Chapter 49 Kristen
I woke with a start, drenched in sweat, heart pounding against my ribs like it was trying to claw its way up through my throat.
A nightmare.
My breath came in rapid, uneven bursts, as though I had been pulled from drowning by instinct alone. Whatever nightmare had come for me in the dark clung to my mind like iron shackles. I blinked again and again, trying to push the remnants of that terror away, but it hung there, uninvited and unrelenting.
The voice from the dream still lingered in my ears, repeating in a loop that refused to fade.
They are not telling you everything.
You have no idea, do you?
It had sounded like the gargoyle.
Not precisely his voice, but something shaped around it, a distortion that clung to me long after I woke.
My skin was slick with cold sweat, chills running down my spine even as my body throbbed with heat. I reached over and stared at the clock beside my bed, the green digits burning bright in the darkness.
3:00 a.m.
It was early enough that night still felt like night, and too early for anything other than silent dread.
I exhaled shakily and let the air leak out in one long, trembling breath. Sleep was gone from me now. My muscles were tense and my brain refused to settle. I rolled out of bed, feet hitting the floor in small, cautious steps. I needed water, clarity, anything that felt solid and waking. The thought of the shower came next, like logic arriving late to the scene of a crime.
I walked toward the bathroom, still half draped in the remnants of sleep. My mind was a whirl of fragmented images and unanswered questions, and with every step I felt the echo of that dream voice thudding in time with my pulse.
That is when I saw the door.
It was slightly ajar, a sliver of golden light spilling out into the dark hallway. A soft, steady breathing drifted from within. The sound was deep and calm, measured like someone in the world of dreams rather than the world of fear I had just escaped.
My curiosity pulled me closer. My stomach twisted with a mixture of dread and something else I could not name yet, something that felt too close to exposure and too close to waking desire. I froze mere inches from the gap and peeked inside.
There he was.
Leo.
Right.
I forgot he lived here now.
He was asleep on the bed.
That was the first thing my brain managed to register, and then everything else hit at once.
The sheets were tangled low around his hips, barely clinging to him, and my breath stalled in my chest so hard it almost hurt. He was completely naked. Not partially. Not implied. Fully exposed, stretched out like he belonged there, like it was normal for him to be laid bare in the quiet dark of the room.
I froze in the doorway.
Heat rushed up my neck and into my face, sharp and immediate, the kind of embarrassment that made my pulse spike and my hands go useless at my sides. I should not be seeing this. I should not be standing here. My brain screamed at me to turn around, to back away, to pretend the door had never been open.
But I didn’t move.
His body was carved out of shadow and low light, muscle relaxed but unmistakably powerful even at rest. Broad shoulders. Strong chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths. Ink curling across his skin, softened by sleep instead of tension. When he was awake, he carried himself like a weapon, coiled and controlled. Here, stripped of that awareness, he looked dangerous in a different way.
Unprotected.
Real.
My gaze dropped before I could stop it, and that was when my breath caught for real.
His body was reacting to whatever he was dreaming. His hips shifted slightly, a slow roll against the sheets, and his cock twitch and pulsate visibly before my eyes. My pulse slammed hard in my ears as his hand slid down his stomach with lazy, unconscious intent. I sucked in a sharp breath, panic flaring, my heart hammering so loud I was sure it would wake him.
He touched himself without waking.
Slow. Thoughtless. Fingers curling, stroking in an easy rhythm while his cock twitch and pulsate beneath his hand, thick and alive, responding to nothing but instinct. His brows stayed smooth, lashes dark against his cheek, mouth parted just enough for his breathing to sound deeper, heavier. He had no idea. No awareness that someone else was standing there, watching something that was never meant to be seen.
Shock slammed into me fully then, hot and dizzying.
Oh God.
This was wrong. Intimate in a way that felt almost intrusive. My chest felt too tight, like I had stepped into something private and sacred and couldn’t get out fast enough. I knew I should leave. I knew it with absolute clarity.
And still I stood there.
His hand moved again. Once. Then again. Slow, unhurried, like his body had all the time in the world, his cock twitch and pulsate with every drag of his fingers. My thighs tightened reflexively, heat pooling low and unwelcome, and the realization of my own reaction sent a fresh wave of embarrassment crashing over me.
I was staring.
I was staring at my naked dad's best friend.
At him touching himself.
And my body was responding like it had a mind of its own.
My stomach clenched, a strange mix of shock and desire twisting together so tightly I couldn’t separate them. This wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I wasn’t supposed to feel anything at all except mortification.
But my breath had gone shallow, my skin buzzing like I’d brushed against live wire, and the quiet intimacy of the moment made it worse. The room felt smaller. Warmer. Too full of him.
I tore my eyes away finally, heart pounding, shame and heat tangled together in my chest. I stepped back silently, every nerve on fire, and retreated down the hallway like I was escaping a crime scene.
I backed away from the door before he could wake and see me standing there, before the fragile edges of control I still had slipped entirely away. I moved quickly now, retreating to the bathroom and closing the door behind me without another thought.
I turned the water on as hot as I could stand it, letting the steam fill the room and chase away the chill that had settled into my bones. The shock of the spray on my skin helped more than anything else. It snapped me out of that frozen moment of observation and back into the world where senses were mine again and not hijacked by fear or confusion.
And the image followed me anyway.
Still I could not escape the image. The way his body was at ease, the slow movement of his hand, the quiet rise and fall of his chest. The sound of his breathing in sleep.
I scrubbed at my skin with too much force, like the water and the soap could wash away the image, the memory, the weird pull of it that I did not want. But the harder I scrubbed, the more the memory embedded itself into my thoughts.
Eventually I stepped out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel and breathing in the cool air of the room that wasn’t quite dawn yet. I dressed quickly, chaotic in motion, as though I was running from myself and the memory of what I had just witnessed.
By the time the sun was beginning to light the sky with that fragile hint of morning, I was driving without really thinking about where I was going. My thoughts were too loud, swirling with fragments of what had happened and what that strange dream meant. I needed comfort. I needed clarity. I needed someone who could talk to me without fear and without judgment.
So I drove straight to the dorm.
I pulled up in front of Anna’s building and parked, heart still thudding like it had a vendetta against silence. I stepped out of the car and walked up to her door, my legs shaky under me, my mind running ahead of me in a race I could not slow.
She answered on the first knock, her eyes widening a bit when she saw me.
“You never come here this early,” she said with a small laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes at first. Then she paused, as though something was wrong. Her gaze sharpened. “What is going on? You look like you just walked out of a storm.”
I didn’t want to explain with words yet. Not the nightmare, not the half‑remembered darkness, not the thing that seemed to be growing at the edge of my thoughts like roots pulling me in different directions.
Anna stepped aside and let me in. The room was familiar. Warm. Nonthreatening. A place where chaos had not yet found its way in.
“You look cold,” she said, eyes soft with concern.
I didn’t know why exactly I said it, but my voice came out quiet and unsteady. “I am cold,” I said, and then I realized how my words sounded.
Before I could regret it, she opened the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, handing it to me quickly.
“That’s cold,” I said, looking at the bottle in my hand.
Anna smiled, a gentle, knowing smile. “Is it?” she asked.
I turned it in my hand. My fingers pressed against the plastic, and then I felt it — warmth. The bottle was warmer than it should have been. Somehow it had taken on a comfortable heat, as though it belonged in my palm rather than sitting icy cold in my grip.
I laughed, shaky and raw, the sound bursting out of me like a sigh I did not know I was holding. I drank, letting the warmth settle into my chest in slow waves.
Anna watched me closely. Her voice was soft when she spoke next. “What’s wrong, Kristen?”
I took another breath, steadying myself against the rush of confusion and fear and that image I could not erase from my mind.
I met her eyes and let the truth come out, even though it tasted strange and unwanted in my mouth.
“The kidnapping changed something.” My words were slow, heavy with meaning. “The gargoyle said people were hiding things from me. I don’t know who. I don’t know why. But I feel like my bones know it the way my body remembers how to breathe.”
Anna blinked, her expression tightening with concern and curiosity all at once.
“Who?” she asked gently.
I swallowed, my throat dry. “I don’t know exactly.” My gaze dropped and then lifted again, steadier this time. “My aunt. My father before he died. Leo. I barely remember some of that night. I remember him arriving, and then the next thing I recall is being in my bed. Something happened. I know it in my bones.”
Her eyes softened with empathy and something else, something that felt like alliance.
I took a breath and said the words I had been holding in place with every ragged thought I had had since waking. “I need to find out what they are hiding. And I need your help.”
Anna didn’t hesitate. Her nod was immediate, solid, and sure.
"What do you need me to do?"