honey, I rose up from the dead, I do it all the time
Be swift, Flora thinks to her companion, feeling down the length of the bond but already Spice is too far away. The Doubletake barely has time to rise from her chair before Dahlia is in front of her, moving like smoke—like inevitability. The queen blinks, the briefest flicker of tension tightening in her spine as pale fingers slip through her curls, cool and deliberate, and her breath catches.
Then Dahlia’s hand is on her chin, tilting her face upward. And there’s no time to flinch or question or prepare. The kiss comes soft, velvet-smooth and unexpected. For a single, suspended heartbeat, it feels like nothing at all.
Then it hits her.
Fizzy, electric, like violet syrup on the tongue—something sweet and heady, something bubbling just beneath her skin. It pulses through her, warm and dizzying, a ripple of sensation that feels too good to be right. Her lashes flutter, lips parting instinctively as if drawn by something deeper, older, than reason. For a breath, for a moment, it is everything; intoxicating and quiet and wrong in a way that feels too beautiful to resist.
And beneath it all, the slow slide of something else. A coil wrapping inward. A softness laced with thorns. The infection, curling in beneath her skin, unnoticed—because that’s the trick of it, isn’t it? All poisons taste like honey at first.
When Dahlia finally draws away, Flora blinks slowly, then exhales, steady and measured.
"To good business," she echoes, smiling.
Then Dahlia’s hand is on her chin, tilting her face upward. And there’s no time to flinch or question or prepare. The kiss comes soft, velvet-smooth and unexpected. For a single, suspended heartbeat, it feels like nothing at all.
Then it hits her.
Fizzy, electric, like violet syrup on the tongue—something sweet and heady, something bubbling just beneath her skin. It pulses through her, warm and dizzying, a ripple of sensation that feels too good to be right. Her lashes flutter, lips parting instinctively as if drawn by something deeper, older, than reason. For a breath, for a moment, it is everything; intoxicating and quiet and wrong in a way that feels too beautiful to resist.
And beneath it all, the slow slide of something else. A coil wrapping inward. A softness laced with thorns. The infection, curling in beneath her skin, unnoticed—because that’s the trick of it, isn’t it? All poisons taste like honey at first.
When Dahlia finally draws away, Flora blinks slowly, then exhales, steady and measured.
"To good business," she echoes, smiling.
