Chapter 161: The Couch Did Not Hold

"Alpha Thunderfang?" she whispered, looking up at his face. "Are you alright?"

He didn’t move. His hands stayed where they had frozen, hovering over her shoulder, his eyes locked on the bruises from the arrest. Ten seconds passed and felt like thirty.

She had clearly made him uncomfortable. The bruises were probably jarring to look at up close. Worse than she thought if they could freeze an Alpha mid-motion.

"Thank you for helping me. I can wrap it," she said softly, taking the compression wrap out of his hands with the gentleness of a woman removing a tool from someone who had forgotten they were holding it.

She stood. He was still frozen.

She didn’t touch him because touching the Alpha without invitation was a line she understood even if the rules were different in Thunderfang. She stepped back to give him space.

"Why don’t you sit down, Alpha. I can get you some water."

His head shook once. Hard. Then his eyes snapped to hers and she jolted because the transition from statue to moving was so abrupt it caught her off guard.

His arm hooked around her waist and he was guiding her back down to the bed. Before her brain processed that she was sitting again, he was wrapping her shoulder identically to the one he had done the night before.

"Thank you, Alpha," she managed.

He didn’t answer or look at her.

He turned and walked into his bathing chamber. The door shut behind him with a click.

Nova blinked a few times at the closed door. Then she picked up the second ice pack and held it against the top of her shoulder where the wrap didn’t cover.

She looked at his bed. Then she looked at his couch. The couch had a blanket folded on the arm of it, which meant someone had prepared it for her.

She crossed to it and lowered herself down carefully. The cushion was deep and the leather was broken in and the blanket was warmer than it had any right to be for a couch accessory.

She pulled it over herself with her good hand. Ice pack balanced against her shoulder. Hair still damp against the armrest. The fireplace had burned down to embers that painted the ceiling in soft copper light.

Her body made the decision before her brain could object. Every muscle that had been running on fumes and stubbornness and Lightning Nectar surrendered at the same time, a full-system shutdown that didn’t ask permission or offer a countdown. Her eyes closed and the room went dark and Nova was unconscious before the ice pack had time to get cold.

???

Nova’s eyes opened to warmth and the disorientation of a body that had woken up in too many different beds this week to trust the first three seconds of consciousness.

She was horizontal. Comfortable. Her shoulder wasn’t screaming, which meant she was on her good side. Someone was behind her, warm and solid and breathing in a rhythm that was slow enough to be asleep.

Derek.

The thought arrived before the logic could catch up and her chest flooded with relief so intense it almost hurt. Then she remembered, no, he was in the hospital.

Maverick.

The thought swapped because the last time she had woken up horizontal with a man behind her, it had been the Emberclaw Alpha at Freya’s manor.

Something behind her was rumbling.

Her eyes snapped open.

She was in Alpha Thunderfang’s bed.

On her side. Under his covers. One of his legs was hooked over hers, the weight of it pinning her lower half to the mattress. His arm was locked around her midsection, pulling her against his bare chest like she was a flotation device.

She had fallen asleep on the couch. She was sure of it.

Oh no.

The sleepwalking. She used to do it more as a child. She hadn’t done it in a while. But stress and exhaustion and medication and a new environment were exactly the combination of ingredients that her subconscious needed to dust off the old hobby and take it for a spin.

She had sleepwalked into the Alpha of Thunderfang’s bed. Who the fuck does that?

Alpha Thunderfang was holding her like a teddy bear. His bare chest was pressed against her back through the silk camisole and the purring vibrating through her spine was so rhythmic and so warm that her treacherous body was making a compelling argument for staying right where she was.

She needed to leave before he woke up because explaining this was going to be difficult.

The moon was still out. She could see it through the balcony glass, which meant she hadn’t been asleep long.

She began the extraction.

Slowly. Millimeter by millimeter. His arm was the primary obstacle. She lifted it with her good hand, the motion so controlled it could have been performed by a surgeon. One inch. Two.

His breathing stayed steady. The purring continued.

Free.

She stood beside the bed holding her breath, looking down at Alpha Thunderfang who had rolled into the warm spot she had just vacated and was still purring. His face in sleep was different than his face awake. The jaw was still sharp but the tension was gone. He looked younger.

She hoped to every god in the sky that he didn’t smell her on his sheets because that conversation would require a diagram and a healer’s note and possibly a signed affidavit from her former roommates confirming her history of unconscious relocation.

She crept back to the couch. Blanket on. Good side down. Eyes shut. She was going to stay here this time. Sheer willpower would override whatever her sleeping brain was attempting. She was an adult. Adults slept where they chose to sleep. She chose the couch.

The couch would hold.

???

The couch did not hold.

Nova’s eyes opened to the same warmth, the same chest, the same arm, and the same leg hooked over hers. She was back in Alpha Thunderfang’s bed. On her good side. Fully under the covers. Her silk robe was off, removed at some point during her unconscious commute and deposited somewhere in the room because apparently sleepwalking Nova had decided the robe was optional and comfort was mandatory.

But this time there was an addition.

A wall of pillows was lined up in front of her face like a literal barricade. Four of them. Stacked lengthwise, creating a barrier between her side of the bed. She blinked at the pillows. Blinked again. The pillows did not explain themselves.

Her back was pressed against Alpha Thunderfang. Her front was pressed against the pillow fortification. She was sandwiched between an Alpha and pillows that her sleeping brain had put here.

Her heart started hammering. She needed to move. Right now. Before he woke up and found her in his bed.

She shifted. One inch.

Alpha Thunderfang stiffened behind her. The purring stopped so abruptly the silence had weight. His arm, which had been draped over her waist with the looseness of sleep, went rigid. His breathing changed. The deep, steady rhythm stuttered once and held.

Her heart was in her throat. Her pulse was so loud in her ears she was certain he could hear it through the pillow fort.

"I am prone to sleepwalking, Alpha," she said into the dark, her voice barely above a whisper. "I woke up like this. I was on the couch."

A grunt came from behind her. She glanced up at his face. His eyes were closed.

This man was asleep and hadn’t heard a word she said.

Her plan was to wait and let him settle into deeper sleep. Then try again.

The purring started again. Low and steady and pressed against her back, traveling through the silk and into her spine and down into the place where her resolve lived.

She closed her eyes for one second. Just one.