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“You made this very, very necessary.” His fingers brush my shoulder.

I start screaming.

“Sienna!”

The voice ripped through the darkness, and my eyes flew open.

Sterling was leaning over me with mussed hair and a bare chest that rose and fell in sharp breaths. He looked wild in the dim light of the lamp he must have turned on. His pupils were blown wide, and his jaw was tight with what looked like real fear.

“Sienna, look at me,” he said frantically, his hands cradling my face. “Baby, wake up. Come back to me.”

I couldn’t breathe, though. The forest was still closing in. His fingers were still on my shoulder. David’s voice was still echoing through the trees.

“Sienna,” Sterling whispered, gently but urgently.

A broken sound tore out of my throat, and before I could stop myself, I was grabbing at his shoulders, desperately dragging him closer because I needed something solid, something alive…something that wasn’t the nightmare I’d just been running from.

He didn’t hesitate.

His arms closed around me in one fierce pull, hauling me straight against the hard heat of his bare chest. My forehead hit his collarbone, and I gulped in his scent. It flooded my senses, shattering the terror clinging to my ribs.

“It’s okay,” he said into my hair. “You’re safe. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

His words shattered the last of my control, and the sob that escaped me opened the floodgates. I tucked my face into the warmth of his chest, gripping him like I’d drown without the strength of his body wrapped around mine.

His hands tangled in my hair, and he started rocking me in a gentle and protective motion that undid me all over again. The steady thud of his heartbeat pressed under my cheek, and little by little, my body tried to match it.

“Breathe, baby,” he murmured as he brushed his lips across the top of my head. “I’ve got you. Nothing’s going to touch you here. Nothing.”

He shifted then, guiding us both down onto the mattress with a careful strength. The sheets warmed around us as his body curled protectively along mine. One arm wrapped around my waist, the other tucked beneath my head, keeping me against his chest.

I melted into him like he was the safe place to land I’d been searching for my whole life.

His breath drifted against my temple, and the steady lift of his chest beneath my cheek eased into every place fear had carved open.

“I know he’s not here,” I choked out, the words snared in tears. “I know it. But my mind…it won’t believe me. It keeps going back. I can’t make it stop.”

His hold tightened around me. “You’re not alone anymore,” Sterling murmured. “Let it run its course. I’ll keep holding you until it has nothing left to take. You’re safe with me. Your mind will catch up.”

A shudder left my body, my fingers curling into his forearm like I needed proof he was real. The fear still flickered inside me, but it was losing its fangs, softened under the weight of his chest at my back and the heat of his breath at my ear.

“I don’t…I don’t know how to let someone do that,” I whispered, the words small and cracked, pulled from a place I never let anyone see.

“You just did.” He brushed his cheek against my temple in a tender sweep. “You’re doing it right now.”

Something in me gave a little, imperfect and hesitant, but it was enough for my breath to settle into a rhythm that didn’t ache.

He reached back and turned off the lamp so that the only light in the room was from the moonglow spilling from the window.

But the darkness was no longer hunting me. It couldn’t be with his arm around my waist.

My eyes drifted shut as I let the safety of his body fold over mine. “Don’t let go,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.

“I won’t,” he answered, his arm drawing me closer as if the promise lived in him already.

With his breath warm against my skin and his body curved around me like a shield, I felt sleep pull me under.

And this time…there were no bad dreams.