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racefortheironthrone · 10 months

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BOE, the Messenger(s), and the Trillionaires

Introduction

I’ve been doing a re-read of the Locked Tomb - although technically it’s a re-listen, because I like the audiobooks - and I stumbled across a particular passage that hadn’t stuck in my memory before that made me rethink my understanding of the origin of Blood of Eden. Ever since Harrow the Ninth and especially since Nona the Ninth, there’s been this common interpretation that the BOE are descendants of the trillionaires who abandoned Earth and that’s why John is at war with them. I’m not so sure that’s true any more.

Here’s why. In Nona, when the whole business with Crown/Corona infiltrating the barracks kicks off, there’s an interesting exchange between Camilla and We Suffer about the Oversight Committee that includes this statement:

“Hect, what you must understand about Blood of Eden is that we own things in common, we share responsibilities and resources in common. She could have moved these resources at will...but I must make one move at a time. And above all, I must place the safety of...Blood of Eden’s continuity...even above the mission.” (Emphasis mine.)

This took me aback somewhat, because the emphasis on militant communal ownership doesn’t really fit with the idea of “descendants of trillionaires.” I suppose one could say that it’s been ten thousand years, cultures change and drift over time...except that, as I’ll get into later, the BOE seems very very insistent on cultural preservation, so it would be a bit out-of-character if they changed that stance on this one particular issue.

And that’s what made me think: what if the BOE aren’t the descendants of the trillionaires? What if they’re the descendants of the non-trillionaires on the FTL ships?

East of Eden: A Theory About What Happened After the FTL Ships Jumped

So here’s the question that’s been percolating in my mind: once you’re out in space, why keep listening to the trillionaires, especially about the vital question of who owns the precious resources brought from Eden and who gets to decide happens next? There would probably be some residual cultural deference to the visionary disruptors, but the traditional answers of property law backed up by the state or men with guns paid to enforce the orders of the capitalists kind of break down when you consider that:

In John’s chapters (and verses) in Nona, we get an account of what happened leading up to and during the Resurrection: according to John, the trillionaires pulled a con job on the planet with their FTL ships, pretending that a fleet of twelve ships, each carrying a few thousand people (made up of “hand-picked guys” and “two hundred nominated people”), was merely the first wave of a planetary evacuation. As Mercymorn and others worked out, there were no future waves, no plan to come back and pick up more, the trillionaires had liquidated their cash and financial assets in favor of buying up material resources they’d need in space, and everyone else was being left for dead.

These twelve ships (possibly minus one, it’s not clear whether John managed to destroy the one he grabbed before it jumped) and the 20-odd thousand people on them must be the ancestors of exo-humanity as it exists in the myriadic year. But we know that of those 20-odd thousand people, only a “half-dozen” were the trillionaires. Everyone else was staff they’d selected to do the work of planetary colonization, plus a tiny group of people chosen by the governments of Earth Eden.

other than 200 randos who are likely to be recruited from the ranks of elected officials and upper management bureaucracy rather than Special Forces, the forces of the state are not only light-years away but also just got eaten by John Gaius.

it’s a bit harder to pull off the Jay Gould method when you’ve turned all of your cash into raw materials, there’s nowhere to spend cash in space, and it doesn’t take long for men with guns in that scenario to decide that the resources belong to them actually, because they have the guns.

While we know that some form of a market economy exists on New Rho and the other exo-planets, there doesn’t seem to be any sign of an oligarchical ruling class based on ownership of capital. Rather, we see a state of anarchy where there is no hegemonic entity but duelling centers of power. This suggests to me that the trillionaires’ power did not last very long after human settlement outside the solar system, possibly due to a (potentially bloodless) revolution in which the only surviving members of humanity just decided not to listen to six old (white) men and took their shit in order to survive.

In that scenario, I could see it being the case that the collective memory of communal ownership of property in the midst of a crisis could linger among a certain sub-population and provide the origin for this aspect of BOE’s internal culture.

So where did BOE come from?

Well, in large part it emerged as an organic response to John Gaius’ imperialist campaign against exo-humanity. As I noted elsewhere, John’s revenge against those who abandoned Earth in her hour of need is essentially a re-enactment of colonialism - the Cohort shows up with their overwhelming military might, forces the local population into subjugation with unequal treaties, imposes its language and customs, destroys the natural environment in a drive for short-term resource extraction, and then forces people into an endless cycle of being resettled on reservations over and over again - which makes a certain sick sense, in that it’s probably the worst thing that a Kiwi of Maori heritage could think of doing to their enemies.

He even goes to the extent of modelling the Cohort uniforms on 19th century British Army uniforms with the colors reversed, and coming up with his own gloss on the Christianity that was imposed on indigenous populations in the name of “civilizing” them. This campaign is only mystifying to outside observers like Augustine and Coronabeth because they don’t have the cultural context to know what John’s up to (in no small part because he’s used his necromantic powers and political position in order to suppress all knowledge of that context).

And thus, it’s not that surprising that John’s imperialism provoked anti-colonial resistance: when his Empire made contact with exo-humanity, to the extent that anyone still remembered him, it was as the horrific necromantic cult leader who murdered the ten billion and destroyed Eden, and now he’s come to finish the job in the name of collective punishment for the sins of six dead men, and by the way he’s bringing death and the defilement of the dead and the destruction of everything you’ve ever built with him. There probably have been dozens and hundreds of resistance movements - some local, some planetary, some multi-planetary - that rose up and got crushed over thousands of years.

So what makes BOE different from all other resistance movements?

The Messenger(s)

I want to go back a few thousand years and talk about what happened when the FTL ships managed to escape the solar system. While interplanetary colonization would always be an incredibly stressful experience even without a revolution, the fact that all of this was happening in the wake of John nuking Earth and killing the ten billion, then devouring the solar system, and their narrow escape from his wrothful grasp would have added an entirely different level of terror to the event - but also a new sense of responsibility.

Because - regardless of whether people on the FTL ships knew about the trillionaires’ supposed plan to abandon humanity on Earth or believed John’s accusations - they were now the sole survivors of humanity, the carriers of all culture and history. The ao3 author Griselda_Gimpel has a really good series of fics imagining the development of exo-humanity from the FTL ships onwards, and in one scene they mention the enormous sense of cultural loss that people on those ships would have felt when they realized that the internet was gone forever.

And this got me thinking: what if some nerds on those ships had that kind of profound reaction and decided to preserve as much of Earth’s heritage as possible? How would you do that with limited access to computer storage and humanity potentially scattering across multiple planets, and knowledge being lost forever with the march of time as the original settler generation died off and was replaced by new generations born outside the solar system? I think the answer is:

Oral tradition. See, one of the things that fans of the series have been talking about for a while is the implications of the myriadic duration of the Empire, what that would have done to language and culture in the Nine Houses and among BOE, how is it that people can still be speaking the same language or reading the same writing as from the time of the Resurrection, let alone remember memes and cultural references from the 21st century? This is a fair reaction from a Western perspective - after all, ten thousand years ago would be roughly 8000 BCE or smack dab in the Early Neolithic. Surely it would have been impossible for the memory of Earth to have survived that long.

But, as people have said, Tamsyn Muir is writing a very Kiwi series. And one of the things that is very distinctive about the culture of Aotearoa is the oral traditions of the Maori and Pasifika cultures more generally. While Maori oral histories go back to the 13th century CE when Aotearoa was settled, Australian Aboriginal oral tradition goes back as far as potentially 30,000-40,000 years. Oral tradition is not perfectly reliable, it undergoes drift and change over time, it can experience loss and disruption (from colonization, for example), but it can endure across millennia.

My theory is that these nerds on the FTL ships or their descendants dedicated themselves to the mission of cultural preservation through oral tradition, and thus the Messengers were born. And at some point, the Messengers met up with Blood of Eden and explained that John Gaius’ colonial campaign wasn’t just an unjustified act of aggression and imperialism, but an act of cultural genocide stretching back 10,000 years:

“I charge you with...the utter disintegration of institutions political and social, languages, cultures, religions, all niceties and personal liberties of the nations, by use of-”

“...they’re dead words--a human chain reaching back ten thousand years...how did they feel?” (Harrow the Ninth)

Somewhere around this point, then, BOE took as its mission the preservation of the Messengers, which is why they are given BOE bodyguards, why discharging a weapon in their presence is grounds for execution, and why they are both deeply respected and honored by BOE but kept away from sensitive missions and not necessarily kept in the loop on critical intel.

Why AIM is “They”

This part of my theory suggested an explanation for why AIM is called “they” by Blood of Eden, and why Palamedes Sextus sensed a necromantic implant when they “stumbled” into AIM at the school. We know that the Sixth House has been in contact with Blood of Eden for a very long time, and that Cassiopeia was not only responsible for the Sixth’s “break clause” but also was BOE’s “Source Gram.”

My theory is that Cassiopeia and the Sixth, being a bunch of librarian nerds obsessed with the preservation of cultural knowledge, would never have been entirely comfortable with taking John Gaius’ word for what happened during the Resurrection and what life was like on pre-Resurrection Earth. The natural place to look for an alternate source of documentation would be exo-humanity, and I think she/they went looking clandestinely and came across the Messengers and BOE. Somehow, they avoided killing each other and came to a modus vivendi.

I think part of this modus vivendi was an offer by Cassiopeia/the Sixth to provide the Messengers with an improved means of preserving their oral tradition: namely, a necromantic implant that would preserve the ghosts of dead Messengers and let them communicate with their successors, ensuring that the oral tradition could be passed down perfectly from generation to generation. After all, not only are the Sixth House spirit magicians, but they are specialist psychometricians who know better than anyone else how to pull information about and from the past from material objects, and it was Doctor Sex who gave Palamedes the idea for preserving revenant spirits after death by giving them a physical anchor.

Hence, AIM is they because they are a collective “human chain” of all the Messengers who came before them - they have the voices of hundreds of cultural preservations in their heads, telling them of all that was lost with the fall of Eden. No wonder they want to play school teacher and be “she” for a while.

Conclusion

TLDR: BOE aren’t trillionaires, they’re commie terrorists with a fetish for cultural preservation. So I guess this makes the whole war a case of leftist infighting, considered in the long run?

#the locked tomb #blood of eden #boe #aim #the messenger #the angel #ntn #ntn spoilers #nona the ninth #pash #our lady of the passion #the sixth house #cassiopeia #tlt

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kingofsummer93 · 10 months

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Plant a Jasmine in the Night

Summary:

On her first ever assignment as Night Court emissary to the human lands, Elain stumbles onto something she shouldn't have seen.

What was meant to be her chance to have a taste of freedom might just end up pushing her towards the one person she's been avoiding all along.

Rating: E

Read it on Ao3

Inspired by an @sjmkinkmeme prompt. Elain's dream was inspired by this gorgeous comic by @artcraawl.

The dream started as it always did. It was night, and Elain was in her garden at the River House. The air was fragrant with late summer blooms, and something else- something that she couldn’t place at first, but that tugged at her heartstrings like a distant, fond memory.

A crisp wind sent goosebumps erupting along her skin. She rubbed her arms, teeth chattering with cold. The next moment a warm wind encircled her, a bubble of warmth wrapping itself around her like a cocoon. That distant scent became stronger- woodsmoke, crisp apples, and something else. Something like the scent of sun-warmed skin, musky and so inherently male that a small whine escaped her lips as she filled her lungs with it.

Elain closed her eyes and sighed. It was so pleasant, the warmth and that mouth-watering scent, that she could have stood there forever. She was aware of a presence behind her, but she didn’t mind. Not even as a familiar noise interrupted the silence around her- a steady, unfaltering thump, calling to her like a port in a storm.

It grew louder as he came closer, that golden thread of light coiling tight in her chest, buzzing in response to his closeness. His arms wrapped around her, those large hands settling on her stomach, and then his lips were near her ear, tickling her skin. Elain tipped her head back against his chest, melting into the solid warmth of him.

“I’ve missed you.”

Elain woke with a gasp. For a moment the scent and warmth lingered around her, and she clung to it even as it slipped away from her like sand through her fingers. And then it was gone.

She hadn’t had the dream in a long time. It was usually triggered by Lucien’s presence, and she hadn’t seen him in months. Not since Nesta and Cassian’s mating ceremony, where he’d avoided her like the plague.

The memory of that night made her burn with fresh embarrassment. He was always impeccably dressed, but he had looked particularly handsome that night, in a white shirt and emerald green vest trimmed with gold embroidery. His long hair had been unbound, with two little braids snaking around his ears, revealing their elegant, pointed tips. She had thought that perhaps Lucien might ask her to dance- and that even if they went back to their usual rhythm of avoidance, she might at least have that memory to cherish in secret.

Instead, she had looked on with growing jealousy as he asked every other female in attendance to dance, except for her. She could hardly blame him- no doubt he had expected her to say no, and had wanted to avoid a particularly public rejection. Still, it had felt like a rejection of its own.

I don’t want it, Graysen had told her, after she had offered him her heart.

Mistake, Azriel had told her, after she had offered him a kiss- and perhaps more, if he had wanted it.

And then silence and avoidance from her mate- her cauldron-blessed soul mate, bound to her forever. Whom she couldn’t even escape from in her dreams.

Lucien wasn’t even supposed to be here tonight. It was partly why she accepted the job in the first place. With her mate permanently stationed in the Spring Court to keep an eye on the situation with the Autumn Court border, he had less time on his hands to act as Night Court emissary to the human lands. Elain had volunteered for the job, eager to finally do something.

Feyre had been hesitant, at first, and more than a little surprised, but Elain had stood her ground. What was the point of all the freedom that her new life as fae offered her, if all she did with it was tend to her garden and help cook meals for her family? She was familiar with court politics of the human lands, and knew how to act around their nobility. The social season was a kind of court warfare of its own, after all. And besides, with Lucien spending most of time in Spring, she wouldn’t need to worry about running into him.

Or so she had thought, until she had done precisely that.

She had breathed a sigh of relief upon her arrival when it had become apparent that her mate was not around. Vassa had been cheerful and kind, and Jurian, though Elain was still uncertain how she felt about the man, had been polite, if a bit sarcastic. Given the fact that Vassa was only in her human form after sundown, the pair had graciously offered to host her for the night, and Elain had agreed. She’d even started to enjoy herself by the time they sat down for a late dinner, her nerves put at ease by Vassa’s relaxed irreverence, and Jurian’s witty remarks.

Until he had waltzed in, looking casually handsome in a breezy white linen shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. Elain had cursed herself for not noticing his arrival. Maybe her senses were somewhat dulled by the lack of magic in the air. The way he had frozen upon seeing her had been so comical that Elain would have laughed, if she hadn’t been so mortified.

After a painfully awkward dinner, during which she had studiously avoided his gaze, she had politely declined Vassa’s offer of a game of cards, and had retreated to her guest room like a scared mouse.

It was too much, seeing him like this, relaxed and joking with his friends. The only person he ever acted with this way was Feyre, and occasionally Varien and Cassian. It made him more real, somehow, and less like a vague, occasional visitor that she could pretend didn’t exist. She didn’t need any opportunity to start seeing him as someone that she might like. That was a dangerous road- one, she was keenly aware, that only ever led to being hurt.

If only she had the power to winnow, she might have written a note to Jurian and Vassa, thanking them for their hospitality, and disappeared into the night. But she couldn’t, which meant she was stuck here, under the same roof as him, until morning.

And now she couldn’t sleep.

Elain kicked off the covers in frustration. There was no use trying to go back to sleep now, not with the memory of that dream still rattling her nerves. She had once asked Madja for a sleeping tonic, thinking it would help, but she had learned the painful way that though the tonics indeed helped her sleep, they did not keep the dreams at bay.

She wrapped a robe around herself, thinking she’d slip down to the kitchens for a cup of tea. Perhaps with a splash of whiskey in it, if she could find some. Maybe then she’d be able to sleep.

She hesitated a moment before opening her door before checking the small clock on the bedside table. It was well past midnight- surely everyone was asleep by now? Lucien’s heart was a steady, even beat, a mockery of her own jangled nerves. Surely asleep, then.

The upstairs landing was quiet and dark, a single oil lamp at the top of the stairs confirming that her path was clear. The sight of that oil lamp was jarring, somehow. She’d grown so used to the sight of fae light that she had almost forgotten it didn't exist here.

The thick carpet absorbed the sound of her footsteps as she crept down the hall and towards the stairs. Maybe being back in the human lands was messing with her, she told herself. Maybe that was why she couldn’t sleep. Even the food at dinner had tasted wrong, though it had looked and smelled delicious. The fish, glazed and flaking under her fork, had tasted like the bottom of a river, and the wine, though she recognized the vintage as being a fine one, had burned all the way down her throat like a mouthful of vinegar.

Perhaps that was the problem. Not the dream, or him, but being here. The wrongness of being here only highlighted how used she had gotten to her new world, to the strangeness that now felt normal. Something about that made her feel sad.

She had almost reached the bottom of the stairs when a light from the foyer snapped her out of her reverie. The door to the sitting room was halfway closed, even though it had been thrown wide open during the evening. Maybe the others were still playing cards, and hadn’t wanted to disturb her sleep.

Elain hesitated. There would be no hope of sleeping if she went back upstairs now. The best she could hope for was a sleepless night spent tossing and turning. She’d simply have to sneak past the door and hope Lucien wasn’t there to sense her presence- or that he’d ignore her if he was.

She took another step, moving as quietly as she could- and then a noise made her freeze, her foot hovering over the stairs. A soft gasp, throaty and definitely feminine. Elain gripped the banister, holding her breath. Her heartbeat was so loud in her own ears that she was once again grateful that Lucien couldn’t hear it.

Had she imagined it? Maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her after that blasted dream…

Another noise drifted from the sitting room, one that she had definitely not imagined. A high-pitched whine, but muffled, as if whoever was emitting those sounds was trying hard to be quiet.

Elain might have been inexperienced, at least by fae standards, by she wasn’t clueless. Her face grew hot as she deduced what exactly was going on in the sitting room.

She wanted nothing more than to turn on her heels and bolt back up the stairs, but she was rooted to the spot. Lucien’s easy manner with Vassa at dinner flashed through her mind on a loop. White-hot jealousy hit her like a brick, so overpowering that it almost took her breath away. Surely…surely he wouldn’t, not while she was staying with them? Surely…

But then again, she reminded herself, that hadn’t bothered her on Solstice. Why should he hold himself to higher standards?

Her hand clenched tighter on the banister. An inexplicable mix of emotions was coursing through her veins, making her feel as though she was a second away from bursting out of her skin. She couldn’t move- her feet somehow didn’t belong to her anymore, and she could no more control them than she could alter the weather.

Elain had just managed to lift one foot from the stairs when Vassa moaned. Not a quiet whine or gasp like before, but a deep, low, dragged-out moan. The restraint was gone, as if she simply couldn’t hold herself back any longer.

That single moan was so erotic, so uninhibited, so unabashedly joyful that Elain froze again. Heat pooled low in her stomach as she felt herself flush even deeper.

This was wrong. It was wrong on so many levels, but still she couldn’t move. She just wanted to hear it one more time.

There was a low rumble of laughter, wicked and decidedly male, followed by the unmistakable sound of a slap. A gasp (delighted, by the sounds of it) and then more wicked laughter.

Elain tasted copper in her mouth, and she winced as she realized she’d been biting her lip so hard she had drawn blood.

“Yes,” Vassa gasped “yes, yes!”

Elain’s skin felt too tight, too restricting for the heat flowing through her veins. She felt like her blood had been set to boil, and soon she’d either melt or burst into flames, right here on the stairs.

Move, she urged her feet. Do something.

She took another step down, and then another, and it wasn’t until her feet hit the landing that she realized she had walked down the stairs instead of up. Vassa’s moans were quickening, her gasps becoming edged with desperation. What could Lucien be doing to her, she wondered, to elicit such sounds from her?

Her stomach clenched with a strange mix of jealousy and want. Lucien was meant to want her. Not Vassa. She had thought he did, at least in whatever primal, physical way the bond urged him to. But could she really blame him for seeking a willing companion, when all she ever did was reject him?

A new and horrible thought occurred to her. What if they were in love? Physical pleasure, she could understand, but being cast aside once again so thoroughly…

“Jurian! Yes, oh Gods…”

Jurian. Not Lucien. The relief she felt was nothing short of a tidal wave. And yet- why was it that she was somehow disappointed, to know that it hadn’t been her mate who made such wanton sounds come out of another female?

She was just curious, she told herself, even as she edged closer to the door to the sitting room. It was perfectly normal to be curious about these things, especially when her own experience was so limited…

A flash of movement caught her gaze. There was a large gilded mirror on the wall of the foyer, and from this angle she could perfectly see the reflection of the sitting room- and its occupants. Elain had to bite her lip to keep herself from gasping.

Vassa was kneeling on the ground, her thighs on either side of Jurian’s head as she rocked on his face with wild abandon. She was wearing nothing but a thin silky shift that had been yanked down to expose full, luscious breasts that bounced with every rock or her hips.

A rush of heat zapped through her, the faint ache between her legs growing to a thrumming pulse. She couldn’t look away as Vassa cried out, her body seizing uncontrollably from her pleasure.

Sex with Graysen hadn’t been anything like that. Elain had enjoyed the closeness, and the intimacy, but the act itself had been mostly uncomfortable and she’d been much too nervous to feel any pleasure.

This sort of pure physical lust, the pursuit of pleasure for the sake of it, fascinated her. She wanted to see what they would do next. The scent of their combined arousal was heavy in the air, salty and musky. She was glad neither of them had fae senses, or they’d surely be able to scent her own. It was wrong- she was a voyeur at best and a pervert at worst, but they didn’t have to know.

But then Vassa’s eyes snapped open, and caught her gaze.

Elain inhaled sharply, and then stopped breathing altogether. She was frozen, a marble statue with nothing but a thundering, racing heartbeat to betray her.

Move, she urged her traitorous feet. Make some excuse and run. She’d never more wished that she had the ability to winnow than at that moment.

She opened her mouth–to say what, precisely, she had no idea–but no sound came out.

If it had been her getting caught like this she would have yelped, and stumbled to cover herself, but Vassa did no such thing. Her arresting blue eyes widened in surprise for the briefest of moments, and Elain prepared to launch herself into a tirade of apologies and excuses.

But Vassa only grinned, and then she lifted a finger and beckoned to Elain. Something about the gesture jolted her out of her frozen stupor.

“Sorry!” she squeaked, whirling around so her back was to the sitting room. “Sorry, gods, I didn’t mean to-“

A low laugh, some whispered words, and then wicked, delighted chuckles. Elain bolted for the stairs.

“Wait!”

The voice was male, and laced with enough authority that Elain halted with her foot on the bottom stair. Oh gods this was mortifying, they’d tell Lucien about it and he would tell everyone and she’d never live it down…

“Where are you running off to?”

The voice behind her was Vassa’s, accompanied by the soft patter of bare feet. Elain didn’t dare turn around.

“Sorry!” she said again. “I didn’t mean, I was just going to the kitchen for tea and-“

Vassa tsked. “Poor thing, can’t sleep? We could help with that.”

Elain peered over her shoulder in surprise, and immediately blushed as her eyes landed on Vassa’s bare breasts. The woman seemed completely unperturbed by her nudity.

“What?”

“How long were you watching us?”

“I wasn’t- I didn't mean to-“

“I like to watch too,” Vassa whispered. She stepped closer, until her peaked nipples pressed against the thin fabric of Elain’s robe. “I could watch while you have a turn with Jurian. He knows how to use that tongue for more than mouthing off.”

Elain flushed with a strange combination of mortification and heat. An image flitted through her mind for just a moment- her nightgown ruched up to her waist, fingers gripping her tightly by the hips as she moved. Except it wasn’t Jurian beneath her, but someone with long, silky red hair, and two-toned eyes that shone with fire and mischief.

“Oh! Um.” She had to get out of here. There was no way she’d ever be ever to continue her role as emissary, that was abundantly clear. “That’s, um-”

She went to take a step but froze as Vassa’s fingers landed at the nape of her neck, brushing her hair aside. Her fingers felt deliciously cool and yet sinful against her heated skin.

“Or we could have him watch us. He’d love that.”

A low chuckle from just inside the sitting room. “Indeed.”

What was she doing? “No thank you!”

She didn’t turn around again before sprinting up the stairs, half expecting Vassa to chase after her. When she reached the top landing she pressed her forehead against the wall, letting her racing heart slow down. With her fae hearing she could hear the muffled sounds of quiet laughter from downstairs, but thankfully no footsteps on the stairs.

Elain couldn’t decide what was more mortifying- that she had been caught, or that she had enjoyed watching. There was no way she’d be able to face either of them ever again. She’d just lock herself in her room and wait for Rhysand to come bring her home in the morning, and that would be that. So much for taking advantage of her freedom.

Her pulse slowed enough that her blood was no longer pounding in her ears, and that’s when she heard it. Another heartbeat, one that did not belong to her, reminding her of who else was currently in this manor. What had she been doing? She’d never be able to face him now, either.

She turned towards her room, and stopped short as she realized she wasn’t alone. There he was, leaning against the open doorway to his room. Her mate.

He was wearing nothing but low slung pants that looked to have been hauled on carelessly. His hair was unbound, dripping over his shoulder like a river of dripping embers. Elain’s gaze caught on the expanse of muscled chest and rippled abs on display, down to the carved hip muscles and the trail of auburn hair that led into his waistband.

She felt herself blush, but caught herself before her eyes could trail further south, snapping her gaze back up to his face- and to the positively devilish grin on his face.

“Everything all right?” he asked, eyebrows lifting in feigned ignorance. That gesture told her everything she needed to know about what he had overheard.

“Fine,” she replied, too quickly, too breathlessly. She cleared her throat. “Just…I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to get some tea, and-“

“And you walked in on Jurian and Vassa fucking?”

Elain winced at the crude language, but mostly at the fact that she had. As if to emphasize the fact, a loud groan sounded from downstairs.

“Don’t they know that doors close?” She had been aiming to sound stern and annoyed, but it fell more than a bit short.

Lucien’s grin widened. He took a slow, almost feline step towards her. Elain instinctively backed away from him, but there was nowhere to go.

“They like having people watch.”

“So Vassa said.”

She wanted nothing more than to end this mortifying conversation and lock herself in her room, but Lucien was barring her path.

“Are you well, my lady?” Lucien continued, taking another step towards her. He was close enough now that she could see as his nostrils flared slightly, his russet eye growing dark as he registered her scent. “You look flushed.”

Damn him. Damn the fae and their senses, and damn the humans downstairs–definitely still entangled, by the sounds of it–and damn him most of all, and-

“I’m not your lady,” she snapped. The words shocked her even as they came out of her mouth.

Lucien blinked in surprise, and then his shock slowly melted into a delighted smirk.

“Maybe not. But you are my mate.” Elain shivered at the word, and then gritted her teeth as she saw Lucien track the motion. “Can’t fault me for wondering why you’re looking so feverish when you were perfectly healthy earlier.”

His grin was so smug that she felt like clawing it off his face. He knew. He knew and he found it hilarious.

“I’m just…a little warm, that’s all.”

She was struggling to look anywhere but his face. It was proving to be more and more difficult as he prowled so close to her that she was finally forced to crane her neck to look up at him.

Immediately she wished she hadn’t. The low light of the torch burning at the top of the stairs cast the sharp panes of his face in stark relief, his long hair practically alive with flame where it flowed over his shoulders. She could feel the heat emanating from his bare skin, and it was an effort not to reach out and touch it, to see if she could feel the flame that everyone said ran through his veins. Elain would have melted in embarrassment at the impropriety of it all, if she hadn’t been so desperately attracted to him.

Mate, she reminded herself. He’s your mate that you don’t want, don’t need, didn’t ask for-

His gaze dipped, slowly trailing down her body until it snagged on her bare legs. He swallowed thickly, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides as if he longed to touch her but didn’t dare.

Elain wished he would. The thought was at once shocking and yet blatantly obvious. Maybe just this once, to satisfy a curiosity that was clearly two sided. And then they could go back to avoiding each other. She’d never be able to face him after tonight, anyway.

“Pity,” he murmured. “Here I thought you liked what you saw.”

Her breathing quickened as he slowly reached out and ran the silken belt of her robe between his long fingers. There was something sensual in the gesture that made her stomach clench in anticipation.

“Maybe I did.”

A sharp tug, and the knot holding her robe closed fell apart like a wisp of smoke. Lucien’s eyes dipped again, and when they slowly dragged back up to her face a flame had kindled to life in his russet eye. An actual, dancing flame, as real as the flame fueling the lamp on the wall. Her breath hitched at the sight of it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, grinning so wickedly that she knew he was well aware of what he’d done. “Afraid of a little flame?”

Elain backed away another step, until her back hit the wall. “I’m not afraid of you,” she snapped.

She wasn’t, but this- this game they were playing, whatever it was, it scared her as much as it aroused her. The temptation to run away was as strong as the desire to touch him, smell him, kiss him. To mark him as hers.

He stepped closer until he was hovering over her, one arm braced above her head, the other still innocently hanging at his side. She wanted him to actually do something, if only so she would be forced to decide what to do about it.

“Good.” He dipped his head towards her neck, until his breath tickled her skin. It was so like her dream that she had to dig her nails into her palm to remind herself this was real. “Did they ask you to join them?”

Elain almost choked. She was blushing so aggressively that she felt a bead of sweat run down her back, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak. Judging from Lucien’s delighted grin the answer must have been written all over her face.

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, as casually as if they were talking about the weather.

She did choke this time, on a combination of half-hearted affront and shock. “Wh-what?” As if she hadn’t entertained the idea, at least for a moment. As if she couldn’t still feel Vassa’s cool touch on the heated nape of her neck.

“They like that too,” he continued, unperturbed. “They asked me to join, once.”

That shouldn’t have surprised her, and yet it did. She blamed her conservative upbringing, but somehow the idea of a threesome between two men and one woman seemed even more debauched.

She forced herself to breathe, to relax. “And did you?” she asked, lifting her chin brazenly.

She wasn’t sure what sorts of mechanics that would even involve, but her imagination ran away from her, filling her mind with all sorts of lurid thoughts. Jurian’s large calloused hands caressing Lucien’s golden skin, Vassa’s full breasts bouncing as she-

“Yes,” he replied simply.

Elain’s mouth dropped open at the admission. She wished she hadn’t asked, and yet she desperately wanted to know more, even as jealousy tore through her, so violently that her blood roared in her ears. She might have been trembling, from want or from anger, she wasn’t sure.

“Oh,” was all she managed to say.

Lucien laughed. She wasn’t sure whether it was at her expense or not, but it made her burn all the same. Was this who he really was, beneath the veneer of manners and careful, hesitant longing he usually put up around her?

“Tell me,” he continued. “What were they doing?”

Elain gulped, remembering Vassa’s bouncing breasts as she gyrated on Jurian’s face. A rush of heat settled like a weight between her legs. A small noise came out of Lucien, as he no doubt scented her every emotion. His own scent was so strong with him this close to her that she was having trouble thinking logically. It was so heady and warm, tinged salty from what she knew was his own arousal.

“Nothing I care to say out loud,” she said as primly as she could.

Lucien laughed. “Right. I forgot you were so uptight.”

“I am not-“

“I forgot, you see, seeing as you’re standing here with your panties soaked.”

Elain sputtered indignantly, her cheeks growing even more hot than they already were. “How dare you, I am not…” It seemed to be the only words she was capable of saying.

“You’re not?” Lucien asked, tilting his head as if they were making simple conversation. “So if I reached between your legs I wouldn’t be able to prove that you’re a little liar?”

Elain pressed her legs together, but in reality it was more to feel some kind of friction than in shock at his words.

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Is that an invitation?” When he spoke his lips grazed against her ear, and Elain shivered. She clamped her lips shut, curious what he would do next. This side of him was thrilling, and intoxicating. She felt drunk on the novelty of what giving in to the pull of the bond would entail. It didn’t have to mean anything. The fae didn’t have any qualms about these things, after all, as Nesta loved to remind her.

Slowly, so slowly, Lucien’s fingers inched towards her leg. His touch was feather-light, and yet she felt it like a brand on her skin. He grazed his fingers up her thigh, pushing the hem of her nightgown up along the way. His heart rate was quickening along with her own, an echo of her raging pulse.

He paused then, as if giving her a chance to say no. And then his fingers dipped between her legs, right over the–as he had assumed, soaked–fabric of her underwear. Elain gasped, both in surprise that he had actually done it and at the current of heat that small touch sent fizzing through her veins.

Lucien groaned weakly, as if that touch had shocked him just as much as her. “Thought so.”

He started rubbing slow, tight circles through the wet silk of her underwear, and Elain’s knees nearly buckled.

“Tell me what you saw,” he murmured.

For a moment she didn’t remember what he was talking about, too focused on the fingers rubbing at the ache between her legs. It hadn’t been like this with Graysen. They had kissed, and he had fondled her breasts a bit, but he had certainly not touched her like this. She could only imagine what else Lucien could do, if this was how he made her feel with her underwear still on.

But then he pulled his fingers away, and Elain nearly whined in protest. “What are you-“

“Tell me,” he urged. “And you’ll get a reward.”

She wanted him to keep touching her. She needed him to keep touching her, or she’d combust.

“Vassa was…” She didn’t quite have the vocabulary for what she’d seen. Of course she knew the mechanics but Graysen certainly hadn’t done it. The men in Nesta’s smutty books always did, though, and claimed to enjoy doing it. She wondered if Lucien would.

“Yes?”

“She was…sitting on Jurian’s face.” That seemed the only way to describe it, but her face heated all the same as she said it.

Lucien chuckled so low and deep that Elain had to bite her lip to keep a sound from escaping her throat. “Is that so? Lucky him.”

Elain felt a hot pang of absurd jealousy at that. For a moment the memory shifted, and it was Lucien’s hands gripping Vassa’s thighs, his long hair spread out beneath him as he lay on his back.

Mine, that ancient, primal thing roared in her chest. He is mine, and I am his.

Lucien’s mouth dropped to her neck as he left a series of soft, warm kisses up her throat. “I told you good girls get rewards. Tell me what you want.”

Elain squirmed, or as much as she could do so standing up. She wasn’t quite sure what she wanted, other than for him to keep touching her, keep talking to her. Keep calling her a good girl.

She wanted him to kiss her until she lost herself, but for some reason she thought she might have to earn that particular privilege first.

One of his hands trailed down her neck, knuckles first, and then lower still, over her peaked nipple. Elain arched into the touch. This, she wanted to say. This and so much more.

A hard pinch on her nipple made her gasp.

“Tell me what you want,” Lucien repeated. His hand drifted to her neck, tilting it up so she was forced to look into his blazing gaze. It felt dangerous, like if she looked too long she might burn. “Or I can leave you alone with only your fingers for company.”

Elain wanted to growl in frustration. “I’d like to slap that cocky grin off your face, for starters.”

Again Lucien’s eyes flashed in surprise, and then melted into delight. “Much better.”

“Excuse me?”

“This is much better than that meek mouse act you usually put on around me.”

Her hand moved so fast that the sound of flesh hitting flesh rang out before she even consciously made the decision to slap him. His skin smarted immediately, into a vulgar imitation of a blush.

The world seemed to slow down as Elain held her breath. She’d never hit anyone before, much less a grown male, save for maybe some half-hearted shoves with her sisters when they were little. The act itself shocked her less than the thrill it gave her.

Lucien’s eyes flashed. Do that again, they seemed to taunt her. Elain raised her other hand, but before she could so much as lift it Lucien had grabbed both her wrists and pinned them above her head.

“I think you’ve forgotten who’s in control here,” he growled. The breathlessness of his voice betrayed the lack of threat behind his words. Elain knew in her bones that one word from her and Lucien would stop.

She desperately didn’t want him to.

His lips were still curved into a maddening smirk. They were so full and lush, made for whispering secret words, for flashing devilish smirks, for stolen kisses in dark hallways in the middle of the night.

“Kiss me,” she breathed. “That’s what I want.”

Lucien didn’t wait for further prompting. He crashed his mouth to hers, and as their lips met it was like a damn breaking after years of strain. There was no finesse to his kiss, no gentle touches. He kissed her like a drowning man drinking in his final breath, like there would never be enough of her to fill his lungs. It was all lips and teeth and tongue, not a slow exploration but a claiming, as if nothing else existed but this moment and everything depended on it. Lucien released her hands and she tangled them in his hair, pulling him down even closer.

He kissed her until her legs threatened to give out. She felt drunk on him, on this.

And then a loud moan echoed up the stairs from the sitting room, and Lucien laughed against her mouth. Elain had been so lost in him she’d almost forgotten about them.

“What do you think they’re doing?” he murmured.

She knew the drill by now. An answer for a reward. She saw it reflected in Lucien’s gaze, the gleam there like a challenge and a question at once.

Another moan, male this time, followed by the unmistakable sound of skin hitting skin.

“They’re probably…” She trailed off, embarrassed, even now, to say the word. Making love didn’t seem right for what she’d seen, and what she was hearing. “Fucking.”

“You’re learning,” Lucien whispered. “What a good student you are.”

He pressed his hips against her, and Elain inhaled sharply at the hardness pressed against her stomach. She couldn't help but glance down, and the sight of the bulge straining the front of his trousers made her mouth go dry. The room had been dark when she had lost her maidenhead to Graysen, and besides, she had been much too nervous to really look. But she wanted to look at Lucien- look, and touch, and lick every inch of him.

“You’ll have to earn that,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“I answered your question. That means I get a reward.” She hoped her voice sounded less desperate than she felt.

The grin he shot her was nothing short of devilish. “Indeed. Tell me.”

She felt absurd saying it, as if one wrong word and Lucien would laugh and declare that this had all been a game. A tease. A joke.

A mistake.

“Touch me,” she demanded, with as much authority as she could muster.

Lucien groaned, his hips thrusting into her as if he couldn’t help it. She was beginning to think that he might like it when she was irritated.

Another moan trickled up the stairs, and it occurred to Elain how thoroughly exposed they were. Jurian and Vassa could walk up the stairs at any time- although, from the sounds of it, that didn’t seem likely.

Any thoughts of getting caught disappeared from her mind as Lucien’s hand drifted back to her thigh, inching up much slower than she would have liked. When he reached the waistband of her underwear she held her breath, expecting him to slide them down. Instead, his fingers kept going up, over her stomach, up her ribs, until her breast was cradled in his palm.

“Like this?” he asked, squeezing softly. He tweaked her nipple between two fingers and Elain sucked in a breath at the mixture of pleasure and pain.

“Yes,” she said, though it wasn’t enough.

“Yes,” Vassa echoed from downstairs, her moans quickly dissolving into screams.

“She’s a loud one,” Lucien needlessly informed her as he switched his ministrations to her other breast.

Elain wondered how much of it was real and how much was an act. It seemed almost impossible for it to be a genuine reaction. “Why?” The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it. She clamped her mouth shut, feeling idiotic.

Lucien grinned broadly. The gesture made his cheeks crinkle and somehow made him even more handsome. He was so beautiful when he smiled it was almost painful to look at. It made that golden coil tighten even more inside her chest, flooding her with longing and an almost melancholy want for something she had never had, and perhaps never would. She almost wished he would stop.

“Because Jurian knows how to fuck.” He kept his eyes fixed on hers as he said it, as though he expected her to be shocked by his language.

“You seem to have a lot of knowledge on that topic.”

“On what?” he teased. “Jurian? Or fucking?”

He was messing with her. Elain huffed in frustration, but before she could say anything he cut her off.

“Touch yourself.”

She blinked up at him, her pulse increasing. “I answered one of your questions,” he continued with a wicked grin, “now I get a reward.”

Elain squirmed. For some reason she couldn’t explain, touching herself in front of him was so much more embarrassing than letting him touch her.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, little mouse.”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped.

She was starting to take back what she’d thought about liking this side of him. He was insufferable. Insufferable and cocky and-

“Then prove that’s not what you are. Unless you don’t want to keep playing…” He started backing away from her, and panic made her heart skip a beat. She’d never be able to look him in the eyes after this, so she’d be damned if she didn’t get him to at least touch her before he ran away and disposed of her.

Elain made sure his eyes were locked on hers as she shoved her hand into her underwear. She was so aroused that her fingers glided easily through her slick folds, and a sigh escaped her lips. Lucien’s gaze turned almost predatory.

In a movement too quick for her to follow he yanked her hand out of her underwear and stuck her fingers coated in her arousal into his mouth. The flame in his russet eye intensified, and Elain found she couldn’t quite breathe.

A low groan rumbled deep in his throat. “Gods, Elain.”

He dropped to his knees in front of her as he said it, making her name sound like a plea, or worship.

Elain kept her gaze locked on his as his hands slid up her legs, leaving her skin burning in their wake. When he reached her underwear he locked his fingers around the waistband and then stopped. She wriggled her hips slightly, thinking he was waiting for permission, but still he didn’t move.

“What position do you think they’re in?”

The noises from downstairs were growing louder, the moans breathier, the wet sound of skin against skin echoing sharply in the quiet. Several scenarios flashed through Elain’s mind, but it was difficult to think clearly with Lucien’s mouth so close to her throbbing center. Her knowledge was once again lacking for the question he was asking, but judging from the way Lucien’s fingers were shaking slightly she had a feeling any answer would have been acceptable.

“They were on the floor earlier,” she said lamely, trying to think of something clever to say.

Lucien dragged her underwear down an inch. “Oh?” he prompted.

Elain remembered the ugly pink couch she’d been shown to when she had arrived earlier. A giggle threatened to escape her, despite Lucien kneeling before her and her racing pulse.

“I think she’s on that ugly pink couch,” she said, as confidently as she could.

Her underwear slid down her legs in a cool brush of silk. Elain gulped as Lucien’s eyes snagged in between her legs. The urge to snap her legs shut was almost overwhelming, but then he looked up at her and licked his lips. Her core went molten.

“Tell me more,” he urged, gently pressing her legs apart.

“Um.”

Lucien pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, his gaze never leaving hers. Her knees were shaking with a mixture of overwhelming lust and nervous anticipation, and if it wasn’t for Lucien’s hands on her she might have slid to the floor.

Lucien kissed her other leg, higher this time. If he went any higher he would surely feel the evidence of her arousal, no doubt dripping down her leg. Elain couldn’t remember ever feeling anything even close to this. Lucien’s teeth grazed the soft skin of her thigh, reminding her that she still hadn’t answered him.

“I think she’s kneeling on the couch, holding on the back. And Jurian’s…”

She didn’t have time to finish before Lucien leaned forward and licked a single stripe clean up her center. Elain gasped at the sensation, all other thoughts melting out of her head along with any lingering hesitation.

“Good girl,” Lucien murmured, and then his mouth was on her again.

She didn’t have anything to compare it to, but it was clear Lucien knew exactly what he was doing. He attacked her with his mouth the same way he had kissed her earlier- hungrily, savagely, like there was no time for finesse. She had expected it to feel wet but somehow every broad lick of his tongue felt like a wave of fire spreading through her.

Every cell in her body felt alive, like she was seconds away from bursting. Nothing had ever felt this good, and she didn’t care who heard the wanton noises coming out of her, as long as he never stopped.

He drew her clit between his lips and sucked, and Elain’s knees buckled. Lucien laughed against her, the vibration ripping a low groan from her throat. He hooked one of her legs over his shoulder and she gasped at the new angle. Pleasure was coiling tight in her belly, so hot and fast that she thought it might tear her apart.

“Lucien…” It was her turn to say his name like a prayer- or in this case, a desperate plea to not stop.

“That’s right,” he growled. He reached up and kneaded her breast gently, and Elain’s head thumped back against the wall. Her fingers were gripping his hair so tightly she knew it must be painful, but if Lucien cared he certainly didn’t let on.

He slid a finger inside her, and then another, thrusting in and out slowly as he continued to devour her with his mouth. And then his fingers curled inside her, hitting a spot that had her gasping for breath.

“Lucien!” Do that again, is what she meant, but he knew without being told.

He thrust inside her again and again, his tongue keeping time with his fingers as they hit that spot that had her seeing stars. She was going to come undone right here in the hallway, and fought against it, not wanting it to be over.

“That’s it,” he murmured, his lips grazing her sensitive flesh. “Be a good girl and come for me.”

He clamped his mouth around her and sucked, and she let go. Pleasure tore through her in a hot wave, a ragged cry falling from her lips as her vision exploded in stars. Lucien didn’t let up, groaning against her as he licked and sucked her through her orgasm.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Fuck, Elain.” He sounded as lost as she felt, like she was lost at sea and he was the raft keeping her alive.

Her legs were trembling so hard that she started sliding down the wall, but then Lucien’s arms were around her, hauling her to the floor as he stretched out on his back.

“Take that off,” he growled, pushing her nightgown up her body.

Elain slipped the offending garment over her head without a second thought. Lucien’s eyes burned her skin like a brand, melting away any embarrassment she might have felt at her nudity.

“Gods, Elain, you’re so…” He trailed off, his throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly.

Elain wanted to lean down and lick his throat, kiss every inch of it like he had hers. She wanted to leave little marks to physically mark him as hers.

Hers.

“Tell me,” Lucien urged. There was a note of urgency to his voice that made her feel wild. “Tell me what you want, and you can have it.”

One final question in their game, then. His hands drifted towards her breasts and she slid her fingers through his and held his hands there.

What did she want? She wasn’t sure what she would want tomorrow, but tonight-

“You.” Elain forced herself to meet his gaze. It was somehow easier to do so when he was being wicked than when he was soft like this. She wasn’t sure which side of him she liked more, but she suspected she might like all of him, which was more terrifying than anything that had happened tonight.

“I just…”

He didn’t tease her, didn’t prompt her. He just kept staring at her with that mismatched gaze, a soft flame still dancing in his russet eye. On impulse she reached forward and lightly traced his scar, all the way from his brow almost to his jaw. Lucien shivered, his eyes shutting tight as his forehead creased with some emotion she couldn’t read.

She wanted to be able to read it- to know him well enough that she could tell right away what he was thinking. But that would require her to open up just as much, and that was a cliff side she wasn’t ready to step off from. Not until she’d figured out how far she might fall.

Vassa and Jurian’s moans were reaching a final crescendo downstairs. Elain held Lucien’s gaze until their cries faded, resisting the urge to grind against his cock to relieve the ache still burning between her legs. She still felt desperate for him, even though her body was still tingling from the orgasm he’d given her.

“I want you to make me scream that loudly.”

Lucien smirked. “And here I thought you’d be more of a gentle love making type.”

Elain hummed. “I like that too.”

There must have been something written all over her face, or else Lucien was better at reading her than she was him. “But?” he asked.

“But it’s easier to get your heart broken that way.”

Lucien’s mouth fell open in surprise. Elain held her breath, bracing herself for a dismissal or a taunt. He’d say something lurid about fucking having nothing to do with hearts. Whatever seed of madness had started to grow inside her would be trampled, and her heart would be safe.

“Oh, Elain.” He loosed a breath, something about the wicked gleam in his eye making her squirm. “You have no idea how wrong you are about that.”

Before she could react he had stood up and hauled her to her feet in one swift motion. He spun her around, planting hot, wet kisses down her throat as he guided her towards the railing at the top of the stairs. She was putty in his hands, bending forward to lean on the banister as he nudged her legs apart.

There was a soft woosh of fabric as he kicked his pants off, and then his fingers were on her, swirling tight circles around her clit. Elain bit back her moan, thrusting back into his hand to increase the friction. Nothing he did was ever enough. It felt like her own blood was alive with the flame she’d seen dancing in his eye, and his every touch only made her burn hotter.

“Tell me you want me.”

His fingers suddenly stopped, replaced by the feel of his hard, thick cock teasing her entrance. Elain looked over her shoulder at him and nearly whined. Nobody had ever looked as beautiful as he did right then, with his golden skin glowing in the lamp light and his vibrant hair mussed from her ministrations.

“I want you.”

“Good girl.”

With that he slid into her with one long, slow thrust. Elain gasped at the feel of him stretching her, filling her so completely that it seemed their bodies had been made for this.

“Fuck, Elain.” He sounded on the edge of losing that maddening control of his. She wriggled her hips, urging him to move.

“Impatient, are you?”

Elain started to growl in frustration, but it turned into a ragged gasp as Lucien slowly pulled out and then slammed back in. She grabbed onto the banister tighter as he set a wicked pace, thrusting into her to the hilt only to pull out maddeningly slowly. Every pound of his cock inside her had her seeing stars, moans falling from her lips with every thrust.

“They’re probably listening, you know.”

Elain’s eyes fixed on the partially closed door to the sitting room, the occupants of which were suspiciously quiet. It should have bothered her, but she found she couldn’t quite care.

“Good thing I asked you to make me scream.”

Lucien groaned, bringing his hand to her ass in a hard slap. Elain gasped at the sting, and then moaned as Lucien started pounding into her.

“Is this what you wanted?” he asked, his voice ragged.

“Yes.”

“Louder.”

“YES!”

Her voice echoed embarrassingly loudly down the stairs, but Elain couldn’t have cared less. That delicious pressure was building inside her again, and she chased the feeling, dropping her forehead against her arms gripping the banister.

“Elain…”

From the strain in his voice she could tell he was on the verge of release himself. His fingers were gripping her hips so tightly she knew there’d be fingertip-shaped bruises there in the morning. She pictured Lucien kissing them gently, his hair mused from sleep, and eyes glazed with affection as he looked up at her.

That was all it took to push her over the edge.

She cried out as pleasure exploded through her again, her body seizing with wave after wave of ecstasy. A moment later Lucien gave a choked groan as he spilled himself inside her.

Her vision had barely returned to normal before he turned her around again and gathered her up in his arms. She was too exhausted and too thrilled at the feel of being in his arms to protest about where he was taking her.

He carried her to his room and kicked the door shut before gently placing her on the bed. His scent wrapped around her in a cloud, and she couldn't stop herself from pressing her nose to his pillow and inhaling deeply. Gods, it should be illegal to smell this good.

Lucien chuckled above her. Had she said that out loud? She supposed it wasn’t the most embarrassing admission she’d made tonight.

“Look at me.”

Elain turned back to face him as he hovered over her, bracing himself with one arm as he gently brushed loose tendrils of hair from her face. The gesture was so tender that it made her heart ache.

“Can you promise me something?” he asked.

Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness of his room, and she couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes. “That depends.”

“Promise you won’t just disappear in the morning.”

There was a raw edge to his voice that felt like a gut punch. Or else, like a gentle shove, edging her closer to that ledge she had so far managed to stay away from.

“It would be impressive if I did, considering I’m in your bed.”

Lucien chuckled. “Bold of you to assume you’re sleeping here tonight.”

“And here I thought you were the chivalrous type. But if you’d rather I go…” Elain made to roll out from under him, laughing darkly when he blocked her path.

“Not so fast.”

“Oh?”

“I have a few more questions for you, you see.”

Elain bit her lip as her blood started heating once more. She had a feeling that in the end she’d be getting very little sleep tonight, and found she didn’t mind at all.

Taglist (let me know if you'd like to be added/removed!): @areyoudreaminof @separatist-apologist @tuzna-pesma-snova @labellefleur-sauvage @corcracrow @autumndreaming7 @octobers-veryown @velidewrites @sunshinebingo @vulpes-fennec @asnowfern @hallway5

#elucien #elucien fanfic #elucien fanfiction #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #the band of exiles #boe #jassa #what happens at the boe manor stays at the boe manor

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