My nerves are strung so tightly a skilled musician could play a folk song on them.
The night is waxing deep into the darkest hours but the flame of my candles are still dancing merrily. I'm working feverishly away, my brain entering that exquisite frame of mind when there is nothing but me, my worktable, and the brush in my fingers.
I sit back after I finish drafting my proposal, allowing myself to finally relax and push away my work. Yet at the same time, I cannot but feel a twinge of anxiety…if the queen disapproves of the reform, then my nation is done for. So much is at stake, and I am the fulcrum of a teetering kingdom.
There is a light rap on the sliding doors. I start, but then I see the tall silhouette highlighted by the hallway lanterns, and stiffen.
"Ha-nuel of Kei?" My visitor possesses a warm baritone, a familiar taunting voice gibing me at every audience with the queen.
He slides open the door, and I narrow my eyes at the emerald haired man. He's wearing nothing but a light yukata and his trademark smirk.
"Jae-ha of Kouka." I reply coolly. "How nice of you to visit."
Even in my tiny nation of Kei, we have heard enough of the four monsters of Kouka and their scarlet-haired master to be wary of them.
Legends of a white claw that pierces metal, golden eyes that paralyze with a single glance, an emerald leg that leaps into the heavens, and a golden body that is said to be indestructible…all to protect the reincarnation of King Hiryuu, the founder of Kouka Kingdom.
The man before me is one of these legendary beings. I am hosting Jae-ha, the Greek Dragon of Kouka, he who possesses the power of the heavens in his right leg.
"You are still awake." He steps into the room, closing the door behind him. His every movement is leonine and lazy. I try not to stare too much.
Jae-ha produces an amber jug full of liquid gold and tilts it towards me. "Care for a little sake?"
"Aren't you audacious." I state flatly. "Why would you assume I would be willing to drink with you?"
Jae-ha raises an eyebrow. "We've known each other for seasons, darling, and you are still as stiff as when we've met. Come, relax a little and drink with me." He proffers the bottle to me, the simple sweep of his arm lithe and beckoning.
Oh. Have I mentioned that he had somehow managed to seduce me utterly during the course of my ambassadorial stay here in Kouka? No? Well, you also might as well know that he has made his intentions toward me very clear as well. There's a rapidly thinning line between the two of us, and the slightest step would carry us over and beyond it.
"Very well." I take the bottle. "I will live the night as any woman would, and you will treat me as such. Understood?"
Something dangerous glints in the Green Dragon's eyes, and I belatedly realize the hidden meaning behind my words. I turn scarlet, but my hand is steady when I pour the alcohol. "Come, a drinking game." My voice is calm, controlled. The picture of elegance. "Whoever drinks the most cups is the victor."
Jae-ha takes his cup with a small smile. "Of course, Ha-nuel."
I discover that names take on an entirely different meaning when they're spoken in a low voice, in a darkening room, by someone you have feelings for.
It is dizzying. I like it.
After a single hour, the sake bottle is nearly empty. Jae-ha is still steadily quaffing away, and I am struggling to stay upright.
"Are you at your limit yet?" His drawl pierces through the haze of alcohol suffusing my brain, and I have enough will to snarl back, "You wish, creature of Kouka."
"I see you haven't lost any of your bite." He chuckles and downs his current cup with a quick motion. He sets it down with a triumphant smirk, still looking me directly in the eyes. "That's seven cups for my country."
I shudder internally. He's speaking in that voice again. The one that makes my throat dry and my insides pool with heat. I growl, shaking away the feeling, and reach for more sake.
Unfortunately, my body is not my own, and my hand scrapes against the fabric of his robe. I flinch, and I can feel a rumble of amusement under my errant fingers.
"Now, now."
Jae-ha sets his sake cup down. He leans forward, making me flinch and lean away back from him. His robe slips further, revealing more of the contours of the hard plane of his chest. Lantern light dances off his chest. I swallow, feeling heat flush to my face.
"Naughty thing." His purr is laced with amusement. "Are you making a move on me during a sacred drinking contest between two official countries?"
"You said it yourself." I push my hair back, my hand trembling imperceptibly. "This is a night just between the two of us."
"Well, if that's the case…" He reaches forward until I can feel the heat of his breath. It's tinged with the sweetness of the sake. His warm baritone caresses my ear as he bends forward to murmur, "Then let it be a night to remember."
I have only enough time to squawk inelegantly in surprise when he kisses me, deep and delving. His hands cradle my face, tilting it to a new angle that allowed far better access. Against my own will, I feel myself melting into his touch. I grasp at his chest, my hands spreading flat against his broad shoulders.
Jae-ha pulls back, licking his lips slowly. His sharp teeth flash. "My, you responded to that better than I thought."
I glare at him, my own chest heaving. "Why, is sexual susceptibility something that turns you on?"
The Green Dragon of Kouka laughs low, and has the actual audacity to lean forward and draw his tongue along the hollow of my throat. I curse aloud in a strangled gasp.
"Such dirty words from the regal ambassador of the Kei Kingdom." He sounds pleased, but I curl my toes in pleasure when I hear the groan in his voice. "Say more, little one."
I growl and rake my fingernails along his scalp, and his body tenses with instinctual pleasure. "Make me."
His eyes narrow, and a smirk lifts his lips. What happens next sends literal stars racing under my eyelids. Jae-ha knocks me to the floor, my hair tumbling all about the floor. He pins my arms above my head to the ground, and straddles my hips. Something hot pools down deep in my core.
"I love a woman who fights back." Jae-ha's voice is rough with desire. He gyrates his hips against mine, and the delicious friction sends shivers of pleasure racing along the cure of my spine. I'm writhing in his grasp now, undulating against him, my sounds of muffled pleasure surfacing just between our fevered moans.
He stops to breathe, his heavy gasps something sensual and deeply predatory.
"Have you not realized..." Jae-ha's voice was raspy, laced with a draconian purr brimming with power. "...that you are tempting a dragon, the beast of the heavens?"
I gape. My insides roil with expectation.
He moves on to my neck, to my collarbone, to the valley of my breasts; biting and soothing the marks with his tongue. I'm not even making coherent noises anymore, just meaningless whimpers as my hands fist in his hair. My commands devolve into pleas, into mantras of his name, breathy sounds that eventually become nothing but a string of endless curses. He responds with a growl that was positively animal.
After a while, the part of my brain that is not swamped with delirious desire reminds me that I have never been the subservient one. I want to see Jae-ha at my mercy.
I force his head upwards, and when he jumps, I bite his lower lip. He leans greedily forward, and his tongue is sweeping the roof of my mouth. I keen.
Jae-ha reels back after a few minutes, his eyes dilated and his pale skin flushed. I smile devilishly at the effect I left on him. He's panting, and he freezes once he sees me slowly licking the seam of my lips.
I arch my back enough to slip one corner of my night robe down one creamy shoulder. Without breaking eye contact, I wrap my bare legs around his waist, linking my ankles together.
"What's wrong?" My voice warbles, drunk on this power I hold over him. "Something bothering you?" I lower my hand, running it up the contour of his thigh. I can feel the sinews of his leg.
"You…!" His voice catches when I reach high enough to feel his hardness. Jae-ha groans loud and rough when I wrap my hand around him, stroking him lazily and in deep, soothing movements.
"The bold…Green…Dragon." I hiss sweetly into his ear, still working him gently. "At the mercy of a simple, human girl. Oh, what has brought the divine creature down to such a low?"
Jae-ha's body jerks at a particularly vigorous stroke of my hand, and he stifles his desperation in the flesh of my shoulder. I can feel his teeth pierce my skin, and it takes a tremendous effort not to whimper out loud.
However, just as I was beginning to feel him reach his peak, he reaches abruptly down and, with an obvious effort, draws my hand away.
I raise my eyebrow at him. The lust in his eyes are an inferno. His next words are a breathy growl.
"I want to come inside you."
My mouth goes dry.
Jae-ha takes my arms and lifts them up over my head again. He takes in the sight of my bare chest, heaving and flushed from his ministrations. His knee gently pushes at my legs and coaxes them open.
The gleam in his eyes are a wicked glow as he moves his hips forward. "Moan for me, love."
Jae-ha doesn't ease himself him like my previous lovers. He sheathes himself inside of me with a quick, punishing stroke, and my fingernails sink into the flesh as I shriek into his neck. The stretch is like the sun; burning and glorious. My vision is blurring.
He hisses low, a cadence of breath. I delight in his pleasure. I dance my fingers along the nape of his neck, coaxing him forward until I can feel his incredibility snaking along my jawline through the physical movements of his mouth. It's curious and it's beautiful.
After Jae-ha has accustomed himself to me, he begins the rhythm: steady but deep, loving but punishing. He trains his eyes on me the entire time, the pupils dilated but shaded by the shadows of his lashes. I look right back at him, and I laugh as he fucks me; a throaty feminine sound that spurs him on even further.
Just as the coil inside of me tightens to the point of near-pain, Jae-ha groans my name like a worshipful mantra, and stars blind my vision as I stifle my cry of frantic ecstasy into his shoulder, the orgasm swamping my sense like heavy ocean waves.
He comes shortly after I do, his body rocking into mine one last time as he gasps out something incoherent that vaguely resembles my name. Breathily, I chuckle as I stroke his hair as his shudders subside; twisting the long strands between my fingers. "Are you quite alright?"
"You're just as breathless as me, Ha-nuel." Jae-ha grins his usual draconic smirk, and it slips as he groans into his palm. "By the gods, girl, you are talented."
I frown at him. "Talented?" I repeat in an incredulous tone. "After all that? Never in an eon would I describe my abilities to make a divine beast writhe as simply 'talented'."
Jae-ha shrugs nonchalantly, thoughtfully leaning forward to kiss my forehead lightly. "Very well…" He looks affectionately down at me, feathering his hands through my tangled hair. "There's a saying in Kouka that I'm quite fond of."
He traces the words with his finger on my skin, looping and luxurious and slow. "Only when the divine are conquered does the world fall."
My breath leaves my chest when the Green Dragon of Kouka looks at me with a soft smile and murmurs, "You, Ha-nuel, have shaken my world until there is nothing but a smoking ruin."
"And I ask you to conquer me again."
