Page 75 of Stitches
Ashmedai swooped down to kiss Levi with such fierceness, he forced Levi’s hand to drop and even more rivulets of pleasure coursed through him, so that Levi laughed in the aftermath.
“I love you,” Levi said.
“I love you,” Ashmedai echoed.
The intensity increased again, as did the speed and depth of Ashmedai’s thrusts. The end was building for Levi as it seemed to be building in Ashmedai. Then Ashmedai’s eyes, ever flickering from black to white and both, locked on Levi’s neck.
As Ashmedai’s large, clawed hand curled gently around Levi’s throat, around the one line of stitches that remained, the extra pulse of magic that shot into Levi was the finale that made everything else burst.
Levi howled, his hips stuttering upward as he spilled. Moments later, a hotter pulse of that same magic shot inside Levi where Ashmedai was thrusting between Levi’s thighs. All the mess was absorbed by the shadows, but the pleasure was tenfold what it had been. Levi thought he might sob from how good it felt, only to realize he already was.
Another pulse from Ashmedai’s hand and a light back and forth withthe pad of his thumb erased the last remnants of those final few stitches, with aftershocks flooding Levi and Ashmedai together, until Levi was truly, finally whole.
And he rememberedeverything.
Including how he’d been murdered.
Chapter 10
Leander
Leandercouldn’trunanymore.He’d run so far, for so long. It had beendays. The prince had given him food and water to take with him in a rucksack, but the supplies were running low, and he had no idea how much farther it was to the Shadow Lands.
Anything is better than being sacrificed to the Ice King, he told himself as he stowed away what little provisions remained before beginning his third day of traveling.
The prince had saved him, the Emerald Prince himself. Leander had to survive. He had to reach the Shadow Lands and make something of the gift he’d been given to start over elsewhere.
He’d never done anything bad his entire life—other than be born a half-elf and show that he had magic, spotted accidentally one day, in his own backyard. Not even powerful magic, just illusions. That’s all it had taken to condemn him. Retribution would have been just as swift if anyone had discovered Leander yearned for the company of men.
He didn’t even know what had become of his brother, Leslie. He hoped their mother could continue keeping Leslie safe and hidden as a half-elf in a land that hated them.
Alone now and no longer needing to waste magic on glamouring his half-elf ears, Leander was exhausted. He knew little of where he was going. No one really knew what the Shadow Lands held. Their carriages would arrive without drivers, deliver goods for trade, and take back what Emerald gave them. The stories said that had been the way of things for centuries, stretching back even longer than tales of the Ice King. It was whispered to be a place of such powerful magic, no one dared question the carriages, stop trading with them, or ever send anyone into the wood to find the Dark Kingdom.
They called the lands that—Dark and Shadow—because the few people who’d ever ventured close enough spoke of how the wood turned to night even if it should have been morning.
That was how Leander knew he was finally getting close, because the sun had only just risen, and he’d walked for less than an hour when it seemed as though darkness might swallow him like he’d entered a cave.
Leander stopped. In front of him was a haze he might not have detected, where the wood opened into a wider path, and across that haze along the path was night—night, not merely dark, for he could see stars and a full moon ahead. The trees there no longer had leaves, their gnarled branches reaching for the sky. It was winter, but even the firs looked dead there, yet they were also beautiful somehow, sparkling as though covered in metallic shimmer. And, as Leander craned his ears, he would swear he could hear voices, happy, normal voices like townsfolk in a market.
Yes! There were lights in the distance! He was saved!
Terrifying as it was, and despite all the stories of dark magic and people being driven mad by this place, Leander had to press on, for he had nowhere else to go. Perhaps the Dark Kingdom welcomed those Emerald called corrupt, and all would be better for him there.
All would be well. It had to be. He was almost—
“At last.Youare perfect.”
Leander froze before he could take his first full step across the haze, hearing a strange voice coming from somewhere he couldn’t see. “Who—”
Then everything stopped, the lights gone, the murmur of townsfolk stilled, and all curiosity wiped away, because a wicked fast slice had severed Leander’s head from his body.
“Yes, you’re perfect,” the voice said again, the last thing Leander heard as his mind caught up to already being dead. “And not to worry. When you wake, you will be a brand-new man.”
Levi
“Levi!”
Levi sucked in a sharp breath as the memory faded. Everything leading up to this moment had been so blissful—achieving new heights of pleasure with Ashmedai in the king’s true form. Now Ashmedai had returned to his white skin and less pronounced ridges, as if he feared he had somehow harmed Levi.
