Chapter Text
**Aleksander’s P.O.V. of part 2**
Aleksander still wasn’t sure this was happening, but he wouldn’t pause to ponder it, not now. He was going to give her everything he could while she was in front of him, and if it ruined him in the process, so be it.
He had felt the draw of power before, much like he knew other Grisha were drawn to his power. His centuries in this world had brought him in contact with many individuals with great power, and he’d felt the pull of it. Like calls to like. He’d even felt the draw of power from individuals not quite like the Grisha, those with a power fashioned from something older, but even those people had not understood him.
There had been other sun summoners, but in his centuries, he’d never come across another shadow summoner. He’d concluded long ago that it was some perversion of Illia Morozova’s power when he’d passed it to his daughter, and that power had passed to him from his mother– the power that had always struck a cord of fear. After a time of wishing he didn’t have to be alone, he’d accepted the fear that followed him and his power, honed it to work in his favor. He’d used it to manipulate kings and Grisha alike- fear had been his most powerful ally. But with Alina, it was different.
He was drawn to her. She did have great power, and the amplifiers had added to it. As summoners, their power flowed through the same vein in the world, but where he called to darkness, she called to light. She was his opposite, his mirror.
“Alexsander,” she moaned, breaking me from my revelry as I thrust myself into her. My name on her lips was a prayer I’d never known.
“Yes, Alina?” I managed, not wanting to remove my mouth from her skin longer than required. I wanted to be the one to show her everything. This glorious woman before me had two other men that wanted her, and yet, here I was, the one helping her explore her body. I was the one giving her this pleasure. Still, the power flowing between us was intoxicating, making it increasingly difficult to hone in on anything else.
“I want this, Aleksander. I want us. I want you.” Alina was speaking again. Those words. I couldn’t dwell on them now, but I wanted them to be true, to mean more than her wanting the pleasure of our bodies. I would give her this though, elicit these prayers from her lips for as long as she would let me. I grazed my teeth across her neck and she tightened her grip on my back. I continued down to the base of her neck and raised my eyes to her face. Her own eyes were closed, waiting in anticipation. I bit her neck, pulling a moan from her as her nails dug into my back, marking me like I was marking her.
“More,” she ground out. I couldn’t help the smile I gave her at that as her desire swept through me. When had this become our way– her calling forth these subconscious secret smiles? This bond between us was a strange novelty to me, and I granted myself leave to explore it. I ran a finger down her core, following it with tongue and teeth. The salty taste of her skin was divine. Maybe she was a saint. I would worship her as one. I found my mouth hovering over her breast. Longing to tease her a bit, I traced the curve of her with my tongue.
“Aleksander.” It was a plea, spilling from her lips.
“So eager,” I chorused, letting her see the pleasure her words brought me, letting her feel that pleasure coursing through me as I continued my thrusts into her. I couldn’t withhold my own longing though, so I bent my head, licking brazenly up the fullness of her breast. She arched into me then, filling my mouth with her. A moan escaped me. This woman. This impossible woman. I’d lived five centuries, and yet I’d never granted myself such pointless pleasure. There had always been a purpose, a means to be sought, but here, with her, I wanted. A dangerous game indeed.
I loosed my control, sucking her deeper into my mouth as she pressed her bare body against mine. I wanted to feel her, feel all of her. I pulled my knees under myself as I pulled her body against mine, thrusting deeply inside her. I was shocked for a moment, finding her moving then, as if she’d loosed the leash on herself as well and was ready to claim what she wanted from me. There were still so many things I wanted to do to her, but if she wanted to wring her own pleasure from my body, I would let her. She climbed into my lap, sliding herself back around me easily, and pushed her hips forward hard against mine.
“Fuck, Alina.” The words escaped me before I could think otherwise. It seemed that pleased her because she entangled her arms around me. I found I wanted her to take from me, whatever it was she wanted. This was no longer my offering to her; I was laid before her, and she would take from me what she wanted, and I would let her. That realization surprised me. This woman surprised me, and I found I liked that.
I slid a hand down her back, grabbing her ass, and slid my other to her head, entangling it in her silken hair. I kissed her then, slow, tender, lingering. I just wanted to taste her as she wrung her pleasure from my body. I couldn’t have imagined what that tenderness would spark within her. Her movements became rapid, fierce, as she moved her body against mine.
“Oh, Aleksander. Yes, please.”
I used her pleas as a guide to give her what she wanted, to help guide her through this new-found pleasure. I grasped her hips, helping her move on me as her body came apart. We were both panting, working up to our peaks together. I was surprised– a now common occurrence it seemed– to find that seeing her pleasure, feeling her pleasure was bringing me so close to my own. I watched as her body arched and bucked.
“Come for me, my Alina.” I spoke the words gently, not a command, but an instruction, hoping to give her a name for what her body was seeking. Her body shuddered around me, an exhilaration crashing through me as she cried my name over and over.
“Aleksander. Aleksander. Aleksander.”
The sheer pleasure in her words, my name from her lips brought me crashing down with her, spilling myself inside her with my final thrusts.
I held her there, body pressed against mine. I didn’t want this to end, didn’t want it to be over, didn’t want to go back to what awaited us outside this room, outside this moment. But I also found that I didn’t care. I was disappointed to find Alina pulling back from our embrace. I felt the loss of her acutely, but still couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face at the acceptance of what we had done, what we had given each other. She had trusted me, and I her.
“You’re beautiful, my sun saint,” I told her, tracing my thumb over those tender lips.
Alina blushed at my words, turning her face from mine, having apparently regained her self-consciousness despite our bare bodies still pressed together.
I couldn’t bare her embarrassment, her refusal to meet my eyes. I touched her tentatively, allowing my hand to gently caress her face, now worried that sudden movements may startle this tender woman before me. I turned her face back toward me, willing my gaze to lighten.
“Do not hide from me.” I failed to hide the frustration in my voice, and she blinked at my tone. I tried again. I was not accustomed to sincere gentleness.
“Please.”
Her eyes softened then, seeming to understand that there was no anger in my words. But how could I convey to her what I wanted to say, needed to say. Would she accept my words, or would she turn away yet again?
Her hand rose to my cheek, as if to sooth me. My eyes drifted closed at her touch. I’d thought the experience we’d just shared had been the culmination of intimacy, but this touch, her hand on my cheek, somehow brought us impossibly closer.
I remembered her earlier confession to me, that she wanted us and hesitantly continued on.
“Alina,” I began, failing to remove the pain from my voice, “I don’t want to do this without you. I can, but-”
She was ripped from me then– there one moment, gone the next.
“Alina. No, Alina, don’t do this. Don’t do this,” I shouted, begged, but she was already gone.
I don’t know how long I sat there, bent over myself on that table. I realized that, somehow, more than my body had been laid bare before her. And it had been too much. I thought what we’d shared had soothed the confusion, the guilt she’d felt at wanting me, at preferring me. I’d thought when she said that she was choosing me, that she meant she was choosing me over them-- all of them. Her Grisha, her followers, her Otkazatsia. I’d been wrong. Foolish, and wrong.
I gathered the scraps of my dignity as I gathered my clothes from the floor, from before the throne– that throne, that I’d meant to be hers.
As I dressed, I spooled myself inward, allowing my anger, my embarrassment to build my shield anew. I’d lived for centuries. I’d barred myself from this weakness hundreds of years before. This had been a slip, one I couldn’t afford.
I left the throne room and made my way to the war room in the little palace. This place would be my focus, provide the centering that I needed in this moment. I felt a familiar calm as I strode through those doors, locking myself inside. I observed the table, the maps along the walls, and reminded myself that we were at war. Alina’s actions had been just another ploy, a manipulation that I had used myself hundreds of times with Grisha, with royals, men and women alike. Had this been how they’d felt then, when they realized my actions had been just that– manipulation?
It didn’t matter, I reminded myself. I had a single focus again. I could no longer allow myself the weakness that was Alina Starkov, Sankta Alina, Sun Summoner, Sol Koroleva. I would shut her out. I must.
As if thinking of her had summoned her, I felt her presence begin to approach me. An urgency to guard myself against her flooded my mind, and what felt like a glazed shield encompassed me.
This connection Alina and I possessed was unlike anything I’d experienced with another. My knowledge of merzost and of amplifiers led me to believe it was, at least in part, due to the stag’s antlers that we could visit and communicate with each other in this way. Today had been the first time she had visited me though, so I hadn’t considered there was a way to block her, to keep her out.
I could still feel her, sense her presence all around me. I heard her call out to me, as if from a long distance, “Aleksander!”
I could see a figure before me, on the other side of the shield I’d erected. She wiped her hand at the surface, as if to clear a fogged glass, and I found that the haze began to give way. Was it her will or mine that allowed the barrier to fade? I inspected the haze, studying the feel of it, and clamped down on any lingering curiosity I had at why Alina had returned so readily. I’d made my decision, I would not allow myself this weakness any longer. The barrier turned a gleaming, sold black. Obsidian. My lips quirked up at that. There, Alina, I thought. Break through that.
I couldn’t hear her anymore, but I could still feel her, the essence of her, on the other side of that wall I’d built between us. Her power reverberated over it for a few more minutes, and I assumed she must be hammering her fists against it. I felt what seemed like a gasp of despair from the other side of the wall, and then nothing.
The absence I felt at the loss of her presence did not hold the satisfaction I’d hoped.