Chapter 537: Stabbing his wife

Viola felt it even before she was fully awake. She was deep in her usual dream, one she knew the whole pattern of by now, but this time the whimpering and groaning she heard wasn’t coming from inside the dream at all. She slowly opened her eyes to their dim room and realized, with a jolt, that the sound was coming from right beside her.

Still a little disoriented from being pulled out of sleep, she turned toward her husband and sat up to find him twisted up in the sheets, his fingers gripping the fabric tight, forehead damp with sweat, eyes squeezed shut as though trapped mid-struggle. He was whimpering, moaning out broken words.

"...forgive me... I’m sorry..."

Viola didn’t waste a second looking. She moved and hovered over him, gently patting his arm to wake him, but her touch only seemed to torment him further in his sleep, and he began thrashing against the bed, his lips pressed into a tight, pained line, breathing harsh and ragged that her heart broke at the sight of his torment.

"Sebastian..." She whispered his name urgently, pinning his hands down at his sides so he wouldn’t thrash hard enough to strike her by accident.

When he finally began to calm down, she let go of his hands and cupped his face instead. Almost at once, his gray eyes flew open, red-rimmed and haunted, meeting hers directly. Viola saw a side of Sebastian she’d never witnessed before: the version of him relentlessly hunted by his own nightmares, with every raw emotion laid bare on his face. He looked so lost and pained, and the intensity of his feelings was so overwhelming that she felt as though she were being torn apart from the inside.

Without a word, she pulled his head against her chest, wrapping her arms around him in a tight embrace. He turned onto his side, holding her tightly as his ragged breathing warmed her neck. Viola slowly ran her hand up and down his back, trying to soothe the turmoil of emotions raging inside him.

Neither of them spoke, only held on and comforted each other, and after what felt like a long while, his hoarse voice finally broke the silence. "Nightmare... that’s why I didn’t want to sleep tonight. I can’t get it out of my head." He told her.

Last night, after her sister had finished checking his heart, Viola had stayed behind in the living room with Ivy to give the brothers space to talk, if they’d exchanged any words at all. When she and her sister returned, they’d found the two men standing by the glass wall, mirroring each other’s stance, hands buried deep in their pockets, neither speaking, both simply staring out into the winter night, only turning around once the women came back down.

Ivy had left with Alex afterward, and Viola hadn’t asked whether Sebastian had actually spoken to his brother, or what, if anything, had passed between them, since she’d noticed neither man had even wished the other goodnight, the way she and her sister had.

They’d returned to their own room, and Sebastian had gone to shower, taking far longer than usual, while Viola changed into her pajamas to wait for him. But by the time he finally emerged, exhaustion had already pulled her under too far to ask him everything she’d wanted to, her condition making it nearly impossible to stay awake long into the night anymore.

The only thing she remembered clearly was pulling him into bed when he insisted he wasn’t tired, that he still had work to finish in the office and a meeting with elders. Viola hadn’t allowed it, pulling him down anyway, resting her head against his chest, tangling her legs with his beneath the sheets.

"You can work tomorrow. Let’s sleep, for now. And if you dare try to move or slip away from me in the middle of the night, I will never sleep again, and you know exactly what that will do to my health, don’t you?" She’d threatened, just to get him settled and away from thoughts of work, and her husband hadn’t protested at all, holding her as close as her belly would allow.

Viola had smiled, victorious, and had fallen asleep soon after, only to be woken now by his whimpering.

"I hate these nightmares. They won’t fucking leave me alone..." He whispered, anguish thick in his voice, his breathing steadying slightly even as his heart still raced. He pressed his head against her chest, and she stroked his hair, then down his back, damp with sweat.

"What’s it about?" Viola asked quietly.

He was silent for a long moment before answering. "Everything horrible. I see myself stabbing you, and... I watch my sister die, over and over, and I can’t help her. I see my whole pack crumbling in front of me, and I can’t save anyone. I dream this every single time I close my eyes now, ever since her death. It’s like some kind of curse."

Whenever Sebastian let himself drift toward sleep, the nightmares seemed to be waiting behind his eyelids already, hunting him down, making him feel like a pathetic failure, incapable of protecting his own family, destined to lose even more in the future.

People had always said that the Silver bloodline carried too many curses, that its Alphas were never meant to find lasting happiness. Sebastian couldn’t help but wonder if losing the people closest to his heart was exactly that curse playing out, something he had no idea how to fight against, just as he struggled against the full moon that turned him into a ravaging beast.

The nightmares terrified him, especially now, with his wife due to give birth soon and their family about to grow. With that came an even greater fear of everything he still couldn’t control.

"Amor, there’s an old saying, that Silver’s Alphas are never destined to find real happiness, that the curse always finds a way to ruin everything... I found you, somehow, despite all of it, but why do I keep dreaming of losing everyone anyway? Is it so wrong to want my family around me, safe and unharmed? Why do I keep seeing myself stab you, of all things?" He asked quietly, lifting his head from her chest to look at her face, her blue eyes staring steadily back at him.

Slowly, Sebastian raised a hand to cup her cheek. "Even surrounded by others, by family, I still feel like you’re the only thing I actually have and need the most. Why can’t I just have you, and finally be free of this haunted feeling?" He whispered, his thumb tracing her cheek, and Viola lifted her own hand to rest over his.

"You said you stab me, in these nightmares?" She asked, watching the anguish return to his expression as he nodded.

"Do you remember anything about where it happens? The setting?" She pressed gently, and Sebastian turned his eyes toward the ceiling, shaking his head. "The setting never really registers, only the thought of doing it does. I stab you, and it feels like part of me tears away with it every single time. I hate every second of that dream." He groaned, falling back against his pillow, pulling his hand away from her face to cover his own eyes with an elbow.

"I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately." He added hoarsely, and Viola pushed herself up onto one elbow, gently pulling his hand away from his eyes.

"You didn’t stab me. That wasn’t you at all. That was Vaelor, stabbing Azmira. I’ve been having these same dreams too lately, along with ones of Zoe, and my parents, down in the sea. Almost every night now." She confessed, and watched his brows pull together as he turned to look at her.

"Vaelor stabbing Azmira? But it was your face I saw..." He said, and Viola nodded, realizing the time had finally come to tell him everything about her own recurring dreams.