Shuri learns fairly quickly that the worst thing he can do to her is make her body burn for him.
To make her body tremble at even the thought of his touch, even when he's not there to sate the needs he's forced her to have.
And truly, the feeling of pure unbridled shame fills her as he does just that, in a way more intense than any way he's attempted to do before.
Almost as ...if he's punishing her.
For what, she still has yet to realize.
Shuri can almost feel his amusement ripple throughout her body as she muffles her mouth with her right arm, left hand clutching at Eriks thick black dreads as he feasts between her legs, warm tongue and nipping teeth causing her toes to clench until they're scraping against the ground and bleeding raw.
When his teeth suddenly graze her sweet spot, her hips lift without thinking as the man above her digs his nails into her thighs, spreading them farther the deeper he goes and causing the most despicable sounds to leave Shuri's mouth as she's sent over the edge for the fourth time that night.
She hears him mutter a soft 'Fuck', and knows he's aroused when she feels his erection burning against her leg.
Shuri can only choke on another moan as Erik hums on her clit and causes yet another organismic wave to rack throughout her body.
Underneath the haze flooding her mind and the sheen of sweat on her skin, as the fallen 'king' begins to lap up every drop of sweat and cum that he's wrenched from her like a cat, is shame.
Shame that even with all her anger, even with all her hate- that her body is still able to react this way.
Shame that each night is now a chore of trying to fight the inevitable pleasure, when at the beginning all she was able to feel was pain and disgust.
It's easier when she can let the hatred simmer inside of her.
It's easier when she can lay there, almost as lifeless as a statue as he touches her or forces memories she does not want to know of inside her head.
But the trouble with not giving him the pleasure of a fight, is giving him the pleasure of finding her weaknesses.
Anyone can try to make their mind and body embody stone... until the hands stroking and fondling over them manages to find a spot that can't be ignored. Even the tiniest changes in her expression, from the blankness to a slight flinch of a muscle or a tiny strangled gasp from her lips always clues him in on what makes her tick. And it's only a matter of time before she's writhing underneath him and cursing her own body.
Shuri knows she can't be soft.
She can't be light and gaily and brush off the pain- she can't be the upbeat and snarky girl her family so loves- not when she's here, not when she's with him.
Even if its all inside of her head, her body is still worn and broken when she awakens- and the only way she knows how to spite him in this place, is to maintain control of the one thing he cant completely manipulate- herself.
But it becomes harder as the tolls roll by, her body growing weaker every day. The only true escape she's found is just to not sleep at all. But the bags under her eyes and the limp to her step will lead to questions. Questions she can't answer without T'challa, and her mother, going off the deep end thinking she's attracted a incubus into her mind,- and worse yet- it taking on the face of Killmonger? She could already see the distress, the pain, and anger. She would never be able to live down her shame.
Besides, losing sleep makes her shoddier, less efficient in her work in the lab, and weaker when she finally has to succumb to rest and ends up finding him in her dreams. Waiting. Smiling. And ready to punish.
That night she tries to spend her time testing a new prototype of her brothers suit, testing the limits of kinetic energy buildup so that it doesn't explode in his face like in their last mission- one that had almost ended in disaster truth be told. And she knows part of the blame belongs to her, since her growing distance has caused both her brother and mother to grow anxious about her. She was able to feel T'challa's quiet unease throughout the entire ordeal, and hated herself for worrying him.
So she takes out her frustration in the lab. She works until her bones ache, sending all the royal servants away until she's alone in the large enclosure- fighting her exhaustion until a cloak of darkness finally envelops her mind.
And she sleeps, knowing who is waiting
Shuri opens her eyes to find him hovering over her, golden eyes burning into hers. He moves his head to the hollow of her neck, nuzzling her throat in an almost gentle fashion. A sharp contrast to the trace of his knuckles as he skims the length of her nightgown, smaller than the clothes she'd been wearing in the lab, and the fabric much, much thinner.
She swallows deeply when he trails his large hand down her chest, to her stomach. To the curve between her hip and thigh. Lower...
Shuri jerks against him when she feels his knuckle press against her folds, his heat suffocating her as his entire body engulfs her own.
"I want you to scream for me." He murmurs suddenly, his voice husky and muffled as he buries his face into her neck, the hairs of his beard smarting against her skin and the fist prodding at her center pressing deeper and deeper the more she tries to squirm away.
Her voice is barely a whisper, but her tone is a lot less shaky than she expects when Eriks teeth graze her pulse and he bites down.
"Fuck. You." she says. She doesn't flinch, much to her own surprise, when the older mans hand grinds deep into her, almost painfully. The cloth of her nightgown begins to rip from the pressure. For a moment, the familiar haze that surrounds her whenever he sends her back to the land of the 'living' as she so likes to coin it for when he releases her from these nightmares, envelopes her body. She wonders if he's irritated or even surprised that she's resorting to biting words after so many nights of silence. But then she feels his body shaking above her. And realizes he's laughing. At her.
Again.
"You bad girl. Of course I will." He breathes, his hard chest shaking with mirth. "But not before you beg like a good little princess," Erik says again, this time his tone almost teasing as he moves his mouth away from her throat, lowing his mouth to brush against the surface of her breasts instead, tongue flicking out to trace their curves, before circling on a nipple and causing her to inhale sharply, much to his further amusement.
"I'll even say please" he adds lightly, almost mockingly as he removes his tongue from her skin, as if considering something.
"Or...I could just as easily make you."
He shifts his weight until she's pinned to the floor from the weight of his torso, his free hand tauntingly dipping into his pants to free himself.
Shuri thinks about T'challa and his worried gaze from that morning when, for the first time, she refused to even leave her bedroom. Refused to walk with him down to the gardens. Refused to even look at him.
The pained confusion of his voice rings throughout her mind as Erik holds her gaze, hands sliding down her body.
'I am stone' She repeats softly in her mind, teeth gritting painfully as Erik- or rather this demon who looks like him, grabs her by her thighs and hoists her up, swinging her legs over his hips and hitching up her cloak. Her chest always tightens to a painful knot when he makes her face him as he claims her.
She prefers it when her back is to him, when she doesn't have to see him- even with the uncomfortable grip of his claw like hold on her hips as he holds her steady- almost like an animal he has to tame- which was irony to her considering which one of them truly embodied a wild beast.
When she isn't facing him as he's manipulating her body to his whims, she can at least close her eyes and force herself to numb it all away. To mentally and steadily count down until its over. Until he lets her wake up again.
But when he's pressing her chest into his like this, leaving no room for her to breath, or to turn away as he lifts a hand to grab her by the hair and yank her head back, mouth hotly descending on hers, his teeth sinking into her lip- it's impossible to be stone. Impossible not to react to him.
She doesn't beg for it like he demands her to, his voice gravelly and his gaze as hot as a furnace. Even if she wasn't a royal, begging wasn't in her blood and never would be. Especially not to him. Never to him.
She wouldn't give him, or anyone, the satisfaction of having her bend to them willfully like some puppet without a mind of her own.
Or at least, that's what she tells herself as Erik slowly and painstakingly grinds into her, every stroke of his hardness against her sex causing a fog to surround her mind, warmth pooling between both of their legs as he hooks a finger under knot of the cloth that covers her breasts. She's so small compared to him. Her skin so smooth, features so youthful compared to his rugged, animalistic appearance, and he seems to find that pleasing- while she can only wish she had the manpower to snap his neck before he could touch her any further.
She burns under his gaze as he ogles her body without a hint of shame, causing her to glare at him in return, only to clench her eyes shut when his lips spread into a maneating smile and in seconds his mouth is burning hotly on her left breast once again. Suddenly there's a wall pressed against her back. Before he had been carrying all of her weight, now her torso is terse against a flat surface while the dark man before her adjusts the weight of her legs, positions himself just right and, for lack of a better word- devours her.
And he's right, much to her chagrin.
She does scream before the night is over.
T'challa had only felt unease with his sister once before in his life. That day being after his return to Wakanda. After their fathers passing.
Before that morning at least, there had been next to no occasion where he had felt that same dreaded feeling twice. Never so intensely.
That wasn't to say that they hadn't clashed before, or that she hadn't caused him to sigh in disdain every now and then when she was being particularly stubborn. Her unpredictability had become so common and her growing curiosity for everything she had been taught to stay away from had caused him to show concern over her. But that was to be expected. Worrying over Shuri was natural, finding himself on the receiving end of her endless teasing, mood swings, and pranks was something he had learned to see as signs that she was just a healthy, growing young woman. With a penchant for annoying him, but he loved her for it. There were times where he had seen her distressed, or sad over the years. Of course there had been.
But never had his heart bled as much as it had then when his little sister crept into the cave he had retreated to after returning home after his fathers death. He had been cold. From the rain. From the hard stone floor of the cave. And from the pain of losing someone he had cherished his entire life only to lose him to a monster. He knew his mother wouldn't be able to bare it to see her son grieving so openly. And the tension it would cause in the palace...no. He knew he needed that time alone, for himself. And not just for him, but for everyone.
So he had welcomed the rain and the thunder. Crouching low, body retreating into itself, and his body becoming just as stoic as the cave walls themselves, T'challa had let himself drown in the overwhelming emotion that he had been fighting every since he came back. At one point he couldn't have known whether the wet trails continuously falling down his face and pooling on the stone floor were raindrops anymore, rather than his own tears.
Soon the thunder had been drowned out as well until the sound became a dull hum at the back of his mind. He had closed his eyes, blocking out the chaos of the forests surrounding the cave. Blocking out the turmoil that easily resembled the swaying trees and tossing leaves that flew about outside the cave. He remembered his father teaching him so many things when he was a child. How to yield focus. To filter his mind and the world around him to find peace. And how to dance happily in the reaping of harvest. Soon memories had overtaken him, and the storm was all but forgotten.
That is, until he felt a cold shaking hand brush against his shoulder. He remembered his body, so calm and one with his surroundings. Only to be shaken out of his reverie, a knife in his hand and aimed at the intruders throat in seconds. When he see's Shuri though, his hackles lower. The furrow at his brow grows smaller, though still visible as he takes in the sight of his younger sister kneeling before him, wet braids framing her face. The usual mischievous sparkle in her eye was nowhere to be seen. Her typical quirk at the edge of her lips absent as well. What had truly unsettled him though, were her eyes.
Those eyes, as black as midnight on it's most silent, were filled with unshed tears that glittered as lightning flashed over her body.
T'challa remembered his heart sinking like a rock into his stomach as she held his gaze unblinkingly, more vulnerable than he'd seen her be in years. She hadn't cried since she was an infant. Whether bloody knees from too much 'fun' in the gum trees or from not getting her way- Shuri's temper had always been an integral part of her, but tears were a nonfactor. An outlier- Shuri had adopted her stance early on that since tears couldn't solve her problems she would never waste her energy on them.
But that night had been different.
They had both lost a part of themselves when T'chaka was killed. Even if Shuri hadn't been there during the explosion, she was here now, in a world without her father. While her mother was broken. And while T'challa...well. He could be the first to admit he was broken too.
But if there was one thing that T'challa put above anything else, it was the safety and happiness of his family.
They had needed him. And there was no chance he would deny them comfort, even if he was barely holding on himself. That was not the prince T'chaka had raised him to be. That was not the man he had raised him to be.
So T'challa had swept his baby sister into his arms and held her throughout the storm, whispering soothing stories as their mother Ramonda had done for him when he was a child. Shuri didn't say a word throughout her brothers embrace but she didn't push him away as her tears finally fell on the floor of the cave, the rain overpowering the salt droplets in seconds.
That night his heart broke for his sister.
It was the first time he held dread in his heart, knowing he could never replace their father, but also knowing he now had a responsibility to be the rock of his family even in his darkest hours.
But something had shifted in his sister recently. It was the little things she used to do. Mostly to show her moods, when she was annoyed- chewing at her left cheek was something she resorted to. The slight tap of her fingers against her knee when she was giddy about something, or the way her eyes constantly glittered with excitement as she expanded their technology and studied the outside world through a lense.
Now she just seemed...empty.
T'challa was a painfully open book when it came to his loved ones, but he wasn't blind as a result.
That morning when she refused to even meet his gaze as her body retreated within itself, it had only been the nail in the coffin for what had been a long time nagging at the back of his head that something was wrong. When he brushed her hair away from her face, he found that her skin was cold, yet sweat trailed down her body in waves. His eyes instantly fell to a small bruise on her neck, and T'challa felt his face twist and his eyebrows furrow deep enough to form lines in his skin.
She had dismissed him before he could ask anything properly. Kept her gaze averted stiffly from his own prying eyes until she shut the door in his face and told him she would meet him at the lab in an hour.
He spent the better part of a minute staring silently at the door before he finally turned to leave, lifting his wrist and summoning Okoye.
When the hologram materialized before him, the dark eyes of his general met his own, an annoyed curve to her lips.
"Your majesty, that barbaric American is still requesting for you and Lady Shuri. How soon will you two be arriving?" 'Before I shove my spear through his chest' was the unspoken ending to the generals sentence. T'challa sighed deeply. Okoye's tone was full of venom, a clear sign that their visitor was breaching on her last nerve.
At any other moment in time, T'challa would be sympathetic. But the air around him seemed to bleed as concern for Shuri's well-being swept through his body.
Something was off about her. She smiled like always. Worked as hard as she'd always done. But her spirit had changed. And not in a good way.
And the spirits be damned, he wasn't going to let her suffer when he didn't even know what the cause of her suffering was.
"Okoye." T'challa demanded, his voice low and hard enough to cause his general to pause, her eyes glinting in curiosity. "Tell our guest that we'll be postponing this trip for one more day. Something...urgent has come to my attention."