Heaven's Darkness (Book 2)

Chapter 8 - Jeriah

When I woke up, I found my nose buried in a mass of soft, golden strands of hair, a sort of peach smell wafting through my nostrils. My eyes remained closed, relishing in the nice smell for a moment before realization hit me.

My back was against a torn, beaten wall, sitting atop the bed I wasn't planning to spend the night on. I had my arms wrapped around the reflective, black cloak of Ashura, her head resting against my chest, my cheek gently brushing her hair.

We were cuddling.

To my relief, Ashura hadn't woken up yet. I didn't want her to wake up and see me canoodling her. That's just creepy. I was already embarrassed, I didn't need the rest of the guild hearing about this when we got back to Forthbrook. I'd never live that down.

I tried my best to remove myself from underneath her without waking her from her sleep. After successfully pulling a ninja trick of stealth, I gently cradled Ashura's head and lowered her to the bed mattress, hoping she would wake up without any knowledge of how I basically held her like a teddy bear all night long. I sighed in relief at her peaceful, sleeping figure, completely unaware of anything I was doing.

I was never going to tell her about this.

Stretching out my arms and back, I sleepily wobbled over to where I had thrown my clothes yesterday. I began dressing myself, not even bothering to seclude myself in the bathroom. I traded my shorts for my silver-lined, black pants, my undershirt being covered by a similar, matching tunic. I then pulled on my protective boots and finished off with clasping my cloak to my shoulders, making sure my illuminated, red guild emblem was in the middle of my back, evening out the length of the scaly material.

Finding myself newly dressed, ready to attack the day, I strolled over to a window hiding behind dusty curtains and peered outside. The sun was almost at its highest point in the sky, not a single cloud in sight. Dust kicked up under the feet of milling pedestrians, adding some sparkling dynamic to the lustrous scene. Rays of desert heat emanated from all over the town, but temperature was something that never really bothered me. The darkness of the shadow realm usually regulated my feelings of heat and chills, which was a little ironic, when thinking about it.

I suddenly heard movement from the bed, followed by a huge yawn. With a stupid smile on my face, I stepped over and knelt beside the bed right in front of Ashura's closed eyes.

"Go away," she grumbled at me in a groggy voice. "I actually had no nightmares for once and wanna go back."

I was about to tickle her to wake her up, but found I couldn't bring myself to do it. She had no nightmares last night, making it the only time free of those dreaded things. I couldn't interrupt that, knowing what she was going through.

Thinking about it, it was also the first time in a long time I didn't have a single nightmare, either. Usually, I dreamt about evil dragons or a variation of the massacre, but last night was a peaceful, dreamless sleep for me. I would take that any day over those nightmares. They were always so terrifying, horrific, typically with a feeling of isolation to top it all off. It was never a pleasant experience. A consequence of being a wizard, they're almost too common in our guild due to the high amount of scarring tasks we get. A lot of times it deals with being in those situations alone. When you're alone, everything becomes more real than your mind can comprehend. Your mind reacts volatilely, even explosively, when there isn't another person bringing you back down to earth. That's why wizards typically form guilds; they need comrades to keep them from going insane.

Maybe our nightmares weren't bothering us because we were next to each other all night.

Oh, shit, I don't wanna be that person that does the thing that all guys end up being.