Page 76 of The Right to Bear Claws
"They're not really dreams," Sarah said quietly, accepting the steaming mug with grateful hands. "More like... memories that won't stay buried. Things I thought I'd left behind when I came here."
"What kind of memories?"
Sarah sat in silence, clearly struggling with how much to reveal. Finally, she took a shaky breath and began to speak.
"My ex-boyfriend. He was... controlling doesn't begin to cover it. Manipulative, possessive, sometimes violent when he didn't get his way. I finally worked up the courage to leave him three months ago, but he keeps finding me. Or at least, he keeps finding me in my dreams."
Kaia felt her heart clench with sympathy. She'd worked with enough trauma survivors to recognize the particular kind of exhaustion that came from being hunted, even in sleep.
"The dreams feel real?" she asked.
"Completely real. I wake up feeling like he's been in the room with me, like he's touched me or spoken to me. Sometimes I can even smell his cologne for minutes afterward." Sarah shuddered. "I know it's probably just my subconscious processing the trauma, but it's driving me crazy. I'm afraid to sleep."
"What if I told you the dreams might be more than just psychological processing?" Kaia said carefully. "That there might be an actual supernatural component to what you're experiencing?"
Sarah's eyes widened. "You mean like... he's actually reaching me somehow? Through dreams?"
"It's possible. Some people have latent abilities they don't understand, especially when they're in extreme emotional states. And if your ex-boyfriend has any psychic sensitivity..." Kaia let the implication hang in the air.
"Can you help me? Can you make it stop?"
"I can try. But it would involve me walking through one of these dreams with you, helping you understand what's really happening and giving you tools to protect yourself." Kaia leaned forward, her voice gentle but serious. "Are you willing to trust me with that?"
"Yes," Sarah said immediately. "I can't keep living like this. I came to Hollow Oak because someone told me it was a place where people who didn't fit anywhere else could find peace. But how can I find peace if I'm not safe even in my own dreams?"
Twenty minutes later, Sarah was settled comfortably on the small sofa Kaia kept for dreamwalking sessions, her breathing deep and even as Kaia gently guided her into the troubled sleep that had been plaguing her for months.
The dream realm that opened around them was immediately familiar to Kaia—the twisted landscape of someone whose subconscious had been invaded by an outside force. Sarah's natural mental defenses had been systematically undermined, leaving her vulnerable to psychic intrusion from someone who knew exactly how to exploit her fears.
"There," Kaia said softly, pointing toward a shadow that moved wrong against the dream logic. "That's not your memory.That's an actual projection, someone forcing their way into your dreams."
"How is that possible?" Sarah asked, her dream-self more confident now that she had an ally.
"Some people are natural dream-walkers, though most don't realize it. Your ex-boyfriend probably stumbled into the ability accidentally, driven by his obsession with controlling you." Kaia moved closer to the invasive presence, her own abilities flaring with protective power. "But he's untrained, which means he's vulnerable."
What followed was less a battle than a surgical removal. Kaia wrapped the foreign presence in her own power and systematically ejected it from Sarah's dream space, then helped the girl rebuild her natural psychic defenses with techniques that would prevent future intrusions.
When they emerged from the dreamwalk thirty minutes later, Sarah looked lighter, more at peace than she had since arriving in Hollow Oak.
"I feel different," she said wonderingly. "Cleaner, somehow. Like something that was weighing me down is finally gone."
"The connection is severed," Kaia confirmed. "And the barriers I helped you build will hold against any future attempts at contact. You're free, Sarah. Completely free."
After Sarah left with tears of gratitude and a standing appointment for follow-up sessions, Kaia settled back in her chair with a deep sense of satisfaction. This was what her gift was truly meant for—helping people reclaim their peace, their safety, their right to exist without fear.
"Another successful session?" Elias asked from the doorway, his work clothes dusty from whatever construction project had occupied his morning.
"Very successful." She rose to greet him with the kind of kiss that spoke to souls who'd found their perfect match. "Sarah'sfinally free from her ex-boyfriend's psychic stalking. She'll sleep peacefully tonight for the first time in months."
"My brilliant wife," he said with obvious pride. "How many people is that this week?"
"Seven official clients, plus three emergency consultations and one group session with the teenagers who were having shared nightmares about the upcoming graduation exams." Kaia grinned. "Apparently teenage anxiety is contagious when you put too many gifted kids in close proximity."
"Sounds like you're staying busy."
"Wonderfully busy. I love this work, Elias. Every day I get to help people reclaim something that was taken from them—peace, safety, the right to rest without fear. It's everything I never knew I wanted."
He pulled her closer, nuzzling against her throat in the way that never failed to make her pulse quicken. "Speaking of things you want, Finn mentioned he saw you coming out of Dr. Martinez's office yesterday. Everything all right?"
