Page 81 of Their Blood Queen

Everything alters, and the shimmer of the water makes it look like I’m peering through a melting pane of glass.

What is this?

Unease winds through my stomach, and I decide I’ve been underwater long enough.

I try to get up.

I can’t.

Panic strangles my chest as a strange sort of paralysis takes over. Ice frosts over the water as it slowly goes solid. My body freezes, and I can’t move a single muscle.

My lungs scream.

I can’t move.

What… What’s happening?

I’m not sure how long I’m stuck that way, but just before I black out, hands dive into the water and grab hold of me, yanking me free of the ice that instantly vanishes.

A racking cough sputters in my throat as I wheeze in a lungful of blessed air.

The hands that saved me are gone, but a man is standing there now.

After handling a coughing fit, it takes me a moment to register that my savior is my suitor.

Who is now in my bath parlor.

Staring at my naked body.

I cover myself with my hands as best I can, but there’s plenty of light for him to see everything. But he doesn’t appear to be gawking at me. Rather, he’s wearing a very concerned expression as his chest heaves. He’s fully clothed, donning what had been a frilly dress shirt and pants with trendy blue stripes along the sides that are now wet and plastered to his muscular form.

“Are you okay?” he finally asks as he searches my face, although I’m not sure what he’s looking for.

The last shred of my sanity, perhaps? Because there isn’t any ice. There aren’t any smoky tendrils rolling through the ceiling.

Whatever I just saw had been one of my night terrors, and I almost died because of it.

Sinking deeper into the water, I wish I had drowned so I didn’t have to suffer this humiliation. “I’m fine, Edward. You can leave now.” I glance at the quiet entryway. “Although, I’m not even sure why you’re here.” My gaze flicks back to him as I wait for an answer.

He told me he could only enter my room by invitation. I don’t recall having invited him.

Even if he did save my life from whatever weird bath paralysis I had just suffered, he can’t just expect to walk into my room whenever he feels like it.

He pulls a letter from his pocket, which is now hopelessly soaked, but I can barely discern my mother’s handwriting on the outside.

He came to ask me about my mother’s invitation. Of course.

Sighing, I thump my forehead on the edge of the tub. “I’m sorry, Edward. I’m fine, really. And thoroughly humiliated, so if you please?—”

I freeze when I hear the wet letter drop to the floor. Then his fingers are brushing my nape, followed by his palm. The raised mark of the S on his hand reminds me what we are to each other.

The instant his mark hits one of mine, electricity shoots straight through my body, settling between my legs. “I’ve never seen courtship marks before,” he murmurs with a concerned tone. “Still, this doesn’t look normal, Scarlett. Does it hurt?”

No? Yes?

How do I explain to him that just touching me there has desire surging through my body?

Heat builds between my thighs, and the flash of my figment growling inside my head has me whimpering.

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