Moonshadow (Moonshadow #1)(91)

She accepted it, along with a sandwich, and retired to a chorus of good nights. Setting her food on the bedside table, she pulled the privacy curtain down, and her bedroom fell into shadow.

She had the brief impulse to light the lantern but then realized she didn’t know how, and suddenly the small task and her lack of knowledge became obstacles too big to overcome. Stripping out of her jeans and sweater, she crawled shivering between cold sheets. While she waited for the bed to warm up, she sipped at the soup, savoring the warmth and the rich, meaty flavor, and ate a few bites of the ham and cheese sandwich.

By then the worst of the chill had left the sheets, so she stretched out horizontally, and as she listened to the men’s quiet conversation, she plummeted into a black pit.

For a while.

Then she was running through the warehouse while the gunman chased her. She rounded a corner, looking for a way out, but it was a dead end. As she whirled to run the other way, the gunman walked around the corner.

He brought up his gun. She stared down the barrel and heard the flat tat-tat-tat as he shot her, and she was falling.

Always falling.

Rodrigo, she tried to call. Help me.

She plunged awake as a hand settled over her mouth. The men had gone to bed, and the indirect light from the fire had died down, leaving the space in near total darkness.

A figure leaned over her, weight pressing down the edge of the mattress, but before she had time to panic, Nikolas whispered, “Shh, it’s me. It’s all right.”

She gripped his wrist, shaking, and his hand shifted from her mouth to stroke the hair back off her forehead.

He said telepathically, You were having a nightmare and whimpering.

Unsurprised, she nodded. Sorry I woke you.

He exhaled, an impatient, nearly inaudible sound. Move over, Sophie.

She hesitated, torn between wanting to so badly she could practically taste it and remembering the bite of the last things they had said to each other. Her telepathic voice sounded small and uncertain to her own ears. Maybe that’s not such a good idea.

He brought his forehead down to hers. Let’s take a time-out. You still meant everything you said, and so did I. Let this be its own thing. We can go back to fighting again tomorrow.

Was that okay? Maybe that wasn’t okay. Maybe she was supposed to stay strong on principle, but he was here and offering, and principle didn’t have arms to put around her. Still trying to decide how she felt about it, she slid to one side of the bed.

Lifting the covers, he slid in beside her. Long, hair-sprinkled legs entwined with hers as he gathered her into his arms. The comfort was immediate and staggering.

She turned into him, burying her face in his chest while he stroked her hair. He wore nothing but a pair of silk boxers, she discovered, as she fitted her body to his. He was longer, broader, and more muscular than she, and the sensation of his bare body against hers caused a tension that was coiled tight inside of her to ease.

Better? he asked.

She nodded.

Tell me about it, he said. The nightmare. Maybe if you talk about what happened, it will make it go away.

She sighed. The nightmare doesn’t bear much resemblance to reality. I’m in the same warehouse where the shooting occurred, but in the dream, I’m lost and the gunman is chasing me, and that didn’t happen. I never make it out, and he always catches me. I see the barrel of his gun—that did happen—and he shoots me, and I fall. I always fall.

As he listened, he ran his fingers through her hair. The rhythmic caress soothed her like nothing else ever had. Her muscles went pliable and boneless. You called out a name, he said. I couldn’t make it out.

It took her a moment to think back, then she remembered.

Rodrigo, she replied. He’s a good friend on the police force. He and I are the only ones who survived. There were five of us—me and a team of four officers. We were going to take out a magic user who’d suffered some kind of psychotic break. We underestimated him. We thought he was relatively harmless. Everyone we talked to who knew him said so. We didn’t know he’d been stockpiling guns and ammunition.

Nikolas said quietly, Oh no.

We were talking him down—or so we thought—and then we went in to take him into custody, but he’d been playing with us and only pretending to go along with it. I was part of the team in case he decided to get slaphappy with magic spells, but instead, he opened fire on us the moment we stepped inside and came into range. He knew how to shoot. We were wearing bulletproof vests, and he still killed three of us with headshots. He’d been preparing.

Nikolas ran his hand along her torso, touching the scar high on her shoulder, and the other one in her abdomen. He caught you along the edges of your vest.

She nodded. Rodrigo took him out. He did CPR on me until the ambulances arrived. He saved my life.

As she told the last of her tale, he pressed his lips to her forehead and didn’t move again for several moments. He murmured, After what you’ve gone through, you still fling yourself at danger.

No, she said tiredly. I fling myself at situations that may or may not be dangerous. I help a dog at the side of the road. I give a bunch of homeless guys a roof over their heads.

He brought fingers to her lips, stroking them lightly. You run into a pub to save a screaming woman. You run straight toward thirty attacking Hounds.

It’s just a thing, she whispered. It’s no big deal. It’s who I am. You ran into the pub too.