Until the Sun Falls from the Sky (The Three #1)(66)
Author: Kristen Ashley

The hand shaking me stilled but the fingers curled, biting into my arm.

* * * * *

I watched his eyes close, not with the pain of the flames with a different kind of pain.

I closed my own.

I love you too, sweetling. I heard his voice in my head.

My heart took flight.

Then the trapdoor fell out from beneath my feet.

* * * * *

I came awake with a jerk and a cry, yanking away from Lucien’s warm, heavy body, my own prepared to flee. From what, I didn’t know.

I had my feet to the floor when an arm hooked around my waist and I was lifted up, back into the bed. Lucien curled me into his body, cradled in his arms. His back was to the headboard, I was in his lap.

I melted into him.

In all this bizarreness, the most bizarre of all was that I was trembling like a leaf and bawling like a baby.

“Ho… ho… holy crap,” I whispered, my voice hitching. My arms were around him, holding tightly and I didn’t let go as I kept right on blubbering.

One of his arms left me and I felt his hand stroking my hair.

“Holy crap,” I repeated, this time without the hitch. I burrowed closer, not knowing why, just that I needed to get close, as close as I could.

I actually needed it. I needed to feel his warm, hard, big body surrounding me, keeping me safe.

“It’s all right, Leah, you’ve just had a bad dream,” Lucien murmured to the top of my head.

Was that what happened?

I didn’t remember. I just remembered the terror.

And the sorrow.

No, not just the sorrow. The loss and the sorrow.

“Holy crap,” I whispered again, a fresh batch of tears overflowing, this time silently.

“Shh, sweetheart, it was just a dream,” Lucien soothed gently, his words stirring my hair.

I burrowed deeper as the tears flowed. He held me and I held him back.

Finally, after I had control, I said quietly, “I don’t remember.”

His hand left my hair and his arm wrapped around my upper back, his long fingers curling around my shoulder.

It was then everything came crashing back to me.

Not the dream. Lucien and the wineglass incident. My body tensed and when it did so did his arms. My eyes took in what I could see, which wasn’t much, mostly his throat in the dark.

“You’re here,” I said stupidly.

“Where else would I be?”

I didn’t know. He seemed pretty pissed when he left. I didn’t expect in a million years he’d come back at all much less hold me tenderly after I had a bad dream.

My head tipped up so I could see his face in the shadows.

“You aren’t mad at me anymore?”

I saw his chin dip down to look at me.

“I was,” he told me and I braced. “I shouldn’t tell you this, pet, but it’s difficult to stay angry with you when I can smell you.” He gave me a squeeze and continued on a murmur, “And f**king impossible when I can feel you and hear your breathing and your heart beating in your sleep.”

This made my heart start beating faster.

He went on, “Then you were moving, then screaming, then crying.”

I felt my lips part. “I screamed?”

His shadowy head nodded.

“I cried?” I asked.

Another nod.

“In my sleep?” I went on.

Still another nod right before he moved us, sliding down the bed and rolling so we were facing each other. He pulled the covers over us and then his arms moved around me again.

“Do you remember any of it?” he asked, sounding more than mildly curious, and I shook my head against the pillow. “None of it?” he pressed and I shook my head again.

“I don’t think I want to,” I told him. “It made me scream,” I paused then added, “and cry.”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Do you remember who was in your dream?”

I shook my head yet again. “I don’t know. All I know is, whoever it was, I lost them and it made me sad.” I felt a shudder slide through my body and I pressed closer to him. “Unbelievably sad.”

He gathered me tightly to his chest. “It was just a dream, sweetheart.”

This time I nodded my head.

But it didn’t feel like a dream. I didn’t remember it but whatever it was, it felt real or at least the pain it left behind did.

“Has that ever happened before?” Lucien asked.

I nodded again. “When I was younger I used to have dreams I didn’t remember. My Mom would have to wake me up but it hasn’t happened in a really long time.”

“Did you ever remember those dreams?”

I shook my head and whispered, “I hope I never remember this one either. With those, I would wake up scared or upset,” my voice dipped to nearly inaudible, “this one was worse.”

He gave me another reassuring squeeze. “It’s over.”

It was then I realized what I was doing. And it was a second after that that I wondered if Myrna would snuggle close to her vampire after pissing him off royally.

“Lucien?”

“Yes, my pet?”

“Earlier,” I started, he tensed and even though I didn’t want another wineglass incident, especially when the thing he was holding now and very able to throw and shatter against a wall was me, I forged ahead, “I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

He didn’t reply so I got up on an elbow and looked down on his shadowed face.

“I’m sorry I made you mad.”

He rolled to his back and pulled me on top of him, a hand in my hair pressing my face into his neck.

He still didn’t reply. He simply started to play with my hair.

I decided it was time to get things straight.

Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t answering her phone which meant she was probably out at a movie. Mom liked movies, any kind of movies, mostly weepies and rom coms, but she wasn’t adverse to an action film, the bloodier the better.

Aunt Nadia, who was always my favorite auntie and the one I could talk to about anything, wasn’t answering either which meant she was probably out with Mom.

I didn’t want to call any of my other aunties or cousins because I didn’t want them to know I was such a moron or more of a moron than they already thought I was.

I called Lana who answered. But she said Rafe was going to be there any minute. She was in a tizzy of excitement. I could hear it and now I understood it, but she promised she’d call me back first thing in the morning.

So I was still as in the dark as ever about everything that was happening.