Page 117 of Somno Slave

Chapter Thirty-Four

Rheda

I don’t move straight away.

My lungs drag air in too sharply, like they don’t trust it’s going to stay. My throat aches violently. I press my fingers there, and the tenderness blooms instantly beneath the touch. The heat presses me back.

I don’t know when we moved but suddenly, I’m aware of my duvet sheets beneath me. His weight anchors me to the mattress, his forearms braced on either side of my head. The heat of him sinks into me, his breath brushing against my cheek in slow, steady exhales. My body aches beneath him.

“Say something,” I whisper.

My voice comes out thinner than I expect. He doesn’t move. The silence stretches, and something tightens in my chest.

“Out loud,” I push, the words catching slightly. “Where I can hear it.”

His mouth doesn’t open, not even slightly, and still...

“You already can.” The voice lands inside my head again, smooth and invasive, threading through my thoughts like it belongs there. My stomach turns at the familiarity of it, at how easily it settles.

“No,” I shake my head, sharper now, breath uneven. “That’s not the same. If you’re real, speak out loud.”

The corner of his lip tips up. “And that would prove I’m real?”

“Please.” My eyes search his face, desperate for something to give—any break, any tell, any sign that this is something I can understand. This time, something shifts. His gaze changes likehe’s lookingthroughme now instead of at me, studying. My breath falters under it.

“I’m very much real, Doctor.” His eyes move over mine with slow precision, searching, stripping—like he’s pulling apart every flicker I haven’t managed to hide. The tension in my jaw. The way my breath won’t steady.

I feel it happening, the way he’s reading me, and I can’t stop it.

“What are you?” It stutters out, barely audible.

His thumb drags once across my cheekbone.

“I used to be a man,” he says slowly, “before they stripped me of my mortality.”

I stare at him through the dim light, trying to force sense into the shape of him. Bruised mouth. Split lip. Chains pulled tight enough to bite into skin. Everything about him should look human. It does look human. And yet something beneath it keeps slipping sideways every time I focus too hard, like my mind can’t hold him still properly.

“What does that even mean?” My voice comes out quieter than I want it to. “Mortality isn’t something you can strip away.”

For the first time, something shifts faintly in his expression. His eyes lower briefly, almost thoughtful. “You can if you try hard enough.”

The room feels smaller suddenly. I swallow hard, my attention snagging helplessly on the movement of his throat as he speaks.

“You expect me to believe people made you into...” I hesitate. “Whatever you think you are?”

A soft metallic sound breaks the silence as the chains shift slightly with his movement. “I don’t particularly care what you believe, Doctor.”

The words land strangely soft. Tired almost. Like he’s had this conversation before and already knows how it ends.

I stare at him. The dark bruising beginning to yellow beneath one eye. The slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the restraints. Sweat dried faintly at his throat. Tiny details. Human details.

My brain clings to them desperately, cataloguing each one like evidence.

Real people breathe.

Real people bleed.

His chains leave indentations in his skin when he moves. My gaze catches on the movement of his throat as he swallows. He’s too real.