Page 95 of Female Fantasy
I blink several times.
The universe is most definitely fucking with me.
“Your name is…it’s…M-Marrion Chad?”
He squints. “Well, yeah. Ryan is short for Marrion. Marrion Chad. I’m actually fifth in a line of Marrion Chads. Hey, are you feeling okay? You look kind of green.”
I just stare at him.
That tan skin and midnight hair to which I’ve dedicated thousands of words.
Those smile lines and full lips I’ve imagined so many times as I touched myself in the dead of night.
The gleaming light behind his eyes.
And I face a startling reality head-on.
“You know what? It was really nice meeting you, too, Ryan,” I say apologetically, leaving some of Angel’s cash on the counter and grabbing my bags. “But there’s somewhere I’ve got to be.”
And as I walk out that door and onto the sidewalk, I know one thing for certain.
Prince Ryke of Atlantia is good on paper.
But Nico?
He might just be better forme.
I have imagined a kiss from the angel of death more times than I can count.
The cold tickle of a dark lover’s last breath.
A final foreboding peck on the forehead.
Lights in the distance beckoning me.
Children singing.
But I’ve never imagined it like this.
Death is not sweet, nor is it swift.
No, death is brutal and harsh.
It’s the crack of a whip and the slap of a cheek. Death is iron fists clasped around your neck, squeezing the last remaining breath out of your body as time slows. Death is wet and frozen, in temperature and in time.
Death is a grave below the bottom of the ocean.
I am vaguely aware of my surroundings—the cavern whereI am being held, the dark, murky waters in which I dwell. The kelp and knotted sailor’s rope restraining my wrists and ankles. Ryke taught me how to escape from restraints for this very reason. He knew this moment would come, somehow. But he never showed me how to expel the water filling my lungs like a reservoir, pouring into my nose like warm blood.
“One more time: When does the Prince of Atlantia plan to strike?”
My body is limp, strands of my hair ripping from my head as if I am deteriorating in real time. Perhaps I am. I can no longer tell if I have been here for minutes or days. I can hardly muster up the energy to move, let alone speak.
Somehow, I manage to raise my chin an inch.
A refusal.
Nix sighs. “You are a stubborn little oaf of a human. I shall give you that, girl. Very well. Again.”
