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“It was just a dream,” she murmured, darting a glance around the room.

She had a vague memory of crawling into bed half-asleep after dozing in the Charger on the way home from Claymore. With so much left unsaid between them, it wasn’t surprising she’d pulled Jericho into her dreams.

Images of the familiar nightmare clung to her like spider webs. It was the same dream she’d had since she was a child, the one where the rogue chased her and her mother into an alley. Except this time, when the monster’s claws sank into her arm, she’d spun and faced—Jericho.

When he’d looked at her, flames burned in his golden eyes, glazing them with madness. Then he was gone, spinning in a vortex, slipping away. “Help me, Alex.”

Did the dream mean something? She raked the bangs from her forehead with trembling fingers.

It seemed so real.

Her feet hit the ground before she even realized what she was doing.

Wooden flooring creaked beneath her. The harsh shriek amplified in the silence, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Terror nipped at her heels as she dashed down the hall and slipped into Jericho’s room.

Moonlight poured through a gap in the draperies. Shadows slashed the walls of the darkened space. As her eyes adjusted, she crept toward the massive bed. All she needed was to see the steady rise and fall of his chest. Then she could go back to sleep. She held her breath and leaned in.

Just a little close—

His hand shot out and clamped around her throat, trapping her scream.

Her body was hurled, twisted, and slammed into the mattress. Jericho’s heavy weight pressed between her thighs.

“Alex?”

Horror blazed through their connection, and he jerked his hand from her neck.

She gulped oxygen, adrenaline spiking her veins.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded in a shaky voice. His hands did a frantic search of her frame, checking for injuries.

Embarrassment washed away her shock. Her cheeks heated. Only someone with a death wish would sneak up on a sleeping vampire.

“I had a bad dream. You were hurt. I just wanted to check on you.” Her confession scraped through her throat with a hoarse croak.

“Gods, Alex. I could have killed you.” He grazed his fingers over her neck, and she winced. “What were you thinking?”

Alex shrank a little inside. There really hadn’t been a lot of thought involved in this brilliant plan.

“I know. I’m sorry. That was stupid.” She shivered, trembling in the aftermath of the adrenaline rush. The muscles in her thighs quivered where she’d braced them against his hips.

Jericho stiffened, his expression tortured. “Sweet mother of Hades.” He lurched from the cradle of her hips, shifted to his side, and dragged the sheet to his waist.

Yep. That confirmed it. Like Liam, Jericho slept in the nude. She refused to think further about how she’d stumbled past Liam’s bedroom at 3:00 a.m. and discovered that disturbing little factoid.

Fire blazed across her chest, taking her embarrassment to a ten on the blotchy-leper scale. She covered her face with her hands.

“Are you okay?” He pulled her wrists down with one hand. The connection they shared flooded her system, familiar and soothing.

A stronger woman would say yes and bail.

Whoever that woman was, more power to her because it sure wasn’t Alex.

Jericho’s unbound hair lay loose over his shoulders. When he released her, she reached for a strand, letting it slide through her fingers. The mattress beneath her was still warm from his body heat. His sandalwood fragrance wrapped around her.

“Do you want to tell me about your dream?” he asked in a strained voice.

“It was the same dream I’ve had for years, only this time…you were there. Your eyes were streaked with red.” She raised her fingers to trace the shape of his brow. “I could sense you, feel you pulsing through me. But you seemed different, darker, out of control. You needed me, but I couldn’t reach you.” She slid her fingertips over his cheekbone and down along his jaw, lost in the memory of the nightmare.