4. Out of Step
Out of Step
Sydney wanted to pull the words back the exact second they left her mouth.
Frozen on the edge of the mattress, Garrett stared down at his open palms. The healthy, vibrant glow he had brought home from the fence line yesterday was gone, replaced by a stark, bloodless pallor that covered his entire face.
The ice was back in his eyes. That cold, hollow look of a man who didn't trust the ground beneath his feet was so visible that it broke her heart.
She hated it. She hated that she had put that look back on his face.
"Hey," Sydney quickly said, sliding across the sheets until she was right in front of him.
Reaching out, she cupped his jaw with both hands, forcing him to break his gaze from his hands. "Garrett. Look at me."
His gaze lifted slowly. His eyes were so heavy and dark.
All she wanted to do was bring back the happy sparkle she’d seen earlier.
"It's sleepwalking," she said, her voice dropping into a firm, no-nonsense register.
Injecting as much casual certainty into her tone as she could muster, she kept right on going, "People do it all the time.
Especially after extreme stress or trauma.
Alex, one of the young Guardsmen my dad was training, used to walk into the kitchen, rearrange the spice rack, and answer full questions while totally dead to the world.
It was weird, but it happened, and I teased him about it all the time. "
She didn’t actually know if sleepwalkers could look you dead in the eye and hold a perfectly lucid conversation, and honestly, she didn't care. Her only mission was to melt the ice in her Dragon’s eyes.
Garrett swallowed hard, his jaw tight beneath her palms. "I... I looked right at you?"
"Yeah," she whispered.
"And you couldn't tell I wasn't awake?"
The question hit Sydney like a punch to the chest. She didn't let her face show it. She did everything in her power, and some of Kara’s, to keep her expression exactly the same.
But a tiny, uncomfortable splinter lodged deep in her heart.
The truth was... no. She couldn't tell he was asleep. He hadn't been clumsy. His voice hadn't been a robotic drone. He had looked at her with the exact same warmth he always did.
But she wasn't ready to examine that nightmare yet. So she hurried on…
"You just looked sleepy," she said because it was pretty much the truth. Offering a small, reassuring smile, she chuckled, "Like you were half-baked from workin’ in the sun and exhausted. That's all."
Garrett closed his eyes. Leaning his forehead against hers, he let out a long, ragged breath that trembled against her skin. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I scared you, Syd."
Sydney’s worry instantly flared into sharp, irritated heat. Not at him. Never at him. But at the fact that he felt the need to carry the blame for things beyond his control.
Dropping her hands from his jaw, she smacked his shoulder. "Hey! You do not apologize to me for something you did while completely unconscious, Dragon Man."
He blinked, obviously caught off guard by the sudden shift in her energy. She thought about explaining or apologizing herself, but then he started talking.
"Sydney, I literally wandered into the yard…"
Pointing a stern finger directly at his nose, with Kara’s image superimposed over her own in protective irritation, she snapped, "Don't care. Unconscious. No apologies allowed. Do not make me get Kara more involved in this than she already is."
“Too late,” a dry, amused voice flew from her own lips. "Y’all know I am never far away, so when I heard 'Dragon Man' and 'apology,' I jumped to attention.”
“She did,” Sydney confirmed with a nod.
“If we're staging an intervention because Garrett is being a stubborn martyr,” Kara continued. “I have a flame with his name on it."
Garrett actually managed a faint, genuine chuckle, rubbing his chest. "Good morning to you too, Kara."
"Morning, sleepwalker," Kara teased, then retreated to the back of Sydney’s consciousness.
Thankfully, the brief burst of family humor successfully broke the heavy tension, but as Sydney stood up to get dressed, Garrett went quiet. She knew that quiet. He was going inward. Reaching back into the vast, complex spaces of his own mind to speak to the other half of his soul.
It made her heart proud when he didn’t block the conversation from her and talked freely with the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul.
“Han,” Garrett mentally called. “Did you know?”
Inside their shared consciousness, the Dragon King stirred. Han was usually a presence of absolute, radiating heat and ancient confidence; however, in that moment, the Dragon’s voice was unusually subdued.
“No,” he slowly admitted, a deep, rumbling tone of frustration vibrating through the Mating bond.
“Nothing?” Garrett pushed, a spike of anxiety returning to his tone. “You didn't feel me move?”
“I remember us going to sleep,” Han replied, shifting uncomfortably within Garrett's psyche. “I remember you getting water. But after that... there’s a void. No warning. No impression of the open air. No sense of you walking.”
The Dragon King paused, and through her Bond with Garrett, Sydney could feel the heavy, protective weight of Han’s confusion. It bothered the Dragon King deeply. His awareness was supposed to be absolute, especially when guarding their Mate.
“Our Bond is still fractured and healing, Garrett,” Han reasoned, trying to smooth over the rough edges of his own concern.
“For years, I stayed buried deep within your mind. I was locked in hibernation to keep all our secrets, and those of Dragonkin, safe. When you sleep deeply now, it appears my consciousness sinks into that same heavy torpor. We both went offline. It is a logical conclusion.”
And it was. It made perfect sense to Sydney. It was the ideal, comforting explanation. For a fleeting second, she felt better.
But as Garrett opened his eyes and looked across the sunny bedroom, she felt a cold reality settle into the pit of his stomach. Whatever was happening to him at night didn't just bypass his own mind.
It took Han down with him.
The atmosphere in the kitchen ten minutes later was aggressively, determinedly normal.
Sydney practically attacked the skillet, tossing in heavy strips of bacon and whisking eggs with enough force to crack the bowl.
She was creating a wall of domestic noise, a sensory shield to convince them both that today was just another day on the ranch.
Garrett sat at the island, nursing a fresh mug of coffee and insisting, for the fourth time, that he felt perfectly fine.
“Seriously, Syd,” he repeated. “I feel fine.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m the one that told you everything would be okay.”
“Yes, but…”
“But what?” Grey asked, walking into the kitchen. The look in his eye said he had read the room and was prepared for a discussion.
His sharp eyes flicked from Sydney’s tense shoulders to the slight stiffness in Garrett’s posture. Looking back to Sydney, he shrugged.
In response, she shrugged right back.
"Alright," Grey said, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms. "Who died?"
"Nobody," Sydney said quickly, not turning around from the stove. "Everything is fine."
“Yeah, I heard that.” Then to his brother, he said, “So, how about you tell me what’s up?”
"I sleepwalked last night," Garrett answered smoothly.
Looking over her shoulder, Sydney instantly read the look on Grey’s face. He knew his brother too well. He knew Garrett was trying to hide something, which everyone knew was a lesson in futility.
Grey didn't blink. He just walked over to the coffee pot and poured himself a mug. "You sleepwalked?"
"Apparently," Garrett replied, watching his brother's reaction closely. "Wandered out into the backyard. Had a full conversation with Sydney. Remembered absolutely none of it this morning."
Grey shrugged, taking a slow sip. "Happens. Stress does weird things to a person. I once woke up entirely naked on top of a chicken coop."
Of course, that was the exact moment that Star stepped into the kitchen doorway. Eyes wide with a mixture of horror and delight, she whooped loudly, "You what?"
The kitchen exploded in laughter. Carrick, who had been lingering in the hallway, let out a loud bark of laughter, while Garrett’s shoulders shook as a genuine, deep laugh broke through his lingering anxiety.
Even Sydney couldn't stop the giggle that escaped her lips as Grey slowly turned a deep shade of crimson, glaring at his Mate.
"It was at least twenty years ago," Grey grumbled, though a smirk tugged at his mouth. "It was a very stressful time. It was the first mission for a group of new Guardsmen I had trained."
"I am never letting you live that down," Star laughed, walking over to press a kiss to his cheek.
Just like that, the monster in the dark, the whole sleepwalking debacle, was shrunk down to a funny family anecdote. It was another logical explanation. Another comfort.
But as the laughter died down, Garrett’s soldier instincts took over. Sydney watched him set his coffee mug down, his expression shifting into something focused and precise. She was learning very quickly that when her Mate encountered an unknown variable, he didn't panic; he established protocol.
"Regardless," Garrett said, his tone turning practical.
"We need precautions. Until we know this is just a temporary glitch, we treat it like a security variable.
We lock the deadbolts at night. Put a bell on the back door.
Syd, if you feel me get out of bed again, you wake me up immediately. Don't just follow me."
"Deal," Sydney agreed, relieved he was taking it seriously.
Garrett offered a faint, fleeting smile. "If you see me heading north toward Oklahoma in my boxers, just tackle me."
Underneath the joke, Sydney caught the tight flicker in his jaw. He was unsettled– but he wasn't going to let it paralyze him.