As Stef got herself ready for bed, she reached down for her dream catcher pendant.
No!
It was gone. Damn it, the necklace broke when Bard reached for her. How was she going to sleep?
After running away from The Holt, Stef had been plagued with horrible nightmares. It was part of why she turned to drugs on the streets, to escape the pain and fear. It wasn't until Agnes had given her the dreamcatcher that she finally got a good night sleep. It was the only thing that helped her walk away from the drugs and the life on the streets and help her feel sane again. Agnes had been her guardian angel in the shelter program where Stef had cleaned up.
She was a beautiful Native American woman in her 50's who claimed roots to her tribe's shaman. But, she had also struggled with drugs and alcohol as a young woman. So, she worked to help save others that suffered as she did. Stef owed the woman her entire life. Unfortunately, Agnes lost her battle with health problems just a few years ago. It was a loss that Stef still felt.
Stef was scared to sleep without her pendent. She was tempted to go back out to that church courtyard to find it. But, it was far too late at night to go alone. So, she paced in indecision.
Then she heard a gentle knock on her door.
"Stephanie, are you alright? I can hear you pacing around." Phobos asked.
She opened the door slowly. But, when she saw his concern, she buried herself in his arms before she could even think twice.
"I know you hate me. I am sorry. I hate that I am so much of a mess. I just don't know what to do." She sobbed.
He scooped her up into his arms and carried her into her room and sat with her on her bed while he tried to sooth her.
"I don't hate you Stephanie. I just hate that you are scared of me."
"But right now, I am scared of everything. Men, school, investigations, demon giant things, gods, the end of the world… even going to sleep."
"Shhh. You have been through a lot tonight. Sleep will help you process it all. You will feel better in the morning."
She shook her head at his words. "You don't understand. I lost my dreamcatcher. Bard broke it when he tried to take me. Without it I have horrible nightmares."
Nightmares? She was shaking in fear. Dreams that make her that scared, there had to be more at play.
Phobos looked down at her. Shit, why didn't he see it sooner. Her natural hair color is black, and with those pale blue eyes. She looks like the Oneroi. Could the skoti have been drawn to her power? Well there was only one way to know for sure.
Phobos ran his fingers through her hair as her head rested on his chest. "If you want, I can stay here with you and join you in your dream. It is one of the powers that I have. I don't use it often in this way. But, I can be there to help protect you."
"You would do that for me?" She looked up at him with so much hope. How could he say no?
He nodded.
"How does this happen?" She asked as she looked around.
He started to get up. "Just let me change into something else and get comfortable." In a moment, his clothing changed from the black pants and shirt he was wearing to grey cotton pajama pants and a white t-shirt. Then he propped a pillow against the headboard and climbed into the bed so that he was sitting up with the pillow at his lower back.
"Is that all?" She looked at him skeptically while she dried her eyes.
He chuckled. "It is all that you will see. You just need to get comfortable and fall asleep. I will follow you."
"You are going to sleep sitting up like that?"
"I will be fine. This is safer than being completely next to you. We already established that I can't fully control myself around you. Being next to you in bed may lead to more than either of us are ready for tonight."
Stef was not sure how he could be comfortable sleeping like that, but she appreciated his respect and consideration. How could she have been so wrong about him?
Stef laid down on the bed, next to where Phobos sat. As she tried to settle she asked. "Does your name really mean frightening?"
He grimaced. "Yeah. I am the personification of fear. It is kind of appropriate I guess."
"For what it is worth. I like your name." Then she rolled over.
Stef tossed and turned as she slowly drifted to sleep. It was difficult for her to sleep next to Phobos when he sent her mind racing and her body yearned for him to touch her. But, she was so overwhelmed and exhausted that she eventually lost the battle.
Phobos smiled as she eventually settled down to sleep, with her head in his lap and her arms wrapped around his legs. His body was aching with hunger for her, especially with her face buried so close to his throbbing cock. The view of it was torture. But, he kept himself from doing anything about it. It was a challenge, but he managed.
He ran his fingers through her hair, letting the soft burgundy curls wrap around his fingers. He pulled some of those curls up to his nose where he could smell the fragrance of apples.
Stef completely stole his breath away. It was so far beyond anything he had ever experienced or knew. She was so vulnerable, and yet immeasurably strong to have survived her life, let alone climb out of it. She had every reason to hate men. Yet, there she was seeking him for comfort.
His very soul craved to let her into his heart. But, the way that she looked at him in his room earlier. The fear. The assumptions. All based on a person that he was not. How could he trust that she would ever be able to accept him without fear for the person that he truly is?
She was the only person who had ever been able to weaken him. The only person to truly hurt him. He couldn't risk being hurt again.
He would protect her. Nothing more. It is all he could allow himself to do. But, deep down, he knew that he would always want more.
I should call Madoc or Delphine to watch her. But, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if she was hurt again because of me.
This is too much risk... but, I can't leave her.
"I am such a sick masochistic bastard." He said out loud.
Then Phobos closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift into Stef's dream.
When Phobos finally found her, she was wandering around an old building that was falling apart. There was no electricity. The windows were broken. There were mattresses and needles on the floor. There were people passed out on various mattresses, some even on the floor. There were puddles of vomit.
The place was toxic.
"What is this place?" Phobos asked her as his face screwed up in disgust.
The sadness in her eyes broke his heart. "This is where I lived for a while."
"I am so sorry."
She shook her head. "This is Kol's fault. I had no education, no skills, no money. My choices were to return to him to be raped by my father and end the world, or live here and at least get paid for the sex. I am still not sure which choice was better."
"Are these your nightmares that you fear?" He asked.
She shook her head. "No. My past makes me sad. Just wait, the nightmares will start. I guess you will learn the horrible truth of me this way. Then maybe you will hate me after all." She sighed as she gave into the dream.
Stef looked like she was only 15, starving, beaten and bruised. Her natural black hair was long. Her eyes were red and ringed by dark circles. This was what she looked like when she lived in this disgusting hell hole. Hopeless. Lost.
Stef closed her eyes and cringed as the memory of a young man walked up to her to grab her by the breast and proposition her. He never even looked at her face. He was only interested in the pleasure that he would have in his release. To him, she was nothing more than a tool to be used.
But, before Phobos could do anything about it. The dream changed. The boy who propositioned her was gone. Instead, Stef was holding on to another girl as she cried. A well kept man around 30 was yelling at them both. Stef, who was just a little older than the first memory, kept her calm and tried to protect the other girl.
"You know the rules you bitch. No one eats unless they work for it. No one gets high unless they buy it from me. But, they have to work for it." He roared. Then he barrelled over and grabbed Stef by the face hard enough to leave half circle marks on her skin where his nails dug in. Then he threw her to the ground.
Phobos cringed. He thought about changing the dream, but he needed to see where the nightmare started, if she had any control herself. But, it was so hard. He wanted to protect her from her past.
"You don't feed anyone but yourself, Raven. If the new girl can't figure out how to work like the rest of you all, then she will starve. That will help motivate her to learn."
Stef was angry and defiant. "But, she is sick Jackson!"
Jackson smacked her, hard enough to split her lip and leave an instant hand print. "She needs to work if she wants to eat. As for you, you need to learn your place once again. Or would you rather I call the police for you? They can send you back to your father." Stef's face showed panic. "See there, now you are starting to gain a little respect once again. But, you know I can't let this go." Jackson paused and thought about things. "Big John is coming in an hour and wants a girl for a while. I think that you will have to work off your insubordination with him."
Stef's eyes were wide and she started to tremble. Jackson squated down to caress Stef's face as he spoke to her. "You know that I don't like to see you hurt Raven. But, I can't have you thinking that you can break the rules. And he pays really well for how much he hurts the girls. The price is high enough to give you a few days to heal before you work again. Use the time to think about your place here once more. Until then, I will help you a little." He took out a pouch with a syringe and handed it to Stef. "Here, it will help dull your reaction to the pain from whatever Big John will do. But, don't you dare forget to smile and tell him how much you love what he does to you."
Phobos's anger spiked. Stef was charming and witty, beautiful and delicate. She should have been protected, not used or abused. He couldn't wait for her nightmares to start on their own any more. He removed the man from her dream. "How could you let him treat you that way?"
"You did. You ogled me like I was still a whore. Like all of the others. No one has ever been different." She said, almost in a daze as she lost herself in the dream. She walked over to a rancid mattress and curled up into a fetal position on it.
The verbal slap in the face stunned the god. She was right, at least mostly right. He was over ten thousand years old. Yet, he had spent all of those ten thousand plus years looking for a woman who could help him scratch his biological itch. But, because of the rules placed on the Dolophoni about avoiding relationships, he could never allow himself to become attached to anyone. He couldn't look at them as more than a few hours of entertainment and release. He did treat women poorly.
He savored just the view of a woman's curves in absolute appreciation for her beauty. Though it was her mind that first caught his attention with her courage to engage with him and her biting banter, his thoughts were about what he wanted to do to her. He had no real intention beyond that. He had never allowed for anything more than that until he met her.
He had always justified is behavior toward women with the rules that he had to follow. And rather than play with the emotions of a decent woman, he only hooked up with whores. With women who willingly gave themselves without any expectation of something more. Many did not even charge him as they enjoyed things as much as he had. Well, once he found one who was not scared of him. That only happened every few decades or so.
But seeing the shame and the pain in Stef's eyes as she relived the memory, it gnawed at his gut. How many women had he been with that felt like Stef? Who truly had no other choice in order to survive? Who smiled and said they enjoyed it when it was all a mask? Did he even pay attention?
He watched for the fear from them. He didn't want the fear. But, did he ever look for the resignation, the insincerity, the hopelessness? His chest was tight as guilt washed over him.
He had allowed himself to assume that they all chose to become whores because they enjoyed sex and found a way to earn a living with it. But she was showing him the horrors of such a life. Certainly, very few women would choose this life.
But, he never saw Stef as a whore. And she was the first woman to make him want more. Since he met her, he has been an emotional roller coaster of wanting the kind of relationship that his brother has. And every crevice of his heart and body want it to be with Stephanie. But, she has no way to know that. He is fighting it himself, so he sure as hell wasn't telling her. And if he couldn't commit to it, he dared not tell her. Not after how much he hurt her when he kissed her and then pushed her away. So, she had no way to understand that he felt so much more about her than he did for any other woman.
She only had his behaviors, the way he interacted with her to judge him on. And those were ingrained from all of his experiences before. From experiences with whores. Damn it. He walked right into treating her the same way. No wonder why she was so defensive the day they first met. He liked her spark and defiance. But, now, knowing the buttons that he actually pushed. How could he prove to her that he never saw her that way? That despite all of the reasons that he should be in another room and letting someone else protect her, he had become possessive and protective of her. That he really did want so much more. He wanted her trust, her friendship, her wit, her fire, her... love.
"I am so sorry Stephanie." He was such a dick.
Stef was so lost in her memory that she did not respond to him.
He didn't know how she had survived any of it or how she got out of that life. She was far stronger and braver than he had realized. It was no wonder she crumbled as everything collapsed around her earlier that day.
The jackass that started the investigation didn't just threaten her medical career, it left her on the brink of financial ruin and drudged up her horrific past. She had to have feared anything that could force her back into that life, or back into the hands of Skoll. And Phobos stumbled into every trigger. And worse, he kissed her and then broke her heart. He was just another man to hurt her.
How could she not hate him by now?
Without thinking, he pulled her, protectively, into his arms and changed the dream to a small cottage by the sea.
Stef held on to Phobos as he pulled her out of her past, afraid to let go and start drowning in her hopelessness once again. She hated that hopelessness. She didn't know how to fight it. But, the feel of Phobos as he held her, the warmth of his body, it grounded her. With his help, she found herself once again and returned to her 29 year old version.
She looked up at his face, his strong features and penetrating blue eyes. Why did he sooth her so? How could he comfort her after seeing so much of her past? But, he didn't look at her as a whore. He looked at her as a woman. As a woman that he wanted to take care of. And, oh, did she want to let him do that.
"Where are we?" Stef asked.
Phobos softly smiled. "This is just a place that I created."
Stef looked around, unsure of what to say to him. It was small and sparse. But, it was sweet and romantic. It warmed her heart that he thought of this place for her. She stood up to look around quietly. He stood to watch her.
"Why did you do this for me?"
Phobos frowned. "I told you that I would join your dream to protect you. I couldn't leave you in the dream you were in."
Stef took a deep breath. Then cupped his face. "Thank you."