Doe's POV:

The scene around me was a familiar one, vast, pale, nothingness surrounding my entirety.

The sudden uneasiness that churned in my gut reminded me of what I was supposed to be expecting from here.

So much has happened, it'd been so long since I've had a dream like this.

As the realizations and memories trickled in, as did the cementing sensation pouring down my limbs, rendering me immobile.

And the footsteps, echoing through the endless nothingness surrounding me with their casual approach.

It had me holding my breath, trying to prepare for what I was so used to following.

The woman who I thought I'd escaped.

I did. I did escape her, so why was this still happening to me?!

I forced myself to focus on the sounds approaching me, gauging just how much time I had to rebuild my mental defenses.

The longer I listened, the more one thing became evident.

These footsteps were... different.

Still familiar, but different.

My immediate panic slowed at this, hearing the steps close in before they were right upon me.

A gentle hand found my shoulder, and at that touch, I could move again.

I quick head-turn to my right, and a different blonde than I was expecting greeted me with his warm fanged smile.

The tension I held melted away at the sight.

Xander.

He'd never appeared in a dream like this before. Not as anything more than a thought at least.

I'd be lying if I said his presence here didn't elate me.

I rose an arm, aiming to cross it over my chest and set it atop where his was on my shoulder.

Only a heartbeat before the contact was made, a tearing sound sliced through the air around us, bouncing around us like every minuscule sound always did

I knew that sound, I'd heard it once before.

Even a hint of the memory sent my stomach flipping.

The look on Xander's face dropped. His eyes fearfully wide and staring just past me, and his breath trembling in a hiss through barely parted lips.

His hand on my shoulder grew heavy before falling away completely with the rest of him.

I tried calling his name as he fell to his knees before landing fully face-first on the ground.

Any second hope of speaking died on my tongue at what I saw.

Four deep gashes ran across his back in the same way I'd seen once before, blood flowing freely from all of them and steadily began to pool around his motionless body.

No!

There was some resistance, but my body eventually listened to me and knelt by his side in a fit of terrified panic that I'd never experienced before.

His name wouldn't leave my mouth, no matter how much I tried I couldn't make a sound.

I put my hands on him to try to shake him but got no reaction out of him whatsoever.

He just laid there, hair covering his eyes and face.

I don't think he was breathing.

A searing agony stabbed through my chest, hastily pressing my hands against the wounds to try to stop the never-ending stream of blood, but to absolutely no avail

The crimson just continued to stain my hands and knees.

No... No no no no come up. Get up!

Please... please get up!

A laugh I knew all too well filled the air, causing my already aching heart to sink deep into my abdomen

The maniacal cynicism behind it solidified immediately who it was coming from.

I didn't want to turn my head, but I didn't have any other choice but to face her again.

She stood directly where he once did, claws bloodied and poised for another strike.

The sickening grin she wore wasn't proportional to the rest of her face, and her eyes burned with horrid rage.

I didn't know what to do.

I was stuck fighting the instinctive terrified urge to run, and the need to stay by his side when he was like this, and an anger of what she'd once again done to him.

That's when I realized that her focus wasn't on me at all. It was purely on Xander.

That knowledge didn't make me feel any better, especially when her stance lowered and claws set to ready themselves for a second attack.

I didn't have any time to prepare before she lunged towards him again, claws aimed and ready to tear him to shreds.

Air couldn't fill my lungs fast enough as I snapped back into consciousness, eyes opening to pitch darkness.

I was so used to waking from such a dream to metal bars all around me that It took me a moment to remind myself where I was.

My racing heart and the lump tied thick in my throat didn't help my attempts of calming down, so instead, I began to seek out Xander.

The sudden realization that I didn't feel his arms around me, or the feeling of him against me at all sent me into a deeper panic.

The images of my dream were still fresh on my mind, temporarily impeding my ability to think rationally.

"Xander?" I spoke in a whisper, feeling around the space on the bed.

Nothing.

I hurriedly pushed myself into a sitting position, patting around the bed in a frenzy.

Where was he?!

My eyes finally adjusted enough to where I could see it with my own eyes.

He wasn't here.

Everything I was feeling tripled.

"Xander?!" I called out, a fear I didn't know I had until this very moment making itself extremely prominent.

My breaths felt heavy, checking over the bed a few times more to make sure that my eyes weren't deceiving me.

The knot in my throat turned painful, tears pricking at my dry eyes from the overwhelming feeling of it all.

Of a fear that felt forgotten yet brand new.

There was a hasty shuffling from my right, the bathroom door flying open the second I looked towards it.

"What? What's going on?" He spoke in his own hurried panic, his presence coming with that green glow of his eyes.

Relief washed over me in an instant, bringing with it an entirely new wave of emotions.

I found myself speechless in the moment, just staring at him through slightly blurry vision as I solidified the fact that he was here.

He quickly closed the distance between us, glancing around the room as if looking for someone else.

Even through the relief, everything else prevailed.

It's like my body was freaking out and I couldn't overpower what was happening to it with facts.

"What happened?! Are you ok-"

The second he made it to the edge of the bed, I had my arms around him, holding him tight.

Solidifying that what just happened was nothing to worry about.

That my dream was just that.

My hand rose to that specific part of his back, feeling the smooth, un-injured skin that sat underneath the fabric.

His arms didn't return the favor as they usually did, instead, he faltered a moment, and I felt his fingertips against my head and mid-back

What felt like a warm mist spread throughout my body at the contact. Whatever it was tingling right under my skin.

The initial sensation of it was familiar enough for me to quickly distinguish it as that pheromone thing he could do now as a royal.

This one was much gentler than what I'd felt previously.

It didn't take away the feeling in my mind but made every other sensation fade away.

The knot in my throat, the weight in my chest, even my heart rate eased with it all.

All of which finally allowed for some rational thoughts to make their way through.

He's okay... of course he's okay...

Yeah. I knew that she wouldn't be able to bring him down to what I saw in my dream.

He'd never be in that situation... and even if he was, it would have played out differently.

Still, I couldn't shake the feeling completely at the moment.

I was always her target in these dreams. Why now was it him?

And why did the thought terrify me equally as much?

She had to have known better than to come and seak him out here.

She knew what was at stake if he ever saw him again.

I let out a sigh as I leaned into him, his arm finally holding me there now that his pheromone had done its job.

"Nightmare?" He asked simply, his voice having also calmed now that he had me here.

Of course he knew. He always knew when something like this happened.

I nodded against his shirt, managing to wipe my eyes in the process.

"Sorry," I spoke with a sniffle, now feeling a bit embarrassed for how harshly I reacted to it all, "I didn't mean to make you worry."

He copied my sigh into relaxation, holding me tight with one arm, while the other trailed my back in that pattern he used to pull me back into calmness.

To inhale as he drew up, and exhale when he drew down.

It took a minute for me to follow it, but I got there.

"You don't have to apologize for stuff like that," He whispered, "Though hearing you call my name like that... I swear you're getting closer and closer to giving me that heart attack every time."

That pulled a quiet, breath of a laugh from me while he maneuvered himself back onto the bed and managed to still keep me close in the process.

We settled back into the position I remembered falling asleep in.

He was a prince here... There's no way that anything like that could possibly happen.

Still, I clung tighter to his shirt as if he was just sporadically going to be yanked away from me by some unknown force.

He continued that pattern against my back, raising goosebumps from my arms once I finally fell into it.

Once I forced my brain to pull itself together.

Even so, it did a pretty half-assed job.

"Do you wanna um... talk about it?" He asked, not sounding too sure of himself, but I appreciated the effort.

I shook my head, opting to ask a question instead in hopes that it would make my racing thoughts come to an end.

"If you- hypothetically speaking, if you got in a fight here, there's a pretty good chance that you'd win, right?"

There was a short silence that he filled with a hum.

"A fight, huh?" he drawled, "Yeah, I'd say that I'm pretty set here. The only people I'd definitely lose to are Nico and my parents, but anyone else, and I have the advantages to come out on top."

He was speaking in a calm casual manner.

I dwelled on that answer, luckily feeling it working in shooing away the remaining panic in favor of facts.

"Why? You trying to beat me in a fight?"

I appreciated the challenging tone mixed with his signature mischief.

Since moving here, and not spending all of my time with him, it felt like I'd been missing out on it lately.

"Maybe," I played along, "I think if I played my cards right, I could probably win."

Not a chance, but it was a fun theory to entertain.

"You have a better chance than most," He divulged, settling deeper into his pillow.

"But, you are okay, right?" That soft seriousness made a quick reappearance.

"Yeah," I assured, snatching one of his legs between mine, "I'm okay. Are you?"

"Me?" He was surprised by the sudden question.

"Yeah. You've just been kind of... off lately. I thought it just might have something to do with being back in your territory, but I feel like it's been getting worse."

I didn't even know how to properly explain it, but it was like he was just continuously disregarding his own thoughts.

Hesitating on things that I knew he wanted without a doubt. And that confidence of his that I've started to adore was slipping.

It would show up occasionally whenever it needed to, but I felt like it could do better.

I just wanted to make sure that whatever it was didn't have anything to do with Layla.

She was still both haunting us, and there was nothing I despised more than the thought processes shed molded him to have.

He should know by now that I was more than willing to talk some sense into him.

"I'm just adjusting to all of these new feelings and responsibilities is all," He replied.

I guess that made sense...

Maybe if I catch him doing it again I'll call him out on it.

"What's your plan for tomorrow?" I asked.

He thought for a moment.

"That depends on yours. I'm pretty sure that I don't have anything to attend to. Why?"

I nuzzled closer, getting comfortable beside him again and readying myself to sleep again.

"We should do something fun then. I want to spend some time with you."