Page 19 of Gorgeous Nightmare (Ariel Kimber 8)

Rain was standing over her thrashing body with his hands held out in front of him like he was afraid to touch her. He kept his voice quiet and soothing, but I could tell he was starting to freak out.

Isobel had kicked off the covers while thrashing around. She kept making these horrible noises between her horrific screams that sounded an awful lot like an animal in extreme pain.

“You don’t need to see this, Finn,” Rain gritted out in his gravelly voice without looking over his shoulder at me. “Get out of here before she wakes up and gets embarrassed from having you in here.”

Yeah, fuck that.

She had nothing to be embarrassed about, and I’d rather pull out my own fingernails with rusty pliers than leave her after seeing her like this.

I moved around the end of the bed so I could be on the opposite side of the bed from Rain. I couldn’t be close to him right now, because punching him in the face seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and we both had bigger things to focus on rather than brawling and destroying Isobel’s pretty bedroom. I wasn’t much of a brawler, but a swift kick in the nuts could really work wonders.

Isobel’s thrashing and screaming got worse, making my heart splinter right down the middle. What had this beautiful girl gone through that caused her to face these kinds of demons while she slept?

“Isobel,” I murmured as I reached out to gently shake her shoulder. “Wake up, baby. It’s just a nightmare. Wake up and come back to the land of the living. We’ll take good care of you.”

She screamed louder.

“Fuck, Finn.” Rain cursed viciously under his breath. “You don’t know jack shit if you think this is just a nightmare. You have no idea what she’s been through. Right now she’s probably locked deep in a memory and being tortured.”

Being tortured? Was that what she’d been talking about at the shop?

“Fuck, I’m so stupid. I keep thinking about talking to Tyson to see about getting her one of those dream catchers he made for my girl and Quinton, but I barely see him anymore, and when I do, it completely slips my mind.”

I didn’t give a fuck about having a conversation with him right now, the asshole.

Talking to Isobel didn’t seem to make any kind of a difference, so it was time to try a new tactic. I had no idea what in the hell I was doing, but I had to do something.

I climbed into the bed with her, and Rain raised his voice to colorfully cuss me out. I didn’t care about him.

Isobel fought me like a wildcat. She kicked and bit me as her nails dug into the skin of my forearms. I didn’t let the pain affect me as I wrapped my arms around her and held her arms down at her sides. I wrapped my legs around her thighs and pressed my face into her neck, inhaling the sweet scent that clung to her skin.

“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered to her. “Wherever you are in your mind right now, it’s not real. Can you feel the heat I give off? I’m here with you right now, holding you, and that’s what’s real. Rain’s here too, watching over you. That’s what’s real, and that’s what’s waiting for you when you wake up.”

Rain sighed heavily as he sat down on the side of the bed. He bent forward, and I couldn’t see what he was doing, but I assumed he was taking his boots off. He stood up less than a minute later and shrugged out of his long black coat that he always wore. He carelessly tossed it onto the chair in the corner of the room.

As much as I wanted to tell him to get the fuck out of here, I kept my mouth shut as he climbed onto the bed on the other side of Isobel. He didn’t touch either of us, but I felt his heat press close to my arms.

With the both of us surrounding her, Isobel finally calmed down and settled back into the bed. I could be civil with Rain just because of that alone.

Isobel didn’t wake up, and I was kind of glad for it. There was still plenty of time for her to have sweet dreams, and hopefully she’d forget about all of the bad shit she just experienced. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe it could happen, just stupid enough to be a little hopeful.

I loosened my hold on her and waited. When she didn’t so much as twitch, I unwrapped my legs from around her and got comfortable. I pressed my knee between her thighs and moved her around until her head rested on my bicep with my other arm wrapped firmly around her chest, keeping her locked tight against me. The move pressed her into Rain’s side. He grunted but didn’t protest the contact.

I focused on the overhead light and flicked it off with my mind, leaving the room only lit up with the light from the bedside table lamp. I left that one on because it didn’t feel right to plunge Isobel back into darkness so soon after her nightmare. It seemed cruel to me.

Maybe I had been wrong in turning out the lights in here in the first place. Had that been what caused this episode of hers? Was I to blame?

I fucking hoped not. The guilt of that would likely eat me alive forever.

“It’s been a while since she’s had one this bad,” Rain murmured quietly. “Did something happen before she went to bed? I need to know so I know what to avoid in the future. Usually she’ll get stoned before bed and she sleeps restlessly, but she never screams.”

“Nothing bad happened, I swear.” Wait a minute… damn. “By stoned, do you mean smoke some pot? Because she didn’t do that. She drank, got sauced up, and passed the fuck out. I carried her in here and put her to bed.”

Fuck, why hadn’t she said anything to me? She could smoke whatever she wanted, and I wouldn’t give a fuck. Did I come across as judgmental to her, because that was the very last thing I wanted.

“I know she hides it well, or at least she tries to, but she gets nervous around new people. She grew up with people who protected her from every possible thing, and they lost their lives doing it. The shit she went through after that, well, that’s where the nightmares come from. She was probably too nervous with you being here to smoke pot in front of you, so she got drunk instead in hopes of being able to make it through the night.”

She and I had more in common than I originally thought. She was lucky she had people like Rain looking out for her. I’d been young and had absolutely no one. It didn’t make me jealous, just sad.

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