Page 51 of Heir to a Curse

Chapter 20

The morning rose with an edge of a headache. Too much wine. I fully expected to wake in my own bed in the small cabin, having embarrassed myself in my sleep from such an erotic dream. Except there was a warm body pressed against me.

I opened my eyes, blinking into a room lightened more than I thought possible with windows papered over with talismans. Was this real? The tiny alcove, the heap of silks covering us, the man in my arms. I jolted, half sitting up, startled.

Xiang blinked up at me with sleepy eyes, his long white hair curled around his head on the pillow. I stared down at him, shocked, processing. Was I still dreaming?

“Is this real?” I said less as a question and more as a demand of confirmation. However, sitting up and talking was too much for my head and it began to throb. “Fuck.” I put a hand to my forehead. “This is why I don’t drink. Wake up in another world with a hangover…”

Xiang raised a brow at me, like he was trying to keep up with what I was saying. And maybe he was. English wasn’t his first language.

“You’re real, right? Don’t suppose you have some aspirin laying around?”

“Aspirin?” he asked.

“To help with my headache,” I clarified, pointing at my head. “And maybe wake me up to reality?”

“Oh. I can make you some tea,” he offered, crawling from the bed and grabbing up some robes as he went. I admired his lithe form for a few seconds, thinking maybe he needed to eat a little more, but soon he was trailing across the space to an opposite door, and out into the sun. I grumbled at the light, lying down to rub my head.

He returned a few minutes later with water and set up a little candle with the teapot. “It will take a few minutes to warm. Perhaps a cool bath will ease some of the ache?” He waved toward the far door.

“Um, okay?” I agreed, though the idea of going out into that brightness already felt like a chisel in my eye. I made to get up and realized I was still naked, and covered in come. Fuck.

Heat flushed my cheeks and a thousand conflicting emotions ran through my brain. “Maybe I should go?” I said as though somehow getting back to my own world would be so easy.

Xiang flinched, but his expression shut down fast, losing all emotion. “I understand,” he whispered and began to gather my clothes up, setting them on the bed beside me.

“Well I don’t,” I snapped, angry at him for being hurt while I had no clue what was going on. What did I do? “I’m a little lost.” I waved my hands at our surroundings. “This is real?”

He looked around like he was expecting to find something out of place. Then turned back to me and nodded. “Yes…?”

“Why is that a question?”

“I do not know how to …” he seemed to think for a few seconds, said something in what was probably Chinese, then stalked to a pile of books, picking up what appeared to be a Chinese/English dictionary. “De-fine,” he finally said. “This place.”

Well that was a revelation. “So this is what, another world? Another dimension?”

He returned to the bed with the book, searching. “World…?” he shrugged. He seemed to find what he was looking for. “Dimension? Maybe. This is my curse.”

“What? This place?”

He nodded.

“Well, I guess there could be worse places,” I grumbled.

He worked with the teapot, adding a mix of leaves to the little basket while I argued with myself. It felt like hours, but probably had only been minutes. “So this is all real?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You are here, I am here.”

Fuck. Okay, I was saying that a lot lately.

He poured me some tea. The taste of it was warm and a bit wooden, but I sipped it anyway. The warmth of it eased some of my nerves, which helped chase back a bit of the headache. I folded my clothes, tugging back on my boxers so I didn’t feel quite so naked. He still wore only the outer robe, tied shut, but it gave me a glimpse of his bare legs and a peek at his collarbone. It was unfair that he was so beautiful.

His appeal, the draw of him, tugged at me like a physical tie. I wanted to touch him so bad, it almost hurt not too. I reached out to touch his hair, letting it fall through my fingers.

“I will brush,” he said, digging through a stack of things to find a comb.

“It’s beautiful, even messy from sleep,” I remarked.