Beast, Blood, & Soul

* 16 *

"Play with me."

"My child, it's dangerous to play here."

"You said you'd play with me." I pull on the man's coat, but when I look up at him I see dark eyes change to red. A mouth full of teeth. A howl in the distance...

I scream!

A bark shocks me awake and I sit up with a yell in fright and look over to find the golden retriever sitting on the bed, whining. My breath is fast and my heart feels like it's going a mile a minute. I close my eyes for a moment, my hand on my chest, trying to remember the dream that scared me so much. A whimper comes from the dog and he blurs into Jimin who climbs over next to me and brings me into his arms.

"You were having a nightmare. You kept crying out, "play with me"." Jimin gently holds me as I try to get control of my breathing and slow my heart down.

"Play with me?" I ask. The dream fades quickly. I feel like I should know this dream but I just can't hold onto it. I close my eyes and lay against Jimin until my breathing slows down and I feel recovered from the scare.

"What was the dream?" words whisper in my ear.

"I wish I knew. The dream fades so quickly that I can't remember." I look up at Jimin and see his red eyes watching me, a concern reflected within.

I feel a sigh escape from the man holding me. My brows furrow, but before I can ask him about that sigh, he just turns me around and holds me against his body. I have to admit, this is not a bad way to wake up. I could easily get used to this. I rest against him and he snuggles me.

"You guys are going to spoil me." I smile.

"I like to spoil you." he squeezes me for a moment in a hug.

I smile and squeeze the arms in front of me in return as I lay back against him, pondering the dream. Soon, though, other thoughts invade.

"Are you guys okay with Brenden and me knowing your secret?" I pick at the edge of my blanket.

"It's been a long time since we have allowed anyone other than Daniel and Mrs. Kim to have contact with us. Jungkook took the choice of being private from you out of our hands." he chuckles lightly before getting serious again, "Almost losing Brenden to the broken cliff made us decide to keep him. He's too valuable to lose. He takes direction from our animals better than anyone we've ever had in his position."

"I suppose that is true, but your secret has been safe for so long. Do you think the woman who cursed you is still alive?"

Arms squeeze me at the mention of that witch. "We don't know. We've had no contact with her in a long time. But, the curse requires us to return to her if we want this reversed and we refuse to do that. It would make sense that if we are still alive, so is she. We are bound together by her curse."

"I guess that's logical," I lean back into his arms, loving the feel of him around me. I could stay like this forever. I just wish I didn't feel like I was missing something.

The door to the room opens and V's head pokes in, "Come on, you lazy bones, it's time for breakfast." I get out of the bed that Jimin and I had been snuggling in and slide my feet into the slippers I was given last night. I glance around the guest room, making sure I didn't leave anything lying around as I fell into an exhausted sleep the night before.

"Come on, Jin knows how to do breakfast right," Jimin holds his hand to me and I smile as I take it. We walk down the stairs and head to the kitchen where I see people setting the table and putting platters of food on the table.