Page 25 of Snatched By the Sandman

“Death is warm and safe,” the God of Nightmares growls the warning, now cupping my jaw. His tone reassures and unsettles like fire and ice. “You are neither warm nor safe in the world of the living. You belong with me, inside the nightmares where you can laugh and dance through the shadows and play with the demons that haunt this realm. The ones I create for you. And the ones you bring to life.

“So, dream for us, strange girl. A lovely, dark, and deep nightmare,” he concludes.

“Or a great and terrible dream,” Morpheus adds, nostrils flaring as he breathes in the scent of my hair.

Their words weave a haunting melody, a call to embrace my darkness and find solace.

Feeling a smile like a carnival of horrors tugging at my lips, I dart my eyes between the three and wonder, “How about a game?”

As soon as I consider the child’s game of my nightmares, I fall.

Always falling.

I fall through sand in the sandbox, but it’s no ordinary sand. It’s black diamond dust and shadows and bones clattering.

Closing my eyes, I surrender my body into an arch with my arms curving in a delicate arc. I’m falling through a mad, multi-colored sea of my ink, letting it drag me into its swirling undertow, daring the Gods of Dreams to find me.

Hide and seek…

My tattooed apparitions drown me?—

—until one hand of shadows and the other of bone find me in the dark and deep, in the great and terrible.

We have a rhythm!

Pulse is back. BP is stabilizing…

The gods pull me up with my laughter echoing my defiance against the horrors that seek to ensnare me.

I’ve returned to the great hall where we all sit down for a family meal. Except, there is no food. I sweep my gaze across the empty plates and dishes. All made of bone.

Morpheus chuckles and folds his hands behind his head as if the dark chaos didn’t just happen, as if it’s their common and casual.

I suppose it is.

My pulse thrums, a humming warming my veins.

“Here, you are not bound by mortal fears,” Nyxion continues from his prominent place on his bone throne with me on his lap. His grip tightens slightly, not in threat but possession. “Everything lies within your power. Dance with the demons, laugh with the shadows, and together, we shall shape nightmares into dreams.”

His dark presence surrounds me, offering a strange comfort in the turmoil of my existence. The allure of his world beckons me. As if snapping back into place, I’m aware of the bone-themed toys he used to decorate me. And the desire they give me.

Morpheus’s feathers preen, and he snickers. Nyxion stiffens, clenching his cracking, bony hand into a fist in obvious control, guarding his territory.

The mystery of all that is Morpheus calls to me. They are all angelically sculpted, but where Nyxion is hard as bone and Phantasos is fleeting as fabric, Morpheus is the embodiment of a fallen angel. God, no man should be so fucking beautiful, so ethereal. His open robe displays all his muscles, skin like the golden harvest moon they all bear. But the shadows swirling around his black feathers give him a dark, celestial vibe.

Just like Phantasos said, Nyxion is the bone daddy of the group. The powerful presence of fear is worse than death.

More than ever, I’m determined to scratch and claw my way beyond Nyxion’s immediate realm. Perhaps Morpheus will help me escape his brother’s confines, but I’m careful not to tread too much on those thoughts.

“Morpheus,” Nyxion grumbles and digs his fork into his plate, crumbling bone dust. “Stop shedding your feathers all over the place. You have no sense of sophistication.”

“Sophistication is overrated,” he says. “And I can’t help it if my feathers flutter and preen in the presence of a beautifulwoman.” He inclines his head toward me, but I swear he’s staring straight through me. Regardless, it still makes me all heated and fluttery inside. Like those shed feathers are tickling my nerve endings.

“I’m hungry,” Phantasos mentions, propping his gold slippers up on the table, and I admire the flawlessness of his gold and black eyeliner. “Zenya, darling, it’s rude to invite a god to a family dinner and not feed him.”

Scrunching my brows in confusion, I look to Nyxion for help.

After kneading his brow, I realize his irritation is over what should be obvious to me now. Well, forgive me if I’ve been a little preoccupied with the damn chastity clamp on my poor, starving vag.

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