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My heart ached at the sound, and without thinking, I turned the doorknob. I knew the door would be open. He hated being confined in a room. It took him months to finally be able to close his door, but he never locked it.
The doors were always partially open, never fully closed.
It gave him a sense of freedom. He needed it. Nikolay craved it.
I walked inside and closed the door behind me. My eyes found Nikolay in the darkness. The small lamp on his nightstand barely cast any light.
Another scream made me flinch, and my eyes blurred with tears at the sight of my man fighting against invisible chains—monsters.
His body thrashed around on his bed, the bedsheet twisted around his ankles as he fought his torturers in his sleep.
“No!” His fingers clawed at his throat, his legs kicking out in desperation. He cried out again. My heart cracked at how raw and painful his cries sounded.
Without thinking, I lurched forward and ran to his side.
The warning bells rang loud in my ears, telling me what a big mistake this was. But I didn’t care.
With a knee on the bed, I leaned over him. My fingers dug into his shoulders as I tried to shake him awake.
“Nik. Nikolay. Nikolay, baby, open your eyes,” I begged, my tears now falling in endless streams down my cheeks. “Lyubov moya.”
His screams turned into an angry growl, and before I could blink, his body moved swiftly and quickly.
I found myself underneath him, his legs straddling my hips with his fingers wrapped around my throat.
Nikolay didn’t give me a chance to speak. His fingers tightened, blocking my air passage as I struggled against his hold. I choked and sputtered, trying to cry out. Desperate for him to hear me and snap out of whatever nightmare he was going through.
My vision blurred with my unshed tears, and finally, his eyes snapped open. He stared at me, looking confused at first.
“It’s…okay. You…are okay. We are okay…it was just…a…nightmare,” I tried to choke out. My hands released his and went around his shoulders. “You…are safe. You are okay.”
My touch was featherlight, a soft touch, a gentle caress as I waited for him to come back fully to his senses.
His gaze moved from my red face to his hand around my neck, and his eyes widened in horror. “Fuck!” he swore, quickly pulling away from me. He rubbed a hand over his face in an agitated manner before leveling me with a glare.
I held my neck and gasped for air, my throat burning so bad I could barely swallow.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me when I am like this?” he snapped, his black eyes looking even darker and more dangerous with his fury. “I could have hurt you! Damn it!”
I rubbed my throat and shook my head. My heart drummed harder like the wings of a caged bird. My voice was suddenly gone, my tears just rolling down my cheeks as I stared at Nikolay.
He looked so angry…and so tortured. His body was covered in sweat, his breathing harsher, and his chest heaved with each labored breath.
He looked like he just escaped hell. In some ways, he just did.
For most of us, when we sleep, we relax and just float away. For Nikolay, the demons hunted him down even in his sleep.
His torturers were long gone but still haunted him. As if they were right here, next to him—hurting him.
It hurt…not because my throat was sore, but I hurt for him. And I just wished he would let me hold him. Just for once. I wanted him to share his pain with me, to let me take some of the burden, but I saw how his expression shuttered when I didn’t answer.
Nikolay retrieved back into himself, his expression turning cold and dark. Vicious. He looked almost frightening. His scars looked more pronounce and deeper, like they were fresh and not fully healed yet.
His eyes were darker, almost looking soulless.
Everyone else would have been scared. I wasn’t.
I welcomed it because I knew, beneath all those scars and the raging façade was a gentle man who once called me Beauty.
“I was trying to wake you up. It was a really bad nightmare,” I said finally. My voice came out croaky and too soft for my own ears. “I was worried you would hurt yourself.”
He scoffed, his gaze quickly going to my neck before meeting mine again. “What are you doing here?” he finally asked, his glare almost causing me to shiver.
Taken aback by the question, I sat up against the headboard and tried to think of an appropriate answer. Whatever I had in mind had just disappeared into thin air. The situation was different now that he just woke up from a nightmare.
He rubbed his head before digging his fingers into his scalp in frustration. His once buzz cut hair has grown a little longer. Enough for him to pull on them.
