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I spat into it, then pushed myself to the side so I could fully lean into Taavi’s body, letting him cradle me as I closed my eyes and rested.

I didn’t want to have to tell him what I saw. I knew I probably would, anyway.

“Better?” he asked me softly, and I nodded. “Should I get you some water?” I nodded again, even though I didn’t want him to leave. “Are you going to need that?” he asked when I finally pulled back, his hand gesturing toward the rancid trash bin. I shook my head.

He kissed my sweaty hair, then stood. “Go back to bed, then. I’ll clean up.”

“Taav—”

“Go back to bed, Val. I’ll bring you some water.”

I obeyed, not having enough strength to argue with him.

He wasn’t gone long, although my tears had soaked a wet spot into his pillow by the time he got back. I hadn’t managed to get all the way across the bed to where I’d been sleeping.

Taavi didn’t say anything about that. He crouched by the side of the bed and held out a travel mug that clinked faintly—ice water—which he coaxed me to drink a few sips from before he set it on the bedside table.

He climbed into bed, moving around and over my legs, and snuggled up against my back. I pulled one arm around to my chest, and I felt his cheek against my shoulder blade. “Do you want to tell me?” he asked softly, and I could feel the warm spot of his breath against my sweat-chilled back.

“No. Yes.”

Nobodywantsto tell their boyfriend about the hanging body of their best friend swinging from a beam, opening his eyes, and gurgling out curses through a dribbling mouthful of blood—yeah, I know that doesn’t make any sense because he didn’t choke to death on his own blood, but this is my fucking psychotic subconscious here, and it isn’t exactly bound by the rules of nature. I didn’t want to tell him how when I turned around the room was impossibly long, beam after beam, and Gregory was hanging on the next one. And then the wolf shifter from the warehouse on the south side of the James River. Then another shifter and another, and I kept running because I knew who would be the last, and I had to try to make it before I found him—Taavi—dead.

I’d failed.

Again.

Because I always failed to keep him safe in my nightmares. Ever since I’d met him, he’d been in them, skinned or bled out or rotted or shot or—now—hung. Sometimes in dog form, like the first time, and more often, now, as his human self.

It didn’t matter.

Every fucking time my heart cracked open.

Goddamn subconscious brain.

And yes, I fucking get it, my brain is clearly terrified of losing Taavi. But I don’t need goddamn nightmare torture to know that. It’s something I fucking think about every goddamn day, especially when I’m staring down the barrel of yet another group of murderous assholes targeting shifters.

Fucking hell.

I was getting seriously fucking sick of this shit.

I didn’t want to tell him any of it—I did anyway, because I couldn’t help myself around Taavi. And he did what he always does when the nightmares strip away every shred of self-respect I have—he listened, the fingers of one hand gently brushing through my hair, the other wrapped around me. The words tumbled out, not always making sense, but that never bothered him. He let me purge them, as though the words themselves could chase away the poison of the memories that brought on the nightmares.

It helped for a while. Unless something else gave me sufficient nightmare fodder to start the whole fucking thing all over again.

When I stopped talking, he pressed a kiss to my spine through my sweat-soaked t-shirt.

“Val—”

Then he paused, and that made me nervous, because this was new.

Maybe he’d finally had enough of my bullshit. Enough of being awakened at two or three or four in the morning to deal with the fact that I was an emotionally stunted disaster area.

But the fingers kept soothing, and he didn’t move to take his arm back from around my torso.

I didn’t know what to say—or even if Icouldmanage to say anything—so I just waited.

“Would you… would you talk to someone about this?” he asked me, finally.