Page 134 of Raw

I hated feeling that way.

So fucking much.

Vespyr moved in my arms and I looked down to watch her eyes open slowly.

Smiling, I brushed back her hair and kissed her head before she turned to look up at me.

“You’re here,” she whispered.

“Of course I am. How are you feeling?” I asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I don’t know.” She moved again, pushing herself up until she could place her head on my shoulder. “I had a strange dream,” she whispered.

“What kind of dream?”

I continued to brush through her hair and watched her closely as her eyes looked straight ahead to her bedroom door.

“I was sitting in an empty room. I was on the floor and there were these walls around me, all covered in fur. Fox fur.”

She frowned, looking up at me now and sighing.

“I don’t think I was breathing, and then you were there but…I didn’t see you.”

“Does sound like a strange dream,” I said, smiling at her.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“No. Didn’t feel like it. There’s too much on my mind.”

It was already two a.m., and she had slept quite a few hours before opening her eyes again.

She studied my face for a while, then nodded and started to caress the side of my neck with her fingers softly.

“You know…I don’t care what happened between you and Papa, but I don’t think we should ignore what they told us.”

“You mean about therapy? That we should go tomorrow?” I asked, trying to understand where she’s going with this.

Whatever she wanted to do, and no matter how contradicting it was, I couldn’t let her go through with it alone.

“Yes. I know they can’t make us do something we don’t want, but what if we need to?”

“Do you feel like you need to talk to a professional for some reason?”

She shrugged, her eyes back on the wall in front of her.

“I often had those dreams. You know, the ones where I sleepwalked. I didn’t have them in a while, but I don’t want them to come back. I don’t wanna have those dreams again, no matter how good they made me feel.”

My body tensed as she talked about her fever dreams.

“I didn’t know they bothered you so much,” I said quietly.

“They didn’t bother me. But they made me feel strange. Maybe if Mrs. Irvine hears about them, I can try to understand why they felt so real.”

“You know you’d have to explain those dreams. Be specific about them, and I’m not sure you wanna tell her about the things I did to you in those dreams.”

Vespyr was silent for a moment, then she shrugged again and pulled the covers up to her chin. “I think it would help. I just want answers. To know why those dreams were so vivid.”

“So what are you saying, sweet girl?”

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