Page 8 of Courting Envy
I inhaled, long and slow, ragged. And then blew the breath out, hoping that it would ease the shaking in my body.
He’d tried to kill me.
He had killed me.
I had died, I’d felt it, and yet…
There was a shimmer in the air, a change in the tension of the room and I knew that I wasn’t alone. I spun and backed up against the post as shadows floated through the air towards me.
No, one shadow, a ragged woman made only of darkness though her eyes were pale orbs. She floated towards me, her head tilted, as though she were assessing me. One hand raised to press against shadowy lips.
“Shhhhhh,” she murmured. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I pressed my lips tight together, swallowing the scream that threatened to part them. It wouldn’t help anyway. Not in this place where nothing was familiar, and no one was a friend.
The woman came closer, her body solidifying, legs appearing from nowhere, until she stood before me, a slight thing with dark skin, still wrapped in shadows, ebony hair spilling halfway down her back.
She was… beautiful. Ethereal. Here but not quite, as though she might be caught in a breeze and blown away.
“What are you?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. Something about her drew me in, and I felt like she meant no harm to me.
“I am Kyveli,” she said, a gentle smile spreading across her face. Lips so dark red they were almost black, so full that I couldn’t help but think of kissing them. “I wanted to check on you.”
Despite her appearance, despite the way that she seemed to move in inhuman ways, her form glitching slightly from time to time, there was something about Kyveli that drew me in. I stepped away from the bedpost, circling her. She always faced me, despite the fact that her body didn’t seem to move. My brain couldn’t comprehend how that could be real, but when I stopped, she approached me, one step closer, her hand raising to brush a strand of hair back from my face, her finger grazing my cheek, sending a shiver through my body.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
“I…” Didn’t know how to answer that question. “I don’t know. Where am I? What is this place?”
Kyveli’s face shifted, sorrow permeating her expression. “This is Hell, my queen, and you are in the circle of Envy.”
Hell.
Queen.
Envy.
What. The. Fuck.
I gasped, trying to get air into my lungs and then my brain glitched because if I was in Hell, I was dead, and if I was dead, I didn’t need to breathe, did I? And yet the ache in my lungs, the pressure in my chest said I did.
Kyveli moved closer still, stroking my back with one hand, the other pressing against my chest and I could breathe again. Her fingers felt so nice, calm, assuring. She leaned closer still, her lips to my ear. I could feel the tickle of her breath against my neck and it made me shiver.
“He’s coming. Don’t tell him that I was here.”
And then her hands were gone. She was gone. The shimmer of shadows flitting away from me and through the wall.
I slumped onto the bed, the ache in my chest back now that she was gone. There were too many questions, too much unknown, but Kyveli had been warm and surprisingly solid despite the fact that she was practically all shadow.
Even one friend here would make a difference.
Yet, I couldn’t be in Hell, not really. I didn’t even believe in it! I peered at my hands though, couldn’t deny the small, delicate scaling that seemed to cover more of me with every minute. My nails were black now, sharper than before. I reached a hand up, felt the smoothness of one horn, and then the other.
I was growing horns. Becoming something else – a being fit for Hell. I swallowed the lump in my throat, pushed down the anxiety that threatened to choke me.
“You’re awake.”
Those words. That voice. They cut through all my panic and I snapped my eyes up to find him standing in the doorway.
