Page 73 of Stitches
He coiled his tongue, allowing his natural malleable nature to let it spiral around Levi farther and tighter than any normal tongue was capable. With it, while still having his mouth all around Levi and salivating richly, Ashmedai stroked with his elongated tongue and sucked.
The sounds leaving Levi weren’t mere moans, but plaintive whines, his hips arching upward to meet every one of Ashmedai’s bobs and uncanny curls of his tongue. Ashmedai squeezed the soft mounds of Levi’s backside and nuzzled into the sides of his thighs. Levi needed to know how special he was, how precious and incomparable.
Not having to hold back his true nature, the shadow magic seeped from Ashmedai’s pores more liberally, seeking Levi almost hungrily. The shadows covered them both, so that when Ashmedai pulled up, knowing how close Levi had to be to spilling, Levi’s entire body was glowing with black-purple light.
Ashmedai kissed him, stealing Levi’s panted breath, and let both the salty taste he’d taken from Levi’s length and the power of his shadows pass through the kiss—and smooth the stitches stretching Levi’s smile.
Levi bucked into Ashmedai, as much as he could folded in half with his knees still over Ashmedai’s shoulders. Ashmedai kept kissing him, letting the magic and his own mouth give Levi back the smile he’d once had and wanted to have again.
A shudder left Levi in the aftermath, like he might have spilled just then, but Ashmedai didn’t feel heat or wetness. He knew Levi was close, and as he continued lightly kissing Levi even after the stitches were gone, he sent the barest tendril of his shadows to press against the budded entrance they had only begun to explore the first time.
“W-wait,” Levi whimpered, and in an instant, Ashmedai stilled. Levi’s vibrant eyes looked to him with heavy purpose. “Slower. Please. Or surely I’ll make a mess of myself all too quickly again.”
Ashmedai chuckled and summoned his shadows back, slowly lowering Levi’s legs to rest on the bed. Whatever Levi wanted, Ashmedai would obey.
He wasn’t quite ready, however, for what Levi asked of him next.
“Rest beside me and show me the real you again.”
A cold ache twisted in Ashmedai’s gut, despite having let some of his true self free already. “Levi, you don’t have to be with that version of me to prove you love me. I know it’s frightening. Once—” Ashmedai glanced longingly to the side. “—before our original corruption turned my magic to darkness, I looked more like something infused with light.”
“Isn’t that because you hadn’t yet known desire or true emotion?” Levi’s honest question brought Ashmedai’s gaze back to him. “You said you weren’t even individuals then.”
“True. Our existence was different than life here.”
“Would you change all that happened to bring you to this moment?”
Ashmedai wasn’t certain at first when he began to answer, but the more the words left him, the more he knew the truth. “I wish I had caused less anguish, wish I had felt a little less of it myself, but if changing things meant I wouldn’t be here with you now, then… no. Iwould have nothing different.”
Even with his cheeks fully indigo from the lust burning within him, Levi’s smile was sweet. “You are not darkness. You’re shadow, and shadow cannot exist without light. I see both in you, in that form. Maybe that is exactly who you were always meant to become. Show me.”
Ashmedai had rarely called upon that form since the night of the curse. Earlier, he’d only done so out of panic that Levi was in danger. Now, calling it out because he’d been asked felt freeing in a way he never expected.
Levi
Levi would be lying if he said there was no accompanying fear watching Ashmedai shed the visage he’d first known and fallen in love with. Ashmedai’s true form was like some great gargoyle that almost seemed to not be solid, or one obvious color, or even truly real. It played tricks on Levi’s mind that he was dreaming all this—or the highwayman had killed him.
Or crossing the barrier had.
But no, Levi was here with Ashmedai, and he had nothing to fear from the being in bed with him.
The more Levi looked, the more he could see Ashmedai’s same face hidden within those varying colors and unpredictable textures. Ashmedai still had his long hair, but it too was in a constant flux of color and light versus dark. His horns were impressive upward coilsfrom the top of his head, and as he lay beside Levi, his clawed hands and feet proved larger and more beast-like, but not reaching or rending with any vile intent.
The teeth were Ashmedai’s teeth, and while his eyes seemed solid black, they also shifted, sometimes solid white, sometimes the white-on-black Levi knew.
Ashmedai was clearly a powerful being, deadly even, for Levi had seen him summon a part of this form when he devoured a gazellian during the hunt. The people merely saw it as shadow magic from the Shadow King, but Ashmedaiwasthe shadows.
When Ashmedai’s tail whipped upward like a cat’s, slender and long, with a trowel-like tip, Levi laughed at how endearing that nervous flick seemed to him. Most extraordinary were Ashmedai’s wings. Each half of them seemed nearly as large as the creature they sprouted from, yet one stretched upward behind Ashmedai, the other tucked beneath him with how he lay on his hip. Because of how he was made of shadow, the wing wasn’t scrunched, but as though it had become a blanket for him to lie upon simply because Ashmedai needed it to. Only the circlet remained as it had been before, glittering gold with its red gem shining from within the shadows’ shifting.
“You are like nothing I have ever seen,” Levi said in wonder. Seeing Ashmedai fade to allover darker hues, Levi added, “You’rebeautiful,” and reached at last to touch his king.
Daedlys and Aurora’s forms had prepared Levi for the water-like give of touching something not quite there, but because Ashmedai wasn’t truly translucent, there was a stronger solidness to him. Levi’s mind couldn’t fully comprehend it even as he felt it himself, but he knew the sensation under his fingers wasn’t unpleasant.
“Oh!” Levi gasped when he felt up along Ashmedai’s chest.
The ridges, almost impossible to see amidst the undulations of Ashmedai’s form, were still there. Levi could feel them, almost deeperin each groove than normal but bringing a sense of the familiar through the contrast of this experience to everything he’d known of Ashmedai before.
“They’re still one of my favorite things,” Levi said, dragging his fingers down lower to feel the ridges along Ashmedai’s hips, “like a secret I was the first to discover.”
