Page 14 of Unleashing Mayhem
But Nightmare didn’t lunge or growl or even frown. He just looked at Matty with blank white eyes. “I will stay with you while you sleep.”
“In—in my room?” Matty asked.
Nightmare inclined his head regally. So that was a yes to a slumber party.
Tempting…
“In my bed?” Matty asked hopefully. He’d probably be able to sleep at least a little bit, if he had Nightmare’s inhuman warmth within reach.
“In yourroom,” Nightmare repeated.
Matty had the strange, foreign urge to pout.
As if Nightmare sensed it in him, his lips tilted up at the corners in an almost smile. “I siphon fear, Matteo. I walk in dreams. You won’t have nightmares with me here, either in your bed or outside of it.”
It was almost too much to bear, that spark of hope Nightmare’s words ignited. A physical protector, sure, that was what Matty had been looking for when he summoned a demon.But the bad dreams had been plaguing Matty nightly since he’d escaped his old life, stealing his sleep and bits of his sanity. They had been making it impossible to get his feet underneath him, no matter that he had Sascha and Kai helping him at every turn.
And here was Nightmare—the living embodiment of exactly what Matty had been struggling with—telling him he didn’t have to worry anymore.
It was official: Matty had summoned the best demon there was. Theperfectdemon.
“Can you stay forever?”
He’d meant it as a joke, but the words came out much too sincere. Pleading.
Luckily, Nightmare didn’t seem to mind. He bared his jagged teeth at Matty again. “Show me to your room, sweet.”
Matty scrambled out of his blankets, standing and holding out his hand. Nightmare cocked his head, and Matty held his breath. After a long moment, Nightmare took his hand.
Matty turned before Nightmare could see his grin, gently tugging his demon out of the living room, up the stairs, and to the door of the room Sascha and Kai had given Matty, at the very end of the upstairs hallway.
Matty pointed at the door across from it. “The bathroom is right here across the hall. I’m going to brush my teeth. I’m trying not to get any more cavities.”
Nightmare nodded, releasing Matty’s hand and ducking his head to enter Matty’s room. Matty rushed into the bathroom, getting through his nightly routine as quickly as possible.
He entered his room to find his bedside lamp already on, and Nightmare sitting in the creaky wooden chair in the corner, bathed once again in shadow, his white eyes shining in the darkness.
Matty slipped out of his sweatshirt, which left him in an equally oversize T-shirt and his sweatpants. He climbed intobed, shuffled under the covers, and turned on his side to face the demon in the corner.
“I usually keep my light on,” he admitted after a moment.
“You may still, if you like,” Nightmare told him. “Or you may turn it off. I’ll be here either way.”
Matty shut off the light, giving it a try. The room was darker, but he still had the little night-light in the shape of a lighthouse plugged in—a gift from Sascha—along with Nightmare’s glowing eyes.
This would work.
Matty lay there, willing himself to sleep. But though his eyes were heavy and dry, he kept staring into the corner, where his demon stared back at him.
“Close your eyes, Matteo.”
There was a pattern there, Matty was pretty sure. “Sweet” when Nightmare was coaxing, “Matteo” when he was ordering. Matty took note. He didn’t usually like hearing his first name in full like that, but it wasn’t so bad in Nightmare’s hoarse rasp.
Instead of closing his eyes, Matty scooted back in bed until there was a space next to him on the outside edge. “Just until I fall asleep,” he pleaded. “Please.”
He waited for the weary sigh or sarcastic snort, the telltale nonverbal cues that Matty and his weakness were a burden. But he didn’t get any. Instead, Nightmare slipped silently from his shadows, gliding closer to the bed like a wraith in the dark.
A weight on the bed. Smoke and fog. Heat.
