I fall into a dreamless sleep, sleeping heavily when I feel the bed move, and I can vaguely hear the sound of a phone ringing in the distance. The bed dips as Andrei gets up, leaving the bed. His voice is husky as he answers his phone. Yet I don’t want to wake yet.
“Hello,” I hear Andrei say as I drift off again. Andrei growls loudly, making my body jolt and react to the pure rage behind the noise. My eyes snap open as I try to figure out what’s going on when he grabs my face.
“I need to go, stay here,” he says, and I rub my eyes, wondering what has angered him.
“What’s going on?” I ask, rubbing my sleep-filled eyes and sitting up.
“Jonah needs me. I am going to go get him.”
“What?” I panic, tossing the covers back and scrambling for clothes.
“Stay here. I will be back soon.”
“But Jonah-”
“I will bring him home. I promise I will get him back to you,” he says as he lets go and heads for the door. A ferocious growl escapes him that echoes off the walls in his anger.
“I will fucking kill him,” I hear Andrei mutter as he runs down the stairs, leaving me in a state of panic.
Andrei
I feel Donnie’s relief at completing the bond. His tether to Sierra blowing open, and I can hear her purring through him.
Sage’s soft body tucked, snuggling against my hard one, feels right. Everything about her is fragile, I am petrified of breaking her.
One slip and she will be right back with them. I hate seeing the way her body locks up, her muscles tense, and her face has that faraway expression like she is being transported back to a time right in front of us.
Though I expected it to happen it didn’t. Our closeness didn’t break her, which is a massive relief. I hate feeling her slip away from me.
All of that is made worse by feeling her emotions when she gets trapped in her head. It is like I am living the horror with her, and it sickens me.
The things they did to her, I could almost see it in my head just through what she felt at the time.
Her pain becomes mine. The scars on her body are the only traces left of what they did to her physically. But her mind is what I struggle with the most.
Wounds heal, but the mind relives and remembers long after the damage is done, those scars don’t heal it. Instead, it taints her and her soul.
It blackens parts of her, making her ashamed of what she sees in the mirror. Yet, I look in awe of her strength. Sage is broken, maybe irreparably in some ways, but she survived. She endured, and she survived it, lived through unthinkable horror. She carried the burden of their torture alone. At least she thought she did.
Now, I accept the responsibility of never letting her know that I know what they did because I can feel it through her each time she is forced back there. I can’t tell her, and I won’t unless she tells me herself, and I will never drag up her past to ask.
I never understood PTSD until I watched her relive the things they did.
Taken back in time, it felt like she was right there, transported back, like it was happening all over again. She is a warrior. She sees herself as broken and ugly, while I see her as delicate and soft, yet strong, withstanding all that life tosses at her.
There’s beauty in her pain because on the other side of it I see her. I see how amazing, strong, patient, and understanding she is.
She has something I will never have, and that is gentleness and softness, despite everything that should have made her angry, bitter, and cruel.
Instead, she possesses an inner strength and resilience, along with the pure determination to be better than them, better than I was when led by my pain.
Sage is the flower that blooms without water, sunlight, care, or love to nurture her, yet she still blossomed into the woman she is today.
Despite the storm’s harsh winds and everything that tried to destroy her beauty, she stood, endured, and stayed strong. She bloomed instead of letting her petals wilt and die by giving up. She became a warrior in her own right, and I am blessed to call her mine.
I stare down at the woman beside me. My Sage. My mate. Mine.
Climbing out of bed, I gently pull my arm from under her head, trying not to wake her. Walking into the bathroom, I grab a cloth, wet it with warm water, and squeeze it out before scrubbing my thighs off of the leaked secretions. I walk back into the bedroom and tug back the blanket that is covering her.
“Make sure you let her know what you are doing,” Donnie mumbles at me like I don’t already know that. I know better than anyone else not to touch her.
Leaning down, I kiss her and nibble on her bottom lip. “Sage,” I whisper, running my hand across her stomach gently. She mumbles incoherently against my lips in her sleep, making me laugh.
“Sage, I will clean you,” I tell her, dipping my face into her neck and licking her mark. She moans softly, turning her face into mine and my stubble brushes her cheek.
“Let me sleep,” she mumbles.
I pull away and chuckle as her nipples harden from me touching her mark. “I am about to touch you, so don’t freak out,” I warn her, pecking her face as she tries to swat me away.
“Damn, I hope she doesn’t sleep like this every time. It’s like trying to wake the dead,” Donnie mutters.
“Andrei, it’s cold, get back in bed and be my hot water bottle,” she pouts, half asleep, turning into me where I sit on the edge of the bed.
I lean down to nuzzle her neck, and she growls at me, wanting to sleep.
“Touching you now,” I tell her, and she mutters something that sounds like “Do what you want, just let her sleep.” I roll my eyes, moving the washcloth between her legs.
She reacts to my touch instantly, and I freeze for a second when she moans softly. I quickly clean her, walk to the bathroom and toss the cloth in the hamper.
As I walk back into the room I notice she is laying in my spot. I move her over to climb into bed beside her, eager to sleep myself. Sage drapes her limbs over me, presses closer and starts to purr, the sound she is making puts me at ease, and I yawn, closing my eyes and letting sleep take me.