Page 22 of Somno Slave

Ex—

Fuck.

Something is looking at me.

It lands on me all at once like a hand closing over my throat from the inside. It drags over me with deliberate patience, starting at my face and moving downward in a slow, impossiblesweep, along the line of my throat, over the shape of my mouth, the rise and fall of my chest beneath the duvet. My body knows it before my mind can catch up.

Someone is standing at the foot of my bed watching me.

Studyingme.

My heart slams so hard it knocks the breath out of rhythm.

No.

I drag my head up. It moves, but wrong—slow, heavy, like I’m forcing it through something thick, but something in the corner holds my attention. It stands there, narrow and upright. Too long to be furniture, too dark to be a shadow. It doesn’t step forward. It lets my eyes adjust.

I keep staring, waiting for it to correct itself but the longer I look, the more shape commits. The suggestion of large shoulders. The black cut of a stretched silhouette.

A man.

My body goes cold.

Fuck!

My fingers twitch against the sheet in a desperate attempt to move but it doesn’t move the way I tell it to. The wrong fingers curl slowly like something is trying me on.

The cold spurts of adrenaline suddenly feel hot. Too hot. It unfurls beneath my skin.

My thighs shift beneath the covers, but I don’t remember willing them to move. I freeze. Because for a moment, just a moment, it feels like I’ve just followed instructions I was never given.

The figure tilts its head. A fraction. Not much. But something about the movement sends a blade of dread down my spine.

Dreams don’t move like that. They don’t wait.

I finally force sound through my throat. “Who—”

The word breaks apart.

The figure is there, and then it isn’t, and suddenly, my mattress dips. A slow, gradual shift beside my legs. The shadow leers over me.

My stomach tightens so hard it aches.

No!

Panic rises fast. I force my hand toward the bedside lamp. It twitches uselessly against the sheet.

The bed dips again.

Higher this time.

Closer.

Every nerve in me flares.

The scent reaches me next, honey and something darker beneath it. Wood warmed by heat. Resin. Smoke. A sweetness made strange, almost medicinal in its thickness. It threads through the room until breathing feels like swallowing it.

My pulse hammers painfully at the base of my throat.