(A/N) Well, the world's done a...bit of falling apart since last I posted. I figured you all could use a fairytale. While we're far from the happy ever after at this point, there is definitely copious amounts of sexy time, so...enjoy that! :D
A Rose Upon a Thorn
CHapter 2: Second Night
The disappearance of the lord's son did not improve relations between the humans and the half-Fey of the realm. If anything, the lord used the whole matter to stir up discontent, going so far as to accuse the prince's son of murdering him.
Now, anyone who truly knew the pair would know that such wild accusations were nothing less than ridiculous. The prince's son never could've harmed a hair on his friend's head, let alone murder him. But the young half-Fey still felt guilty for being unable to protect the man he loved, so he did little to discourage the rumors that began to spread. He did everything in his power to locate his beloved, but found not even the slightest trace of him.
With the lord's rabble-rousing, the two peoples were soon at odds once again, despite all the progress made under the new king. The prince's son and his growing band of companions became something of a specialized task force serving in the king's name, responding to reports of attacks on half-Fey, ranging farther and farther from their home territory.
Seven years passed away in this manner, busy but not full, until the little band found itself tracking the same group of bandits it had been trailing for years. This time under the rumor that they were kidnapping half-Fey children for some unknown purpose.
XxX
Janet sits in her lonely room, sewing a silken seam
Looking out on Carterhaugh, among the roses green.
And Janet sits in her lonely bower, sewing a silken thread
And longed to be at Carterhaugh, among the roses red.
XxX
Zeb shifted his shoulders impatiently as he, Hera, Chirrut, and Bodhi watched the line of wagons go by. He and a few of the others in their little band would've preferred to attack scum like this head on, he knew, but clearer heads had prevailed in the planning of this operation. They only needed to wait until the caravan had passed fully into the forest.
Then they could spring their trap.
The lone caw of a raven sounded overhead as Chopper took wing from deep in the forest, letting them know that Kanan and the others were ready.
Come on, Kanan. I hate this, too, but there's just four more wagons. Keep it together.
But with only three wagons remaining, everything fell apart with a single whispered warning from Chirrut.
"He will not wait. Nor will Baze. A child cries out in pain."
And indeed, no sooner had he spoken than the horrific scream of a child in pain tore through the night air. Zeb actually felt the moment his younger friend's control snapped, rippling in waves of pure rage upon the air.
An answering shout rose above the trees as the forest itself seemed to come alive, tree branches reaching out like skeletal hands to seize the wagons and the humans driving them.
"Dammit, Kanan!" Hera hissed as they raced into the fray. They wouldn't have more than a few minutes to act.
And of course, from one of the last two wagons, just beyond the reach of the now writhing forest, came a cruel feminine voice.
"Don't just stand there, you imbeciles! KILL THEM! Kill them all!"
"NO!" Zeb snarled, running faster. It wasn't them she was talking about.
He reached the first wagon entrapped by the tree branches, shoving past the human driver, but seeing that he was already too late. One of the branches had impaled the half-Fey guard, but that hadn't stopped her from killing the wagon's other occupants.
Three children. One teenaged and the other two young.
Much too young.
Roaring in anger, Zeb impaled the half-Fey woman with his own blade before reaching for hers, piercing her heart with the cold iron-tipped blade to make certain she would never draw breath again. He believed in mercy to a degree, but anyone who could murder a child didn't deserve it.
"Zeb!" he heard Bodhi's warning cry from outside. Leaping out of the wagon, he looked back to see a mass of dark energy rise from the last wagon, lifted on silent wings as a largely formless mass before a clear, cold voice rose to the sky, blotting out the light of the moon with unnatural darkness. Then that shapeless figure swept into the trees, speeding toward a goal. Zeb glanced to Hera in fear.
"Kanan," they whispered together in worry before following after the dark spectre, down the line of wagons, past panicking horses and the dying screams of both children and their captors as their fellow knights tried and failed to save them.
The dark shape descended upon its target at the front of the wagon train, sweeping over Kanan Jarrus in a wave of bitter, black power. When the figure resolved itself into a more recognizable shape, it was as a woman in a voluminous black cloak, her pale skin barely visible within its recesses. With an angry snarl, she used her power to jerk Kanan away from the wagon he'd been liberating. He barely had time to raise his crystalline blade against hers. Even from a distance, Zeb could sense that the blade she wielded was pure cold iron. How she could handle such a weapon without risk, who could say, but if Kanan took even one swipe from that thing...
"Do you know what you have achieved here, foolish knight?" the faerie woman demanded as they battled. "All you've done is saved me the trouble of having to haul these beastly creatures all the way back through the Divide and killing them myself."
"So what do you want with them, Ventress?" Kanan snarled right back, their blades clashing and tangling. "What's the point of any of this? Why make the effort to take them through the Divide if you're just going to kill them?!"
"Oh, if any of them had survived, that child would've served a far greater purpose than you can imagine. All you've accomplished is...thinning the herd for us, if you will," she said with a cruel, ugly smile.
Letting out a wordless scream of rage, Kanan came at her with fury in his eyes, his blade locking fiercely with hers. And as they grappled, Baze, Bodhi, Cassian, Wedge, and Hera all closed in around them, crossbows held at the ready, waiting for an opportunity. But Asajj Ventress did not give them one.
"Back! All of you!" she snarled with a wave of her hand, flinging the ring of humans and half-Fey back with her power.
Kanan attempted to press his advantage when her now single-handed grip faltered briefly against him, but she forced him back with a burst of strength, quickly redirecting her blade to slice along his side.
"KANAN!" Hera cried out as he went down. But before Ventress could move in to land her killing blow, Zeb and Chirrut were there, engaging her in a fresh round.
"Petty little knights," she taunted in a singsong sort of voice as they traded blows. "You could not save those children. What do you expect to accomplish against me other than dying?"
"You know, My Lady, I'm not technically a knight," Chirrut returned in a voice laced with amusement, his staff holding up perfectly well against the blows from her sword.
"What matter?" the faerie snarled, irked at his flippant attitude. "Knight or no, human or Fey, your blood will stain my blade just as readily."
"Not if I've got anything to say about it!" Zeb snapped back, engaging her in a quick series of strikes, pulling her attention away from Chirrut.
"Ah, Garazeb Orrelios," she began with a disarming sneer. "Traitor's get. How does your whore mother these days?"
"Drag my name through the mud all you want, but of my mum, don't you say one word!" Zeb snarled at his opponent, forcing her back with sheer brute strength. When she missed her footing, Chirrut trapped her, pinning her against him with his staff against her neck, quickly disarming her. Zeb laughed quietly as he approached them. "Bet you couldn't hold a candle to my mum back in the day."
"I could hold many things to Lirakal Orrelios, half breed!" she snarled at him, struggling against Chirrut's hold on her. "Several things I'm sure you would have no wish to hear about. The stories I could tell you about your mother..."
"Enough!" Zeb snapped, raising his blade to strike.
"You're right, little one. It is enough," she hissed before striking back. Of a sudden, a new cold iron weapon was in her hand and she was driving it through her blind captor's middle. He went down with an agonized cry, his flesh burning around the dagger.
"CHIRRUT!" Baze screamed his husband's name, moving in to catch him as Ventress spun away from him, recalling her sword to her hand.
"Damn you!" Zeb shouted, moving in on her again, trading several furious blows with the faerie knight, driving her as far away from his friends as he could. She didn't need to taunt him further.
His rage was awakened.
And she used that to her advantage, keeping him just barely on balance as he fought to get in a hit. It didn't take much for her to slip in under his defenses and disarm him, laying him out flat.
"I will not have a wretch like you staining the ancient name Orrelios a moment longer," she declared as she raised her blade for a killing blow. "Just know you could've cleansed the taint of your birth if you hadn't been robbed of your destiny."
"What- what are you-" he started to ask, but before Ventress could deliver her strike, one of her hands was pierced by a cold iron crossbow bolt, drawing a harrowing shriek of pain from her throat.
Zeb glanced back toward his friends, but the bolt hadn't come from any one of them, all busy trying to help Kanan and Chirrut.
The Fey knight continued to snarl in pain as she backed away from him, cradling her mangled hand against her chest.
"Fine," she hissed, glowering up in the direction the bolt had come from. "Have your little slut. I care not."
Then she was gone, and the moonlight returned to the forest as if it had never been gone.
"Zeb!" Wedge called out for him.
"I'm all right. I'm comin'," he called back as he climbed to his feet, but before he did, he went to retrieve the bolt Ventress had left behind. Picking up the little projectile with only the tips of his fingers, he took a moment to examine it.
"No," he whispered in shock. "It can't be. It can't."
But it could and it was. His more than human eyes could not be fooled by the moonlight. The shaft of cold iron was marked with the sigil for House Orrelios – a bit of Fey livery his mother had always insisted they could use. Even if his father had permitted him to, Alex had never wanted to identify himself beneath the banner of Syfarre if he could help it.
This was how he had always marked his weapons.
It was the first sign he'd had of Alex since the night he vanished. Could it have been he who'd saved him just now?
Alex...?
Holding onto the little bolt until the cold iron burned his skin, Zeb was finally forced to tuck it away in his belt, turning his attention back toward his friends. Kanan lay in Hera's arms, half-incensed as Bodhi tried to treat his injury. Though badly injured, the green knight ought to live with proper treatment. But Chirrut...a wound like that ought to have killed him.
Which was why Zeb found himself both relieved and confused to see him lying in his husband's arms, breathing heavily and covered in a sheen of a sweat, but otherwise seeming to be recuperating.
"Chirrut?" he started, dropping to one knee beside the elder half-Fey. "How're you- holdin' up?"
"Amazingly well for someone whose spleen ought to be lying in the road," he joked.
"Have you- ever been hit with cold iron before?" he asked, glancing between him and Baze, who shook his head with a grunt, as if such a notion were almost insulting to the human warrior's honor as a protector.
"I cannot say as I have," Chirrut returned casually, reaching up a hand to tangle it in Baze's hair. "One tends to avoid the things that can cause slow, painful death, after all."
"Heh, I wish you would avoid things that caused slow, painful death, old crow," Baze grumbled, voice still somehow managing to be fond.
"I don't understand it," Cassian commented as he tended to the wound. "It's- healing like any normal injury."
"You object to my not dying, young pup?" Chirrut teased the teenaged human.
"Of course not. I just-"
"The kids!" Kanan's protesting, delirious voice jolted its way into the conversation. "They're- still alive. Somebody...help those kids!"
"What?" Zeb pressed, rising back to his feet as he looked back toward the wagon Kanan had previously been entering. "No way."
Hurrying toward the wagon, Zeb shoved his way past the bound driver and the slain guard to find two children still in the back of it, shackled to each other with tears streaming down their faces. The girl was gagged and she couldn't have been much older than seven or eight. Her eyes appeared human enough, but her hair was a bright teal color and her ears were elfin. The boy, even younger, had blue eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dim light, and because his gag had come loose, Zeb could see the glint of fangs in his mouth. He didn't know what, but some instinct told him that this was the child who'd cried out before – the one who had called to Kanan.
The two little ones began to cry harder when Zeb climbed into the back of the wagon, the girl screaming and pleading through the gag, shoving at the boy, trying to keep him behind her as best she could while shackled to him.
"Please!" the boy cried out, looking up at Zeb with desperate eyes. "Please don't- we didn'- we didn' do anything wrong! Just let us go! Please!"
"No. No," Zeb tried to soothe them, making himself as small and non-threatening as possible in the bed of the wagon. No easy feat, no matter what the situation. "I'm not gonna hurt either of you; I promise. We came here to save you."
Reaching carefully forward, he pulled the gag from the girl's mouth.
"Please," she begged him, still sobbing. "Take them off. Take them off!"
"Oh, Gods," he whispered, comprehension dawning as his gaze dropped to the shackles around their wrists and ankles, seeing how the skin was raw and blistered beneath the cuffs. Cold iron. "Wedge! Get in here!"
"What's happening?" the teenaged human asked as he climbed up behind Zeb.
"Those animals have 'em trussed up in cold iron. I can't- there's gotta be a key or something. Find it!" he snapped.
"Oh- oh, Gods," he echoed in horror, scrambling to try and find some sort of key on the driver, but Zeb quickly grew tired of waiting for him to come up with something.
Not even bothering to try and find anything to protect himself with, he wrapped his hands around the shackle at the girl's left wrist, ignoring the horrible pain as he began to pull. Skin burning, Zeb cried out with the effort of the task until the iron cuff finally broke in his hands. The girl quickly shoved the horrid thing away. Zeb didn't even take a moment to recover. Biting down hard on his lower lip, he went to work on the next cuff.
"Sir..." the little girl started in fear, in pain.
Zeb ignored her. He had to. Just keeping hold of the poisonous metal was taking every ounce of will he had, let alone breaking it...though he did finally manage to free her other hand.
"Kid," he heard the driver's voice somewhere behind him. "Left pocket. That's where the key is. Get 'em out."
Zeb had managed to free the kids' hands by the time Wedge came back with the key, allowing him to collapse to the floor of the wagon in agony as the human undid the shackles at their ankles.
"It's all right. It's all right now," he heard Wedge soothing them both. "You're safe. They won't hurt you anymore."
Only vaguely was Zeb aware of the little girl crawling to his side, her wrists and ankles badly burnt.
"Thank you," she said to him, voice still wobbling as she laid a hand on his arm.
"No thing, kid," he returned, gradually remastering his breathing. The pain was still pretty bad, but he knew it couldn't possibly compare to what these two little scamps must've suffered the past few weeks.
"Well, looks like somebody's willing to talk," Cassian said as he climbed up onto the driver's seat to confront the man. But the man said nothing more, his expression falling solemn and weary even as Cassian held a knife to his throat.
"Somehow I don't think it's gonna be that easy," Zeb said quietly before asking the little girl, "All right if I pick you up, sweetheart?"
The girl looked afraid for a moment, but ultimately nodded, reaching to grip his shoulder as he lifted her in one arm, being careful not to hold too much of her weight against his hand.
"'bine...me, too?" the boy asked, more of the girl than of Zeb himself.
"Sure. Why not?" he said with a small, pained laugh, barely managing to keep his reaction to a hiss as he lifted the boy in his other arm, carrying them both out of the wagon. It wasn't long before he was surrendering them both to Hera.
"Oh, you poor things," the young woman immediately started in on them, taking the boy in her arms while the girl curled up against her side. Kanan was still resting with his head in her lap, but when he saw the little boy, he reached up a hand to gently ruffle his hair.
"So you're the one," the green knight said softly, apparently getting the same sense Zeb had. "You're the reason I- got stupid."
As the band formed up around their new charges, Zeb found his attention drifting away from the moment, back to the possibility he may have found a clue...after all this time. It was, after all, the night of Calan Mai – May Eve – seven years to the day since he'd lost his Alex...and they were not all that far off from the forest where it had happened.
Carterhaugh.
Attention off and away with possibilities, he found his gaze drawn in the direction Ventress' enraged cry had first indicated, not truly expecting to see anything.
So he was more than a little shocked when he actually did spot something.
Up on a rocky ledge overlooking the forest, he saw it. A lone tawny wolf stood nimbly upon the cliff's edge, its brown and gold patterned fur rippling with the warm spring breeze. And for a moment, just a moment, he could've sworn that wolf was looking directly at him.
Zeb...my Garazeb...dearest love...
The words were spoken directly to his heart as the wolf threw its head back and howled, long and clear.
"Alex?" he whispered, hardly daring to hope for an answer.
But no sooner had he spotted the wolf, heard its cry, than it had vanished back into the night, gone as if it had never been.
Where are you?
XxX
She's let the seam fall at her heel, the needle to her toe
And she has gone to Carterhaugh as fast as she can go.
She hadn't pulled a rose, a rose, a rose, but only one
When there appeared him, young Tam Lin, says, "Lady, let alone."
"What makes you pull the rose, the rose? What makes you break the tree?
What makes you come to Carterhaugh without the leave of me?"
"But Carterhaugh is not your own, roses there are many.
I'll come and go all as I please, and not ask leave of any."
XxX
Zeb didn't tell anyone when he left their little camp that night. It wasn't particularly hard to slip past the perimeter they'd set when going out of the camp and not into it.
Was it a foolhardy and dangerous move? Most likely. But he was seeking something and he wasn't really sure what anymore. He didn't want to involve his friends in his delusions. Not after everything that had happened...
He knew the way through the forest of Carterhaugh. He knew it almost better than he knew the way through the keep. The scent of it was burned into his brain and he followed the path like some whipped dog on a leash. All the while he was assaulted by memories...
The soft feel of Alex's hair between his fingers...
The salty-sweet taste of his lips against his...
The sound of his pleasure-wracked cry...
His pale skin flushed in the moonlight...
The strong grip of his thighs as he thrust into him...
The scent of him...the heavy, ripe musk of his desire...
And the scent of roses...
And just like that, he was back there. Back in the grove where he had made love to his Alex...where he had lost him...
...and it looked as if no time at all had passed. The grove was hushed and beautiful beneath the moon's silver light, draped all about with vines thick with roses.
The only thing missing was Alexsandr Kallus...his Alex.
"Alex...where are you?" he whispered in despair as he reached out to pluck one of the roses. "Where'd you go to I can't find you?"
The lily has a smooth stalk,
Will never hurt your hand;
But the rose upon her brier
Is Lady of the land.
Zeb turned around in shock upon hearing the voice, both familiar and not. He looked across the grove to see a face he did and did not know.
Alexsandr Kallus stood there, dressed all in black, golden and resplendent in the moonlight, but also cold and distant, like starlight shining down through deep water, barely reaching the poor soul drowning within the depths. Though seven years had passed away, he looked not a moment older than when Zeb had last beheld him.
There's sweetness in an apple tree,
And profit in the corn;
But lady of all beauty
Is a rose upon a thorn.
"Alex?" he whispered, unable to keep his voice from shaking.
Alex tilted his head to the side, offering the half-Fey a wry, familiar smirk as he looked on him.
"Garazeb," the human said, the smirk becoming a touch unnerving as he moved slowly toward him across the grove. "You really ought not do that, you know."
"I- what?" he asked, utterly uncomprehending.
"The thorns that drank from you when we were children? The rose that came of that promise? You don't remember?" he asked, deftly slipping the rose from Zeb's fingers.
"No, I- remember, I just-"
"Good," Alex interrupted him, smile brightening as he tucked the rose behind his ear. "I would be almost offended if you'd forgotten. That promise is my life, after all. On the subject of never hurting your hands, though...what have you done to yours?" he asked in admonishment as he lifted up one of Zeb's bandaged hands to examine it.
"I was- helpin' out some kids who were bound with cold iron," he answered awkwardly.
"Ah, well. That's just you all over, isn't it," Alex said with a shake of his head as he began to unwind the bandages Hera had so carefully wrapped hardly an hour before.
"Well, it's...it...no! Alex, what happened to you?" he demanded, shifting his grip to take the human's hands in his. "Where have you been all this time? It's been seven years!"
"Seven years? Really?" Alex asked him, his look growing distant. "Is that all it's been? To me, it- it feels as though it's been much longer. To my mind...it could've been eons since we were last here together...since you made love to me in this grove. Zeb...my love..." he started, his voice gentle but worried, so worried as he lifted Zeb's hands to his lips, pressing tender kisses to the back of each hand. "You shouldn't be here now. It isn't safe."
"Then come with me," he pleaded, pulling Alex's hands to his chest, up against his heart. "Let's just get out of here. You can tell me what happened when we're safe."
Alex shook his head sadly, prying Zeb's hands open with a strength he definitely hadn't had before. "Dearest, I...I can't. If only I could, I'd- I would run away with you...to the ends of the world, but I can't. There's nowhere I can go that I could hope to outrun my fate."
"It was you," Zeb started in desperation, lifting a now free hand up to cup Alex's cheek in his palm. "Just now. That was you...wasn't it? You were the one who saved me."
Alex nodded, leaning into Zeb's touch with an expression so full of pain, it about broke the half-Fey's heart. But then he reached for Zeb's other hand and unwrapped it all the way, drawing his burned palm and fingers to his lips and pressing a loving kiss to every bit of damaged skin. And with each kiss, the skin healed a little more, until his hand was as good as new. And while he gazed at his hand in shock, Alex unwrapped the other, running gentle fingers along the burned flesh.
"It works a little differently," he struggled to explain, "because I was human."
"And what are you now?" Zeb couldn't keep himself from asking. Alex looked back up at him, staring at him a long moment before answering.
"I don't know anymore."
This time Alex lowered his head over Zeb's hand, repeating the process to heal it. Only he didn't just kiss this time. Once the skin was healed, he licked and sucked and nipped at it, gaze darting furtively up to Zeb's. And as the intent behind those kisses changed, Zeb felt threads of liquid need travel from his palm straight to his cock, immediately beginning to stir up his long-dormant desire.
Zeb groaned aloud at a particularly fierce lave of Alex's tongue along his palm. He shuddered helplessly against his lover, something inside of him quickly unraveling at the sight of his head moving up and down upon him.
"Alex..." he whimpered, voice already so much higher than he'd thought it capable of going.
As if it wasn't enough, though, Alex had to take it a step further, sucking rather filthily on each of his fingers. They shouldn't be doing this right now, he knew, but he just couldn't help himself. It had been far too long.
Finishing his working over of Zeb's hand with a single kiss to the wrist, Alex pressed him up against a tree before dropping swiftly to his knees. Zeb caught a glimpse of the hunger in those amber eyes before Alex began to nuzzle his face against the new grown bulge in his breeches. Once again, Zeb groaned at the contact.
Somehow it seemed to take both all the time in the world and no time at all for his lover to lay him bare. When he felt Alex press a featherlight kiss to the hot flesh, he had to resist the urge to buck against him.
Alex lifted his eyes to his, holding his gaze as he lavished him with several brief, pointed flicks of his tongue. Then he took the head of his prick into his mouth, sucking intently at the stiff length of flesh for only a few moments before releasing him, leaving the half-Fey to pant harshly as he stared up at him with a knowing smirk.
"You come when I say you come," his lover said to him, and Zeb felt the chain of his power closing around him as the not-quite-human pressed a kiss to his cock. Then Alex was taking him in.
All the way in. When Zeb saw his not unconsiderable length disappear down Alex's throat, his eyes flickered closed and a helpless, strangled gasp slipped from his mouth as his head fell back against the tree. Had he not been under compulsion, he knew, he would've lasted an embarrassingly short amount of time. But, to be fair, it had been awhile. He hadn't been with anyone since Alex. And now...now he wasn't coming until Alex said he was coming. His lover could do whatever he liked to him and he wouldn't reach climax until he gave the word.
Alex sucked him slowly, mouth sliding up and down his prick over and over again in torturously slow, gliding motions. He did everything in his power to create sensation in him, and all the while, Zeb's cries grew louder, every nerve catching fire with pleasure. With every move, he felt more and more certain his body could not take anymore, that the next moment his skin would simply ignite outright and he would burst into flame. But that moment never came. Alex held him on the edge of release, every moment thinking of new ways to incite his body to new heights of pleasure. When he finally let Zeb's thoroughly worked cock slide from his mouth, it was with a sinful swirl of his tongue around the engorged head. Zeb was actually weeping by this point, biting down on his own arm in a largely futile effort to muffle the noise.
Rising slowly to his feet, Alex pulled his arm away from his mouth, leaving him open to the demanding kiss he pressed to his lips. Arms wrapping around him, his lover ground his hips subtly against his, letting him feel the bulge of his own erection against his bare, already well-loved cock. He wept weakly into Alex's mouth as they moved together.
When Alex pulled out of the kiss, it was so he could lift his lips to Zeb's ear, whispering to him between flicks of his tongue. "Do you know...mhmh...what it's like...to be held in orgasm for a year, beloved?" he asked, taking the tip of the pointed ear into his mouth, tongue swirling lusciously about it.
"Unh...fucking...Alex!" he cried out, tears streaming down his face as he writhed against his lover, a new wave of pleasure striking downward to coil in his belly.
"Don't worry, my love. I don't have a year to keep you like this. My grasp of time manipulation isn't that good. But a faerie can do it, you know. Make years pass in the space of a few minutes. If I could keep you here for eternity, I would. I would make love to you until the stars burned themselves out in the heavens. But...that power comes with a price," he hissed in Zeb's ear before pulling him into a harsh kiss. Then he snarled against his lips, "My love has a price."
Then Zeb was lost – lost in the heat and the sweat and the slick and the burn as they moved together against that tree, flesh and power uniting as one with every press, every thrust, every cry. The half-Fey moved violently against his lover, his mind slipping farther and farther away from rational thought with every pulse of pleasure that moved through him. How much would it take...to make him lose his mind altogether?
That fear was far and away, though, only a dim concern among the bliss that consumed him body and soul. Every moment, he sought both release...and a way to hold onto this moment forever. Because while Alex was almost literally killing him with pleasure, he had also been dying without him anyway. What difference did it make? To die here and now, driven mad by this more than mortal pleasure...or later when he inevitably lost him again? There was little difference so far as he was concerned.
Then, suddenly, Alex was whispering the command to him, mouthing the words into his skin.
"Come, Garazeb. Come for me, my love."
And he did.
He knew he screamed as his body gave forth that unimaginable flood of pleasure and power and pain. He could feel the sound as it scraped his throat raw, but he couldn't hear it. It seemed he had lost everything but the ability to just feel. Couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything – anything but feel as his very existence was ravaged by pleasure. He was a star catching fire, burning brightest in the moment just before death.
And he did die in that grove. He had little doubt. Reawakening after it was all over was like being reborn. He came to in Alex's arms, both of them leaning heavily against the rose-shrouded tree. When he drew his face up to look Alex in the eye, he was met with a very self-satisfied smirk.
"What do you think, beloved? Worth the waiting for?"
The thing was...it was exactly the sort of thing Alexsandr Kallus would've said. It was. But there was just- something in the way he said it. Like he wanted Zeb to punch him in the face for it. Like he was goading him. Intentionally trying to be cruel.
"What's happened to you?" he asked, something inside of him splintering as he acknowledged his next words. "You're not- you're not the Alex I grew up with. You're not the man I remember."
Alex sighed, and if he had been lying to anyone else, he would've succeeded. But Zeb still knew him too well, even after all this time. He could hear the lie of the condescension in his voice at his next words. "No. No, I'm not. You would do better not to look for him. He died. In the arms of a Fey ruler, he perished...trying to bear a burden his human mind was too limited to withstand."
Having said so, he took a step back from Zeb, clearly intending to leave him.
No!
Zeb's heart cried out in agony as he reached for him, a single hand closing around his arm.
"Wait! Please!"
Kallus looked back at him out of the corner of his eyes. "Consider your next words carefully, Garazeb Orrelios."
"I can't- I can't lose you again."
There was nothing to consider because it was only truth he was speaking. He didn't care what might come of it. The look Kallus fixed him with was largely frustration and pity, tinged with anger and put upon disgust. But at the core of it all, Zeb could see it. He could see the heartbreak.
"Zeb..." he hissed, features twisting in an ugly sneer, though his voice was gentle, "we cannot-"
"Take me, Alex," he insisted, hand slipping down to grip his lover's, drawing it up to his lips to drop kisses on the knuckles. "Make love to me...fuck me. I don't care which. Just don't leave me."
Alex shook his head. "You don't know- what it is you ask of me, Garazeb. We came very near to the edge this time. Don't- don't make me destroy you."
"Then destroy me," Zeb challenged, voice both dark and desperate. "A little bit more of me's died every day since I lost you. You may as well finish the job. I'd rather die by your hand right now...than try to go on living without you after I've seen you again. That really would kill me. I'm dead either way."
"You don't know what death is," Kallus snarled at him.
"Then prove it to me," Zeb challenged yet again, pulling his one time betrothed into a fierce kiss, cleaving to him as if he'd never let go. And he couldn't help but notice the way Alex's hands reached to grip at his hips. As they began to move together once again, almost involuntarily, Alex growled against him.
"You don't know anything!" he snarled, teeth sinking into the half-Fey's lip until he drew blood. "You don't know what I am...what I've given up...you don't even know what you really look like!"
"What do you mean?"
Kallus' smirk as he looked into his eyes was halfway to hysterical. Slowly, he shook his head, licking away the droplets of Zeb's blood from his lips. "You are blind, my love...in every way imaginable. If you could see yourself...what truly lies beneath that human flesh-"
"So show me," he hissed back, pulling Kallus into a kiss just as demanding as any he had pressed upon him before. "I've had it up to here with this 'you know nothing' nonsense. If I don't know, then show me."
His look as he gazed up at Zeb was no less unhinged, but there was that same spark there the half-Fey knew meant his challenge had been accepted. "As you wish, Garazeb," he said in a harsh voice before pulling Zeb down into a hard kiss. Zeb immediately felt the sharp press of fangs inside his own mouth.
With every press of Alex's skin against his, a new change was wrought. The changes were brief, leaving only vague impressions upon the fabric of reality, but Zeb began to see what his lover was talking about. He noted the brief ripple of fur along his skin, the feel of larger, more powerful hands and feet. Whenever he gripped Alex, he could feel the faint prick of claws unsheathing, threatening to tear at that pale skin. When he groaned low in his chest, he felt the sheer power of it like the rumbling of distant thunder.
It was true. He was more. He was so much more.
"You are magnificent, my knight," Alex exalted against him. "Truly magnificent."
"Ungh...Alex," he moaned in response, voice both enthralled and so, so powerful. There was very little clothing left clinging to either of them at this point. Even the ties that kept their long hair in check had been lost somewhere throughout it all. Whenever a fresh change could flow across him, he would glance down, seeing his dark skin ripple into a shade of purple that was both strange and familiar at the same time...like something he had seen in a dream.
He was sure that, in some way, Alex had thought he might be doing something cruel by showing him this. But all he could taste in their kisses now was a spark of wonder, his own amazement, Alex's awe at the beauty of him. It was all so unfamiliar, but at the same time...it felt right.
Alex had given him that. And even though he knew it was impossible, all he could think about in that moment was trying to find some way of keeping him here with him. And even for that, his strange, shifting, wondrous new body offered him a solution. Albeit an unorthodox one.
They both gasped in quiet shock upon feeling a different sort of change between them. Something more real than any that had come thus far. Zeb didn't at first know what to make of it when he felt his cock shifting, pulling inside of him to form an entirely different set of parts.
"Oh," Alex breathed in amazement, uncertain at first, but with growing interest as he reached a hand down to run his fingers over what was now between Zeb's legs. "I suppose I- take that as invitation. You really want me inside you."
Zeb was past words at this point, his thighs dripping wet from the previous build of his arousal. His voice came out as a stuttered cry when Alex pressed two fingers inside of him, pumping experimentally. When he received nothing but enthusiasm in response, he lifted his thumb up to rub against the half-Fey's clit.
That single touch was enough to send a lightning bolt of sensation through his body, causing him to cry out as he climaxed without warning, spilling slick fluid all over his lover's hand. Alex managed to make him come three more times just like that. Just with his hand, each orgasm deeper than the one before, until at last he had him begging.
"Gods...Alex, fuck me. Just fuck me! I want that prick inside me now!" he demanded, half-collapsed against his lover, legs trembling with the aftershocks of climax.
"All right, all right," Alex said as he helped him lie down among the roses, a reversal of their positions seven years ago. "As my- prince...commands."
Then he was leaning down close to Zeb, a knee between his legs as he pressed his lips to his ear once more, whispering the last of the earlier verse to him.
When with moss and honey
She tips her bending brier,
And half unfolds her glowing heart,
She sets the world on fire.
Then Alex was entering him, pressing slowly to make certain he didn't hurt him. And unlike the animalistic intensity of their earlier couplings, this was slow. Alex was deliberate in every move he made, seeing to Zeb's pleasure with each thrust, and as they moved together on their bed of roses, nearer and nearer, tighter and tighter, Zeb slowly wrapped his legs around Alex's waist, drawing him as deep inside him as he could possibly go.
Come inside me, he urged silently, clinging tightly to his lover. Fill me...let me carry you with me.
Zeb had no cries left in him when Alex brought him to his final release. All he could really manage was to let his head fall back against the pillow of roses beneath it, mouth falling open in a silent scream as his body gave over to pleasure. He was only half-aware when Alex finally reached his own climax, spilling himself deep inside Zeb's body. Distantly, he imagined he could feel the pulse of that seed as it filled him...filled the womb that, until half an hour ago, he hadn't had.
Alex finished by pressing a tender kiss to his lips, which Zeb only too happily reciprocated. However, both exhausted by the intensity of the carnal effort, it didn't take the pair long to fall into a deep sleep, holding tightly to and within each other.
XxX
And he has took her by the hand, took her by the sleeve,
And he has laid his lady down, among the roses green.
And he has took her by the arm, took her by the hem,
And he has laid his lady down, among the roses red.
XxX
Zeb drew in a deep breath upon waking. The scent of roses and animal musk hung heavy in his nose. Drawing even more of his awareness to him, he found himself lying naked on a blanket of wild roses, and in the space between moments, he began to recall why that was.
"Alex," he called out, voice still exhausted from the thorough working his body had had. But when he tried to sit up, there was suddenly a wolf at his side.
It was the same tawny wolf he had seen earlier, he knew, golden and majestic in the dwindling moonlight. It was his Alex, shifted into some sort of wild shape. The connection was only confirmed further when the great animal bent its dripping maw down to nuzzle gently at his cheek.
"Please," he begged, hands reaching up to grip at the wolf's luscious golden-brown fur. "Please don't leave me. I can't- take it. Please."
But there was nothing he could do. Nothing to stop the loss from happening a second time. When the wolf pressed its broad nose to his forehead, Zeb felt a powerful exhaustion move through his body, an enchanted sleep quickly descending upon him. Hands slipping from the wolf's fur, he collapsed soundlessly back upon the bed of roses.
"Alex," he whispered against the wolf's jaw, pressing one last desperate kiss to the warm fur. "I love you. I love you. I love you..."
He kept whispering the words until he no longer could. Until sleep had thoroughly claimed him and the only thing he had left of his lover was a soothing, deadly whisper, the words lingering in his heart and mind.
Zeb...my eternal beloved...you cannot know the things I have done in your name. My sins are beyond counting...and each evil would break your tender heart. Know only that everything I do, everything I have done or will do in the future, no matter how trivial or how cruel...know that I do it to protect you.
XxX
As the deep black of May Eve gradually faded into the grey light of dawn, a cloaked figure appeared out of that blackness, standing upon a cliff overlooking the forest road the previous night's raid had taken place on. Unmoving, the figure stood glaring hate down upon the tiny band of knights and not-quite-knights that had thwarted her efforts, standing thusly until a tawny wolf emerged from the twilit strand of forest at her back. By the time the wolf reached her side, it had shifted into a human shape – a man with golden hair, a powerful body, and an expression so cold and hard it could've frozen a raging river in the blistering heat of summer.
"So, King's Shadow, did you enjoy having your precious slut again after all this time?" Asajj Ventress asked with a sneer, not looking over at the human. "I can't imagine that whore's son is good for much besides serving as your cock sleeve."
With barely more than a flicker of movement, the king's assassin had laid a cold iron short sword across her throat, its keen edge threatening to tear through her pale flesh.
"The next time you insult him, my bolt will go through your heart, pitiful wretch," he warned her in a quiet snarl, the howl of the wolf that was in him dancing upon the uppermost tones of his voice. "Garazeb Orrelios is mine and mine alone, to fuck or destroy or spare as I see fit. What I choose to do with him is no being's business but my own. That is the promise of the king, Lady Knight, and you would do well to remember it."
Ventress laughed quietly, mockingly, being careful of her defenseless neck against his blade. "Oh, I remember our king's vow to you, little human child, but in truth, Kallus, your anger excites me. I think I would greatly enjoy having you fuck me with that blade upon my throat. It's so rare anymore to find a partner who's in any way exciting. Perhaps I will request the use of you from His Majesty for tomorrow's entertainment."
"Your play will have to keep until later, My Lady. I come to collect your report. My Lord Thrawn will want an explanation for your failure this night," he said, slowly withdrawing his blade from her throat.
"We were ambushed by those petty knights," she snapped at him. "My informants put them far from here this night, so they caught me unawares. There is only so much one can do against a green knight in a forest in the full bloom of spring. I would curse the boy with impotence if I could get but a lock of his hair. Then we would see how much his precious maid would want of him."
"The Lady Hera Syndulla is a knight, no different from yourself, or did you forget that as well?" he snapped right back.
"Heh, that green bitch is nothing like me. I would love to see how the little rat fares in a one on one fight to the death. We would see who the true knight is then. Though, I suppose this caravan's failure matters little. The cargo is dead. None of them was the child we needed."
"As usual, Ventress, you are wrong," the assassin took no small amount of pleasure in telling her. "Two of the children were rescued by your petty knights. Wren and Bridger. One or both of them may yet prove to be one of the souls Thrawn seeks."
"Well, that is a simple enough question to answer. I will walk into the camp tomorrow night and put the poisoned metal through their hearts myself. Then we will know."
"You will do no such thing. I have my orders from the king himself. He wants the children to enter Zenarab's keep unharmed. He wishes eyes inside the prince's court. It is well protected by Lirakal's power and more and more half-Fey gather to them every day. The Convergence draws near and three souls remain to be gathered. We can no longer afford the leisurely pace of the past. Perhaps one of the souls we need has gathered beneath the banner of this lesser House of Orrelios."
"Two," the faerie knight said with a smug sneer.
"Two?"
"Yes. Two. Only two souls remain. I have found another in Orrelios' band this night."
"You are certain?"
"I ran the warrior through with pure cold iron and he yet lives. If that is not one who is slain and does not die, I do not know what is. This Chirrut must be one of the seven."
"Indeed," Kallus said softly, looking down upon the camp with renewed interest. "Then he will be collected when we know for certain whether either of the children is one of the last two. Tonight was certainly not a total loss. Thrawn will be pleased. Pleased enough, at least, to allow you to live."
"I will require back the use of my hand," she pointed out as he was turning away from her, "if I am to continue serving in the king's name."
She relished the way the human's shoulders stiffened as he stopped mid-motion. She always loved taking the arrogant prick down a few pegs. He knew what was coming. He also knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Because even though he spoke with the king's voice and wielded his power, he was still the very lowest member of the Moonlit Court. His body was not his own and she relished every moment she was permitted to remind him of that fact.
"Of course, My Lady," he said, voice just as stiff as his shoulders as he turned back to her, something in his eyes going even colder – going almost dead. Slowly, he moved toward her. "Give me your hand."
"I will, but first you will kneel before your Lady."
Kallus' eyes went alight with anger at her words. Though he made no move against her, he clearly meant to defy her for as long as she could. "I will what?"
"On. Your. Knees," she hissed at him, waiting for him to comply with a knowing leer.
The King's Shadow maintained eye contact as he dropped to his knees before her. With every movement, his amber eyes slowly began to glow red, channeling the king's power. Although the sight did strike a small note of fear in her blood, it also sent a shiver of excitement through her. Already, she could feel herself growing wet with the prospect of asserting her dominance over the proud human. When he was kneeling before her, she reached out her injured hand to him, cupping the side of his face in condescending fingers, running a thumb over his pale cheek.
"Now heal me, King's Slut," she ordered, uttering the name she and others only dared use when they knew the king was not listening.
Kallus growled before turning his head to the side, slowly licking and kissing her palm, and with each movement, he gradually wicked away the injury that he himself had given her.
He didn't get rid of it completely, although he was certainly capable of it. He merely returned to her the use of her hand while leaving an ugly scar in place of the wound. It was how the pair of them operated, pushing each other as far as they possibly could without outright attacking each other. She had crossed some unspoken line between them by attempting to murder Orrelios, but she didn't care. All she needed to do to win their private war was stay alive until after the Convergence. Then it would no longer matter.
Kallus attempted to pull away when he had finished his task, but she didn't release him. She tightened her grip on his head, fingers digging harshly into his fine hair.
"You have been a dreadfully unruly child tonight, King's Slut," she scolded him, fingers digging into his scalp until she drew blood, the sharp red of it mixing with the blond of his hair. "I think you will offer worship to your Lady as penance."
"Any being who worships at your altar, o most honorable Lady, is truly the lowliest, meanest creature in all creation," he said to her, eyes glowing all the redder.
"Good. You understand your proper place in this world then," she purred. "I will give that sharp tongue something to accomplish, human."
With a simple flick of her wrist, she cast aside the thick layers of her skirts, revealing to the assassin that she wore nothing underneath them. Drawing his face closer to her body, she forced him to inhale the scent of her.
"Let's get a proper cunt in that mouth of yours, Alexsandr."
The delay in her pleasure was worth seeing the spark of pure terror catch fire in those now red eyes. The fact that she knew he'd fucked a pussy all too recently told him everything he needed to know. But before proceeding with his assigned punishment, the King's Shadow glared up at her.
"Before my time is done, witch, I will look down on your corpse and laugh."
"As you will, kitten. But until that time, you will pay your respects," she snarled quietly, finally burying his face in her sex. Offering up another low growl of anger, the human set to work, licking and biting at the warm flesh now in his mouth.
He was good with his tongue, was Alexsandr Kallus. Both figuratively and literally. As Asajj Ventress stood there with the human's head pressed firmly against her body, enjoying everything he could do to her vulva with his lips and tongue, she gave several pleased groans, hips rolling eagerly against the angry heat of his mouth.
And if, in those few moments just before the rising of the sun, she held him like that for the span of three years, pleasuring her with his teeth and tongue, well, who was really going to tell her she couldn't?