#2
A groan broke from Jassyn before he could stifle it. He was already hard, his body revealing with merciless clarity how little the argument had dulled his want.
Jassyn snatched Lykor’s belt buckle and wrenched it open. “This conversation isn’t over.”
Lykor kissed him again, impatient fingers tearing through the fastenings at Jassyn’s waist until the leather gave way.
Jassyn kicked free of his boots as Lykor dragged the trousers down and stripped them away, humid air sweeping over his bare thighs.
Lykor stepped back between his knees, the hard line of his body pressing against the table’s edge.
His talons grazed the bare curve of Jassyn’s hip, and Jassyn arched into him, seized the straps of Lykor’s armor, and tore at the leather until a buckle struck the floor, then another, the pieces falling away one by one.
When the last strap loosened, Lykor rolled his shoulders out of the remaining weight, bare to the waist, his belt riding low where Jassyn had pulled it open.
Jassyn reached for him, fingers following the raised paths of scars across Lykor’s chest. Five years had taught him the flex of those shoulders when restraint began to fail, the shiver that traveled through Lykor’s wings when pleasure carried him past speech, the particular glow in his eyes when all that violence narrowed to want.
Lykor’s attention dropped to the armor fitted across Jassyn’s chest.
“You still wear the set I had made for you,” Lykor murmured. His thumb brushed one of the dark plates, shed dragon scales polished to a black sheen. “Not those stiff robes like the council.”
Heat climbed Jassyn’s throat, but he held Lykor’s stare. “I know you like seeing me wear it.”
It was the truth, though hardly all of it. He wore the armor when Lykor was away, the familiar weight making him feel less alone.
Lykor’s pupils narrowed to draconic slits. He peeled Jassyn’s armor open buckle by buckle until the plates slipped free, leaving only the tunic clinging to his skin. A talon hooked into the fabric, splitting it down the front.
A protest rose in Jassyn’s throat at the loss of another shirt, only to vanish when Lykor sank to his knees.
Jassyn’s length stood hard between them. Lykor’s lips curved, but he made him wait.
His mouth moved along the inside of Jassyn’s thigh, slow enough to curl Jassyn’s fingers against the polished wood. Higher still, until Lykor’s breath warmed the places Jassyn had once hated to see touched.
Studs and rings caught the dim light, bright against skin once marked for humiliation. Lykor regarded them with a dark reverence, taking in what Jassyn had chosen to keep and what he’d made of it since—the pleasure wrested from old cruelty, the body that had learned desire could belong to him.
Then Lykor lowered his mouth.
The first sweep of his tongue along the laddered line of metal stole the strength from Jassyn’s arms. His palms skidded across the table as each ring sparked a bright shock of pleasure.
Five years had made Lykor fluent in him.
Any hesitation had burned away into certainty, and now it was Jassyn who had to keep pace with the confidence he’d once coaxed from Lykor.
The care remained, though, and in this moment, Jassyn felt it in every pause and shift of pressure.
Lykor lingered where Jassyn would feel it longest, grazed fang against metal, then closed his mouth around the head of Jassyn’s cock until Jassyn’s spine arched.
Jassyn tangled a hand in Lykor’s hair, fingers tightening as Lykor growled against him and slowly drew him deeper, one hand bruising his hip, the other spread against his stomach.
Jassyn’s body chased each retreat, already reaching for what Lykor withheld, and every return broke another sound from him, ragged and far too loud for the shadows to conceal.
“Lykor,” he breathed, though he had nothing left to say.
Lykor’s tongue curled under a ring, and Jassyn’s legs tightened around his shoulders. Parchment crumpled in his fist as pleasure ripped through him, scattering breath and thought.
Lykor held him there, mouth relentless, patient as vengeance.
Jassyn tipped his head back as the chamber blurred away, leaving only Lykor’s mouth and the tree’s low hum pulsing through the table.
Then Lykor pulled back with Jassyn balanced on the brink. A small portal split the air beside the table. He reached through and returned with a spinebender broken at the stem, its severed crown beaded with sap.
“You know you’re not supposed to break—”
Jassyn’s reprimand splintered as Lykor crushed the plant over him. Cold sap spilled along his cock, the shock jerking his hips from the table.
Predatory amusement flared in Lykor’s eyes. “So you’ve said.” His voice roughened with promise. “You’ll regrow it.”
“That’s not the—”
Lykor’s fist closed around him, and Jassyn’s complaint dissolved into something considerably less articulate as the first slick pull sent a shudder up his spine. Lykor’s hand twisted slowly along Jassyn’s length, studs sliding against his palm until the chamber lost its edges.
Lykor’s thumb swept over the crown and rings, working the sap across sensitive skin before his palm descended, cupping the weight between Jassyn’s thighs until a breath escaped through Jassyn’s clenched teeth.
Then Lykor’s hand slipped lower.
Jassyn’s body locked before yielding to the pressure circling him, sap warming against his skin. Lykor watched him, intent on every falter of breath, every response Jassyn failed to hide. Only when Jassyn arched toward him did Lykor press a slick finger inside.
He waited for the tension to ease before adding another. The fuller stretch drew a low sound from Jassyn, his hips tipping instinctively into Lykor’s touch.
Lykor worked deeper until the pad of one finger found the place that bowed Jassyn’s spine from the table. Jassyn chased the pressure, and Lykor withdrew just enough to deny him.
“Easy,” Lykor murmured, satisfaction roughening the word. “Not yet.”
Thighs shaking, Jassyn bit down on a groan, fingers clamping around the table’s edge.
“Please.”
The word scraped out of him, desperate enough to make Lykor’s eyes ignite.
Lykor rose and ripped loose the last fastening of his leathers, dragging them down his hips. His slick hand closed around his own cock, stroking once from base to tip, rough enough to dry Jassyn’s mouth.
Jassyn hooked his legs around Lykor’s waist and hauled him closer.
That snapped the last of Lykor’s restraint. He gripped Jassyn’s thighs and lifted him higher, sinking into him in one steady motion.
Air punched from Jassyn’s lungs. The impact slid him across the ruined map, parchment rasping against his shoulders as ink streaked his skin.
Lykor found his rhythm before Jassyn could gather himself, each movement jolting him. Jassyn’s heels dug into Lykor’s back until the fullness stole every breath.
He caught Lykor’s face and tugged him down. Teeth and tongue stripped the kiss of anything gentle. Lykor’s fangs grazed Jassyn’s lower lip, sharp enough to startle, controlled enough to leave the skin whole.
Pleasure climbed in a blinding rush, whitening the edges of Jassyn’s vision. He arched and caught Lykor’s wrists where they braced beside his head, needing solidness Lykor’s body enclosing his own.
Lykor buried his mouth against Jassyn’s neck, fangs resting against the frantic beat of his pulse.
“Do it,” Jassyn rasped, tilting his head back to bare his throat.
A growl shuddered out of Lykor as his fingers dug into the table beside Jassyn’s shoulders.
Then his fangs sank deep.
A sting flashed at the punctures, then cool venom followed, winding into Jassyn’s blood and warming with every beat of his pulse.
An old craving surfaced with it, braided so tightly with pleasure that five years had never taught him how to separate them.
His body loosened around Lykor while every place they touched sharpened—the press of skin, the weight of Lykor between his thighs, the ache already gathering low in him.
Jassyn rolled his hips, and Lykor buried himself deeper, breath breaking hot against his ear. One hand slipped between their bodies and closed around Jassyn’s cock.
The first stroke sent heat spiraling through the venom’s spreading warmth.
Lykor drew him steadily back toward the release he’d denied him earlier, mouth pressed to Jassyn’s jaw. His fist twisted over the head of Jassyn’s length as his hips drove forward.
“Now, Jassyn.”
The order struck somewhere past obedience.
Jassyn let Lykor control his undoing, and the intimacy of being known that completely shattered what remained of Jassyn’s composure.
Pleasure crashed through his body all at once.
He came hard, a ragged sound torn from his throat as his spine arched from the table.
His magic spilled free with him.
Vines burst from the table’s seams, splitting polished wood as leaves unfurled across torn maps and ruined petitions. Flowers bloomed in their wake, bright among the wreckage of ink and law.
Lykor cursed against his throat and followed, sinking deep once more as release locked his body against Jassyn’s.
Frost swept through the chamber. Ice climbed the arches and columns until the air exhaled snow.
Then Lykor folded over Jassyn, spent weight settling across him.
For a while, the room held nothing but their breathing. Jassyn lay sprawled across the table, limbs slow to answer, one hand still tangled in Lykor’s hair, the other curled around crumpled vellum.
Jassyn slowly unclenched his fingers. “You ruined another map.”
Lykor pressed his mouth to Jassyn’s skin. “Then I’ll make you a new world.”
Jassyn’s breath caught, his arms winding around Lykor’s back.
Lykor stayed there, face tucked against Jassyn’s throat while snow melted cold against their skin. When he finally lifted his head, the predatory gleam had dimmed from his eyes, leaving an uncertainty Jassyn rarely saw.
Jassyn propped himself up on one elbow. “What’s wrong?”