Page 22 of Beneath the Desert Bloom (Of Beasts and Bloom #1)

NORA WOKE UP wrong.

Not groggy. Not hungover. Not even sore, though her body still throbbed in places it hadn’t throbbed in years.

No, she woke like she’d been poured back into her skin too fast. Like the molecules hadn’t quite fused back together.

Like her bones were a little too light and her blood a little too loud.

The room was dim, touched by a pale morning light that painted everything a soft, sallow gold. Her sheet was twisted around her hips, tangled like it had tried to hold her in place and failed.

The first thing she registered was the heat.

It wasn’t the sun-through-window or too-many-blankets heat.

It was the heat of him, still in her.

He was gone, and she’d known it before she opened her eyes. But he was still in her. Skin, lungs, tongue. Like something sacred she couldn’t spit out.

She shifted, and the movement pulled a dull ache from between her thighs, something heavy and tender that made her breath catch.

Fuck.

Had that really happened?

She opened her eyes.

The ceiling hadn’t changed.

The house hadn’t burned down.

She was alone.

But her body hadn’t forgotten.

Her hand drifted down hesitantly to the curve of her neck, and there it was: the mark. Faint, pink, the shape of teeth still visible in a crescent.

Not a dream. Not this time.

She sat up fast, pushing her hair out of her face. Her throat was dry. Her skin was sticky. Her head buzzed with a dozen half-formed questions she didn’t want to ask.

Was she in heat now? Was that what this was?

She laughed once, sharp and stupid and low, and dragged herself out of bed like a woman trying not to acknowledge the crime scene she’d just woken in.

The mirror above the dresser caught her.

She looked wild.

Hair tangled, lips swollen, eyes glassy like she’d seen God and told him to fuck her.

She padded barefoot into the bathroom, flipped on the light, and splashed water on her face until it ran in rivulets down her neck. It didn’t help.

Her reflection still looked like someone who’d been marked.

Claimed.

And worse—she didn’t feel regret.

She felt guilt, sure. But it wasn’t about the act. It was about how much of herself she’d given. How easily it had happened. How fast she’d folded open like the desert had been waiting to crack her skin and bloom something underneath.

Nora leaned on the sink with both hands and stared herself down.

“You wanted that,” she whispered to her reflection. “You begged for it.”

The mirror didn’t flinch.

“But do you even know what you asked for?”

She let out a breath and turned away.

The kitchen was a mess. She hadn’t cleaned since… before. There were two half-melted candles on the counter and a mug of something herbal long since turned to soup. She opened a cabinet, grabbed coffee, poured grounds into the machine with mechanical precision.

As it brewed, she tried to journal.

Two sentences in, she froze.

The words on the page didn’t feel like hers. Her handwriting looked different. Slanted. Like someone had taken her voice and rotated it slightly on its axis.

She stared at the ink bleeding into paper.

She was changed.

Not metaphorically.

Something fundamental had shifted.

She closed the notebook.

Pressed a hand to the mark on her thigh.

Still warm. Still humming.

She was halfway to the sink when something outside caught her eye. A movement through the dusty glass. Just wind, she told herself. Just desert distortion. Just—

A knock at the door.

Nora froze.

She moved to the window and peeked out.

And swore under her breath.

It was Eli.

She hadn’t thought about him in days. And now here he was.

Fresh-shaved, wearing that same soft-buttoned concern he always wore when he thought she needed “grounding.”

The coffee finished with a sputter and hiss.

Nora didn’t move, didn’t answer the door.

But he knocked again.

And again.

And she knew this wasn’t going away.

The past had come to check in.

And Nora wasn’t sure which one of them would recognize the other.

The knock came again, sharper this time.

Nora opened the door with a mug of coffee in one hand and the bite on her neck in full view.

Eli blinked at her.

He was in jeans and a button-down rolled at the sleeves, sunglasses perched carefully in the collar like he was modeling “Concerned Ex-Boyfriend, Desert Edition” for a J.Crew catalog. He looked hydrated, well-rested, vaguely paternal, and already annoyed.

She looked… not like herself.

Or rather, not like the version of her he remembered.

Her hair was a tangled halo, her tank top clung to skin still kissed raw by sweat and memory, and she had the bite, faint but impossible to miss, marking the curve where neck met shoulder.

A half-lidded kind of wildness hung in her expression, like she hadn’t come all the way down from wherever she’d been.

Eli’s gaze flicked to her throat, then back up, eyes narrowing. “You look—uh—are you okay?”

“Define okay,” Nora said flatly, taking a sip of her coffee and stepping back to let him in.

He hesitated.

Maybe it was the air. The smell of sage and something darker, something a little too warm. Maybe it was the silence of the house, which didn’t feel empty so much as watchful.

Or maybe it was the fact that she didn’t smile, didn’t greet him with that strained politeness he’d always mistaken for affection.

She let the door close behind him.

Eli hovered just inside, taking in the clutter, the open notebooks, the half-burnt candle ends, the bundle of herbs that had clearly been lit too many times. The place smelled like a shrine and a crime scene.

“I tried calling,” he said. “Texting. Emailing. You haven’t replied in days.”

“I’ve been busy,” she said, heading into the kitchen. She didn’t offer him coffee. “Also, spotty service. The Mojave doesn’t prioritize 5G.”

He frowned. “I know we’re… not together, but I was worried. You said you’d be out here alone. Then nothing. What was I supposed to think?”

“That I was finally enjoying my own company?”

He sighed. “Nora—”

“No, Eli.” She turned to face him fully now, leaning back against the counter, mug pressed to her chest like a shield. “You thought I needed saving. Admit it.”

“I thought maybe you were spiraling,” he said carefully, hands up like he was talking someone off a ledge. “You ghost your committee, disappear into the desert, stop responding to anyone—”

“I was writing.”

“That’s not what it sounded like in your last message. You said you were stuck.”

Eli’s voice lowered.

“Look, I drove out here because I was afraid I’d find your car abandoned on the side of the road. Or get a call from the police. Or see your name in a headline.”

He looked at her. Not angry now, just shaken.

“I didn’t know if you were hurt, or lost, or… just gone. That scared me, Nora.”

For a moment, she hesitated. Something flickered behind her eyes.

Then it was gone.

“You’re different,” he said.

“Yeah,” she replied, setting the mug down. “I know.”

There was a long silence.

And then, inevitably, his eyes flicked back to the bite.

“That looks… infected.”

She laughed. Short and sharp. “It’s not.”

“What happened?”

She smiled without warmth. “None of your business.”

And then, just because it felt honest:

“But I wasn’t alone.”

He flinched like she’d slapped him.

“You… you’re serious?”

“You came all the way out here because you were afraid I was in danger, and you’re upset because someone touched me?”

“Nora—”

“No, really, Eli. What did you think I was out here pining for? The ghost of my thesis? The ghost of you ?”

His jaw tightened. “You don’t have to do this.”

She exhaled, arms folding.

“I’m not doing anything to you. I’m just finally being honest with myself.”

He looked at her for a long moment.

“You’re not who you were.”

“No,” she said, quieter now. “I’m not.”

He nodded slowly, eyes scanning the space like he might find her former self folded in a corner. “I guess I never really knew who you were, Nora. Not all the way.”

She didn’t argue. Just let the truth of that settle between them.

“I wanted to be easy to love,” she said softly. “That was part of the problem.”

Eli’s shoulders dropped a little. “You were never hard to love. Just… hard to keep.”

She offered the barest smile, not unkind. “That’s because I wasn’t supposed to be kept.”

A silence opened, gentler now.

She walked past him to the door and opened it slowly, the hinges sighing in the quiet.

“I’m sorry, Eli. I really am,” she said. “But I’m not the girl you remember. And I can’t be the one you’re still trying to save.”

He nodded once, eyes stinging more than he expected.

“Thank you for saying that.”

“Take care of yourself, Eli.”

He hesitated.

“You too. For real.”

She stood in the doorway as he stepped out into the sunlight.

For a second, they just looked at each other. Two people who had once tried, and maybe even meant it.

Then she gave a small nod.

He gave a small wave, turned, and walked away.

Nora stood there for a long moment, letting the silence settle around her like dust.

No pounding heart. No shaky breath. Just a stillness she almost didn’t recognize.

She wasn’t angry. She wasn’t grieving.

She just… wasn’t pretending anymore.

And for the first time in a long time, that felt like enough.

She stood in the doorway long after Eli’s car had gone, the dust of his exit still clinging to the edges of the road like a wound that hadn't scabbed.

The air was thick with heat, but something in her had cooled. Or hardened. She didn’t know which. All she knew was that she was no longer shaking.

She was something else now.

The silence returned, curling around her ankles like a loyal dog. She took one long, grounding breath.

Then she felt it.

She turned her head.

He was there, half-shadowed in the lean of a Joshua tree, broad shoulders outlined by sun and stillness, those eyes catching what little light remained like they could drink the sky.

Her breath caught.

He remained where he was, unmoving, unshakable.