Page 38 of Somno Slave

Between my legs.

Wet heat clings between my thighs in a way that feels horribly fresh. My thighs clamp shut instinctively. Horror floods me so fast I nearly choke on it.

“No,” I breathe, but it comes out thin, like I don’t believe it myself.

My thoughts tear frantically at the edges of it, trying to force everything back into something logical, something explainable, but there’s nothing solid to grab onto. No memory. No sequence. Just the lingering feeling of being touched too much in places that still ache from it.

It has to be a dream.

It has to.

But my body hasn’t caught up with that yet.

My body feels handled. Used.

I swallow hard. My thighs tighten instinctively, smearing the wetness over my skin.

Oh God.

No.

The realisation crawls over me slowly enough to make nausea rise with it.

My bodyfinished.

In my sleep!

I drag the duvet back over myself too quickly, like it can undo it, like it can hide it from me even though I already know it’s there. The movement drags my attention to a tickling sensation by my shoulder.

My hair is down.

I never sleep with my hair down.

What the—

A sharp pain stabs me in the nipples so suddenly it makes me gasp. I grab at my breasts instinctively, cradling them against the ache, but the tenderness only deepens beneath my touch. They feel bruised in a way that makes no sense.

My throat tightens painfully. I cannot stop feeling touched.

I hold myself there for a second too long, trying to soothe the ache and hating that part of me still feels warm beneath it.

“You make such pretty sounds in your sleep.”The words slide through me like fingers hooking beneath skin.

Heat twists violently low between my thighs before horror catches up to it, sudden and humiliating enough to make my stomach turn.

“No,” I say again, sharper this time, like I can cut the thought off before it fully forms. “No, that’s—”

That’s not possible.

I was asleep.

Alone.

Nobody was here.

Nobody should have been here.

My head snaps up.