"I want to talk to Alina," the First Army tracker declared. His confidence was wildly unfounded. "We grew up together. She'll want to see me. Tell her. Go on, tell her I'm here and she'll come running." His dull Earth-colored eyes looked up at his superior, no fear through them as he beheld a man with legions at his command. "I know you're a General and all, but you have no right to keep her from me. She's a First Army cartographer. We're comrades, she and I."
General Kirigan felt a biting urge to curb the tone of the man's voice. He did not wear his badges because he liked the look. They were to show all the others whom to respect.
His tongue went to his cheek, unable to hold himself back. "Second Army."
"Excuse me?" The tracker's forehead wrinkled.
"You'll find her kefta to be of Second Army, not First," the General stated. He looked down at the entitled First Army tracker with restrained distain. He knew of a tracker that Alina spoke of. A childhood friend. The importance of the man withheld the urgency to stamp out the unyielding flicker of disrespect that the human exudes in the presence of the General's subordinates. "She is Grisha after all."
"She's my friend."
"That may be true, but she still belongs to Second Army and by order of the King, she is expected to be in attendance for the Winter Fete, an event which has allowed you to slip through our gates with seeming ease. Your visit will have to delay until morning."
The war room was filled with General Kirigan's personal entourage of his trusted guard. They are of the Second Army. The army that he created to protect those of his ability, his kind, the kind that Alina Starkov was apart of now, no matter her connection with the human male in front of him now. She was one of them.
With that, he would protect her with all his might within an inch of his own life.
The tracker stood, silent and rather twisted in his features. Kirigan watched with keen interest. What irked the young man's mind was of an important prospect to the General considering the budding sparks of fondness the pair shared.
"In the morning?" The tracker said.
"As soon as she finishes her breakfast," General Kirigan confirmed. "You have my word that she will not miss your meeting."
He thought to dismiss the man from his presence. Thought.
All sense in his thoughts had been gone from the moment he felt Alina's awakening in the Fold.
He took his time to approach his desk, the taste of the sweet, sinful words on his tongue like the faint taste of Alina herself. The room was filled with witnesses. Personal ones, yes, but to deceive Alina's personal confidence in releasing what rested on his tongue ready to spill, he was uncertain whether to reveal it in front of the others.
His steadied his fingers against the top. "Are you certain she'll want meet with you?" He asked.
The tracker froze. "What?"
"It has been a while since Keramzin, and you'll find that Alina is a much different woman than she was within the First Army. She has found herself here. She's grown into a different person," he explained. "Besides…she's told me about what happened when she saw you last. What happened with Zoya…"
Ivan shifted near the door. The tracker noticed and shifted himself after catching the unforgiving eye of the Heartrender with a scowl. The tracker was quite a bit younger than the two men in the room. He dropped his gaze to the floor a split moment.
Ah, so he did remember.
"That was a misunderstanding," he explained.
"Ah." He nodded. "Well, I hope that Alina sees it similarly."
He did well to control his face as the tracker went through phases of doubt and shame. General Kirigan instructed that the tracker be given lodging and food, if only to keep the man busy.
"I want eyes on him," the General instructed Ivan once the tracker was out the door. "At all times. If he even comes close to Alina, bring him to me."
The evening was full of diversions and it wasn't even supper time yet. It was close. Her stomach grumbled with the want for food to rival the bubbling haze of the sweet red wine in her veins.
Out of nowhere, on the pending shift to the Palace's main room for a meal, Aleksander Kirigan appeared. In his hand, he showed a fistful of blue flowers, a pleasant memory albeit with harder emotions built in. They reminded her of Mal. The wine prevented the drop of her grin from her lips. The sparkle of Kirigan's black eye was too full of hope that no bitterness of Mal's insincerity might outshine.
She accepted the bouquet from his grasp. It was the gesture that mattered.
"Thank you," she breathed.
The air was dense and hot. Her lungs felt heavy in her chest as she fought to catch her breath.
"I'll take over escorting Miss Starkov." He dismissed the two guards at her sides.
She smiled. "You have a talent for arriving at the perfect time. If I didn't know better, I'd believe it magic."
Aleksander lifted a corner of his mouth. The smirk of his mouth filled her body with warmth.
Or, perhaps it was the wine.
"The benefit of being your counterpart is that I can feel when you need me." His words seeped far below the surface of warmth. They fueled a fire. At the base of her belly, below the gurgling of hunger and the twisting knots of being beheld like a mortal God, was the sensation of flames that licked up through her thighs. "Even if you do not feel it yourself."
She longed for a sip of wine in her glass to quench the dry thirst at the back of her throat. The climbing height of the new sensation was alarming.
The flutter of his tongue had her body attuned to his every word, as if it only lived to be pleased by him.
"Well thank you," she exhaled breathlessly.
"There is no need to thank me, Alina." His voice was low and firm. It filled her mind with a cloudy haze thicker than the wine's hold. "I will always be there to rescue you."
Alina dared raise her gaze to find the deep pools of his, only to be drawn closer to their mesmerizing look. He held her focus without the slightest hitch in his breath. The heat of his chest radiated through the air. It greeted her face as she broke through the bubble of his presence with the scent of his freshly laundered kefta a sweet perfume of soap and cedar.
She found herself following Aleksander's lead through the castle without much thought. A hand touched the small of her back. It pulled her closer to his body when they passed a giggling bunch of drunk Grisha.
They gave greetings, stifled in the presence of the General, which frustrated Alina. There was tension. It grew within her. The longer they delayed, the stronger the feeling clenched her belly.
Her tongue pressed into the back of her teeth to keep her frustrations from expelling rather harshly.
Aleksander did not allow time to be wasted for which she was thankful. He ushered her past. Ivan's red kefta caught her attention just over Aleksander's shoulder.
Her lips fell. A bit of privacy was all she wanted. Not an audience with Aleksander and Ivan.
The change in her demeanor captured Aleksander's attention quickly. His neck snapped. She saw the taut muscles of his face fade when all there was in his path was Ivan wordlessly looking on at the pair of them.
Aleksander gestured toward the door. "After you."
The room was one she recognized as his war room. There was a large round table at the center with little figurines placed all around, within borders of lands she knew from maps, and places she only read about but never experienced firsthand. She'd thought that joining the First Army might expand horizons.
It was only the horizon of the Fold that she experienced. The horrors that lurked within that infinite black was the source of many nightmares, black and bloodied. It was there that she was shown a true purpose. Somebody she was meant to be. Beyond the First Army, beyond Mal, beyond the woman from an orphanage.
Her fingers traced along the black line of the Fold. It's shape she knew like the feeling of a pencil between her fingers, a faint memory done without thought.
"Would you prefer to attend dinner?" The General's voice was close to her ear. It tingled as it entered.
She shook her head. "Marie can manage."
"Can she?" He questioned.
"She has Genya. She knows all that I am," Alina admitted softly. Her eyes flashed upward to find his staring back at her. "She tailored me herself."
"In likeness, perhaps." His tongue animated within his mouth. She noticed her eyes straying to the part of his face that was red and expressive. "But I can assure you, there is much they do not know of the Sun Summoner."
She flicked his kefta button. "That is where you are wrong."
There was disbelief through his face. His brows lifted.
She rather liked the change in his face. The General kept himself buttoned up tight, formal, indifferent to much of reaction to anything, yet when she came near, the peels of his mask exposed, the frayed edges of his facade in plain view to her searching eyes.
Alina grinned deviously as she rounded the table. Her fingers dragged along the cool metal edge in a slight whispering of sound throughout a desolate room.
The rest of the world was outside those doors, in farther places, out of sight. It was only the pair of them. The dying crackles of a fire did little to break the dense silence within.
"It is not often I am wrong." His feet followed a similar path of hers, rounding the table in pursuit of her.
She swallowed back a deeper grin at the apparent chasing of the mighty General Kirigan to a cartographer of the First Army.
On toe, she spun and came face to face with the unsuspecting man. Their faces were close. A not-so-distant memory of their kiss consumed her lips in sensual tingles. The mystery of how he kept his breath so soundless even in the wake of emotion was an intriguing study that she found impossible to ignore. The reflection of his gold buttons faltered every so often, the only indication he was mortal at all.
General Kirigan, or the Darkling as he was awfully called by those who hated and feared him, was a form of perfection unheard of. The most beautiful woman that Alina could imagine did not compare to the timeless beauty of his face. Dark eyes, sharp jawline, pale flesh like ceramic, drastic lines in the short scruff of facial hair he had. His dark hair was slicked back and devoid of much life. It was the only thing about him that she found unnatural to the appearance of a socialite general. Hair oil was dated. It did not reflect the more modern styles at the Little Palace.
"The Sun Summoner did not exist before these walls. There was no part of her formed that was not under their direction," she explained. "It is Alina they do not know."
The muscles of his throat tensed as he swallowed back his apparent desires for her. It playfully slipped back inside, behind his thickly built walls, only now she knew where it was.
His lips parted. "I'd like to think that I know Alina…as well as the Sun Summoner."
"Then it should be you with Marie. And Genya," her voice paused when she noticed the sliver of displeasure cut through the depths of his gaze, a dark forbidding threat, "with me."
"I much prefer it this way," he said. His hand ghosted down the length of his kefta.
It dropped attention to the spread of his hands, the slender precise fingers flexed under her gaze, almost as if they knew the thoughts that swirled around in the haze and wanted to add dimension to the fantasies.
Her throat went dry again.
"Alina."
She blinked out of her waking dream. Her face turned away, hiding a lustful grin.
If Ana Kuya saw her now, her eyes would expel from their sockets to see her so visibly stirred in front of a man. It was not proper. A lady was expected to be respectful of herself. Lust was not respect; it was temptation to defilement.
Alina wondered why she was not upset for being so attracted to Aleksander. That was what she was. The bond of their souls was a powerful drug that she only knew the taste of once protected within the Little Palace where his tending care was a constant and found she had a craving for it. A hollow craving. No matter the care he took with her, she wanted more and more.
She wanted him all to herself.
"Would you like to leave?" His voice was a quiet whisper.
No. Never.
Her hand steadied against the table, the figurines quaking from the shudder of her control leaving her.
"Actually…" she licked her lips. The haze of her mind only saw the end game, what she wanted, what she craved, not what her pride should say. Ana Kuya was not wrong that men wanted to defile her. She saw their gazes in the First Army. A hunger for ravaging her body for their own wants. She faced him once more. What Aleksander would do to her would not defile but worship her. "I'd like to stay."
The air of the room changed. Shadows encircled the walls and kept them wrapped within their own world of themselves, none strong enough to puncture through the walls they created.
"Forgive me, Alina." His throat went taut as his Adam's apple bobbed. The pale of his flesh toyed like a bone he couldn't swallow. "I'm going to need you to say that again."
Her eyes found home in his. "I'd like to stay…with you."
It was not courage that touched his face. The feeling of his body beneath her grasp, running along the sharp edge of his jaw, was all she needed. It was satisfaction after extended patience, the final destination she wanted to experience with him.
She closed the distance between their bodies. His length flush with hers.
"Aleks-."
"Don't say it," he muttered firmly. The strength of his voice did not falter the path of her fingers, but her pulse sputtered. "Don't say it unless you know what it means to me."
The strength of warmth from her insides washed over her torso. It leeched into her chest, filled her lungs with thick air as she tried to control the flooding into her hands. Already they twitched with want to please him.
"Alina," he lovingly said her name, each time filled with more adoration than the last. "I'll forever crave the raptures of your kiss, the sweetness of your taste, the shivering of your flesh as I touch you." His cool fingers caressed down her neck. She shuddered in response. "I do not share well, my Alina. And if I have known you…known your body is mine, I'll not let another man claim it."
It might have been haunting if she hadn't dreamed of being so important to someone that they would not allow another to replace them. A childhood of being forgotten, abandoned, only a friend to keep her from surrendering to the deep thoughts in the back of her mind.
It was her body that responded to his words. Not warmth, but fire spread throughout.
Something in his gaze read that he knew, the flush against her chest as she breathed, the excited swallow that kept all her lust at bay, the erection of her buds against the thick fabric of her kefta.
A satisfied smirk twisted his lips. "Do you like that idea, Alina?" His chest puffed. "Do you like being called mine?"
It was wicked, what his words did to her. She yearned for them. The way they tore at her insides, washing her in the flood of lust and adoration for his name on her skin, it made her delirious for it.
Alina closed the gap between them. Her lips pressed into his with a strength to not release until she was satisfied he would not stop now that it was started.
Started…was only the beginning of what she was.
The radiating warmth of his face against hers fed into her flame, the growing sun in the base of her body, perched at the core, the entrance buried within her undergarments that fueled her hands forward atop his chest. Her fingers flexed against the thick material of his kefta. The tips of her nails only poked through.
There was hitch in his breath when he felt her touch. It lurched his hands forward. One wrapped around her waist until there was not an ounce of space between them – and little left to the imagination in terms of misunderstanding – and the other gripped the side of her face, pressing her deeper into their kiss.
His parted lips dragged down her neck. The dancing, traveling touch of his fingertips molded each section of her body like it was a work of artwork.
Flickers of heat surged up toward his fingertips. Beneath the stretch of her creamy skin answered a flame of liquid desire for him. The motions, every dip and firm grasp, a green flag to the broiling depths of her excitement with pressure to offer more. Beg for me. Need more.
Light answered darkness. Like calls to like. Aleksander was the only one meant to touch her like that.
All at once, she felt the growing need rise within her. Her knees trembled below her as to what it would mean if she was to stay with him and just how delicious it was to toy with the idea of tumbling in the General's bed. Wearing his color on her body as a marking of the protections against her, never dared to be broken by those who knew his name. And there were few of those alive.
"You're smiling," Aleksander murmured through their kiss.
Yes. She was.
She shook her head and pressed into his mouth again.
This time, the hold on her loosened. "No, no. Tell me," he pleaded softly. The loving hum in his voice was so pleasant that she could not deny him, even if it delayed the satisfying of their bodies. "Tell me why you smile."
The retreating warmth of his face from hers made her ache so woefully.
"I was just thinking of what it might be like…"
Then she remembered what she was imagining, and it was not something revealed on the first kiss, or second kiss, with her superior and mentor.
"You were just thinking of what it might be like…" He waited for her to elaborate.
For the first time, she grew embarrassed. She ducked her face out of sight to save herself from the memory.
"Oh. I just meant, um. Well I -."
His face examined her a moment.
"Alina, I understand if you are apprehensive. First times are frightening. Change, and fear." His words were more mortifying than what she ever thought. "I would never rush you, or force you to be uncomfortable. You'll be relaxed. I'll do anything to ensure it is enjoyable and safe for you."
Her palm pressed against her temple. "Actually, um, that's not what I meant."
Was there any blood left that wasn't filled with in her entire body blush?
His brow cocked high. "Oh."
"I was smiling because I was thinking of what it might be like, you know, here, in your room, in your bed" her voice waivered in strength at the mention of his private bedchamber, "The General with me. An orphan from Keramzin."
"Not," his voice was sudden and stern, "an orphan. A Grisha. A Sun Summoner. A Saint."
It crossed her mind to correct him. She was NOT a saint. Or, at least, she did not feel like one.
A Sun Summoner was a saint of legend. It was the saint Ravka needed to save itself from the creation of the Fold. She grew up knowing the legends. The possibility of it being true was beyond their wildest imagination, much more, she was the person the country waited for.
Alina Starkov, Sun Summoner. She had yet to accustom to it.
She inched closer, a swallowed smile at the back of her lips. "How about, just between us, you only think of me as your Alina?"
Her fingers reached out to caress his kefta, but his hand met them and interlaced within her grasp. Their fingers joined together, her heart at the back of her throat.
Aleksander held the side of her face. His eyes wide and watchful, absorbing every ounce of confirmation before he leaned forward and kiss her again. This time, his tongue. It poked at the edges of her lips, begging to be let through to her slippery depths.
Another realm opened the moment she parted her lips, and the dams broke loose of his control.
Their bodies moved in frantic motions. Jutted close, hands touched every part they could reach, backing up against the war table, the weight of the first layer being removed off her body breathed a new life into the flames of her desire. His erection emerged through his pants. It pressed against the softness of her lower abdomen and grinded against the protective layers just above her anxious pussy. How she cursed the dress for being too thick to feel him rub against her.
Aleksander breathed heavily through his nose. His lips never wanted to part. She was not so good at the breathing through the nose thing. Each time they broke away, her lungs heaved with relief that there was fresh air to circulate through her body, and she felt like she needed more of it to go round. Parts of her body seldom noticed were alive and demanding their own fill.
Her body rested on the lip of the table, not fully supported but half-so.
She put her hand back to scoot farther on when her hand was punctured by one of the war figurines. "Ow."
His motions stopped. The figurine in questioned was swiped to the floor. All the others were in the lucky position to just be shoved farther onto the table rather than off.
"Fucking toys," he muttered as their lips flew back together.
Outwardly, she was a frantic maniac, but on the inside, there were the fluttering of butterflies and the swirling of her belly that his life's work atop the table – the thing he protected almost as much as he protected Alina herself – was destroyed for the needy grinding of a young, inexperienced Grisha.
Her hands went to the center of his kefta. She started to undo the top, all the while, her eyes locked in his.
Power up from below the surface of her light surged up. The flames of her desire controlled her hands with only the height of her wants on her mind.
There was no stopping what would happen.
A hand knotted through her hair to the base of her skull. Tingles spread all throughout her face.
"Alina," he croaked out a raspy breath.
His kefta was one button away from exposing what vulnerabilities laid behind its thick hide. A pain shot through her fingers to halt her actions.
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course."
"Then," he ran his tongue along his bottom lip. "Lift up your skirts."
She glanced down at the immense underskirts of her dress. There were fluffy. Beautiful, yes, but heavy.
"Can't I just take them off?"
The corner of his mouth lifted. "Oh Alina," he hummed. "As much as I want to see you bare and without all these…obstructions. However, I'm afraid I don't know how to assemble this beautiful thing together again." He fingered the fabric. "Unless you're done for the night."
Oh. The party.
The sounds outside the door gave the music of mirth and merriment. Clinking glasses, wayward glances, swishing dresses, loosening of ties and collars from the heat of all their bodies packed together. It was a royal party, unlike the parties in the First Army, but not so unlike them because for all their refined manners, nature reigned over their minds more. Cupboards were filled with rutting bodies lost in their senses, the swim of alcohol, darkness over their eyes and sense of reality. Spare rooms of the palace were left locked and yet, she knew, there would be tumbles found within some.
Grisha were not a shy sort. They melded well together. The unification of them reflected their bond, as the First Army did. Tumbles were common. Tumbles were second nature.
It lessened her guilt for abandoning a party all created in her honor to know she was not the only one sneaking off for a bit of late night carnal pleasures.
Her lips showed a smile before she felt it. "It might save my reputation if they stay on."
"Do not be ashamed of yourself," Aleksander murmured. His voice with hot. It touched her face, thick with his own growing desires. She sensed the urgency within his body. "I'd rather have they all know it, so that I don't feel the need to display it elsewhere."
"Elsewhere?" The lust was wrought in her throat as it filled the air like a strong perfume.
"Mhmm."
His nose brushed hers. Their lips faintly ghosted across one anothers, taunting the other to take the first step into what would open up a new chapter of themselves.
"Like where?"
She had to know. Something about the way he spoke, the way his tongue savored each word just to unravel her to shudders in his presence.
"Where?" He repeated softly. "Would you like to know all the dirty things I'd like to do to you in every room of this place?"
She nodded. "Yes."
A growl echoed from the back of his throat. Possessive and untamed. A Darkling.
"Tell me where," her lips muttered. Pleaded.
"Lift your skirts, Alina."
Her hands grabbed hold of the rich fabric and pulled it up to her waist. Only the thin, black undergarments remained. Heat from below wafted up to their faces. Her scent. The musk of her core was sweet and intoxicating in her nostrils.
Aleksander's pupils grew twice their size. Something ignited with the smell of her sex
He kissed her ferociously. Each hand planted atop a knee, spreading her thighs open to the cool air.
"Hold them up," he instructed. "I want to see you."
Her forehead wrinkled. "See?"
A place of pure worship, of respect, of surrender, was on bended knee. It was the place that Aleksander took in front of her parted thighs. "Yes. See."
The sound of his words against her tender flesh was like the calling of a gush from within.
The flowing billowy length of her skirts bunched against the outside of her thighs as Aleksander neared closer and closer to the source of her heat. The sharp draw of breath through his nose, a purposeful sniff of her.
His finger pushed aside the sleek fabric that blocked his view of her melted inner core.
"I'd dreamed of doing this." His tongue moistened her outer folds. "In the main room."
She gasped. The pressing heat of his moist tongue parted through the protections of her pussy – yes, now that it was sexual, it had to be regarded as such – to the warmer, deeper places inside.
"On the queen's throne," he murmured as he took another long stroke of his tongue throughout her sex.
His eyes remained even with hers. A silvery line down the center of his tongue was her own juices that he lapped up like a hungry wolf. Faster and faster. Up to her clit, he beat against it wildly with the flailing of his mouth.
An unknown feeling coursed through her body. It forced her back to arch, and hands gripped his hair.
When she started to lull back from the pleasure, he nipped the soft flesh of her thigh.
"Your skirts, Alina." He growled.
She nodded and removed her hands from his head to withdraw the explosion of fabric between her parted legs.
"Eyes on me."
It hurt to watch him. She was forced to focus on the movement of his tongue as it excitedly beat against her clit as the while her eyes wanted to roll to the back of her head.
The pooling of fluids at her slit was only the start. A flash flood coursed through her legs. It extended out to her toes, curling them painfully, up to her neck grew weaker, the tightness of her chest that prevented a full breath, and a spreading clenching of all her muscles that made her eyes bulge. It grew and grew.
Her lips started to murmur. "Alek - ."
Then it happened. A burst. It spread throughout her body, a surged of power from her muscles released, and all its pent-up energies flooded right into Aleksander's open mouth. The peak of her climax had her grinded against Aleksander's face as he feasted on her precious juices, not allowing an ounce of her to be dropped to the floor. She cradled his head. The fingers lost in his hair were taut with tension, only relaxing in the descent of her post-orgasm relief.
With only his tongue, he gave her one of the most brilliant feelings she'd ever felt, except for summoning her power for the first time. That was still more intense. And painful.
But that. That was splendid and magical. Tension and relief together, the lines of pain and pleasure so nearer.
Her arms weakened. It seemed all her energy shot out at the point of climax. She settled back onto the war room table. Part of her lost track of time. It all swirled in the highlight of ecstasy. The hypnotic taste of it burned onto her body.
No wonder tumbling was such a popular past time. She wanted it again.
Some time later, Aleksander pulled her to sitting. His hand dipped between the fallen strands of her brown hair and cupped her face.
A smile emerged from the wanton faraway distance of her thoughts.
"You're smiling again," his voice muttered, albeit in a lighter tone.
"Yes," she admitted with a devious flicker in her eye. "I doubt you'll ever think of this room the same again."
His brow lifted. "Really? I was thinking the same thing."
They both smiled and shared a soft kiss. His lips still moistened by the result of her orgasm pressed into hers without regard. She forgot to be uncomfortable, though.
She doubted anything would bother her again with the afterglow of sex so delirious.
"Perhaps. But you spend much more time in here than I."
Aleksander chuckled. "Touche."
The relaxation of her muscles gave added weight to her body. She yawned and stretched. If they didn't wake up, she'd have to be dragged down the hall at the end of the night.
"I can have Ivan escort you back to your room…if you like."
"No," she breathed suddenly. Her eyes glanced back to the door to ensure he wasn't there to take her away. "I don't want to leave."
Leaving meant stopping. Stopping meant they might not start again.
For once, she wanted to voice what she wanted before he forgot she existed. For once, she would be the girl he dreamed of, and needed, and tumbled with. Alina wanted to be that girl that ended all other girls. A future of feeling just that way, in his arms, under his tongue, within his sheets.
A wave of concern twisted Aleksander's face. He held Alina's hand in his.
"You'll always have a right to me. Any night or day." He rubbed his thumbs over her flesh and kissed it roughly. "I'll never make you leave."
"Never?" Her voice whimpered.
It was the words she longed to hear for so long. Their sound nearly brought tears to her eyes.
Her happy ending, a happy life, the place she belonged, a home, were all hers after the years of being lonely, awkward, and disregarded because of her health. All those years of suffering in silence were over. The fight of her heart already won.
Aleksander did not know it, but there would never be another in Alina's eyes. He was it.
His other hand gently pushed the hair out of her face. Clear of obstruction, he gazed down at her with total concentration. He regarded her lips, swollen and red from all the biting back her moans. The expanse of her cheeks, the filled in divot of her cheekbones from all the proper care at the Little Palace, the brightness of her complexion, and the life injected into her eyes.
What Aleksander saw was who she was underneath it all. Finally, the mirror reflected a person she felt like. No longer sick and frail, but powerful, strong, talents no longer hidden by a sallow face.
"My Alina," he whispered so lovingly. "I've waited so long to find you. My whole life, a league of shadows, until the day I felt your existence shine through. There is so much time to atone for. So much we must experience, together. There is no time to turn away from our path. Our souls have decided. We are to be bonded forever. A right to one another. Half of ourselves resides in each other, and we can't deny a single piece of it."
She leaned in close, ready to kiss him, ready to fall into his arms and not to part until morning, when an abrupt knock on the door happened.
It splintered the atmosphere between them. The room now interjected with Ivan's beckon call.
Alina frowned. "Please, stay here."
Aleksander's eyes went to the door. The visible desire to answer it was within his features.
But she couldn't. He couldn't leave when she felt vulnerable and in need of him.
"Please Alek." The use of a nickname caught his attention. "Don't leave. I don't want to share you. Not tonight."
His lips jolted against hers. "I won't leave you." Hot breath burst against her face. "I just have to speak with Ivan for a moment."
There was a coldness in the way he left. She was perched on the war room table with her legs swinging in the air, sad that she was not warm and cuddled against his body. She frowned for a moment, until he was at her side once more, kissing her passionately. His hands ran up along her torso, toying with the edge of her breast through the cinched corset top of her dress.
Sadness dropped away. Even as he retreated into the hall to speak to Ivan, Alina felt prouder.
She dropped down from the table with a grin.
He liked her. He desired her, her body, her touch, her kiss.
Alina Kirigan. She signed the name through the air. General Kirigan's wife, sun summoner and saint, Alina. The mistress of Little Palace, home of all the Grisha.
The private bedchambers of Aleksander were off the war room. The two French doors were open, welcoming a visitor within their grasp of muted hues and intense darkness. The thick velvet drapes were drawn. Not that it mattered. The dense black of night rested just outside the glass.
What might a life be like from this bedchamber, Alina wondered. She sat on the edge of the huge canopy bed. Her mind conjured up pictures of Aleksander putting his boots on despite her pleads for him to stay in their locked warmth, and gentle morning kisses as he rose for a day at the Grand Palace or to oversee troops in his army, or the late-night ripping of clothes off her body when he couldn't wait a moment longer.
His bedchambers were morose, a bit melancholy for her taste. It was difficult to imagine not being depressed in these lack luster walls. Dark and brooding.
Although, they did suit him. He was reserved, serious, and ambitious. Perhaps black was his happy color. It was his gift, to call upon darkness. Darkness was his ally. She imagined that it fed him better than any other hue might.
"Alina?" His voice echoed throughout the next room.
His steps, too. They moved against the floor with a surprising clip.
She listened a moment longer before she answered, "I'm here."
He crossed the length of the war room at lightning speed. Soon, Aleksander leaned against the doorway. The sight of her, willingly, atop his bedspread might the darkness of his eyes deepen in delight.
"You never cease to surprise me, my Alina."
The 'my' rolled on his tongue more delectable than her own name. He reveled in the thought of owning her, and she flooded in excitement despite very distinct voices in her mind that reminded her that being owned was not a compliment but a demotion of her humanly value, a reduction to an object, all that modern women stood against. How could she be excited by a man that sought to control her? What kind of traitor to her gender was she?
His hand ran along her exposed shoulders. The black kefta of the evening with beautiful golden stitching laid out on the floor where they tangled in each other's lust first. It was only her in a taut corset left with under skirts billowed out around her ankles, undergarments of matching color as if she had planned to be in the General's bed that night.
It was a sigh of relief to know she was well washed and perfumed before the party, or the doubts of hygiene would have entered her mind. In fact, she was the cleanest she'd ever been. Pubic hair trimmed for the first time. Rose petals boiled in the bath water before she dipped inside the lush velvet greeting of the waters. Undergarments that were beyond the basic white cotton.
Saints, she was glad this was the way the General saw her.
She looked up through eyelashes hooded with desire, the parting of her lips in full view, the emergence of her red tongue as it danced playfully in her mouth. "Is there some way you can surprise me?"
Aleksander latched onto her lips and would not let go. His mouth crashed into hers. Their tongues thrusted together in a tangled dance of desire, as he felt every surface of her body while her hands dropped to the waist of his trousers. She felt the intake of breath as she parted the fabric just above his erection.
He started to say her name but was too taken by the feeling of her warm hands against his cock that only the "Li" escaped his lips. "Ah" and "Na" were blurred into the groans from his throat as she worked up and down his cock like she knew to do.
It was Marie's dirty little detail that she shared one night. Alina was embarrassed then. Now, she knew to thank Marie for the bit of direction.
Kisses peppered across her neck, chest, shoulders. The feeling of his tongue all amongst them.
She allowed her head to roll back, still stroking him, as he pressed his talented tongue into the tender divots of her neck.
Their bodies fell back onto the open expanse of mattress. It's softeness an invitation to be used for their nightly distraction.
Her lips erupted in a moan, unable to restrain it any longer, and a fire ignited within both their bodies. Aleksander's breath became ragged. He pulled her skirts high, not stopping for the torn fabric sound that answered his force. He didn't care.
"Lift up." The dire depth to his voice rattled something inside her core.
She complied. Her hips raised off the bed to aid his removal of her undergarments before they were ripped too. It sent a wave of pleasure upward from the center of her body. Like splintered through a tree, she felt the rising spread of delirium as he ran his fingers through her folds, feeling the welciome that waited for him there, brushing her clit only gently, before entering her body.
The walls of her pussy clenched against his fingers like they wanted him pulled further inside. Her eyes rolled back the more he obliged.
"Oh lapushka. You're ready for me."
She nodded until her neck cracked. "Yes, Alek. Yes."
His fingers worked inside her a few pumps more. She wiggled her hips against his hand as the familiar warmth of her belly turned tense, and parts of her body felt the strong pull at the center of her body.
Aleksander rested his forehead against hers. Their huffy breaths mingled together as they stole a moment in the chaos of their lust. His eyes swirled under her gaze.
"Are you certain," he whispered softly, "that this is what you want?"
There was no question in her mind that could pull her away from him. "Da. I choose you moi soverennyi."
The entrance to her body was shadowed by a pressure, a moment she considered so frightening as a younger woman, thrilled her body to the edge of pure bliss. Pressing against her pussy, wet from her own excitement, Aleksander's cock rubbed up and down. It felt like a game, each up swing brought it right against her clit which sent moans escaping through her lips. Then, it came back down once and slipped through her body without resistance. She was so wet. It gushed around his cock as he pushed gently inside.
It spread the tightness inside her to make room for its building pressure. Her back arched as it inched forward.
A groan grunted from his mouth as his cock hit the back wall of her pussy. Her muscles closed in around him. They still thrummed from her earlier orgasm and they wanted more.
"Ah," his cock withdrew from her pussy, "Li," it pushed back inside again, "Na."
All she heard was Li and it tightened her core to know it was her that made the General so disoriented. Her pussy was the one with the power, not her hands. It brought the man to his knees in front of her, it led his cock to satisfy her in ways that only one of those could, and it had him so lost that if she asked for a pet unicorn, he'd obliged just for another thrust back inside.
Her moans heightened. The thrusts became faster inside her. The bend in his cock rubbed against the nub of her clit and melted all her bones to nothing but mush.
Aleksander became more aggressive in the throes. His hands pulled her arms above her head and demanded that she kept eye contact with him. He slammed his body into hers with growing tempo.
Her mouth answered with sharp yelps. The pure satisfaction bloomed through the discomfort of the newfound pressure inside herself.
They were lost in each other's eyes. The lust ruled their bodies, but their minds were consumed in pure awe at the other's pleasure ridden face.
The sounds of their bodies as they slapped together filled her ears. His groans, growls from the back of his throat. Her answering moans. It was all so hot.
She heard the sounds enough in the First Army. The pleasure of the noises was enough to have her hand down her hands until she peaked in a silenced climax.
Fucking Aleksander was different. It was raw. The animal emerged from inside them. Finally released.
Her hips rocked against his, meeting each thrust with perfect alignment to her spot, and felt overcome with the growing climax. It washed through her stronger than before. The point of pain emerged and she wanted to close her eyes to the sensations she felt on her body.
"Eyes on me," Alek reminded her. "Keep your eyes on me lapushka. I want to see you come undone beneath me."
Saints, his words were stronger than his cock!
Her lips moved independent from her mind. "Please. Don't stop. Don't stop."
Pressure descended upon her body. He lowered onto of her, cock slowly and shallowing thrusting through her.
"No, no, no," she whined. "Don't stop, Alek. Please."
"Don't worry, my little star." His hand reached down between them and started to rub her clit. "You are too beautiful to not sate me. I'll cum soon if I keep going."
It wasn't his fingers that put her over the edge nor the kisses that took her breath away.
It was the words that framed her peak to be shrill and shattering. The sensation ripped through her like a canon and wiped away everything.
"Saints!" She cried out as it kept throbbing out of her body as he thrust within.
It wasn't long after – she lost track of time at that point – that Aleksander screamed her name like a banshee and lost all momentum except for the tiny twitches of his cock inside her. Heat. She felt it spill into her. Up high.
She laid silent and still, unable to think or feel or move or speak. Her body burned. Everywhere. It ached and relaxed and was clear and foggy.
The bed shifted. His body was near hers. Heat seeped in through her skin as he came closer.
His arm swung over her waist. It pulled her into the curve of his body, cheek cuddled against his chest.
Time lost all meaning. It was late. She was exhausted. Her body was overstimulated and in need of rest. She was safe, comfortable and sated. Her mind started the first stages of shutdown.
Sometime, the warmth moved away. She thought she heard someone say, "Sleep, Li. I'll return soon."