chapter 16
Gemma
I’m walking down a long aisle, wearing a long, black dress with red roses embroidered on it. My hair is pinned up in curls and residing in the hollow of my neck is a red, teardrop pendant. There are flowers all around me; roses, lilies, tulips. Leafy vines twist across the ground as well as around the trees and the air smells intoxicatingly of freshly fallen rain. Dew beads the grass and leaves, a light trickle falls from the sky.
My eyelashes flutter against the water as I put one foot in front of the other, moving towards a podium, trimmed with rubies and holding a silver throne. It feels like I’m walking somewhere, yet nowhere. It feels like I’m not moving on my own.
“Hello,” I call out as my feet keep moving forward.
At the echo of my voice, figures emerge from behind the trees. They are different sizes; short, tall, some are more round, others thin. The colors of their skin and eyes could make the most colorful rainbow. Each of them has one thing in common, though—they have wings.
They step to the lines of the aisle, a sheet of red carpet, dusted with white rose petals. I glance at each one as I keep walking towards the podium, towards the throne.
“What’s going on?” I ask, but they all just stare at me in awe.
When I reach the end, I stop and turn around. It has stopped raining, but my skin and dress are still damp; raindrops fall down from the leaves. Gathering my dress behind me, I step backwards onto the throne. My gaze sweeps across the Faeries, and even though my mind seems confused, my body doesn’t, so it lowers itself onto the throne. It feels like I belong there as I wrap my fingers around the velvety armrests. I stare out at the land, waiting for whatever is next.
The Fey move in and gather in front of me, then they lower onto their knees and bow their heads.
“Our Queen,” they say in harmony. “Our ruler.”
It’s terrifying and my pulse races because, for a moment, I like it. For a moment, I feel powerful. For a moment, I feel like I belong here.
***
I wake up trembling, sweat dripping down my skin as I clutch onto the locket around my neck. I glance around the dark room, trying to figure out where I am and why there’s a warm body next to me. I’m about to panic—scream—when the night’s events catch up with me and my heart and breathing steady again.
“Hey, are you okay?” Alex sits up, his bare chest pale in the moonlight as he wraps his lean arms around me and delicately kisses my neck.
I nod, turning my head to look at him. “I just had a weird dream. That’s all.”
He cringes. He knows that sometimes my dreams aren’t really dreams, but visions of the future or the past. “Want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. “No, not really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He glances around the dark room and then a devilish grin rises on his face. “Do you want to continue where we left off?”
A blush touches my cheeks and I’m thankful it’s dark. “Only if you do.”
He laughs underneath his breath, lying back down and pulling me down with him. “I always do.”
I rest my head on his chest and trace the lines of his muscles. “I wish everything could be just like this.”
He chuckles again. “What? Me being shirtless?”
I slap his arm. “No.” But I kind of do and he must be able to read my mind because he starts laughing harder. Resting my chin on his chest, I peer up at him. “I mean, just you and me, away from all the crap… away from the world. I wish we could just disappear and not have to deal with any of this anymore.”
He’s silent for a while, his chest rising and falling beneath my chin. “We will.”
I force a smile. “I sure hope so.”
He tips his chin down and then, while lifting me up, he scoots down so we’re at eyelevel, lying face-to-face. “It’ll happen. I promise. We’ll get this fixed and then we can have our time.”
“But what happens when something else goes wrong?” I ask. “Because it always does.”
He pauses, scanning my face for something. “Then, we’ll let someone else handle it. I think it’s time that you and I start moving on from this. We’ve worked hard enough. We need a break.”
I offer him a soft smile. “Together?”
He rolls his eyes and then leans in to kiss me. “Of course, together. How else would it be?”
I smile and he returns it wholly. Then he rolls over, covering his body with mine as he begins to kiss me again, kneading his warm tongue against mine.
I hope he’s right. I hope one day we can escape it, but every time I look into the future, all I see is chaos lined up with more chaos.