Page 16 of Saving Her Dragon

His gaze lifted slowly. His eyes were so heavy and dark. All she wanted to do was bring back the happy sparkle she’d seen earlier. "It's sleepwalking," she said, her voice dropping into a firm, no-nonsense register. Injecting as much casual certainty into her tone as she could muster, she kept right on going, "People do it all the time. Especially after extreme stress or trauma. Alex, one of the young Guardsmen my dad was training, used to walk into the kitchen, rearrange the spice rack, and answer full questions while totally dead to the world. It was weird, but it happened, and I teased him about it all the time."

She didn’t actually know if sleepwalkers could look you dead in the eye and hold a perfectly lucid conversation, and honestly, she didn't care. Her only mission was to melt the ice in her Dragon’s eyes.

Garrett swallowed hard, his jaw tight beneath her palms. "I... I looked right at you?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

"And you couldn't tell I wasn't awake?"

The question hit Sydney like a punch to the chest. She didn't let her face show it. She did everything in her power, and some of Kara’s, to keep her expression exactly the same.

But a tiny, uncomfortable splinter lodged deep in her heart.

The truth was... no. She couldn't tell he was asleep. He hadn't been clumsy. His voice hadn't been a robotic drone. He had looked at her with the exact same warmth he always did.

But she wasn't ready to examine that nightmare yet. So she hurried on…

"You just looked sleepy," she said because it was pretty much the truth. Offering a small, reassuring smile, she chuckled, "Like you were half-baked from workin’ in the sun and exhausted. That's all."

Garrett closed his eyes. Leaning his forehead against hers, he let out a long, ragged breath that trembled against her skin. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I scared you, Syd."

Sydney’s worry instantly flared into sharp, irritated heat. Not at him. Never at him. But at the fact that he felt the need to carry the blame for things beyond his control.

Dropping her hands from his jaw, she smacked his shoulder. "Hey! You do not apologize to me for something you did while completely unconscious, Dragon Man."

He blinked, obviously caught off guard by the sudden shift in her energy. She thought about explaining or apologizing herself, but then he started talking.

"Sydney, I literally wandered into the yard…"

Pointing a stern finger directly at his nose, with Kara’s image superimposed over her own in protective irritation, she snapped, "Don't care. Unconscious. No apologies allowed. Do not make me get Kara more involved in this than she already is."

“Too late,” a dry, amused voice flew from her own lips. "Y’all know I am never far away, so when I heard 'Dragon Man' and 'apology,' I jumped to attention.”

“She did,” Sydney confirmed with a nod.

“If we're staging an intervention because Garrett is being a stubborn martyr,” Kara continued. “I have a flame with his name on it."

Garrett actually managed a faint, genuine chuckle, rubbing his chest. "Good morning to you too, Kara."

"Morning, sleepwalker," Kara teased, then retreated to the back of Sydney’s consciousness.

Thankfully, the brief burst of family humor successfully broke the heavy tension, but as Sydney stood up to get dressed, Garrett went quiet. She knew that quiet. He was going inward. Reaching back into the vast, complex spaces of his own mind to speak to the other half of his soul.

It made her heart proud when he didn’t block the conversation from her and talked freely with the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul.

“Han,” Garrett mentally called. “Did you know?”

Inside their shared consciousness, the Dragon King stirred. Han was usually a presence of absolute, radiating heat and ancient confidence; however, in that moment, the Dragon’s voice was unusually subdued.

“No,” he slowly admitted, a deep, rumbling tone of frustration vibrating through the Mating bond.

“Nothing?” Garrett pushed, a spike of anxiety returning to his tone. “You didn't feel me move?”

“I remember us going to sleep,” Han replied, shifting uncomfortably within Garrett's psyche. “I remember you getting water. But after that... there’s a void. No warning. No impression of the open air. No sense of you walking.”

The Dragon King paused, and through her Bond with Garrett, Sydney could feel the heavy, protective weight of Han’s confusion. It bothered the Dragon King deeply. His awareness was supposed to be absolute, especially when guarding their Mate.

“Our Bond is still fractured and healing, Garrett,” Han reasoned, trying to smooth over the rough edges of his own concern. “For years, I stayed buried deep within your mind. I was locked in hibernation to keep all our secrets, and those of Dragonkin, safe. When you sleep deeply now, it appears my consciousness sinks into that same heavy torpor. We both went offline. It is a logical conclusion.”