Aidan woke the next morning with a faceful of hair. He spluttered and gasped, trying to get it out of his mouth. It took him a full minute to realise that he was in a comfy bed, with easy warmth around him.
A whole minute to pull his thoughts together. That was a first for him.
He wasn’t used to sleeping this peacefully. In fact, he hadn’t had a full night of sleep in so many years. Usually he was up from bed the moment he opened his eyes. No time to laze around in bed.
His sleep in the past few weeks after his father’s death had been troubled, to say the least. He would go to bed and few minutes into his sleep, the nightmares would start . Several recurring images of his father dying, of Lauren almost getting killed by her father, of the whole battle scene at the laboratory. The bodies of several Lycans littering the parkng lot of the laboratory.
The images played over and over in his head like a faulty video player: a few more minutes into it and the screams and cold sweat would start. He would wake up soaked from his head to his clothes in sweat, and he wouldn’t be able to go back to bed after that.
But last night had been different: peacefully different. Perhaps sleeping in Lauren’s arms was the cure he had needed all along.
Aidan felt fingers brush his cheeks and opened his eyes. A pair of chestnut brown eyes stared into his. He blinked slowly; it felt as though he was in a lucid dream. He groaned and tried to sit up, but his bones were weak.
All he could see beyond those brown eyes was white. He wasn’t sure what it was or why it was happening to him, but he was too relaxed to react much to it.
“Go back to bed, Aidan.” A strangely faniliar voice said to him. Aidan didn’t need telling twice; he felt his consciousness slip away from him as he drifted into another dreamless sleep.
When next he woke, his vision seemed to have cleared a bit. He groaned and blinked a couple of times, then sat up. His head felt as though fairies were flying around up there, and his neck ached more than usual. He raised a hand to touch the neck and the ring of irritated flesh there and saw that it was throbbing slightly.
Not weird. Not weird at all, he thought.
He glanced at his side and saw that the bed was empty. He ran his hand over the space. It was still warm, which meant that Lauren had only just gotten up. He blinked again and his vision was fully restored. He sighted Lauren opposite the bed, sitting on the windowsill and reading a book. He suddenly remembered how he had fled from that window the night he’d shared a kiss with her.
The sunlight that came from the window she leaned on seemed to set her thick brown hair on fire. The tips had turned ochre, and the part that was in direct contact with the window was a fierce, beautiful orange-red.
His wolf senses was sharp enough to pick her deep brown eyes even from this distance. He could see her eyes slowly move across the pages as she read. Her face was content and peaceful, not at all the agonised one he had seen only yesterday. He smiled faintly as he watched her. Beautiful was a very weak word compared to what he could see from the bed.
An involuntary sigh escaped his lips and Lauren looked up, startled. She moved and the sunlight that set her hair on fire shifted, making the scene lose a bit of its magic. He could see the worry return to her previously peaceful face.
“You’re awake.” She said, more of a statement than a question.
“Yeah, yeah.” He replied, feeling a bit disappointed. He wanted to watch her for as long as he could.
She moved from the window sill and walked to the bed. She was putting on a large white cotton dress-shirt and white socks, and nothing else. The sleeves were rolled up and her hair was let down, flowing around her shoulders, a beautiful halo of brown. He groaned slightly and looked away. She was driving him absolutely crazy.
She sat on the corner of the bed and watched him. “Were you having nightmares last night?” She asked. He knew she was wondering why he’d suddenly turned up in her bed in the middle of the night. Suddenly he felt very self conscious.
“Yes.” He said, deciding to be honest with her. “Well, not nightmares per se, but I felt restless. And the pain was back too.” He touched the side of his neck that throbbed. “I heard a voice in my head. ‘You cannot escape from me’, it said.”
Lauren’s deep brown eyes regarded him. Aidan knew that she understood what he was saying, and what he wasn’t. She was the only person who understood, perhaps because she was going through the same thing.
His eyes caught the metal bracelet on her left wrist that glowed a deep, metallic blue. Was it his imagination, or did the glowing increase in intensity the moment he looked at it?
“I hear voices too.” Lauren said quietly and he slowly drew his eyes from the bracelet. “Last night, when Eric had been attacked. It said Eric would die. Do you think it’s… him?”
Aidan swallowed hard and averted his eyes. He wasn’t sure he wanted to answer that question.
“How do you feel?” She asked.
“Like I took three trips to hell last night.” He muttered.
Lauren laughed suddenly, her high-pitched voice filling his ears. “Yeah well, you look very good for someone who took supposed trips to hell.”
“Do I? Hand me a mirror real quick.” He said and she laughed again. He’d missed the sound of her laughter; he hadn’t heard it much since his father’s death.
“I actually feel very fine, Lauren. Apart from the throbbing and general sense of doom. Last night was the most peaceful I’ve had since all of this started.” He said, smiling at her.
“I know.” She said and grinned, then stood up from the bed. “Come on, let’s have breakfast. I can smell pancakes.”
Immediately she said it, Aidan caught the scent too. It seemed to permeate the entire house. He threw aside the bedcovers and climbed down from the bed excitedly. “If that tastes half as good as it smells, I just might finish the entire platter.” He said.
Immediately he came down from the bed, the throbbing in his neck increased and he felt a bit faint, but nothing could kill the happiness he felt. He’d been so alone, quietly nursing the gloominess in his heart since his father died. Perhaps even since he was bitten by his father. For the first time in seven years, Aidan felt truly happy.