Chapter 21 Ch 21

I knew I wasn't awake. I couldn't see, taste or smell. There was no impulse to move my body or listen closely for my steady pulse.

Yet I was conscious. A coolness blanketed in my skin and, though I couldn't physically see it, I could sense the pure white surrounding me. Wherever I was, my mind remained. I was alive but I wasn't.

Am I dead?

The question, my first coherent thought, rang loudly like forgotten church bells through my head. It didn't hurt—I didn't think pain existed in this strange place—but the mental noise was somehow still jarring. From then on, I made a point not to directly think about anything. My mind just swam with passing ideas and notions. Most of them revolved around a beastly, dark shape with piercing eyes. I couldn't recall the color of them, but they pierced me nonetheless.

Memories intertwined with these passing thoughts. I could remember outlines of faces and shapes, but I never would be able to place them. Sometimes the coolness encapsulating me would warm at the thought of one of those faces. Then I would imagine the sleeve of ice melting away until it, at last, sloughed off. It was the only way I could imagine myself escaping this alabaster, sightless abyss.

Sometimes I wondered if this was death after all. I wondered if this was Hell and felt a twinge of disappointment. Fiery lakes and heavy chains and endless torment that I had always imagined seemed puerile compared to this. I would have accepted any fate but this—where I could do nothing but think. And think idly, at that.

Or maybe this was Heaven. I wasn't spending my days in endless tears or suffering at the end of a whip. The timeless depth seemed like torture, but maybe it was the better alternative. Maybe Heaven wasn't full of mansions and golden roads. Maybe it was serenity and isolation for eternity.

Then again, could this be eternity if I still thought of time? I couldn't imagine this state enduring forever. Everything eventually ends.

Another stripe of not-quite-pain lanced through my mind and I stopped asking questions. I floated in the blank whiteness of my mind. I might have been like that for a few seconds or a decade before something warm pulsed inside me. Where inside me was, I couldn't tell. But I felt something aside from this sterile empty abyss.

The pulse pooled into thick molten. Blotches of grey dappled the perfectly endless white horizon around me. Those blotches deepened to the blackest of blacks, an inky pitch color. Then suddenly that darkness was all I could see. The heat burning through me spilled out, set free. Wherever out of me was. Needles of fire pricked at my fingertips. Yes, fingers—I could feel them!

Then the needles expanded into soft, flexible ends. Hair. Thick yet incredibly silky.

As if my eyes had always been open, everything suddenly snapped into focus. I could see the black bristles bending around me. And then I saw my pale hands, wrapped around the tresses of fur and clutching onto the source of soothing heat. When I thought of lifting my head, to look and see, I was shocked to feel my body respond.

One face that had flashed through my mind in that interminable place came into view. A blunt muzzle covered in short, fine fur. The black nose was moist, pushing out air over my head. I could hear the gentle wheezes. Although the eyes were closed, I knew what color hid behind those furry eyelids. Electric blue. Honest and terrifying light. I shivered, thinking of the interminable place.

Whimpering, I push deeper into the folds of darkness and heat. I needed to feel and I needed to hide.

My rustle alerted the hulking haven I clung to. The gentle wheeze sharpened into a snarl and a set of arms tightened around my back. I whimpered again.

"Flower?"

Flower. Fleur.

A million memories stabbed at my brain and I moaned. It was too much. Everything felt fast and hard and overwhelming.

"It's okay," the throaty tenor calming whispered.

He sat up and cradled me against his chest. I refused to lift my gaze. Though I knew exactly what I would see, I wasn't sure if I could remember who I would see. Something about that petrified me.

"You're here." He slowly rocked our tangled bodies. "You're here."

For several minutes we rocked and he whispered to me. Most of his words were sweet and meaningless or things I didn’t understand. Instead of focusing on his words, I counted each second, grabbing onto them as if I would never feel time again. Each moment I could count, I could see and feel and hear, was time slipping by. And I wanted to drink all of it in—no matter how much time was lost. At least time was here.

He stopped rocking when a loud, dull knock shattered our quiet. A low growl reverberated through his chest. I ran my hands up through his fur until my arms could wind around his neck. Without looking still, I anchored myself to him. His growl cut off and his claws scraped against my hips. There wasn't pain so much as there was feeling. My nerves welcomed anything that wasn't the bland neutrality I had left behind. I wanted to feel anything and everything.

I moaned.

His breath caught and then he shuddered. "Flower, be careful," he warned.

I didn't know what he meant. He placed a hand on my bottom and rose up. The hand kept me cradled against him because I was too weak to hold on. We lurched into motion. That slightest movement brought a wind along my skin that dug into each exposed pore. I bit my lip to stifle another moan but some of the sound still escaped.

He swore under his breath.

There was a metallic click and then a grating eek that made my ears ring. I heard another set of nostrils drag in a startled gasp. Hissing, I forced my tiring arms to clench harder around the big, warm body.

"She's . . ."

A woman. Her voice sounded familiar. Another face I recognized but didn't know flashed through my mind. It calmed my fluttering heart.

"She's sensitive," he responded. "She's adjusting."

"Oh my God." Tears mottled her voice. "It worked. It actually worked. Has she . . . ?"

"No."

"Will she?"

My arms could no longer support my weight so they shriveled back to my sides. His hand on my bottom and around my back continued to support me. I palmed my ears with a groan. The sounds were too much. They hurt.

"I don't know," he said. "Give us some more time."

The woman drew in a breath and then forcefully expelled it. Her lips were trembling. I didn't know how I knew that, but I could see it. Vividly, as if looking directly at her.

"Okay. You know where to find us when you're ready."

He was already turning away from her, the door closing. "Yes."

There was a shattering creak of the hinges and then we were sitting again. His rocking continued.

"I know how you feel. You do not want to sleep ever again or even close your eyes," he murmured, though I could hear each flick of his long tongue against those jagged teeth, "but you need to. You'll need all the rest you can get, my Queen."

My heart seized. Queen.

I remembered a cold, dark place. Another face that I didn't want to remember but was there to plague me anyway. The hopelessness that my mind affiliated with it reminded me all too much of the interminable place. I shrunk into his fur with a nod.