It was clear. Crystal. The face of the boy who yesterday I’d wanted to slash with a carving knife was one I knew with as much familiarity as I knew my own.
“And I know you.” His lips curved at the edges deliciously sweet.
“This is all hunky dory,” Phil’s voice cut through the static in my head, but it was too late, my grip on reality started to slip.
When I came to, the chill in the room was so extreme I wiggled my nose to make sure it was still there. It was, but frozen like an ice block. I rubbed at it, wondering if I’d succumb to frostbite staying in room thirteen.
“It’s bloody freezing in here.” I jumped at the deep rumble.
“Tristram?” Sleep fuddled my lucidity. The Tristram I’d just been with had been cold and aloof, my feelings burned by his distance.
My feelings?
Scurrying back against my mattress, I sat up and gathered the blankets around me to keep warm. The room was dark, shadowed, and deep, lit only by the faintest glimmer through the leaded window.
I gasped as firm fingers slid around my wrist, holding my fragile bones tightly. A tug dragged me closer to his shadowy form. My mouth tingled with drying anxiety. “You’re keeping secrets from me?”
“What?” I tried to pull away, but he held me firm. Shifting in the dark, his face slowly took shape, hardened and firm, his eyes were focused anywhere apart from at me.
“Mae, I know you better than anyone, better than you know yourself. You are lying to your liege.”
I scurried back, my spine hitting the wall as his lips hesitated over mine. “Tristan, stop, you’re scaring me.”
“I could have any woman, Mae. Any of them would beg to be my wife, to have me as their lover.”
My stomach twisted at his words, that flood of jealousy stealing back over my rationality.
“But not you.” He laughed a harsh burst of bitter mirth. “Not you.” His nose skimmed my cheek, and I held my breath. A heady rush of soap and forest air swirled through my senses. “I want you though, I’ve never wanted anything more.”
My hands tore free from his grasp and I shoved his chest. “Tristan.” He didn’t move, his thoughts far away.
“Tristan. Stop it.” A sob tore from my mouth.
His eyes blinked onto mine. Liquid obsidian pools I could have happily drowned in. “Mae?” Rubbing his face, he blinked. “I was sleeping. I dozed off waiting for you to wake.”
“Why are you here?” I couldn’t calm the thrashing jangle of my nerves. Free of his hold I rolled from the bed and backed into the wall.
“I had to check you were okay.” He hung his head. “I didn’t want to hurt you again. I promise.”
“You’re having the dreams too, aren’t you? The dreams I’ve been having.”
His eyes met mine and my legs quaked, my knees knocking together. “Yes.”
“What are you dreaming?” I wanted to know it was the same, that I wasn’t crazy.
“About you.” He looked down, bashing the toe of his trainer. His fingers flexed and tightened into fists before releasing again. I wasn’t scared though. It was another sensation moving inside me.
“Me? You can’t be.” I wanted to keep my sanity, even though I was fast free diving off the cliff of normality. “We don’t know one another. We hate each other. How can we be dreaming about each other...?” I ran out of words. We had hated one another and then I’d found that necklace and the next thing we were sitting exchanging pleasantries at lunch. I clutched my head—nothing made sense. Nothing.
He looked like the man from my dreams, there was no denying it, but I wouldn’t say it was him. Would I? I stared closer and then closed my eyes, remembering the scent of forest that clung to him as he moved near me.
I could explain that though. He’d found me in the forest only hours before. An erratic snort presented itself as a laugh. Hours? I didn’t have a clue what the time was. I’d done nothing but sleep in this cursed place.
Curse.
The word bolted out of the blue.
Curse.
What if Tristan and I were cursed? How else could you explain the way we’d hated one another on sight?
But why would we be? I was a Yank, this the first time my feet were on foreign soil. He was British with a serious stick of arrogance shoved up his ass.
Unless.
Unless.
I couldn’t. I couldn’t go there.
I clutched at the gem, pulling the chain free from my clothes. His eyes landed on it and I knew he recognised it. “We only stopped hating each other when I found this.”
He was across the room, crowding into my space. “Where did you find that?”
“On the bones, I found it on the stones.” My voice wavered.
“Mae.” My name was the lightest of whispers.
I closed my eyes and his breath fanned across my face. With a shaking gulp of air, I considered the possibility all of this was real. That we were living the dreams of those who’d walked before us.
Had I always been destined to be here? My parents' car crash? Was that a spin of the wheel of fortune that made the letter from my aunt a necessity?
And why had Tristram and I found each other now? Was this the first time since the life in the forest—the life that seemingly ended on those stones?
With my eyes still closed I considered all the many variations of crazy that were possible.
The kiss took me by surprise and I gasped as his lips skimmed mine. The faintest touch, the tickle of butterfly wings. A fire sparked and lit within me. I grabbed at his face with my hands, anchoring his lips to mine. His body pressed mine against the stone wall. We were the fire held up by the stones. The more I kissed his lips: firm and supple, his tongue teasing and darting, the more I needed him as much as I needed air to breathe.
The kiss was
