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Eww. Eww. EWW!
I start gagging the moment I shut the door to our suite behind me, and the sounds I make has Nia glancing at me curiously from her bed.
"Are you alright?"
I try to answer, but self-disgust still has me wanting to throw up, and my skin hasn't stopped crawling ever since I've uttered what I uttered.
Seriously, Halyna Ziel Mariposa!
How gross can you get?
The professor had been maddeningly cocky, yes, but I could've said so many other things! Any other thing but-—
The god I belong to will make you pay for it.
The sickening memory proves too much this time, and I find myself crouching on the floor as my hands cover the heated cheeks of my face.
I hear Nia's bed squeak followed by the sound of her padding barefoot towards me. "What's wrong?"
Nothing! Everything!
"Are you pregnant?"
The words are enough of a shock to make my head snap up. "Seriously?"
But my roommate only crosses her arms over her chest. "Pregnant women are always sick."
"I've never even had sex!"
"Oh." Nia shrugs unapologetically. "Sorry." Then she looks down and raises a brow at me, asking, "What's wrong then?"
I hold my hand out, and Nia rolls her eyes even as she takes my hand to help pull me up.
"Professor Lucious and I had words," I tell her reluctantly.
Nia suddenly looks intrigued. "The dirty kind?"
"Nia!"
The other girl's expression turns disappointed. "It's not then?"
"No," I growl. "It's not."
Nia throws herself back on her bed. "So you had a fight."
"Not exactly." I also throw myself on the bed and regret it right away, with the sudden movement making my headache worsen.
"Then what?" Nia insists on asking.
"He pissed me off," I admit reluctantly, "and I ended up saying something stupid."
"Like?"
I mumble my answer in a low-key attempt to make my words incoherent, but it's no use. Nia's ears seem to have a sixth sense for the juiciest stuff, and hearing her gasp subsequently tells me she's heard me just fine.
"You said what?" But it's a rhetorical question since she's already started laughing her head off.
"It's not funny," I growl.
"Belong! To! A! God!"
She's gasping the words out like she's run out of breath, and when I take a peek at her, my roommate is actually rolling around while clutching her stomach. ROFL in the flesh, except she's in bed, and she laughs even harder when I tell her to shut it.
Grr.
I grab one of my pillows and cover my face with it.
Whatever.
The chest-thumping gorillas inside my head have just tripled in number, and I have no energy left to snarl and snap at my good-for-nothing roommate. I just need a bit of shut-eye, I think wearily as my eyelids start to droop.
Just a quick nap, and once I wake up, I'll have a clear enough mind to think about the consequences of saying what I've just said.
Just a really quick nap...
It's my last thought as I find myself shutting down, and in my exhaustion I forget that there's a god waiting for me at the other side of sleep.
****
I'M DREAMING AGAIN, and this time I find myself seated on a rug, inside a stone cabin of enchanting beauty. A chandelier with arms bearing actual glittering candles, heavy, intricately woven rugs laid over gleaming wooden floors, and luxurious cushions of dark brown leather positioned in front of a cozy-looking fireplace. There's a golden lyre poised next to a grand piano in one corner, a rolling ladder resting at the edge of book cases reaching all the way up to the cabin's high ceilings, and equally tall windows that perfectly frame a beguiling vista of lavender clouds and luminous butterflies circling around moonlit trees.
It's very, very romantic...except for one thing. I'm not sure if there's any divine power responsible for directing this whole fantasy-like setting, but—-
"Why do I always have to be naked when I'm dreaming?"
A chuckle tickles my ear, but before I can even look up, a wind blows in from nowhere, and the entire cabin plunges into darkness as all the candles go out.
If we had to bother with clothes inside your dream, I might as well have visited you in your world.
"Can't you?"
I feel the sofa behind me dip, but all I can see is a large shadow settling down just before strong hands gently clasp my shoulders to pull me back until I'm leaning against the sofa and my head is resting on the god's knee.
It is not yet time for you to see me.
The god starts stroking my hair, his touch so gentle that it helps soften the sting of his refusal.
I have the kind of face that makes girls cry.
I don't answer right away. This time, I can't stop thinking about how elusive this god is, with the way he keeps everything about him a secret. His name. His face. And even his voice. This is the third time he's visited me in my dream, and yet he still insists on spelling his thoughts out in my mind instead of speaking to me.
"Do you have something to hide?" I ask finally. "Have you done something so terribly inhumane in the past, and that's why you don't want me to know who you are?"
No.
He answers so readily and firmly that, stupid or not, I find myself instinctively trusting him.
It is not like that at all.
The fingers on my hair drift down until he's cupping my chin, and he's lifting my face until I can feel our gazes meeting in the dark.
I have already told you before, do you not remember?
I want you in the way a man desires a woman.
But it is also as I said: it is not yet time for you to see me.
A nice girl would probably just bow her head and submit to the god's decision, but too bad for both of us, I'm done playing nice, and I find myself scowling in his direction. "Don't I get to have a say about this?"
You don't.
"And that's it?" I sputter.
Yes.
"But that's unfair!"
It is.
His high-handedness should've been a huge turn-off, but instead I find myself struggling to keep my lips from twitching. Gods like him are often painted as anything between unreasonable tyrants and petty spoiled brats, and I'm sure if it had been any other god, my defiance would've long earned me divine punishment.
But since he is proving to be a different god, all he's been doing is answer me with a lazy sort of complacency, and—-
I suppose I should have expected you to be bothered by this.
Shall I take it as your reason for spending an inordinate amount of time with another man?
The sudden question catches me off guard, and I can't help but tense. "Uh..."
Were you trying to make me jealous?
I tell myself I have nothing to fear, but a telltale quaver still manages to worm itself into my voice as I ask, "What exactly have you heard?"
Enough.
Shit.
You have nothing to say in your defense?
"I...got into trouble a few times," I muttered, "and he always happened to be around to help me."
Have you made it clear to this man that you belong to me?
I know the answer to that is yes, but my throat somehow refuses to let the words out, and instead I hear myself ask, "I never said I belonged to you."
Are you rejecting me?
"I'm not a possession."
Indeed you are not. But this does not make you any less mine.
"I never agreed to—-"
You know very well that is not how this world works any longer.
A certain heaviness accompanies the words as the god spells them out in my mind, and it makes me want to believe there's still hope.
"Please don't force me to serve you."
Are you saying it must come to that? You will not serve me willingly?
"You say you know everything there is about me..."
I do.
"Then you must know about how my biological parents died." I find myself holding my breath as I wait for his answer. The cynical part of me is already prepared to be disappointed; he is a god, after all, and he can simply demand me to surrender to his authority if he so wishes.
But when the god finally responds, it's in a way I find completely unexpected, with his hand falling away from my hair, and my chest subsequently squeezing at the sudden loss of his touch.
Do you fear me then?
My lips part, but no words come out because I truly don't know how to answer him.
I had hoped you would be able to love me without seeing me,
but it seems I was wrong about this as well.
His words throw me in a state of confusion. "What are you saying?"
It doesn't matter—-
"Of course it matters!" It's not like me to be this emotional, but there's just something about this whole conversation that suddenly makes me feel like I'm walking on a stupid tightrope. "Gods don't do love!"
This one does, apparently.
Sweet. Greek. Heavens. Is he serious? No. He can't be. It's impossible because—-
"Gods don't do love," I say again, but my voice sounds uncertain even to my ears.
You've already said that.
"Because you're not making sense," I can't help snarling back. "Are you truly saying you've somehow fallen in love—-"
Would you believe me if I do?
"But you barely know me!"
That is where you're wrong.
He sounds so grimly certain that I actually find myself hesitating. Is it possible for me to have met him without knowing he was a god? "I feel like I would've remembered you if I met you."
Perhaps.
"Will you please stop speaking in riddles? Did I or did I not—-" A finger suddenly presses against my lips, and I find myself obeying his silent command to stop speaking.
Once, a long, long time ago, the Crones told me I was to fall for a girl lying in a pool of blood.
I refused to believe them...and because of that I failed to protect you on that day.
I blame myself for that, and it is why I arranged for you to live in Rosethorne.
Here, you will no longer be in danger.
But I also promised myself to stay away from you. I intended to keep it, too, except...
"I found you instead," I whisper in realization. "That night, in the labyrinth. You didn't mean to see me."
No. I did not.
"But you did."
But I did.
"And so you ended up changing your mind."
Yes.
"Because you found me pathetic?"
Because I found it impossible to stay away.
So I promised myself instead that I would always protect you. Cherish you.
That was the only thing I wished to do, but now I know it's impossible.
Because he thinks I'm scared of him.
I did not mean to make you live in fear because of me.
I am not used to making so many mistakes.
But with you somehow, it is the only thing I seem capable of doing.
There's something in those words...something about it feels so wrong, but I don't get a chance to think things through.
"Wait—-"
But it's too late.
He's gone.
And I'm no longer dreaming.