Karhi Emelyn

TW talk of Sloane’s rape.

Aoife had disabled the panic room when she broke open the door.  A combination of being one of three people in the castle who could do that, paired with the damage Sloane had done to the panic room with Ameya, left it unable to close.  When they all left the room, the door remained visible.  In fact, they couldn’t even close it, because closing it automatically cloaked the room. 

They went to Cyly’s study to debrief, where they met Mira, Savita, Hazel, and Matadi.  Alice was excused, obviously.  Lavender took her to the infirmary.  Everyone in the panic room had gotten hit with shadowmancy like Karhi had. 

Everyone except, apparently, Sloane.

“I don’t really know how to explain it to you,” Sloane said.  She was sitting on the floor against one of the bookshelves, a glass of warm blood in one hand.  “I made friends with my subconscious, and she triggered my year mark a day early.”

Even Mira gave her a strange look when she said that. 

Savita checked Sloane for the truth and when she pulled out, she looked so confused.  “She’s . . . not lying.  But I cannot access this personified subconscious.”

“Me neither,” Sloane shrugged.  “She shows up when she wants.”

“Have you seen her before?” Hazel asked.

“Right after Angus and Ava killed me.”

Hazel and Aoife exchanged glances.

“How is it even possible to speed up a year mark?” Karhi asked.  He had never heard of that.

“If a year mark is on a day that’s already important to a vampire.  A birthday, for example.  Or the day someone died,” Aoife said, looking pointedly at Sloane.  “Sometimes it can speed up the year mark.”

“I grew up faster because of trauma?” Sloane asked.

“I . . .”  Aoife trailed off.  “I guess so, yeah.”

“Checks out.”

Aoife shook her head.  “Fucking Christ.  And you also just resisted the shadowmancer’s magic.”

Sloane shrugged.  “I resisted whatever PTSD-in-a-bottle everyone else got.  But she used other magic on me.  Telekinesis and some creepy bug thing that tore my face up.”  She reached up to touch her face.  It was smooth and unblemished.  Not even a scar.  “It was trying to get in my mouth.”

“She was a black widow witch,” Aoife said.

“Pretend I know fuck all about magic,” Sloane said tiredly, leaning against the bookshelf and letting her head hit it with a soft thunk.

“Shadowmancers do bad magic.  Black widow witches are a subset of shadowmancers that use magic to kill and eat the magic of other creatures.”

“Ick.”

“Yes.”

“So, it’s good I didn’t let it get in my mouth.”

“Correct.”

She grimaced.  “It tore my face up.  It was gross.”

Year marks healed wounds, much like turning comas did.  The damage to Sloane’s face must have happened just before her year mark.  There’s wasn’t a single scab or scar there.

“And you killed her with your soulsilver?”

“She tried to take it off me, and it burned her.  Which, saying that, I realized, I don’t know why that happened.”  Karhi felt her confusion, but it was more like vague curiosity.  She was too tired to really care.  Meanwhile, Karhi was still hyped on adrenaline.

All eyes went to Savita.  Except for Sloane.  She was still leaning against the bookshelf, eyes closed.

“How did you get your soulsilver?”  Savita asked.

Sloane sat up, opening her eyes.  “Why?”

“If you just have soulsilver made by an elf, or any other metaphysiomancer, then it’s just a weapon that anyone can use.  But, if you have soulsilver that was made specifically for you, by a spirit . . .”

Sloane touched her nose and pointed at Savita.

“Who?”

“Does it matter?” Karhi interrupted.  “What does it change?”

Savita looked annoyed, but she moved on anyway.  “It changes that the magic will only ever work for Sloane.  Unless she passes the necklace off willingly to someone, it belongs to her.  Anyone who tries to take it by force will be incinerated.  The shadowmancer didn’t know that.  She tried to take it and it destroyed her.”

“Serves her right.  Don’t steal people’s shit.  It’s mine.  I got it fair and square.”

Karhi knew she had gotten it from her mother.  But he wasn’t going to be the one to volunteer that information.

They debriefed about what had happened with the shadowmancer.  Karhi and Aoife told Hazel what they had learned about Ameya and Amara and everything else. 

“I saw her leaving the kitchens, just before I was poisoned . . .” Sloane said.  She looked at Cyly.  “I assumed she was leaving lunch with you.”

“She had eaten with us, but she had left maybe forty minutes before we saw you.”

“So . . . twenty minutes for a quickie in the closet.  And twenty minutes before that to fuck with your drinks pretending to be that Ben Forrest guy.”

Cyly’s eyebrows rose, but he said, “Yes, I suppose so.”

From there, Sloane told her version of events with the shadowmancer.  Everyone in the room had been incapacitated and hadn’t seen what had happened until after it was all over, so Sloane was the only one with any real knowledge. It meant that Savita had to verify everything, since what had happened was sensitive information.

They finished up with Sloane’s telling of events and Karhi still found himself with questions about the entire night.  “Something I still don’t understand,” he said, “is why were there human vampires and shapeshifters in the mix with all the original vampires?  What incentivized them to work with whomever did this?”

Hazel shook her head.  “We’ve seen things like this in the past few years.  Groups of magics, who would typically not associate, working together toward a common goal.  I don’t know what the architect of this invasion is offering them, but as you saw with Ameya, they have more things than just money to work with.”

The door to the room opened and Faren came in, looking grim.  “Your Majesties,” he said, bowing.  “I have disturbing news.”

Hazel glanced at Karhi, Sloane, and Mira.  He could almost feel her weighing whether or not to ask them to leave before deciding against it.  

“Go on,” she said.

“There are twenty-five ‘bae unaccounted for.”

The room stilled.  You could hear a pin drop.

There weren’t a lot of ‘bae.  Not even a couple hundred.  This had to be at least ten percent of the ‘bae population.

“Do you know why?”

“It looks like they escaped through the underground passages.”

Cailean cursed. 

“Cailean?” Matadi prompted.

“When we were trying to get to the panic room—we went through those passages.  We came across a group of ‘bae.  I assumed that they were working for General Faren since the passages were a good way to mobilise more quickly to defend different parts of the castle.”

Karhi had thought they seemed suspicious.  A bit jumpy.

“They were gathered there?” Hazel asked.

Cailean looked at Karhi for help.  “I guess?”

“I wouldn’t have asked them to go underground,” Faren shook his head.  “Nor so many at once.  I typically group them in three and fours and send them in units.” 

“She said it,” Karhi said, looking at Aoife.  “Ameya.  Remember?  She talked about Alice being the target because of the work she was doing with General Faren.  But she said that they had made gains.  That’s what she meant.  They took the ‘bae.”

Faren cursed in a language Karhi was not familiar with.  It sounded vaguely like an old Norse language.

“What have you done so far?” Hazel asked Faren.

“I came immediately to you the moment I found out.” 

Hazel looked at Aoife.  “Can we send out trackers?”

Aoife shook her head.  “Our resources were hit hard in the fight.  I believe that the goal was to take out as many key players as possible.  All of the generals survived, but not all of the lieutenants or anyone of equal rank survived.”

Hazel cursed.  “Round up what you can and send someone out.”

“All due respect, your majesty, but that is a suicide mission.  Our people were run ragged, some are dead, and many are wounded.  I won’t take the risk of sending someone who is not at a hundred percent.”  Aoife stood straight, facing Hazel.  Her shoulders were back, and her expression spoke of someone who wouldn’t be cowed.

Hazel opened her mouth to argue before she stopped.  She pressed her mouth together in a thin line and looked at her husband.  “What say you?”

Matadi said, “I agree with Aoife.  We don’t have the resources.  It’s pressing, yes, but our duty is to those who have fought tonight.”

Karhi glanced at Faren and saw that he looked relieved.  The trackers were also his people.

Hazel looked between them for a moment before finally nodding.  “I disagree, but I will defer to you two as you were in combat alongside our people, and I was not.”

Interesting.  Normally, Hazel fought alongside her people.  She didn’t believe in fights that she wouldn’t involve herself in.

She stayed with us to help deploy resources.

Karhi didn’t react but silently thanked Mira for the explanation. 

“Faren,” Aoife said, turning to the general.  “You’re free to go.  I imagine you want to go to the infirmary to check on the injured.”

Faren nodded, bowing again.  “Thank you.” He left.

Faren was barely gone before the door opened again, and Saeran entered.  His jaw was tight with anger, his shoulders tense.

Fear wrapped around Karhi like cold tentacles, trying to pull him down.  He looked sharply over at Sloane to see that her eyes were wide on Saeran.  He felt her fear building hysterically.

Surprisingly, Mira and Cailean were the ones who came forward.  Before Saeran could even speak, Cailean said, “Get out.”  Her expression was hard, mouth tight, fists clenched.

“Cailean—” Hazel started, and the same time Saeran said, “You don’t tell me—”

But then Mira was in front of Saeran, glaring up at him.  “Get out,” she snarled.

Everything happened at once.  Saeran took a step towards Mira and Cailean and Karhi both rammed into Saeran.  In the blink of an eye, Karhi’s sword and Cailean’s boot were at his neck.

Saeran stared up at them with wide eyes.

“I wouldn’t fuck with me when you threatened to rape my friend,” Mira hissed, standing over Saeran.

Karhi never saw what happened next.  One moment, he was standing over Saeran with Cailean, and the next, he was on the ground.  He heard Cailean make a noise of surprise and she landed next to him.  Karhi’s sword was gone from his hand.

Hazel had her son against the door, Karhi’s sword at his neck.  Her eyes had shifted to mother-of-pearl, and her nails had grown into black claws.  Her skin was bright, almost glowing. 

“You what?” she hissed at Saeran.  When she opened her mouth, her fangs were out.

Karhi could count on one hand how many times he had seen Hazel go into her vampire form.  And he couldn’t think of the last time he had seen Hazel lose her temper.  He didn’t know if he had ever seen her lose her temper.

“I-I didn’t,” Saeran stammered, eyes wide. 

“Straddling her on the ground and telling her that women respond to power when it’s shown like that?” Mira asked.

Saeran froze, eyes wide.  “That’s not—no, I didn’t mean—”

“Saying you would teach her respect?”

Saeran stopped trying to talk.

Hazel dropped the sword and grabbed her son by his collar and pulled him away from the door.  She opened the door and turned to the room, eyes still that alien mother-of-pearl.  “Please leave us so that my husband and I may speak privately with our son.”

At that, Karhi noticed for the first time that though he hadn’t moved, Matadi’s eyes had also flashed to mother-of-pearl.

Not a single one of them needed to be told twice. Cailean, Savita, Sloane, Mira, Aoife, and Karhi left the room to Saeran and two incredibly angry parents.  Karhi took his sword as he went. 

The door shut behind them, and all sound from inside disappeared.

Savita left them without saying anything.

“It’s time for bed,” Sloane said.  Her fear had faded, but it was still there in the back of her mind.

“Agreed,” Mira said.  She took Sloane’s hand, nodded at Karhi, Aoife, and Cailean, and the two of them left. 

When they were gone, Cailean asked Aoife, “What do you think they’ll do?”

Aoife shook her head.  “I have no idea.  But I wouldn’t want to be him.  The laws are clear, and even if he never acted on anything, I doubt she will be light on him.  She’s always been harder on all of you about the laws than anyone else.” 

Cailean pursed her lips.  “Yeah.  Though, thinking about it, my punishment for getting Binita and Stroud killed was . . . pretty light, actually.  Not to say that Mother will be light on Saeran, but I was surprised about that.”

“Binita and Stroud weren’t her favourites,” Aoife shrugged.  “Doesn’t surprise me.”  She glanced at Karhi.  “Surprised you didn’t try to take a whack at Saeran.”

Karhi’s anger had been immediately extinguished by shock when Hazel knocked him and Cailean to the ground.  “It . . . looked like Hazel had it handled.”

“That is one of very few things that can enrage my mother to the point that her fangs come out,” Cailean said.  “Our laws around sexual assault are very strict.  He’s such a fucking idiot.”

“Did you know about what happened?” Karhi asked.  Her reaction had been so strong when Saeran walked in.

“I found him on top of her outside of the infirmary, right before we were taken.”

Karhi blanched, his heart dropping into his stomach.  “What?” he whispered.  That must have been right after he left.  Had Saeran been lying in wait, watching for him to leave Sloane?

The anger he had felt earlier flared back to life in his gut.

“He didn’t do anything.  She almost killed him with the soulsilver, anyway.”

Beneath the anger, he felt a swell of pride.  Good for her.

Someone called for Cailean.  They looked up to see Faolan and Sevilen coming towards them.  Sevilen was one-armed.

Cailean met Faolan, and they hugged.  Sevilen went to Aoife and kissed her. 

“I’m headed to bed, too,” Karhi said, turning from them to head towards his own room.

“Hey, Karhi, wait,” Aoife said, separating from where Sevilen was trying to kiss her all over her face.  Sevilen made a noise of annoyance as she pulled away.  She shoved him off.

“What?” Karhi asked.

“Cailean said something to me earlier . . . how did you know that Amara wasn’t an anthroshifter?”

Karhi blinked.  “She was acting suspicious, and—”

“No,” she shook her head.  “You knew there was something off about her.  But you’ve never met an anthroshifter before, right?  How did you know that she wasn’t one?”

“I didn’t,” he lied.

She gave him a look that told him she saw right through the lie.  “Cailean said that Sloane told you something.”

He shrugged one shoulder.  “Anthroshifters heal.  It’s their thing.  She didn’t heal.”

Aoife eyed him but Sevilen pulled her away.  “Come on,” he whined.  “It’s been a long day and I almost died and didn’t get to see you.”

“You did not almost die.”

“You weren’t there, how would you know?”

Aoife rolled her eyes, but let Sevilen pull her away.  She gave Karhi another knowing look before finally leaving.

Karhi went to his room.

Karhi took a shower to get off any blood or ash and got in bed.

He couldn’t fucking sleep.

He wasn’t that tired because he hadn’t actually expended all that much energy fighting.  He had been excited about the fighting he did get to do.  He had always enjoyed a good battle.  Death had never scared him.

However, he had found himself fighting alongside Hazel’s army and they were a well-oiled machine.  He had hardly had to do anything. 

He laid on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to shut his mind off.  But all he could think about was Sloane.  Was she okay?  He wanted to ask her, especially after finding out what Saeran had done, but he also knew she needed to sleep.  And probably space.

It had been maybe an hour since he got back to his room when there was a knock on his door.  He felt a familiar mixture of emotions.  Sloane.

He got up and pulled his T-shirt back on.  He opened the door for her to see that she had changed clothes, and her hair was wet.  She wore an over-sized T-shirt that went to her knees and jeans.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Want to come in?”

She nodded.

He let her in and shut the door. 

“I was afraid of going to sleep,” she admitted when they had settled at the table.  “Afraid of the nightmares.  And I broke my room.  I didn’t want to risk Mira getting sucked into them.”

“Yeah.”  He stood back up and went to the drawer where he had stashed the alcohol from Saeran’s room.  He had finished off the rum, but he had just broken into the vodka before his meltdown that put him in the wine cellar.  He poured out the vodka into two glasses and handed one to Sloane.  “Happy birthday,” he murmured.

Sloane froze.  She looked around the room, as if searching for a calendar.  “It’s the nineteenth?”

“Yeah.  About four AM.”

She shot the vodka back without a word and motioned for more.

Karhi poured out some more for her.  He wasn’t one to deny someone a vice if it helped.

She shot that back, too.  He refilled her glass, but she didn’t shoot that one.  She left it on the table, wrapping her arms around herself like she was trying to hold herself together.

He warred with whether to reach over and touch her.  Whether he should say something or not.

It didn’t matter because she spoke, instead. 

“When I was nine years old, my mother died.”

He nodded.  She had told him this.

“I went into foster and ran from my first foster home with a kid I thought would help me out.  Several months later, he left me for dead when I got stabbed.  That’s when Mira found me. 

“For four years, I ran around with Mira, Annie, Mikko, and at some point, Genie and Frankie.

“Then, when I was thirteen years old, I was taken back to foster care.  And they told me my biological father was here to take me in.  I was so excited.  I had family.  I’d never known about my father.  He took me back to Detroit to live with him.”

She paused.  Karhi debated for a moment before reaching out to put his fingers over hers where they held her arm.  She didn’t shy away from the touch.

In fact, it seemed to give her some resolve.  “On my fourteenth birthday, we had a fight.  He asked me to wash the dishes or something, and I said I would, but I needed to go to the bathroom first.  And for not doing exactly as he said, when he said it, he raped me as a birthday present.”

It was like the air was gone from the room.  Karhi stilled, staring at Sloane.  Aoife had said the year mark could be sped up by a day having significance.

Sloane’s birthday had a whole lot of fucking significance.

But he still didn’t speak.  He could feel her determination to get through this story.

“I escaped,” she continued, ploughing forward. “From Detroit, with the help of a nice shifter family.  I hitchhiked back home.  Mira took me back, and I never got recaptured for foster again.  I didn’t go back until I finally got adopted.  And at that point, the home was Mickey and Bell’s.”

“Yeah,” he murmured quietly.

“Everyone knows that story.  The story of when I went to Detroit.  Mickey, Bell, Mira, and so on.  They all know.

“But something only Mira and Mikko know—he gave me chlamydia and gonorrhoea.”

Karhi closed his eyes tightly, lifting his head to the ceiling.  His heart ached for her.  He at least never had the physical reminders of what Ilona did to him.  Just the psychological ones.  He hadn’t had to take pills every day that reminded him of the terrible things that had happened.

“Thank you for telling me,” he murmured when it seemed like she wasn’t going to continue.

She nodded.  She lifted the vodka glass to her lips and took a sip before setting it back down.  She looked at it in surprise.  “This is good.”

He wasn’t even going to point out she had two shots because he knew better than anyone that if you took them fast enough, shots didn’t taste like anything but burning.  “Yeah.”  He wasn’t going to tell her he stole it from Saeran.  She would probably appreciate it another time, but it was for the best not to bring him up now.

“I’m sorry that Amara turned out to be a traitor,” he said.

She shrugged one shoulder, smiling wryly.  “It sucks that I never got to meet her for real.  If Ameya was pretending to be her sister, using memory crystals and years of living with her to imitate her—Amara must have been a sweetheart.”

“You don’t feel betrayed?”

She wrinkled her nose, looking up at the ceiling.  “I knew it wasn’t going to last after I left.  I didn’t really get invested.  She was a cute girl to hook up with.  Weird that she wasn’t who I thought she was but also . . .”  She shrugged.  “Maybe there’s something wrong with me, but it doesn’t bother me.  Maybe because I’ve never really put a ton of emphasis on emotional requirements for sex or any of that.”

He didn’t know if he would have felt the same way if it happened to him. 

They fell silent for a moment before Karhi asked a question that multiple people had already asked him.  “Sloane, have you met an anthroshifter before?”

She raised an eyebrow at him.  “No.”

He gave her a look.

“Look, Karhi—we’ll talk some other time.  But for now, the vodka is hitting and I’m fucking tired.”

With a start, he realized that was the case for him, too.  The fuzzy edges of exhaustion were beginning to tug at him.  He scowled at her.  “Cop out.”

“One hundred percent.  Is it okay if I sleep with you?”

“Yeah, of course.”  He drained his vodka and held his hand out to Sloane for her glass.  She looked down at it before handing it to him.  He knocked it back and set the glass down on the table.

He sat down on the bed and after a moment of deliberation, said fuck it and took his shirt off.  He always slept in his boxers.  And he had slept with Sloane in only boxers before, anyway.  It didn’t mean anything.

Sloane unbuttoned her jeans and pulled them off, folding them and placing them on top of his dresser. 

Karhi remembered something.  “Oh, hey—I learned that the living vampires have, just, a shit ton of food scientists that they employ.  Apparently, the living vampire kids have a lot of dietary requirements, so they need them.”

Sloane stopped, brow furrowing.  She tilted her head at him.  He couldn’t decipher the mixture of her emotions behind the look. 

Her emotions didn’t resolve at all, and he found himself uncomfortably pressing his fingers into the bedspread beneath him.  “You like weird implications of magic, right?”  He didn’t know why he was checking.  He knew she did.

Her emotions suddenly resolved, but before he could interpret them, she had crossed the room and  kissed him.

He froze, mind blanking.

It was only when she went to pull away that he reacted.  He reached up, one hand going to the back of her neck, the other resting on her shoulder.  He pulled her back in, pressing into her.

She responded immediately, opening her mouth.  He met her tongue with a soft noise. 

He felt the softness of her affection like a blanket enveloping him.  Her warmth was tender and comfortable, like coming home.

She climbed on his lap, straddling him.

He moved his hand from her shoulder to the small of her back, holding her close to him.  The warmth between them grew into something stronger.  Not quite a fire, but not just a mere flame, either.

Sloane pulled away.  Her face was flushed, her eyes bright.

“That’s what did it?” he asked, buzzing from the contact.  “Food scientists?”

She shook her head.  “That you knew I’d care.”

“Of cou—”

She leaned back down and kissed him again.  Her lips were soft, but her hands were sharp.  She wound the fingers of one hand in his hair and dug the nails of the other into his bicep.  She let out a low noise of desire that sent heat straight down from their mouths.

She smelled floral and sharp, like gardenias or roses.  Her hair was wet beneath his hands and every time he touched it, that scent of flowers hit him.  It was intoxicating.

Arousal coiled in his abdomen as Sloane dragged her nails down his arm.  The pressure was delicious, and he let out a low growl.

He felt her desire like a tug inside of him.  It pulled at his own want hungrily.  The heat of it was scorching in its intensity, and he wanted it.  He wanted to take it and fan it until they couldn’t separate the sensations.  Until they had combined—emotions, sensations, warmth.  He wanted it all.

He pulled her hips, so they were flush with his, grinding against her.  They both moaned at the sensation.  He was harder than he remembered being in a long time.  His erection tented his boxers, pressing against her lower belly.

She mouthed down his jaw, teeth grazing skin and bone.  She pulled him tighter into her until her mouth was on his neck.  She sunk her teeth into the flesh there, and he shouted in a combination of surprise and pleasure.  He put one hand on the back of her head, pressing her mouth into his neck.  He smelled blood and felt her swallow against his neck.  That sensation alone was enough to bring him dangerously close to orgasm.

It was the first time he didn’t mind being bitten.  With Sloane . . . it was different.

Shit.

She swallowed again, and he bucked against her, cursing.

She pulled away, and he captured her mouth.  She tasted like his blood.  But she also tasted like herself.  It was a combination that made his head spin, desire roaring in his ears.  And there was no drop in his stomach at the combination of blood and desire.  He was just . . . enjoying it. 

He dug his nails into her shoulder blades through the shirt, and she arched her back.  Her soft, clothed chest pressed against his bare skin.  The heat was scorching.  He felt her everywhere against him.

And he wanted more.  More of her against him and in him.  More of him against her and in her.  He wanted it all.  He wanted everything inside of her.  He wanted—

Sloane pulled away with an abrupt gasp, chest heaving.  Her eyes glowed green, and he could see the tip of her fangs in her mouth. 

The desire that had torn through him softened into something still hot, but less intense.  He could think straight.

It dawned on him what had happened.

The child-sire connection was normally just a trickle—the occasional crash of sudden emotion here and there.

But they had each opened themselves to it.  The trickle had turned into a raging river, rushing through them.  It had shattered the dam of control between them and completely taken over.

And Sloane was the one who had realized it before he did.

Regret immediately dropped into his stomach.  He started to pull away, but Sloane smacked him lightly on the cheek.  It made him start at the sudden, quick violence of the action.  He looked at her with wild eyes.  “Why?”

“We are not doing the self-loathing thing, okay?  You did that for the past two months, and I can’t fucking stand it, alright?  We said we would figure it out together.”

He pressed his lips together tightly.  He wanted to argue with her, but he also knew that if he did, she would probably lose her temper.  He could feel the annoyance bubbling inside of her, just this side of anger.

“I like you,” she said.  She motioned between the two of them.  “I don’t know what this is, but I’m cool with figuring it out.”

He liked her, too.  Maybe even a little more than like, if he was being honest.  Not love but . . . something in between.  He tapped his piercing against his teeth.  “I . . . don’t want it to be like it was with Ilona.  The child-sire connection is awful.”

She nodded.  “I get it.  We’ll start slow.”

He looked down at his flagging erection before looking at the bed.  He looked back at her.  “Start with sleeping?”

She nodded, one corner of her mouth quirking up.  “Start with sleeping.”

Her steady confidence was too strong for the anxiety that had flared up at the realization that he had been about to give in to the child-sire connection.  It was unwavering in the face of his fear.  She wasn’t worried.  And she didn’t think he should be either.

He was so tired of everything being hard all the time.  For tonight, he could let her take the lead.

He laid down, pulling the covers up.  Sloane climbed over him and laid next to him.  She pushed him so that his back was to her.  She settled against him, one arm going to his hip, the other going under his neck. 

“Big spoon,” he murmured.

“Hundred percent.”

He chuckled, settling against her and enclosing the hand by his face in his hand.  He pulled the blankets tight around them.  Her breath was a nice sensation against his scalp.

He fell asleep.  And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t have any nightmares.