“Good. Now, leave us.” His voice sounded serious, and Marielle didn’t question him. She smiled at me and then left without making any comment on his cold demand.
“Have you slept well?” he asked. Was he really here just to ask about my night? Was that something he actuallycaredabout? I couldn’t remember a single time my mother had asked me how I’d slept. Not even after the nights I woke up crying. Not after the dreams that left me hollow and shaking. She’d never sat at the edge of my bed, never even asked what haunted me. And here he was doing the exact thing I’ve always needed when I was a child.
I swallowed. “I’m fine.”
His gaze didn’t leave me, as if he knew I was lying to his face.
“Don’t hide the thoughts in your beautiful head from me,” hesaid quietly, almost begging, his fingers brushing along my hair. “I’ll ask you again and this time, answer me truthfully. How did you sleep?”
I hesitated, then I murmured, “I had a bad dream. That’s all.” As soon as the truth escaped my lips, I somehow regretted telling him about it. But what was the point in lying? He could read my thoughts if he wanted to.
He stepped closer, his fingers now trailing gently along the lace trim of my nightgown. His touch was barely there, and yet still somehow igniting a fire inside my core. “What was it that you dreamt about?” he asked, as his fingertips brushed against my calf.
I bit the inside of my cheek, unsure how to answer. How do you explain the kind of dreams that make you question reality, that run so deep beneath your skin wanting you to crawl away from your own mind? The kind that clung to your skin long after you wake, painting everything in shades of fear and darkness?
Would he think I was mad? Or worse…would he understand?
“Just take your time,” he murmured. “There is no rush. I’m here for you, whenever you are ready to share your dream with me.”
“On my way here, I came across sirens… they lured me into the lake,” I began, my voice trembling with hesitation, unsure if I should continue. He had told me yesterday that not all sirens were the same, but the memory still clung to me, heavy and vivid. I couldn’t shake the way it had made me feel. Xavier didn’t interrupt. He watched me closely, his gaze soft and steady, urging me to keep going.
“I heard them singing, and then suddenly I was in the water and starting to drown. It… it was a terrible feeling.” He must have noticed that my body had subconsciously tensed up, almost trembling with the intensity of emotions that nightmare had caused. Xavier gently tilted his head back to me and suddenlyembraced me in his arms.
“I couldn’t breathe… there was so much pressure on my lungs.” Tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Shh, it’s okay.” Xavier pulled me even closer to him, his body encasing mine protectively, his hands rubbing over my back.
“So, you were stuck underwater?” he asked, his voice a soft whisper. It was like he dreaded the mere thought of me drowning, although he didn’t even know me then.
“Yes. My lungs were filled with water. In my dream, I was not saved, I was dying,” I hesitantly confessed. Xavier gazed at me so intensely, as if the words awoke something in him. The feeling of suffocating in the water and dying was terrible. Talking about it brought me back to the depths.
His fingers were gently stroking over my hair and back, like I was some breakable treasure to him.
“You said you weren’t saved in your nightmare,” he murmured. “Which means… you were saved outside of your dream?”
I nodded slowly, uncertain. “I know how ridiculous it sounds. But something pulled me from the water. Something alive.”
“An animal?” he asked, his voice hushed, as if already sensing the answer was far from ordinary.
I paused. It wasn’t justsomeanimal. My heart pounded loudly in my chest as I remembered the creature with its shimmering silver-blue scales and the gentle way it watched me.
“Yes,” I finally said. “But not like any animal I’ve ever known. It was a dragon.”
Xavier’s hand stilled on my thigh, his body tensing. He stared at me, searching my expression, weighing the truth of it.
“A dragon,” I clarified. “Slender. Beautiful. Silver and blue… and it didn’t have wings. Only these long, delicate whiskers on his face.”
He exhaled slowly, a strange knowing look settling in his features.
“Those aren’t whiskers,” he said, his voice lower now, laced with reverence. “They are sensory tendrils. Antennas. A water dragon can feel danger long before it arrives. They don’t just see it, they sense it in the water, like a second heartbeat.”
I blinked. “So… it knew I was in danger?”
He nodded, resting his chin gently atop my head, his fingers returning to trace calming circles across my back.
“It didn’t just know,” he said quietly. “It chose to save you.”
The weight of his words sank in slowly.
