I DREAM I’m with Raffe again.
The surroundings look familiar. We’re in the guest cottage that Raffe and I slept in the night we left the office. It’s the night I learned his name, the night he went from prisoner to partner, and the night he held me in his arms as I shivered in a nightmare.
The tat-tat of the rain against the windows fills the cabin.
I look down at my then-self who is asleep on the couch under a thin blanket.
Raffe lies on the other sofa, watching me. His muscular body stretches languidly across the cushions. His dark blue eyes swirl with thoughts I can’t hear. It’s as if the sword became self-conscious after telling me so much about Raffe, and now it’s keeping his thoughts hidden. Maybe I pushed too hard when I asked about that kiss.
There’s a softness to Raffe’s look that I’ve never seen before. It’s not that I see naked longing or tender love or anything like that. And if I did, it would just be in my messed-up fantasies.
Not that I fantasize about him.
It’s more the way a tough guy who doesn’t like cats might look at a kitten and notice for the first time that it can be kind of cute. Sort of a reluctant, private acknowledgment that maybe cats aren’t all bad.
The unguarded moment is gone in a heartbeat. Raffe’s eyes shift to look toward the hallway. He hears something.
He tenses.
I wait, straining to see.
Two sets of red eyes get larger as they creep closer, silent as death. They peer into the living room from the darkness of the hallway, watching me.
Whoa. Why didn’t I know about this?
In a flash, Raffe is up and running, grabbing his sword on his way to the hall.
The hellion shadows leap and bound back toward the bedroom, absolute black against dark gray. They dive through the open door where cold air flows out like a river.
Raffe and the creatures drop into slow-mo as they race for the broken window beside the bed. The rain sheets in through the gaping shards as the curtains dance in the wind in slow motion.
I know I’m supposed to copy Raffe’s movements as he attacks but I’m too busy watching what’s happening. The creatures are running, not attacking.
Were they spying on him? Are they going back for reinforcements?
The hellions would have made it out the window if the first hadn’t shoved the second out of the way into the curtains, causing the second to grab the first in its panic.
As they jockey for position, Raffe slices through the one jumping out the window, cutting it almost in half. Then he cuts the second one, slicing its throat.
Raffe looks out the window, making sure these two are the only hellions.
He staggers onto the bed and winces in pain, bending over to catch his breath. The bandages on his back bloom with dark blood stains where his wings used to be.
He had only just awakened from his healing sleep a few hours before and this has been his third fight since then. Once with me, once with the street gang that broke into our office building, and now with these creepy things. I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for him. It’s one thing to be cut off from your pack and surrounded by enemies, but to be gravely injured on top of that must be the loneliest feeling in the world.
He wipes his blade on the bedding, lovingly polishing it with the sheet. The creatures finally end their death throes as he leaves.
Amazingly, I’m still asleep back in the living room. Of course, I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in days and I was practically unconscious from exhaustion. My body is shivering on the couch. The cold seeped in while the bedroom door was open.
Raffe pauses and leans against the sofa, catching his breath.
I whimper in my sleep, trembling below him.
What’s he thinking?
That if any of the hellions are watching, it won’t make a difference whether we lie on different couches or the same one? Or that I’m already doomed because I’ve been in his company for too long?
I whimper again, pulling my knees to my chest under the thin blanket.
He leans over and whispers, “Hush. Shhh.”
Maybe he just needs to feel the warmth of another living being after going through such a traumatic amputation. Maybe he’s too exhausted to care if I’m a Daughter of Man, as weird and barbaric as the Watchers’ wives.
Whatever the reason, he reluctantly pulls the cushions from the back of my couch. He pauses, looking like he’s about to change his mind.
Then he slides in behind me.
At first, his hold is stiff and uncomfortable. But as he begins to relax, the tension in his face eases.
He strokes my hair and whispers, “Shhh.”
Whatever comfort he’s giving me, I’m giving at least that much back just by being a warm body for him to hold at a time when he needs it most.
I snuggle closer to him in my sleep and my whimpering subsides to a contented sigh. It almost hurts to see Raffe closing his eyes and holding me the way a kid might hold a stuffed animal for comfort.
I reach out my phantom hand to stroke his face. But of course, I can’t feel him. I can only feel what the sword remembers.
I run my hand along the lines of his neck and the muscles of his shoulder, anyway.
Imagining the smooth warmth of him.
Remembering the feeling of being held in his arms.