Xavier closed his eyes. Dark lashes fanned over his cheeks. The room shook like an earthquake and he gritted his teeth. Lightning flashes blinded her and Xavier pulled her against his shoulder. Thunder rattled the sliding glass door and rain slammed against it.
The scarabs burned hotter and she pulled away her hand. The both glowed red where they landed on the carpet.
She pressed her face to his chest. Her cheek scraped over something soft but it wasn’t his warm skin. It was something else. Bandages. Strips of aged linen covered his body and even his head.
Olive gasped. “Xavier?”
“Unravel me.” The words were muffled but clear enough for her to understand.
“I don’t understand what’s happening.”
His breathing slowed. He was suffocating. No. No. No!
Panic and adrenaline caused her hands to shake as she searched for an edge to pull. Her fingers slipped over the silky strips of linen. “I don’t know how.” She forced herself to stop and think. She was a fucking archeologist. Mummies were her area of expertise. The head and neck would have been wrapped first. Then the toes and fingers. What was next? She pulled at the bandages near his chin but they didn’t budge.
Near his shoulder blade, she found a hard spot of resin. The seal. She picked at it with her fingernails but to no avail. There were no scissors in the hotel room. With no other feasible option, she bit into the resin with her teeth. It was like biting into a candied apple. Not the soft caramel kind but the red ones with a hard candy coating. She chewed and pulled like an animal.
Finally, the resin cracked and she had edge of linen in her hand. She circled him quickly to unwrap him.
Her mind reeled as she tried to grasp if she was asleep again. The dreams of the past few days had been as vivid as what was happening in front of her now. Or she had just gone off the deep end and lost her fucking mind. But she couldn’t stop; she was compelled to save him.
Before long, she was dizzy but his neck and shoulders were unwrapped. The most important was his head, though. She found the end tucked under his chin and quickly unwrapped his face. His eyes were closed but he was breathing.
Olive stood on tiptoes to cup his face. “Xavier. Can you hear me?”
His nose moved. He tilted his head to the side and the bones cracked as if they hadn’t moved in years.
She pulled at the other bindings. “What the fuck is going on?”
His lips were dry. “Remember when I said curses weren’t real? I was lying.”
“So this is a curse?” The bandages seemed to go on forever but she didn’t stop.
“Sort of. You know how we believed that the sun died each night and was reborn again each morning?”
“I know the mythology, yes.”
Xavier opened his eyes. “We’re about to be reborn.”
*
While Xavier showered, Olive poured herself a drink. The pile of bandages on the floor was an elephant in the room. What the fuck just happened? The heart scarabs sat on the table beside the lilies. The booze burned going down but the warmth in her stomach was comforting.
The bathroom door was open and his blurred form moved behind the frosted glass. Normally she wouldn’t watch a stranger shower but he wasn’t a stranger. Olive couldn’t put her finger on it but she knew him somehow. She leaned against the bar and downed the whiskey.
Steam billowed from the bathroom, giving Xavier an ethereal feel as he walked out with just a towel wrapped at his waist. Drops of water slid over the muscles in his chest and stomach. Without his clothes, he was bigger and stronger than she had first estimated.
“Would you pour me a glass of that, please?” Xavier pointed toward the bottle on the table.
“Sure.” Olive refilled her glass and filled a second for him.
“Thank you.” He took a swig of the amber liquid.
“I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“No.”
“Who are you?” she asked. “There’s a pile of mummy wrapping on the floor. The blue lilies. The heart scarabs. The feather. I’m trying to understand.”
Xavier emptied his glass and put it on the table. He touched her cheek. “Close your eyes, Olive.”
She did as he asked, and his fingers were warm on her face. A lump burned in her throat. Olive wasn’t an emotional person but her heart ached.
His lips touched her ear. “I’ve missed you so much.” The timbre of his voice was the same but his accent was slightly different.
The familiarity comforted her. She let her head fall to the side. “I missed you too.”
Xavier moved slow. One hand rested softly on her hip while the other slid into her hair. “Do you remember?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m trying.” She opened her eyes and stared up at him.
His lips were slightly parted and his breath smelled like liquor. Like before. The lamp on the table flickered like flame instead of a bulb. He reached for a lily from the vase and put it under her nose.
Olive inhaled deeply. Butterflies bounced around in her stomach. She’d been waiting for this night—their first night together.