Page 23 of Somno Slave

I try to roll onto my front for an escape. My body refuses, just enough to humiliate me. I manage a weak shift of my shoulder and nothing more.

His attention continues to hold me hostage, and it burns with a heat. I hate that my sleep shirt suddenly feels more decorative than useful, that my duvet feels more like a weight holding me down.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

If I don’t see him, he’s not real.

It’s ridiculous, a sharp childish response and—

Something brushes the ends of my hair.

My breath changes. I don’t do it. It stutters, then slows. Drawn out, forced deeper, like something is testing how much air I’ll take before panic takes over.

I bite down hard, trying to ground myself in pain, but the hand moves again. It traces the ends of my hair where it spills across the pillow.

I force the word out, rough and barely audible. “Stop.”

The touch stills. For one bright second, relief rushes through me so fast it makes me dizzy. Then the mattress shifts once more. He leans in. I feel it before any part of him makes contact: the slow, awful certainty that his face is near level with mine, close enough that if I were to turn my head even slightly, I might find him there.

“Rheda.” He doesn’t speak, the word just...appears fully formed in the back of my mind, low and velvety.

I still so completely that for a moment I cease to feel like a body at all.

Wake up.I beg.Wake the fuck up.

But it doesn’t work.

My heart is pounding so violently now it has become difficult to tell what I’m hearing, my own pulse or the subtle shifting of the bed, but I still feel him—feel the exact point where he’s focused, where his attention sits like weight against my skin. The hand returns. It hovers just above my wrist where it lies on the mattress. I keep perfectly still, like that might make him lose interest but it doesn’t work.

A finger traces the inside of it with impossible care.

The moment he touches me, something misfires. My thighs tense like I’m bracing for impact.

I don’t understand the reaction, and it makes it worse.

The finger moves higher, following the line of my forearm.

“Stop.” My voice cracks.

The hand finally withdraws. My skin burns where he was.

The air near my neck shifts.

He’s closer.

My throat tightens.

His finger traces just above my skin instead. It follows the line of my throat without quite landing. I press my tongue hard to the roof of my mouth, grounding myself.

“Stop,” I manage again. “Stop!”

His thumb presses beneath my jaw and the rest of his hand follows, curling around my throat.

My chin lifts before I can stop it. It lands like a blow to the chest.

No.

No, I didn’t do that.