Page 34

Jaxon is ignoring my staring, which is good, but that’s probably because he’s looking at my bare legs. His shirt covers my shorts completely and goes to the middle of my thigh. He looks at me with hunger, taking in my pajamas as if they were a ballgown or a pair of fancy underwear. I start brushing my teeth with my toothbrush, which is something I can do instead of staring at him.
Jaxon grabs a blue toothbrush and does the same thing. Even though brushing our teeth together is a boring thing to do, it still makes me feel like we’re getting closer to each other. He turns off the bathroom light and starts taking the extra pillows off the bed and the comforter off the bed after we’re done. I let out a soft sigh as my head hit the pillow. The navy silk sheets were calling my name. When Jaxon turns off the side lamp, the room goes dark.
It’s only 8:00 at night, so I know Jaxon isn’t tired. No matter what, he still gets into bed next to me and pulls me toward him so that my back is against his chest. As he cuddles closer to me, his arm moves toward my waist. He kisses me lightly on the neck. The last thing I hear before I fall asleep in his arms is “I love you.”
I know where I am when I look around. I never thought I’d be back in this dark alley, but here I am, alone in the space behind Nectar Noir, the supernatural bar Felix and Elise took me to weeks ago. The pavement is still wet and full of cracks that seem to go on for miles. The air feels too humid for this time of year.
I try to walk toward the street, but my feet are stuck to the ground by invisible glue. I can’t move my legs no matter how hard I try. I can’t get my legs out of their locked position, so I cry tears of frustration. After five minutes, I give up and look around for someone who can help me.
“Hello? Please help!”
No response. It’s strange that I can hear my own echo, but not any other sounds. There are no cars honking in the distance. No bass from the club next door. Nothing.
I look behind me in the alley, but I can’t see anything with my human eyes. When I turn around, I see the same vampire that attacked me that night. He is grinning at me, and the light from the one streetlamp makes his sharp fangs shine.
He looks just like he did before: pale skin, blood-red eyes, and a big, muscular body. I let out a surprised scream, but he quickly stopped me by grabbing my throat. My screams fade as I struggle to breathe, and my hands uselessly cling to his as I try to get them off my neck.
A punch to his face makes him throw his arms off of me right away. The vampire turns around and sees Jaxon, who is angry and has black eyes. A loud growl comes from the alley and spreads through the city. He’s looking for blood.
The vampire laughs at the pain because he’s a sadistic creep. They fight each other with their hands. It seems like Jaxon is ahead until I hear him groan in pain. I scream and fight to get away from the imaginary binding that is keeping me on the floor. I see the vampire with Jaxon’s bloody heart in his hand. I scream louder than I ever have before as I hit the ground, not caring about the pain in my knees.
My legs are finally free for some reason, and I crawl over to Jaxon, crying and holding his dead body. I hold his t-shirt and put my hand over the spot where his heart used to be. I give the vampire a dirty look because he looks so proud of what he did. He smiles and throws the heart farther down the alley. The blue fog rolling in hides the heart from my view, and all of a sudden I can’t see Jaxon either because there is so much smoke.
“Calla! Get up!”
It sounds like Jaxon, but it can’t be him because he’s right in front of me. The voice comes back, and I look up at the sky in confusion.
“Goddamn it, open your eyes!”
I can’t believe how loud and firm Jaxon’s voice is. My eyes fly open. I can’t see anything; all I can feel is Jaxon shaking me harder. I sit up in bed suddenly and see Jaxon, who is very much alive, looking down at me with concern. He breathes heavily through his nose, and when he sees that I’m awake, he lets out a big sigh of relief.
“Are you okay, baby? You were crying in your sleep, and then you started screaming and wouldn’t wake up! I didn’t know what to do…”
I can feel the tears on my cheeks, and sadly, this feeling is not new. I’ve been having the same kind of nightmare for the past week and reacting the same way to it. But I had never woken up to a living Jaxon before because I was always alone. I throw myself at him and hold on to him for dear life while I cry into his neck. Jaxon easily catches me and rocks me back and forth while gently rubbing my back and scalp. He whispers sweet things in my ear to help me relax.
Eventually, my sniffles and tears stop, but I stay on Jaxon’s lap as my breathing slows. Jaxon kisses my head sometimes, and every time he does, I fall more and more in love with him. He backs up a little after a while and wipes the tears off my cheeks.
“Calla, what happened?” His voice is soft and comforting, like I think an angel’s voice would be, but I still get tense when he says it. When I realize how close we are, I rush to get off his lap. I’m sorry for what I did and embarrassed that I made him worry.
“I’m so sorry! I had a nightmare. I’m sorry I woke you up. I’m so stupid.” I keep saying how sorry I am for bothering him, but he quiets me down with a small kiss on the lips.
“I don’t care that I woke up. I care that you’re this upset. Will you tell me about the nightmare? Talking about it could help you.” His words make sense, but I don’t want to go through the nightmare again.
“I don’t want to talk about it. The same thing happens every time,” I mumble. When Jaxon stiffens, I realize I made a mistake. I just said something stupid that this happens all the time. I should get an award for being so dumb. As expected, Jaxon asks me more questions.
“What do you mean the same thing happens every time? Does this happen a lot?” His voice is tense and angry, but I know he’s not angry at me. But it’s still a little too much when he shows his dominance like this.
He’ll go back to sleep as soon as I tell him what he wants to know. I’ll stay up all night so I don’t wake him up again. To wake myself up, I’ll drink even more coffee in the morning.
“I’ve had the same terrible nightmare every night this week. I can’t sleep because I keep waking up crying,” I say quietly. I hug Jaxon tighter, and he rubs my back to make me feel better.
“That explains why you’ve been so tired and why you have bags under your eyes. What are the dreams about?”
“You.”
Jaxon pulls his head back and puts his hands on my cheeks. With the way he’s looking at me right now, his light blue eyes look more like steel.
“What? Tell me.” I can’t ask him any questions, so I start to tell him about the nightmares.
“I’ve been having these awful dreams about you ever since last week. The first one was when I came here really early in the morning last week. I dreamed that you were killed. Every night after that, you would die in my dreams. You would be stabbed, beheaded, or have your heart ripped out every time you tried to protect me!” I cry into his shoulder, hyperventilating just thinking about him dead.
“There was always this dumb blue fog, and then I would wake up and—”
“What?!” Jaxon’s voice is tense and sounds more like a growl than a scream. I shake just from the power of the one word he says. I look into his eyes, which are getting darker and darker as his wolf instincts kick in. “Did you just say blue fog? It’s there every time?”
I nod my head, not sure why the strange blue fog in my dream is so important. I guess I don’t understand anything because Jaxon easily picks me up and carries me out of his room. As he walks toward a room I don’t know, I wrap my legs around his waist. When he kicks the door open in anger, I start to worry about why he got so angry so quickly. Does he know why these bad dreams keep happening?
Jaxon sits down in a big chair that can turn around and is behind a desk full of papers. He moves me so that I’m sitting sideways on his lap and leaning into his chest. He’s still not wearing a shirt, and I really like that because it lets me snuggle up against his bare chest.
A moment later, movement at the door of the room caught my eye. Ezra looks tough, with messy blonde hair falling in his face. Skyler, on the other hand, looks sleepy, with a wrinkled band t-shirt and boxers on. It looks like they both woke up in the middle of the night. Along with the two of them, Williams follows a redhead I know from dinner. I guess she’s his girlfriend because they’re holding hands. They also seem tired.
Williams skips the small talk and asks right away, “Alpha, what’s wrong?” The four of them look worried. I would be, too, if I woke up in the middle of the night to find an angry Jaxon. He doesn’t just look mad now that I look at him. He looks really angry. His eyes are completely black as he grips them tightly.
“Calla has been having nightmares,” he says, and I try to tell him that it’s not worth waking them up in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t listen. “For the past week, she’s been having dreams about my death in different ways, and all of them have blue fog in them.”
When I say “blue fog,” everyone looks at me with concern. Ezra looks worried, Skyler looks scared, Williams looks sorry for me, and the redhead looks at me with understanding in her eyes. And pity.
Ezra takes charge while everyone else in the room is still in shock and says, “How could this have happened?”
“Why the f**k do you think I know? It’s your job to figure this out! Now! She’s not sleeping as it is!” Jaxon hits his desk so hard that it cracks the wood. The loud bang makes me whimper in surprise.
“Control yourself, Alpha. You’re making your mate scared,” Williams says, pointing to my shaking body in Jaxon’s lap.
Jaxon mutters, “Shit,” as he looks down at my curled-up body. He kisses my forehead a few times and runs a hand down my back to calm me down. I feel better right away when I’m in his arms again. He opens his eyes, and I’m glad to see that they are blue again. He is back in charge.
He takes a deep breath through his nose and relaxes before turning back to the group. “Skyler, you spend the most time with Calla. Is there ever someone at school who seems suspicious and could have done this?”
What could have been done? Did I make my dreams bad? He is clearly talking about something otherworldly that could have changed my dreams in a magical way, but what kind of creature could do that? And why?
Skyler squints his eyes, which is what he does when he needs to focus. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. His eyes get bigger and his jaw drops after a few seconds. “Shit! That motherfucker!” He starts to pace around the room as he thinks more deeply, cursing more than a sailor.