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I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all.
It fully fades.
I blink.
His eyes are still closed, scales flickering orange in the light of the firefern and the dawn light creeping through the entrance to the shelter. He has short, white eyelashes that make him look like an angel when he’s sleeping—I’ve never noticed before, since I’m usually sucked in by those inky black eyes.
I take a shuddering breath, but it doesn’t wake him up. One of his legs is tucked between my thighs, Taraven’s tail over us both.
Taraven’s hands slide over my hip and his lips brush against my neck.
“You’re okay,” he says in English.
I turn to look over my shoulder at him, struggling to calm myself down. I’m never like this. I’m always cool, collected.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Sorry,” I say. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“I was already awake,” he whispers. “I felt your heart rate increase, but I’m told it doesn’t help to wake someone from a nightmare.”
“It wasn’t a nightmare,” I say. “It was…it was a memory, I think.”
“Memories can be nightmares,” Taraven murmurs.
“Not this one,” I say. “Can we…”
I glance over at Malix and Taraven tilts his head in acknowledgement before silently getting up. I follow, extracting myself from Malix’s embrace as quiet as I can.
I want him to get enough sleep. We kept each other up most of the night, after all.
Taraven ties his pants around his hips and I pull a tank top and underwear out of my bag to step into them. There’s no one around—and my shyness from before has evaporated after everything we did last night—but I want to make sure I’m ready to go in case something happens. I think we’re safe here, but it never feels like we’re all that safe anywhere.
Taraven takes me by the hand and we walk out onto the beach, the sun rising to our right. I can’t see anything for miles around—just the dual-colored lakes, shining and glossy like 3D glasses. Taraven takes a seat where he was last night before everything changed, and I join him.
The dissonance almost sends me spiraling into another panic attack.
“Fuck,” I groan, rubbing the heels of my hands against my closed eyes. It’s a mistake; the minute the pressure hits, I see the skull over Malix’s face again, and I open my eyes to stare in the direction of the sun.
Taraven’s hand falls to my knee, squeezing gently. “I’m not going to ask you what’s wrong,” he says.
“Good,” I mutter.
“But if you want to tell me—or if youneedto tell me—you should.”
“Honestly?” I say. “I just…I’ve been convinced something terrible is going to happen, and now it finally seems real. I can’t just keep these things at bay. Not anymore.”
“We will all be fine,” Taraven says. He sounds supremely confident. I don’t feel the same way. “We would not find each other just to be torn apart.”
I wind my fingers through his and squeeze his hand, running my thumb over the smattering of scales on his wrist.
“How can you think that when you’ve watched so many bad things happen?” I ask. “Your planet, this war…it’s all just rushing toward us and I don’t feel like I have any control.”
“We are theonly oneswho can act,” he says. “Isn’t there power in that? Being able to do something when most have to stand by and wait?”
“Maybe I don’t want to be the hero,” I mutter.
“And yet, you are,” he says. “And you’re not alone.”
