To Bleed a Crystal Bloom

by Sarah A. Parker

  But my eyes don’t hold those answers. It’s as if my soul slipped free of them long ago, leaving nothing but a shell that doesn’t quite fit.

  I blink, spilling tears I smear over my cheek. With a sigh, I look away, foraging through my dresser for something to sleep in.

  The sound of heavy footsteps blasting up Stony Stem has me sucking a sharp breath, tugging my robe across my breasts moments before the door flies off its hinges and skids across the floor.

  A whimper escapes me as Rhordyn pours into my room with eyes shaded black. He slams into me, corralling me against the wall, locking me between what feels like two unyielding sheets of ice.

  I swallow thickly, all too aware of the tensed panes of his powerful body. Of the way his head’s dipped, nose grazing my neck, his cold breath an assault on my prickling flesh.

  “You deny me,” he snarls, tone menacing.

  Wild.

  “I—”

  “It wasn’t a question,” he snaps, and my spine locks.

  His smell is a drug clogging my throat, stopping me from drawing a deep gulp of air lest I get high and pass out.

  “I ... I forgot.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  Two sharp points punctuate the thumping flesh of my neck and I gasp, mouth dropping open. The pressure increases, as if he’s about to break the surface and bite into me.

  Spill me.

  Something has me tipping my head to the side, like a flower exposing her brittle stem to a pair of clippers.

  He makes a low, rumbling sound that stays trapped in the tomb of his chest.

  My lids flutter closed.

  His every breath pushes him closer, and I find myself timing my own just to lessen that slice of space between us, allowing me greedy sips of his body—equally as foreign to me as my own.

  But where he’s hard, I’m soft like butter and so damn vulnerable. Right now, he could tear me to ribbons, and like the supplicating creature I’ve become in the shadow of his presence, I wouldn’t even fight.

  Suddenly, almost punishingly, the sharp pressure abates, leaving nothing but the tender chill of his lips against my carotid. “Tell me the truth,” he murmurs, catching my breath.

  The truth ...

  “Now.”

  “I—I was jealous.”

  “And why were you jealous, Orlaith?”

  The question skates over my fervid flesh like the smooth slide of a blade, dropping my thrashing heart into my stomach.

  “Because in the gardens, when I first saw you ...”

  I pause, knowing I shouldn’t say what I want to say. Knowing that’s crossing a line that should be left uncharted until I draw my last breath.

  “Go on,” he commands, and the simple slash of it almost brings me to my knees. Probably would if I weren’t tethered to the way his lips move against my skin every time he speaks.

  “I saw you smile at her ...”

  His body locks. Though it only lasts a fraction of a second, I revel in the brief drop of his shield.

  “Greedy girl,” he whispers, voice akin to the wind shaking my window panes in the dead of night. “You want them all to yourself?”

  I shiver all the way to my toes.

  Always.

  “Yes.” The word is syrup slipping off my tongue, heated like the dull ache between my legs. One that has its own desperate heartbeat, screaming for him to pin me to this wall with a different part of his body—

  Breath crumbles out of me.

  “Well,” he rasps, then swallows. “I’m greedy, too.”

  He whips back, forging a hollow chasm between us, luring long tendrils of my hair to chase his presence.

  He storms toward my bedside table and snatches something off the surface. I don’t realize what it is until he rounds on the hearth and those dancing flames reflect in his platinum glare as he fires my needle.

  Shadows frolic across his sculpted face, highlighting his foreboding expression, brows drawn so close they’re almost meeting in the middle.

  I study him while my lungs battle their confounds.

  It’s so strange to see him crouched in my room, firing my needle—not dancing around the act but involved.

  This is what I’ve always wanted, for there to be no door between us. And the fact that he’s here, now?

  It’s a bucket of icy water dumped atop the angry flame threatening to turn my heart to ash.

  He waves the pin through the air, retrieves my half-filled goblet from my bedside table, and stalks toward me. I swallow, our gazes locked as he lifts my hand and drags it close.

  I’ve forgotten how to breathe. How to move or function or even think.

  My fist is unfurled, one stiff finger at a time, and he picks his target—my pinkie finger—stretching it out like he’s flattening the coiled petal of a pretty bloom.

  I usually avoid the pinkie, only because it’s small, the skin so soft and delicate.

  “That one hurts the most,” I whisper as he works his thumb up and down the base until the tip is red and aching.

  “I know,” he murmurs, piercing the flesh.

  The sharp, sobering sting makes me wince, and I watch a droplet of blood bulb to the surface. Rhordyn slips the needle between his teeth as the cherry tear blooms and blooms until it’s dribbling down the side, threatening to drip.

  He dips my finger in the water, blushing it rosy pink, tainting it with my need to give to this man. With his strange compulsion to take.

  Lids sweeping shut, I try to ignore the smell of blood distilling the air while a question bubbles in my chest again—desperate for freedom.

  Tonight, I’ve lost the energy to keep it contained.

  “Why do you need it?”

  His tightening grip bunches my knuckles.

  Silence stretches, finally shattered by the scrape of Rhordyn’s commanding voice. “Look at me.”

  Slowly, I open my eyes, assaulted by a vision nothing short of punishing. He’s all hard angles and bitter resolve—a beautiful nightmare made flesh.

  There’s death in those silver eyes.

  “This, Orlaith. This right here is why we have the door.”

  My pathetic heart drops so abruptly, my next words come out choked.

  “No. I just want to know wh—”

  “You’re not ready for that answer,” he bites out through tight lips and a stiff, almost unmoving jaw. “And for your own sake, I hope it stays that way.”

  He drops my hand and spins, taking the goblet with him, leaving my arm hanging at my side and dripping water all over the ground. Like a cow who just got milked and has now been sent back to the field to regenerate her udder.

  “Don’t forget again,” he growls, putting my needle on the tray and walking straight out the door, disappearing without a backward glance.

  It’s a slap to the face.

  “I can’t make any promises!” I yell. “I have a lot on my plate, you know!”

  I hear him grunt, then nothing but heavy footfalls winding down Stony Stem. Once they fade, all I’m left with is a hollow silence dented by the rapid beat of my fragile heart.

  Deflating, I stumble back, colliding with the wall ...

  I gave in.

  What’s more, I set the question free and got nothing but riddles and a verbal scalding in return. In fact, all I have to show for it is a sore finger and this lingering ache between my legs—one I try to ignore as I blow out my bedside candles and crawl into bed, robe and all, for what I hope will be a shadowless sleep.

  It’s not.

  I dream of giant creatures that bite into my skin, shake the life out of me, and send my blood splattering.

  I dream of things that make my flesh their own.

  Things that make me break.

  I wake drenched in sweat, hair plastered across my face. The fire is out, and it takes all my energy to peel the sheets back and roll out of bed.

  Seems the hangover from a terrible night’s sleep is almost as bad as exo withdrawals.

 
The sky rumbles, loud and boisterous, making my mirror rattle against the wall. I rub sleep from my face and pace to the window, seeing shaded, high-hanging clouds preventing any light from filtering down.

  Waking to a heavy sky that holds nothing but the promise of rain always leaves me feeling like an unoiled hinge.

  I rinse the nightmares from my face, change into leather pants, a button-down, and a loose-fitting sweater, then weave my hair into a hurried braid while the bath tap fills my sprinkling can.

  Fourteen seedlings nest on the windowsill above my painting station, drinking what they can of the low light. Their small clay pots are handmade, varnished with bold colors that pay tribute to the paint I’ll eventually make from some of their flowers.

  I test the soil, dribble water where it’s needed, then step onto my balcony to tend the bigger ones camped against the wall beneath the overhanging roof on the western side.

  “Look at you guys!” I splash their dirt, fawning over their bright green shoots and unfurling fronds. “You’re all doing so well! Except you,” I mutter, crouching, narrowing my eyes on the fig tree that seems to sag every time I take my eyes off her. “Having another down day, I see.”

  I give her a healthy dose of water and peer up at the rumbling clouds again, scrunching my nose. We both miss the sunshine, and by the looks of things, I doubt that’ll change any time soon.

  I may have to graduate her to Sprouts before she goes and dies on me.

  “Hang in there, Limp Leaf.”

  I work my way around the curved balcony, past my box of herbs and the lemon tree I’ve been raising for the past five years. Its branches are laden with vibrant yellow fruit that will eventually be juiced and used as a preserving agent for my paints.

  Next is my wisteria—the only plant that’s been here longer than I. It’s so large, it weaves through the balcony and down the tower’s edge, and can be seen from almost anywhere on the castle grounds.

  I tend the flock of rose bushes yet to show their first bursts of color, then pause by the willow sapling I grew from a seed. Not only is willow bark an excellent pain reliever, I also love the way they mature from gangly saplings to such proud, majestic trees.

  I crouch and check his roots, seeing them peeking out through the holes in the bottom of the pot ...

  A smile fills my cheeks.

  This is exactly what I needed to pull me from my funk.

  “It’s like you’ve grown up overnight,” I whisper, feeling a little less heavy for the first time in far too long.

  Planting Days are my favorite days.

  “It might just be me, but independence suits you,” I say, patting the soil around the base of my freshly planted willow, loving the feel of dirt on my hands. I push to my feet, glancing out across the rippling gray pond enclosed with a wreath of swaying reeds. A fallen tree slices its center—The Plank—its underbelly decorated with a carpet of dark green moss and curly white mushrooms.

  Weepy should like it here. The soil is irrigated enough, and bonus points for being able to check his progress every time Baze makes me train on that death trap reaching across the insidious water.

  I rummage through my bag for a jar and spoon, creeping toward the mucky fringe of the stagnant smelling pond. Kneeling in the black mud I use to make my mortar, I scoop big globs of it into a jar, then dart away from the reeds, putting ample space between myself and that body of water before bagging my plunder.

  This place is frightening. I never know what’s going to leap out at me from the shrubbery.

  Hands wiped on my top, I sigh and make for the castle.

  A lump of dread sits heavy in my empty stomach as I weave through cold hallways and ascend vacant stairwells on my way to the breakfast hall.

  Will he be at the dining table? Will Zali be there, too ... smiling up at him and luring him to laugh?

  The poisonous thoughts propel my pulse into a hurried, resentful tempo.

  Shoulders shoved back, I stalk into the room, my strong stance almost buckling the moment I feel Rhordyn’s frosty stare threatening to tack me in place.

  Clearing my throat, I glance at Baze in his regular spot, hunched over the morning report.

  His eyes roll up, and he frowns, face half lit by orange light spilling from the roaring hearth on the back wall. “Are you in a better mood this morning?”

  I try to ignore the spike of fire that sizzles my veins, but then I remember the vision of Te Bruk o’ Avalanste almost colliding with his face and my mood improves dramatically.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Really,” is his lackluster response.

  Tanith fails to stifle a giggle as I brush past her on my journey toward my seat, and I offer her a wink. She doesn’t have to attend my meals, but I think the ample entertainment keeps her coming back for more, and I don’t begrudge the moral support.

  Sitting, I search the long table for an extra place setting.

  There is none.

  “Where’s Zali? I thought these family meal times were going to become a ... a thing?”

  “She had to leave in the middle of the night,” Rhordyn rumbles, the tenor of his voice demanding my reluctant attention.

  He’s going to ruin a perfectly good Planting Day, I just know it.

  Slowly, I look his way, struck by his catastrophic masculinity. He’s all brooding composure wrapped in finely crafted garb—so at odds with his six-day-old stubble.

  “Urgent mail-sprite. She’ll be back for the ball.”

  That damn ball. I want to scrunch it up and throw it in the bin.

  “Too bad,” I mutter, gaze momentarily dropping to his empty plate.

  Always empty.

  His eyes narrow, and mine mirror the action.

  “Do you have something you want to say, Orlaith?”

  Yes.

  A million words but I have no tongue to speak them.

  I pluck a plump, purple grape off a gnarled stem. “Nope,” I reply, slipping the fruit into my mouth and biting down. Saccharine liquid explodes across my tongue, and I let out a soft, purposeful moan as I chew ... nice and slow.

  His fingertips strum against the tabletop, eyes hardening a little more with each precise beat.

  I wonder if he can see the challenge in my stare—wonder how it feels to have the shoe on the other foot for a change?

  “Is that nice?” he asks, toying with the question.

  “Positively delicious.” I pop another in my mouth and watch the muscle in his jaw feather. “Best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

  Lie.

  I’m not even hungry, and this grape is threatening to turn my stomach inside out. Honestly, that bread roll was the best thing I’ve ever tasted, but I’m not about to tell him that. Not when he was the one who handed it to me in the first place.

  “I’m so glad.” He tips to the side, reaches under his chair, and straightens before he lumps Te Bruk o’ Avalanste onto the table between us with a hefty thud.

  I almost choke as icy shame slams into me and turns my muscles stiff.

  Shit.

  I should really stop snooping around his castle before he boots me out on my ass. Or perhaps that’s exactly what he’s about to do.

  “I thought I’d return your ... weapon.”

  Gaze lifting slower than a rising sun, I almost wither under the weight of his scrutiny.

  A waiting calm sits between us—a breath held hostage while Rhordyn reclines in his chair, chin on the balled-up pedestal of his fist. That stare intensifies, sending a droplet of sweat rushing down the length of my spine.

  “I-broke-into-a-storage-room-below-ground,” I blurt, the words a hot coal spat off my tongue.

  “I’m aware. I had the window replaced yesterday.”

  Crap.

  “Oh,” I squeak, cheeks burning, though it might be from the fire blazing at my back, assaulting me with its sudden, relentless heat.

  “And tell me,” he purrs, planting his elbows on the table. “Di
d you get a chance in your very busy schedule to have a read?”

  Baze clears his throat.

  “Just a little bit.” I instantly regret my understatement when that raven brow almost jumps off his perfectly rendered face. “Three times. I flicked through it three times with a fine-toothed comb before I took it down to Kai to decipher some of the language.”

  I stamp a hand over my mouth.

  Oops.

  Rhordyn peers down the table for the briefest moment, pinning Baze with a guarded look that’s impossible to decipher.

  He pushes to a stand, the movement akin to the draw of a sword. “And tell me,” he grits out, retrieving the book and prowling around the table, strong thighs tensing with each assaulting step.

  Te Bruk o’ Avalanste thumps on the tabletop beside my plate, and I squirm as his hands connect with the back of my chair. “Do you believe anything in there, Orlaith? Do you believe sprites were made from fallen leaves?”

  I release a shuddered breath, feeling like the room is too small, too hot. Although Rhordyn’s blocking the fire’s boisterous flames, it’s not enough.

  I’m going to burn.

  I spin, looking up into his eyes, searching for any hint of reprieve.

  All that’s staring back is a cold disconnect.

  It should chill me to the bone. On a normal day, it would. But my insides are throbbing with this hot, intimate pulse I can’t seem to douse.

  “Rhor,” Baze warns but is silenced with a bat of Rhordyn’s hand.

  “Answer me, Orlaith.”

  I feel like this answer will determine my fate; whether I’ll be burned at the stake like some of the women in books I’ve read or if the flames licking at my feet are only temporary.

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “I was confused that my tutor never taught me religious studies or even spoke about these supposed Gods. I’ve never read anything about them in Spines.”

  “That’s because it’s all bullshit,” he says, and I flinch at the slash of his tone. He reaches around me, and I almost choke on his deep, manly scent as he snatches the book off the table and waves it through the air. “Why do you think this ended up in a dusty old cellar?”

  I daub my brow with my sweater sleeve. “I don’t know, Rhordyn.”