Page 77 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
She dropped to her knees in the dust and stared, her chest tight.
Behind her, the door creaked.
He stood there, bare, beautiful, and unashamed.
Their eyes met.
She didn’t speak.
She reached out and picked one of the blossoms. Delicate, soft, white.
When she looked at her palm, her breath caught.
Blood dripped down her wrist, bright and thin, from the center of the bloom. As if the flower had given part of itself to her.
She looked up at him, trembling.
“What does it mean?” she whispered.
His face twisted, grief and awe tangled into one.
He stepped closer.
“It means you’re becoming.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You’re not just mine,” he said. “You’re the one the land chose. You woke something that hasn’t stirred in lifetimes.”
She looked down at the flower.
At the blood.
At her glowing skin.
And felt it then. Deep in her bones. In the thrum of her chest.
She was awake.
“The land won’t want you to leave,” he said.
She nodded.
“I don’t want to,” she said softly.
And the desert listened.
CHAPTER 17
NORA WOKE UP wrong.
Not groggy. Not hungover. Not even sore, though her body still throbbed in places it hadn’t throbbed in years. No, she woke like she’d been poured back into her skin too fast. Like the molecules hadn’t quite fused back together. Like her bones were a little too light and her blood a little too loud.
The room was dim, touched by a pale morning light that painted everything a soft, sallow gold. Her sheet was twisted around her hips, tangled like it had tried to hold her in place and failed.
The first thing she registered was the heat.
