Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Was What Was Done Done

 You'd think I'd have woken up screaming, but I didn't.

I didn't even remember waking up. I didn't remember falling asleep. I just remembered being awake and staring at the walls with their beautiful murals terrified I'd hear them fucking behind me, and I was well beyond the point of screaming.

I don't know how long I laid there listening for the slightest movement or pant or whisper that they'd woken up and were going at it again, but it was a long, long time.

Had I even slept?

I tried to sniff the room for sex, but it was a big room, and all I smelled were those damned flowers.

Had it even been real?

I finally made myself roll over onto my back, and then I progressed to propping myself up on my elbows.

She was still in bed, curled up in the satin and sound asleep. Deep circles were under her eyes, and she hugged one of the pillows.

Asund was gone.

My scars hurt to move. The sunburn wasn't helping. It felt like my insides, all of me, had been scraped clean like I was going to get turned into leather. I slowly slid myself out from under the satin entanglements and put my legs over the edge of the high bed.

A pantere immediately appeared out of a corner, carrying a robe. "Slowly," she whispered, "the dreams take a price."

The dreams might not, but the priestess did. I asked, "Did I even sleep?"

"I wasn't here, Lady Theia, I can't say. But the dreamers usually do not remember the dreams the Priestess visits. Usually. So don't be concerned if you don't remember. The flowers make the veil weak."

I felt like I hadn't slept. My eyes were grainy and dry, and my skin felt too tight and too hot, and my joints ached, and I felt like I was swimming.

Naughty wolf, what would your consort say?

My knees gave out and I crumbled to the ground, or would have if the Pantere hadn't caught me. Despair made my joints weak. She dressed me like a doll, then hauled me to my feet with surprising strength, and held me until my legs finally wanted to take my weight, and the crushing despair of getting exactly what I'd asked for.

A dream. A hallucination. It had to have been one of those things. It had felt so real, but it couldn't have been real. Asund wasn't... he wasn't like Tynne.

He... wasn't...

I stumbled towards the big doors. Another pantere opened one just enough for me to slip through. I staggered out into the sunlight and caught myself on the railing.

Yet another Pantere appeared and pulled me to my feet and arranged my limbs like one might arrange a doll.

You told me you didn't care.

It had to have been a hallucination. It couldn't have been real. It couldn't have actually happened.

And it was one thing to say you don't care, but I actually still cared... but sometimes you've got to tell yourself stuff until you start believing it.

"This way, Lady Theia," the pantere said softly.

He led me down the levels back to the chambers I'd been sharing with the others. I wasn't ready to face them, but it didn't seem like I had much choice.

"Theia," Itek said the instant the Pantere led me in. He quickly was at my side and steadied me.

"The dreams take much," the pantere told them. "She will be fine."