Martha appears a few moments later with some more soup and fresh bread. I remind myself what happened the last time I scarfed the soup and bread down and I inhale as deep of a breath as I can in an attempt to remember not to lose my shit and overeat the soup.
When she leaves, only then does Colt clear his throat. I expect him to begin speaking, but he doesn’t, the wild-eyed older woman decides to talk instead. She tells me about their gods, explains how they ruled this world at one time and they battled and created different aspects of things that we use today.
I’m not sure where their gods fit in to anything, until she tells me a tale about a prophecy.
“So, you think that my sisters and I are somehow connected to this?” I demand.
“Do you have a better explanation of how you ended up here?” she snaps. “And how you hold magic that you don’t understand how to yield?”
“What magic?” I growl.
She leans back, snatching a piece of crusty bread as she does. I try not to let my drool slide down my chin at the sight of her taking a huge chunk from the bread while I nibble on the smallest pieces known to man.
The woman’s lips twitch into a smile. “I’m Florence, by the way, Logan’s grandmother.” I blink hard at that information and tilt my head to the side to look at her, to really look at her. They have the same nose, chin, and complexion but not the same eye color, not by a longshot.
“Did you hear the rain last night?” she asks.
Nodding my head, I take my soup spoon and lift it to my lips, only taking a small taste of the delicious warm soup.
“It doesn’t rain this time of year, ever. Were you crying?”
I blink. My eyes wide as my spoon slips from my grasp and clatters against the bowl. “I was,” I whisper.
“I’m sure you have other powers, but intense emotions typically bring the ones connected to the weather. I’m sure your sisters have them as well. I would guess you all have a specific power as well as you are able to affect the weather with your emotions.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say,” I admit.
Florence gives me a grin. “There is nothing to say. This is what has been decided by the gods, I am not the one who has done this, neither have you. We are not always in control of our destiny, Birdie. The gods have a hand and sometimes they meddle.”
“You’re telling me thousands of years ago some gods meddled in my future life and that I have magic?” I hiss.
My breathing becomes panicked. I start to almost hyperventilate, but I can’t seem to get enough air in my lungs to even do that. Shaking my head, I try to keep from passing out, but things start to get blurry and darkness starts to creep into the sides of my vision.
“Colton, she needs her laces loosened,” I hear Martha call out from somewhere in the distance, but it’s too late, the darkness turns to black and everything around me disappears.
COLT
I watch her from the chair that I’ve dragged to the side of her bed. I know that she is breathing, that she is well, and she’s just been overly excited while wearing her corset. I had forgotten how quickly a fainting spell could come on in a heated moment.
Adelaide always had her laces pulled just a tad too tight and would pass out at the drop of a hat. Why women wish to be that uncomfortable just for the appearance of a bit smaller waist, I will never know nor understand.
Birdie begins to stir and I watch her. She looks nothing like Adelaide. She’s raven-haired, my Addie was fair. She is extremely slight in figure, though not so slight that I can forget she is indeed a woman. Addie was curvy, almost plump, though I never minded as it suited her, even if she always complained.
Birdie’s lids flutter and slowly her eyes open. Another stark difference. Birdie has bright blue eyes, Addie had dark deep brown. I watch her for a moment as she begins to wake and realizes that she is back in her room.
Slowly, she looks down, lifts the bedding and gasps at the sight of herself in nothing but her undergarments. Though I saw it all as I undressed her, I did cover her with the sheet and blanket to at least attempt to give her a modicum of modesty.
“Did you?” she asks on a whisper.
My lips twitch. “You needed to be loosened from that dratted corset. I only took the blasted thing off, then slipped you into bed. I wanted to ensure that I needn’t call a doctor, nobody saw anything, but me.”
“And Martha couldn’t have done it?” she asks as she arches a brow.
I try not to laugh. Nodding, I give her a cheeky smile, attempting not to imagine her rosy-hued nipples from beneath her thin white undergarment.
Though I fail.
They were spectacular and I can’t help but envision what they look like completely bared. I want nothing more than to rip the thin fabric from her body and taste her undoubtedly sweet flesh.
“Perhaps, but Martha didn’t do it,” I say with a grin.
She frowns, but doesn’t respond. Instead, her eyes find mine and she just stares at me for a long, silent moment. I expect her to continue to talk about me undressing her or mention her virtue and how I’m compromising it completely just by being in here with her, but she doesn’t.
Birdie surprises me and perhaps Florence is correct, perhaps she was indeed plucked from some other world and brought to me, because
