Chapter 44
MAE
Asmo’s bedroom is the size of my entire cottage.
It faces the Sitani Sea, the dark water churning below us as it crashes along the cliff.
The walls are painted black, but the room still feels welcoming.
Centered along the wall is a sprawling bed with an oak headboard and sheets the color of clouds.
The wall facing the water is not a wall, but an invisible barrier, just like in the High Castle’s library.
The breeze stirs an open book on Asmo’s side table.
It feels like home.
Asmo opens an interior door, revealing rows of neatly pressed jackets, shirts, and pants.
A sword, made of glimmering black, hangs on the wall in a glass case.
He walks to a chest of drawers and begins rifling through.
He extracts a handheld mirror, its oval surface surrounded by scalloped edges, embellished snakes, and black roses.
“This will show us where Marik and Elle are,” he says, shutting the drawer and placing the mirror on the bed.
“What is it?”
“It’s imbued with a spell that will allow the user to see whoever they request,” he explains.
I reach for it, but he darts toward me and stops my hand. “But there is a risk. He would be able to see us on whatever surface allowed us to see him. It must be used sparingly and wisely.”
I place my hand back in my lap. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
Asmo settles onto the bed, resting the mirror on top of the open book. “My father spelled it with dark magic. Marik and I used to use the mirror to spy on him and Mother.” A ghost of a smile graces his lips, but it falls quickly.
Asmo stares at his hands as he wrings them together in his lap, his jaw working.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“I never thought I’d have the High Queen in my bed,” he jokes, but it falls flat.
I don’t budge. “What is it?”
“I—I think I’m just having a hard time being back here,” he says. “There are so many memories—mostly bad, but some good ones. It’s hard to imagine this is how my family ended up.”
If anyone can empathize with that, it’s me.
My entire life has been a lie, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t good times.
It just means those memories are now tainted.
I scoot toward him on the bed, resting against the headboard and leaning against him.
He wraps an arm around me and pulls me closer.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I whisper.
“No.” My net tugs, but I won’t press him any further on this. There will be time to recount the details of our lives to one another, to heal the trauma and to soothe away the pain. But not until we’re both ready.
He extricates himself and stands from the bed. “Come here,” he says, walking toward the barrier that separates his room from the drop-off below. “I want to show you something.”
I join him, watching as the ocean below churns, the reflection of the moon dancing on its surface. He points to something in the distance, but all I see is the endless expanse of the black ocean.
“What?” I ask.
“Watch the surface closely,” he whispers, then turns his palm upward, fingers moving slowly.
The waves begin to thrash, but something writhes below. Dark, scaled figures, a mass of serpentine bodies growing with every passing second.
“What…are…those…?”
“Sea snakes,” he answers, then drops his hand. In a flash, the snakes dip back below the surface. The idea of that many sea snakes hidden below the surface has my lip curling.
“How did you do that?” I ask. He must have summoned hundreds of snakes, all in a matter of seconds.
“Mother and Father used to keep us locked in our rooms for days, sometimes weeks. The only thing I had to do to entertain myself was practice my magic and watch the sea. One day, I tried to force the waves to move, but a snake answered instead,” he says.
My heart breaks for him. The more I learn about the Serpent Princes, the less I blame Marik for the way he turned out. But then I remember the male Asmo became, and my sympathy disappears.
“Do you remember when you told me you were a terrible male?” His jaw clenches, but he nods, stony gaze still locked on the sea. I face him, looping my arms around his neck. “You’re a good male, Asmo.”
His gaze still doesn’t meet mine, but his eyes turn glassy. I stroke the mating tattoo on his neck, the snake head just below his ear.
“I—I don’t deserve you,” he says, his voice low and thick with emotion.
My net doesn’t stir, and I squeeze my eyes shut. How could he believe that? “No, you don’t deserve anything that happened to you.”
His hand grips the small of my back, and he pulls me flush against him. He dips his head, pressing his lips against mine with a tenderness that threatens to split my heart in two.
Did they damage your heart so terribly, Asmo? Did they kill what’s mine?
He places soft kisses down my neck, my skin erupting in fire and ice with every brush of his lips.
He lifts my shirt over my head and drops it to the floor.
His fingers trail over the mating tattoo, to the space in between my breasts.
He leans down and presses a kiss to the blackened space over my heart, and it bucks in my chest.
When will our hearts stop bleeding? Will they ever stop?
He drops to his knees, placing torturously slow kisses along the flat plane of my stomach. It twists, butterflies and dragons and fireflies taking flight.
I cup his jaw, forcing him to look up at me, and he does. Like I’m the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the sky.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
The crook of his smile.
“Worshipping you.”
The truth in his words.
He trails his kisses downward, and I squeeze my legs shut, anything to ease the throbbing. He doesn’t miss the motion, his smirk only adding to the slickness between them. He stands and scoops me into his arms. He tosses me on the bed, then peels my pants off and throws them behind him haphazardly.
“You deserve to be worshipped. Every day,” he says as he stares at my slick center. He lowers himself, parting my legs further, and places gentle kisses on my inner thighs. Every kiss only exacerbates the throbbing.
Finally, his tongue grazes the sensitive bundle of nerves, and my eyes roll to the back of my head.
Every expert movement of his tongue takes me higher, each brush sending me one step closer to the edge as he feasts.
I fist my hands into his hair and clench my thighs together as he hits the perfect spot.
“I—don’t stop,” I pant as the wave reaches its peak. With one more flick of his tongue, my hips buck as it crests. I smother my moans in the crook of my arm as it washes over me, my muscles relaxing as it recedes.
I open my eyes. Asmo stares at me from the edge of the bed, straining in his pants.
I push myself up and reach for him, but he grabs my wrist and spins me around, securing me against him.
His erection pressed against my backside makes me wet all over again, and his hand splayed against my stomach doesn’t help.
“Do I get to have a turn worshipping you?” I ask, but his hand inches lower and lower. I squirm against him.
“Being able to fuck you is the closest to being worshipped I’ll ever get,” he says against my neck, the words making my head roll back as I lean against him.
I understand what he means. Being one with him feels like something holy.
“Then fuck me, Asmo,” I whisper.
It’s as if the words were a key sliding into a lock, but the lock was hiding a beast within.
He bends me over, my face landing in the softness of the bed below.
The sound of his pants unbuttoning, his belt hitting the floor with a thunk, the brush of his length against my backside.
I press against it, desperate to feel him inside me again.
Desperate for another taste of the divine.
He rubs himself against my soaking center, teasing me from behind. “So fucking ready for me,” he says, his voice low and throaty.
I wiggle my hips in a plea, and it goes answered. My back arches as he fills me, his moan almost sending me over the edge. His strokes start slow, every movement sending shooting pleasure into every nerve.
He pauses as my orgasm threatens to explode through me, but his next words have me panting all over again.
“I’m going to fill you up, then fuck you again.
Would you like that, princess?” Nodding is the only thing I can do, because the ability to speak has left me.
“I want you dripping by the time I’m done with you. ”
He slams into me with a moan and stills as he empties himself into me.
My body reacts instantly, my orgasm spreading like wildfire this time.
I sag into the bed as it dissipates, and Asmo pulls himself out.
When I turn my head, he surveys the mess he made appreciatively, his length glistening with his seed.
He grabs my leg and pulls me over, twisting me onto my back.
I part my legs and he hooks his arms underneath my knees, lifting my center to his glistening hardness once more. He summons a pillow and places it underneath me, then slides into me again.
And holy heavenly fuck, he was made so perfectly for me.
I want to cry out to the Mother, I want to fall to my knees and thank Her for him.
I smother my moans with my hands as he rails into me with the same passion as earlier.
But this time feels different. This time, he fucks me like he’s paying penance for having me.
I reach for him, but his gaze is locked on where we’re joined, watching every stroke as he thrusts into me. It doesn’t take long for us both to climax again, and he collapses onto me, his heart pounding in his chest, in tandem with mine.
This. I would fight the entire world for this moment. I would claw through dirt and glass and fire if it meant another moment with Asmo, his heart beating against my chest as it recognizes mine.