Page 41 of Ash and Roses

“You cannot change the end result,” she says again, this time in a sing-song voice. She leans in closer, as if to kiss me, but I push her away and move for the door. “They’re already dead,” her voice follows after me as I bolt from the room.

The corridors are a maze, none of them leading where I want them to. I turn a corner that should take me to the tower, but I find the throne room ahead of me. The dark floors reflect torchlight in a way they never have before, and when I move closer, I see that it’s because they’re wet. I bend down to touch it, running two fingers through the thick and sticky liquid.Through the blood.

“Father!” I call, jumping to my feet and running towards the thrones. Blood splashes around me with each step, and the sound it makes has me tasting bile. There’s no sign of him, save for strips of shredded fabric and a discarded crown sitting in a pool of blood.

I run from the room, meaning to leave the castle altogether, but instead find myself just outside what I once called my safe haven. I know what I’ll find inside, but I can’t stop my feet from taking deliberate steps down the hall and into the room.

“Evan.” His name gets caught in my throat, mingled with a building sob. My brother is lying on the ground, stomach torn open with a great silver wolf atop him. It raises its head to look at me, mouth stained crimson and bits of flesh stuck between its barred teeth. It growls at me, but there’s nothing to fear, for the eyes that stare back at me are a mirror image of my own. The metallic taste of blood fills my mouth as the wolf resumes its meal.

I shut my eyes against it, but the crunching of bone and sloshing of blood is loud in my ears.

“Quinn.” I hear my name called from somewhere too distant to save me from this. “Quinn,” it calls again, whisper soft, but louder still.

“No,” I plead. I can’t take much more of this. I don’t want to see whatever else my mind wishes to torment me with—no matter how much I may deserve it.

“Quinn.”

My eyes snap open, and dimness replaces light. For a moment, the blood follows me. Pooled on the floor and sprayed across the walls, but when I blink, it’s gone. There’s a girl in the bed now, but not the sorceress. It’s impossible to separate past from present, fiction from reality, memory from wish. I recognize this girl, but her name eludes me. All I know for certain is how I feel about seeing her there. The emptiness inside me is cold, but she is warmth.

I’ll do anything to fill the void within me, even for just a moment. I need to feel the warmth. Before I can consider my actions, I lunge for her, desperately reaching for whatever comfort she’ll allow me.

CHAPTERTWENTY

ABBY

Quinn’s lips are on mine, his fingers weaving through my hair and holding me against him. He tugs at it gently, tilting my head back for a better angle, and then slips his tongue between my teeth. I let him, because for the first time in days, I feel something other than rage, emptiness, and fear.

Time no longer exists, so there’s no telling how long we stay like that, but all too soon, his senses return and I feel him pulling away. “No,” I say, the word sounding muffled against his lips in my desperation to keep them pressed against mine.

I tug at his shirt, the sudden need to feel his skin against me impossible to ignore. We break apart only briefly—just long enough for me to pull the shirt from him and discard it. I don’t know where it landed, and I don’t care. I press my lips against his again, and he mirrors my force. The skin of his arms and chest feel scarred beneath my hands. I trace the lines of them with my fingertips in silent question. He shudders against the touch, and his only answer is to kiss me fiercer. He smells of wood smoke with only a hint of the floral sweetness that dominates the Rosewood air, and he tastes of something even sweeter.

A hand slips under my nightgown, and I sit up on my knees so he can pull it off me. When his fingers brush against my scars, he freezes and abruptly pulls away. “Turn around.”

“It’s nothing,” I say and lean in to kiss him again.

He lifts me as if I weigh nothing and turns me so that my back is facing him. He lifts my gown to my shoulders and then moves a hand down the length of my back. “Who did this to you?” The aroused hoarseness of his voice has changed to something colder, and I shiver despite the warmth of the room and the heat coursing through me.

“Does it matter?”

He whips me around again, firm but gentle enough not to hurt me. There’s conflict in his eyes, a silent battle warring within him. I wonder what emotions are swirling just beneath the surface. Certainly lust, and probably anger given his temper, but there’s more to it than that. Something that runs deeper. His mouth opens and closes a few times, as if he’s repeatedly stopping himself from speaking. Luckily, I have a solution for that.

“Kiss me.”

“Abby,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. The action immediately makes me wish it was my fingers running through it.

“Kiss me,” I say again, more forcefully this time. Before he can object, I pull off my nightgown and show him everything I am.

His eyes fight to stay on mine, but it’s a losing battle, and it takes only seconds for them to slide downwards. His breath catches and the sound sets my insides ablaze. I don’t have to ask this time because his lips return to mine and his hands move to cup my breasts, a gentle massaging broken occasionally by a teasing pinch that has me gasping for air.

This isn’t enough. It’s not even close.

I reach for his pants, my fingers fumbling at the button, keeping him trapped inside. He pulls away from me again and I can’t contain the frustrated groan.

A soft chuckle escapes him before the seriousness returns. “Are you sure?” He studies my face for any sign of hesitation.

“Yes,” I breathe. “Unless you don’t want to.”

His smile returns and I wonder if this is the first time I’ve truly seen it. “Do I look like I don’t want to?”

---