Alina refused to see everyone.
She remained in the isolated parts of her tent, unable to sleep or stomach the idea of food. Her eyes remained heavy and bloodshot from so many hours of mental torture. Muscles in her body ached for the cot. Its heavenly softness comforted the ails of the wilderness from her tired body.
Still, she refused herself everything.
It was a punishment on her own accord for being so angry. The words that escaped her lips and the actions that followed filled her with pure awfulness.
Despite, the transgression of General Kirigan's – it was important to regard him as such since they were no longer anything personal – past, she knew there was a place in her heart to forgive it. His story that she used to wound him was not fabricated, or, the regret in his eye was not. When they beheld the fountain with the story – his story – etched in the stone, the emotion was real. He wanted to destroy the Fold. She believed it with all her heart. Time. If Baghra had given her time, Alina would have made him realize it was the only way to protect their Grisha brethren.
But no.
She was pulled away from him by the emotions of others, of the past, of everything she used to be.
But she was not that girl. That scared girl that trembled in the idea of being Grisha, made herself weak to suppress the power within her, all to fit into a world that decided she did not belong. That Alina was gone.
The moment a ball of light appeared between her hands, the Alina of the past died. Never to return.
Yet, in the back of her mind, she mourned the loss of an old life that was not completely happy but was all that she knew. It was normal. How much she longed to touch the time behind. Mal brought it all back. The image of them running away, together, hand in hand, reminded her of the days of childhood when they were nameless faces. She ran away with the belief that time might reverse.
Only…she loved herself as Alina Starkov, the one and only, sun summoner, opposite General Kirigan.
General Kirigan, she loved more.
Alina allowed herself to cry into her lap. She laid in the corner tucked into a round ball and cried for the future she had lost. All that might have been…
What of their own child? The product of her womb carried a timeline she was certain no one – not even Kirigan – considered. She carried on the bloodline that was his.
Panic ripped through her heart at the thought of what might happen now that she was no longer favored. Would he have the child killed? No one would dare harm an infant, especially a Grisha. It was too foul to consider. Aleksander believed in bonds and fate. He would cherish a child that was of his own likeness and ability; an empire of himself to further aid his agenda of protecting the Grisha. If anything, he'd take the child for his own and leave Alina behind somewhere.
Saints, she could not think of a worse fate than being parted from a being she created within her own loins.
She touched the soft swell of her belly. It looked like bloat than a carrier of life belly.
"Please remember me," she whispered. "And how much I love you." Her voice waivered to produce the words, "a-a-and your father."
Sleep came to her sometime in the darkness. It happened so suddenly that she awoke on the floor in confusion as to what she was doing there.
Her breasts were especially tender that morning. She groaned as she placed a heavy purple kefta on her shoulders. It rubbed just in the way that made it a noticeable ache. And growth. The stretch of her kefta at the chest was noticeable in her shoulders where the fabric pulled.
She found a taut undershirt that was a size too small and pulled it over her chest before the kefta. It lessened the bulge of her breasts in the fabric enough to satisfy her anxieties. For now.
Alina was presented with food trays throughout the day; each one was turned away. Multiple times the white kefta servants entered the tent to advertise their selection of mouthwatering delights. They were met with a scowl.
Genya entered a time later. She, too, held a tray. It was full of sweets. Pastries and berries and pies. There was a thick dark chocolate bar. Candied oranges in a bowl.
"Get it out of here," Alina said strongly. "I don't want to see it."
The smell broiled her stomach bile. Reminders of vomit tickled the back of her tongue.
"Please, Alina." The tray was placed on the table. "You must eat. You're not well."
"No."
"We're all worried about you."
"I'm fine."
Why did the entire world insist on bothering her at times when she could not spare the thought process? Couldn't they see she was in racked with indecision? Her entire life was changing. Her choice impended.
Genya frowned deeply. The wrinkles around her mouth cut through her flawless flesh. "Just look at the platter. You might see something you want."
"I don't want anything."
"You won't survive the journey home," Genya pleaded.
Home. Little Palace. She longed for that place. Her room with beautiful furnishings, a large tub, flowy curtains, her friends, training.
Alina brushed through her lose hair to keep the smell of food from driving her mad. "I am not weak."
The Tailor blinked in confusion. "It is not weak to need help."
It pained her too much to continue. Genya's kind eyes pulled willingness from her body the way General Kirigan pulled desire. She responded without knowledge. Just instant response, instinct to trust their intentions as healthy for her. The pair of them moved in such ways, talked their ways through her mind to the inner most weaknesses to break down those walls she built ever so perfectly as a child.
She remained silent. Her eyes focused on the mirror ahead. Stroke after stroke through her deep dark hair.
"The General is not as bad as you think." The voice was said from above her ear. "He is ambitious and cunning. People are right to distrust him, but not you. Not you."
It brought forth a small break in her breath. Sadness welled up in the back of Alina's chest.
Genya sighed in the silence. "We ride for Os Alta tomorrow. Consider eating. Ravka needs a sun summoner. We've waited so long for you. Please don't let it go to waste."
The words reminded her of moments in the war room, with General Kirigan…
Once Genya was clear of the tent, Alina broke down in tears. Blood pooled in her ears with the frantic broken beats of her lonely heart.
What she would have given for one last kiss, one last moment, one last time before she was forced to remain on her own: savored each kiss, took notice of every touch and tickle of her skin. It would have made the separation easier.
The time came sooner than she imagined. The return to Little Palace. The camp was loaded into a caravan, the tents folded, cots dismantled and loaded onto horses and carts until nothing, but an empty field remained.
She was a hollow shell of a being when she emerged into the daylight. Fresh air brushed against the folds of her kefta. It teased the beads of sweat beneath the taut fabric that restrained her breasts and stomach. Her eyes, uninterested and exhausted, scanned the scene.
The General's carriage, large and black with velvet interior, appeared through the chaos. It was presented as Alina's transport.
"I don't understand."
"The General requested you take his carriage seeing as you are still healing," the bitter stern voice of the General's trusted man, Ivan said. "He doesn't want to disrupt that sensitive disposition."
She scanned through the crowd. Her eyes searched for that comforting sight. His face. The darkest eyes of comfort, black and dense, like the night sky, endless and full of possibility.
Their eyes met across the field. He sat astride his personal horse, an ebony mare with a shiny coat and thundering gallop.
There were only a few select memories of him upon a horse. The first time he requested her came to mind. They shared that saddle across the lands of Ravka to the protection of Little Palace, not unlike what they sought to do now.
General Kirigan always rode in a carriage with the Second Army. He was their leader. He never led the line. His place was protected and carried in comfort. The protection was now presented to her as an alternative, somehow, like her place exceeded his own.
She hesitantly moved toward the carriage. Ivan was stuck to her side. Again, they were forced in each other's company with distaste on their lips.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a familiar silhouette. It was Mal. His hands were tied in front of him with a thick rope impossible to cut. Second Army were on either side of him. They pushed him closer toward a horse. He gripped the saddle horn and mounted the creature all the while his hands bound tightly.
Alina looked on in the hopes he might see her. It would do well for both of them to know the other was alright.
Astride the horse and tied to the saddle, attention of Mal's guard was turned to other things. It left an opening. A blue kefta Grisha quickly thrust a small canteen into his hold.
It was difficult to view across the distance, but Alina swore a slight lift of his cheeks. A smile? She squinted hard, even as Ivan pressed her to climb aboard, to make out what they said. Mal's lips moved in a hidden voice. It was not obvious either spoke. The blue kefta blocked view of who it was that rested below its protection.
A gust rose up through the deep of the country. It slipped through the ranks of the Second Army with a gentle push. A long strand of straight, black hair blew out from the blue kefta's hat.
Zoya.
"Miss Starkov."
A body emerged in close focus. She stepped away in surprise.
"It is time to leave," Ivan barked. His face was the opposite of patient.
Little Palace. It came into view after hours of silence. A blessed relief came through her when she saw the faint outline of the building in the distance. Home. It was so close. Her room, her things, her friends. They were within reach after months of being a memory too beautiful to remember.
She practically jumped from the carriage in excitement. Life was ready to start again.
"You seem to be relieved to be back."
A rather keen observation from the foul Heartrender.
"I am," she said flatly. "It is home."
The corner of his mouth lifted in a disgusted sneer. "Home is not a place you run from."
Ivan did not understand – how could he? – how much she hated running from Little Palace, one of the first places she felt comfortable enough to call home. It was not that she hated the place. It was not the place she fled from, but the reach of a man she was uncertain of.
Those within Palace walls were accustomed to the shifty, cunning use of trust to aid personal agendas. A man like Ivan probably ignored it. His gut trusted in the General. That's all he needed.
But her? She hated it. The backstabbing looks they gave when their backs turned, out of trust in protection of their spine. Deals made under whispers. Ambition leeched upon the walls, the food, the eyes of their friends.
General Kirigan was too perfect. She realized that all he offered was what she sought all her life.
The naïve orphan fell helplessly into the trap of a man's gaze without second thought. Now, she wore the consequences of vulnerability.
A choice: believe him or not.
Evil or good.
Monster or man.
Saint or Devil.
Alina was given an unneeded escort back to her suite by the scowling Heartrender. The doors were slammed closed once she entered.
"Bastard," she muttered.
The return to her old room gave the return of old emotions trapped amongst the belongings so graciously provided for her by the General. It was a beautiful large room. Some Grisha did not have their own bedchambers and if they did, they were not as vast as this one.
Her fingers ran across the soft bedspread. The scent of soap filled her nostrils.
Oh, saints! Soap. What a lovely change to moldy decay of a stagnant forest.
She removed her kefta and tossed it to the floor. Her hands pulled at the binding fabric of her undershirt and replaced it with a comfortable, breathable one. It aided the ease of the fabric to slip over her flesh as she climbed within her sheet's embrace. The cot in the tent had been heaven, but this bed went beyond any explanation besides, perhaps, ecstasy.
Alina forgot all essence of time and the fact that she had been sleeping normal hours and just erased all memory of normal life. She spent three days solely in bed, making up for months of lost sleep and restless slumber in beds full of bugs and menacing howls on the night winds. The palace bed erased all memory. They took away her pain. Sleep helped her forget the mess that she fell into. It took away everything. Just peace. Peaceful dreaming.
It took her back to days when things with Mal were normal. It even took her to the days when things with Aleksander were blossoming. She dreamed of pleasant futures without the Fold. A child, the idea of what it meant to become a mother, too, carried through to dreams.
Another tray was pulled laden with the finest foods Ravka had to offer. Intact.
The white kefta Grisha held it in display. The glisten of fresh fruits still present. Steaming biscuits still under cover of their napkin. Utensils in place.
"Ivan?" Aleksander lifted his brow.
The man in the red kefta looked over the bowls. His fingers moved overtop the mounds of fresh berries, every berry in existence. "Five and twenty of each."
The same they sent in on the trays; Alina did not eat a single berry.
The sun summoner was all he thought about. Night and day. The feel of her power against his flesh outshined the drag of exhausting, the pull of worry, the pain of hunger, and the need of all else except her. Her. Warm and bright. The parting in his endless shadow was all that was her. She, the only thing that he concerned himself of at the moment.
He paced. The long length of his war room was his path, a worn in trail in which he paced for answers. The answer to the ever confusing riddle that was Miss Alina Starkov.
Aleksander gritted his teeth. "Bring me the tracker."
The subtle click of the door latch pulled Alina's eyelids apart. She sensed motion within her chamber.
"Alina?"
Mal's voice carried in through the steady silence of the room. Her heart jumped in her chest. She rose quickly to sitting.
There he stood. His clothes were unsoiled and undamaged. The flesh of his face was fresh. Purple rings of insomnia were absent. As were the ravages of their time on the run. Her face lifted to a smile until she saw it. A silver tray overstuffed with steaming food awaited in his outstretched arms. Her excitement fell.
"Oh." She exhaled.
It was not a surprise visit, but a plot. Temptation.
"It is not feathers, Alina." Mal snorted. "I've carried this all the way from the kitchens."
She smoothed the bedspread and patted an empty spot. "Set it here then."
It was less than joyous. As exciting as it was to see him, her friend only added more complication to a situation she had no energy to unravel.
Sleep. All she wanted was to forget everything outside the walls and sleep.
Mal set it down carefully. The glasses of hot tea spilled slight over their porcelain rims. He winced as the mirky water dribbled on the precious metal tray.
She waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. They've got hundreds more."
Her friend wrapped his arms around her shoulder and pulled her close for a tight hug. It felt nice. The touch of another person, it rested right in her soul. A breath released from her taut chest, a thing she hadn't noticed tensed in his arrival.
"Oh Mal. It's nice to see you," she murmured into his shirt. "I thought we'd never see each other again."
He frowned as he withdrew. His eyes roamed. "I'd rather we didn't if it meant you didn't look like this."
"Hey!" Her fingers went to her hair, which was bound to be knotted by the endless days in bed.
"They say you haven't eaten since we were captured," Mal said hesitantly. "That's not healthy, you know, for the pair of you."
His voice went instantly low. It was in their confidence they now spoke. Their secret.
"I don't care," she muttered flatly.
He tilted his head. "My friend Alina would. She cared very deeply for things. Once upon a time…"
It was a sorry attempt. All it did was invoke guilt that she was too far guilty to withstand. She knew how it seemed to Mal. She craved a Devil. It was harder to deny than any before, but she did not want to leave. Mal had to physically carry her away to keep her from returning.
She was a stupid woman. One, for being so easy to be entranced and two, for refusing the worst calamity of the world from stopping her to be with the man who created it.
The glaze in Mal's eyes said as much. She sank down lower in shame. Her spine compressed, the need to curl into a ball and sleep again, a sudden wave to her attention.
The scents crept closer in the air. Her nostrils breathed in large clouds of hot sizzling potatoes, thick fatty slices of bacon, every shade of berry she knew and a few she didn't, mushrooms, cabbage, turnips, chicken legs, sliced duck breast, pot roast with carrots cooked right in the juices. Ah. It all reminded her of hunger. A hunger she banished from herself.
Her tongue moved in the dry folds of her mouth. It excited with the thought of sweet, savory fats against its anticipated buds.
Mal grabbed hold of a crisp piece of bacon. "Come on. They only let me see you so that you'd eat."
He pushed it close to her mouth.
"Then shouldn't I refuse until they release us?"
Sweet agony of bacon thrust right against her tight lips. They refused entrance.
Mal sighed in disappointment. There was no conviction behind the words she spoke, rather the motions she moved through to keep him near.
"Don't make me force feed you, because I will," he said.
Bacon called her name. It eased the tension in her mouth. Her jaw slacked in release. A gentle part of her lips was greeted with salty fatty meat. The moment it touched her tongue, her eyes went wide.
She took the slice from his hold, chewing on it with glee, not stopping to wipe the grease that dribbled down her chin.
"Who let you in here anyway?" She questioned as she popped a whole fingerling potato into her mouth. Buttery herbs welcomed her tongue like a long-lost friend. "Was it Genya?"
Genya did her best to rouse her. She offered snacks and treats, anything to revive Alina's state. As a friend, it was above and beyond what was expected of a servant meant to aid Alina in presentation. The Tailor cared for her. More credit was due.
Mal handed over a plate with noodles and a light cream sauce. She gladly spun a fork in the center of the plate. "No," he said as he held the plate still for her pleasure. "It was your Devil."
The mention of him stopped her completely. Her hand dropped the fork down to the plate.
"Oh," she pronounced. Her stomach filled instantly. Hunger diminished. "You didn't tell him, did you? About me."
"Do you think I'd be here if I did?" He gave a knowing look.
It burned too harsh she had to look away.
There was only about a ten-minute span between them before the door opened once more. In walked the General. His black presence flickered the light of the candles as if they knew what he was.
Mal's eyes focused on her face as she took in the General's presence. He watched the way she shifted in her bed, uncomfortable and tense, unable to keep away from the sight of him. There was a split of disappointment that ruptured across his face. It bled back to the forced indifference in light of the audience within the room.
Instead of a mouthy quip, he gathered up the tray and walked back through the open threshold. Kirigan only gave a parting glance.
"As you see, he's been taken care of," he stated evenly. Any ounce of distaste for Mal was swallowed to an unheard place.
The distance ached between them now. It burned. She felt the part growing larger and larger, the strength of their bond thinning.
"Thank you," she hummed softly.
"The King and Queen requested an audience with you, tomorrow," he revealed. "They have questions to the accommodations of Little Palace."
"Accommodations?"
"The Sun Summoner fled Little Palace in favor of the wilderness." He was firm, unrelenting in his pride, yet anger did not emerge like she thought it would. "They are under the assumption something has offended you so severely that you would surrender the title of Sol Koroleva."
He turned to leave when Alina found her strength. She rose from the bed. The edge of her dress dropped to the floor in a silent cascade.
"I did not leave because of this place."
His back remained turned, away from her. "I know. But after the events of the Winter Fete - ."
"Events?" She repeated.
The tone of her chamber was soft and polite. There was no rise in tension. Hatred did not bubble from their mouths as a poisonous foam. It was easier than breathing, natural and sweet.
Her heart ached woefully. It yearned for the taste of his air as often as breath was available.
"Surely you mean event," she clarified. "My disappearance."
"No." General Kirigan answered low and slow. "That is not all."
Her forehead wrinkled. "Not all. It must be. What else would happen on a momentous occasion like the Fete?"
A night as wonderous and beautiful as the Winter Fete. Blues and golds. Spectacular performers, demonstrations, music. The sway of bodies as they danced along to the dip in the melody. A light hum of voices at the back of the mind. A lonely corner filled with the sounds of merriment around.
Proud flowers displayed in every vase like a boast of beauty through the deep of the cool winter nights.
Glimmering jewels on necklaces with flowy dresses as they walked by. The heat of breath of stolen closeness, the subtle retreat to a private oasis, the sounds of others the melody in which the beat of the pulse stayed as they tangled in one another's embrace.
The Winter Fete was the best night of Alina Starkov's life: the one that changed everything.
"It was not all perfection."
"I remember it fondly," she murmured, still trapped in the light haze of rosy memory.
She allowed herself a look away, out the nearby window, an anchor to the reality she now lived. The gaze drifted back into a pair of forceful black eyes.
They were a memory, too. Shiny and black, wrinkled in pleasure, wide in disbelief at the sights before them. Those eyes were warmth and darkness all in one. They filled in edges of the light and gave depth to those under her shine. He deepened edges and heightened cliffs. Shadows danced through motions as she blared straight ahead.
Her perfect companion. The other half of her soul.
Alina moved toward those eyes in chase of the dream.
It wasn't until his hands caught her against his chest. They held her arms at her sides, away from his embrace.
"Not fond enough, it would seem."
Numbness moved up through her fingers to her elbow. It encased every finger of his against her bicep.
Her eyes looked at his hands then up at him in question.
The General cleared his throat. "An attempt on your life was made that night."
Haze, gone. Alina blinked back the sudden surprise of tears and gasp.
Hunted inside and outside Little Palace. The life of the saint of Ravka. Death on every whispered lip. The call for her blood against the fields of the countryside or the tile of the Palace floors.
She stepped away. Her hand ran through the tangled mess of her hair.
"Genya made it out with her life," he explained. "Marie was not so lucky."
Alina's knees buckled. The weight of the news crushed her shoulders harder and harder down.
Her friend's name lived on her lips. "Marie…" over and over again she chanted, lost in the despair.
Her body fell to the floor without the strength to withstand the knowledge her friend died to protect her. A pair of arms graciously caught her before she hit the hard ground. They cradled her gently. Against the large, dark kefta, her tears were invisible as they soaked through the fibers.
The rich depth of cedar filled each ragged breath. Warmth of his large breath perfumed the air like smoke, hot and dense.
General Kirigan moved against her body with ease. He shifted his hold gently. It helped ease them both to the floor from the uncomfortable kneeling he did before. Now, she sat within his lap, tear stained and buried in the comfort of his hold as she mourned the passing of a friend – the first she made within the Palace – whom she would have never survived without.
A hand moved with care as it ran down the length of her hair down to her lower back. The other looped around and kept her close.
Their chests moved in sync with each breath.
"Forces," his lips murmured into the length of her hair, "seek to destroy us. Not only are they out there. They are in here." She listened closely. Tears stopped their descent. "The only way to save ourselves and our people is to trust. Trust when it is difficult. Trust the other with their life. Because if we falter, if we part, it will tear the country along with it."
Alina hesitantly rose from his chest. Their eyes met as old lovers did: with memory and caution.
"Do not let Marie die in vain, Li. Let her have served her country well. Let her have given her life, to save the savior."
"It wouldn't need saving if you hadn't created it in the first place."
He sighed, wearied at the roundabout conversations they always seemed to have. "A mistake. It was a mistake I made, centuries ago. I've tried to make it right. I couldn't. Not without you." His thumbs caressed the edge of her nightdress, against the line of fabric and flesh below it.
"And I'm supposed to believe you have no devious plans for the Fold? Put my trust in a person who has lied, admittedly, to me, to gain my sympathy, to force me to fall in love with someone who would use me for my power?"
"You'll let an old, bitter woman's words hold more importance than my own?" He growled.
"You mean your mother's. Baghra is your mother."
"It was not my mother who protected you, Alina. It was she who sent you to danger. To be massacred in the wilderness. To starve in fear, alone. That is what my mother would do to her flesh and blood." The shimmer of his eye ignited, just in the corner. He beheld her full of adoration and longing. Through the bond that tied them together, a surge of emotion, one that was best described as love, overwhelmed her to the point of breakdown. "I finally found the person I was made for and she sent you away."
Alina struggled. Even now, presumed pregnant and already in love with the thing that she believed there, her maternal instincts shrieked against such a lie. A mother would never go against their child. Ever.
Yet, Baghra was not a normal woman. She was foul and blunt, nose upturned with every thing as if it reeked of disgust. Her patience was smaller than her compassion.
"Even Baghra is not that cruel."
"You do not the depths of her cruelty, Alina, and I would not impart them on you. There is a reason the Fold came to be, and it was not of my own design," Aleksander said. He held her firm. "Darkness has a slickness to it. If you do not see it for what it is at an early age, its companionship pulls you farther from clear cut lines of the world. It becomes all you need. I watched my mother be consumed with the shadows, talking to them as if they were alive. Our only allegiance, to ourselves. Not the world. Not others. That's what she taught me. Rage. Rage against the world, and those who are lesser."
Her face fell. The twisted look in his eye cruelly tortured.
"It took me eons to rid myself of rage. Still, there rests some in my heart. The burning desire to crush those who hunt us down as Witcher's to our monster's life." General Kirigan swallowed. His voice fell softer. "I was not prepared for you, my Alina. I was not ready to forget my vengeance. Yet. Nothing could have prepared me for the meeting of my equal. You. The only one on this world to complete me as I am meant to be, made whole. I'll never hide from you. You must understand this. Whatever you wish, I'll deliver it. The waters of the True Sea, the scales of the Sea Whip, the blood of your enemies. I may be a villain in a story, somewhere, the evil one who did unspeakable horrors to the world, a shadow summoner of immeasurable depths. It is a weight that rests on my shoulders, a solution to problems that only created more. But if it is not the villain you want, Alina, I'll forget it all."
Faint like a memory, her palm cupped his cheek. He leaned into her touch.
"It has taken centuries in darkness to feel your light, Alina."
"And I've lived in the light without reprieve," she breathed.
One hand cautiously traveled upward to faintly rest at the back of her neck. One by one a finger folded down in hold.
Alina's breath caught. The rise of heat within her chest ruptured through like a burst of ember to flame.
The explosion that was their kiss filled their mouths with unstoppable desire. It leeched through their bodies in long built absence of release. She clawed at the buttons of his black kefta and wretched them apart, all the while their lips never parted. He found home beneath the hem of her nightdress; his fingers roamed across her bare flesh with ease.
"Oh Alek," she moaned gently as his mouth cascaded down her neck. Her hand cradled his head as the sweet scent of his breath filled her mind. "I've missed you."
"Never leave again," rumbled from the back of his throat in a possessive growl.
It traveled straight toward her clit, tingling it with the agony of arousal without friction, to the point of physical pain.
The nightdress was pulled above her head. The white fabric blinded her as sensations flooded through. The sharp perfume of her own sex. He ran his finger down the length of her labia and inhaled the scent like a beast. It fueled the strength of his hands as they ripped the rest of the dress away.
He was not the only one with power. The possessive edge of her own crept through at the sight of his half opened kefta showed an expanse of flesh that belonged to her.
She raised up and met his stance. Her fingers pushed him backward off his knees to the floor once more. This time, she took the top.
"I am yours, and you are mine." The kefta pulled down and exposed his shoulders. Skin stretched across bone. The slight dip of his clavicle through perfect complexion. "Not a distraction."
Before she processed what she felt, her mouth bent low, teeth bared, and nipped the shoulder of his shoulder.
He gasped out in pain but did not push away.
A ring of red marks circled his shoulder. Some punctured through the skin. A mark. Her mark.
"Distractions are what I do every day, Li. It is you who has my full attention."
Alina straddled his lap. The bulge of his pants right against her open, dripping entrance. It spread a silver sheen over the black fabric, her mark again, for any who questioned just who he belonged to.
He groaned delightfully into her ear as she dragged herself up and down his length. Through trousers it must have been torture.
"I may wear your color," Alina said as she loosened the zipper of his pants. An erect cock bounced up to greet her efforts. Her fingertips stroked the tip playfully. "But you bare my mark."
Aleksander thrust himself inside her in frantic hunger. A hollow grunt at the back of his throat. Her body melted above the hardness of his cock as it dug into her body with urgency, hot and needy, rutting like animals of the wilderness. His hands gripped her hips.
"You're a goddess."
The smile of victory crossed her lips. "And you," she moaned as the pace slowed. The friction pressed against the upper wall like it knew the place she needed touched. "You are my god."
"Tell me." His voice grew stronger, as did the gaining thickness of his cock. "Tell me you'll never have another."
"As long as I live. There is only one moi soverennyi."
They moved together, like the actions of riding a horse, joining their gallops into blissful unity of a steady rhythm.
She screamed at his depth. Her nails buried deep into his shoulder as she held onto him, punctured over and over by the height of his cock against the walls of her pussy, wetter than ever, but still overstuffed with sensation. No matter how hard she rode, he would not give first.
His dark eyes stayed locked on hers.
The allure of her bouncing breasts against his chest or the slurp of her juices as they traveled down his shaft did not capture his gaze as they fucked like the wild beasts they were.
Alina's build started suddenly. The edge of her climax there almost as soon as the warmth started to tighten in her belly. She felt it climbing higher and higher. Her pitch turned frantic as she begged Alek to fuck her harder, faster, anything to reach that blinding light.
Dark shadows reached out. Their tendrils wrapped around her wrists, her neck, her hips. They held her tightly, cinching harder in their hold, pulling her deeper onto his lap. He watched with delight as the pulsating anger that she felt rolled back to the euphoria that was their bond.
All of the sudden, it crashed around her. The dark of the room shred in the splitting power that was her light. It forced its way through her lungs, into the air. Sensations multiplied beneath her rays.
Aleksander slowed. His hips trembled beneath her. The dark of his eye rolled back to pure white.
Then came instant black. It blanketed them thickly.
The entire room was doused of all its light. Clouded night rested outside the windows with little aid to the shadows that consumed them.
Their deep breathing panting, the only sounds in their ears.
His hands worked higher up her bare back. They massaged gently.
"I'm still angry that you lied to me," she whispered to complete darkness.
Clarity surged back faster than climax. The clarity of what she'd done.
He withdrew from her body. Hot liquid dripped from her insides.
"I know," he said. "And I'm still angry you ran away."
She sighed. That was fair. "I know."
They rose up from the floor and did their best to find matches to light the candles. Their clothes were replaced on their bodies. The top button of Alek's kefta hanged loosely by a thread. Alina smirked as she held it in her fingers.
"You've grown rather possessive," he commented without glancing upward from the zipper of his trousers. He tried to brush away the shiny outline of her juices from the crotch. "I'd say it odd if I did not find it so endearing."
"Odd?" Her voice echoed.
Was it odd to protect what was your own? Alina did not believe so.
"I've heard women prefer to be dominated, not dominating," he elaborated. "My experience has proven it true."
She sniffed in distaste. His experience. With other women.
"Perhaps with other… distractions," the word was bitter on her tongue, "but you'll find I'm not satisfied with someone unless I know they know their place, too."
His eyebrows lifted. It was slight. Like the tic of a muscle. But Alina knew Aleksander too well to misread it. That 'tic' was shock.
"My place?" He repeated coolly.
"Yes." Her shoulders snapped to place. "Their place. It is a simple place with a simple rule: I am all you need. If you find yourself straying in need of someone else, I hold no restraint in your pursuits, only you'll do them alone. I don't compete. It is me or nothing. No question. No struggle. If the answer to the question is not me without hesitation, I don't want it. Or you."
A/N: My apologies for the delay in posting this. I was on a week long vacation. I'd had every intention of writing on my vacation but the beach was too appealing! I'd like to give a quick thank you to all the new readers and followers of this fic. We've really gained some numbers recently. I appreciate the support. Hopefully this fic continues to be what you're looking for !