Chapter Text
“I think you fear this thing that binds us.” It didn’t frighten me. Not anymore. I took a slow step forward. He tensed, but didn’t move away.
“I am ancient, Alina. I know things about power that you can barely guess at.”
“But it’s not just power, is it?” I said quietly, remembering the way he had toyed with me when I’d first arrived at the palace- even before, from the first moment we’d met. I’d been a lonely girl, desperate for attention. I must have given him so little sport. Yet, I could tell that there was part of that tether that even he didn’t understand, couldn’t anticipate. It was why he’d come to me all those times, not to toy with me, torture me, but to try to understand what ever this was between us.
I took another step. He stilled. Our bodies were almost touching now. I reached up and cupped his cheek with my hand. This time the flash of confusion on his face was impossible to miss. He held himself frozen, his only movement the steady rise and fall of his chest. Then, as if in concession, he let his eyes close. A fine line appeared between his brows.
It was true then, what he’d confessed to me the night of our display for the king, even though he didn’t understand this, knew it was contrary to both our schemes, he did want this, want me and saints, it felt good to feel that desire coursing through him despite the confusion that ran alongside it.
I let my fingertips trail along his jaw as I rested my forehead against his. I breathed in slowly, allowing myself to savor that scent of his I hadn’t noticed until I started sleeping in his bed. I felt his breath on my lips as he spoke my name, “Alina”
“Don’t,” I whisprered, “not yet.” He didn’t move.
My heart was beating harder now, pounding in my ears, but I willed it to quiet. My hand on his face continued it’s trek along his jaw, down his throat, as my other hand found his chest, began moving slowly up to his shoulder, the back of his neck, into his hair. My own eyes closed then and a sigh escaped my lips. I knew that this was wrong, knew it, but still it felt so right. The longing between us pulling that tether tighter, weaving our story together again and again. I wanted this. He wanted this.
“Alina,” he dared to whisper my name again, a plea on his lips.
“Yes?” I whispered back.
“Please, Alina.”
My answering kiss was fiercer than anything even he had delivered to me. My lips were hard against his, my own plea matching his. My hand in his hair tightened, pulling his mouth against mine and our bodies closer yet. One of his hands found the small of my back, fingers splayed to feel more of me against him. A breathy moan escaped me, into his ear as his mouth began trailing kisses across my jaw, his other hand in my own hair, bracing my head as he moved his kisses lower, down my throat. I turned my head for him, giving him access and bunching his shirt in my fist.
He chuckled at that- the Darkling chuckled. I flushed with embarrassment, did he still think me just a silly girl he could use?
“Don’t do that, Alina,” he said, “don’t revert back to that girl who doubts her power over others, her power over me. I want this, want you just as much as you want me. More.” He was speaking slowly, quietly, as if this confession was hurting him. “Let me give this to you. Let us have this one thing between us, this secret that will be just ours before we go back to this war. Let us have this, Alina. Please.”
There it was again, that ‘please.’ Had the Darkling ever used that word with anyone else in his lifetime? In the many lifetimes he had lived? I didn’t speak my answer, but instead pulled back to look at him. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I ran my fingers along that perfectly chiseled jaw again and tilted his head up. He looked at me then, his grey eyes swirling with what could only be longing, but also loneliness. He was lonely. Another feeling I could understand. Another link between us. I tilted my head, studying him. His hands tightened around my waste, reading whatever longing and desire he was seeing in my eyes and then we were entangled again. My arms wrapped tightly around his neck as this time my lips brushed his ear, trailed down his neck and he groaned, sliding his arms beneath my backside and lifting me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me, I thought to the table. But no, he was too theatrical for a table. I groaned in annoyance as I realized where he was taking me. He chuckled again.
“Let me give you everything, Alina, even if only for a moment.”
He was giving me a glimpse, I realized, a glimpse of what he could lay at my feet now that he controlled Ravka. I wouldn’t think of that now, all the power, the future he could give me. No, right now I wanted to be in this moment, to share this secret with him.
He set me down on the throne beside his and braced his arms on either side of that throne as he kissed me again. My hands found the buttons of his shirt then, his eyes meeting mine, matching my hunger. He kissed me slowly, tugging on my lower lip with his teeth. I finished the buttons, and he shrugged off his shirt. I slid my hands down his chest, feeling the slim cut of muscles that lay there. His eyes closed again at my touch. Saints, I could get used to watching him come undone at my fingertips. He leaned over me again, placing his hands on my thighs, gripping them tight. A gasp escaped my lips.
“Tell me what you want, Alina. Rough?” he licked his lips, “Gentle?” We locked eyes. “Somewhere in between?” Slowly, he was speaking so slowly. I just wanted him, wanted all of him, now. His mouth twitched up at the corner, a cocky grin lacing his lips. “Well?”
“Yes,” I managed to stammer.
“Yes, what, Alina?”
“Yes to all of it,” I said as my mouth mimicked that cocky grin of his.
“Mmm, an apt pupil indeed,” he said and then barked, “Stand up.”
“Wha,” I began, flustered now, but that grin of his remained, so I stood and as his hand found the waist of my pants, I released the tension that had begun to course through me. I watched him as he worked, slowly sliding my pants from my hips. He was bare from the waist up, but I was now bare from the waist down. And nervous. I was so nervous. He must have felt it, seen that shift in me as well, as we both realized I’d never been this exposed to anyone. He met my eyes then, and the tenderness I saw in him caused a tentative smile to play at my lips as I realized he was kneeling before me on this dais..
“Gentle first, then,” he said as his hands started trailing up and down my thighs. My eyes fluttered closed at that caress.
“Sit,” he commanded, still smiling back at me.
I wanted to regain my composure, fought to force the flutters from my chest, and searched for a cocky retort. We could share this secret without me having to be a complete puddle on the floor because as much as I wanted this from him, he wanted to give this to me. The Darkling wanted to be gentle with me. He wanted to give me tender kisses in secret places, and I was going to let him.
“Only because you’re kneeling,” I said, semblance of composure finally returning.
“If this is the way we are to spend our days, I would gladly pledge my fealty here and now, Alina.”
Saaints, the way he said my name, as a plea and promise. I wanted him, and I would have him, but not before I had his mouth on me. I slid my hand up the side of his face as he planted kisses on the inside of my thigh. My mouth parted open in expectation. His hands, still gripping my thighs, slowly parted them and he brought his body fully between them. He paused with his head hovering at the apex of my thighs and inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of me.
“Did you know that your scent was all over my bed when I returned? The servants had all gone, so no one had changed the sheets.” His chest was heaving, his head downcast again. “I thought it would drive me mad, thought I’d rip the sheets from the bed and cast them into the fire, but every time I went to, I couldn’t. I would see you laying there before me the night I came to you in that bed, my bed and I would bury myself in those blankets, in your scent. I dreamt of you, Alina, my Alina, lying there in my arms, sharing my bed. I dreamt of us.”
He met my eyes, and there was a glisten I never imagined he was even capable of. Was this another trick? I’d already offered my body to him. Did he feel he needed to convince me further? Why show this vulnerability now? No, this wasn’t a trick, and even if it was, it didn’t matter. We would give ourselves to each other in this moment, let this be our lifetime together, lived out in this fevered dream and then we would go back to ourselves. So I leaned to him, kissing him tentatively and said, “In this moment, I am yours, and you are mine, and I will give you everything.” And I felt it then, felt that surety that so often came with his touch course through as he returned that kiss, slowly, tentatively as he moved his head to rest it on my shoulder and I felt the wetness of his tears on my neck. My fingers stroked his hair as we sat there, twining through the silken strands.
“What is your name,” I paused, “your given name?”
He pulled back from me then, just enough to see my face. “Aleksander.”
“Aleksander,” I slowly repeated back to him, smile meeting my lips at the feel of it. “Aleksander,” I whispered again. And the look in his eyes that came with the sound of his name on my lips almost undid me.
The tentative boy was gone and a man, an ancient, cunning, beautiful man knelt in his place. The man that now knelt between my legs had no more time for tears.
“Again,” he said,voice like gravel, “say it again.”
The heat that pooled inside me at that tone was impossible to ignore, so I let every ounce of desire show through as I spoke his name again.
“Aleksander.”
I barely had time to finish speaking it as his head, oh saints, his mouth fell between my legs. Both my hands fisted into his hair, pulling him closer against me as his tongue stroked up and down my folds. His hands were holding my thighs apart as they trembled around him. He stroked and massaged with his hands as they held my legs apart, his arms wrapped up and over my legs, barring me to him. And it was incredible. It was pleasure and pain, longing and release. I arched into him, again pushing his face harder into me. He pulled back from me for a moment, meeting me eyes, holding my gaze as he licked up me again. I moaned at the view of his tongue trailing up me, my body exposed before him. His eyes trailed down my body then and back up to my eyes as he shook his head.
“This just won’t do.”
I didn’t have time to react before my shirt was over my head, and I sat there, on a golden throne, bare before my King, my Aleksander. I grinned down at him.
“Done with me so soon, Aleksander?”
“Never, Alina.”
His mouth found mine again, our arms wrapping around each other, his hands hungrily feeling my body. The taste of me on his mouth had me moaning into him and he lifted me up from the throne then, the throne that would be mine if I chose him. I could choose him, I realized. It would be easy to choose him.
He did walk us over to the long table this time. He set me gently upon it, kissing me all the while. As soon as I was sitting, my hands found the buttons of his pants and I felt him smile through our kisses. Good, let him see that I wanted him too, that this wasn’t one sided, that it wasn’t only my greed that propelled me into this secret of ours. He let me struggle with his buttons for only a moment before he extricated himself from his pants and let me press my body against him, let me feel the hardness of him pressed against me.
“Aleksander,” I moaned against the skin of chest, daring a look at what lay pressed against me.
“Be patient, my Alina. In due time.”
He climbed over me then, pulling me with him fully onto the table, but he didn’t stay hovered over me for long. He was already trailing kisses back down my body. He placed a kiss between my breasts as I ran my fingers up and down his back. He met my eyes and moved his lips, kissed my breast once, twice. I watched as he moved his mouth to my nipple and slipped his tongue out to brush across me. I shuddered. He flicked my nipple with his tongue again, again. I pushed his head down on top of my breast. He laughed with his mouth full of me as he sucked. My breasts had always been small, insignificant, yet as he sucked them into his mouth over and over, I appreciated them for the pleasure they were giving me now. He pulled his mouth from my breasts and slid his hands brazenly down my body, back again, squeezed my breasts, and then slid his hands back to my thighs. He was kneeling before me again, straddling me, but this time there were no clothes between us. He raised one of my legs, wrapping it around his waist and holding it there. His other hand found a spot at the center of me and his thumb began stroking me.
“Saints,” I moaned, and he smiled.
As he stroked me, I slid my hands up his thighs. I knew his eyes were on me, but I didn’t meet them, no, I watched his body under my hands, I watched him react as my palms trailed the inside of his thighs, up, higher, until i felt him, one hand sliding back between his thighs, the other pulling forward to stroke the length of him. I still didn’t meet his eyes, I felt shy, but also curious. He was the first man I’d seen like this, felt like this, bare before me, and I wanted to take my time feeling him. I hadn’t realized his hands had stilled on me until he started stroking again, a slow circle on that glorious spot. I followed his lead, that same slow, steady pattern of stroking along his cock. I could have sworn he grew harder, longer in my hands as I went along that way until I felt Aleksander stroke a finger down lower.
“Alina”
I smiled at him. I could feel the wetness myself without him touching me now, but with his finger so close on the edge and the length of him in my eyes, I could barely stand the ache, the burning for him any longer.
I hummed at him, “I suppose I’m ready if you’d like to have your way with me now.”
He leaned over me, “Is the time for gentleness passed then?”
I guided him down the length of me, letting his tip graze my wetness, then back again.
“As much as I’d love to relinquish all control to you, my dear, I think you better let me do the initial guiding.”
“Oh?”
“The first time for a woman can be...uncomfortable, and in all your longing for me, I think you may be a bit hasty. Will you trust me with this, Alina?”
There was so much more to this question that he wasn’t saying, so much more between us, but again, I could give him this, show him this trust with my body, with my pleasure. What might come later wasn’t our concern, not yet. He was still waiting, having taken over the stroking I’d begun while I thought through our next moves, as I decided if I could indeed relinquish control to him, even if only for a moment.
I let him see the confidence in my decision, let the cocky grin grace my face once again as I said,” Have your way with me, Aleksander.” And he did.