Page 95 of A Taste of Bliss

I grab onto her desperation and suck it dry, then I take a step back from her. She lets go of me and slumps forward, since the lure is no longer holding her in a trance. I’m able to catch her before she falls to the floor.

I hoist her up into my arms and head for the stairs. “I’m gonna put her in bed, but we should figure out where Goddess’ Trance is staying.”

Someone murmurs their agreement, and so I take each step carefully up the stairs so I don’t drop her. I lay her in my bed and tuck her in. She curls onto her side, exhausted, but seemingly peaceful. There’s a contentment on her face that eases my worry that I took too much of something.

“Bliss?” I don’t know why I call her name. I guess to make sure she’s asleep. She just burrows more into the bed, letting out a soft sigh that parts her lips.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

BLISS

I wakeup in a bed that smells both familiar and foreign.

But then I realize the walls of this room are a mellow olive green, and not the dusty pink that I’ve grown accustomed to in the past two nights.

I jolt awake, sitting upright in a bed that is not my own.

I immediately check myself, thinking the worst, but my pajamas are still on and don’t seem to be mussed more so than what would happen with a fitful night of sleep. I feel between my legs, noting the dryness and no odd sensation. I pick a fluffy blanket off the bed and wrap it around my shoulders, freezing when I notice someone is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

Not someone.

Pisces.

The hood of a plain black zippered hoodie is pulled up around his face, and besides that only his fingers are visible. His lips are closed, but just barely, almost as if he’s on the verge of saying something.

No, not saying something.

He’s asleep.

Before I can think better of it, I whip a pillow at his stupid face.

The pillow hits him square in the jaw. He startles out of the chair with a grunt, clutching the pillow to his chest like it’ll protect him from an onslaught of more plush projectiles.

“What the fuck, dude?” I yell at him. “Did you fucking kidnap me?”

He cocks his head to the side and shakes it fervently, pushing his hood off. “Bliss,” he starts to say, but I’m not listening.

I scramble across the bed, almost knocking over a guitar propped up on the wall next to the door as I wrench it open. Pisces doesn’t move, just watches me. I look down at my not super modest pajamas and stop myself from fleeing down the stairs.

He may or may not have kidnapped me, but something stops me from running. Is Wrath staying here as well? This could be the closest I’ve gotten to him since the garden. And there are only two days left until the festival ends.

Two days to get close to him.

I reach for my power, only to find it completely gone. Fuck. Did I totally use it up trying to flirt with Simon?

I turn back to Pisces, placing my hand on my hip. “How did I get here?”

His lips purse as he seems to search for what to say. “You were sleepwalking.”

“I don’t sleepwalk. I have never sleepwalked.”

He shrugs.

“When a woman wakes up in a stranger’s bed, the least he can do is explain why!” I yell at him. I pick up the other pillow on the bed and sling it at his face.

I’m out the door before I can see if it hit him, but another grunt confirms my aim.

I march down the stairs into the foyer and open living space, realizing again that I’m in my pajamas still. Five heads turn to look at me, a very hungover Simon being one of them.