Page 26 of Reaper
Fighting the urge to hug or kiss her goodnight, I nodded goodbye then walked out of the room, wondering what the fuck had just happened.
Chapter 10
Janelle
The door’s discreet sound as it swished closed behind Reaper was nearly deafening to my ears. I clasped my hands before me, fighting the growing uneasiness that was making my stomach queasy. My palms felt clammy and my chest heavy, making it difficult to breathe. I cracked my neck to try and release some of the tension building in my nape.
Forcing myself to move one foot in front of the other, I showered, reveling in the feel of the warm water on my skin and the soothing sound of it raining on the tiled floors. For the ten or so minutes it lasted, I almost found peace again. But as soon as I turned off the water, the silence closed in around me, oppressing, suffocating. By the time I finished drying, my heart was pounding in my throat. Putting on the soft, light grey nightgown sitting on the corner of my bed proved quite a challenge with my hands shaking so much.
And that silence… That wretched silence.
It felt like a living entity had taken possession of the walls themselves. It was closing in on me, crushing me. Feeling dizzy, I sat at the edge of the bed. But the relief to be off of my wavering knees was short-lived. Shadows at the edge of my vision had my head jerking this way and that. I could have sworn I’d spotted a rotting patch of membrane on the walls, slithering its way around, trying to move out of sight until it would devour me in my sleep. It was eyeing me, stalking me. I could almost smell it, rank and putrid, like the murky water it had been serving us in our last days of captivity.
My stomach twisted in a knot, and a sharp pain in my hands made me realize I’d been clenching them so hard my nails were digging into my palms. Jumping to my feet, I rushed out of my quarters and straight to Reaper’s. I frantically pounded on his door, ignoring the door announce that I could have simply rung. But my brain had ceased to function rationally. I blinked furiously to hold back the tears that were pricking my eyes.
The door finally opened on Reaper, naked but for the shorts he was finishing pulling up.
“Janelle?” he said, a shocked and worried expression on his face.
I threw myself into his arms and held him with the energy of despair, my face buried in his broad chest. His arms closed around me, and I immediately felt safe, even though my body continued to shake for a while. I inhaled deeply his clean, fresh scent, wild and untamed, laced with the lingering aroma of the soap he’d just used when he’d showered.
“What is it, my darling?” Reaper asked in a concerned voice. “Did something happen?”
Although I resisted at first, Reaper forced me to slightly pull away from him so that he could look at my face. I opened and closed my mouth a few times, feeling silly for giving in to irrational panic, but there was no way I could go back to that room.
“I… Can… Can I stay with you tonight? Please?” I stuttered pleadingly. “I… It’s… quiet… Too quiet. I… I don’t want to be alone. The Creckels…”
His face melted in an odd mix of compassion and guilt. He gently brushed my hair from my face and rested his palm on my cheek. I covered his hand with mine and pressed it harder against my face while leaning into his touch.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Reaper in a commiserating tone. “Of course, you can. I’m so sorry. We should have realized this sooner. I promised you’d never be alone again, and I meant it. It was stupid of me to assume you would want some privacy after all this time.”
I shook my head vigorously. “I need contact.”
The Creckels had decided to sleep outside with Stran, just under the cover of the ship. Even more than me, they were yielding to their instinctive hunger to live free and in the wild. But I had never spent a single day of my life alone.
Brees had been born before me but had adopted me as her own the day I entered this world. When I’d been an infant, she’d watched over me, curled at the side of my makeshift crib, later next to my bed and sometimes even on it. In the twenty years since the Kryptids had sealed us inside the base, I’d spent every hour of every day with one or more Creckels by my side, and every single night surrounded by their warm bodies and hard scales pressed against me.
“Anything you want, you shall have,” Reaper replied in an odd voice.
He picked me up in his arms and carried me to the bed before settling me on top. He circled around to hop in from the other side and lie next to me. I almost purred with pleasure when he pulled me into his embrace and drew the blanket over us. I rested my head on his chest, loving the feel of his scales beneath my cheek, hard and yet oddly supple, and the delightful heat of his body against mine. I wrapped a possessive arm around his waist and gently rubbed my face against his chest. Reaper slowly caressed my hair before resting his hand on my back.
“Thank you for being so wonderfully good to me,” I whispered, somewhat annoyed by sleep rearing its head.
“Always, my Janelle. Always,” Reaper said, pressing a soft kiss on top of my head.
I will claim him as my mate.
There was no longer any question he was my home. I sighed with contentment and closed my eyes, drifting into oblivion to the soothing sounds of his two hearts beating beneath my ear.
* * *
Morning found me having all but climbed on top of Reaper. The way he was looking at me, he’d clearly been awake for a while.
“Hello, sleepyhead,” he said in a voice even deeper than usual. “Did you sleep well?”
“Amazingly well, thanks to you. Sorry for hogging you,” I said sheepishly, making him chuckle.
“Why? Do I look unhappy to be hogged?” he asked teasingly.