The Glorious Flame (#2)

Chapter 21

Rouhem

    "Hello!" the front door slammed open. "The Queen has arrived!" Rouhem didn't recognize the female voice, though everyone bounced up in excitement.

    "Oh, god," Kittrix downed the rest of his beer, "it is her!"

    Rouhem was in front of the crowd as they migrated to the front where a tan woman held a nearly unconscious Inferno. "What the fuck!" he growled and lifted her into his arms within seconds.

    Her eyelids lifted to reveal her new shade of grey. Her lips turned downward. "Where's the tequila? Where's Wes? She took my bottle? I think I'm getting drunk," she slurred before slumping into his chest.

    The mystery woman lifted her hands up in surrender. "I didn't realize pixies could get wasted!"

    "They can't," the brother with black colored ends. His critical eye examined the woman in Rouhem's arms. "You got her?"

    "A hangover shouldn't be too difficult to deal with, I am going to get her in bed," Rouhem stated, racing off at the first opportunity to ditch the blood.

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    She began to rouse as he entered their room. "You feel like heaven," she whispered, catching him off guard like a truck t-boning a beetle.

    "I pictured you saying this in a relatively different environment," he confessed as he kicked the door shut. The rug softened his heavy footfall. "One including more lust and ecstasy-filled screams..." 

    She sighed and opened her eyes once more. She lifted her hand to his cheek, forcing him to halt right before he could lay her down. The sensation of her skin against his sent a buzz of euphoria straight into every crevice of his body. "It doesn't hurt anymore." She sighed that little light sigh which drove him mad again.

    He frowned. "What doesn't hurt?" He studied her body and found nothing out of place.

    "Everything, mostly my back. Every time you touch my back, I swear I died and went to heaven." She sounded so drowsy, that he wasn't sure whether she was conscious or not.

    His hand was quite literally splayed against her back, and something clicked in his mind. It made sense why she never lain on her back, why she chopped off her hair, and why she could never sit or stand properly. "This whole time," he whispered as his throat tightened, "you have been in a great, terrible pain, haven't you?"

    Her eyebrows fell in a kind of melancholy which broke his heart. "Yes, every second of every day. It hurts so bad at times that I sometimes just want to put a gun to my mouth and put myself out of my own misery. And after that quick, hot second, I get back to reality and deal with it." She shrugged. "It's what women do."

    Rouhem couldn't stand up and flopped down onto the bed. "I am an idiot," he hissed at himself, "and I won't be fooled any longer, I promise."

    "It's okay," she slurred, "you scare the pain away. I can hardly feel it now. Just don't let go, please?"

    His jaw nearly snapped off. Did she just use the word please? She really was out of her mind. "I won't, but I am betting you will feel very differently come the morning."

    Her lips curled as she nodded off. "Sleep now, shoot you later."