Page 36 of Ashen Souls

“Daeren,” she clarified. “Your dream demon. Your nocturnal menace. The reason I now side-eye velvet.”

“Oh.” I rubbed my forehead. “That.”

“That,” she echoed. “Yes. That.”

I hesitated.

Her mouth twitched. “Oh no.”

“What?”

“You did the pause,” she observed. “The micro-pause. The one that means either something very bad happened or nothing happened and that’s worse.”

I sighed and leaned back into the couch. “There were no more dreams.”

Harper blinked. “None?”

“No silk sheets. No whispering demons.”

She frowned. “Wow. Rude of him.”

I let out a long breath. “That’s one way to put it.”

She tilted her head. “You sound disappointed.”

“I’m not,” I answered too fast.

She raised an eyebrow.

I tried again. “I mean, I shouldn’t be. It was probably just trauma. Or medication.”

“Mhm.”

“And it’s been a week. Nothing since. So clearly it’s over.”

“Right.”

I fiddled with the edge of my sleeve. “Which is good.”

“Totally,” she said. “Love it when supernatural sex gods ghost.”

“That is not what he was.”

“Please,” Harper scoffed. “If he were on Tinder, I’d already be writing your breakup speech.”

I rolled my eyes, though the tension in my body eased a fraction.

“You wanted him to come back,” she pressed.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a yes.”

I swallowed. “I just… everything felt so loud after the accident. My thoughts, my body… everything. And then there was this one thing that felt…” I stopped, searching for the right word. “Focused.”

Harper’s expression softened. “Focused how?”

“Like it knew exactly where to touch,” I admitted, then winced. “Not physically. I mean… yes, physically too. But also…” I gestured vaguely at my chest. “Like it didn’t hesitate.”