Page 54 of A Scar in the Bone
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TAMSYN
IJERKED UPRIGHT WITH A SCREAM, THICK AND URGENT, bursting past my lips, rattling off the walls of my den. The taste of ash sat on my tongue, gritty as sand, lining the roof of my mouth and teeth.
I cut the sound off, my cry ending like the death of a sudden wind.
Violent shudders racked me. I swayed and then fell on my back in bed, gasping, swallowing hard against the acrid tang, fighting down the fire that threatened to escape.
Sobs broke loose from inside my body, making their way around the crackling flames and out of my mouth.
A nightmare. Another one.
I was riddled with them during my svefn, and it seemed they followed me still.
I held out the fingers of my hand, flexing them before me, stretching and wiggling them in the murky air that blurred with a rainbow of colors from the gems in the wall. At night the colors muted and softened, as though with consciousness, knowing they needed to dim for the allowance of sleep.
My palm throbbed, the X carved into my skin smarting, sparking to life as though the nightmare had awakened it, disturbing it, too. The sensation traveled all the way to the pads of my fingers, to the very blunted ends of my nails.
My chest rose and fell with hard pants, like I had just sprinted a great distance. I closed my eyes and forced my hand into a tightball, squeezing, attempting to suppress the tingling pressure there.
I shook my head, trying to chase away the shadowy remnants of my nightmare, but still it clung, a twisting vine, strong as rope around my mind, refusing to let go.
Fell had been there, standing before me in my dream, reaching out a hand, but just before I could get to him, he was snatched away, pulled into darkness, his face contorting into a jumble of fractured shadows, leaving nothing but his voice calling my name from some dark abyss. A void where I could not venture … could not see within.
“Fell.” My voice came out feeble and thin, hardly the voice of someone who could rescue anyone.
The dream had felt so … real.
Hehad felt real.
It was impossible, of course. He couldn’t be here. He wasn’t anywhere. Not anymore.
Still, I spoke into the room, my words a tremulous, questioning whisper: “Are you there?”
There would be no answer, no response. Logically, I knew that, but still I asked and now I waited, trying not to feel silly as I listened and hoped. This world was a magical place, after all.Iwas magic. Fell was magic … I could spend a few protracted moments in the night hoping for the impossible.
Just then, the drape at my threshold was flung wide. The dark outline of a body passed through the opening before the covering fell back into place with a whisper.
I tensed, my gaze shifting, vision sharpening, acclimating to the gloom as heat rose from my core, swelling, lifting to my throat, ready to defend myself against the intruder. Not everyone was my friend in this pride, after all.
The body moved in closer, encroaching where I huddled in my bed of furs, his steps light over the rug covering the stone floor.
His face came into focus, and all the tightness, the brutal squeeze of my chest, released, snapping loose like a band breaking.
Fell.
Fell was here, as though I had conjured him myself. It wasn’t a dream. No nightmare at all. He was real.
I choked out an elated sob as he dropped down beside me, gathering me up in his arms. He made soothing, shushing sounds, his lips vibrating against my hair.
His big hands swept up and down my back in a reassuring motion that lit sparks over my skin. One hand closed around my nape while the other brushed down the length of my arm, and I trembled from head to toe.
Fell.
Fell not dead. Not gone. Not lost to me. Here with me now.
A hot sob swelled in my contracting throat. My arms went around his neck, and I crawled into his lap, splaying myself over him … wishing I could climb inside him, merge with him until there was no distinction, no discerning where either one of us ended or began. No year lost between us at all.
