SLEEPSONG (BoyxBoy)✔️

Chapter 162

Chapter One Hundred and Sixty Two

I woke up to the sound of yelling and snarling and fighting.

Crashes, thunderous crashes, an apologetic voice repeatedly pleading for someone to hear reason followed by more snarls and curses and vicious threats.

I heard people murmuring worriedly all around me, felt burning, scalding things touching my cheeks and hurting me, but then I realized I was shaking violently.

I shivered, body slowly waking up, realizing that I was absolutely freezing; I gasped for air with a juddering breath, frozen from the inside out, and someone pulled me close to something soft and squishy, wrapping me in a cocoon of warmth. More heat flopped down on me from the other side and something big and hot curled around my stomach.

"Please, please, calm down," a small voice pleaded. "I really did not harm him--

"YOU HAD YOUR FINGERS IN HIS GOD DAMN EYES!" Richard roared, making me flinch; a thunderous crash and a shaken intake of breath met my ears. "LOOMING OVER HIM LIKE SOME SORT OF SPIDER WITH YOUR FINGERS DIGGING INTO HIS SKULL--WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING?!"

"I. Am. The Dream Faery," a very cold, very intimidating, very angry voice said in a tone like dark thunder, sucking the light and life right out of the air. "You will calm yourself and listen to me, and then you will apologize for disrespecting me. I. Do not. Harm others. I have never, even once in the entirety of my existence, taken a life or inflicted a physical wound."

"Then what were you doing?" Louise shakily demanded. "You had your fingers in his eye sockets, and there are legends about the Sandman stealing people's eyes! Ripping them right out of their heads!"

A snort met my ears followed by a quiet, amused laugh; the anger was gone when Chi said, "what purpose would I have for taking somebody's eyes? True, there have been a few humans who managed to catch me in the act of connecting to their loved ones' dreams, but it was not to steal their eyes. That is probably where such myths came fr--"

"Don't care," a voice right against my ear snapped; to my surprise, it sounded like Tiffany. "Sir, I didn't have the pleasure of meeting you, but I think you should skip all the extra stuff and tell us what you did to Aerin's eyes. His body is as cold as ice right now, he's freezing! Like, his lips are blue!"

A long silence met her statement, followed by an even longer sigh.

"Eyes are the windows to the soul," Chi said in a clear, soft tone. "He is cold because I am cold and I touched his soul with my own rather than simply touching his dreams. I am a creature made of magic, a being of ethereal matter that should not really exist, yet here I am."

"You... touched his soul?" Jak hissed, and a series of growls filled the air. "What did you do to him?! How dare you--"

"I dare because this creature carries within him raw magical power that does not actually belong to him," Chi said calmly, and the growls died out. "I recognized the sensation of its origins, as the ones who gave it to him are longtime friends of mine. It took me by such surprise that I couldn't help but verify that they had, in fact, given him their living breath."

"Wait," Tiffany whispered. "Are you talking about... Feng Feng? And Anurak?"

"Oh?" Chi asked, sounding extremely surprised. "You know of the Wu Tao Djinn dragons?"

"Yeah, we met them by chance on a trip to Italy a few weeks ago," Tiffany gushed, and I clenched my hands, fingers moving slowly and sluggishly.

I couldn't yet open my eyes but I was finally aware of what was happening and slowly warming up. I could feel that there were many bodies pressed close to me. Someone was hugging me from behind and I was clearly being cradled against Tiffany's chest, lying side by side with her on the floor. Someone else was rubbing my feet with gentle hands, and a fourth person was sitting near my head, gently rubbing the back of my neck and pinching my skin in certain places, as if to warm me up and stimulate blood flow.