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No, Yiyi had caught him. Yiyi had caught him, saving him from slamming into the road.
The kiss!
Rei jerked upright, sucking in a harsh breath, only to choke on it. He coughed several times, his hand pressed to his chest. This was stupid. He needed to find his Yiyi. He had to know if that kiss was real. There was no way he’d dreamed it.
Okay, maybe he’d dreamed of kissing Yichen hundreds of times—but never like that. Not in such perfect detail.
“Shit! Of course, you woke up the moment I stepped away for a drink of water.”
Rei’s head snapped up to find Xiang standing in the doorway. His shaggy hair was a mess, as if he’d been running his fingers through it. He was wearing a pair of baggy shorts and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut out. A half-empty bottle of water dangled from the fingers of one hand.
“If Yichen asks, you have to tell him I was right here when you woke up. I don’t want to hear any of his nonsense about me not protecting you.”
Rei pushed to his feet, swayed a bit as his head fought to clear the last of the fog. The second the world righted itself, he lunged at the vampire. Xiang gasped and tried to run, but he didn’t get a step. Wrapping his fists in the vampire’s shirt, he shoved him hard into the wall.
“Is Yichen okay? Did he get hurt when he landed on the road? Did the dogs return? Is he—”
“Whoa! Hey! It’s okay! He’s fine. Everything’s fine. He didn’t even need any blood. Just a little bruised and some road rash on his back, but he was all healed up ahead of dawn. I swear!” Xiang spit out as quickly as he could.
A rush of air exploded from his lungs as relief washed over him. His forehead landed on Xiang’s shoulder as he tried to steady his weak knees. Yiyi was okay. He’d been in no shape to help him last night, though he would have been fine with Yichen taking some blood to heal his injuries. Not that Yichen would. Nope, his vampire would rather suffer in silence than take even a sip of blood if he couldn’t ask permission first. Of course, he knew he had Rei’s permission, but it wasn’t the same.
Lifting his head, he pinned Xiang with an intense stare. “Now, this is important. I need you to think very carefully before you answer.” He paused and licked his lips, making sure he had Xiang’s full attention. “Last night, after Yichen caught me and we were lying in the middle of the road, did he kiss me, or was that a dream?”
An enormous grin spread across Xiang’s face, brightening his dark eyes. “Oh, yeah. He kissed you. He kissed you, and you passed out.”
Rei’s heart somersaulted in his chest once, then raced off to locate Yichen, leaving the rest of his body behind. “That’s fine. I plan to rectify that problem right now.”
With a final pat on Xiang’s shoulder, Rei spun around and jogged through the house on silent feet. He was still learning the layout of the place, but he knew where his and Yichen’s bedrooms were in relation to that garden. Yichen had likely chosen it because of its retractable roof and closeness to his own room, in case there was a problem during the day and he needed to get to Rei quickly.
When he reached Yichen’s room, he didn’t even bother to raise his hand to knock. Nope. He opened the door and slipped inside the semidark room. Ever since his time in the fae realm, Yichen couldn’t stand to sleep in a pitch-black room. There always needed to be a sliver of light. In this case, it was coming from the attached bathroom. The overhead light was on, but the door was almost completely closed, allowing the tiniest thread of light to seep in through the seams of the doorway.
Rei didn’t get more than a couple of steps. Yichen shifted, and the bedside lamp clicked on, filling the room with a warm, yellow glow.
Whatever. It was better he didn’t wake Yichen by sliding into his bed. He would have ended up with a knife buried in his gut.
“Rei?”
Biting his lower lip to hold in his grin, he leaped across the last few meters and landed on the bed. He wrapped himself around the vampire, tangling up the sheet between them.
“Are you okay?” Yichen demanded as he struggled to sit up. “Are you hurt anywhere? Do we need—”
His words halted when Rei brushed his thumb across Yichen’s lower lip. “I’m fine. You gave me a garden to rest and recuperate in, and that’s exactly what I would have done. I feel refreshed. No pains or aches to worry about.”
Yichen sighed, his entire body sagging into his mattress while his head landed on his pillow. “That’s good,” he murmured. “I’ve never seen you drain yourself like that. No more magic for at least a few days. You need to take it easy. Be careful. No one here knows any fae magic that will help you if you’re hurt.”
Rei’s heart swelled with each word of concern Yichen spoke. There had been plenty of times Yiyi had chastised him over the years about being too reckless or taking dangerous risks without thinking things through.
But this time, his words had a different feel to them. A different taste. Or maybe it was the memory of the kiss coloring those words. Or the feel of Yichen’s hand clutching his forearm as if he were afraid Rei was about to fly out of his room on some new disastrous adventure.
Not a chance. There was nowhere else he wanted to be.
“You kissed me,” Rei whispered, and Yichen’s entire body stiffened.
A smirk tugged at Rei’s lips as the vampire shifted, his gaze darting away from Rei’s face. “We need to talk about that, but it’s late. I need sleep. Let’s talk later.”
“Do you regret it?”
That at least got Yichen’s eyes to snap to his face again. “What? No! I just—”
