Page 13 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

REIKA

If I thought sleeping in the human quarters was hard, sleeping four feet away from Omvar was a challenge my subconscious was too scared to face.

The room felt too small, and too big, both at once. Stone walls pressed in, but there was nothing to anchor myself against, just endless black and the faint, shifting yellow glow of a heat crystal that bled over everything.

It was an alien sort of dark, not the safe blanket of night from home or even the false dusk of Scalvaris's tunnels. This darkness had weight. Mass. It crawled into my chest and sat there like a boulder.

I lay curled on his too-large sleeping platform, every muscle clenched so tight it hurt. The blanket was bunched in my sweaty fists, a silky thing that was almost scratchy but radiated a low heat suffused with his scent.

Metal. Smoke. Sweat. And something deeper, something almost sweet. Not honey. Definitely not blood, though the copper-sharp ghost of it still threaded the air. A tang of sulfur clung to the humidity, coating the back of my throat.

My skin felt sticky. While my muscles screamed for rest, my mind kept gnawing on the question of why the hell I was there.

Omvar was on the floor. He’d made a nest from blankets, as if that made any difference to the way his body took over the room.

I’d tried to insist I could make a pile for myself, that I didn’t need the platform, didn’t deserve it, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He wouldn’t even look at me while he set out the bedding, just kept working silently, his hands steady, as if that could make the world make sense again.

My satchel was out of reach, flung by the door when I’d fumbled inside, half panicked, and still tasting steel and adrenaline from the brisk walk there.

Not that the herbs ever really helped. Nothing did.

My anchor now was this pathetic blanket, my fingers digging grooves into it with sheer force, as if I could hold myself together.

I hated how aware I was of him.

Every time he shifted, the gritty scrape of a claw against stone, or the slow, measured sound of his breathing, another jolt of panic shot through my gut.

Every cell in my body was on high alert.

Yet there was a kind of comfort buried under the fear.

The heat of him, even from across the room, was more real than the artificial warmth of the bedding.

I closed my eyes, desperate for escape, but found no comfort in darkness. Just ghosts. The memory of him covered in blood, the fresh streaks I could still see behind my eyelids.

It wasn’t just that. My mind wandered, unwanted, to the taste of honey on my tongue, the press of his mouth against mine, that desperate, wild kiss in the training caverns. The confusion rose up in me like a fever every time I thought of him.

Monster. Protector. A new hunger as sharp as a knife.

That hunger shamed me. I fought it as hard as I fought the nightmares. Harder, maybe.

I pulled the blanket tighter, balled my fists under my chin, and tried to find somewhere in my body that wasn’t burning or aching or desperate.

If I could just get warm, maybe. If I could trick myself into believing I was safe, even for a little while.

I counted my breaths like they were steps out of hell.

I repeated my makeshift mantra, the one that sometimes helped: You are not broken. You are not broken.

But the words were a lie, as thin as the air. Safety, always a lie.

It was only exhaustion that finally dragged me under. I let go of the world, inch by inch, and sleep took me like a thief.

Night sliced me open.

I dreamed, but the dream was a knife. The world fractured into jagged scenes. Ignarath, all screaming, the red glare of light slashing across the sand. Chains snapping against bone while voices echoed down endless corridors. I couldn’t tell whose screams filled the dark, mine or someone else’s.

I was running, always running, the heat of fire at my back and sharp stones cutting into my soles.

Then, in the nightmare’s ugliness, he appeared.

Sometimes a shape hulking in the shadows, monstrous and nameless, hunger and agony written across a face rimmed with gold. Sometimes he was the only one not baying for my blood, his eyes fixed on mine, his hand outstretched. His claws gleamed, both a warning and a promise.

Omvar was captor and savior. The boundary blurred until it was gone. Was he the one who chased me, or the one who carved a path through the mob to reach me?

Chains and claws, comfort and cage.

Do you trust me? His voice cut through the screaming, fierce and oddly tender, a desperate drum against my bones.

But I couldn’t reach him. No matter how hard I ran, the gap never closed. My throat was raw, words splintering before they could leave my mouth. Darkness closed in, suffocating.

I jerked awake with a scream caught in my throat.

My whole body was shaking, a cold sweat burning my skin while my heart rattled against my ribs like a drum demanding blood.

For a long, blind moment, I had no idea where I was.

The air was thick, humid, the stench of stone and blood heavy.

Honey ghosted the back of my tongue. My chest heaved as I gulped the heavy air, my lungs refusing to calm.

I floundered, legs tangled in the blanket. Panic crashed over me in waves. Not a cage. Not Ignarath. Not …

I blinked, dragging myself back to the room. The dim light flickered against black, sweating walls. A shadow shifted.

Omvar was beside me, not touching, but close. His massive shape was crouched low, as if he was afraid that getting any nearer would shatter me. In the dark, his features were all sharp angles and deep shadows, his gold eyes wide and wild, but so careful as they watched me.

“Wake up,” he said, his voice pitched almost gentle. “You’re in Scalvaris. No harm will come to you.”

He didn’t touch me, and that made it easier to breathe. I stared at him, every muscle ready to snap while he waited, unmoving, as if the wrong gesture might drive me up the walls.

“Nightmare?” His knuckles grazed the edge of the platform, steady as bedrock.

I nodded, choking back the mess of words stuck in my throat. My teeth wanted to chatter, but I wouldn’t let them. I forced my jaw tight, pressing my fingers into the blanket so hard my nails ached. The fear didn’t drain away; it pooled, sour and bright under my skin.

He hovered there, carved from patience and worry. I saw it in the lines of his body, the way he leaned in but pulled back at the same time. His wings were pulled back so tight I almost couldn’t see them.

If the world made any sense, I’d want him gone. I’d want to be alone with my ghosts. But the silence clawed at me, worse than the memory. All the old panic was still there, but loneliness was a deeper ache.

I hated this, hated how swiftly the fear could hollow me out. Yet I hated the silence more. I hated being left alone with the wreckage of my own mind.

He shifted back on his heels, like he was getting ready to go back down to the mess of blankets he was calling a bed.

My voice scraped out, a raw, ugly thing. “Can you … just, don’t go. Please.”

Pathetic. Weak. The words bit at my pride, but I couldn’t take them back.

Omvar’s eyes softened, wary and hopeful in a way that hurt to look at. He shifted his weight, climbed onto the edge of the sleeping platform. He still didn’t touch me, but he was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating from his body.

I could taste his nearness. Spice and salt, sweat and something ancient that wormed under my skin, hungry and deep.

My heart thrummed, uneasy. Not all fear, not quite.

The comfort his presence offered warred with the terror he embodied.

My body reacted anyway, soaking up the heat while my mind screamed caution.

He didn’t try to bridge the gap. He just waited. His breath was a steady tide beside me, dark and rhythmic, the heaviness of it settling my frantic breathing by degrees. The silence stretched, no longer hostile. The nightmares edged away, stubborn as smoke, reluctant but receding.

With him, the dark lost some of its bite. I started to breathe again, small and slow. Each inhale brought more of his scent, less of the phantom blood and fire that haunted my skin.

My body betrayed me. I shifted closer, just enough that my shoulder brushed his.

He froze, his breath caught, as if even acknowledging the contact might ruin everything. But he didn’t move away. He let me set the distance. The message in his stillness was clear: I controlled the edges of this small, dangerous peace.

Warmth gathered behind my eyes. I wanted to curl against him, to be held, to forget everything for a few careless heartbeats. I wanted so much I could barely stand it. I felt small, and sheltered, and on the brink of something terrifying.

Was I safe with him? Or was I just trading one kind of danger for another?

I shut my eyes. Heat, strength, an impossible gentleness.

The memory of his body carried me a few inches farther from the dark.

The bands around my chest loosened. Slowly, I let myself curl toward him.

I felt the shift of the platform, the careful way he adjusted his weight, as if to support me without ever caging me in.

I pressed my forehead to the side of his arm.

The scales were smooth, warm, alive. The world narrowed to the shape of him, the low hum of his breathing, the furnace heat bleeding into my bones.

I felt a vast, impossible arm come around me, cautious, uncertain, and then, when I didn’t jerk away, settle over my shoulders, drawing me in.

I could have cried. I didn’t. I just let myself be held, for once not the only thing standing between me and the dark.

The nightmares didn’t find me again. I drifted down into a silent, dreamless sleep, wrapped in heat and heavy limbs.