Ledgers and Blood
TEORIN
The next day, Teorin spent most of the day reading. Gathering information until nightfall came.
Teorin closed the ledgers. In truth, he did not care about the Darkway or its records. But he did not know how long Asharin would be in Morrath. Years, maybe, even with an antidote. He would not let her live in a failing kingdom.
He had taken blood and meat at dinner. He felt better than the nights before. His head still pounded.
She went to Eravic's treatments each evening and returned to her rooms after. Each night he intended to be there when she did.
The last time had felt like a dream. Part of him wondered if it had been. The healer said she must rest through the day, so he had not gone to her to ask.
He opened the door.
Another woman stood in the corridor.
Teal hair.
The fucking Vaelor girl.
"What do you need?"
Then the hum started, low behind his eyes, and he went backward onto the bed.
"What are you—"
"Teorin. I need you. Please. It was always you."
"You are not her."
"What do you mean?" Hurt in her voice. Asharin's voice.
"I forgive you. I know you only wanted what was best for me. That is why you lied about Alarna, I know that—"
The truth stopped mattering.
He pulled her down and she came willingly. Her skin was warm. She smelled the way she always smelled.
His hand found the fabric at her shoulder and stopped.
Satin.
She wore leather. Only leather. She wore leather because the creatures came at her in the dark and leather held.
The hum swelled and took the thought somewhere he could not reach.
He pressed his lips to hers and slowly removed her clothes. The satin came away under his hands and the thought came back with it, patient, waiting where he had left it. He put his mouth to her throat until it went quiet again. He had wanted this too long to be careful about how he got it.
He put her breast in his mouth and she threw her head back and moaned, the exact moan he had spent so long imagining.
He leaned back as she pulled down his pants and straddled him. The hum grew louder. He entered her quickly and it was what he had imagined.
Tight. Warm. Exactly as he'd imagined. She rocked slowly, gold eyes never leaving his.
"Is this what you have always wanted, Teorin?"
He could barely nod. He had never been speechless. But this, her moving on top of him, moaning, saying his name, was the thing he had built and rebuilt in his head day after day.
She lifted his chin with her fingers and kissed him. The pace slowed.
"I'll pull out," he said under his breath, meaning it kindly.
"Why?" She nipped his ear. "Do you think only Colsar is deserving of heirs?"
He let out a low growl.
"Is this what you have always wanted? Me, swollen with child—"
He came. Seconds later so did she, cheeks flushed, body trembling in the way he had only ever dreamt about.
"I do not want you to leave," he said quietly.
He felt himself grow hard again. She looked down at him and began to move, her moans filling the room.
"Is this real?" He felt ridiculous asking.
"Yes. Except that—"
"What?" he asked, holding back another moan, trying not to lose control.
She felt so fucking good.
Colsar was an idiot.
"Except that—" She hesitated.
"What?"
She said it into his shoulder, almost too quietly to catch. Something about his brother. Something about Colsar being more interesting in bed. Something about an affliction of illegitimacy.
He pulled out, still hard.
She stared up at him, legs open, playing with both her nipples.
Fuck.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing." She rose onto her elbows and leaned to his ear. "Only that I understand why your father never wanted you.”
He put her over his lap and struck her and she laughed into the blanket.
"Finally."
He dragged her up by the hair. She was still laughing.
"You have his face and none of the rest of him. Do you know that is what the servants here call you? The bastard with the good face."
He bent her over the edge of the bed and began thrusting.
"Harder," she said. "You will not hurt me. You have never been enough to hurt anyone."
The hum found him, now louder than before.
That was the thing he understood later, in daylight, when there was nothing left to do but understand. The hum had not put the words in her mouth. It had gone into him, read what was already written there, and read it back to him aloud in her voice.
He had wanted to hear it.
He gave her what she asked for.
She scratched his back open. He bit through her ear and tasted her and she told him it was still not enough. He asked if she wanted him to stop. She said no. He asked again and she said no, delighted, breathless, and told him to stop asking like a boy who needed permission.
His pupils blew out. His eyes went black.
He flipped her over and drove into her, past the point where he had ever let himself go with anything that could break. Her hands found his back again and went in through the same furrows she had already opened. The pain of it moved him forward instead of back.
"Harder," she murmured.
He thrust harder. And harder.
"More."
He should stop. He could stop.
He pulled back and saw the blood.
It had pooled beneath her hips and soaked outward into the mattress and there was more of it than a body could give and keep going. She was propped on her elbows, watching him look at it.
She dipped two fingers in it and held them to his mouth.
"You are bleeding," he said.
"This is how I like it." She pushed her fingers past his lips. "More."
He knew.
That was the part he could not get around, after. He knew, and he understood what knowing meant, and the small rational thing at the back of his skull said she is human, she will not survive you. He heard it clearly.
He took her by the throat and gave her more.
And more.
He bit her and hit her and fucked her until she was a mess of bruises and blood, and the rational thing at the back of his skull stopped speaking in full sentences and only hoped.
"More," she breathed into his ear.
"You are only my little plaything." Her voice had gone almost fond. "Until I return to the man I love. Did you know that, Teorin?"
He knew that too.
They continued for what felt like hours until release came so hard he thought he might lose consciousness. Some part of him hoped he would. Hoped he would not wake.
He woke and did not know whether it had happened.
Morning.
He pulled the sheet back and his stomach turned. Blood dried down his thighs, across his feet, dark in the beds of his nails. It had gone everywhere she had been.
He closed his eyes. Opened them. Wondered whether she had survived it.
Whether he could live with himself if she had not.
Whether any human could survive him, and then remembered that he did not take humans he intended to let live.
Humans were for fucking and feeding and, when it suited him, for killing.
He washed for a long time.
When he came out of the bathing room the sheets were clean. White, folded down at the corner the way the servants left them. The mattress beneath was dry. No basin. No linens bundled by the door. No water standing anywhere in the room.
He stood over the bed.
He put his hand flat on it. Cool. Nothing under the cotton but cotton.
His vision blurred. The hum had quieted. It had not gone.
He got back into the clean bed and lay on his side with his knees drawn up like something much younger than he was.
He would sleep. When he woke it would make sense.