Page 23 of Leviathan's Song
I glanced down into the crowd and quickly spotted Sidney and Sam, but it took a little longer to find Josh and Aaron, who had moved into a seething, boiling section off to my left. People were slamming their bodies into each other and pulling back to do it again and again. I frowned. I didn’t understand that kind of dance, it looked painful.
I turned my attention back to Levi.“No, they’re my guards,” I said with false petulance. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him but cracked a smile when he laughed.
“As much as I want to be irritated that you’re down here in Dry Gulch again, the bouncers here areverygood,” he said.
His eyes dropped down to my costume, and I realized he was still holding my hand when he gave it a deep, slow squeeze. “Not an Empress, huh, little queen?” he asked with a boyish smirk and a teasing glint in his eye. “Come join me. It always feels weird sitting up here by myself. You can survey your empire.”
He took his seat again, on some pipes traveling along the wall, and tugged me gently into his lap, wrapping his arms around me loosely and releasing a shuddering breath. I didn’t know how he could stand to be touching me—his skin was obviously flushed from the heat—but I couldn’t find it in me to ask or remove myself. He took three red pebbles from an out of the way pile and slid them across the ledge, aligning them with some stones already in use.
“Check this out.” An illusionary ball of flame lit on each of the large walls opposite us and to the sides. It began splitting into writing, which flickered and morphed into images that told a story of the Bound’s three moons and how they’d been placed in the sky—an ancient legend from the mer.
Levi moved the pebbles into a different pattern, leaning around me as he worked, and added a blue one to the mix. The flames took on a sickly green tint and coalesced into a single giant form in the center of the room, the image spinning and morphing as it went. It settled on an ethereal image of a leviathan, one of our world’s mega-behemoths—in miniature size, though still large enough to reach the rafters—swimming through the crowd. Only a few behemoths had survived in the deep waters of the Void, but the Boundlands still had behemoths in spades.
As I watched the ghostly creature begin to disintegrate, I was startled to see Sidney climbing the ladder beside me. She leaned over the railing toward me with an exasperated expression on her face.
“So, I’ve got bad news,” she yelled. “Josh thinks he broke his foot in the mosh pit, but I’m also pretty sure Aaron has a concussion, so we’re gonna have to bail early and take them to the healer.”
I glanced down to the area I had seen them, where people had been throwing themselves into one another like mountain goats in rut. I nodded to Sidney.
“Okay, climb down, and I’ll come down after you.” Did I imagine Levi’s arm around my waist holding me a little tighter?
“No, no. You guys look cozy,” she said with a little grin and mischief in her eyes. “We’re going to the medic across town, since they have more experience with shifters, and they won’t let you into the back with a patient if you’re not family. You’d have to wait outside, and one of us would have to stay out and guard you. Can you stay here with Levi and his reaper buddy?” She twisted to look at Grim. “I’ll call when we’re done to find out where you are.” She tapped the top of her ‘chest plate’ where her necklace was nestled with her lockets.
Levi’s arm pulled me more firmly against him. “We’ll take care of you,” he said against my ear. I nodded to Sidney. I felt safe with Levi, and I had my wasps. I couldn’t imagine anyone ever crossing Grim—just the thought of doing so made my skin crawl.
“Tell the boys I’m sorry that happened, and I hope they’re okay.”
She waved me off as she started her descent back down. “You play stupid games; you win stupid prizes. I’ll check you later.” She climbed down the ladder, gave a sloppy salute to Grim, and plunged back into the crowd. Levi shook his head and shifted several pebbles out of the smaller pile, making the last bits of the behemoth disappear.
As a new song started, I realized I was starting to get lightheaded from the heat, but after a few more minutes, I was dizzy enough to feel sick and told him I needed to climb down for a bit to cool off. He nodded and gave my back a soft pat, releasing me from his lap.
“I only have two more songs, and then my set is up. I need out of this hotbox too. Stay behind Grim, please. The crowd can be pretty rough.”
He helped me over to the ladder, and I had to focus on not missing a rung. The last thing I needed was to slip and make a spectacle of myself in front of hundreds of people. When I got to the bottom Grim lifted me down with the smallest smile on his face.Yes, yes, so funny. I pouted, remembering that Sidney had simply jumped and not required any help at all. I noticed his eyes were beginning to cloud with the faintest white haze.
When he set me on the floor, he kept himself between me and the crowd as much as possible, making sure I had enough space and didn’t get trampled on. I heard Levi’s sultry voice enter the mix of music and didn’t recognize the language, but those in the crowd with any kind of ocean-related magic began cheering at a deafening pitch. I looked up to see him staring out over the crowd, his cowl pulled up to obscure his face, and felt his enchantment roll over us.
His voice was husky and ragged in some places, strong and resolute in others, and all the while I felt the pull of his magic wrapping me up and dragging me toward him. Some of the people nearby looked nearly rapturous, like they were waiting on orders from a beloved king. Grim looked mildly bored, only focused on making sure those closest to us kept their distance.
By the time Levi’s replacement took to the ladder and he had climbed down, the feeling of Grim’s magic had grown strong enough to drown out all the other magic users around us. He still had a faint impression of his pupils showing through the white haze, and there was no sign of his shadow cloak yet, but Levi took one look at him and clasped Grim’s forearm in an embrace, leaning close to his ear to say something I couldn’t hear. Grim gave me a curt nod and turned, melting into the crowd. They parted and closed back in around him as he left.
“I wish he could stay but he can’t fight his magic more than he already has.” Levi’s fingers brushed down my forearm as he stepped closer to me and leaned in to speak close to my ear. “You’re killing me with this outfit, Empress,” he said with a groan. “Dance with me?”
He kept his eyes locked on mine as he took my hand and backed through the crowd, pulling me away from the wall a bit. When he stopped, he kept tugging me forward until I collided with his chest and then wrapped his arms around me loosely with his hands resting on my back.
“Is this alright?” he asked into my ear so low I could barely make out the words.
I nodded my forehead against his chest as we began to move slightly in time with the music, and I marveled in the feel of his enchantments wrapping me up as much as his arms did. I gripped the front of his shirt gently in my fingers and noticed the hard muscles underneath flexing against the backs of my knuckles as he danced.
Peripherally, I noted that his skin felt cooler than mine and that he moved with a primal kind of grace. Where many of the men around us danced in a way that felt tribal or carnal at its roots, Levi’s movements struck me as almost sinuous and fluid, with a kind of infectious sensuality. His hips guided mine in a deliberate, skilled dance that reminded me of ocean waves rolling gently but relentlessly against an ever-changing shore.
He was confident in his movements and in his body, expertly navigating the rhythm of the song like it was second nature to him. I felt myself relaxing in his grip as our bodies swayed and bounced with the music through several songs. I found myself melting into him as the party roiled and pounded around us, one song after another.
I felt a little in awe of him as I pulled back to gaze up at his striking features, like I was seeing a new piece of him, like he was speaking to me in his native language with his body. His face looked pleased but fatigued as he gazed down at me with an almost imperceptible smile in his eyes. I noticed his cheeks were rosy, giving him an adorable flush, but something about how slowly his eyes blinked struck me as off.
When I reached up and touched his cheek to feel his temperature, he hissed quietly and snapped his head back in a way that seemed reflexive. I gripped the front of his shirt and tried to tug him down closer to me, suddenly feeling a little alarmed at the way his eyes cast about in confusion. He blinked, trying to reorient himself.
“Levi?” I heard panic in my voice. “Are you okay?”
