Page 38 of Tarnished Reign

“It's the room that you were in, waiting for Dorian.” He winces as if he hates saying the man’s name to me. “We've cleaned it all out, changed the furniture, and now it's Dimitri’s room. Yours is the one right next door. And I'm the other side of you. You're basically sandwiched between us. Hopefully that means you'll feel secure.”

“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it because in most ways it does, at least now that I understand their reasoning behind moving me.

These men might not be good men. In fact, they're very bad men, but they are my enemy's enemy. And as the old saying goes, my enemy's enemy is my friend.

I grab a bottle of water from the bar, trying very hard to avoid looking in Jinx's direction. I can feel his gaze on me the whole way back to my room. I slip inside and close the door, and for good measure I slide the chest of drawers in front of it so that nobody can get in easily. If someone wants to get into this room, they'll have to make a heck of a lot of noise about it, and that should alert Dimitri or Alexis.

I drink the water and brush my teeth, wash my face, and apply some moisturizer. I slip into the night clothes that Dimitri’s sister purchased for me, thankful for the loose pajamas, and get into bed.

I prefer to read my Kindle in bed rather than a physical book, but I don’t have that option here, so paperback it is. My eyes are heavy, and they flutter closed as the words on the page merge into one another, forming nonsense sentences.

The book falls softly closed beside me as darkness slips over me, stealing me under.

The man is watching me, his eyes bright, glowing, and the others are laughing. Their mouths stretch and stretch until they’re nothing but huge, dark holes in their faces. They reach for me, their fingers not flesh, but shiny bone and when they touch me it is with the icy horror of death.

I wake with a jerk and struggle to catch my breath. The room is so dark. I can't see a thing, but I can sense a presence.

There's no one in the room. Of course there isn't. How could there be? The window is too small for anyone to climb through, and I have a chest of drawers blocking the door. It must have just been a nightmare that woke me. I can still sense that presence, though. I can’t move either. My limbs are still sluggish from waking so rapidly, my mind alert but my body caught in that awful paralysis between sleeping and waking.

Then I hear it.

Heavy breathing. By the door.

There's no one in the room, but there's someone on the other side of that wood. The floor by my door creaks, and I hold my breath.

What the hell?

I'm frozen to the spot and unable to move. With a massive wrench, I finally break free from the inertia and move. I flick the light switch on, heart pounding and breath coming in shallow gasps.

I should bang on the wall between myself and Dimitri’s cabin, but my arms are simply useless right now. They feel like strands of spaghetti instead of fully functioning limbs.

A waking dream, night paralysis, night terror—call it what you will—it’s a horrific phenomenon that I sometimes experience when I’m exhausted or overwrought. Like now.

I still think I can hear heavy breathing even though I know that’s not possible. Terror fills me suddenly, cold and slimy in it’s grasp.

I glance back at the room and shiver. I can’t be in here alone. Not for a moment longer. All the trauma, the terror, the fear, it’s working its way out of me like a volcano, and I swear I’ll lose my mind and blow if I don’t do something.

Needing human contact more than anything else and fearing solitude more than I fear the man next door right now, I creep to my door and open it. Tiptoeing down the corridor, I reach the next door.

I open Dimitri’s door and slip inside the room like a thief in the night. I still and look around. My skin is tight, and my heart is beating way too fast, but I’m more scared of being alone than I am of the man in this room.

The curtains to his larger window are open, and light from the deck fills the space with a soft glow. I can see Dimitri clearly outlined under the light sheets. I glance at the couch. I could sleep there. It's warm enough not to need a blanket. The trouble is my feet. I can't ever sleep without a cover over me, or more accurately, over my feet. Ever since I was a child, I can't bear to have my feet out of the covers. I always get the most awful, dreadful sensation that something is going to grab my toes. You would think that as a grown woman that would have receded, but sadly not.

Taking in a deep breath and hoping against hope that he will be the gentleman he promised, I slide under the covers next to Dimitri.

I'm about to turn away from him and lie like a rigid board on my side, facing the opposite way so he doesn't get the wrong idea, when I'm grabbed by a heavy hand, thrown onto my back, and something is pressed against my temple.

Cold, hard, steel.

Shit.

I open my mouth to scream, but the hand that was at my throat is now covering my mouth. All that escapes my lips is a muffled moan.

The cold metal pressed against my temple is making the vein pulse as if it knows the lifeforce it contains could be extinguished in a flash. It's painful how hard he's shoving that piece of metal against me.

I realize with sickening horror that there is no way the gun won’t be loaded. Dimitri will have it full of bullets, and I’m a breath away from death.

I can't even speak to let Dimitri know that it's me. His face takes shape in the dim light as my eyes adjust to the darkness. My throat constricts, and my eyes widen as I stare into his unseeing, unblinking gaze.

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