Page 77 of The Monster of Hotel No. 7
I am useless. I cannot get it off.
The serpent glides across my bare chest and tears prick and press behind my eyes. The creature slithers over my belly, its weight immense, body so long I still feel more scales unspooling over my shoulder cap, brushing beneath my eye. Across my ribs, the planes of my abs, then lower still, against my hip bones, and I—
“Karia.”
His voice calls out to me in the dark. Pain pricks beneath my eye, at the corner, blinding when I blink open my lids only to see nothing. I am trembling, tears tracking down my cheek stinging the sharp hurt beneath my lash line.
“Stop.”Sullen’s croaky voice is followed swiftly by a hand along my wrist, pinning it back to the bed alongside my other, an immense shadow over my body.
My heart is racing, and I start to thrash, confused, drenched in a cold sweat.
My breaths are loud, audible,terriblenoises inside the darkened tomb, and I do not know if we are both buried here, where the snake is, what is wrong with my eye, or why Sullen Rule is pinning me to a…bed.
This must be a bed. It’s soft beneath me, and before, I was lying on something colder, harder.
I blink again and there is a blur along the inner corner of my vision. It’s a sensation more than a sight since it is so dark around me.
“Shh,” Sullen whispers, his mouth along my cheekbone, his presence closer. His heart is pressed to mine. He is lying on top of me.
He is the weight, where the snake was.
I can feel my pulse rise up to pound with his, but his own is slower. The scent of darkened roses and earth surrounds me.Soothesme. I remember the wine, Sullen pushing his fingers into me before putting them in my mouth, the way he bit me, how he wanted me to be afraid.
His childhood horrors, which keep unspooling like a scattered roll of black thread.
I try to clear the film over my eye, Sullen’s face so close I wouldn’t be able to see anything even if it was light in here. The sharp sting is still there beneath my lash line; it was not just a part of my strange serpent slumber.
There is a loud, horrible whispering noise inside the room but just as I hold my breath to understand what it is, it quiets.
It was me.
My hands shake violently in Sullen’s tight grip around my wrists, his body arching into mine as I shiver beneath him, the back of my neck damp with what I think is sweat.
“I am right here, Little Sun. It was only a dream.”
I blink again, licking my dry lips, trying to think of a question to ask. Something to say. But with Sullen’s mouth on my cheek, his hands pinning me to the bed, I find I don’t want to say very much at all.
“I am going to turn on the light now.” He says it cautiously, almost as ifheis afraid ofme.
I don’t know why, just as I don’t know how long I’ve slept. I vaguely remember stumbling into the bathroom, brushing my teeth, changing into a white pajama set I found in the drawers, then crawling into the bed, all as Sullen watched me silently after our fight.
I don’t think I did anything terrifying.
But he slowly uncurls each finger from my wrist, then pushes away from me, his body weight dipping along the bed but never leaving me completely. Still, he shifts positions, his hip brushing mine as he sits beside me. Then I hear a faint click and dim, pale-yellow light floods the room.
I bring my fingers beneath my eye where it stings, my vision still strange, but as I do, Sullen turns from the nightstand to face me and I watch his jaw clench the moment before he captures my hand again, his bare fingers biting into my skin.
I freeze, blinking rapidly, trying to clear the smudge in my sight so I can see what has changed him.
“Do you want to hurt me, too?” he asks, his voice low and bitten with an edge I don’t understand.
I swallow hard as I try to sit up, but he lowers his arm, still gripping my wrist and using his forearm to press on my chest, forcing me to stay down.
Irritation flares through me at the same time my mind snags on the snake keeping me restrained in my dream.Serpent’s Emporium.The name of this store echoes through my head too, like a warning, but I can’t hold onto the connection as Sullen twists his body to face me, leaning more weight against my chest.
“If you did this on purpose, I might take your eyes for it.”
I blink rapidly, wanting to clear the spot from my vision, but before I can ask him what thefuckhe’s talking about, he reaches for me with his free hand and gently swipes his bare finger along my lash line.
