37

RY

HER scent clung to me like a chain threaded toher sublime body. Even in dreams, she was as beautiful as I remembered.

She was still so soft, so sweet, but now she had a fierceness that I hardly recognised.

My little flower had grown thorns. Good. She needed them.

What I hadn’t expected was for her to kick me out of my own dreamscape. It was a little touch of my mother’s court, the power she’d passed on to me. A power that proved to be the only way for me to push through the rather strong blockades she’d figured out how to put up.

She’d taken a new mate. Two even. That much was clear. She was stronger than on my first visit. Less volatile.

It infuriated me that another was with her.

My creature did not like that at all.

It didn’t like the fact that she refused us. But, in time, she would understand.

My little flower would always be mine.