I come awake in Damien’s arms, my throat raw from the violent sound that had been wrenched from it. My face is pressed to his bare chest, and I sob, my breath coming now in gasps and gulps.
His hands stroke my shoulders, the movement both strong and soothing, possessive and protective. He is saying my name, “Nikki, Nikki, shhh, it’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” but what I hear is that I am safe. That I am loved.
That I am his.
My tears slow and I breathe deep. I concentrate on his touch. On his voice. On his scent, sexy and familiar and desperately male.
I focus on all the little things that make up the bits and pieces of this man I love. All the things that make him who he is, that give him the power to calm me. To look my demons in the face and send them scurrying. He is a miracle, and the biggest miracle of all is that he is mine.
I open my eyes, then lean back as I tilt my head up. Even thrust out of sleep as he was, he is exceptional, and I drink in the vision of him, letting the beauty of this man soothe my parched soul. My breath hitches as I look into his eyes, those magical dual-colored eyes that show so much—passion, concern, determination. And most of all, love.
“Damien,” I whisper, and am rewarded with the ghost of a smile upon his lips.
“There she is.” Gently he strokes my cheek, brushing my hair back from my face. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
I shake my head in the negative, but even as I do, I hear myself say a single word, “Blood.”
Immediately, I see the worry prick in his eyes.
“It was just a dream,” I say, but I don’t completely believe it.
“Not a dream,” he corrects. “A nightmare. And this isn’t the first.”
“No,” I admit. When the nightmares started, they weren’t even truly nightmares. Just a vague sense of unease upon waking. More recently, I’ve jerked awake during the night with my heart pounding in my chest and my hair damp with sweat. This, however, was the first dream with blood.
I pull back more and sit up straighter, clutching the sheet around me, as if it offers protection from the nightmares, too. I twine my fingers with his and our legs are still touching. I do not want to think about the dreams, but if I must, then I need Damien’s touch to anchor me.
“Did you cut?”
I shake my head. “No. Except—except I must have. Because it wasn’t scars on my legs, but wounds. And they were open. And there was blood everywhere and—”
He silences me with a kiss, so deep and firm and demanding that I cannot hold on to my fear. Instead, he fills my mind with a raging heat so intense that it destroys everything except Nikki and Damien and the passion that is constantly smoldering between us, ready to ignite at the slightest provocation. Ready to burn away anything that threatens this life that we are building together, be it the ghosts of our pasts or my fears of the future.
My fears of the future?
I turn the words over in my head, and realize with a violent shock that they hold the weight of truth. The realization baffles me, because I am not afraid of being Mrs. Damien Stark. On the contrary, I think that being Damien’s wife is the thing in this world that scares me the least. It is what and who I am meant to be, and I am never more certain of that than when I am in his arms.
Is that it, then? Am I afraid of the span between now and “Do you take this man”?
His thumb gently brushes my lower lip, and I see the knowing glint in his eyes. “Tell me,” he says, in the kind of voice that allows no refusal.
“Maybe they’re portents,” I whisper. “The dreams, I mean.” The words feel foolish on my lips, but I must say them. I can’t hold the fear inside. Not when I’m certain that Damien can turn it around.
“Portents?” he repeats. “Like a bad omen?”
I nod.
“Of what?” His brow rises. “That we shouldn’t get married?”
I hear the tease in his voice, but even so, my response is both violent and firm. “God no!”