Page 14 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
She wanted to say something, but the dream unraveled.
His hand vanished. The weight lifted. The sky went black.
She reached up blindly, fingers closing on air. The ache inside her sharpened into something worse than need. Loss.
Nora woke with a soft, broken moan, her body arched, chest damp with sweat. She lay perfectly still, afraid to chase the last traces of him away.
The sheets were twisted beneath her hips. Her skin was fever-warm. The pulse between her legs throbbed like a bruise. Her hand still clutched the obsidian stone.
The air was heavy with sage. And something else. Him.
You are her.
What did it mean?
Who was she?
And who had he been before?
She sat up slowly, heart hammering.
Her journal lay open beside the bed. She reached for it blindly, hand shaking, and wrote:
Was he human before?
He gave himself to the desert. Or it took him.
Then:
He remembers me.
She stared at the words, blinking through the haze of heat and longing.
Then she dropped the pen and groaned, pressing both hands to her face.
“Goddamn it,” she whispered, dragging one hand over her face. “This is fucking ridiculous. Add ‘thirsty for desert monster’ to the list of things I didn’t plan for this week.”
Her heart was still racing. Her thighs still clenched around the echo of the dream.
She threw the sheets back and sat on the edge of the bed.
“I need a new field of study,” she muttered. “Preferably one with fewer sacred erections.”
The air didn’t cool. The scent didn’t fade. Her body wouldn’t calm, her nipples hard under the thin fabric. Her body was still humming. Her mouth tasted like mezcal and desire.
She pulled the pillow over her head and groaned. “Oh, this is gonna be a problem.”
And the worst part?
Now shewantedhim to be real.
Nora didn’t go back to sleep.
She drifted through the kitchen like someone half-possessed, feet bare against the cracked tile, hands moving without instruction. In the back of the pantry, behind a rusted can of hominy and a jar of dust-caked molasses, she found a dented tin with faded flowers on the lid. Inside were brittle curls of chamomile and a twist of desert thyme, probably a decade old.
She made tea anyway.
The water turned weak gold. The taste was bitter and medicinal. But it gave her something to do, something to hold. Her fingers trembled slightly as she carried the chipped mug to the kitchen table
