Page 55 of Stitches
“So many things, like a puzzle struggling to form a picture. My mother. Our cat.” Levi laughed. “My little brother….”
An entire family, Ashmedai thought, shifting to prop himself up on his hip. “The boy you saw?”
Levi nodded, looking at Ashmedai like he wasn’t quite seeing him. “Emerald isn’t the kingdom you remember. None of them are. I had to hide being a half-elf. So did my brother. Our mother is human. Our father… he left to find the elves, his people, and never came home. I had to hide other things. My magic. My… desires.”
“Why?” Ashmedai asked, disturbed to hear such news when the kingdoms he recalled were far freer and never would have denied someone who or what they were.
“Something… would happen if I was found to love men, or have magic, or be part elf. I… I can’t remember what, but I think I was sent away.”
“And found your way here,” Ashmedai said, seeking Levi’s hand between them and lacing their fingers, “where Brax made you into something new.”
Levi’s smile was somber but didn’t dissolve. “I’m not angry with him. I understand why he didn’t tell me the truth. But I am not his. He may be my creator, but I want a life of my own. I had a life of my own, yet even in Emerald I lived with my mother, too afraid to be alone, or maybe for my brother’s sake. Maybe both. Don’t all children eventually leave home?”
Ashmedai looked away down the length of the bed. He supposedhehad, but home wasn’t something he could quantify anymore outside a millennium in the Shadow Lands.
“You were from Diamond, Klarent said.”
Ashmedai’s attention snapped back to Levi.
“He told me he was from Emerald,” Levi continued, “and that you were new to Amethyst when the curse struck.”
“Yes….” Ashmedai answered sluggishly. “I was passing through, visiting, and… I found reason to stay.”
“The prince? Klarent said you were friends.”
Even now, in bed with the most exquisite creature Ashmedai had ever known, the mention of Cullen wounded him like the sharp point of a blade.
“I’m sorry,” Levi said, reading Ashmedai’s emotions easily since they must be plain on his face. “His loss still hurts you deeply.”
“It’s… difficult for me to talk about,” Ashmedai said.
Levi nodded again, and it was clear he had no intention of pressing for more, but although Ashmedai felt that familiar ache that had been carved into his heart since the moment Cullen was gone, he also owed Levi some of the truth.
“You remind me of him,” he admitted, smiling when Levi’s eyes flashed upward. “His eyes were violet too, and like you, he was sweet, soft-spoken, but fiercely loyal to the people here. He just wasn’t certain of what he wanted out of life.”
Levi cuddled closer against Ashmedai, as if to say he didn’t mind the comparison. “If you don’t like talking about him, what about your life before coming here?”
“That’s even more difficult to discuss, I’m afraid.”
“Did you leave home because you were unhappy?” Levi asked.
“More so lonely.”
“You didn’t have friends? Family?”
“Many had left home long before to explore other lands. Those that remained became reclusive. Hermits.” Ashmedai huffed. “I was almost allowing myself to become that here. Until you,” he finished with a renewed lessening of the weight in his chest, something only Levi hadmanaged in hundreds of years.
“The people love you,” Levi said. “I’ve never understood why you seem to think you don’t deserve that devotion.”
“I don’t,” Ashmedai said without falter. “There are still things you don’t know, Levi, things I’m… not ready to share. I’m sorry.” Again, Ashmedai looked away toward the end of the bed. He felt a stir of guilt that they were lying here whenlyingremained a barrier between them.
“It’s all right.” Levi’s gentle fingers touched Ashmedai’s cheek and tilted his face back to him. “I can’t imagine there is anything you could tell me that would change this feeling blossoming in my heart.”
Ashmedai placed his hand over Levi’s. He wished he could believe that.
He wanted to….
“If the curse is truly to be lifted soon,” Ashmedai said, “and one day, I can walk with you in the sun,”and my penance is over, he thought, “then perhaps I will tell you everything. Until then, know that there is nothing in this world that has ever felt as precious to me as you.”
