Page 72 of Stitches
“I wish I knew why I can cross the barrier when no one else can,” Levi commented.
“Braxton mentioned that creating you was part of his experiments toward weakening the barrier,” Ashmedai said. “Clearly, he is succeeding if he found a way to let any of us cross it without disintegrating. Maybe he doesn’t know or didn’t want to risk having you test it. He told me tonight, though, that he is nearly complete.”
“He was at the festival?”
“Briefly. I might get to walk with you in the sunshine yet.” Ashmedai pulled Levi more tightly to his side as they walked.
Like many times before, Levi felt as though the shadows were watching him. After the highwayman and discovering all those bodies, it was no wonder, but Levi shrugged it off with a shiver. “What should we do about… all that back there?”
“Nothing tonight. I don’t want to sour anyone’s mood during the festival. He’s gone. I’ll tell Yentriss tomorrow to put up patrols and keep watch just in case. For now, I want to enjoy the rest of tonight. You’ve given me something I never thought anyone could.”
They reached the end of the path, with sparkling lights calling tothem once more beyond the wood’s borders.
Levi turned to Ashmedai and took his hands. “Would you like to go back to the festival?”
“Would you?”
“I think I’ve seen enough.”
There were shadows here too, maybe more so with the trees casting darker ones opposite the festival lights. Ashmedai gathered Levi close and leapt into the nearest patch of darkness just like Levi hoped he would.
Ashmedai
He loved him. Levi loved him, even after learning the truth.
Ashmedai had never felt so… full.
Aurora said hello when they first arrived back at the castle, but though Ashmedai and Levi both doted on her for a spell, she made scarce soon after, like she knew they wanted to be alone.
They had already been intimate once, yet the trek up to Ashmedai’s bedchamber felt different. For the first time, someone other than Braxton knew who and what Ashmedai was and wasn’t afraid. Better still, Levi wanted Ashmedai and sought his touch as boldly as he had before.
Their silk tunics were almost easier to lose than robes, the light, elegant fabric fluttering off their bodies like gossamer. They helped each other out of their undershirts and trousers, and Levi hardly seemed capable of keeping his hands from straying, if only to trail overAshmedai’s ridges.
Ashmedai’s weapons belt had been set aside at the start, Levi’s already gone, since it had been stolen, but the circlet and ear cuff they’d claimed at the festival remained. Ashmedai traced his fingers along the cuff and up to the tip of Levi’s ear.
“The cuff can stay if it makes you look at me like that,” Levi said, reaching to graze a thumb along the golden circlet with its scarlet gem resting upon Ashmedai’s forehead. “I certainly wouldn’t mind you keeping this on. The Amethyst King, who never wears amethyst himself.” He chuckled.
“I suppose I’ve often given myself away with how I’ve never quite felt like I belong here, but red has always been more my color than violet. Let’s save that hue for you, shall we?”
Naked now save their adornments, Ashmedai pulled Levi to him to feel their bodies flush and lazily kissed him. Even as their lengths grew, hot and leaking between them, they remained unhurried. And yet, within that lazy kiss everything seemed more acute, and Ashmedai felt Levi’s stitches against his mouth.
It was never an unpleasant experience, or Ashmedai wouldn’t have left those among the last, but it reminded him of Levi’s true desire.
“Before we begin,” he whispered, still standing at the foot of the bed, “shall I take the last of your stitches?”
“Yes,” Levi said, like he had been thinking the very same thing. “I like becoming my own man beneath your touch.”
Ashmedai knew there were many ways to interpret those words, and Levi meant them all. “I like helping you achieve it, just as you helped me see the truth in myself.”
They were still embracing, pulses and breaths increasing to a matched fervor, with their cocks sliding past each other in promise, when Ashmedai forced a yelp from Levi by scooping him into his arms. Carrying Levi like a bridegroom, Ashmedai moved around the bed,sprawled Levi atop it, and crawled after him.
“I think, this time, I would like my mouth onyou.”
Ashmedai lifted Levi’s knees and hooked them over his shoulders before the gasp had fully left Levi. He was almost entirely one perfect shade of blue now, with only the barest ombre at certain parts. The blue definitely faded to something darker between his legs, beneath his dark curls, and Ashmedai adored that beautiful indigo as much as he did when the blush was in Levi’s cheeks.
He hollowed his own cheeks and sucked Levi into his mouth, careful of the sharpness of his teeth, though the faintest, featherlight graze of them when they did brush Levi’s skin only made Levi moan louder.
There could be no greater gift than someone finally loving Ashmedai in return, and he would gladly spend lifetimes thanking Levi for that.
