19. Signing His Name
SIGNING HIS NAME
ASHER
C old crept into Asher’s limbs at the abrupt loss of Lev’s body heat. He hadn’t even pulled up his pants before the door Lev disappeared through boomed shut.
“Fuck.”
Lev had reached inside Asher’s chest, crushed his heart in his fist, and fled, leaving Asher behind, carved out, bleeding. Eviscerated.
With shaking hands, he pulled his pants to his hips and recoiled at the discovery that Lev’s saliva still dewed on his dick. He wiped any trace of Lev from his skin with his sleeve, and fastened his zipper.
In the months leading up to the retreat, he’d fantasized, and anxiety-spiraled, over a hundred different ways Lev might respond to Asher’s tattoos, but he’d never expected Lev’s eyes to widen in terror, or his face to blanch down to his freckles, or for him to run away.
What was Lev so afraid of? Didn’t he realize the power he possessed?
Asher had inked Lev’s art into his skin like a pentagram painted in a basement, summoning Lev like one would a demon, except instead of lighting candles and chanting incantations, he’d cracked open his chest and invited Lev in.
And Lev had answered.
He’d crawled under Asher’s skin, crept through his veins, dragging sharp claws down his halls, signing his name. He’d stained Asher’s art, etched a permanent mark on his heart. Then he’d reached out to Asher with an invitation of his own.
Come to Lichenmoor.
And Asher had answered, foolishly abandoning his home, forfeiting his soul. To touch Lev, to taste him, he’d traded salvation, sacrificing his honor on an altar for the miracle of Lev on his knees pledging allegiance.
Lev owned his body. It was too late for an exorcism. Asher could scorch Lev’s art from his skin, but would never escape him.
So, why the fuck had Lev run away, when it was Asher, not him, who would pay for their sins?
Asher smoothed his hands over his pants, but he still felt dirty, like his soul was smudged, like God had judged and deemed him unworthy—if not, then at least by the sacrilegious statue of Christ painted with bird shit.
Even the puzzle piece eyes of stained glass disciples shot him scathing looks. Not that he blamed them.
The haze of lust was no excuse, but tension turned to tinder whenever they touched. His brain had shut off, leaving him with only his baser instincts. To taste. To touch. To fuck. To be filled by Lev until he was more Lev than he was himself.
He tilted his head back until his skull touched stone. How could he have forgotten his tattoos?
Lev had finally lowered his walls, or at the very least, opened a window. He’d apologized. He’d said he felt the same way, and Asher had believed him. He still did.
“Fuck!” he screamed this time.
His vision blurred. He was pathetic, a disappointment. He was himself three years ago when Ben had grown bored and called their relationship an affair, a mistake, a silly little sexual escapade.
Nothing real.
Because the real Asher was unpalatable. Too much and not enough. He didn’t live up to the hype. He didn’t fit inside a box.
Like Ben, Lev had rejected him, and now he would send him away. Asher’s stomach clenched. What if Lev punished him first? Humiliated him while the others watched? Treated him like a pariah, a leper, the plague that he was.
He blinked back tears and pushed off the wall, sculpting raw despair into rage. He hated Lev for existing, for creating the only art that made him feel like life was worth living, for looking at Asher like he’d wanted to fuck him, for looking at Asher like one day he could love him.
Fuck Lev. Fuck Lichenmoor. Fuck his own stupid choices.
Maybe if he left before Lev’s rejection settled into his memories, he could return to his shitty apartment with paint stains on the carpet, and pretend none of this ever happened.
Yes, that’s what he’d do. He’d pack, and then he’d leave. He’d walk without stopping until he crawled out from under the shadow of Lichenmoor. Then, he’d eat and sleep, and with a clearer head, he wouldn’t feel like his world had ended.
He barreled through the church door that led to his room, not the main entrance Lev had used. The halls to Lev’s wing were blessedly empty, almost as if Lichenmoor was doing him a favor, expediting his exit.
Back in his room, he pulled the duffel from the top shelf of the wardrobe, and dumped drawer after drawer of clothes into it. How could he have been so cocky, so sure he would win, that he’d unpacked his belongings?
He wrenched open the next drawer with enough force that it fell onto the floor. Shit. He’d heard nothing from Lev’s room, but still… He held his breath and listened. Nothing.
Exhaling, he dipped into the bathroom and cringed at the thumb-sized hickey on his neck in the mirror. Memories from the church assaulted him—Lev’s beard scuffing his neck, nuzzling in deeper, nipping and sucking, leaving marks.
No, he couldn’t go there.
Avoiding his reflection, he scooped up the toiletry bag, returned to the room, and tossed it into his bag. He emptied the last drawer and bent to snap the bag’s buckle. Time to go.
He took one last look at the room Lev had selected for him, at the windows framing miles of moors, the ocean, and the distant creeping fog.
Homesickness curled around his heart. How could he miss a place that had never been his?
He lifted the strap of his duffel. The door at the end of the hall creaked open.
Even as his pulse skittered, he suffered another pang of homesickness.
Lichenmoor was so alive, he’d already memorized its sounds.
The faint knocking of footsteps started at a whisper. Had Lev come to apologize? He shook himself. That was why he needed to leave. Apology or not, he refused to subject himself to another mercurial man who made him want to scream almost as much as he wanted to self-immolate at his feet.
Lev’s low voice murmured, too far away to make out. Asher hadn’t heard a second pair of footsteps, but maybe he’d missed it over his thundering heart.
“Do not follow,” Lev said.
Who was he talking to? Luna? Lev’s footsteps crept closer and slowed to a stop. Asher padded softly toward the door and twisted the lock, as if it was any match for Lev’s skeleton key.
“You can’t hide from me,” Lev said, so close he had to be right outside. “I know you’re there.”
Asher almost opened his door. Almost. But Lev hadn’t said his name, hadn’t called, Come out, come out, wherever you are or olly, olly, oxen free or whatever the British equivalent was like this was a game of hide and seek.
Holding his breath, Asher lowered to his knees and peered through the keyhole wedged in Medusa’s throat.
Lev faced the stained glass window opposite, his back a sinister silhouette against a stained glass shipwreck—bodies adrift, water blooming with blood, half of the hull disappearing inside a giant squid’s maw.
“I don’t give a fuck if he hears me,” Lev said, angling his body toward someone out of frame. “I told you to stay out.”
Who was he talking to? It couldn’t be Luna. Lev spoke to her like a doting son.
Asher thought of the man in the locked room in the east wing and disregarded it. The east wing was clearly uninhabited. But Lichenmoor had many rooms. Was Lev hiding someone? Was it Silas?
Jealousy slithered in his stomach, and something else—shame. He couldn’t be the other man. Never again.
Lev threw his hands out in frustration. “He has your art on his skin!”
Asher flinched. The only art Asher had was Lev’s.
That confirmed it then. Lev talked to himself. Asher’s dad had the same habit.
Lev cocked his head, then straightened. What the fuck? He nodded once and spun toward Asher’s door.
Chills covered Asher’s shoulders like a shawl. Could Lev see him through the keyhole? Asher squinted, striving for a clearer view, but the sun had scattered a kaleidoscope of blue-gray stained glass over Lev’s face.
Lev stared at the door for a few tense seconds and stalked off down the way he came. Asher blinked back the grayscale from staring at the sun and sat back on his heels. He waited long after the creak and slam of the door at the end of the hall heralded Lev’s departure.
Then, he left.