Bloodbond

Chapter 32

I sprang up from the bed, gasping for breath as if I'd been drowning and I'd just broken the surface. My heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it'd burst inside my chest. I could feel the cold sweat on my brow and my entire body was shaking violently. My neck was throbbing so badly that any movement caused an excruciating pain to shoot down my spine.

Without moving my head, I flicked my gaze across the room, but there was no one with me, though it looked like the room Gabriel and I had been in before I'd laid down beside him. I felt so off that I wasn't sure if I was still in the dream or not. God, everything hurt. Couldn't one day pass where I didn't feel like my body had been dragged through a ditch about a hundred times?

I wanted to get up and investigate, but I was terrified that it would only exacerbate the pain. Okay, it sucked but, if I were going to get anything done, I was just going to have to suck it up. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for whatever came next, and quickly shifted my body to the left to hang my legs over the side. My hope was that, if I did it quickly, it would lessen the pain. Boy, was I ever wrong.

Almost instantly, pain radiated throughout my entire body. It was so fierce that I cried out. I was so wrapped up in trying not to move again, that I paid little attention to what was going on around me until I heard the bedroom door smash against the wall. Thank god my reflexes were smart enough not to snap my head around to look at who was there. If I had, I'm pretty sure I would have passed out from the pain alone.

"Cassia!" I was hurting so much that I couldn't even feel relief at Gabriel's voice. "What happened?" he asked.

The next second, I saw his body cross my vision and he kneeled down in front of me. His face was filled with concern. Too bad my mind was much too distracted at the moment to really feel guilty about it.

"Hurts," was all I could manage to grit out from between my clenched teeth. I saw Gabriel reach his hand out to touch me and my body tensed further, afraid that any touch would make my situation worse.

"Don't touch her!" I recognized the voice as Madame Lavoie's. "Gabriel, I need you to back away from her. Trying to touch her right now could only cause more harm."

I could see him hesitating, hand raised. Finally, his expression torn between frustration and fear, he lowered his hand and stood up straight. "What's going on?" he asked with his jaw clenched.

"Gabriel, I'm disappointed. You've been telling me what happened in your dream and you can't figure it out?" Her words elicited a low growl from Gabriel's throat. "Oh, hush, pup. I won't tolerate your tantrums here, understood?" Madame Lavoie sounded exasperated and I might have smiled if I wasn't hurting so badly.

Instead, I focused on Gabriel and saw that his jaw clenched further but he had the foresight to keep his thoughts to himself. That woman really did have a prescence. Even Gabriel struggled to fight against her. "It's simple, really. These dreams are on an entirely different level than any other you'll ever have. They are more real and, therefore, things that happen in them may very well carry over into reality."

"So you're telling me that, because Walker broke her neck in my dream, her neck is broken here?"

"Well obviously her neck isn't broken, but I'm willing to bet that she's in excruciating pain. Now, I'm going to need you to step back because I'm going to help her to lie back down on the bed, alright?"

"I can help her," he stated firmly.

"No. You'll only hurt her. Now step aside." While I couldn't see her face, I knew that she was shooting him a death glare. Her tone was no nonsense and she wasn't going to accept no for an answer. After a prolonged pause, I saw him clench his hands before stepping out of sight. From his footsteps, I could tell that he had moved to the other side of the bed. The answering footsteps I heard making their way towards me let me know that  Madame Lavoie was coming to take Gabriel's place by my side.