Page 9 of A Moth to the Flame (Utopia #1)

When I was growing up, Granny spent hours ironing and mending my clothes.

We couldn’t afford new items as quickly as I grew out of them, but she wouldn’t dream of letting me out in public looking like a gutter rat either.

It reflected her character if I showed up to school without clean, combed hair and perfectly pressed clothes.

Unfortunately, my curls didn’t really take kindly to combing. She had always tried anyway.

A choked sob escapes from the deepest recesses of his chest, and the sound brings me closer to the brink. I’ve never heard Duke stifle emotional pain before. Pretty sure the man doesn’t care about anything other than getting his dick wet, if my experience at Granny’s wake is any indication.

I startle as I suddenly become aware of the unusual sensation between my legs. How do men walk like this? It feels like my thighs are rubbing against… things with every step. I really need to wake up from this nightmare now. Never have I ever had the teeniest hint of penis envy.

A laugh bubbles out of me, and it still sounds like Duke laughing. Have I ever heard him laugh before? Oh, wait. Yes, I have. Mostly, when he was laughing at me.

“What is so damn funny to you right now?” my own voice grinds out.

“I’m either in the midst of a total psychotic break or I’m tripping on acid that I didn’t know I ingested,” I state, like it isn’t obvious. “I mean, I suddenly have a twig and berries swinging between my legs. This is wild. Way beyond the scope of my usual maladaptive daydreaming.”

My body stops walking suddenly. My face blinks at me with a clearly baffled expression. “Why are you the way that you are?”

“I’ve asked myself that a million times,” I admit.

No sense keeping secrets in this little bizarro world, since it’s not real.

This entire situation is nothing more than the machinations of my deeply disturbed subconscious.

There is no multiverse where I would wish to switch places with Duke Castellaw, of all people.

“If I was more like you and your brothers, then maybe my formative years wouldn’t have been so miserable. ”

Duke blinks at me again, glancing around like he’s just now aware of where we are.

“Shit. My brothers.” He grabs ahold of his own fucking arm and drags me faster down the street, which is even more hilarious because my body is half the size of his.

“No one can know about this, Cordelia, especially not them. We’ve gotta lay low until we figure this out. ”

I can’t stop laughing. “I’ve already got it figured out. Did you miss the part where I admitted to you, my greatest mortal enemy, that I’m in the midst of a psychotic break? This isn’t really happening.”

“I hope you’re right.” He rounds the corner of the next street, still doing his damnedest to drag me along behind him. “Fuck. Never thought I’d hear those words come out of my mouth.”

“They didn’t come out of your mouth,” I point out helpfully. “Those words came out of my mouth.”

“What on God’s green Earth have I done to deserve this?” he whines.

Just another hilarious thing to add to the growing list. I’ve never heard Duke Castellaw whine about anything.

“I could tell you a few things, if you’re drawing blanks,” I offer, and then I laugh some more.

“Damn it, Cordelia,” he grinds out. “Get ahold of yourself. If anyone sees me laughing like a hyena while walking with you, they’re going to think it’s a sign of the end times.”

“My personal apocalypse is already well under way. You aren’t even really here, inhabiting my body. You’re probably screwing some random chick in The Flame’s bathroom, living your best life while mine crumbles to pieces. The same as it’s ever been.”

“Unbelievable,” he mutters as he leads me up a?—

Wow. I pull to a stop against his feeble force.

This is a really, really nice, paved driveway, with actual concrete, not that junk asphalt stuff that the random dump truck drivers sell to desperate homeowners.

Planted flowers line the drive in impeccably mulched garden beds.

Not a weed in sight. I stare at the large sign above the door.

Duke’ s

That’s it. Just an overly large, bright red claim to ownership.

I’m kind of pissed that my brain is hallucinating a beautiful, well-kept business for one of the most revolting men I’ve ever known. Then again, being trapped inside his body isn’t my idea of a good time either, so maybe this tracks with the overall vibe of my delusion.

The worst thing I could imagine for my lifelong nemesis is success and happiness.

“Do you own a tattoo parlor?” I guess. It would figure that I’d have a nightmare about Duke being something as sexy as a skin artist.

“No.” He pushes me toward the front door.

“Custom woodwork? Cool things like hand-crafted furniture that people travel for miles to own?”

“No.”

I trudge forward, half anticipating and half dreading what I’ll find when I step inside his world. “Gorgeous sculptures made from repurposed scrap metal that decorate the mantels of Manhattan elites?”

“I’m a fucking mechanic, all right?” he shouts as he unlocks the front door. “I fix other people’s beat-up cars. When they’re willing to pay, so they won’t die from a completely preventable accident,” he mumbles the last part.

Oh, shit.

I stumble through the front door to find a wide-open garage space lined with giant toolboxes and machines that I can’t name.

This is too mundane, too plausible to be a dream.

“Duke?” I stare at him. At me. I can’t keep explaining away what I’m seeing.

My body is dressed in the exact outfit I wore to The Flame last night.

My body is standing in the same position that I first saw in the middle of town near the wishing well—legs spread, arms crossed, chin high.

I never stand like that. “This is really happening, isn’t it?

I’m not hallucinating or having a psychotic break or even dreaming right now, am I? ”

Duke—in my body—leans forward with a menace that my five-foot-nothing frame shouldn’t be able to pull off. “Cordelia Diane McCoy. What in the actual fuck did you do?”