8. Watching the Dark
Watching the Dark
Sydney woke to the sound of nothing.
She turned her head slowly on the pillow. Garrett was lying flat on his back, his broad shoulders perfectly square against the line of the headboard, his arms straight at his sides. His eyes were wide open. He was staring unblinkingly at the empty blackness of the ceiling.
He hadn't moved since they had laid down. He hadn't slept for a single second.
Sydney didn't ask the obvious question. She didn't offer a gentle inquiry into his well-being.
She simply shifted across the mattress, sliding her hand up until her palm rested flat against the hard, unyielding center of his chest. His heart was hammering a steady, frantic rhythm beneath her fingers, completely at odds with his rigid, motionless posture.
"Dragon Man," she whispered into the dark.
"I'm fine," Garrett answered instantly, his voice clipped, gravelly, and entirely too alert.
"I didn’t ask a question," Sydney countered softly. She tried to project a sliver of their usual playful warmth into the space between them, but the smile died before it could reach her lips.
Through the raw, exposed channels of their Mating Bond, a wave of pure, suffocating exhaustion poured into her consciousness. It was a heavy, toxic tide of bone-deep fatigue, and right behind it was a massive wall of sheer, stubborn willpower.
Garrett was actively, systematically keeping himself awake. He was fighting his own biology as if it were a hostile force breaching his perimeter.
"You need to close your eyes, Garrett," she said, her voice turning firm.
"I'm being cautious, Syd," he murmured, his jaw tightening so hard she could see the sharp line of it in the faint moonlight filtering through the glass. "Establishing standard tactical observation parameters. That's all."
Sydney let out a sharp, frustrated breath. "I'm calling bullshit. You're scared."
"I'm prepared."
"Those two things are not mutually exclusive," she shot back, pushing herself up onto one elbow so she could look down at his face.
She refused to stop. She could feel the agonizing humiliation and guilt eating him alive from the inside out, a dark stain on his soul, and she was not having any of it.
“I know you don’t want to close your eyes because your brother is sitting out there in a wooden chair in the hall, being vigilant in the dark.”
“It’s not that it is Grey,” he sighed. “I trust him with my life. More importantly, I trust him with your life.”
“Okay,” she stretched out the word. “Then what’s the…?”
“It’s the sheer weight, like a ton of cement blocks bearing down on me, of knowing my family is forced to establish a physical guard rotation to protect everyone from…” He cleared his throat. “From… From me.” Inhaling deeply, he kept going, “It’s like a fucking wound, Syd.”
“So, you’re gonna punish yourself, force your body and mind into submission so nobody else has to carry the burden?"
“I have to. I can’t…”
“Carrick ordered a watch because we need information, Garrett," Sydney insisted, her voice dropping into a fierce, protective register.
"Not because anyone thinks you're evil. Not because we don’t trust you.
" Throwing her thumb over her shoulder, she didn't even take a breath or pause.
“Grey is out there because he is your brother, and he loves you. "
Dropping her hand, she traced the rigid edge of his cheekbone with the tips of her fingers. "And I am here because I am your Mate. Stop treating sleep like a prison sentence."
Garrett closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, a ragged, painful breath escaping his lips. When his gaze lifted back to hers, the vulnerability in his lavender eyes nearly broke her heart.
"What happens if one of you falls asleep?" he whispered, the words sounding entirely hollow.
"Then another one of us takes over," Sydney answered instantly.
Garrett shook his head, a microscopic, desperate movement against the pillow. "That's not what I meant, Sydney."
He didn't have to explain it. Through their Bond, the true shape of his terror hit her like a physical blow. He wasn't afraid of them getting tired. He was terrified of what he would do to her, or to Grey, if he awakened and went walking.
"Then we'll deal with whatever happens," Sydney said, matching his intensity, her eyes unblinking.
"You say that like it's easy," Garrett murmured.
"No," she whispered, leaning down until her forehead pressed gently against his. "I say it like you're worth it."
Deep inside Garrett's heart and soul, Han made his fiery presence known. Even through the Mating Bond, Sydney could feel the Dragon King's exhaustion. After spending so many years inert, Han needed deep, restorative sleep as badly as Garrett did—and neither of them was getting it.
“This foolishness ends now, Lad,” Han rumbled, the Draconic tone vibrating through Garrett’s bones and through the Mating Bond to Sydney with a heavy, irritated weight.
“You know what happens when I sleep, Han,” Garrett argued back mentally, his defenses flaring.
“No,” Han corrected sharply, his golden eyes flashing in the Guardsman’s Mind’s Eye. “We know what might happen. There is a distinct difference.” The Winged Warrior paused, letting the strategic weight of his next words settle into the space. “And we cannot defeat an enemy we refuse to observe.”
Garrett bristled slightly at the word enemy, but he understood the tactical logic immediately.
Han didn't mean an outside threat. He meant the phenomenon itself.
The problem. A Scout didn't run from a blind spot.
He lit it up. By refusing to sleep, Garrett was actively denying them the data they needed to solve the equation.
The soldier in him finally surrendered to the strategy.
Garrett let out a long, slow breath, his rigid shoulders finally sinking an inch into the mattress. "Fine," he whispered aloud to Sydney. "But you change the guard. Now."
Sydney didn't argue. She slipped out from under the heavy blankets, her bare feet silent against the hardwood as she pulled a thick knit sweater over her shoulders. Stepping through the bedroom doorway, she navigated the short hallway until she came upon the heavy wooden chair.
Grey was sitting perfectly straight, a tablet resting against his thigh, his sharp Dragon Shifter eyes instantly locking onto her the second her shadow crossed the threshold.
"He's not sleeping," Grey noted quietly, his voice a low rumble.
"He will now," Sydney replied, stepping into his space. "Go downstairs and get some real rest, Grey. I'm taking over the watch."
Grey frowned, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he looked up at her five-foot-nothing frame. "Syd, Carrick said—"
"I don't care what Carrick said," Sydney interrupted, her White Dragon Magic thrumming with a quiet, dangerous intensity beneath her skin.
She leveled a look that left absolutely no room for debate at her soon-to-be brother-in-law.
"You're exhausted. He's humiliated because you're sitting out here.
And if he tries to leave the room, I can literally throw him through the wall to wake everyone up. Go to bed."
“Okay, so now, you’re gonna play the “Special One’ card?”
“Yes, right now, I am most definitely playing the ‘Special One’ card. Go. to. bed.”
Grey stared at her for two long seconds, evaluating the sheer, unyielding iron in her eyes. A faint, tired smirk touched his lips as he stood up, stretching his massive shoulders. "Fair point. Don't break the furniture."
He padded silently down the stairs, leaving the hallway entirely to her.
Sydney dragged the heavy chair a few inches closer, positioning it right in the doorway.
She sat down, her eyes tracking into the bedroom.
In the far corner of the ceiling, the tiny black lens of the security camera glowed a steady, silent red.
Garrett lay in the center of the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing deliberately slow as he tried to surrender to sleep.
Han was present, tucked deep inside his mind, and every single variable was completely controlled.
The perimeter was secure. All that was left was for her to wait for the dark to move.
It took a long time for the silence to win.
Sydney sat perfectly still in the heavy chair, her eyes never leaving the bed.
She watched Garrett fight his own body with a stubbornness that was agonizing to witness.
Twice, his dark eyelashes fluttered closed, only for his entire frame to go rigid a second later as his military discipline yanked him back to alertness.
She watched the slow, exhausting process of his surrender.
Gradually, the sharp, frantic hammer of his heart slowed down.
His large hand, which had been gripping the edge of the cotton sheet so tightly his knuckles were white, slowly loosened, his fingers unfurling against the mattress.
The hard, defensive line of his jaw finally softened.
And finally, he slept.
Sydney let out a long, shaky breath she hadn't realized she was holding. The bedroom returned to absolute normalcy. The curtains shifted lazily in the soft breeze from the ceiling fan, and the house fell into a deep, comforting quiet. For a long while, absolutely nothing happened.
Sydney actually let out a quiet, self-deprecating chuckle at her own lingering panic.
To keep her mind from inventing monsters in the shadows, she pulled her tablet from her lap and opened a book by her favorite paranormal romance author, C.
D. Gorri. The familiar, comforting rhythm of the story helped anchor her.
Every few minutes, like clockwork, she would look up from the screen, her eyes darting to the corner of the ceiling where the camera’s red light glowed steadily, then back to the quiet form of her Mate. Everything was completely fine.
Then, she glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand.
3:42 AM.