Sleeping Beast
1208 Words
Sonya’s POV
I stand there, frozen, barely daring to breathe. I feel cold—a strange, deep cold—even though this room has modern heating.
Silence. A silence so deep I could hear the wind whispering against the glass. Then, a new sound—a low rumble that vibrates through the floorboards.
Coming from the bed.
From his chest.
It’s not a snore. It’s deeper, more resonant. A subsonic growl that seeps into my very bones.
I can’t help but stare at his face again. Thick eyebrows, a perfectly carved nose, full lips pressed tight. Even unconscious, he radiates an aura of power—a gravity that’s both magnetic and threatening.
I lean closer, my training kicking in. Instead of touching his face, I search for his pulse at his neck.
The moment my fingers touch his skin, the world stops.
His skin is hot. Not feverish. A deep, smoldering heat, like the earth’s core wrapped in silk. His pulse is strong and steady, but the rhythm is strange… thump… thump… then a pause that’s too long, like something larger than a human heart is beating.
And the scent hits me stronger now. The smell of a deep forest at night. Of metal and… blood. Like the smell of a predator.
My instincts scream. This isn’t a “neurological condition.” This body is too perfect, too powerful to be sick. This is a body built for…
For hunting.
I pull my hand back, my heart hammering. My gaze travels down his body. On his arms, his chest—pale networks of scars. Not from knives or surgeries, but like… claw marks. Bites from something…
My eyes snap back at his face. And there, beneath those dark lashes, I swear he’s watching me.
His eyelids flutter. Very slightly. Like someone trapped in a vivid dream.
He’s not fully asleep.
That realization hits me like ice. This beautiful, terrifying creature knows I’m here. He can feel me.
I watch his hand where it rests on the covers. His long, powerful fingers twitch once. His nails—or are they claws retracted?—scratch lightly at the silk.
An instinct deeper than fear, older than professionalism, pushes me forward. Slowly, I circle the bed. My eyes trace a pale scar across his forearm near the elbow. It’s jagged, uneven, as if the flesh was once torn and fused back together with incredible force.
It looks like a flaw on a marble statue—a paradox of strength and fragility. Without thinking, my index finger reaches out, almost touching the edge, just to understand its strange texture.
Contact.
But it’s not my finger touching his scar. It’s his hand moving.
With a speed that blurs my vision—impossible for someone in a deep coma—his right hand snaps up and closes around my wrist. His grip isn’t tight, but it’s unshakable, like an iron bar still warm from a forge.
“Nnh…”
A deeper, more aware growl rumbles from his chest. His eyelids flutter harder. He doesn’t open his eyes, but every muscle in his sculpted body tenses, readying. His slow, deep breathing shifts to short, alert exhales through his nose.
Marcus’s final warning echoes in my head: “Do not startle him.”
My heart pounds in my throat.
Have I startled him?
This defies everything I know about neurological patients or comas. A directed reflex response? A partial seizure? My mind races for medical explanations, but none fit.
I freeze, my eyes locked on his large hand wrapped around my fragile-looking wrist. Heat from him spreads through my skin, flooding my veins like a warm infusion.
He still doesn’t open his eyes. But his grip adjusts, his thumb moving almost like a stroke over my frantic pulse. A measuring, recognizing motion. Not an attack. Not tenderness either. It’s an instinctive claim from something half-aware.
I don’t dare move. My mind spins. What do you do when a ‘client’ with a ‘primal condition’ suddenly holds you with partial consciousness?
“Sir… Andrew?” I whisper, my voice hoarse and barely audible, trying to call him to awareness like they taught us with consciousness disorders.
At the sound of his name, his fingers tighten slightly—not hurting, but holding on. A tendon in his neck strains. Beneath his closed lids, his eyes move rapidly, intensely—like someone trapped in a dream where they’re someone else.
Then, from between his clenched lips, comes a voice so hoarse, raw, and filled with agony it makes my heart clench:
“Run.”
Just one word. But it’s loaded with so much desperation and conflict that my blood runs cold.
Run? From what? From him? From this condition I don’t understand?
But his grip hasn’t released. It’s the perfect contradiction—word versus action.
I take a deep breath, steadying the tremor wanting to take over. Instead of pulling away—a movement that could be seen as resistance and might trigger a deeper response—I remember my training for agitated patients.
Very carefully, I turn my hand within his grasp. Now my palm faces up, and my fingers gently touch his wrist, right over that strange, powerful pulse.
A calm, reciprocal touch. Showing I’m not a threat.
He groans deeply, the sound full of struggle, and his whole body shudders. His grip loosens for a moment, then tightens again, but this time my fingers are caught between his—a strange, intimate connection.
The heat from him intensifies, as if all the energy holding him back from… from what, I don’t know… is pouring into this small point of contact.
For one brief, tense moment, his thumb moves again. Not a stroke. A short, firm press against the back of my hand. A kinda code.
Then, the tension in his body slowly drains, like someone surrendering to a sedative. His breathing returns to a deeper pattern, though still not normal. His grip weakens, but his hand remains over mine, like a heavy, exhausted weight. His head tilts slightly on the pillow, the pained tension in his face softening a little.
He hasn’t let go. My hand is still there, trapped in his loose hold.
In the silent room, there’s only the sound of our breathing—his deep and resonant like an overheating engine, mine shallow and held back.
I didn’t run. Not out of courage, but out of mesmerized confusion and the remnants of a nurse’s instinct that won’t let me leave a “patient” like this.
This man isn’t just gravely ill.
But somewhere deep, beyond logic and medical training, I know one thing: this is no longer just about a circadian disorder or hypersensitivity. Something is very wrong here. Wrong and dangerous. And I, through my foolishness or my terrible luck, am now physically connected to that mystery.
He’s still holding my hand. And for some reason, even though every logical part of me screams danger, a deep, almost deadly curiosity overpowers the urge to pull away. I’ve just touched the heart of a great mystery. And that mystery, in its terrible suffering and confusion, has gripped me back.
I can’t even begin to imagine what any of this means.
- Writer
