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Sherrod

I was silently berating myself as I played the first hand with Zephyr at the table.

I’d been reckless revealing how attracted I was to her.

I needed to remain neutral in that regard; tease out the possibility that she might grace some of these assholes her attentions.

It was a game, one that I usually didn’t mind playing.

But tonight, it made me sick to watch all of them stare at her like she was a damned sex toy and nothing else.

In addition to my innate drive to protect her was the caveman-like instinct to claim her, to growl at every one of them that she was mine and they needed to back the fuck off.

Zephyr wasn’t mine though. Maybe Daisy had been, but she’d made it clear that she wasn’t that girl anymore and the only thing she’d wanted now was friendship.

I didn’t think I could hate a word so much.

I managed to make it through four hands without losing too much money, especially compared to everyone else at the table. It was almost comical to see how much Zephyr had made these hardened, supposedly frightening mobsters her bitches at the poker table.

In spite of the raging lust burning a path through me, I was mesmerized as I watched her mind work, her beautiful eyes danced as she played the people around the table instead of just her cards.

When I’d known her, Zephyr wouldn’t have had the confidence to command this table.

But now she was manipulating each of them with the deftness of a master.

She even had me in the palm of her hand; though in reality, all she had to do that was exist to accomplish that.

By the time she’d raked in about twenty grand in credits, everyone had realized that they needed to take her seriously. But she claimed she was bored and asked Zelena to escort her out.

Bryson tried to stop her, and I had to restrain myself from punching him when he put his hands on her. Zelena drew soothing circles on my shoulder, a good reminder that I needed these men to salivate all over her.

Every syndicate was represented here, except for Krynn. It was a statement, one that I know Bryson saw and didn’t like, if his frown every time the door opened and someone not wearing Krynn red came in.

Once Zephyr and Zelena were gone, it took all of ten minutes for the conversation to turn to sponsoring her.

I’d thought it would be Bryson who would approach it first, but instead it was a Talosian from the Reynolds syndicate.

I vaguely recognized him as one of the lieutenants of the old man who used to run that syndicate.

“So, your fighter is quite the unique specimen,” he said with a leering grin.

“She is,” I said with a smile that was far more relaxed than I felt inside.

“What would it take to have her wearing Reynolds gold?”

“Now wait a minute,” said the Forenzi representative, an androgynous person with a bald head and thick green eyeliner. “This is a poker table, isn’t it? So why not put her in the pot? Make this a little interesting.”

“Because she’s not livestock,” I replied, far more sharp than I had intended. “And not everyone is here.”

Everyone shifted around the table and glanced at Bryson, who threw some chips into the pot.

“Krynn’s loss then, wouldn’t you say?” he asked with a shrewd look.

I shrugged, raising the stakes a bit.

“I need to consider everyone’s offer, and I haven’t had the chance to run them by my fighter yet.”

“She gets a say?” asked a woman wearing MacPhearson silver.

“Of course she does. She’s not indentured, Zelena doesn’t own her and neither do I.”

That raised more than a few eyebrows and I was starting to feel like if I didn’t leave soon I might do something I regretted. I wasn’t sure when my tolerance for the scum of the universe had become so thin, but it barely existed tonight.

We played through to the end, with me winning the pot and everyone taking a break to stretch and talk. It was no surprise that I was approached by everyone with offers, this time very serious ones. Bryson was the last one, his brash and over confident attitude grated on me.

“I know you, Sherrod,” he said with a grin. “You’re holding something back. What is it? I’ll give it to you, or get it for you, whatever it is.”

I thought through my choices, knowing that this was a very delicate gamble. Bryson was over confident, thinking that he had found me out. I could’ve asked him about Norris now, told him I had a buyer that would pay big for the man. I could’ve dodged the question, denied what he said.

“Well that’s just it,” I put my cigar out with deliberate slowness. “If you don’t know what I want how do you know you can get it? Maybe what I want is out of your hands. Maybe it’s even in a place you can’t go.”

It took him a few seconds to catch on. And when he did, Bryson’s face went red, lips thinned.

“You’ve already made up your mind, haven’t you?”

I shrugged.

“It’s not personal—.”

“Everything when it comes to her is personal,” Bryson stood and glared down at me. “Fine, let your fighter wear Krynn red. But just know that no one escapes Lady Seraph’s clutches. You’re either dead or you wish you were.”

“How sweet, you’re worried about me.”

Bryson scoffed, all pretense of cordiality dropped.

“I hate to see pretty things like your fighter get needlessly destroyed. But you?” he pressed his hands onto the table and leaned over to get in my face. “I hope she fucking buries your worthless ass. It would save me the trouble.”

I drank way too much, and because I actually wanted to feel a bit drunk tonight, my filters didn’t remove it quickly.

By the time I made it back to the suite I was stumbling around like an idiot.

It was dumb to think that getting drunk would dull the pain of seeing Zephyr flirt with the assholes around that table.

The only thing it did was make me more vulnerable to the fast growing feelings that plagued me.

I stripped out of my expensive clothes, tossing them to the floor without a care for how it might have ruined them.

This entire fucking operation was a mistake.

Being asked to be around her again, trying to keep her safe, all of it was hurting me.

Maybe that’s what the old man had intended.

The commander was nothing if not an expert at torture; maybe this was his payback for loving his niece all those years ago.

I was so drunk that I didn’t even think about the consequences of falling asleep without some of the safe guards I normally employed when I was in an unfamiliar place.

That’s why I woke up hours later screaming my head off, trying to fight my way out of the fire that was slowly burning away my flesh.

In my dream, I could always see bone, and sinew, scorched away.

I could feel my eye melt in my skull, my flesh crisp and curl up.

I was a horrifying monster, a thing that somehow survived the fire intended to kill us all.

The screams of my little sister and myself echoed in my head.

No matter how many times I dreamed this, no matter how hard I fought in that burning house, I could never save her.

Then the moment I always feared came upon me.

The dark figure that had tried to kill me, holding me down as the fire tried to consume me.

Sometimes they didn’t appear, sometimes they did.

This time they were calling out to me, words I couldn’t discern, but it didn’t matter. I would beat them back, make sure they didn’t win this time.

My hands shot out, grasping soft flesh and squeezing.

“You won’t win!”

The shadow figure was hitting me, slapping at my face and calling my name…no, not my name.or was it?

“Sherrod…stop!”

Sherrod…that's my name…isn't it?

“I’ll kill you!”

Another slap, a punch, a kick to my stomach and my hands slipped. My head hit something hard and suddenly I was back in reality.

A dark room with enough low light coming from somewhere that I could see the bedding, twisted around my legs.

Someone coughing.

Sweat covering every inch of my body, which was starting to tremble.

A leg that wasn’t mine, brown and shapely.

Oh no…no!

“Zephyr…oh my god...”

I crawled to the foot of the bed where she lay on her side, clutching her throat. When she saw me she jerked back, frightened of the hand I extended toward her. In that moment, I hated myself more than I ever had before.

“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, tears ran unashamed down my face. “I’m so sorry…I…it was…a dream.”

On my knees, in front of the woman I had loved my entire life, I felt my heart split wide open and all the loneliness and grief spilled out, black bile draining from an ignored wound. I buried my face in the hands that had assaulted her and cringed, turning away.

I wanted to make this right, to say or do anything to take away what I’d done. But there was nothing I could do. I’d almost killed her. There was no forgiving that.

Cool hands landed soft on my shoulders and I flinched.

“Shhh, it’s just me,” she whispered.

“You-you shouldn’t touch me,” I gasped, shrinking away from her.

The shaking was getting worse, and my teeth began to clack uncontrollably.

This post nightmare trembling hadn’t happened in years but then again, no one had been near me when I slept in a very, very long time.

Not even when I was engaged to Jax, and he might’ve been able to take the abuse I threw out when I had these ‘episodes’.

“Sherrod, it’s okay.”

I whimpered and shook my head, unable to meet her eye.

Zephyr sighed and slipped off the bed and my chest caved in. She was leaving, and after what had happened how could I blame her? But a large part of me needed her to stay, to hold me and make the demons of my past rest for good.

After a moment I heard the bathtub faucet start running in my bathroom. I glanced up and saw candles lit in the bathroom. The flames made my stomach lurch and I had to close my eyes.

“Come on,” Zephyr said, “let’s have a bath, wash that sweat off and get warm, yeah?”

I shook my head vigorously.

“Candles,” I whispered, my voice trembling as bad as my body.

Her feet shuffled away and back, the smell of burned wick in the air.

“They’re out now.” Her hand landed lightly on my bare knee, just where the burn scars stopped. “The bath is ready. Won’t you come with me?”

“You sh-shouldn’t t-trust me.”

“You know me, when have I ever done what I should?”

There was a smile in her voice, and while my eyes were closed, I could see it in my mind.

It made my throat close up with longing so strong I actually uncurled my arms from around myself enough to seize her hand with one of mine.

I held on tight and was afraid I was hurting her, but she was my lifeline out of this swamp of memories and terror.

I’d never had anyone with me for this part, always scared everyone else away. But here she was, after I’d tried to…

“I’m alright…” Her voice was closer, and a moment later what I thought was her forehead was pressed to mine. “I know you didn’t mean it.”

“I’m s-sorry.”

My teeth were chattering so bad now I almost couldn’t talk and my muscles ached like I had the flu. Every part of my body and soul was drained, wrung out and that was the only explanation I had for why Zephyr was finally able to draw me off the bed and toward the bathroom.

I was only wearing my boxer briefs and she stripped them off me with a gentle tug before guiding me into the steaming tub.

I didn’t look as she took off her pajamas, and slipped into the bath behind me.

All the times I’d imagined being naked with her this past week, it hadn’t included emotional trauma and near strangulation.

And if things had been different, I might’ve made a smart comment, but I couldn’t muster the energy.

There was nothing sexual about the way she wrapped her arms and legs around me, holding me in the warm cocoon of the water as I let out more tears. She was soothing me, holding me together so I could fall apart. Not even Zelena had seen this side of me, and I’d showed her plenty.

I gripped her ankle under the water with one hand and her clasped wrists with the other, letting it out. Her lips pressed soft kisses to my shoulder and neck, muscles tensing as she held me tighter.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’ll always have you.”

“Promise?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

“Yes, I promise.”