Chapter 7 #2
It was enough to satisfy him. Barely. He turned and headed for the ladder, Ryder and Tank following. Dean lingered a moment longer, his eyes searching my face for something I didn’t know how to give him.
Then he was gone too, and I was alone with the silence and the shadows and the thing that lived inside my head.
That was touching, the nightmare said, its voice dripping with mockery. All that love. All that hope. It’s almost cruel, really. Letting them believe there’s still something worth saving in here.
Shut up.
You know I’m right. You can feel yourself eroding. Every day there’s a little less of you and a little more of me. The bite won’t change that. Nothing will change that.
I said shut up!
Why fight it? The nightmare’s voice turned silky, persuasive. I’ve offered you a deal before. Give me control willingly. Let me do what needs to be done. I’ll save the rest of my kind, and then you’ll be free. I’ll let you go. You can finally rest.
I could hear the lie underneath the pretty words. The nightmare didn’t plan to let me go. It never had. Once it had full control, it would wear my face forever. Use my body. Live my life.
And I’d be trapped in the darkness, screaming, for whatever eternity the nightmare had planned.
“You’re lying,” I said out loud. My voice echoed in the empty hold. “You’ve always been lying.”
The nightmare laughed, and then the scratching started again.
Claws along the edges of my mind, digging in, tearing at the walls I’d built.
Pain flashed through my whole body, white-hot and blinding.
I curled in on myself, chains rattling, biting back the scream that wanted to tear its way out of my throat.
Lying? Me? The nightmare’s amusement was a physical weight pressing down on me. I’m the most honest thing in your head, little human. I’ve never pretended to be anything but what I am. Can you say the same?
The pain receded slowly, leaving me shaking and sweating on the cold floor. The nightmare retreated too, pulling back to that watching, waiting place it lived when it wasn’t actively tormenting me.
I lay there for a long moment, trying to catch my breath. Trying to find the will to keep fighting when every part of me wanted to give up.
Then I heard a sound. Soft footsteps. Someone who hadn’t left with the others.
I looked up to find Alyssa still standing there, watching me with those dark, ancient eyes.
“You should go,” I said. Or tried to say. It came out as more of a croak. “It’s not safe.”
“I know.”
She didn’t move.
“I can hear it thinking about you,” I managed. “Please. Please go.”
“No.”
She moved closer instead. Knelt down beside me on the dirty floor of the hold, looking so perfectly beautiful in this terrible place. This close, I could smell her too. Something floral and fierce, underlaid with the electric crackle of power.
My mate. The woman the bond kept whispering about, even through the nightmare’s interference. I’d never gotten to love her. Never gotten to meet her as a man that wasn’t already infected with this insanity.
Maybe I never would.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
“Alyssa, I don’t think that’s a good idea. The nightmare could...”
“Give me your hand, Damon.” Magic practically vibrated around her words.
There was no arguing with that voice. Even the nightmare went quiet, momentarily stunned by the sheer command in her tone.
I reached out. My chains clinked as I moved, the iron cold against my wrists. Her fingers wrapped around mine, warm and strong and impossibly gentle.
And then her magic reached inside me.
It was like nothing I’d ever felt before. A wave of warmth flooding through my consciousness, golden and bright, pushing back the shadows that had become my constant companions. The fog that always clouded my thoughts began to lift. The scratching at the edges of my mind went silent.
For one perfect, blissful moment, there was peace.
No nightmare. No fear. No fighting.
Just silence. Beautiful, blessed silence.
I looked at Alyssa with something that felt dangerously close to hope. She was watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Concern, yes. But something else too. Something that looked like recognition.
“You felt that,” she said softly. It wasn’t a question.
“The nightmare,” I breathed. “It’s... I can’t feel it anymore.”
“My magic pushed it back. I can only hold it for a moment.” She squeezed my fingers. “It will come back. I’m not strong enough yet to hold it off forever.”
Yet. She said yet, like it was only a matter of time.
The bond between us pulsed, faint but present.
I’d felt it before, buried under layers of nightmares and desperation.
She was my mate. Even if I’d never gotten to claim her.
Even if I might not survive long enough to try.
The feelings that surged whenever she was close couldn’t possibly mean anything else.
“If the bite doesn’t work,” I said, and my voice was steadier now, stronger, “promise me something.”
“What?”
“Promise me you won’t let me hurt anyone else.
” I held her gaze, willing her to understand.
“If the nightmare wins. If I become something that can’t be saved.
Promise me you’ll end it. Don’t let me live like that.
Don’t let me hurt you or my brothers or anyone else.
And don’t… don’t let one of them be the one to do it. They won’t survive it.”
Tears were sliding down her cheeks, but her voice didn’t waver.
“I promise.”
I nodded. That was enough. That was all I needed.
Then I felt the nightmare stirring again, roused by the intrusion of Alyssa’s magic, fighting back against the light she’d brought into my darkness. The peace began to fracture. The silence cracked.
The nightmare pushed, and Alyssa’s magic shattered like glass.
She gasped, her hand jerking in mine. I saw pain flash across her face and hated myself for being the cause of it. Hated the thing in my head for hurting her.
“It pushed me out,” she said, her voice strained. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t hold it.”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. But I couldn’t bear to see her blaming herself for something that wasn’t her fault. “You did more than anyone else has been able to do.”
She stood, but she didn’t let go of my hand. Her eyes had gone hard. Fierce. The queen was back, and she was angry.
“I know you can see me,” she said.
For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then I realised she wasn’t talking to me anymore.
She was talking to the nightmare.
“I know you can hear me,” Alyssa continued, her voice ringing with power. “So listen close.”
The nightmare stirred in my mind, suddenly alert. Interested. Wary.
“If you hurt this man,” Alyssa said, each word a blade wrapped in silk, “if you don’t leave him now, I will find a way to reach inside his mind and tear you apart. There will be no escaping the pain I will unleash on you. I will make it feel like an eternity before I finally let you embrace death.”
The nightmare recoiled.
I felt it. Actually felt it flinch away from her words, from the promise in her voice. This ancient thing that had tormented me for months, that had laughed at every attempt to fight it, that had seemed so utterly invincible...
It was afraid.
Alyssa looked at me one more time, her expression softening.
“I’m going to get stronger,” she said. “And then I’m coming back for you. One way or another, Damon. I’m going to save you.”
Then she turned and climbed the ladder, leaving me alone in the darkness once more.
But this time, the darkness didn’t feel quite so absolute.
The nightmare was still there. Still watching. Still waiting. But something had shifted between us. The balance of power had tilted, just slightly.
Because the nightmare was afraid of her.
And for the first time since this whole ordeal began, I was the one laughing.
What’s so funny, little human?
The nightmare’s voice was sharper than usual. Defensive. Almost... uncertain.
“You,” I said. And I couldn’t stop the smile spreading across my face. “You’re afraid of her. You’re actually afraid.”
Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not afraid of anything.
“Liar.”
I closed my eyes, still smiling, and let myself drift toward something that might have been sleep.
The nightmare didn’t have a response to that.
And somewhere deep inside me, in that place where the last fragments of hope had been hiding, a tiny flame sparked back to life.
Maybe, just maybe, I was going to survive this after all.