I grasped the linen of my shirt and peeled it off, my skin exposed to the night air. I tore at her chemise, wanting to free her from the fabric that separated us. After a satisfying rip, I grabbed at her naked breast, tenderly kissing her hard nipple.
I embraced her and we fell into the grass, the ground soft against our knees and elbows. I kissed her lips again, rolling my tongue in her mouth. Exploring every bit of her.
She broke the kiss. My breaths were ragged. Hungry.
“Make me yours,” she moaned.
Her words doused me in fire. I needed to possess her. Every inch of her.
Kissing her again, I gripped her hips savoring her heated skin beneath my fingers.
I took her.
The world fell away, and nothing mattered but she and I.
I slept, and deeply.
It was different from before when my veins were hot from wine and my mind swelled with hashish. Before was only black. Now, faded colors and fuzzy shapes tumbled through my mind. I was back in Fate’s sitting room, sitting on the damask chaise and sipping whiskey. Voices coming from the malachite jar near the mantel filled my ears...
Sunlight glowed bright through my closed eyelids.
I stretched my arms, reaching for Laila. I wanted to gather her into my embrace and feel her naked skin against my own. I patted the ground, but only grass scratched my hands.
My lids shot open. The shelter was empty save for my pants and shirt laying in a wrinkled heap outside. I leaned forward and rubbed my eyes, trying to straighten out the warm images of the night before.
I could still taste her sweetness.
Standing, I dressed. I couldn’t waste a moment not seeing her.
Laila stood looking out over the field of asphodels. Her hair remained disheveled from my tugs and pulls. I could make out a faint mark of red on her neck from my mouth.
I burned her image into my mind. The wind blowing through her hair. Her arms crossed standing as a goddess on Mount Olympus.
And I would go to her, and kneel as her humble servant.
Walking behind her I gripped her upper arms. Her muscles tightened, but she remained staring out over the sea of white. The dark pine stood tall in the distance.
“By this evening we will be back,” I said.
She nodded her head. She still wouldn’t turn around to face me. Seeing Tristan probably filled her with anxiety.
I didn’t want to think of the other reason it might be.
I leaned in and inhaled at the curve between her neck and shoulder. She hardened again, but didn’t shake me away.
“I can’t,” she said, the word cracking out of her throat.
“I told you, Tristan will be glad to see you. He wishes nothing else,” I said.
“No, not that.”
She turned and faced me, her eyes hazed in red.
“Us,” she said. “There is too much pain between us. We can’t ever go back to how it was before. Last night was nothing but a foolish mistake.”
My chest tightened as if a bodiless hand squeezed my heart.
“We don’t have to live in the past,” I pleaded. “We are here. Now. Let’s leave everything else behind.”
My words were only hope for what I knew could never be. I wanted her to reconsider, but I knew begging would serve no purpose. She was unmovable. Stubborn. And that was what enthralled me about her.
She gave a sad smile and shook her head.
“It was different in the dark. Black covered sins, but in the light of day, everything burns red,” she said. “We can never be together. We must be content with a night and a memory.”
I let my hands slide down her arms until they fell away completely. My eyes stung and a force within me wanted to shake her. Tell her such thoughts and words were stupid. I needed her.
I loved her.
The pain in my chest was no match for the scar on my palm flaring into agony. It bit into my bone and sinew. I curled my fingers and clenched my fist tight.
Time was running out. Fate’s anger was growing.
Chapter Ten
The tree line appeared not more than a mile away, but we marched ten. I could no longer feel the blisters on the bottom of my feet. Yet not even the numbness in my toes compared to the despair infecting my heart.
I couldn’t fault Laila for her feelings. I couldn’t rejoice in them either. But who was I to talk about not being able to move on from the past? I dedicated my whole life to the past, and here I was, trying to force her out of its stench.
Still, I burned for her. The asphodels grazed her hips as she swayed through them. The memory of my hands caressing her curves struck me hard. I never experienced a sensation so freeing as when I was inside her. With her I tasted salvation. I knew peace.
Now, cast out I feared the truth. I would never again feel whole as I did in her arms.
We continued through the flowers. Stepping, crushing, splitting. The pine was just ahead. Only a few more feet.
Each step I tried to think of anything but her, but my mind refused.
Right, left, right left. Laila’s chestnut hair gleams so beautifully in the sunlight. No, think only of the petals tearing beneath my feet. Of the stems snapping. Her soul rivals all I have ever known. Silence!
Further we walked. The burning on my palm intensified and wrapped around my entire hand and down my fingers. Fate was gaining on us.
White pounded in my vision. Asphodels continued to stretch out before us reaching the horizon. The pine remained as far away as if we hadn’t traveled at all. Something was wrong.
“We will never reach the trees,” Laila said. “This is like where I was imprisoned. You think you can leave, but you can’t.”
Her voice rippled hot over my skin and into my bones. I shook the sensation away.
“Just a few steps more,” I replied. “Fate is coming for us. We must get to Tristan before it’s too late. We’ve gone through too much to stop now.”
Laila stilled and sunk into the flowers. They towered over her. The white petals covered her breasts and stroked her cheeks.
She laughed and her lips spread into a beautiful smile. Her eyes sparkled and my heart raced imagining me sitting beside her and kissing her.
I swallowed down my want. I swallowed down this ridiculous notion. What was I thinking?
We had to leave, though I wanted nothing more than to stay. It seemed a peaceful place and perhaps we might live there. Among the asphodels...
Asphodels…there was something about this flower. I read about them…hadn’t I? The fog infecting my mind made it seem so very long ago now.
I pressed against my temples trying to keep my thoughts clear. Steady. However, every other thought wanted to jump in and tear me away.
Isn’t Laila so very pretty sitting in the flowers? A voice seemed to say.
Asphodels. Think.
What for? The voice prodded.
Laila picked a flower and started to pull off the petals one at a time. Serenity glowed from her smile. I loved seeing her at such peace.
I wanted to join her. We could be happy in that field together. Happy...
I fell into the flowers, my hand leaning against her leg. She didn’t move away. She stayed. She smiled at me and brushed my hair from my forehead.
Asphodels…A kingdom exists where these plants grow. Think.
Thinking is so utterly tedious.
An odd contentedness fell over me. As if I knew we were on a fool’s errand and we needn’t bother anymore. We could stay there, in that field, forever picking off petals and be perfectly cheerful.
My mind burned with pretty scenes. Laila would bend down and kiss me, her hair skating across my cheeks. We would embrace one another. I would stroke her breasts and she my thigh. The sun would warm our skin as we made love within the meadow. She would never want to leave my side again. I would never be alone again. I would never be cast out again.
“I love you,” Laila would whisper in my ear.
Such pre
tty fantasies...possibilities.
But Laila didn’t love me.
My breath caught in my throat. I shot up and grabbed the flower from her hand and threw it far away.
“We must leave this place,” I said.
“I think I could be quite happy here,” she said, not hearing, or caring, what I said.
My legs weighed two hundred pounds each, but I forced my knees to bend and heave myself up.
“Asphodels are part of Elysium. This is where souls come to stay. That’s why we can’t ever reach the trees. Our souls don’t want to leave,” I said.
“And why would you ever want to depart such a perfect place?” she asked, echoing my own secret desires.
Yes, stay. You can finally know peace forever.
I grabbed her hand and pulled her up.
“No!” she screamed, tugging back. “Leave me here! I don’t want to go anywhere else. I don’t want to go back to pain and torment.”
Gripping her arms I continued to pull, forcing her to stand.
“You want to see Tristan, don’t you?” I asked. “This place is a lie.”
My soul no longer wanted false tranquility. It wanted truth.
The tree line appeared closer. Laila turned her head to the left and saw it too.
“Yes…but…the flowers. They are so beautiful,” she said as if in a dream.
“These flowers are preventing you from your desire,” I said.
“No!” she yelled. “They are giving me peace. I so desperately want peace.”
I pulled her towards the tree line, but she clawed into my cheeks and jaw. I tightened my grip on her upper arms, but she pounded her fists into my chest and pushed me off of her.
If we had any hope of leaving, her soul had to hate this place. Be reminded of her discontent. And I was the only one able to cause that hatred to churn. I would have to twist her once more to what I needed her to do.
I cursed beneath my breath knowing I would have to break the fantasy and remind her of how much she despised me.
She bent down and picked another asphodel, diving her nose into the soft petals and inhaling deeply as if it were a drug. I clasped her wrist and pressed hard. She cried out in pain, and looked at me in shock.
“Let it go,” I growled. “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t let it go, I will break you.”
She slowly opened her fingers, and the flower fell into the grass.
I pulled her against me, my fingers still clenched tightly around her delicate wrist. Only a little pressure more and her bones would snap. She had to wake, and force was the only way I knew. Inwardly I cursed myself at the pain I was causing her, but there was no other way.
“You can either stay here with your flowers and your own, selfish want of peace, or you can see the son you already abandoned once before.”
She whimpered and her face grew red. Her gaze clasped on mine and clarity twinkled behind them. The pine was an inch from us now. I loosened my grip. Slightly.
“Tristan?” she whispered.
“What will you do Laila? You must choose,” I pleaded.
She looked back down at the sea of flowers. Something like horror caused her skin to turn ashen.
Her gaze snapped back to mine.
“I choose Tristan,” she said.
I released her wrist.
Wind ripped and tore at our clothes and faces. The ground shook. I closed my eyes and held her tight as grass and leaves roared around us. The sweet scent of the asphodels dissolved into earth and pine. Shade replaced light.
The wind died down and I opened my eyes. We were beneath a canopy of trees standing in the midst of a forest. Relief flooded me as I knew we would be safe.
We were back in Awake.
I laughed falling to my knees as I lifted my hands towards the branches.
“Thank God!” I exclaimed. “I wasn’t sure we would make it. Now, we can find Tristan without worry.”
Laila did not share my joy. Instead, she stood silent and still like a ghost.
“I almost did it again,” she said, softly. “I was willing to forego my son for my own wants. This time it was to stay in a field of flowers instead of a room full of golden thread.”
I stood and neared her. I laid my hands against her hot cheeks and steadied her eyes on my own.
“That’s not true, Laila,” I said. “That field plays with your mind. It twists reality. In the end, you chose your son and that’s all that matters.”
She shook her head and turned away from me.
“I might not have made the same mistake as I did when I signed Tristan away in my own blood, but that evil remains in me. It speaks to me,” she said.
I touched her chin and made her face me again. I understood the voice she spoke of.
“We all have the capacity for evil, it’s if we choose to listen or not.”
A flame ignited deep within her chest. It burned bright. Vivid.
“No matter what happens,” she said, her eyes remaining firmly on my own. “Tristan must never know my shame. He can never know what we both did.”
Her soul blazed with exquisite desperation. I hungered for its beauty and its strength. I hungered for it the same as the last time it smoldering in her soul.
I reached out towards the flame wanting to touch it. Consume it.
I stopped myself, taking her hand instead, savoring the softness of her fingers.
“As I’ve already told you, Tristan knows nothing of the past.”
“He will need to know he is the heir to the throne,” she whispered.
I cupped her cheek in my hand.
“And that you are his mother,” I added. “ But there is no reason for him to know the entire truth.”
She gave a small smile. I leaned towards her. I wanted to feel that smile against my own lips, but she moved away.
I cursed myself for being so foolish to hope she’d take me back.
Laila started to walk away when my insides clenched, and I couldn’t stop a scream from escaping my lips. My palm seared and pain bore into the bones. Into every fiber of every tendon. It raced up my arm and encircled my heart, threatening to squeeze.
I fell to the ground and looked at my hand. Horror. Blood seeped from the wound and pooled in the creases of my palm before running hot down my wrist.
I thought I would retch, but not from the pain so much as what it meant.
Chapter Eleven
Worsted:
noun: A fine smooth yarn spun from combed long-staple wool
Verb (past tense): get the better of; defeat
Laila skidded to my side. She trembled gazing on the gore before her.
“What’s happened?” she shrieked.
“Run,” I panted.
Confusion fell over her lips. Another cry gargled out of me and my chest tightened. She had to get out while she still could and leave me behind.
“RUN! Fate’s here! He found us!”
“I won’t leave you,” she said.
“GO!” I pushed out.
I threw her off of me and she stumbled back. She stared at me for a second or two and then started to take off at a run.
I looked down at my hand. It still trembled, but the pain disappeared as if it had never been there at all. Anxiety caused my stomach to churn, but it was nothing to Laila’s scream cutting through my ears.
I stood and my heart thrashed in my veins. Fate stood before me, eyes lit with rage and jaw set. He gripped her wrists tight together.
He had her. The bastard had my Laila.
He grabbed a handful of Laila’s hair and wrenched her head back. Her pulse throbbed through the thin skin of her neck.
I made to lunge at him, but he placed his gleaming scissors against her throat. They pressed into her pulse. He barred his teeth and glared at me. His every rigid muscle told me he was ready to kill.
I stopped, my breath caught in my throat.
“I told you I would not be cheated,” he seethed. He tugged on her hair caus
ing her to whimper. “Too bad your little attempt at escaping me was futile. When will you learn you can’t run?”
Anger boiled within my gut.
“Let her go,” I said. “Your quarrel is with me.”
He chuckled, but the mirth dissolved into malevolence. His eyes flashed and my throat seized nearly shut, like a squeezing invisible hand gripped me. I gagged and wheezed. My tongue swelled within my mouth.
“For once you will be quiet,” he said. “You’ve made me quite angry, Rumpelstiltskin. I do not stand being cheated.”
“I will never stop defying you,” I choked out.
“We shall see,” he said.
He pressed his hand over Laila’s heart. His fingers resembled claws as they pushed hard against her flesh. She whimpered from the pressure.
“I won’t lie,” he cooed in her ear. “This will be agony.”
I tried to break free of the magic strangling me. I wanted to rip her away from him, but the force only squeezed tighter around my neck. I could only watch in horror as he sunk his fingers into her chest.
Laila opened her mouth and I’ll never forget that scream. It curdled my blood and I could do nothing to stop it. Still deeper Fate pushed into her. Her eyes widened and rolled in the back of her head. Her skin went ashen and her body trembled.
Fate smiled as he drew out a strand of brightest white. A thread.
“So simple. So fragile, the human life,” he whispered. “It’s been an eternity since I last held one of these exquisite marvels.”
Fate threw Laila to the ground, her shoulders smacking into the dirt. He flicked his wrist and my throat was freed. I coughed violently and tried to catch my breath. I rubbed my neck. I was still frozen to my spot, unable to move.
Running the thread through his fingers he admired the shimmering string with a hunger that unnerved me.
“Put that back inside her,” I rasped.
He raised his right eyebrow.
“Why would I do that?” he said. “I finally have your attention. Now you might finally see why the noxious reign of free will needs to end. I’m not trying to be cruel, only to show you reason. This new order will benefit every soul.”
Twist: A Fairy Tale Awakening (Spindlewind Trilogy Book Two) Page 16
