My eyes snapped open as someone shook me awake. I lay on my side, desperately sucking in heaving breaths, and my cheeks felt wet?
Edwin wiped my cheeks with a thumb, blue eyes on mine as if trying to divine whether I was truly awake or not. He also looked wide eyed, alarmed, and—fuck, this was the first nightmare he’d witnessed. I’d wondered a few times what my nightmares looked like from the outside.
Fucking terrifying, apparently.
“Was I crying?” It felt strange to ask the question, but all I remembered was dreaming a memory I’d do anything to forget.
“Yes.” Edwin cradled my face with his hand, brows compressed into a single line of worry. He hadn’t even put his glasses on, so I had an unobscured view of his eyes, and they were red rimmed. As if my nightmare was contagious and had scared him, too. “You cried and spoke my name multiple times. I could tell the nightmare was a terrible one.”
I turned my face into his hand, covering it with my own, and breathed in his scent. Such a relief to have him here, with me, when awakening from that awful dream. It made the pain so much more bearable.
“You’re dreaming of your first life, aren’t you.”
It wasn’t a question, he clearly knew. I gave a shallow nod.
“Specifically of the night I died?”
“That’s the memory that features the most prominently.” Nothing else I had survived had been worse than that night. Why my subconscious chose to torture me, who knew, but it wasn’t nice at all.
“Was the nightmare because of our discussion?”
I could tell he blamed himself. Luckily, I could answer him honestly. “No. Talking about it doesn’t always trigger a nightmare.”
In fact, being away from Edwin was the only sure trigger. I wasn’t sure about other reasons, as I wasn’t tracking the nightmares carefully enough to figure it out. Rather, I just kept hoping they’d stop. Actually, I’d been around Edwin most of today; I shouldn’t be suffering from night terrors right now. Or had the fear that I might have to let go of him, again, been enough to sink me into the dreadful landscape of fears and memories?
That felt like the right answer. Just the concept of being separated from Edwin again was enough to still my beating heart.
Edwin’s eyes searched mine and he spoke slowly, putting one word in front of another. “James…tell me if I’m wrong, but I have the gut feeling that if I’m away from you for more than a day, you always have this nightmare. The few times we were busy on different things and I hadn’t seen you for a day, you always looked dead on your feet the next morning.”
So observant, my Edwin. I considered it a blessing because it saved me from trying to explain things without feeling stupid. “Days I’m away from you are harder.”
“So I’m right. Shit.” Edwin pulled me more snugly against his chest and smoothed a hand up and down my spine. “Does sleeping next to me help?”
“So much. You’ve no idea. This is the first time I’ve ever had the dream while with you.”
“And likely the dream’s brought about because of the stress of the situation you’re in now,” Edwin muttered, almost rhetorically, as if speaking more to himself. “Because you’re afraid of losing me again. I’m almost sorry I brought it up now.”
“You’re right, though. Ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.”
“Still, I hate triggering your bad memories. What can I do? There must be something I can do to help you through this.”
I snuggled into him more. I could hear the frustration and concern in his voice, knew he worried about me, but I didn’t know the magical answer either. I could only tell him what I yearned for the most. “Stay with me. Just stay with me, Edwin.”
His arms were strong as he held me to him. “I’ll do that. No matter what happens,” he said softly.
Tonight, his promise was enough.
Edwin
James’s nightmare—memory, really—had been bad enough he hadn’t wanted to go back to sleep. I understood in a sense; I never wanted to go back to sleep after a nightmare either. Fear of being sucked back in often kept me awake until I fell into a fitfuldose. Still, I knew James had a full schedule he must be awake and alert for, so I’d insisted he try.
In the end, I’d pulled my book out from my bag and read to him. James insisted it would be the only thing that could possibly get him back to sleep. Turned out, he was right. In three pages, he was once again passed out.
Thankfully, he slept peacefully at my side until daylight woke us up.
James seemed a bit off this morning over breakfast, so I kept my promise to stay with him by following him out to the training yard. I had no intention of picking up a weapon—that would only lead to an injury, likely mine—but I sat off to the side on a bench and watched him tear up training equipment.
His strength never ceased to amaze me. He could slice right through the training posts, and those weren’t dainty little things, either. When he sparred with one of the knights, the knights were hard-pressed to fight back. James was one of those disgustingly natural athletes who made the rest of us look bad even when we were trying.
