Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Black Faerie-weave, soft in Robin’s hands.
The length of it exactly right for wrapping over Zyr’s eyes and looping around his horns.
To tuck Zyr away in his dark. They were in Zyr’s bedroom, the dragon sitting on the edge of his bed, bare to the waist, and Robin kneeling behind him, teeth at the corded muscle of his neck, against those pretty sapphire scales.
“I’m going to repeat myself now that we’ve counted, Dhanra.
” Another nip, higher up, near the cut of his jaw.
Robin’s hands over thick arms, pairing the drag of nails with softer touch.
“If I go quiet and stop touching you, or you hear me going into myself, you use your claws to get free. Show me how far your fingers can reach.”
Zyr’s fingers flexed, while his arms stayed pressed together from wrist to elbow. “Here, Raven-Robin.”
“Very good. Thank you.” Robin cupped Zyr’s chin and guided his head back, until it rested on his shoulder.
Like this, Robin could talk low in Zyr’s ear, without worrying about his horns, as he explored the man’s chest with ghost touches.
“My safewords are the same as yours. If I use them, it’s not punishment.
If you ask for something and I don’t grant it, it’s not punishment.
If you ask and I agree, but change my mind, I’ll explain why.
Nothing will be because you did something wrong.
It’ll be for my own comfort or safety or mood change. ”
Robin kissed Zyr’s neck, his jaw. Nuzzled close.
Traced Zyr’s nipples with the edge of a nail, then down the hard plane of his stomach, the cut of his abdomen, and up again.
Zyr only answered him with a wordless, needing groan and one of those exquisite shudders.
As good an acknowledgement as any in the moment.
“Tell me what you say if you want to stop or slow down, and what you must do if you start to drift, in that order. Let me hear you, Dhanra.”
Robin didn’t need an allotment. Didn’t require mountains of stone or endless wending shelves of books. Robin needed only a single strip of black cloth, a count to nine, and his own deliberate, measured control.
And Zyr. He needed Zyr, most of all.
The beithir wasn’t the only one who had memories of that room to put away.
“Dinam for stop. Aster to slow. The words mean the same if you speak them. I take hold of your arm with my tail, if I feel myself begin to wander.” Zyr swallowed, voice unsteady all over again.
“Perfect.” Robin bit the praise into his neck. “I’m going to move around you now. When I’m settled, wrap your tail around my waist to keep me upright. Not to push me around or tease my cock or sides.”
“Just to hold. I understand, Raven-Robin.”
Zyr made for a fantastic seat. Hard, muscular thighs under Robin’s ass, his strong tail comfortable and secure, holding Robin in case he lost his balance.
All that, and the familiar, comfortable task of making a double column with the silver and blue rope he’d brought over from his world. For them.
“The last time was simple,” he said, looping one, two, three times around Zyr’s wrists, where he could reach with his claws. Tested the pressure. A bight of the rope pulled crosswise, curved under. “This is a double column. It’s more secure, and you won’t get rope burns. Or be able to move.”
Up to his knees, rope over one of Zyr’s shoulders.
Robin followed the curve of the rope by feel, then sight.
He pressed his lips to Zyr’s forehead, then hair, and higher still, so the dragon’s face pressed to his chest. That done, he settled again, pushing those hands up, so Zyr’s fists rested at the hollow of his throat.
The Hollow charm was already in place. Zyr wore it as a ring, where he’d once worn a different charm to hide their souls from each other.
Ivory and gold. Fresh flowers and the smell of death gone stale. The crack of ribs and sound of chewing. Gone, for now. No room for those memories, not when the present held this. The shaking gasps from his beithir. How beautiful he looked.
Robin found his own center in the crackle of the bond between them. The trust that rang through it. And the rope.
“Fisherman’s harness next, Dhanra.” Horizontal, silver blue across Zyr’s chest, and Robin breathed.
Centered. Controlled. The enormity of their choices and future less intimidating, as Robin wrapped again, up on his knees, so he could twist the knot at Zyr’s back.
Criss-crossed. “The rope is as close to the color of your scales as I could find in my realm.”
Around, fold, knot. Curve, up and down and around. Again. Again. And again. Horizontal bars across Zyr’s arms, his chest, and that lovely diamond pattern in the back.
“Tell me where you’re at, Dhanra.”
“On your bed, for the literal,” Zyr answered, with a teasing flick of his tail against Robin’s hip. “In your hands, for the figurative. In the sacred dark, as I asked to be. This feels very … reassuring. Is that an odd thing to feel? It isn’t on your wheel.”
“We’ll make our own wheel.” Robin nipped his ear in retaliation for that tail flick, smirking with the resulting shiver. “It’s not odd. A lot of people feel that way, like it’s safe. I find the act centering.”
Around and again, the ropes in Robin’s sure hands, down until he had to slide off of Zyr’s thighs.
He pressed a kiss between each rope bar.
Bit, once, at the seam of skin and scales just under Zyr’s nipple.
Again at his stomach as Robin’s fingers worked at a middle-bind. The beithir tasted like lightning.
Zyr’s shivering turned more edged, as Robin stood, his breath a hiss. The sound faded to a sigh when Robin buried his fingers in Zyr’s hair. A sigh and that hint of a purring rumble.
“It’s time for your legs. Stand up, Dhanra. I need you on the bed, your back to the headboard.”
“Always so very concerned with how I’m sitting,” Zyr observed, turning his head to press a kiss, uninvited, to Robin’s arm. “I begin to suspect you of having an imperious streak.”
The cheeky little shit tried to stand. After kissing Robin without permission. He pushed, and still thought he could get up.
Fun.
Robin’s fisted his hand in Zyr’s hair, tight enough for a proper grip. Took hold of one of those handsome horns with the other and pushed back. Pushed down, made him stay, the way Robin wanted him to.
It wasn’t about strength. Zyr wouldn’t want to be like this with him, if it were.
“Define ‘imperious’ for me, beithir.” Robin dragged Zyr’s head back, then bit lightly at his lower lip. “Tell me which meaning you’re trying to pull my pigtails with.”
“From the Latin,” Zyr answered, hard and eager and incapable of acting on any of it. “Imperiosus. Commanding and powerful. One who dominates. You have the bearing of a sidhe, cruel bird, one of the rare few among them to have earned their pride. In you, it’s enchanting.”
So, so hot.
“Me and my imperious streak are what caught your attention in the first place,” Robin said with a smile, pressing a biting kiss to Zyr’s jaw. “Dragging you to kitchens. Bossing you around. Telling you to ask for a kiss, not take one.”
“You did,” Zyr conceded. He tested, for the first time, what give the ropes might have, straining against them. (Unsuccessfully, Robin noted with no little smugness.) “But I like the way you tell me, and I wanted to hear it again. May I kiss you, Raven-Robin?”
“You’re a little shit, Dhanra.” Robin said it with a sharp smile, warm, a compliment.
He gentled his grip on Zyr’s hair in favor of his other horn, thumb stroking where cloth wasn’t “Pushy, greedy, keen beithir. You may have the kiss you already took. If you want more than that, ask me after I have at least one of your legs bound. If I get distracted kissing you, I’m not going to be in any place to drag you so far into the dark that you can’t imagine sunlight. Stand up.”
Zyr did as told, all fae grace even when bound with a harness and blindfolded. Tall and strong and unabashedly hard, shivering for Robin.
“Would you stay close?” Zyr asked, a hint of vulnerability coloring the words. “I would dislike this if I couldn’t sense you near.”
Robin kissed his chest between the rows of rope, tasting the metal of lightning and salt of Zyr’s skin, his hands pressed flat and fingers spread. He gave himself leave to touch, stroking along Zyr’s sides before hooking his fingers in the middle harness.
“I love it when you explain things, Dhanra. I like how you ask. I’m not going to stop touching you,” Robin promised. “If I step away for any reason, I’ll tell you first and won’t stop speaking with you. I’m going to guide you where we need you to be.”
“Thank you,” Zyr murmured, and Robin had never heard such pure, unhesitating gratitude.
“You’ll not be left in the dark alone. Never again.” Robin drew his nails, slowly over Zyr’s chest, up and over rope. “You’ll be with me, where I am. Tell me why, Dhanra. Tell me what you are.”
Zyr shuddered with every kiss, every touch, unable to do more than that. Too far gone, too prettily tied, to touch in turn.
“I’m yours, Raven-Robin,” he answered. “Your beithir. Your Dhanra. I cannot be lost, because you’re my center. My sacred dark.”
Zyr sounded so fucking good, his words gone storm-scorched. Robin was biased and, more importantly, right.
“That’s right, Dhanra. That’s perfect.” Perfect, with Robin’s teeth on him, on skin, scales, and blue cord.
His hands to Zyr’s muscular hips, pushing him back again.
“Your center and my storm. Unwind your tail, just for a moment. We’re going to walk you back on the bed, on your knees.
I’m guiding you through the dark.” His fingers curled in the rope, holding steady.
“I won’t let you fall. Go as slow as you need. ”
“As you require, Raven-Rovin,” Zyr agreed, though he huffed softly before his tail slid away. He let Robin lead him, moving carefully to his knees on the bed, and shuffling back to the headboard. “Sufficient?”