Chapter 27 | Anna
For the last week, we’d practiced my triggers daily, and I’d learned to control it and fought through the head pain. I no longer felt like I was going to combust whenever he moved close to me.
Also, he was flustering me in all kinds of ways I didn’t need. One little glance and my heart skipped. The accidental brush of our hands and my pulse jumped. It was like having a schoolgirl crush all over again and I was too damn old for that.
All this domestic stuff was starting to get on my nerves, too. We’d settled into an old married couple rhythm that felt both natural and terrifying. I couldn’t decide how I felt about that. I think because I was still trying to figure out what we were.
I was different. He was different. Everything was different.
Sometimes, I missed when he used to bark orders in my head. I wanted to feel that again. But I understood why he stopped. I was too volatile.
I’d been thinking about dream walking again for a while. I tried once in the hospital, but I felt blocked. Like I couldn’t grasp that part of me. I chalked it up to post-procedure trauma. Shock. Fear. Everything I didn’t want to admit.
Now, sitting here in the quiet, it occurred to me that excuses weren’t answers.
I knew the procedure—God, I hated that word—altered me. But I didn’t know how much.
And so, one morning, as he sat on the sofa sharpening his knife and I sat at the dining table, I announced, “I want to try dream walking.”
His hands stopped moving. He lifted his head, his gaze meeting mine. Concern lingering there. I already knew he didn’t want me to try.
“You think you should?” he asked.
“I think I need to see what they did to me. How deep the damage goes.”
Damage. Another word I hated.
“Am I your test subject then?” he asked, one brow lifted.
“You’re the only one I trust.” I said it without thinking and then flushed.
But it was true. If there was anyone I wanted in my dreams, it was him.
There were still things about him I didn’t understand.
I knew he could dream walk too, but I didn’t know how far that ability went—whether it was the bond or something else entirely.
He’d appeared in my dreams before. We’d interacted.
But I’d never known if he could do it deliberately. Like I could.
“Well, I know I can’t talk you out of it, so you may as well try.”
Smart man.
I slid him a smile. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
“And you’re getting awfully cocky.”
“I was always cocky. Or did you forget?”
“How could I? You never let me.” But he was smirking when he said it.
He sheathed the knife and placed it and the whetstone on the coffee table in front of him. I took that as a sign of trust. He trusted me not to grab it and gut him since I’d managed to (mostly) control my triggers.
“I’m at your mercy,” he said.
“If only.”
He ignored me and said, “So, what do you want me to do?”
“Sit there and look hot.” And then instantly regretted the words.
His mouth curved. Enough I knew he’d heard me. Enough I knew he was filing that comment away for later.
My new superpower seemed to be lack of filter. Also, why was I flirting with him?
I knew why. Because I’d been trapped in this cabin with him for over a week and he’d been patient and careful and it was making me insane.
I closed my eyes and reached for that familiar sensation. The shift in consciousness that let me slip into someone else’s dreams or mind. I could do either.
“Okay, so be quiet and let me concentrate.”
“I didn’t say anything.” He sounded amused.
“Shh.”
I placed my palms flat on the table to ground myself and reached inward. To the place where my dream walking ability had lived my entire life.
And I knew it had been altered.
The pathway was there but warped. Like a corridor that had collapsed inward. I could sense the outline of it, but when I tried to step into it, my awareness slid sideways instead of forward.
I tried again.
Nothing.
It should have been instant. It always had been.
I should have been able to lock onto him without effort. I couldn’t.
And then the realization hit. Not fear, not hesitation, not trauma.
Damage.
Whatever they’d done hadn’t blocked my ability.
They’d altered it.
I opened my eyes, sitting there stunned. And furious. Wasn’t it enough they took him from me, they had to take that from me, too?
“What is it?” he asked carefully.
“I can’t reach it.” My voice came out cold, flat. “That part of me is damaged.”
He didn’t interrupt.
“He didn’t just take you from me, he took everything else with you,” I continued, heat creeping into my chest. “He stole the one piece of me that was always mine.”
My throat tightened. I shoved back from the table so hard the chair toppled behind me, slapping the floor.
He stayed where he was, watching me. Fury mirrored in his eyes.
My heart pounded in a wild, furious beat. “That son of a bitch is going to pay for everything he did to me.”
I said it like a vow.
And then I was stomping out into the late morning, slamming the door behind me, moving down the steps of the porch and pausing at the tree line.
He didn’t follow.
He probably thought I’d explode. And, for a second, that cold place in my head flared, as if my rage alone activated it. So even my own emotions could trigger it now. Perfect.
And, indeed, I wanted to hit something. I wanted to feel pain in a different way. I wanted to release that pent-up anger. I let myself sit with the rage. Feel it. Wallow in it.
And then I shoved it back down, pushing it away. Controlling it. I sucked in a lungful of air, taking deep, cleansing breaths.
And that’s when I decided.
If I could control it, perhaps I could become Vormund’s worst nightmare.
I don’t know how long I was outside. I walked the perimeter—totally got why he did it every day because the place was peaceful—until I was ready to go back.
This time, I didn’t slam the door behind me.
He sat at the table, the whiskey bottle in the center and two empty glasses.
Waiting. And I thought of all those times we shared a glass of whiskey when something terrible happened.
And sometimes when nothing terrible happened at all.
He’d even tried to give it to me in the first safe house, and I flat out refused.
Because accepting it then was accepting defeat.
He poured the two glasses, then rose and walked over to me, handing me one. I took it. I looked down at it, trying to reconcile everything that’d been taken from me in a few short weeks.
“He still hasn’t won, you know,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Then why does it feel like he has?”
“Because it’s raw right now.”
He was probably right. It was raw pain slicing through me. The realization that I’d lost the one thing that defined me. The one thing that made me special.
“I think you’re still pretty special,” he said softly.
My head snapped up, and I looked at him. He’d heard that? Had he turned on that part of himself where he could hear my thoughts once again? Or was he good at reading my expression and body language?
It told myself it was the latter.
His expression didn’t reveal anything because he never wanted me to see that part of himself.
But sometimes—on rare occasions—I could tell.
His eyes flickered between green and gold and I wasn’t sure what to make of that.
Or I knew what it meant and didn’t want to face it.
I glanced at the bottle on the table to gauge the level.
“I didn’t start without you.”
My gaze drifted back to his. There was something unreadable in them. No, that wasn’t right. I denied what I saw there because I didn’t want to acknowledge he was looking at me like that.
I downed the whiskey. A distraction.
It burned. It felt good. Made me feel alive again. Like I was me again. He went back to the table and grabbed the bottle, then refilled my glass.
“We can get drunk if you want,” he said, amusement in his voice.
I laughed. “You’ve never been drunk.”
And I’d seen him drink plenty. The man had a high tolerance for alcohol. He had a high tolerance for everything. He could deny himself anything and still stand there like everything was fine.
“There’s a first time for everything.” He clinked my glass, then drank in one gulp. Then refilled.
I was aware of how close he stood to me, and nothing inside me wanted to lash out. Not that cold place deep in my head. Perhaps, the whiskey was doing something—burning the edges off, blunting the alarms. Enough that I wondered if I really did need to get drunk.
We sat on the sofa. We drank. We didn’t talk about anything. And that was fine.
I was on my fourth—fifth?—glass with a lovely buzz humming under my skin.
And I thought about how the distance between us seemed like an ocean. That the only time we touched was when I was trying to learn my triggers. When he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and held me there. I didn’t want him to let go, but I said it, anyway.
He sat next to me. Close but not close enough. And a tingling took up residence in the pit of my stomach.
I blamed the whiskey.
“Can I—” I stopped, pressed my lips together.
“Can you what?” Seriously, he sounded totally sober, and that was so not fair.
I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I reached out a hand, not looking at him. He took it without question. Wrapping his fingers around mine. But I think he understood this was not me activating the anchor. This was me activating… something else.
“I wanted to know if I could,” I whispered.
“You always can.”
A surge of heat flooded me. I drank again—one gulp. He refilled again.
“I do think you’re trying to get me drunk,” I said.
“Is it working?”
I giggled. “No.” I drank again. Held it out. He refilled. “Fine. A little.”
The bottle was over half gone now. I hadn’t seen him drain his glass. In fact, it was still two fingers, neat.
“Sir, I think you’re behind.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch up.”
No, he wouldn’t. He was lying to me and that was okay because I wanted him to be the sober one here. Not that we needed a designated driver or anything. But one of us needed to be levelheaded. It certainly wasn’t me.
My eyes were heavy. I leaned against him.
My head on his shoulder and inhaled his scent.
No matter where we were, or whatever foreign city we were in, he always smelled like sandalwood with a hint of patchouli.
Some ancient, earthy scent that was ingrained underneath his skin.
Because he’d walked the earth for two thousand years.
Between that and the whiskey, I was drowsy.
And I thought it was time for me to find my way to bed.
Except tonight, I didn’t want to go alone.
And that seemed awfully forward, though I didn’t know why.
As if he sensed what I was thinking, he took the glass from my hand, pulled me to my feet. He walked me to the bedroom. When I sat on the edge, he turned away.
“You can stay,” I said.
He hesitated.
“I want you to say,” I added.
He stilled, his back to me while I kicked off my boots. I was sure I had a nightshirt, but I was too tired to find it, so I pulled back the covers and slipped inside, still fully clothed.
He climbed in beside me, staying on his side, giving me space. But in the dark, I reached for him, placing my hand on his upper arm. Curving around the thick biceps. Feeling the strength of him. Connected. Safe.
Since this whole nightmare began, I felt like myself. Changed. Scarred. Dangerous. But myself.