SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 38

Chapter Thirty Eight

I woke up on my back. My head hurt. I smelled iron and salt--blood, I was fairly sure it was mine. I blinked groggily for a few seconds at a shadowy ceiling, and when I remembered what had happened I quickly shut my eyes again, listening for any sound of my kidnappers.

It wouldn't do for them to know I was awake right away... but, wait, no... Cassidy had gotten us away from them, and had then left me behind, and... where was I? I raked my memory, fuzzily trying to figure out what had happened until a faint flicker of a face came back to me. Wild red hair, tangled beard, bare feet... whoever he was had gotten me out of immediate danger.

I listened carefully, but after a second, I discerned that I couldn't hear anything weird, just a hollow roar I thought might be wind, and under that... whistling? I stirred slightly, struggling to lift my hand, but I could still barely move it since every single one of my limbs felt like lead.

My whole body was unbearably heavy.

The whistling stopped just as I let my hand go lax and I heard a shuffle from someplace very close to me. I tried to turn my head, but the moment I did so, pain shot through it and I squeezed my eyes tight with a groan. The room spun, disorienting me, but I heard the sound of someone scrambling across stone and a burning hot hand reached back to cup my throat.

The hand trembled a little, fingers large and clumsy, but firm.

After a second, another finger prodded my temple and the action hurt, sending bolts of flashing lights into my brain and nearly knocking me out. I winced, flinching and juddering with a twitchy little whimper, and the finger jerked away, but the person touching me said absolutely nothing.

I opened my mouth to speak, to ask him where I was, and that's when the nausea hit me.

For the next few minutes I was only aware of him holding back my hair while I rolled onto my side and retched, spilling acidic bile onto the floor with every violent heave, and when I finally managed to cough up everything and the sickness had passed, I went limp and lolled over onto my back, breathing carefully through my nose.

I heard heavy, jerky breathing next to my face and managed to crack my eyes open despite the pain splitting my skull in half. A face swathed in fiery red locks and similarly colored beardage swam in and out of focus as it loomed over me, hardly visible in the dark, and behind it I could barely discern the curve of a rough stone ceiling.

Were we in a cave?

It was hard to tell when my eyes refused to focus for more than a few seconds at a time.

"Who are you?" I whispered, but the nausea came back and I started dry-heaving again. When it was through, I returned to lying on my back, and after a few silent minutes I felt a gentle touch against my cheek. Thick fingers smoothed my sweat-plastered hair out of my face, away from my temple. A wash of intense, familiar warmth enveloped me just as the course brush of intense facial hair scrubbed against my cheek.

I winced, cringing a little as something warm and wet was gently pulled across the side of my head. My skin immediately stung and burned and I whined a little in protest, but the wet sensation simply came again, and again, and again, until the burning disappeared.

The aching, to my confusion, had also dwindled down to almost nothing.

I blinked, staring at the bright red beard in front of my face as my vision focused a little. A gentle hand touched my cheek and I saw the other raise to push away the shaggy, wild locks covering the eyes of the man who'd saved me.

Every part of me froze.

They were green.

The most vibrant shade of green I'd ever seen, borderline neon. Like Sebastian's they shone dimly in the dark, but unlike his they were expressive, shimmery, and pretty. There were also weird little flecks of hazel and gold around his iris that picked up the dim light around us and all but juggled with it.