I was standing in an empty room, and Oliver and Ophelia were walking away from me. I called their names, but no sound came out. I tried to follow, but my feet wouldn’t move. They kept going, getting smaller, disappearing into a darkness I couldn’t reach.
I woke gasping. My shoulder screamed where I’d rolled onto it, and my heart slammed into my ribs.
The bed was warm on either side of me. Oliver’s front pressed into my back, and Ophelia’s fingers were curled loosely over my heart. They were here. They hadn’t left.
But the dream clung to me.
I lay in the dark and listened to them breathe. Oliver’s slow, deep rhythm. Ophelia’s softer cadence. They’d fallen asleep with me every night since my discharge, as if they could protect me from myself by sheer proximity.
They’d given me everything, and what had I given them in return? Warnings. Walls. The constant, exhausting vigilance of a man waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Don’t let me destroy you, I’d said to Oliver before leaving the hospital. I’d meant it honestly. Now, I recognized it for what it was—another form of control. A way to keep them at arm’s length while still keeping them close. A way to make sure that, when this ended, I could tell myself I’d warned them.
Coward.The word surfaced unbidden, and I couldn’t argue with it.
I’d taken a bullet for Oliver. I’d have died for either of them without hesitation. But this—lying here with them, letting them care for me—love me—accepting what they offered without trying to manage or control or protect them from myself—this was harder than any physical sacrifice.
This required something I’d never given anyone.
Trust.
Real trust. Not the calculated risk assessment I’d always substituted for it. Not the measured parceling out of information and access, always holding something back. Real trust meant the terrifying, absolute surrender of letting someone else in—completely, without reservation, without a safety net.
I’d been dominant my entire adult life. Control was my armor. My weapon. My identity.
But lately, the ground had shifted beneath me—a change I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let myself examine too closely.
Not yet.
By the time gray light seeped through the curtains, I’d made a decision. Or rather, the decision had made itself.
Oliver stirred beside me, and his hand slid to my hip in a sleepy, possessive touch.
“You’re awake,” he murmured.
“Yes.”
“Nightmare?”
“Yes.”
He rolled toward me, mindful of my shoulder, and propped himself on one elbow. In the dim light, his face was soft with sleep, his hair disheveled, and his eyes still heavily lidded. But underneath that softness was the sharpness I’d come to know—the operative’s alertness that never fully switched off.
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
He studied me. I watched him assess my expression, my tension, the way I was holding myself. Reading me.
“Something’s different,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Kiernan. What’s going on?”
Ophelia shifted on my other side, making a soft sound as she surfaced from sleep. Her hand slid up my chest, and she pressed her face into my good shoulder.
“It’s too early,” she mumbled. “Go back to sleep.”
