“What?”
“I’m scared,” he repeats, softer this time. “Seeing you passed out on the floor scared the hell out of me. Realizing you’ve been dealing with this by yourself while I stood there thinking you were just being stubborn scared me.” His jaw tightens. “I’m not looking at you like you’re fragile, Wren. I’m in awe of your strength and frustrated as all hell.”
I open my mouth. Close it. I don’t know what to do with that kind of honesty.
Talon’s voice gentles even more. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you worrying.”
Talon exhales, and the sound is so fond and frustrated at the same time that my face heats all over again.
“My stubborn Wren,” he murmurs.
That should not make my chest ache the way it does.
“I mean it,” I say, but the fight has gone out of my voice. “You already do too much for me. I didn’t want this turning into another thing you felt like you had to fix.”
Something in Talon’s face softens.
He steps closer, slowly enough that I can move away if I want to. I don’t.
“I don’t need to fix you,” he says. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
He lifts one hand and cups my cheek. “If something’s hurting you, I want to know about it. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and that’s what this means.”
The words crack something open in me.
I look down because suddenly I can’t breathe right. My eyes sting. My throat feels too tight, my chest too full. Talon’s thumb brushes under my eye before the tears can even fall.
“What happens in the dreams?” he asks quietly.
I swallow hard. I don’t want to answer. I want to lie. I want to shrug it off and say it’s not that bad and make some joke until he laughs and this all disappears. I’m too tired to keep carrying it, and Talon is standing there looking at me like the truth won’t scare him away.
“It’s always him,” I whisper.
Talon doesn’t interrupt.
“Sometimes it’s memories. Sometimes it’s not.” My fingers twist in the hem of my shirt. “Sometimes I’m back in Fae lands. Sometimes I’m here and everything seems normal until I turn around and he’s there. In the bakery. In the apartment. Outside the bedroom door.” My voice starts shaking and I press my lips together hard enough to hurt. “Sometimes I wake up before he can touch me.” Those are the good nights.
Silence. I stare at the floorboards, at the scuff mark by the dresser, at anything except Talon’s face.
“Sometimes I don’t,” I finish.
The words drop between us like stones.
Talon goes so still it scares me enough to look up. Rage burns in his expression. It’s there and gone in a flash, swallowed downso quickly I almost think I imagined it. Not pity, thank fuck. Not revulsion. Fury on my behalf.
I don’t know why that makes me want to cry harder, but it does.
“Okay,” he says, his voice so controlled.
A watery laugh slips out of me. “That’s all?”
“No.” His hand slides to the back of my neck. He’s grounding me and I lean in. “That’s just all I can say without promising several felonies.”
I laugh for real, but it lasts all of two seconds before my mouth starts trembling.
