A wounded, guttural roar tears through the dark and yanks me out of my sleep.
My eyes snap open. I sit up fast, sheets rippling around me, heart thundering, breath caught somewhere between panic, dread and instinct.
Another sound follows — softer, but worse. It’s a shattered, helpless whimper that claws at my chest.
I spin toward the noise, and my eyes land on Dominic.
His whole body jerks on the mattress as if something’s inside him, ripping its way out. His face is a mask of torment, twisted and pained.
I reach out, fingers trembling, and touch his shoulder gently. My soul knots.
His chest heaves in short, desperate bursts. He turns his head away, but he doesn't wake. A silent scream splits his mouth open, muscles coiling in his stomach like his insides are being torn apart.
No. No, no.
I shake his shoulder. Just once, but his eyes stay clenched shut, chest stuttering, ribs rising and falling in frantic waves. His back arches.
He stops breathing.
“Dominic,” I call for him in a panic, my fear sharpening into something primal.
But he still doesn’t wake, so I dig my nails into his shoulder and yell this time, voice cracking.
“Dominic, wake up!”
His eyes snap open, and he finally gasps, like he’s surfacing from the bottom of the ocean. One breath. Then another. Then another. He’s soaked in sweat, hair sticking to his forehead, eyes darting from side to side, wild and unfocused.
He bolts upright, and sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head hanging. Breathing like he just ran through hell.
“Dominic…” I whisper.
No response. Just the rise and fall of his shoulders, harsh and uneven.
My chest aches so much, I could scream. Why now? Why did he have a nightmare now? He never had one before.
I raise my hand slowly, as if I’m approaching a wounded animal, and touch his back gently with just a brush of my fingers — right over a scar that spans more than a third of his back.
He freezes under my touch. I wait, heartbeat in my throat, until his whisper breaks the silence a few seconds later.
“Come closer, Adora.”
I move to him, wrapping my arms around his chest from behind. My legs fold around his hips, bracketing his body, trying to protect him from whatever hunted him in his sleep.
I press my cheek to his back, feeling the rising scars underneath the tattoos. I remember when he used to have only one — his club brand. He didn’t really want any more back then, but now his entire body is inked. And there’s one in particular, a vicious snake on his ribs, that I’m too afraid to ask him about. I am sure it’s supposed to be me.
I want to cry but I’m holding the tears back as much as I can. Somehow, even after everything, he doesn’t like to see me cry, and I don’t want to upset him any more right now.
He takes my hand, pulls it to the center of his chest, and holds it there, like a shield. His other hand wraps around my thigh. We stay connected in silence, time slipping away from us as minute after minute melts into the darkness.
His breathing starts to slow, and finally, he speaks. Voice hoarse. Quiet.
“It was just a nightmare.”
Just.
“I… I have a problem with small spaces. That’s why I had the big house in Driftwood.”
There’s something jagged in the way he says it, like he’s still fighting the nightmare.
