Chapter Eight
Zyr
Head bent– forced, that was the word Robin had used–back.
Throat bared, royal blue scales and a column of unguarded skin.
The weight of Robin’s knee against his own, not rough, but far from gentle.
Deliberate, like his words. Measured praise, meted out like something precious. Equally measured instruction.
There was so much considered control to the man. All sharp, shining gears and purpose.
Throat exposed, legs spread. Nerves sparking at the slightest currents of air. Lust, for Zyr, was a slow building burn, a distant ache that compounded over days or weeks until it required addressing.
This had struck like lightning.
“Very good.”
Robin followed the words with a soft, thoughtful hum, his knee sliding higher, nudging Zyr’s legs further apart, until they reached the arms of the chair.
Then, his knee still just there, pressing into Zyr’s inner thigh, he leaned in, enticingly close.
Teeth, to Zyr’s jaw. His earlobe. Zyr tightened his grip further, every muscle tense with the effort to not reach, not touch.
“Like this, it’s not just your neck you’re showing,” Robin murmured. “Not just your legs open. Unless fae are vastly different from humans, this angle has your ribcage lifted. Stomach vulnerable. All those soft, easily damaged parts just there and unprotected. And I know fae can be hurt.
“And thighs… for humans, there’s an artery running down the inside of our thighs.
Sever it, and we bleed out ridiculously quick.
” Robin’s teeth found the column of Zyr’s throat, followed the shape of it with measured pressure.
“So don’t think I’m taking this for granted.
You’d not be unsettled if you couldn’t be hurt.
You’re getting it because you asked. Explained yourself. ”
Riveted.
That was the word.
Not enraptured, which implied a softening of the world, a trance. No. This, the tease of Robin’s teeth and the low murmur of his voice, as his knee pressed in and up and more, made everything sharper. More acute. Drew Zyr into himself. Made him shudder.
Here, feel this, the way your back is straining? That’s your spine. Those are your shoulders. That’s your stomach, muscles tense. That’s your pulse racing, your lifeblood. This is your throat, under my teeth. You’re alive, see?
Two truths, about living things. They wanted. And they died.
Zyr had lost track of both.
“I breathe and bleed,” he confirmed. Strange to speak with teeth at his throat. Each inhale and swallow made him all the more aware of that pressure. “I believe I had forgotten that. Of existing beyond my thoughts.”
Until now. Until Robin. Clever raven. Handsome, ruthless bird.
“As existing within your body?” Robin asked, “I like your body. And your thoughts.”
“It all gets hazy, eventually. Muscle. Skin. Vulnerabilities and,” Zyr’s breath hitched as Robin explored, grazed his teeth over scales, “desires.”
He had forgotten it. Forgotten that his breath could catch, that a kiss could make him shiver. The way the warmth of lips on his skin nearly burned on his scales. Sensation dulled and amplified at once.
Fresh furrows in wood imported from another world, kept safe and unmarked for generations.
“You may–” No. That wasn’t right. Robin already had his leave to do as he wished. “Temperature is more pronounced, where my scales are. Pain, less so.”
Robin didn’t answer with words but with his tongue.
A line of liquid heat up Zyr’s scales, sending a fresh jolt of wanting through him, down to his tail, which gripped desperately at the only part of Robin he was allowed.
Zyr planted his feet more firmly on the ground, his thigh pressing into Robin’s knee, a reminder to stay put, to not cant his hips upward, where, after all, nothing waited to meet them.
“I want to touch you, Raven-Robin.” Another rough, shaking breath. “You’re so incredibly real.”
“I want you to touch me too. But you won’t. You haven’t asked or received permission. And you’re doing so well, keeping your hands to yourself. I knew you would, no matter how real I happen to be.”
Robin’s teeth found the line where Zyr’s skin met his scales, dragged over that tenderest point with ruthless precision, overwhelming him with aching heat and pulling a ragged, wordless noise from Zyr’s throat.
“Winter’s rise. Fuck,” Zyr hissed. The chair creaked, wood of the remaining arm splintering beneath his claws, suffering for his composure. “And if I asked? Would you consider your point made? The lesson learned?”
Would you tire of me, Raven-Robin, if I did as you bade?
“Point made, but not lesson learned. I haven’t said what I need to say, after all.
” Words spoken with a sweep of his tongue, on the line where heat met warmth and dim met bright.
“Such as, I only kiss men who ask. Or do things that please me, earning a reward. I hear ‘do this’ or ‘I want this,’ and do you know what happens then?”
Measured. Deliberate. Words spoken with a wanting rasp, but hands steady and mouth patient as Robin made his way down and Zyr shuddered and gasped with the effort of obedience.
Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? Robin held him, hands on his horns and knee to his thigh, but those were merely signposts. Robin kept him in place not with touch, but with will. With the promise, not of a kiss or measured praise, but of his, Robin’s, pleasure.
Zyr was familiar with how quickly an entire world could be rewritten.
He’d made his life a study of it. He simply hadn’t thought to apply it on the immediate, personal scale.
One minute you’re the center of your own universe, and watching it fade.
The next, you’re a planet in the orbit of a new sun. In awe of its light.
“It would appear,” a shaking breath, slow and far from steady, “to involve putting the offending party,” another breath, then a swallow, and the give of wood beneath his claws, “entirely at your mercy.”
“Clever,” Robin’s voice held laughter, warm against skin and scales. “If I like them, I might offer a choice. Some people, like this fae I know, might vote for the option that would devastate them more.”
Was that what this was? Devastation? Robin kissed a bruising line across Zyr’s throat, as if slitting it with wet heat, and Zyr answered with a hungry, snarling hiss.
A hiss, then a gasp, as Robin’s mouth found another strip of skin and scales to introduce to the exquisite torture of teeth and tongue and breath.
The chair arm shattered with a final groan, fragments of wood fallings from Zyr’s now empty hand to the floor. He regretted it only because it briefly startled Robin, his mouth stilling for a beat, before he continued his explorations.
“Though I do have to wonder, now that I have him at my mercy, with his throat bared and all of him vulnerable, if he remembers how we got here, and why we’re not kissing.”
“I didn’t ask,” Zyr answered. There was nothing to hold onto now, so he curled his fingers into a fist, claws biting into his palm. “You require to be asked. Satisfied, ruthless bird?”
“You didn’t just state what you wanted. You told me what to do,” Robin admonished. “Glamour your nails short or relax your hand. I don’t want you hurting yourself. Any possible marks should be from me. Only me.”
Such a strange request. As if Zyr’s care was in Robin’s keeping.
“It’s done,” he said, opening his hand just long enough to show his claws glamoured to blunt nails. “Only your marks on me.”
“Good,” Robin said, after a glance down at Zyr’s open hand. “Now, ask me to kiss you, Zyr. Let me show you what happens when you push, then ask after enduring the fallout.”
Ask. Don’t state. Don’t trade. Simply ask. It set Zyr’s pulse to thundering.
“I don’t ask for things often. But for you, handsome raven, in this, I'll make an exception. I would very much like for you to kiss me.” And yes, his breath did shake as he said it. Hunger. Anticipation. “Would you grant me that?”
Only just learning Robin. This treasure, with his clever tongue and his easily ruffled feathers. Demanding but generous, careful but sharp.
So Zyr didn’t know if asking would be enough. Whether Robin would push harder, expect more. Set the bar and raise it higher.
“That was very well done. Of course I will.”
Robin’s hands shifted from Zyr’s horns to his hair, the strain of being forced back replaced with the sweet drag in. Toward.
This kiss was as hungry as the last. Unhurried but intense. And Zyr, at last, allowed something of Robin, to taste him, trace the shape of his lips, and explore the heat of his mouth.
He felt as anyone might. Tension and electric want. His cock aching with remembered need. But also… settled. Content. There was security in Robin’s precision, in being granted exactly what had been discussed.
He rumbled, low in his chest, and let his tail stroke over Robin’s calf. He would have happily stayed exactly so for hours. Perhaps days.
It lasted exactly two kisses more.
“I want to see your library,” Robin said, voice rough and teeth playing along Zyr’s lips.
“So we’re gonna get up. You’re going to use the bathroom or bedroom if you want to for some privacy.
Then we’re gonna go to your library. Repeat what you said when you called me a magpie, if you’re clear on what we’re gonna do next. ”
His library. Yes, that was where this had begun. Robin had said he wanted to see Zyr’s collection. Not on the Solstice King’s behalf, but for its own sake. His hand on Zyr’s horns. Zyr with his head bowed, eyes closed.
Magpie, reaching for silver.
And then Zyr had opened his eyes, and the library was no longer a consideration.
Now, it seemed, Robin was done playing. And Zyr was–what? Confused, perhaps. He wanted, very much, to ask Robin the why of what had just passed between them. And usually, that would be enough to compel the question. But, for once, Zyr found that there were answers that would be too painful to hear.