Page 7 of Courting Envy
Chapter four
Rava
Iwoketofullblown pain, not the ache of pleasure that I’d been expecting. My chest throbbed and it felt like someone had shoved spikes through my skull. Letting out a groan I reached for my head, gasping as my hand came into view.
There was something wrong with my skin. Green, scaled patches dotted the surface of my hand. I shot upright, scraping it with my other hand, but the same thing was happening there too. I stared at my hands in horror, frozen. What the hell was going on here? I picked at one patch with my nails, trying to dig under a scale and pry it loose, but all I managed to do was make it bleed. Bile edged up my throat as it finally came free. The pain didn’t compute. This wasn’t part of me.
This couldn’t be part of me.
But as I threw it aside, I could see deep red blood and the tender pink of flesh.
No no no no. This couldn’t be real. I was still dreaming. It was just another nightmare.
I stood. The pillow snagged on something and tore, sending puffs of white feathers all over the bed. Not my bed. Not Lucien’s bed; some other bed I didn’t know, it’s cover made of pure darkness, four posters seeming to tower over me, hung with gossamer thin drapes.
It didn’t matter whose bed this was. I needed a mirror or a reflective surface. I needed to see.
This room was not familiar though. My breath caught in my chest as I realized I had no idea where the fuck I was - certainly not the penthouse apartment. And what was I wearing? A black satin slip, knee length, with thin straps holding it up. This was not my nightgown.
For a moment I thought perhaps I’d been kidnapped, but the decorations of this room were too lush for that. The dark marble floor was shot through with gold. It was cool beneath my bare feet and the walls seemed to shimmer green and blue like the ocean.
Everything in here seemed to suck light from the room, and the only source was a chandelier that looked like it was lit with actual candles.
What.
The.
Fuck.
I moved closer to the nearest wall, reaching out to touch the surface. It rippled beneath my fingers before clearing to show me an image of someone else. Someone who…
I narrowed my eyes, leaning closer as she did the same.
No.
My scream caught in my throat as I reached up, scaly hands grazing the small black horns emerging from my skull.
I gasped, trying to draw breath into lungs that didn’t want to work, but floundering like a fish out of water. I met my gaze, found large black pupils rimmed by vibrant green staring back at me.
I was the same. But not. Changed in ways that I couldn’t explain. The scales on my hands shimmered in the candle light, and if they weren’t on my body, I might think them beautiful. In a way.
My head throbbed, and my brain buzzed with a million questions, most pressing of them: where was I? What was I?
What the hell had happened?
Flashes of memory came back to me then. Lucien, the penthouse apartment, wine and sex, the glimmer of the city far below us.
I want to make you sing a different tune.
My hand flew to my chest, pushing back my dark waves of hair, fingers landing on something hard. Goosebumps rose on my arms and my fingers trembled as I pulled aside the fabric of the dress to reveal an emerald gem embedded in my skin.
Right where he had stabbed me.
I stumbled away from the wall, my back hitting something hard. I spun to see that it was just the bed, my brain finally taking in that it was a huge four poster, with intricate carvings on each post.
“Lucien?” I whispered, both wanting him to be there, and never wanting to see him again. My hand went to my chest, that cold gem a reminder of what he had done. I could feel the sharp stab in my chest, the ache of the muscle around it. The thick, heavy tang of blood in my mouth, slipping down my throat, dragging me under.
I’d thought I was going to die, yet here I was. Upright, walking around. But changed…
