Page 16 of Beneath the Desert Bloom (Of Beasts and Bloom #1)

THE LIGHT WAS obnoxious the next morning.

It sliced through the curtains and landed in a smug grid across her body, hot where it hit bare skin. Nora groaned and rolled over, dragging the sheet with her. It didn’t help.

Her body ached.

Not sore-from-hiking ache. Not hungover ache. It was something deeper, like her skin had been rewired overnight and now didn’t fit quite right.

She shifted again. The sheet caught between her legs. Damp.

Not dream-damp. She would’ve remembered that.

This was leftover. Lingering.

She stared up at the ceiling. No symbols. No voice of the desert whispering congrats, you’ve been sexually awakened by a cryptid. Just plaster cracks and a dead moth. No footprints. No sign of Asher.

She sighed. “Cool.”

The obsidian sat on her bedside table, catching the light. She hadn’t meant to bring it there. But there it was. She picked it up without thinking. The stone was warm again, the smooth edge thrumming faintly against her palm like a shared breath.

Like it was waiting.

Same.

She shuffled into the kitchen. The house was aggressively empty. No Lauren. No Miso. No ghost cryptid monster boyfriend crouching outside the window.

She made coffee. It felt like the only reasonable action to take.

While it brewed, she stared at the sliding glass door, half-expecting to see a shape there again.

Nothing.

The coffee maker sputtered and hissed. She poured a cup and took a sip.

Wrong. Bitter. Metallic. Or maybe that was just her mouth.

She leaned against the counter, mug in hand, and let the silence press in.

It wasn’t peaceful quiet. It was waiting-room quiet. Therapist’s-office-before-the-breakdown quiet.

Her body still buzzed. A low, insistent flutter. Her skin prickled under the cotton of her shirt. Her nipples were hard. Her thighs were—

Nope.

She took another sip.

Made a mental list of things she could do instead of thinking about how good his tongue had felt. And how he’d looked up at her like she was made of something rare. Edible.

The list was short. And all of it was lies.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Some kind of debrief? A mystical “congrats, you’ve been blessed by a bark-skinned sex god” certificate?

Or at the very least, breakfast.

Instead: silence. No Asher. No whisper on the wind. No vision quest in the mirror. Just her, a haunted kitchen, and the echo of his mouth on her skin.

She hated how much she noticed the absence.

Hated that it felt like she’d been ghosted by a myth.

She ran a hand through her hair. It felt heavier than usual. Or maybe she was just imagining things now. Looking for symptoms.

Get a grip.

She set the coffee down, unfinished, and walked toward the door. She wasn’t going to mope around like a girl in a horror movie waiting for the monster to call back.

If he wasn’t going to show himself, fine. She’d just make sure the desert knew she wasn’t afraid.

Or at least fake it until something exploded.

She stormed outside, slamming the screen door with unnecessary force. The obsidian in her pocket thumped against her hip like a pet rock with an attitude.

The heat hit her hard. It clung to her skin like a warning: you’re not built for this, soft girl.

She ignored it.

Sand crunched beneath her bare feet as she headed down the trail. She didn’t bring water. Or shoes. If Asher was going to do the whole mysterious desert guardian thing, then fine. She’d go full unhinged desert woman.

She passed a cluster of Joshua trees. One of them had a vaguely humanoid silhouette that had tricked her before.

He wasn’t there.

But the air changed anyway.

A ripple. A pause.

Her skin lit up in goosebumps.

She stopped. Turned in a slow circle.

Nothing. No shadow. No voice. No dramatic wind.

Just that feeling, like something had walked through her and kept going.

She squinted at the horizon. “I know you’re out there,” she said, not quite yelling. “Unless I hallucinated the whole thing. In which case—great. I’ll be out here making out with sand until someone locks me up.”

Silence.

Her laugh came out too sharp. “Come on. You can stalk me but not say hi?”

Still nothing.

She waited. Too long. Long enough to feel ridiculous.

The silence wasn’t empty. It was deliberate.

“You’re a real dick, you know that?” she muttered, turning back.

The breeze returned. It slipped across the back of her neck like a ghost’s finger.

She didn’t flinch. But she walked faster.

By the time she got back, the house felt smaller. Cave-like.

The obsidian burned against her thigh. She pulled it out and held it to the light.

Still black. Still smooth. Still smug.

She rolled it across the table like a magic eight ball.

“Is he avoiding me because I’m turning into something weird?” she asked it.

It didn’t respond.

Typical.

She collapsed onto the couch, flushed and exhausted and still weirdly aroused.

She stared at the ceiling.

Her thighs tingled. Her scalp prickled. Her heartbeat felt slower now. Deeper. Like it was syncing with something older.

Or maybe she was just dehydrated.

She ran a hand down her stomach, across her ribs, to the hollow beneath her hip. Her skin was hotter there. Different. Something was happening. She could feel it like a second pulse.

“Great,” she mumbled. “I finally get a man and it turns me into a cactus.”

The obsidian pulsed faintly. She ignored it.

She sat on the back steps in her underwear and a tank top, drinking the dregs of her coffee like it might have something stronger hidden at the bottom.

The sun was lower now. Shadows stretched long across the yard.

Very cinematic.

Very lone woman spiraling in isolation.

All it needed was a melancholy guitar track.

It felt surreal, how the world carried on. Like it hadn’t shifted beneath her while she’d come undone on a tongue that didn’t belong to anything natural.

She blew out a breath. “Should’ve at least gotten flowers.”

The wind stirred.

She knew that feeling now.

He was out there. Watching. Same as before.

Coward.

“I know you’re there,” she said softly. “What, are you worried I’m gonna ask what we are?”

She looked down at her bare legs. The sweat on her chest. She wondered if this was what he wanted. To leave her like this. Edged. Pulled tight. Wound up.

She pressed her knees together. The ache was back. Low. Slow. Familiar.

“Seriously,” she said into the silence, “if you’re not gonna touch me, the least you could do is let me yell at you.”

The wind didn’t answer.

Of course it didn’t.

She stood. Slowly.

Inside, she didn’t bother with lights. The dark was easier.

The obsidian pulsed as she passed. She flipped it off. “Yeah, yeah. I know. The thread. The desert. Whatever.”

She paused in the hallway. Her hand brushed her collarbone, then drifted lower, to the place where his mouth had rested.

She could still feel the heat there. As if he’d branded her. Or maybe she’d done it herself, just by wanting it that much.

She pressed her palm flat.

It wasn’t enough.

She didn’t know if he was watching.

She only knew it still felt like his hands were on her skin.

And that was worse than being alone.

She didn’t need the map anymore.

The thread wasn’t just on paper.

It lived under her skin now, pulling tighter every time she whispered his name.