“You know,” Teague whispered to his son, “when I met your mum in Chicago, it was chance—maybe it was fate. I didn’t see her, she didn’t see me. We walked right into each other. Then I saw her face and thought, ‘oh fate, how could you be so cruel?’ I knew your mother before we’d ever met. I knew her touch, her voice, how she would look.” His voice trailed away as he stared at his son in the moonlight. “I had loved her in a life long gone,” he said in a voice barely audible. “And I love her still.”
His lips brushed against his son’s downy hair and he shifted the babe in his arms, starting to pace the floor.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
Teague startled and turned, staring at Kira in the dim light of the fire, silhouetted in the doorway to their room. He smiled weakly. “No, not well anyway. Seamus started fussing, so I brought him out here so he wouldn’t disturb you.”
She nodded and drifted across the floor to him, wrapping both of her arms around one of his and resting her head on his shoulder. She peered down at the bundle in his arms and sighed softly.
“I woke up and you weren’t there,” she said softly. “I was having a nightmare. I’d hoped that you were just out here, and you were.”
“What kind of nightmare?” Teague asked, heart turning to ice in his chest.
“The terrible kind,” Kira murmured. “The kind with nameless, faceless evils that don’t make sense. I woke up and you weren’t there, so I worried—worried that it meant something, that wasn’t just a dream.”
He took a slow, deep breath. “Perhaps it was only that. Just a dream.”
“I hope so,” she whispered, rubbing her cheek against the cotton of his shirt. “Gods and monsters, do I ever hope so.”
Good chapter. I never have nightmares. Weird dreams, yes.
It’s getting hard to wait for the next chapter. Quite a few things coming to a head.
Thanks!