asking for much. Just an hour a day for me to ...” hell, I don’t know, feed Shay ... collect flowers ... visit Kai ... “wander?”

  The wooden arms of his chair groan.

  “Now, Orlaith!”

  Guess that’s a no.

  My hands fall to my lap, bunching into fists as I glance at the door, lips pursed.

  What if Tanith comes back?

  “I’ll be in my room. Alone,” Rhordyn grates out, and I slide my gaze back to him, weighing the value of his words. “With the door locked,” he swiftly tacks on.

  I try not to over analyze the fact that his statement seems to tame my volatile nerves. The last thing the mural of our relationship needs is another layer of paint. It’s messy enough as it is.

  “Fine,” I snip, knowing exactly how stubborn that lock is.

  Nothing is getting through that thing without a key.

  I stand, making to walk around his side of the table when a low warning sound rumbles out of him.

  My feet cement in place.

  He jerks his chin in the other direction, and I sigh, diverting my path, heading toward the exit while fanning myself with a silver plate that doubles as an unrewarding mirror for my flushed face.

  “Your handmaiden will be up to tend to your needs and collect your nightly offering,” he says when I’m halfway across the room.

  His words peck at me, though I try not to let my discomfort show.

  Likely fail.

  Half my enjoyment comes from listening to him ascend those stairs, open The Safe, remove the goblet, and collect that little part of me. I use his sounds as a stencil to create a physical picture in my mind, and now he’s taking them away, too.

  I quicken my pace.

  “Orlaith.”

  My name is bitten out like it’s some sort of curse, and I spin, seeing an ocean of unsaid words in his catacomb eyes.

  “Yes?”

  “Do not, under any circumstance, leave your room. Do you understand me?”

  Swallowing, I nod.

  “Say it.”

  “I understand, Rhordyn.”

  “Good.” I note a softening of his tone—detect an easing of the tension in his features. “Go.”

  I don’t wait for him to tell me again.

  Chunks of ice chase my movements as though caught on a line, dissolving to become one with the water in this deep, galvanized tub hidden behind a fall of black velvet. There’s a sconce above my head spilling light over my flushed body, illuminating curves that have never looked so plump and pink and—

  I sit up in a dash of water and rage.

  Hugging my knees close to my chest, I rock in little hammering motions that fail to distract my restless mind. The movement stirs water around that part of me and a moan slips out; one that scalds my cheeks because just behind the curtain, Tanith is changing my sheets.

  But I just can’t help it.

  I’m so sensitive—untouched need pulsing with its own carnal heartbeat, something that seems directly connected to the torrid roots digging low in my belly.

  Demanding.

  “Are you ready for more ice?” Tanith asks, her voice reminding me of a wind chime.

  “I think so,” is my hollow response as I rock and rock and rock, bunched in a knot, letting the icy water strike that chord of pleasure in a delicate way.

  I’m so far out of my comfort zone that I want to burst at the seams. Want to dip my head below the water and scream.

  Thunder rumbles all around my tower, like I’m the beating heart of the storm. Usually, I’d enjoy bunkering down with a book or the blank canvas of an unpainted rock during this sort of weather, but my mind’s a riot of hyper-sensitivity, bored with my limited resources. This aching, bone-weary boredom, like my muscles are crammed full of energy I don’t have the space to expel.

  My forehead prickles, and a bead of sweat trickles down the side of my face. My rocking motions turn sharp and desperate, sending water sloshing over the side of the bath.

  Tanith draws the curtain, rolling linen sleeves to her elbows. She doesn’t seem to hold my previous behavior against me, and I no longer want to grip her by that glossy, chestnut hair and snarl in her face until she folds with submission. Thankfully.

  Without her, I’m not sure how I would have survived the last three days.

  “Warming up again?”

  “Mmmhmm.”

  She hefts a black bucket off the ground, cheeks reddening as she tips it over the edge. I watch the waterfall of ice tumble into my tub, those thick shards shrinking the moment they pierce the steaming surface.

  Ice has nothing on this fire in my veins.

  “Would you like me to scrub your back?” she asks, placing the bucket down and tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her ears. She smiles, her pretty brown eyes warm pools against her tawny skin.

  “Thanks for the offer, but not right now,” I murmur, empathizing with my sacrificial ice. Those shards shrink, giving everything of themselves until there’s nothing left to give.

  But my fire continues to take and take and take.

  Tanith dribbles more oil into the water and the sharp, spicy smell of bergamot perfumes the air—a robust scent supposed to aid in masking the potent bouquet of my heat.

  Too bad it’s not all that effective.

  I can still scent my desire to be filled. It’s a floral musk—like a field of roses in full bloom—and it’s mortifying.

  “There’s a fresh robe laid out on the bed,” Tanith informs me as she retrieves the empty bucket with one hand, the other notched on her hip. “Hopefully this lot of ice cools you down enough that you can finally get some sleep.”

  “Maybe ...”

  She crouches next to the bath, looking at me with big, empathetic eyes. “I know it’s rough, but I promise it gets better. Once the fever breaks, you’ll feel like you own your body again. You just have to get through these next couple of days.”

  “That feels impossible right now,” I admit, hating the lusty tone of my voice. It doesn’t matter that I’m speaking to my handmaiden—every word that’s come out of me since my heat struck has sounded like a proposition.

  “I know. Look, I’ll let you get some peace,” she says, pushing to her feet. “Unless there’s anything else, I’ll return in a few hours to collect your goblet and deliver your evening meal.”

  Actually ...

  I sit a little straighter, movements suspended. “You haven’t seen any bluebells around, have you? I need more blue paint to finish my rock. If I can’t sleep tonight, it’d be nice to have something else to focus on.�
�� To be fair, having the stems handy in case I manage to collect every other ingredient required to make more Exothryl would be a convenient bonus.

  Tanith shakes her head. “I heard the gardeners complaining about the frost killing them all this year. But there could be some in the greenhouse?”

  I deflate, chin resting on my knees as I jerk back into motion, sending more water splashing over the edge. “I’ve already cleared it out. Never mind.”

  She gives an apologetic smile, lays another towel on the ground to sponge up the overflow, then leaves, my door closing behind her with a jarring clunk.

  My spine stiffens, attention spikes, body stills.

  The sound reminds my restless soul that there is a door. I’m not locked in.

  ... I can wander.

  I’m not sure where I’ll go. I just know I don’t want to be here.

  My hands dart out and I cling to the edge of the bath, white-knuckled, teeth gritted, muscles triggered to move.

  I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. My heart is telling me I shouldn’t ...

  But other parts of me disagree, and right now, those parts have a stronger sway.

  I wait another few minutes, frozen with feline poise while I listen to Tanith’s pattering retreat down Stony Stem. The moment the sound tapers off, I drive out of the bath and am through the door on my very next breath, two steps down the spiraling stairwell before I realize I’m naked.

  “Shit.”

  I spin, leap onto the top landing, and sprint back into my room, snatching my robe off the bed. It’s light and airy, the perfect weight for my ... condition.

  Not even bothering to dry myself first, I pull it on, tie it loosely around my waist, then I’m back out that door and barreling down the steps.

  Self-restraint has never been my strong suit; neither has my ability to follow orders. To be fair, I’m surprised I lasted this long. Rhordyn should be proud.

  It’s dark outside, shaded by the boisterous storm blanketing the sky, striking the ground with fluorescent bolts that illuminate my stairwell.

  Honestly, I shouldn’t be in the tower during a storm like this. I might get electrocuted. Anyone in their right mind would agree my actions are entirely justified.

  Each step matches the dull, carnal throb between my legs that only seems to intensify with the friction of my frantic motions. I’m moaning by the time I amble onto the bottom landing, robe hanging off my shoulder, the tie around my waist having lost tension from my hurried descent.