Page 45 of Tempest

Iason couldn’t seem to shake himself loose. It was as though he were drawn to Levi—to the strangeness that lived inside him, the being that existed beneath his pretty face and lithe body. That being was wild and terrible and unpredictable, and Iason realized, as he was dragged into the rain, that he desired it. He desiredLeviathan,in a way that wasn’t the casual carnality of Alistair’s lovers but a craving for his nearness—for his understanding. For a god toseehim and want him, for the cold, dark chaos at Leviathan’s heart that toppled empires and shaped mountains to choose to be with him.

The storm intensified as they approached the beach, whipping the trees about and sending roof tiles fluttering off into the dark like birds. Levi let go of Iason’s collar as they reached the dunes. He started walking backward, the rain and wind curling around him like a loving embrace, whipping his oil-slick hair and making the beads and sea glass in his braids clatter and chime.

“I know what you are, wizard,” Levi shouted, and Iason staggered toward him, buffeted by the wind. It was like trying to walk through a wall, and he barely made it more than a few steps, squinting as Levi’s laugh was tossed about in the thunder and howling wind. “Do you?”

“Of course,” Iason gritted out, but his voice was snatched away, muffled by a crack and boom of thunder. “I know what I am! I’m—I’m an assassin—I’m a traitor—”

“What youreallyare,” Levi shouted, and the wind pushed Iason back, rain stinging him like knives. “Show me and find me, wizard.”

“I can’t! Make the storm stop, you—” Iason coughed as he was blown back again.

“Use your magic.” Iason couldn’t even see Levi anymore, but he could hear him, clear as thunder. “Become a storm. I won’t let it consume you.”

Iason growled and pulled on Levi’s power, pushing it out at the wind and rain that lashed him. The wind whirled as he gestured, curling around him instead of battering him, and the raindrops glowed like spots of moonlight. They sparkled as they moved, feeding back into the storm, and Iason took a heavy step forward.

“There you go.” Levi laughed. “There you are, wizard.”

“You don’t know me,” Iason snarled. “Even I don’t know me.” He drew on Levi’s power again, slamming his magic into the storm, and the wind that rushed toward him turned into sound instead, ringing bells swirling past him and sinking back into the wind and rain. The bells remained, mixing with the sounds of the wind and thunder, and every time Iason took a step forward and shielded himself with a burst of raw magic, more rain turned to light. More wind became sound. The sand beneath his feet crunched with shells and grew heavy and sodden as mud, and Iason felt the roiling in his stomach grow, the anger that had driven him to reach for his knife down in the crypts.

“Is this what you want me to be, dragon?” Iason shouted. He sent more magic outward, turning a blast of wind into ribbons of silvery light. They wound around him, then burrowed into the sand, slithering before him like snakes. “You wish me to be honest, be what I am inside? What if what I am is awound?What if all I am is… is wind, like this, just empty howling?” He pushed himself forward, farther, farther, and saw Levi at last, only a few paces away. “What if Iama storm?”

“Then be one,” Levi said. “Be one. Be wild, wizard. Be what they didn’t want you to be. Be what they tried to beat out of you.”

“They did,” Iason cried, striking down a wave that threatened to crash over him, sending it upward and out of the way. More water rushed toward him, a torrent of it, white with foam and rippling with a wind that now rang like bells, and Iason screamed wordlessly as he pushed it past him. He strode toward Levi. Levi grabbed him by the face even as Iason wept, and he licked the hot tears from Iason’s cheeks.

“Yes,” Levi said, in a voice that belonged to no mortal man. “Yes.Be untamable.”

Iason shuddered, consumed by emotion, by magic, by the thunderous storm that raged around them. The hairs on his neck stood on end, and he felt it before it came: lightning, streaking down from a dark sky. Iason held up a hand, and his own roaring shout mingled with Levi’s wild laughter as the lightning struck Iason’s outstretched fingers and rolled over them both like rain over a bowl, illuminating the world around them.

Iason froze. In the lightning’s glow, he could see a wall of water dozens of feet high, towering over the two of them. Behind them, between where they stood and the shore, was a corridor in the ocean—a dry path Iason had made with his magic, cutting a line through the sea. Dark shapes moved in the water on either side—a shark, perhaps, or something bigger, so close Iason could reach through the wall of water and touch it.

“This is what you are,” Levi said. “This is what they tried to take from you. But they didn’t, wizard. They took nothing.”

Light pooled at their feet, and Iason looked into Levi’s eyes and saw the storm that the Tempest had been so long ago, the one that had shaped the world. And the storm looked back and knew him.

“No one will ever tame you,” Levi said, voice full of triumph, and kissed Iason.

Iason returned the kiss, reaching for Levi as the storm howled around them with the ringing of bells. He’d never wanted this before; it had never meant anything before—but this wasn’t mere touch and desire, it wasknowing,it was being known. And as Iason drew Levi closer, digging his fingers into Levi’s hair and gasping when Levi bit his lip, he realized that somewhere in that long walk across the ocean floor, the last of the curse had burned away. He remembered who he was—who he’d been, what he’d done—and what lay at the heart of him, wild and true and untamable.

* * *

The ocean fell around them, resettling into familiar currents, waves pummeling the shore as the undertow tried to pull them back into the depths. Levi dragged Iason toward land, still kissing him as they emerged like creatures from a legend, surrounded by the froth of breaking waves. The storm raged on as Levi pushed Iason onto his back in the sand, ignoring the waves that rushed like eager lovers over them both as he stripped Iason’s clothes and left him writhing naked in the sand.

Iason was coughing, and Levi growled and bit him on the shoulder, settling on top of him. “No water can drown you. You’re mine.” He felt the truth of it down to his core, and he kissed Iason again, showing him that, no, Iason really didn’t need to breathe anymore to stay alive. He thought about Astra’s theory that they were companions, that he might regain his dragon form if they made their bond in truth. He ached to feel scales on his back and beat his wings in the current, but he didn’t knowhowto do what Astra suggested. He didn’t think it would be as simple as taking Iason in the surf, but he was willing to try. Though that wasn’t the only reason. Of course.

Iason arched under him, hands sliding over Levi’s shoulders, though he didn’t touch Levi as much as Levi expected he might. “Don’t you want me?” Levi asked. He bit Iason’s neck, his shoulder, thrilling at the way Iason gasped and shuddered beneath him. He shifted to press a thigh between Iason’s legs, rubbing it against Iason’s hard cock. “It feels as if you do.”

Iason didn’t answer, and Levi raised his head from where he’d been worrying at Iason’s shoulder. Iason looked wild, breathing fast with water sluicing over his scarred face and plastering his silvery-pale hair to his head. He blinked at Levi, so Levi kissed him again as the storm raged.

“I don’t— This isn’t what I—” Iason was panting, hauling in gulps of air as if trying to make absolutelysurehe wouldn’t drown in the rain and the seawater that continued to sweep over them.

“This isn’t what?” Levi asked, shifting again so that he could push up Iason’s chiton and rut his own cock against Iason’s. “What you want?”

“It’s just that it’s so new,” Iason said, fingers tight on Levi’s water-slick shoulders. “Wanting to feel close like this, when I haven’t before.”

Levi stared down at him, at the lightning flashing in the depths of Iason’s stormy eyes, and grabbed him with a hand tight in Iason’s hair. “Before me?”

“Yes,” Iason gasped, the words caught on a strangled moan. “Before you.”

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