17. Just Dreams
Chapter seventeen
Just Dreams
“Lyra.” The voice feels distant at first. “Lyra.” A hand firmly grips my shoulder. “Lyra. Wake. Up.”
My body shoots upright, a sharp gasp escaping through clenched teeth. My surroundings blur as I scramble to make sense of what is happening.
Where am I? The room. The tavern. The village. Oberon?
He is here, on top of me. His legs straddle my hips, strong hands resting on my shoulders. My breath catches in my throat.
His shirt is gone, revealing every line and sharp edge of his torso. The tattoos I’ve only caught glimpses of before wind up his arms, intricate and dark against his skin. My face flushes hot.
I should look away.
I don’t.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect. The smooth lines of his body, the way his muscles curve and dip down . . . my eyes follow the trail.
Focus, Lyra!
I shake my head hard, banishing the unwelcome thoughts. “Oberon! What the hell are you doing? Get off me!”
Oberon exhales a breath of relief and shifts off me, sitting himself at the edge of the bed. His back is to me now, but I can still see the tension in his shoulders.
My blood boils for reasons I don’t want to unpack.
“You were dreaming,” he says at last. His voice is lower than usual, lacking its signature sharp edge. “It must have been a hell of a nightmare. I could hear you from down the hall.”
I pause.
Is that . . . worry etched into his face when he looks back at me?
No. It can’t be.
“I’m fine.” My voice is hoarse, cracking with the brittle lie.
“You’re not.”
I force myself to look away. “They’re just dreams.”
“Are they?” His voice is quiet, coaxing.
“Dreams don’t leave you gasping like this.”
I swallow hard, pulling my knees to my chest.
“They don’t let go easily,” he continues, settling deeper into the bed. “Memories. They cling to the dark.” Something in his tone makes me glance at him. The candlelight captures the exhaustion carved beneath his eyes.
“You don’t sleep much either?” I murmur.
A faint smile curves his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No. I don’t. Can’t.”
“Why?”
For a moment, he says nothing. His gaze drifts to his hands, fingers resting lightly on his knees, too still. “The memories,” he says at last. “Some things don’t stay buried.”
The words resonate too deeply. I squeeze my eyes shut, looking away. “So, we’re both haunted,” I say, attempting levity. It falls flat.
Oberon doesn’t smile this time. He leans forward, voice dropping. “I’ve learned something about memories.” I don’t respond. “They demand to be seen. No matter how deep you bury them.”
The room feels smaller, as though the walls are closing in. “I don’t want to see them,” I whisper.
“I know.” His voice is impossibly soft. “But they’re still there, aren’t they? Waiting. Hunting you in the dark.”
I press my forehead to my knees. “You don’t understand.”
“I do.” The quiet certainty in his voice startles me. “And I know what happens when you try to face them alone.”
His hand lifts, but he doesn’t touch me. His fingers hover near my shoulder, warm and steady, as if waiting for permission. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says. “But if you don’t let it out, it will keep devouring you.”
Tears sting my eyes. I hate how close his words strike. “They broke me.” The admission tears from me before I can stop it, my voice trembling, barely above a whisper. “Piece by piece. Until I wasn’t me anymore.”
Oberon’s hand settles lightly on my shoulder. The touch is warm and grounding. “They didn’t break you.” His voice is low, sure. “You’re still here. You’re still you.”
There is something in his eyes that makes my chest ache. “You don’t know what they did,” I whisper, pulling my knees in tighter.
“Then tell me.”
I lift my head, finally meeting his gaze. The intensity there, fierce and protective, steals the breath from my lungs. “Why do you care?” I rasp.
“Because I should have been there.” The words break from him, uncontrolled and raw. “Because I was too late. And because you’re here now, and because I will not let you carry this alone.”
The walls inside me that I have carefully built and painfully maintained tremble. “I don’t know how . . .” My voice cracks.
“Then start with one thing.” His thumb brushes my shoulder so gently that it sends a shiver down my spine. “One piece. Let me hold it with you.”
My throat burns. “If I speak it aloud . . . it becomes real again.”
“I’ll make sure it stays only words,” he whispers. “Not chains.”
The quiet promise in his voice undoes me. "They . . . they made me beg." The words shatter as they fall. “I begged them to stop.” My breath hitches, splintering under the weight of the memory.
“But they didn’t. They . . . they wanted it. Wanted to hear my screams. They took pleasure in it.”
The silence afterward is suffocating.
The room seems to shrink, pressing in from all sides. My chest heaves, every breath scraping against a throat still raw from screams long past.
I don’t look at him. I can’t. The memory burns too vividly, cold steel dragging through my skin, blood pooling warm and sticky. Their laughter still rings in my ears.
Movement catches my eye, subtle at first, before the shadows flickering along the walls begin to shift, darkening and twisting. They climb higher, writhing against the stone as though the fury seething beneath Oberon’s skin is unraveling his control over them.
Before I can fully process it, Oberon moves. Not cautiously. Not gently.
In an instant, his arms are around me. No hesitation. No permission. His grip is fierce, as though he can hold my broken pieces together by sheer force alone, sweeping me into his lap, cradling me against his bare chest.
The heat of his skin burns through the cold that has sunk into my bones. Solid. Real. Here.
I freeze, my breath caught in my throat. His scent—earth after rain, cedar, and something darker, wilder—wraps around me. His heartbeat thunders beneath my cheek.
I shatter completely. A sob rips free, a raw, jagged sound, as I lean deeper into his touch, pressing my face to his chest, fingers curling into his back, nails biting at his skin, desperate for something real to hold on to.
The pain in my own body is a distant echo compared to the memories clawing at me like cold steel biting into flesh, the sharp sting of each cut. The heat of blood trickling down, their voices mockingly delighted. They wanted my pain. They fed on it.
Oberon holds me tighter. His arms wrap around me like iron bands, his chest a steady wall against my trembling form. His hand threads into my hair, cradling me closer. No words. Only warmth. Only him.
The sobs rack through my body, uncontrollably, burning my throat with their force. My skin feels too tight, too raw, pressed to his. Every tremor of my body is answered by his steady, grounding weight. His warmth bleeds into me, chasing away the chill of my blood-soaked memories.
“I will kill them.” His voice is a low growl against my ear, feral and unrelenting.
The promise in his tone is absolute. His arms tighten until I can feel his breath, his heartbeat pounding through me.
“They will never touch you again.” His voice cracks with rage barely contained.
“I will hunt them down. Every last one. I will make them pay for every cut, every scream, every moment they stole from you.” His words vibrate through his chest, through me.
I feel his rage, cold and precise, wrapping around the edges of my pain.
The room falls into silence.
My breathing slows, though I still cling to him.
His bare skin is smooth beneath my fingers, his warmth steady and sure.
My cheek rests against the hard lines of his chest, and I feel each breath he takes deep, controlled, anchoring.
The scent of him lingers in the air, mixing with the faint metallic memory of blood.
I don’t know how long we will stay like this. His chin rests atop my head. His hand remains tangled in my hair. Every heartbeat of his echoes into mine.
Eventually, the trembling fades. The nightmare’s grip loosens, leaving exhaustion in its wake.
Slowly, I pull back.
His arms fall away, but not far. His gaze, dark and searching, stays on mine. The space between us feels too wide and too close all at once.
I wipe at my face, fingers brushing away the last of the tears.
My skin still burns from where it was pressed against his.
The chill begins creeping back in as the air cools between us.
“Thank you,” I murmur, my voice soft. I don’t meet his gaze for long.
The walls are rebuilding, piece by careful piece.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” It isn’t a dismissal, but we both know what it means. The moment is over.
Oberon rises without a word. The warmth of him fades with every step he takes toward the door.
When the door clicks shut behind him, the room feels colder. The darkness presses in again, but it doesn’t feel quite so heavy now.