Five

Language of Nocturnals

Ulfric startles at the splintering crack of wood, sage eyes widening and lips ajar. About to speak, she pulls his hair once more, tilting his head to the side. He offers a grunt in disapproval, but she persists. Leaning down, she grazes his earlobe with her teeth, sucking it into her mouth, eliciting a strangled moan from his throat.

The sound is pathetic— yet insatiable.

Acacia sucks lavender blossoms over the slant of his jaw and into the bobbing of his adam's apple, marring his skin with the color of her claim. He puts his hips up against her own—helpless. The friction must be sweet agony, the boning of her armor confining him. She feels his hand clawing at hers, untangling her grasp from his hair, his other hand lacing its fingers in her strands at the base of her neck, wrenching her back. Her lips unlatch from his neck with a soft pop, her glazed-over gaze finding his. He motions upwards, sitting up and holding her in his lap.

Their chests heave in unison, his jade irises merely thin ringlets surrounding blooming pupils, peering at her like that a hibernating beast, brusquely disturbed from slumber. There is no moment of reprieve— as he surges forward, catching her mouth in his.

Acacia cannot suppress the moan muffled into his mouth, his tongue syruping her senses and parting her lips, tangling with hers. She drags her nails over the brush of his beard, cradling his jaw as the stubble tickles her nose. Something akin to his name hums in her throat and she feels him exhale, air fuming out of his nostrils as he embraces her closer. It is torture— this descent of delirium from their iniquitous eclipsing mouths.

Ulfric pulls at her shoulder plates, prying them off without drawing his kiss from her. She moves with him, briefly coming up for air to undress, a flurry of aided motion to unlatch her hilt, yank off her boots, and remove her chest plate. Each piece of armor pummels the floor in clunks and thuds until she is left in only her undergarments. Acacia fumbles with the linen binding of her chest, and with a sudden snap Ulfric extracts the blade from the wall, impatience wrinkling his brow. He dips the blade between the fabric restricting her breasts, slashing apart the linen in a fluid swipe. The binding around her chest falls, exposing her unbound breasts, her pink nipples perked and pebbled by the frigid draft in the room. The severity of his stare causes a series of shivers to run up her spine, as he casts aside the dagger across the floor.

His mouth finds hers once more with vigor, his covetous palms enclosing her breasts. He grazes the callous of his thumbs over her nipples and her breath stutters, and he grins against her lips, humming his approval. He tilts her head to the side, trailing his kisses down the slope of her throat, indenting his teeth in her shoulder, and sucking hickeys into her collarbone. Her nails drag through his dirty blond locks, as his head dips down to press his lips to her breast, lapping his tongue over the bud of her nipple in devious flicks, then swirling it in teasing rings. It attenuates her mind. Winter's embrace unleashes her as heat surges between her thighs, fuchsia flourishing over her cheekbones.

"Ulfric—" she pants, fisting at his hair as he encloses his lips around her nipple, hallowing his cheeks and sucking it firm into his mouth.

"Hmmph," he muses, pinching her other nipple between his fingertips. Her head swivels back and forth, the slow-moving magma languorous in her core, soaking her undergarments with its indecency. Leveraging him nearer as he suckles hot kisses to her other breast, she shifts in his lap. She feels him against her, thick and heavy, growing taunt against his trousers. His arousal heightens her own as her fingers trail from the nape of his neck down to his crouch, splaying out over his endowment. He pulses at the featherlight sweep of her fingertips, gasping against her nipple.

"Ah—"

She wedges her fingers under the band of his trousers, yet she can only flail her fingers and stroke the skin above him with her nails. He unfastens his mouth from her nipple, sloppily clasping her jaw in hand to kiss her on the corner of her lips, arm wrapping around the small of her back. At her hip his fingers slip under the cotton of her panties, skimming over her skin. She tries to touch him, the straining in his fabric almost pitiful, yet he mutters hoarse—

"Takethem off."

Acacia obliges moving from his lap, immediate in how she tugs at his trousers causing him to raise his hips from the bed. She watches as his cock springs free, standing fully erect and throbbing. She absentmindedly considers if she can even wrap her fingers around the girth, yet he catches her fingers in his before she can try. He swallows hard, licking his lips as his guttural tone elicits her shivering sigh.

"Not mine, yours."

Oh.

She feels herself flush, yet he doesn't seem to dawdle in her fleeting embarrassment, instead placing his other hand on her hip, moving her so that she is standing off the bed. He swivels, sitting with his feet on the ground, glancing up at her for a moment, fingers curled at the fabric of her panties. Ulfric lingers– waiting. She knows what he wants, but the usual strength that ignites her is now dripping between her thighs, and she cannot offer anything but nod, pulse thundering against her ribcage.

She let him pull down her panties, a tremor descending her spine as his half-hooded eyes follow, admiring her arousal stick to the fabric, coating her inner thighs. She tries to calm her nerves, disgrace whiplashing her to her senses. Yet, it leaves just as suddenly, as he licks his lips— perhaps recalling the taste of her, all those nights ago.
Her hand caresses the scruff of his beard, thumb tracing his cupid's bow and the pedal of his lower lip. She parts his lips with her thumb, albeit smirking as he sucks it into his mouth.

He wants this.

I want this.

"Lay back," she commands, and Ulfric gives her a serpentine smile, obedient in motioning back onto the bed, lying flat. Acacia climbs on top of him, placing her slick cunt over the base of his cock, quivering at the sensation. His hands grip at either side of her hips, slipping herself over the slope of him, choking back a somber chuckle, her name made up of broken syllables—

"Acacia," he mumbles, and she takes hold of him, smearing her arousal over the length of him, rising her hips so that the head of his cock slips over her clit— over, and over, and over.

It feels so fucking good and she closes her eyes, ruminating on how he pants her name, hips stuttering up against her in a silent plea for entrance, to be enclosed in the velvet of her sex.

To have this supposed king beneath her, vulnerable, writhing.

To have Ulfric beneath me.

The thought is so immense that she cannot move, cannot bring herself to accept it—

All those months, writing back and forth in a loathsome script, stabbing the quill into parchment—like it was his flesh. The relentless and ruthless way they wrote to one another, yet there was always another carrier bird pecking at her window, rousing her from sleep, clawing at her daily thoughts.

Just take what you want and leave.

She opens her eyes, and he's inspecting her, contemplating her. He must know it— he must see it on her face, feeling it in the way she holds still. This infuriates her— for how he can know anything? She cannot bare to look at him, cannot bare to know how She had been with no one else since him, for he had ruined her for wanting—

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

Acacia pushes up on her knees, but she knows it is not to stand. It is not to rightfully leave like she should, like all the divines would have it, like the Empire did not rest on her shoulders, willing her to collapse in every waking moment she persist in causes she was seemingly ordained to take a role in. She feels as though she is Dovahkiin in name only— the souls she has reaped not enough to make her forget the shackles she wore to a chopping block, listening to her meager sins warranting certain death.

We were both prisoners then.

What has changed? If anything?

He shifts upright, moves to cradle her cheek or kiss over her eyelids, and she hates him for it—

"Acacia," he whispers, and it is unlike any time he's said it before. It is soft, gentle, weary.

"I know what troubles you," he remarks in that same tone, and her nostrils flare. She meets his solemn gaze.

"I know we are the same," his fingers slip over her mouth, "so don't run away from me again."

"I will give you what you want," he continues, his forehead pressing to hers, "what we both want."

You want all of Skyrim.

You want the empire.

You want endless power.

"What is it you want?" Acacia susurrates. Ulfric proposes no hesitation, tasting her lips and then leveling her stare.

"You."

Chapter Six

The Bear of Markarth

Her mind is made up of sand he sifts his fingers through. His admission melted the marrow of her bones like wax, and her breath is weaved in the way his mouth collided with hers. He drops his hand from her face, sowing shivers along her skin, traversing down her spine and grabbing her backside in a clenching handful. She croons into his mouth when his fingers delve slyly between her lower lips, circling her clit with his thumb.

"You're so honest here," he coos against her mouth, "wet for me."

She drags her kiss from his mouth to the underside of his jaw, sinking her teeth into his flesh, before lapping at it in languid licks, her hand curling around the base of his cock. His fingers still as she purrs into his ear, "you gloat too much."

She pushes at his chest, and he is compelled to lay down beneath her.

Acacia straddles him at his hips, his cock bumping against her sex as she grips his wrists and pins them with one hand above his head, ceasing his touch.

She tilts her head to the side mocking coy, watching his chest rise and fall, his jaw clenching.

"Be a good boy and shut up."

She lifts herself, knees cushioned by animal furs at either side of his temple, hovering her cunt over his face. She nuzzles his mouth against her clit, watching as he glowers at her. Regardless, his tongue flattens between her labia, stroking her in leisurely licks, and she keens, dropping her weight onto him, nearly smothering him. He jerks his hands from her loosened grip, squeezing at her ass, plunging his tongue inside her.

She moans, biting her knuckle whilst grinding and melding her cunt against his mouth, his eyes never leaving hers. The rhythm of his tongue guiding her closer and closer to the edge— to the divine— the sensation like that of soaring through the clouds, on the backs of her kin. An enticement no human is supposed to feel— no man can or could ever before emulate. His eyes close as he hums against her sex in an encouraging manner, the drench of her arousal coating the stubble of his beard. She feels him lift his hips, subconsciously thrusting up into the air, a desperate display.

Fuck. God. It's too fucking good.

I'm going to cum.

Acacia tries to rise from him, to cease this feeling of overwhelming titillation, yet he lifts his head, sucking on her clit, slurping at it whilst she starts to shake.

"Yes—" he praises into her sex, "Cum for me, cum for me—"

Her abdomen tightens and she feels its current rush from her head to her core, her eyes rolling back as she trembles on his tongue.

"Ulfric—" she cries, thighs shuddering and body convulsing, and she absurdly worries tears may spring to her eyes as cum dribbles down his chin.

A brief moment passes, and she feels herself begin to slump, mind comatose and senses slurred, as she wobblingly rises and sits on his stomach. She takes a breath, a lazy smile lifting the corners of her lips, his chin and jaw glistening from cum, his eyes profoundly dark—like the time right before dawn.

She lifts, ushering down his body until she hovers once more above his cock, the head of him still seeping precum. Acacia grabs his scruffy chin in her hand, forcing him to look at her, her other hand rubbing his sex over hers.

"Beg for it," she demands. He scrunches his nose and grits his teeth. She dips the tip of him inside her, before letting it slip out, pleased at the way his adam's apple bobs in his throat.

He has perhaps never begged for anything in his life. He regards her with disdain—yet relinquishes control.

"Please," he grunts out, yet she persists.

"Please what?"

"Let me… be inside you."

"See? Was that so hard?"

He is hapless in response, though his face distorts the moment she sinks on his cock, clutching at the animal furs beneath them as she tries to adjust to the girth of him.

"Ungggh..." He grumbles low in his throat, hands grappling at her hips, eyes clenched shut. She gasps, for it is insurmountable, stretching her open and filling her up completely, his hips rising to bring himself even deeper than she thought she could take. She peers down at him, and for not the first time she finds him beautiful, a flush coloring the tips of his ears, his lips parted in silent prayer. An innate desire develops in her chest, in her core, flowering in her throat. She leans down, her hair cascading over her shoulders as she steals his voice with a kiss, her mouth silencing any incoherency he may speak.

She fears he can hear her heart for it beats with each rise and fall of her hips as she slides up the base of his cock to its head, before slamming back down. The gradual rhythm of up, down, up down— the slapping skin a soliloquy for things she cannot profess. Each thrust feels infinite, like the morning will never come and this is the eternal, a dreamscape where she has ascended her very being. It feels too right, too good, the motion of his hips grinding up into hers, the milk of his name cooing against his mouth, the way he offers praise each time she moans it— the yes, the so wet, the mine, mine, mine—

He twines his tongue with hers, letting her ride him at any pace she set, whether it be torturous, whether it prolongs the inevitable. She can tell he suffers in pleasure in the way his breath becomes labored, in the way he pulses inside of her, in the way his kisses become lax and sloppy, the irregular juddering of his thrusts.

Acacia grips him at the base of his cock, slipping off of him with a pop. Her thumb drags around the underside of his head, spreading precum down the side of his shaft. He juts into her hand, grunting in frustration.

"You want to cum, don't you?" she taunts, and he nearly growls at her, yet she squeezes him in her palm, feeling over the pulse of a throbbing vein.

"Please," He gargles out, and she simpers.

She starts up again, this pattern of sinking down on him before rising all the way up again. She does this— over and over until she is edging herself, and he is losing control.

"Acacia." He commands in a graveled tone, yet she pays him no mind, teasing him mercilessly.

"Ulfric—" she dismisses, yet he is no longer willing to be obedient. Plucking at her wrists, he rises upright in one sweeping motion, pinning her onto her back. He leverages each of her legs up, her ankles over his shoulders, placing his erection over the seam of her sex. Without warning he thrusts deep within her, causing her toes to curl and her head to throw back against the bed, body quaking, a disassembled whine of,

"Ohhmm—"

He pumps himself in and out of her, the sound of slapping skin obscene as vulgar curses spill from his mouth, eyes surveying her. Her hands clutch at his backside, fingers tense over the pliable flesh, urging him on until he's hitting a spot that causes her vision to dissipate into stars.

"You feel so fucking good—" he shouts his eyes, the vein in his jaw pulsing, sweat building on his brow, "neverfelt so fucking good—"

His words are too much, like the tide rising up and over her head, intending to take her underneath, so far below that even the Daedric gods cannot reach her. She feels it coming, more potent than before, like a scream instead of a whisper she cannot control.

He muffles her mouth with his palm, hiding the noise she makes, for it is too loud to be confined to this room. It is as though the earth is cracking open and they are entering the abyss, the floodgates finally breaking through years of refined restraint. She feels her sex clench down on him as she shudders, spasms coursing beneath her skin and down her spine, body thrumming as she cums. He groans her name, and she feels his hips stutter as his cock pulsates, filling his seed inside her.

He keeps himself nestled inside her for a time, before letting her legs slide down his shoulders. Her breath rises and falls, the scenery of the room a stirring of golden hues, sandalwood scents, wind whishing sounds. He collapses beside her, squandering no time in pulling her to him, tucking her against his chest like she is something precious— his mouth pressing soft kisses against her fingers. Exhaustion consumes her limbs and she let him cradle her to him as seals the heat between them, pulling the animal furs over their bodies.

It is deeper into the night, when the lulling of his slow beating heart intends to keep her here forever, that she untangles herself from his sleeping form. As quiet as she can— she dresses in her armor, stilling anytime she hears a hitch in his gentle snores. Acacia treads to his desk, stuffing the many letters beneath her chest plate. Picking up her helmet, she hesitates in pulling it over her head, momentarily caught in place.

She watches him sleep for a second or two, pondering a morning when they could awake together, far removed from fate. If she was only a woman— not a vessel for the Divines, for Daedra, for an Empire. If he was only man— not a martyr for the Nords, the murderer of a High King.

He will loath me, just as he always did.

We will wage war against one another like nothing has changed.

She places her helmet over her head, hastening to the door and leaving the encampment before anyone could wake. Even when it is many miles away— when she has gone cities far— when she has ridden a Dovah over the mountains and past the sea.

It is still not far enough.

I can never be far enough from you.

Silhouettes of bodies pass over skin

sowing shivers in the silk of silent hours,

He who fists the marrow

whose finger bruises bloom over my throat.

"Make of me a better man,"

he says with fingers in my mouth.

Made of slush red it's dripping,

and I can only bleed in his voice.

...to be completed..