Page 99 of Somno Slave

My hand is already moving before I can think, fingers fumbling, knocking against the counter until I find my phone. And then, my eyes snap open. Properly this time.

I scramble, head pounding immediately, my vision blurring as soon as the light floods the room.

I flinch into it, my chest rising and falling like I’m still trying to escape something I can’t see. My gaze drags across the room in quick, jagged movements—corners first, shadows next, the door, the space beside the sofa—

Him. I expect him.

For one fractured, irrational second, I am certain he will be there, waiting, watching me like he never left. But there’s nothing.

My pulse doesn’t slow. I don’t believe it, not fully. Not yet.

I shift slightly, and the movement pulls something low and aching through me. My body responds before I can stop it—heavy, oversensitive, wrong in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.

Used.

The word lands before I can block it.

My thighs press together. They’re soaked. I stare down, frozen, at the undeniable evidence between my legs, at my nakedness.

What the fuck just happened?

A dream.

What else could it be?

A sick, perverted dream that was supposed to be in my head. My breath catches in my throat.

Heat crawls up my neck, shame burning under my skin. My mind is already trying to pull it apart, to rebuild the structure of it into something safe, something explainable—but it keeps slipping. Every time I reach for it, I’m dragged back into the feeling instead.

The weight of him. The certainty of him. And right at the end—that moment.

My breath stutters again as it comes back, uninvited.

I’ll see you in the morning, Doctor.

My stomach clenches so hard it aches, because that, more than anything, didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like certainty. Like a promise already made.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Rheda

I don’t sleep.

Not properly.

I lie here with my eyes closed for long stretches, my body heavy enough to pass for rest, but my mind doesn’t follow. It keeps circling back, replaying, tightening around the same points until they feel worn and sharp all at once.

Every time I shift, the memory moves with me. His voice, quiet in my mind like it belonged there.

You did well.

My throat tightens, the words sitting differently now than they did when he said them. Not praise, not exactly. Something closer to recognition, like he knew what I would do before I did.

My skin feels wrong. Every point of contact lingers—the fabric at my thighs, the pressure of the sofa cushions beneath my back, the place at my throat where I could still swear I feel fingers if I let myself think about it for too long.

I turn onto my side.

Then onto my back again.