The comforting touch did not wake him. He too was dreaming, but of what, he would never be able to remember; not with a waking such as this. The voices, the soft female conversation, one mellow, the other cracking, that woke him. There was no one to speak in his castle, no one to converse, nothing to say even if there should be someone. Yet there was, and it sank down into his sleep, caught hold of his ribs, and pulled him up to the surface like a fish on a line. The Beast jerked into waking, shaggy head first, then spine as he curled into a tight circle to see who was there. His sight was so terrible that he was trying to get a grip on his situation before his eyes were even all the way open, and what he smelled and heard and sensed set his fur to bristle and his instincts on alarm. He came up out of his sprawl as fast as he could, digging his claws into the carpet in an attempt to get turned around.
His eyes had gone saucer wide and there was no anger here. It was all fear and alarm, and while he was unwilling to leave the woman on the couch he clearly had no desire to get any closer to the cloaked figure. "You!" It was a half-growl and the speech in the noise was barely perceptible.