A slow smile spread across Martin’s mouth. “So I am.”
They came together in a rush of breath and lips and tongues, hands everywhere at once. Touching, feeling.
Peter found himself on the stone floor, their combined clothes serving as a bed. He lost himself in Martin’s touch, the heat in his eyes, the perfection of a warm mouth on his neck and jaw.
This might be a dream, a hallucination. Peter couldn’t care less. Martin felt real, muscles rippling under skin, sounded real, whispering “I love you” into Peter’s ear.
Peter wouldn’t question good fortune.
Outside, a battle could be raging. Here, in the temple’s sanctity, he curled his legs around Martin’s thighs, shoved his nearly painful cock against Martin’s answering hardness, rocking together like the realm depended on their coming together.
Through moans and hissed breaths and shouts of pleasure, they slid, one against the other, Peter’s skin tingling from Martin’s touch.
Pressure formed within, building, building. Muffling his shout in Martin’s mouth, Peter froze, every muscle tensing. He hung on the edge for one long moment…
Then plunged into ecstasy, convulsing as he shot, spurting against Martin’s belly. Martin groaned out his own pleasure, melting into the embrace and adding his seed to Peter’s, trapped between their bodies.
Martin collapsed to the side, dragging Peter over, where he rested, head on Martin’s chest, the steadythump, thump, thumpof Martin’s heart a lulling cadence.
Peter awoke on the cold stone floor in a darkened room, fully clothed, his pants drenched with his seed.
A chuckle reverberated in the stone room. Peter conjured feeble yellow mage fire. “Who’s there?”
Nothing. Was it Martin? Had Martin tried to communicate with him?
Peter reached out with his mind, searching for a connection to his lover. Deeper and deeper, his mind sank into a murky mist.Martin? Are you there?
There! Something moved! He chased the retreating figure. Where did it go? Blindly he ran after, deeper and deeper into the strange surroundings.Martin? Martin!
The mist cleared somewhat, revealing a small child, a girl with golden curls and rounded cheeks. A child? Here? “Who are you? How did you get here?”
The child looked up with eerie purple eyes. Peter jumped back.
“Do not be afraid,” the child said. “We will not hurt you. We have been looking for you.”
We? “Me?”
“Yes. The elders have been trying to reach out to your race for ages but could not. Then we found you when you slipped between realms. You are not trained to control your thoughts, which would have kept us from making contact. You also belong to two realms, allowing you access to both. You are rare indeed, and exactly what we need. I take this form so you can see and hear me. You and your bond mate coming together created a path for us to travel.”
“What do you want from me?” Though the being appeared nonthreatening, power pulsed from deep within, giving off a golden light.
“One of our kind broke our laws. We stripped away all powers and banished the criminal to the abyss between realms. We did not know it would destroy worlds to regain magic, never knowing it could break free of the abyss.”
“The Lady?”
The child cocked her head to the side for a thoughtful moment. “Yes, your kind call it the Lady. Others call it Thomoth. It goes by many names. We had no wish to interfere with other realms and have only found them once they were destroyed. We are sorry for those, but I believe all is not lost for your realm. Though you did so unknowingly, you hung in the place between realms with your mate, as you both are of two worlds. You created a beacon for us to follow.”
Could this helpless-looking being actually help overthrow the evil currently draining the world of magic? “What must we do?”
“Thomoth has grown strong on stolen magic. Even now, your kind enter a struggle they cannot win. They will be crushed and your world destroyed.”
Peter’s heart leaped to his throat. Martin! Addie! All the others.
“However futile your attempts, as the battle grows, Thomoth will tire. At that moment, we will strike.”
“Can’t you strike now?”
The child shook her head. “In its current state, Thomoth is too powerful even for us. It must be weakened if we are to succeed.”
