Greymoor Academy: I Accidentally Bonded With Four Lycan Royals! novel Chapter 129

Chapter 129: 129. Nightmares

Jericho

For sixteen years, it was always a recurring nightmare. It never eased, never got easier to manage. What did get easier to manage was the fear.

So long had passed since that dreadful night and I still couldn’t stand close to a fire without flinching. Neither could I go to bed without a harness, lest I hurt myself. Not many people knew that. Just my brothers. And the Queen.

Soren thought sleeping with Maisie in my arms would stave off the demons that sat on my chest every night, in the same way it did his.

He wasn’t exactly wrong.

With her scent in my nose, her cheek pressed against my chest and her arms tightened around me and her thighs tangled firmly in mine in a snuggle I was sure she wasn’t even aware of, I relaxed, even if I hadn’t meant to.

And I slept.

When I dreamt, I wasn’t in a cage. Neither was I being torched and burned alive. No. It was a different kind of nightmare.

It was Maisie in my place. Screaming. And it didn’t matter how fast I ran, how long, or how far. I could never reach her. The distance tripled, until she was a speck of dust in the distance, her beautiful skin turning to ash.

"Jericho."

Her lips cracked first. Her hair that I loved so much was on fire.

"Jericho."

Her screams filled my ears in the same way my mother’s did. She was screaming my name. I thought I was roaring hers too.

Couldn’t reach her... couldn’t save her...

Pathetic. Fucking. Weakling. Useless.

Pain. There was so much pain in my chest. My gut. It felt like I was breathing and exhaling hot glass. A bayed breath escaped me.

I was turning to ash, too.

There were hands on me, shaking me. But I couldn’t move. Didn’t want to move. I was content with burning too. Couldn’t they see, I was nothing, no one without her? I wanted, needed to die with her.

There was always a part of the story I didn’t like to share. The part I glossed over how many I killed in that state. Guilty. Innocents. It still haunted me, even if I had had no control over it. It was why I always returned to that cage every night.

Because really, while we were all monsters, there were some of us who didn’t deserve any kind of redemption. I was one of them.

"Jericho!" that voice came again, tunneling through the darkness I’d closed around myself, the darkness I was drowning in.

It felt warm. Like a light house after being lost at sea for a long time.

There was a softness against my lips, a warmth that spoke to me in a voice that warmed the chill inside. "I’m here, Jericho. Breathe."

The darkness recoiled, twining tighter around my limbs, refusing to let go.

"Please," that voice said again. There were hands on my face, caressing softly. "You found me. Open your eyes, Jericho. Stay with me."

My lungs cracked open and my body jerked upright with a sharp intake of breath. My eyes snapped open.

For a second, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. For a moment, I couldn’t disconnect the darkness outside the bars of a silver cage, from reality.

Electric blue eyes found mine in the dark. They were filled with such gentle light, I almost couldn’t bear to look in them.

My gaze shifted and I saw a furry, clawed hand, wrapped around a delicate neck. Squeezing hard enough to shatter bone in several, different places.

There was a bit of a disconnect.

Then I realized I was staring at my transformed hand.

"Fuck."

But it was enough. Enough. Enough.

I had hurt her. Again.

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