Periwinkle pink dances in an array of snowflakes across my vision, intermingled with the blazing orange of fire, and the teal ocean waves. Three affinities, not destined to interlope, dance to a tune from an instrument akin to a harp across my line of sight. They twirl and spin and gallop through the interchangeable sky, which cries in silvers and chalcedony quartz.
I'm certain I am in the epicenter of strife, surrounded by beautiful yet dangerous creatures as they watch execution after execution, but the drug blinds me in the greatest fashion. I cannot see my true surroundings, but I see a glorious hallucinogenic version. Without the transcending glow of water and fire and snow, then I'd be a witness to the carnage, too. If the harp's unsurpassable radiance did not grace my ears, then I would hear the victims' last screams before the axe lays into their neck or the executioner pulls the lever to the hangman's noose.
Life is not forgotten with the petal disintegrating upon my tongue, but it is rejoiceful and splendorous. If the crimes the accused committed are punishable by death, I'll never know, but the accused people die terrible deaths. I choose to revel in the chasm of variegation that glides and hums around my senses rather than face the murders unfolding in a realm of gruesomeness.
The Junosol petal gifts me with a multicolored hope that I'll never have to witness the faceless victims of my forced husband's tyranny. A world within the Junosol petal is magnificent, and if I must be a prisoner in Oraxto with a bejeweled crown upon my head, then let me live it with this flower awaiting my sweet kiss.
My body sizzles with awareness when a person outside of the drug's realm touches me, but I do not feel the caress of their fingertips or the malice of a tight squeeze. Instead, shadows of that reoccurring, unfamiliar shade of purple spiral down my arms like two snakes welcoming me home. This shade of purple has the slightest tinge of silver, but it only speaks of death and compassion; a combination I once believed to be opposites, yet now see as twins to the same unavoidable pyre of life.
Awareness is a far distant apparition because I'm only present with the snowflakes and flames and water that joyously frolic in my mind. My eyes may be open, and my body in attendance to massacres, but my mind is finally mine to control. The only certitude I have is that a smile remains unwavering on my lips.
Hours or days may have passed in this harmonious illusion, but I wouldn't know. Happiness clings to my flesh within this domain until the fire is the first to dissipate. I reach out my hand, trying to grasp the newly turned ash, but as I move, the snowflakes bid their farewell. The serpents circulating around my biceps and forearms wink goodbye, and I want to scream out and beg for their return.
Only the waves of water within my hallucination remain; the cordial harp is absent, too. This is a hallucination, but I feel as if the water does not want to abandon me. It yearns to stay, to guard me like a newly unsheathed sword readied for battle, but time is inevitable, and the last fragment of my alternate reality leaves me. The sky that bled of beauty and radiance evanesces, and a bedroom in the darkest shade of doom covers its place.
Where there was once peacefulness, now lays a shirtless king in his bed with murder written in his frown.
I blink several times to gather my surroundings, but King Shaharuddin is ever present. He sits on his bed the same way I'd imagine he does a throne, with an indisputable air of power around him. The lowered, slanted glower of his gaze is a dangerous temptation to either try for his crown or fall victim to his deepest desires, and I am the sole recipient of this heat. I'm too achingly aware of the fact that he and I are alone, and the familiar silk of a negligee caresses my thighs.
The negligee is silver this time; I realize with a pit of fear. Lace caresses the curvature of my breasts, and the thin straps holding the small gown continue to slip off my shoulders. His gaze follows my nervous hands that pull the straps back up.
"The Junosol petals are dangerous, beautiful bird," King Shaharuddin calmly says, his gaze unwavering on where I stand beside the foot of the bed. "They kill more often than they help."
There's one flickering moment of fear. Fear that Renjan tried to kill me today with the petal, but the feeling slips as quickly as sand between my fingertips. Renjan took two petals and gifted me one to help me. My imagination darkens, and I think about the potential deaths I would have been forced to watch without the petal. Renjan is a stranger to me, but I know he helped me today and I shake my head at my forced husband.
"I do not enjoy the company of liars."
He smirks. "I do not enjoy drug addicts."
"Really? I thought you'd enjoy a drug addled wife. I'm much kinder in that state."
"Perhaps you are more compliant high," he agrees. "But I do not enjoy a dazed, smiling wife with no bite to her words. Who you are right now, talons and all, is my favorite kind of woman. The ideal wife for me."
I scoff at his compliment. "Did you expect me to swoon over your words, your highness?"
"Call me Shay, Evalina."
"You kidnapped me, your highness," I enunciate the last two words with anger lacing my tongue. "Along with over a hundred other women, who are dead and hopefully buried. Or are they food for your realm's beasts?"
"Shay," he corrects me, but he doesn't look away from me or deny my statement. He does not dissuade my fears that he does not honor the deaths he causes, and my disdain for him grows like a struck match.
"I don't care if I'm your ideal wife," I snarl. "You are a nightmare come true, your highness."
He looks away from me, and those dark slanted eyes gravitate towards the book I just realized sits on his lap. King Shaharuddin turns a page, then calmly hums. "This is my favorite novel of yours," he smiles to himself and adds. "I would ask for you to autograph my copy, but I have a feeling you'd stab me with the quiver I provide."
From where I stand, I try to look at the book's spine to see the title, but I can't. Curiosity is a dangerous emotion, and seconds pass in silence while my curiosity continues to grow. Twice, I try to peak without moving, but the third time I stumble forward. My feet follow my inquisitiveness. One hand curls around the black spiral bed frame, and I peer over and say the book title aloud while he quietly reads.
"Beneath the Tigers' Claws," I murmur.
His smile is small, but it's the first genuine one I've seen on his face. "Jane is beautiful, scars and all, but it's her compassion I find most intriguing. She stands before Yarik, his body unscathed but his mind mutilated more than her face, but she does not view him as a monster. He does monstrous acts, and he kills more than he saves, but Jane has compassion for the story's antagonist. It's comforting to know that even terrible males can find comfort with the right companion."
His words hold a question never spoken aloud but understood all the same.
"It's a fairytale retelling," I admit before I stop myself.
"A fairytale from your realm?" the king asks.
"Yes, it was my sister's favorite fairytale as children."
A fond smile grows as I remember our childhood. Nola and I are only eleven months apart, but she is older. She always decided on the movies we watched, no matter how much I begged for a choice, but she is eldest and got what she wanted. Almost twice a week, Nola and I would sit together on the couch as children and sing along with the dancing candelabra and the grumpy clock.
But my smile slips when I realize I will never see her again. Nola is more than just my big sister; she's one of my best friends, too. Growing up, she annoyed me by never letting me choose the movies, but she has always been my protector. She would push my school bullies against the lockers and threaten to punch their teeth. Even as adults, she has my back. She is always there, guarding me and protecting me, and while she picks on me as sisters do, sadness consumes me when I'm reminded I will never see her again.
The king sighs. "For one moment there, you forgot you hated me."
I no longer care about my book in his hands, which paints a situation too similar to mine with the king. My face is not scarred from a tiger like my female protagonist, but I am forced into an antagonistic man's home as she was. My captor, just like Jane's, is achingly beautiful but grotesque beneath the glorious exterior. He bonds with me like Yarik did with Jane, through books and almost-convincing smiles, but I stumble away from the four posted bed. My hand slips off the black spiral banister, and I continue to retreat.
King Shaharuddin is quicker than lightning, and I barely have time to register him leaving the bed before his hands are on my body. The king presses me into the closed bedroom door I wish to escape through, and when my hand moves for the doorknob, he grabs it and slams it above my head. Our heavy breathing is louder than screams as his body molds against mine; one of my hands above my head and the other pressed against the door beside my waist. The king applies enough pressure on my hands against the door so I cannot move them, but he does not harm me. His nails do not dig into my flesh, and the strength burrowing under his skin does not unleash.
Even as I spit right in his face.
"I won't make that mistake again, your highness. That one second where I thought you were human is all you will get from me. You are a monster who kidnapped me and forced me away from everybody I love, and I will not forget that again."
The king's laugh is devoid of humor, but it chills the air with rueful promises. His hard body is flush against mine, pinning me to the door. Those dark, slanted eyes peruse my form slowly and torturously. I'm too aware of where his gaze wanders. My skin prickles where his eyes trail as if his fingertips were gliding across the expanse of my arms, the curve of my hips, the roundness of my cheeks.
His gaze centralizes on my lips, and my breathing comes to a complete halt. "It would be easy." As he speaks, I follow each word as his lips peel back to show two sharp fangs. "To be a monster to you today and everyday forward. Supply you with your happy pills that my brother or the lady-in-waiting gave you. To keep that perfect little smile on your face as I ruined you from the inside out like a disease. It'd be the easiest thing I could do."
My saliva drips off his chin, but he doesn't move his hands from pinning mine against the door to wipe it away. He stays focused on my lips, which are in a firm frown, as his body rolls into mine. I suppress a groan as my body betrays what my mind hates.
"You are already a monster," I snap.
"To everybody but you, yes."
My laugh mocks him. "You think you have not treated me like you are a beast? I'm your beautiful caged bird, remember? If you were kind to me, then you would give me a choice to leave you and this god-forsaken world. If you were not a monster to me, then you'd free me from the cage you put me in and the crown you forced on my head like shackles."
"Fine, beautiful bride."
King Shaharuddin drops my hands and takes two steps back. He is far enough to break our contact, but close enough to catch me if I try to open the door and run. His large hand rummages through his silken black hair, and the sigh he lets escape sounds more like a cackle.
"I guess I am a monster to you, too, because I will never let you go." His dark gaze locks with mine and he snarls. "But I could be a lot worse to you. I choose not to be anything worse than your abductor."
"How noble of you," I sneer.
"You flatter me, beautiful bride."
"Bite me."
He smirks, and his eyes glow with desire. "Gladly."
I wander my gaze to his pointed fangs and recoil. "I would like to go to my bed chambers now."
But I do not reach for the doorknob. I wait for his permission because if I open the door without it, then his body will be pressed against mine again. Stopping me from fleeing my cage too early.
"Tell me what your next novel is about, and I promise to summon Deeba to take you to your room."
"It is gone, so it doesn't matter," I insist.
"Why is it gone?"
My answer drips with sarcasm. "Well, when a group of men came into my rented cabin to murder me and I ran into the woods to flee from them, I didn't think of bringing my laptop with me. How silly of me. I especially didn't think I would fall into a random door in the ground and be brought into another realm, so that really put a damper on finishing my next novel."
King Shaharuddin takes a step towards me, and any sign of amusement from our conversation is replaced with pure rage. "What men from the cabin?"
I try to step back, only to remember that my back is pressed against the door. There is nowhere to run as his question, derived from the pits of his ire, pierces through the bedroom. I was foolish that night in the cabin to fear three townie men because the vampyre king in front of me makes those three human men look like rabbits amongst lions.
"It doesn't matter. I would like to go to my bed chambers now."
"It matters," he growls, taking another step.
"Why?"
"Because you're not theirs to touch. You are not a game for stupid, insipid human boys to think they can play."
King Shaharuddin consumes my space, and the sent of sin and honey returns as his hand wraps around my throat. He doesn't squeeze, but he makes me take a step forward with his hand around my throat. My chest grazes his, my chin tilts up while his head dips down. The tip of his nose grazes mine as this beautiful monster looms over me.
"You are mine, and those foolish humans will realize their mistake in trying to take you from me before I ever got the chance to have you myself."
"I am not yours," I snap. "Not to have today or any day."
His dangerous grin reemerges. "I captured you fair and square, beautiful bird." His thumb grazes the side of my neck, and I must be going crazy because I find the touch tender. Compassionate, even. "Where was this cabin in your realm, Evalina?"
"Why?" I ask, my voice breathless.
There's a knock on the door, but we both ignore the sound. I'm immersed in him, and the answer he has on the tip of his tongue. He is as equally enraptured by me, his eyes unwavering from mine. His thumb sends goosebumps across the side of my throat. The king's lips are too close to mine, and his fangs threaten to graze my bottom lip.
"Because I will find those bastards and show each of them how I feel about their foolish attempt to steal a life as precious as yours."
The king moves too fast for me to react. Those lips, plush and pink and fanged, press against mine with crushing demand. His mouth is pure sin, but my body swarms with electricity upon the sensual crash. He takes his prize with this kiss, and before I can decide to kiss back or push him away, King Shaharuddin is gone, and the bedroom door is open.
Deeba stands in the doorway, her emerald gown trailing behind her. King Shaharuddin holds the door open, his hand that held my throat now wrapped around the doorknob. His smile is lethal, showing two deep dimples and two sharp fangs.
"Goodnight, beautiful bird. Until tomorrow morning."
"I hate you," I sneer.
Emerald magic takes me away from the room before I can hear his response.
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What is your favorite book of 2023?
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Updated: 12/31/2023
Word Count: 2,862