The Alpha's Silent Bride: Seventh Time's The Charm novel Chapter 11

Chapter 11: 011: Nightmares

~ RONAN ~

It’s ridiculous, I know. Almost laughable that, as an Alpha, I’m standing outside someone’s window, staring and stalking like some fucking obsessive bastard out of a dark romance book.

It’s creepy. I know that too. I could walk through her door like a normal person, but under the circumstances, I can’t.

She’s curled up to her side, facing away from the window, one hand tucked under her cheek. The IV line has been removed, Elias must have sent someone to disconnect it after I left. The blanket is pulled up to her shoulder, and her breathing is slow and even.

She looks pretty asleep. So fucking pretty I think it should be illegal, and it is illegal, knowing that if she catches me staring she’s going to take me for some sort of creep. But I’ve never seen anyone so fucking pretty in my life.

I bob my throat, swallowing hard.

I’m still watching, inwardly battling between leaving and staying exactly where I am. She’s fine. She’s asleep. I should leave.

One second I’m about to leave, the next, she winces.

Just a small tightening, her face scrunching, fingers curling around the pillow like she’s trying to anchor herself to something solid. Then a soft broken gasp escapes her lips and her whole body follows, shoulders drawing inward, legs shifting restlessly under the blanket.

Kael snaps to full alert. Nightmare? Is she having a nightmare?

Her body starts moving before I can think, thrashing, silently fighting against something only she can see, her hands clutching and releasing the pillow, her face scrunched tight with whatever is playing behind her eyes.

The silence of it is somehow worse than if she’d screamed.

I’m through the window before I finish the thought.

Three steps across the room, and I’m at the bed. Consequences be damned; she can be frightened of me later, she can be angry later. Right now, her body is shaking, and she is completely alone in it, and I am not standing at a window watching that happen.

I sit at the edge of the bed and gather her in my arms carefully, mindful of the injuries, pulling her against my chest gently.

"Hey." My voice comes in a whisper. "You’re alright, you’re safe, nothing is going to happen to you. You hear me? Nothing."

She fights it for another moment, her hands pushing weakly at the air, a small broken sound escaping her throat that tightens something behind my sternum so hard I lose breath.

Then her eyes fly open, and she goes completely still.

Those hazel eyes blink once, twice, adjusting, finding my face in the dark, then scanning the room behind me like she’s checking whether the nightmare followed her out. Her breathing is ragged, her whole body trembling finely against mine, but the fighting stops the moment she registers where she is.

I watch her put it together piece by piece.

Then she pulls back slightly, hands coming up immediately, apologizing. Signing sorry, sorry, sorry before she’s even fully caught her breath, fingers stumbling over each other in her urgency to get it out. Sorry for disturbing me, sorry for making noise, sorry for whatever she thinks she did wrong by having a nightmare in her own bed.

Anger floods through me. How many times has she been punished for things that weren’t her fault? How many times has she woken up already apologizing before she even knew what she’d done? Because of this, with the speed of it and the practiced urgency of those sorry sorry sorry hands, it’s enough proof that this isn’t a one-time thing. This is a reflex so deeply ingrained in her that it fires before she’s even conscious.

I reach out and gently still her hands, covering them with mine to stop the movement.

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