- THREE #4
It was always so cold. It was the kind of cold that slipped under your skin and chilled you to the bone, made you think you would never be warm again.
Then, of course, there were the noises. There was the wailing, pained sounds from far off.
And then there was the hissing, taunting voices circling around me.
I shivered, and the faces became clearer.
They were pale, pale to the point of sickly, almost giving a gray hue to their skin under their long, stringy, dirty black hair.
But those weren't the creepiest things about them.
No, what was creepy was the way the tops of their heads were a vivid, bright, unmistakable red.
"She's powerful like our Master," one of them hissed.
Then he reached out an impossibly long-boned finger and stabbed it into my belly.
A cry rose up, pained and hysterical.
But it wasn't my voice; it was the voice of a baby.
--
I woke up screaming, the sound echoing across the hollow of the woods. My heart slammed hard in my chest; my throat felt constricted in a vice; every inch of my skin felt electric, buzzing, uncomfortable.
That freaking dream again.
I had no idea what the dream was.
Whenever I woke, it was like my brain did a shake and cleared the images.
"Hey," Jasper's voice found me, husky from sleep.
"Open your eyes," he said, and I realized he was close; I could actually feel his body heat.
Then his hand settled on my forehead for a moment as if feeling for a fever.
"It's alright. You're safe," his voice said, and it was then that I realized I was still whimpering and clamped my mouth shut, opening my eyes to see him watching me, worry plain on his face.
I shook my head self-consciously. "I get nightmares," I explained, hand going over my slamming heart. It was then that I heard it again, the far-off screaming. "What is that?"
"What is what?" he asked, then listened for a moment. "That's a banshee," he said easily.
"A banshee?" I asked, not comprehending.
"Yeah. They're female fae, and they scream."
"Why do they scream?" I asked, the gut-wrenching sound making me shiver again.
Jasper sighed as if he didn't want to tell me, but went ahead and did so anyway.
"Because someone is going to die." With that, he slowly lowered himself down onto the ground, stretching out beside me and looking up at the canopy of trees.
"They cause nightmares to people who hear them, really awful nightmares.
" I fought the urge to tell him that the nightmares had nothing to do with the banshee as I watched him cock up an arm under his head and turn to look at me, his light eyes looking almost silver in the darkness.
"Remember when I talked about my skills earlier? "
"Yeah."
"I have the emotion-sensing thing. That is hereditary. I got it from my father. But named after Jasper, I also got bravery, independence, clarity at night and..."
"And," I prompted when he stopped, his intense gaze on me making my chest feel tight.
"Calming night fears," he said. When I didn't show any signs of understanding, because I didn't, he went on, "I take away nightmares."
"Oh, okay," I said, brows drawing together, feeling like there was something he wasn't telling me.
"There's one catch."
"Of course there is," I said, smiling a little humorlessly.
"You need to be touching me," he said, taking his free arm and patting his chest twice as if inviting me to rest there.
Normally, I would have taken the nightmares over that any day.
But I was exhausted. And I knew if I fell back asleep, the nightmares would come again.
I took a deep breath and moved slowly, hesitantly, as if I could rest on his chest without him noticing.
My head landed in the center of his chest, my ear hearing his heartbeat below it, slow and steady and somehow reassuring.
Carefully, I scooted the rest of my body close.
And, well, I had to admit, he was a heck of a lot more comfortable than sleeping on the hard ground.
Minutes passed, his body completely still beneath me, his breathing slow and steady.
I was sure he was asleep until I felt his arm raise, drape around my center, and haul me more fully onto his chest. With my upper body across him, there was really no choice but to raise my leg and drape it across his hips as well.
And there wasn't, there absolutely wasn't, a small thrill in my belly and lower at the contact. Nope. I was definitely not turned on at all. Not a bit. And I wasn't incredibly and overwhelmingly anxious about the whole situation either.
Oh, God.
He could sense things.
Could he sense that irrational little surge of desire?
Jesus, that was...
Then, slowly, gently, as if being lovingly wiped away, the fears, the insecurity, the confusion, and even the desire ebbed away.
Right then, I was absolutely certain he had felt it all. He had felt it all and then he had eased the burden of them from me. I knew I should have felt angry, violated, and upset. But I didn't. Maybe I couldn't even if I wanted to.
Everything felt peaceful, good, easy.
So I took a deep breath and nuzzled in slightly and drifted off to dreamless sleep.