Chapter One
This is Kylo Ren's first impression of his new apprentice: Rey looks wiry and strong, if too thin, her skin sun-browned by the hot desert sun. She's perhaps seventeen, neither plain nor beautiful. Just a poor, scavenger girl from a backwater planet with a lineage more remarkable than she is.
"What do you want with me?" Rey asks. She's trying to appear defiant, he thinks, but she sounds more afraid than anything.
"To teach you," Kylo says. He approaches, closing the space between man and girl. To her credit, she doesn't step back. "My master believes you will be strong in the Force."
Rey frowns. "Me? But I'm no one."
"Hardly." Kylo smirks behind his mask. "You're the granddaughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi."
Her hazel eyes go wide. Even on a planet as behind as Jakku she must have heard of that Jedi Master.
"You know about my family?" Rey asks, voice breathless.
She's desperate to hear more. He can feel it in the Force that moves within and around her. Kylo doesn't even have to probe her mind to know that she's a lonely creature, abandoned and starved of love; it's written all over her face.
"Prove yourself to be a worthy and loyal apprentice, and I'll tell you everything you want to know," he promises.
Rey looks at him with such hunger, so needful, clearly craving the truth of her origins.
I have her now, Kylo thinks. She'll do whatever I ask.
It's difficult for Rey to believe that just yesterday she was taken from Niima Outpost, dragged onto a shuttle by stormtroopers, and delivered to Kylo Ren. So much has changed already that it feels like a different life.
She's been given spare but comfortable quarters on Kylo's ship, the Scion, far finer than the scavenged shell of a home she had on Jakku. Still, she misses her doll and the small knick-knacks she'd gathered over the years.
Someone took her weathered clothes while she showered and left her an outfit all of black, which she puts on a little warily. Rey has to admit that the clothes are well made, but even so, she feels like she's wearing a costume, playing a part. And in a way, she is.
Her plan is simple. She'll learn from Kylo Ren, and she'll do what has to be done to gain his trust, until she gets what she needs from him: information on her family. Who her parents are, whether they're alive or dead, and where to find them. Then she'll leave. How, exactly, Rey isn't certain, but she has time to figure that out.
Kylo enters her room without knocking. By the tilt of his mask she thinks he may be looking her up and down. When he speaks, his voice is distorted by the modulator, but easy enough to understand. "We'll be landing in a few minutes," he says. "Come with me."
She hurries after him, heart beating hard and fast. "Where are we?" Rey asks.
"A temple on Ruati," Kylo says. "This is where the Supreme Leader first trained me. I thought it would be an appropriate place to begin your own education."
Rey has to hold back a gasp when she steps off the ship. Everything is so green, the trees and the bushes and the grass beneath her feet. She almost says something about it, but she doesn't want to give Kylo any further reason to see her as an untraveled, ignorant scavenger.
The temple is a Sith ruin that has been reappropriated for their purposes, he tells her. Fixed with contemporary amenities and rebuilt in places. Rey puts her hand on the rough wall, tan skin against red stone, and traces the characters of a foreign language etched there. Then she follows Kylo inside.
To her surprise, he tells his crew to stay aboard the Scion. Only Rey and Kylo keep quarters in the temple itself, and he orders his soldiers not to disturb them for anything short of an emergency.
She meets Kylo at the heart of the temple for her first lesson the next morning. He's dressed all in black, same as she is, still wearing his mask. Rey wonders what he looks like beneath it, what his voice sounds like without the distortion of the modulator. He is a foreign creature to her, faceless and frightening. Something not-quite (or perhaps greater than) human.
"What do you know of the Force?" he asks.
"Nothing," Rey says, a little embarrassed.
"I'll begin with the basics then." Kylo explains what the Force is—an energy that connects every living thing in the galaxy—which can be used by individuals sensitive to its presence.
"Like you," Rey says.
"Like us," Kylo corrects. "There are two aspects of the Force: the light and the dark. The Jedi used to say that the dark side corrupts you, that it violates the universe's natural order, but this is a backwards way of thinking. Embracing the dark means embracing what is natural, not disregarding it. Anger and fear, for example; these things are a part of us. But the light demands that you reject your aggression, that you abandon your hatred. If anything, it's the light side that works against the natural order of things, not the dark."
He goes on, and the longer he speaks, the greater his presence in the room seems to grow. A coldness permeates the chamber, ominous and potent, coming off of Kylo Ren in waves. This is the dark, Rey thinks. It scares her, the raw power he exudes—but there's something exciting about it too.
Kylo quickly has to adjust his assessment of his apprentice. She's every bit as strong as her bloodline would suggest, not outmatched by her lineage at all. Their spars don't yet challenge him, but he expects that within a few short years that they will. Rey moves with the grace and precision of a practiced fighter, adept with her stave, and it makes him wonder how often she had to defend herself, alone on Jakku.
"When will I get a lightsaber?" Rey asks.
"When you're ready," Kylo says.
She doesn't seem to much like his answer.
Good. That impatience and frustration will fuel her anger, make her stronger, draw her closer to the dark.
Weeks pass, then months. Kylo turns twenty-nine in the secluded temple with no company to keep besides Rey's. That isn't much different from the life he's led for the last fourteen years, though. Isolated, dedicated to following the Supreme Leader's orders—no matter what they may be.
She hates him, he thinks, but is smart enough not to show it. Rey may despise him, but he can see her wary interest in the dark side growing every day. She finds his lessons enticing and empowering despite herself.
After their next sparring session, Rey wipes her sweaty hair out of her face and asks, "Why do you always wear that mask?"
What are you hiding? she means.
Instead of answering, Kylo approaches her, puts his gloved fingers beneath her chin, and tilts her face up toward the light. She's more girl than woman still, no more than eighteen, but there's something about her that captures his attention, demands it even. Rey glances down, away from his gaze.
"It's uncomfortable, isn't it?" he asks quietly. "Being looked at so closely."
She nods, eyes still trained on his boots.
Kylo releases her, steps backward, and says, "Get your dinner and rest. We'll spar again at dawn."
Life at the temple is monotonous and rigid, yet Rey remains engaged. Kylo may be many things, but no one could accuse the man of being boring. He's a demanding instructor who never tolerates laziness, and his mercurial moods make him difficult to predict. Some days he's a calm and not unkind teacher; other times he scoffs, impatient and rude as he corrects her mistakes. And when Kylo speaks she can't help but listen, drawn in by the deep cadence of his voice.
The more time they spend together, the more easily she can feel his presence. He can be on the other side of the temple and Rey will still sense his energy—sinister, formidable, cold, but strangely seductive. She wants to draw nearer to him, like a moth to a flame, to better feel the power he exudes.
It's strange, really, that she's lived so closely with this man for almost a year, and yet she knows next to nothing about Kylo Ren. Has never even seen his face.
Curiosity gets the better of her one night, and Rey sneaks across the temple to the chamber she knows Kylo has claimed for his own. She waits until well past midnight in the hopes that she might catch him asleep. Luck is with her—his door is unlocked, and the hinges make no noise when she opens it. Rey slips inside of Kylo's room and approaches the bed, quiet and light-footed as a shadow. Just one look, that's all she wants (needs).
He lies on his side, curled up in an oddly child-like manner. His hair is dark, she sees, a little unkempt, but it appears soft, and Rey has to suppress the sudden urge to run her fingers through it. She has only a moment to gather herself before Kylo is sitting bolt upright, saber ignited in his hand. He holds it a few scant inches from her throat, and she can feel the incredible heat of the unstable plasma blade against her skin.
His features are bathed in red light, and Rey can see him properly for the first time. Kylo has dark eyes, intense and luminous; a long, narrow face; a prominent nose and a wide mouth, full and soft. He looks vulnerable, almost sorrowful. She doesn't know what she expected, but this isn't it.
Kylo lowers his lightsaber. A moment later the red beams disappear entirely, and the room is plunged back into darkness.
"Are you satisfied?" he asks, and she almost jumps at his natural voice. It's still deep, resonant, but without the modulator's mechanical interference she can better appreciate the sound.
"No," she says, because in truth, she's far from satisfied. Kylo isn't especially good-looking in the traditional way, at least, but she couldn't care less about this. Rey finds him alluring, handsome, and she thinks she could look at his face every day for the rest of her life and that still wouldn't be enough.
As her eyes adjust to the sterling light of Ruati's twin moons, Rey's gaze drifts below his neck, and she realizes that he's not wearing a shirt. She's struck by the breadth of his shoulders, how strong his stomach looks, the muscles of his bare arms. Without thinking, Rey reaches out and presses her hand to his chest. His skin feels so warm, flushed beneath her palm. Kylo takes in a sharp breath when her fingers trail down his stomach, tracing the line of black hair just below his navel—
He catches her by the wrist, firmly but not ungently, and says, "Go back to your room." He sounds hoarse, as if this order is difficult to give.
His grip on her, growing tighter by the second, sends a thrill through Rey. He's touching her, and she didn't realize until this moment that she's been craving this for a long time.
They've both been starved of physical contact for years, she suspects. That's what accounts for the warmth pooling in her belly now, she tells herself. It's not him that makes her weak and wanting. It's just the act of touching, the feeling of another person's skin on her own.
Kylo releases her, and Rey steps away from him, turns around, and returns to her room.
Once in bed, she tosses and turns, unable to sleep despite the hour. She can't stop thinking about the strength of his grip. The way his dark eyes reflected the red light of his saber, mirror-like. And his strong body, so subtly defined, lean but broad-shouldered. Rey can't help it, she imagines him on top of her, caging her against the bed. That generous mouth kissing her, one of those large hands slipping between her legs and easing the ache there. Half-ashamed and furtive, she touches herself and pretends it's Kylo.
Things have been different between him and Rey since the night she intruded on his privacy and caught him half-naked in his bed. Since she looked on him with the kind of hunger only a fool could mistake for anything but desire. There's an unaddressed tension between them now, fraught with possibilities.
Except that Kylo refuses to acknowledge any of this potential. She's too young, and his apprentice besides. Taking her to bed would be a mistake.
And he has no experience in these matters. Kylo lived the Jedi initiate life throughout his early adolescence, and his ascetic practices were too ingrained to abandon by the time he joined Snoke. Besides, he's had no time and little inclination to exercise his baser passions—until now.
Kylo pushes away that thought and searches out Rey. He can feel her presence—warm, comforting, overwhelming in its pure energy—outside of the temple.
He finds her lying in the grass, eyes closed, looking so at peace that he hates to disturb her.
"Rey," he says. "I have a new lesson for you."
She sits up slowly, stretches, then stands. "What is it?"
Kylo feels dread settle in the pit of his stomach. He's been putting off this particular exercise for weeks, but it's past time that he showed her how to probe another person's mind.
Of all the painful and rigorous training that Snoke put him through, this was by far the worst of it, and Kylo finds that he doesn't want to do the same to Rey.
She makes me weak. Pulls me toward compassion, toward the light.
He explains the purpose of the lesson, and Rey's gold-flecked eyes widen. "You're going to read my mind?" she asks.
"Yes." Kylo closes the space between them, until he's looming over her. "The first memories that will surface are those which you most want to hide. Your natural response will be to fight it, but the more you resist, the more painful it will be," he warns. "Do you understand?"
Rey nods, clearly nervous but determined. "I'm ready," she says.
Kylo cups her cheek with his gloved hand. Touch isn't strictly necessary, but it helps forge the initial link.
He reaches out with his mind, pushes into hers, and he's flooded with images and feelings. Rey crying herself to sleep, alone in the darkness. Sand dunes all around, the sun beating down on her skin, and she's so thirsty, so hungry, she can barely stand. Loneliness, solitude, isolation. These are the things she experiences, every day that she marks with a scratch on the metal wall of her home.
Then Kylo sees her fleeing his room, going back to her own bed, but she can't sleep. Her mind is too full of him, and she reaches between her legs, touches herself, moaning softly into the shadows—
"Stop it!" Rey shouts.
He wants to see more, to watch her climax with his name on her lips, but Kylo withdraws his mind from hers.
Rey slumps against him, eyes shut tight, and grips the front of his robes. "You didn't have to look at that," she whispers against his chest. "It's private."
"I didn't mean to," Kylo says. His voice comes out so thick that it's noticeable even through his mask's modulator.
"My head hurts," she says, "and I feel faint…"
Kylo catches Rey just as she collapses, then lifts her, bridal style. She's still so slender, so light in his arms, that she's no burden at all. He carries her to her room, lies her on the bed. Because she'll never know of it, he takes off his right glove and touches her soft cheek.
Weak, he thinks again. That's what she makes me.
Rey practices her mental probing on Kylo's crew. They don't dare refuse their master's order to submit to her, but doing it makes her stomach twist. She hates violating the autonomy of someone else's mind, extracting secrets and fears for the sake of practice. She does it, though, because she'll never get her family's location from him until she proves her worth.
Sparring goes better. Rey is still learning how to channel her anger into her fighting, but the more she duels Kylo, the easier it becomes to draw upon her aggression.
They've been at the temple for just over a year when he finally deems her ready for a lightsaber. He gifts her with a kyber crystal, colorless and beautiful. Rey builds herself a saberstaff, and when she ignites it the double blades glow red, much like Kylo's. Except, where his lightsaber carries the frenetic energy of a storm, all power without restraint, the plasma blades of Rey's saberstaff are clean, perfect, precise.
Kylo tells her about Darth Maul, the last Sith to carry a saberstaff, who was defeated in battle by none other than her own grandfather, Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"Will you tell me about my family now?" Rey asks.
"No," Kylo says flatly. "You haven't proven your loyalty, and I don't trust you."
"I've done everything you've ever asked of me," she says. Rey tries to keep the impatience out of her voice, but she isn't entirely successful.
Kylo steps nearer, invading her space. "I haven't asked much of you yet."
Rey wants to look into his dark eyes and hear the true, undistorted timbre of his voice. She wishes he would take off his mask. He won't, though. He never does.
The Supreme Leader says it's time to conclude Rey's training, at least for now. There are many matters that require Kylo Ren's attention, and he can't afford to continue brushing them aside for his apprentice.
Snoke says this as if training Obi-Wan's granddaughter was Kylo's idea and not his own.
"We're leaving Ruati tomorrow," he tells Rey.
She nods, then returns to the texts on Sith philosophy that he told her to read.
Much later, during the twilight hour between night and morning, Kylo wakes to the soft sound of footsteps. It's Rey, wearing a black tunic that falls to the middle of her thighs. She lingers beside his bed for a moment, waiting to see if he'll refuse her again.
Kylo says nothing.
Rey gets into bed beside him, reaches up and caresses his face. He can't help but lean into her touch, savoring the contact. She guides him down, to lie on top of her, and Kylo settles himself between her open legs.
"Rey," he whispers, breathless, a heartbeat before she kisses him.
Her lips are soft against his, and she tastes of sleep and wine. He kisses her back roughly, hungrily, and groans into her mouth.
When they break apart for breath, Kylo looks down at her—chestnut hair loose around her shoulders, lips red and love-swollen—and he's never wanted anything the way he wants her right now.
Rey slips her hand into his pants, draws his cock out, and strokes him. She's a little too gentle, a bit clumsy, but it still feels so much better than when he does this himself. Kylo puts his hand around hers and shows her the best pressure and pace, how to grip him just right. As with most things, Rey is a fast learner, and soon he's thrusting into her touch, his rhythm erratic and eager. He wants this to last longer, but it feels too impossibly good for him to hold on. She sucks at his throat, abusing the tender flesh there with her teeth and tongue, and that's all it takes to make him come.
Kylo collapses beside her, unmindful of the mess she's made of him, feeling sated.
Rey curls up next to him, wraps an arm around his waist, and asks quietly, "Do you trust me now?"
Suddenly the warmth and sweetness of the moment dissipates. Kylo understands that, although she wants him, Rey didn't come to his bed purely out of desire. She also came to seduce information out of him.
Finding her family, he thinks bitterly. It's all she cares about.
"No," Kylo says coolly. "I don't."
Rey frowns at him, sits up , and makes to leave the bed, but he catches her by the arm and pulls her against his chest. "Where do you think you're going?" he asks. "I'm not done with you yet."
If she truly wants to leave, he'll let her go, of course, but Kylo suspects that Rey wants some excuse to stay. He must be right, because she pulls her shirt over her head, baring her small, pert breasts.
"Take off your underwear too," he orders.
She blushes, a pink flush coloring her bronze skin, but she removes her panties all the same. Rey is still kneeling before him when Kylo puts his hand between her legs. He eases two fingers inside her and tells her how tight she is, how wet, just to watch the rosiness of her cheeks redden further. He thrusts his fingers in and out of her, again and again, until she's moaning and shaking, kissing his mouth sloppily, begging him to do it harder, faster.
When she comes, Rey cries his name, and in that moment, Kylo doesn't care what her intentions were when she climbed into his bed. She's his now, and he's hers.
Author's Notes: Throw me in the dumpster, I'm officially writing Reylo smut. :P
