against my skin. Tears fell down my cheeks, the sensation almost comforting against the unending inferno that raged throughout my body.
A blood-curdling scream wrenched from my lungs.
“Jesus Christ, Addy, wake the fuck up!” my captor said.
I shook my head, begging with my eyes, my heart, my very essence, but he continued to press the glowing embers against my skin over and over.
“No!” I screamed.
The man opened his mouth behind the mask and barking came out. A dog’s ravage barking exited my captor’s mouth like some twisted creature in a horror film.
“Addy, baby! Please,” I heard coming from off in the distance, the man in front of me still barking wildly like a dog.
A dog.
Barking.
“Addy, baby…”
Hands held me down. A large body sitting on top of me.
“No!” I screeched.
“Addy, wake up! It’s me. You’re safe. You’re home.”
As if the lights had been flicked on, the barking man disappeared and turned into Killian’s beloved face. The barking at my side still going strong, filling my ears, helping to remove me from the hellish place I’d been.
Brutus.
“Killian?” I whispered, staring at his face, hoping against everything within me that it was truly him. Not a dream. I wasn’t still under the hold of my captor.
Killian released my wrists. “Thank, God. Jesus, baby.” He leaned over me and kissed my forehead, then my tear-stained cheeks, my eye sockets, and then finally my mouth.
Brutus nudged my bicep and licked it several times. I reached out and patted his head which seemed to mollify him before I wrapped my arms around Killian’s body and plunged my tongue deep within his mouth.
Needing to feel him.
Needing to taste him.
Needing to drown in the cool, crisp waters that he represented.
Needing to wash away every ounce of fear coating my skin with nothing but him.
Killian.
My savior. My man. My everything.
The skin on my arms was scalding hot but I didn’t care. I whimpered against his kiss.
He pulled back and sucked in air.
“It hurts,” I yelped and winced.
“What hurts, baby? Tell me, I’ll take it all away,” he promised, and I believed him.
“Burning. My arms are burning.” The tears fell as I started to shake. “They hurt. They won’t stop hurting.”
“Baby, you’re not there. You’re right here. Let the fear go. I’ve got you. I promise you’re safe.”
“It hurts,” I choked out. “Make it stop. Make it stop burning.” My arms felt inflamed as though they were filleted open, with new, fresh wounds.
“Christ, okay, okay. I’ve got you.” Killian jumped off the bed and ripped back the covers that were trapped around my kicking legs. “Fuck, you’re all twisted up. No wonder you freaked.” He shoved his arms under my knees and around my back and lifted me straight up off the bed in a princess hold.
I whimpered as the fire bloomed once again against my flesh. The nightmare still scoring its claws through my subconscious. The pain was real. So real. Even if it wasn’t. At that moment, I couldn’t feel the difference between what my mind remembered and what was reality.
He brought me into the ensuite off his bedroom and set me on the granite top of the vanity between two sinks. He grabbed two hand towels and soaked them under the water faucet.
“Arms,” he demanded.
I stretched out my burning skin and saw the healed flesh but felt nothing but flames.
He laid the icy wet cloths over one forearm and then the other.
Instant relief.
I slumped against the mirror in a bone-weary respite, the cold water soothing the heat instantly. I watched as Killian wet another smaller wash rag, squeezed out the excess water, and pressed it to my forehead, then my burning cheeks and to my lips where I sucked some of the water against my dry tongue.
“You were back there,” he surmised.
I nodded, unable to speak as he tended to me so gently.
He lifted my hair and put the heavenly cool cloth at my nape. I shivered but also sighed at the relief it provided. Bringing me back to the here and now.
“Does this happen a lot?”
I shook my head. “In the beginning, yeah. Usually it was Mama Kerri, Blessing, or Simone if she was sleeping with me that night. I’d scream about feeling the burns still and they’d put me in the shower. Sometimes fully clothed because I was inconsolable. Mama figured out what I needed right away. I needed the cold. Also, I needed a light in the bedroom. It helped stave off the nightmares when I was able to open my eyes and could see