Page 48 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
Her body ached.
Not sore-from-hiking ache. Not hungover ache. It was something deeper, like her skin had been rewired overnight and now didn’t fit quite right.
She shifted again. The sheet caught between her legs. Damp.
Not dream-damp. She would’ve remembered that.
This was leftover. Lingering.
She stared up at the ceiling. No symbols. No voice of the desert whisperingcongrats, you’ve been sexually awakened by a cryptid.Just plaster cracks and a dead moth. No footprints. No sign of Asher.
She sighed. “Cool.”
The obsidian sat on her bedside table, catching the light. She hadn’t meant to bring it there. But there it was. She picked it up without thinking. The stone was warm again, the smooth edge thrumming faintly against her palm like a shared breath.
Like it was waiting.
Same.
She shuffled into the kitchen. The house was aggressively empty. No Lauren. No Miso. No ghost cryptid monster boyfriend crouching outside the window.
She made coffee. It felt like the only reasonable action to take.
While it brewed, she stared at the sliding glass door, half-expecting to see a shape there again.
Nothing.
The coffee maker sputtered and hissed. She poured a cup and took a sip.
Wrong. Bitter. Metallic. Or maybe that was just her mouth.
She leaned against the counter, mug in hand, and let the silence press in.
It wasn’t peaceful quiet. It was waiting-room quiet. Therapist’s-office-before-the-breakdown quiet.
Her body still buzzed. A low, insistent flutter. Her skin prickled under the cotton of her shirt. Her nipples were hard. Her thighs were—
Nope.
She took another sip.
Made a mental list of things she could do instead of thinking about how good his tongue had felt. And how he’d looked up at her like she was made of something rare. Edible.
The list was short. And all of it was lies.
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Some kind of debrief? A mystical “congrats, you’ve been blessed by a bark-skinned sex god” certificate?
Or at the very least, breakfast.
Instead: silence. No Asher. No whisper on the wind. No vision quest in the mirror. Just her, a haunted kitchen, and the echo of his mouth on her skin.
She hated how much she noticed the absence.
Hated that it felt like she’d been ghosted by a myth.
She ran a hand through her hair. It felt heavier than usual. Or maybe she was just imagining things now. Looking for symptoms.
Get a grip.
