“I said,” he spat into her face, “you’ll keep your goddamn mouth shut.”
Then he threw her.
She hit the floor; her head slammed into the tile with a sickening crack.
Hunter’s breath caught. His vision splintered. A violent jolt, and he was back on the couch. His body trembled, his arms wrapped around a gasping, sweat-drenched Daphne. He shut his eyes tight, holding her as close as human bodies allowed to soothe her, protect her.
And also, fuck this, to try and calm himself. Not only for her, although that alone was enough to make him want to rage, but also because something had been in that memory. Not just a memory; more than a simple nightmare. It was somethingelse,something he’d only sensed in her dream before. Now it was darker. It hadn’t roared to life but had stirred, present and malicious.
And for the first time in his long, nightmare-threaded existence, Hunter knew fear. He was panting like he’d just run a marathon through fire, his heart lodged in his throat.
But all that would have to wait.
He gently brushed sweaty strands of hair from Daphne’s face, his hand trembling more than he liked to admit. “Daphne?” he whispered.
She pressed her face harder against his chest like she wanted to crawl inside him to escape what she’d seen.
“Daphne, sweetheart?” he said again, softer this time. He eased her back enough to see her face. Her eyes were still shut, lashes damp with tears, and skin patched in red.
And something else occurred to him: he had to play this carefully.
He wasn’t supposed to know what happened in her sleep, let alone have been in that room. Seen the blood and the child-sized terror. Dreamverse rules bound him to secrecy about himself.
Fuck the rules all the way to hell.
He swallowed the truth down hard, buried the rage clawing its way up his throat, and forced his voice into something lighter and familiar. “You’re totally awake. That was a conscious person’s sigh.” He drew a long breath in and pulled her back into his arms. “You don’t have to open your eyes. I’ll keep watch until you’re ready.”
Still nothing.
So he stroked her back, her hair, placed an occasional kiss on her head, or cheek, or anywhere he could reach.
And waited.
Until, in the dead of the night, her voice came out.
“He killed her,” she said. “And I had forgotten.” Her voice was laced with frustration. “How stupid is that?”
Hunter bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood. She needed to say all of it. To think it, feel it, get it out, and he wasn’t about to stand in the way with useless platitudes.
“I went to therapy, Hunter. Years.”
“You should totally change your shrink, sweetheart.”
She chuckled, but it twisted into a sob that she smothered immediately. “I stopped seeing her because I was fine. Just fine.”
“Were you, though?”
That made her twitch, the flicker of temper, and Hunter mentally exhaled. She was coming back. “I was as fine as I thought I’d ever be. And I’d made peace with that.”
“Had you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to keep repeating everything?”
“I will until you’re honest. All the way. Not to me. To yourself.”
She pushed on his stomach and sat up, eyes downcast, a frown pulling at her eyebrows. She opened her lips. Closed them. Shook her head slightly. “No,” she said. Then again, with more strength. “No.”
“There you go,” he murmured, bringing her hand to his lips for a soft kiss.
