37. Contract Language
Contract Language
At some point while we’d been unconscious, someone had brought us some borrowed clothing.
Leah, probably. They looked like they might be spares for the servants, but I honestly didn’t care.
The underthings were clean, the pants fit well enough, and the house-slippers were big enough for my feet.
Given how bone-tired everyone in the army was going to be—and the fact that there definitely weren’t enough supplies in the palace or garrison to dress all the soldiers in uniforms—I doubted anyone would give a shit about what we were wearing.
I didn’t bother with a shirt, nor did Alluin. Neither of us wanted to rub off the henna on our skin. The longer it was on, the darker it would stain.
We dragged ourselves out of bed, wiped most of the semen off ourselves with a wet towel, and headed back into the outside world.
Alluin put his arm around my hips and slid his fingertips under my waistband with a hopeful smile, as if he wasn’t sure it would be allowed.
I just grinned back at him and dropped my arm across his shoulders to tug him closer.
I loved the idea of Alluin being demonstrative.
Honestly, if anything, he was going to have to worry about peeling me off of him, not vice-versa.
Unsurprisingly, people eyed us up as we found food and made our way to the war room.
I saw at least one person grumbling while getting ribbed by someone to whom they definitely now owed money, and a number of fae took a look at our paired marriage-marks and gave us wide-eyed expressions of surprise and delight.
I preened a little over that. We were married.
For only about a fortnight, but still. Everyone got to know.
We spent a while in the war room, working on logistics for dealing with the Armies, the dead bodies, and the iron.
Some fires were still burning, though mostly in a smoldering sort of way, and supplies were a serious problem.
Leah and the high court had done a fairly decent job with prepping for the slow waking of the army, though, so things weren’t as dire as they could have been.
At one point, one of the nobles walked behind me and did a double-take. She examined my henna tattoo for a moment, said “ah” in a choked voice, and stepped back to the table with the tips of her ears flushed faintly red.
I raised one brow and gave Alluin a sideways look. He pointedly ignored me, though his ears dropped down a half-inch.
That was…concerning.
I faded a lot faster than Alluin did. Given that I’d been actively fighting for three days while he’d been stationed at the rear, that wasn’t surprising, and no one protested when I bowed out after only an hour.
I took myself off to the bathing rooms to wash everything but my back, had to give up due to trembling arms before I got to my hair, and found a mirror so I could examine the henna tattoo.
Alluin had done a beautiful job. Wrought in curling lines and elegant marks, a varama tree spread its branches across my shoulders, its trunk down my spine and a span of roots fanning out across the flat of my lower back.
The drooping flowers were done in calligraphic swoops, and the fans of needles were actually the cuneiform-like patterns of formal covenant text, done in an exacting hand.
Even if I’d been able to read covenant text, I wouldn’t have been able to read it reversed in a mirror.
Alluin was embroiled in the war room, and I wasn’t going to go walk up to some random highly-educated fae and ask them what the fuck my marriage-marks said.
Not that I thought Alluin would have written anything bad, but brazenly declaring that I had no idea what the First General had tattooed on my shoulders while I’d been passed out in bed didn’t seem like it would cast the best light on Alluin.
Dain probably read covenant text, though. He’d gotten the best education available in Stag Court, and I knew he was an avid student. He could surely tell me what outrageously territorial thing Alluin had put on me.
Gods, I love how possessive he is, I thought, whistling as I strolled through the fucked-up hall of the palace towards Dain’s usual haunts. I hope he put his name on me. Maybe it’s something like a temple dedication. ‘Devoted to Alluin Xilsatra.’
The thought made me shiver in pleasure. I picked up my pace. Maybe Lu would let me ride him in his office once I got back.
I found Dain in his usual office. He had the gall to look normal, two nights of rest apparently enough for him to be back to his usual laconic, tireless self.
My King raised his brows when I came in, taking in the fact that I was dressed only in a pair of borrowed pants and house-slippers wordlessly.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. The look of smirking amusement on his face as he eyed the bite mark on my neck told me everything I needed to know.
“You can read formal covenant text, right? The really ancient stuff?” I asked hopefully.
His brows crept up higher and his ears cocked forward with interest. Dain set aside the report he was reading. “I can, yes. It’s a standard part of royal education,” he said. He circled one finger in the air in a ‘turn around’ gesture. “What did Alluin write on you?”
I started blushing the second Dain said Lu’s name.
Not that I was ashamed about having gotten married to Alluin, nor about having vigorous sex that Dain (given his excellent hearing) had definitely been able to hear through the door, but having it be obvious that Alluin had inscribed some sort of writ of ownership on me was a bit embarrassing.
Dain was never going to let me live it down that he’d been right about the two of us all along.
“That’s exactly the question I have,” I said, sighing through my nose as I turned my back towards him. “It’s very pretty, and I like having it very much, but Lu’s a bit, ah, possessive? And people have been giving me strange looks.”
“Hm.” I heard Dain’s chair scrape as he got up, and the soft click of his talons on the floor as he walked over. His breath fanned against my shoulders as he leaned closer. “Zhao vei zjai Zhiolas weh…” he muttered, saying it slowly as he read the text.
Dain fell abruptly silent. I peered back at him over my shoulder to see the shocking sight of my King turning crimson, his eyes wide and ears dropped.
“Uh…” I started.
He wet his lips and stood slowly up, tucking his hands behind him like he didn’t want to accidentally touch anything. “Zhiolas, I am not translating that for you.”
I started blushing, too, my ears dropping. “What is it?”
Dain rubbed his hand across his mouth. “It’s…” He hesitated. “You should ask Alluin. To translate it. Not me.”
“Uh,” I said again. “Can I ask why?”
He gave me a pained smile. “Because I am very far away from one hundred million sexual partners, and as such, I am underqualified for discussing your sex life with you.”
I went so red that my cheeks went tight and the back of my neck heated. “Ah,” I choked out. “It’s that kind of covenant.”
“Yes,” Dain said. “It is that kind of covenant.”
Alluin wasn’t in the war room when I poked my nose in. Leah was; she lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers hello at me when she caught sight of me. I returned the greeting, sketched a bow, and went in search of my husband.
He was hiding in his office. Unsurprising, really.
Alluin did well with people when he needed to, but he wasn’t an extrovert, and if he could get his work done alone, he preferred it that way.
Given that he’d been surrounded by people for five days of brutal warfare, Alluin probably needed the downtime.
Luckily, I was the one person he never seemed to tire of.
I slipped in through the slightly-ajar door and shut it behind me, sliding the deadbolt closed. As long as we were in his office, I might as well take advantage of the locale.
Alluin raised his brows at me. “Should I be worried?”
“That depends, Lu,” I said in a too-casual voice, taking a seat on Alluin’s desk. “What did you write on my back?”
Alluin gave me his blandest expression. “What you told me to write,” he said mildly.
“Uh-huh.” I spun on my haunches to face him, planting one foot on the edge of his chair so that I was pseudo-straddling him. “And what, precisely, is that?”
He slid my pants up to wrap his warm hand possessively around my calf, his thumb stroking along my skin. “My claim on you,” Lu said, still in that mild tone. “That you’re mine. My Zhi. That you bear my body, my soul, and my beating heart. That it’s my cock. My mouth. My tongue. My hole. Mine.”
Heat bloomed on my face and in my gut at the same moment, the verification that I’d been blithely walking around with Alluin’s explicit declaration of ownership on my back—emphasis on the ‘explicit’—hitting me like a trebuchet stone knocking down a castle tower.
“Oh,” I said, my voice faint and my prick thickening at the thought of everyone who’d seen me today being aware of how completely Alluin had staked his claim on me. “That’s…thorough.”
Alluin wet his lips, uncertainty tensing his face.
“Don’t be upset, Zhi. It’s only for a few weeks.
” His hand tightened on me. “You can hide it if you want. You’d only have to wear a shirt.
You’re the one who said those things first. I warned you I was like this.
I know I’m not doing a good job tempering my possessiveness— Gods, please don’t regret me,” Alluin said, his words coming faster as he reeled off what were clearly memorized justifications, ears dropping into an expression of pleading on the last words.
I frowned at him. “Who said anything about regret? I am yours, cock and all. I’m not ashamed of that.
” I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my thighs.
“I like that you’re possessive, Lu. I like wearing your writ of ownership on my skin.
It just would have been nice to know which body parts of mine were lovingly detailed as belonging to you in formal covenant text before asking Dain to translate it for me.
I’m not sure he’s ever going to look at me the same way again. ”
His skin slowly rouged. “Ah. Yes. That is a reasonable complaint,” Alluin said, sounding embarrassed.
He reached up and brushed his fingertips along my throat.
“Is that truly all that’s bothering you?
I’ve been self-conscious about it since people started giving me wide-eyed stares in the war room. ”
“It’s reassuringly possessive. A lovely ward against me spiraling into being afraid you don’t actually want me.
” I smirked at him, feeling very pleased with myself.
“Did you forget to think about the other consequences of tattooing the formal equivalent of ‘I fucked his ass and now he’s mine; touch his dick and I’ll cut off yours’ onto my back?
” I asked brightly, sliding down from the desk so that I was straddling Alluin on his office chair.
Alluin slid his hands up my thighs with the comfort of a man who knew he could touch his lover wherever and whenever he pleased.
“That’s more or less correct,” he admitted, catching his lip between his teeth with a hint of embarrassment.
“I was too busy being delighted that I could to consider whether I should.” His fingertips ran along the edge of my pants, tracing delicate curves on my bare skin.
“I didn’t write any explicit threats, though. They’re merely strongly implied.”
“Mm-hmm,” I said, settling closer and draping my arms over his shoulders. “You do realize that strongly implied threats from the General of the First Army are probably more frightening than explicit threats, right?”
“Of course I’m aware of that. It gives me leave to exercise my creativity,” Alluin said. He ran his hands along my arms in an affectionate caress. “And I can be very inventive when I want to be.”
I gave him bedroom eyes through my white lashes. “How do you feel about being inventive right now?” I asked hopefully. “I could bend over the desk for you.”
He raised one brow. “That’s my work space, Zhiolas.”
“But, consider: I’m on your lap and I would like you to fuck me,” I said, wiggling my hips on his lap.
His lips twitched. “Oh, dear. What a compelling argument,” Alluin said, his voice dropping down into a purr. “Whatever will I do with you?”
“You could fuck me over your desk. Or on your desk,” I said in a helpful tone. “It’s a great height for that.”
“Or,” Alluin said, raking his fingernails lightly down my sides, “I could put you under my desk, and you could suck my cock for me while I work on this requisition order.”
All my blood rushed to my groin. My dick went from half-hard to ramrod stiff, my pulse insistent. “Yep! That’s the one!” I said, the whole room brightening as my pupils dilated.
Alluin rumbled a laugh and gave my cock a squeeze. “Get under there, then, Zhiolas Xilsatra,” he purred, his eyes bright with good humor. “Your husband has work to do.”
Zhiolas Xilsatra. Alluin was my husband.
I was the luckiest man to ever roam Faery.
“Yessir,” I said with a silly grin, and delighted in the sound of his laughter.