Heavy. My entire world is heavy.
Eyelids. Limbs. Even my skull.
I shift under what feels like a cloud made of silk and my thighs protest, sore and sticky, as if announcing to the world last night wasn't a dream, after all.
Wait. Sticky?
Oh my God.
I jerk upright so fast the room spins, blinking against the glittering onslaught of wealth invading my vision.
Everything is gold.
Gold-leafed crown molding, gold fixtures on the wall sconces, gold-framed paintings of forests under moonlight I objectively believe would look better in black. Oh, and wolves.
Why are there so many carved images of wolves?
And beyond that, where the hell am I?
My gaze darts to the nightstand. A crystal vase etched with a—yeah, you guessed it—howling wolf silhouette holds fresh pink flowers of a recognizable sort, though I'll be the first to admit I can't label anything beyond tulips and roses.
The legs of the armchair by the window? Paws. Literal wolf paws, clawed and detailed, gripping crystal spheres. Who the hell would buy the monstrosity…? The owner of this room, obviously, whoever they are.
Clearly, they have a fetish.
A creepy, weird fetish.
Oh, God.
And I slept with him.
Even more importantly, why am I alive?
Knock knock knock.
I look down. Bare skin. Bare everything. The silk blanket pools at my waist and I snatch it up to my chin, scanning the floor in wild, jerking sweeps.
Damn.
No clothes.
Not a single scrap of fabric that isn't a twelve-hundred-thread-count sheet. I'd probably die if I saw the price tag.
"Just a minute!" I call out, cringing when my voice cracks. It's hoarse and my throat is killing me.
Then again, if the vague and mind-numbingly erotic images of my dream are, in fact, real, I did a lot of screaming.
Ugh. Focus. Clothes first, existential crisis second, and maybe finding the exit pronto before the sexy fetishist comes back to wreck my world a second time.
I scramble off the bed, dragging the sheet with me like a toga, and lunge toward the massive wardrobe-looking thing against the far wall. My feet hit plush carpet, then cool hardwood, then more carpet—guys, this room is obscenely large—and I'm halfway across the floor when I catch sight of my arms.
I stop dead in my tracks, urgency cast aside in favor of shock.
My skin is smooth. Not only smooth, but unblemished, healthy-looking skin stretched over actual muscle tone. Not only can I not remember the last time I worked out (maybe sometime in high school when I also participated in wild and crazy diets), but there isn't a single bruise from blown veins. No tape residue.
And a quick check of my upper arms confirms—no PICC line.
My hands shake as I press them flat against my stomach. It's firm. Soft but not concave, not the hollowed-out cage of ribs I'd been reduced to.
I have hips. I have flesh on my bones. I have curves. I'm not in pain.
But then long black hair falls into my field of vision and I freeze, the miracle of the moment quickly disappearing into… well, more shock.
Fuck clothes; I need a mirror.
Abandoning my search for clothing, I dive straight for the connecting door no one's knocked on, opening it like salvation could be found beyond.
Which it isn't.
But a toilet is.
And a sink. And a giant mirror taking up an entire wall, gold-framed (naturally) with little wolf heads at each corner because whoever lives here has committed to a theme.
Slamming my hands onto the ridiculous marble (or whatever fancy stone you'd find in a place like this) countertop, I stare into the mirror, shocked at who stares back.
Seriously, the woman staring back at me is gorgeous.
High cheekbones, full lips, porcelain skin with a flush of color in the cheeks. Blue eyes, like the gorgeous clear blue sky you can see from a mile away blue, not muddy grey-blue that looks almost brown in pictures.
Mine were brown. My hair was brown. I had freckles and a tan. I wore glasses.
Gorgeous hair so black it's almost blue travels far past my shoulders, ending somewhere past my waist, as if mocking my history of chemotherapy hair loss.
This isn't me. (Obviously.)
This isn't my face. (Obviously.)
And yet when I smile, she smiles.
And when I pinch my cheek, she pinches her cheek too.
It hurts. It absolutely, undeniably hurts, and the mirror-her's eyes well up just like mine do.
The only imperfections involve the shocking number of red marks and hickeys scattered across my skin. I'm surprised to find there's no bruise where he bit me last night, though there is a small, silvery, raised crescent scar in the same spot. Strange. Unless I missed a few chapters of biology, a bite mark doesn't fade into an old scar overnight.
Obviously, the scar predates the bite, but… everything else he did left marks, and that painful bite didn't leave a single one?
Knock knock knock.
Whoever's out there is both patient and impatient, and I don't have time to revel in my newfound health or beauty, much less wallow in the pit of questions I've acquired since waking up like, ten seconds ago.
"Just a minute!"
Okay. Okay. Get dressed, answer the door, figure out if I'm dead or insane or both. Priorities. I can have a breakdown on a schedule. Maybe I'm dreaming. Is this heaven? Do I have to go through some sort of heavenly check-in?
Another mad dash, this time back to the wardrobe I originally went for, and…
It's all silk and cashmere and designer labels I recognize from magazines.
A drawer below reveals underwear, all of which use the least amount of fabric possible. There's basically no difference between wearing these pathetic excuses for panties and going commando.
But since I don't, in fact, want to be ass-naked, I slip a red pair on and shimmy my way into something I thought would be simple but turned out to be some sort of bodycon dress with like, no breathing room.
I might faint before I get to the door.
But considering the wardrobe housed all "my" clothing, I'm not at the strange man's house. Is this "my" house, then? Wait a second, am I the one with the weird wolf fetish?
Knock knock knock.
For fuck's sake.