Fivecount - Fudge Ripple, Cookies N' Cream, Chocolate Chip Mint, Sour Apple, Chocolate
WARNING FOR SO MUCH EMOTIONAL WHIPLASH LOL. These pieces are all over the place.
I have no idea if anyone remembers me but if they do hiii. I finally finished... one flavor after more than a year. Go me?
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #28 - lumpy, Sour Apple #29 - look, ma, no hands!, Cookies N Cream #2- fall
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 408
Mahir's staff cracked against her skull, and Asma dropped to the ground, clutching her head. Her own stick fell with a clunk just next to her, and Asma resented it - for not being able to feel pain, for falling down with her, or for just being there at all.
The older Roc smirked down at her, and she resisted the urge to snarl back, or worse, lunge for him. It wasn't like she could take him on, especially not in her weakened state.
"Pathetic."
The word made Asma flinch, and she had to force herself not to look at the person who'd spoken it - the queen always loved watching her pet princess get beaten into the ground. Every lump, every pain, every smack that left her vision blurry about the edges; the Rocmother was there for it all, and to spur Asma on with her peculiar kind of goad.
It worked, at least, Asma thought bitterly, and grunted as she levered herself to her feet. Mahir regarded her with derision and revulsion, and once more the urge to attack him came.
"You move too slowly," he said, with something like a sneer. "How human of you. Your reflexes are terrible, and you move like a board."
"You know, Mahir, I really hate you," Asma replied, and before he could respond, her fist swung around to crunch cleanly into his nose.
He staggered back in surprise, and her leg swept out, knocking him to the ground. His head hit the stone of the arena with a nasty-sounding smack. Asma rammed her staff into the hollow of his throat and placed a foot onto his chest.
He made a strangled noise of hatred at her. As part of the rules the Rocmother had set, he wasn't allowed to don his feathers while he sparred with her; she was to learn how to fight humans, not her own kind. And now, after months of abuse, she finally had him trapped.
Asma allowed herself a brief smile. "I really wish I was allowed to kill you," she told the pinned Roc conversationally. "Unfortunately, I'm not. Too bad. Maybe someday I'll just snap on you, somewhere where there aren't witnesses."
She tossed her staff a few feet away and stepped off of Mahir. He sat up, rubbing his throat and glaring at her, and she gave him a sunny smile.
And she ignored the expression of delight on the queen's face.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #24 - flexible, Cookies N Cream #3 - spin, Fudge Ripple #29 - shock
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Fairhood arc
Word Count: 248
"This isn't dancing!" she protested, but under the protest there was a laugh, and Astor smiled at her. He swept her back across the floor as smoothly as the silk of the blue dress she wore, and in a single flow of motion dipped her - the world was upside-down for an instant, as dazzling inverted as it was when right.
He spun her up and around, an arm hooking under her leg, and pulled her to him, and then down again, her bare foot sliding along the floor. The violin - she thought, at least, that it was a violin - hissed up, and she laughed as he pulled her up again.
Then Astor threw her out as far as their arms could stretch, and she spun back into his arms -
And then his arms were around her waist, holding her closer to him than she'd been before -
The music screeched to a halt. Asma was looking into his eyes, as deep and calm as they'd always been.
She could feel his heartbeat against his chest.
Astor's hand came up to touch the side of her face, and Asma jerked back, tearing herself out of his grasp. Her thoughts were dizzy, as though he'd spun her mind out of circuit as well as her body.
What? she thought, and then; Why?
"I have to go," she blurted, and ran for the door, Astor's call lost to her ears as she clapped her hands over them.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #3 - flamboyant, Chocolate #10 - awe, Cookies N Cream #26 - settle
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Godhood arc
Word Count: 348
They were all sorts of colors, all the colors of the rainbow and some Asma thought didn't exist on the rainbow, and she tore her hand out of Astor's and ran after them, shrieking gleefully. The butterflies scattered at her first approach, and she skidded to a stop, whirling on her heel to scowl at Astor.
"They're leaving!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot, and he raised a hand to conceal his laugh.
"Help me!" A demand. Stamp.
He knelt carefully in the flowers, and she clambered onto his shoulders, small fingers curling in his hair. From Astor's height the world was much bigger, and Asma wondered when she'd be able to see it like this.
"Over there!" she cried, pointing at the nearest clump of butterflies, and tugged on a clump of Astor's hair. He winced, tapping her knee.
"Calm down, up there."
"But they're - "
"Shhh."
She was about to say I'm the princess, you don't have to tell me to shhhh! - and if it were Haytham or Janan she probably would have - but his voice was calm and not at all bossy. Asma settled down on his shoulders and was resentfully silent.
Astor stalked through the flowers as cautiously and slowly as a hunting cat. When they neared the butterflies, he sank again to his knees, slipping the princess off of his shoulders - "Stay here," he whispered to her.
Nervously, but curiously, Asma rested her knuckle against her lower lip. Astor crept forward, extending a hand; the knuckle crept into her mouth.
Gently, the elder Roc slipped a hand under the closest butterfly - a vivid blue one with green markings, whose wings beat lazily as he picked it up. Asma bit down lightly on her knuckle in surprise.
"How'd you do that?" she hissed, forgetting to be quiet, but Astor just smiled.
"Patience, princess," he chided, pressing his finger to her nose. The butterfly clambered from his hand, and Asma's habitual, comforting hand dropped to her side.
"Whoa," she breathed, and Astor's smiling face disappeared behind a film of blue and green.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #6 - lazy, Cookies N Cream #18 - slip, Fudge Ripple #14 - urgency
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 654
They'd left the ropes just a little loose.
Asma knew this because she'd been left leaning against a tree for the past five hours, and when one has one's hands tied behind one's back for five hours and no one to amuse or free them, one tends to seek entertainment in other ways. Such as breaking out of one's bonds, for instance.
The people who'd kidnapped her - Black Glass still rang in her mind - had carried her for quite a long way without worry, the ragged gag still between her jaws. Apparently they knew who she was; not only that she was the princess, but that they had no need to fear her change.
A knot of shame twisted in her stomach; she was the only one left, and she couldn't -
They'd left her propped up on this tree, ankles and wrists tied, black cloth wrapped around her eyes. Her feet, still in the stiff dance shoes, hurt from the rope digging into them, and she could feel her dancing dress ripple in the slight breeze.
She waited until she could only hear their soothing sleep-breaths and laughed to herself; they hadn't even bothered to leave a guard.
Fools.
Asma shifted slightly. Wherever she lay was neither stone nor sand - a bumpy, painful surface that dug into her skin. The trunk was not a smooth palm such as those she was used to; it was rough against her back, and when she moved it scraped on her shoulderblades. Ouch.
Her ankles were tied tightly; whoever had done that had done a good job. She couldn't shift her legs even slightly against each other, and when she tugged at the ropes, precisely nothing happened. The cord at her wrists was a different story - while at one point it had been tied tightly enough to chafe, it had loosened over their journey, and apparently no one had bothered to check it.
For such a well-planned attack-
She pushed that thought away - shoved it away, really, so forcibly that were it a physical object it might have been broken. No. Not now.
She curled her fingers carefully, twisting her hands to feel the knot. Asma's breath huffed out of her in an incredulous snort; one that was, for better or worse, masked by the gag. No one awoke, at least, so she supposed she was thankful for that - but this knot was just so -
She could break it. Well, no, not break it, but if she slid her hands just the right way she was sure it would loosen, and then she could get to work on the rope on her ankles -
-- what rope on her ankles?
Asma froze, sitting bolt-upright. She heard nothing except the slow, calm heartbeats and breathing of sleeping humans. But she knew there had been a cord there, it had been digging into her skin and she could still feel it resting on her legs -
Her arms fell abruptly forward, the rope around her wrists severed by something unseen and unheard. Slightly panicked now, Asma yanked the cloth from her eyes, whipping her head around -
- to stare into a pair of troubled blue eyes she had thought (hoped?) were dead.
"Don't speak," he said almost soundlessly, before she could tear out the cloth and do just that, at extreme volume. "Just come with me. We need to leave before they realize their guard is dead and their captured princess is gone."
A dozen questions swirled in her mind as she pulled the gag out of her mouth - how did you find me? how are you alive? where were you hiding? why didn't you get me sooner? - but as he tugged her to her feet and into the dark of the woods, the one that pressed most insistently to her tongue was Why did you come after me?
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #21 - modest (aka Asma being totally not), Fudge Ripple #23 - lust, Sour Apple #9 - open mouth, insert foot
Rating: NC-17 - Enter at ye own risk, for here be porn.
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Fairhood arc
Word Count: 1054
She didn't even wait until the door was shut before reaching to wrap her fingers around his hips, clutching him tightly enough to leave bruises. He ignored her, deliberately swinging the door to and reaching to twist the lock. He would probably have tried it a few times - tugged the door, relocked it a few times, just to make sure - but she rested her mouth against his bare shoulder, and she whispered - "Haytham."
A shudder went through him. Asma felt it in her fingertips, and a weird triumph went through her as he turned to wrap her in his arms. Then his fingers were curling through her hair, and his mouth was at her neck -
She shuddered when his tongue ran across her collarbone, slick and cool against her skin, and again as it slid down, tracing the lines of her breast, the plane of her sternum. His hands shifted at the back of her head, trailed down to splay along her back - Asma's fingernails dug into his hips as he caught a nipple in his mouth, the very tips of his teeth scraping across it.
"Haytham," she said again, and then with a gasp, "Haytham - "
His tongue flicked teasingly against the nub, and she arched against him, pressing her hips into him, scraping her fingers over his back - she felt him laugh against her chest, the huff of breath hot, and then he raised his head, his eyes burning blue.
"Princess?" he murmured against her mouth, and she kissed him.
Somehow they made it to the bed, a tangle of pale skin and blue eyes and tongues and lips and teeth. Haytham pressed her against the mattress, hands sliding along the outside of her thighs, and she fumbled with his breeches, her nails - almost claws, if Asma was going to be honest with herself - nearly tearing through the fabric.
"No," he told her, low and gentle, but the simple authority with which he said it made her pause. Then his mouth was on her neck, his fingers slipping to caress the inside of her knees, dancing along her legs, pausing to rest with tips splayed lightly on the swell of her buttocks. His teeth caught against her throat. Asma inhaled, back twisting, and his thumbs slid along her skin to touch the lips of her sex.
Bright gods preserve us, she thought, hazy and sick with want.
His fingers touched her, lighter than a whisper, and his eyes flicked up to watch her face. Something darkened in his pupils, and his lips parted, and for some reason the lust boiling in Asma's stomach deepened -
"Haytham..."
Then his tongue was on her and in her and her claws were scraping across the sheets, a hoarse cry bursting from her mouth - like lightning on her skin, his fingers tracing fire along her sides, her hips, her thighs. His name shuddered from her lips, and then an incoherent moan, and his mouth paused. She felt a smile curling across his face.
"Princess," he purred, and the hum of his voice against her made her whimper and clutch at the covers. Haytham laughed, his breath brushing hot along her skin, and his tongue licked a trail up her front - stomach, sternum, gods, the line of her neck - until he was murmuring something against her mouth.
Toes curled over the edge of the cliff, she was pinwheeling, pinwheeling -
“Please,” she gasped, and his fingers wrapped around her hips and he thrust inside of her (and somewhere Asma wondered dimly where his breeches had gone), hard and deep and she felt his nails raking down her sides, leaving vague purple furrows -
Making love? Not quite, not this - making love was something he did to Janan. Making war was closer. There was a snarl on Asma’s lips, her hips jerking to meet him, and her hands scrabbled for purchase on his back - Haytham’s teeth were pressed to her neck, not quite biting, not quite resting. They moved, not quite together, but with a sinuous rhythm that made conflict into accord, rage into ecstasy. Not a dance, not a dance at all.
Almost at once it hit her, and she was tumbling off the edge of the cliff, no wings to catch her and no end in sight. Desperately she clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder, “Hay-tham -”
He slowed slightly, resting his mouth lightly on the edge of her jaw, hands relaxing to cup instead of claw. She shuddered as his tongue flicked out, trailing along to trace the shape of her lips. His silver hair stuck to his forehead, blue eyes cloudy and beautiful in their animalistic, furious desire.
Haytham was like this with her. And only her.
Asma loved it.
She said his name, authoritatively, and he rolled onto his back, hands settling on the base of her spine. A low hum of approval escaped her mouth as she began to move, hands stretching to grip the swirls of the bedstead, and Haytham, Haytham -
It was rare for him to allow this to her - poor Haytham and his authority complex, she supposed - but when he did she took advantage of it. Leisurely, slow - she set the pace, grinning down at his face. It was a mask of frustration and amusement and the ever-present lust, and his hands flexed on her skin.
“Since you said please,” she murmured, and began to move faster, the knot tightening in her stomach. He rose to meet her, thrusting with the rhythm of the soft whimpers falling from her mouth, and he watched her, watched her, watched her like-
And she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, and his eyes were calm and blue-
“Astor-”
No, Haytham, Haytham’s nails were scraping viciously down her thighs and it was Haytham’s eyes that were widening with betrayal- or was it just that? because then she shuddered in shame and ecstasy, the burnt-lightning feeling in her veins again, and she slid off of his body and lay beside him and it was over.
They lay for a moment, catching their breath. Then Haytham sat up, anger carefully hidden behind his eyes.
“Who am I again?” he inquired, dangerously calm, and Asma felt a sinking feeling in her chest.
I have no idea if anyone remembers me but if they do hiii. I finally finished... one flavor after more than a year. Go me?
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #28 - lumpy, Sour Apple #29 - look, ma, no hands!, Cookies N Cream #2- fall
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 408
Mahir's staff cracked against her skull, and Asma dropped to the ground, clutching her head. Her own stick fell with a clunk just next to her, and Asma resented it - for not being able to feel pain, for falling down with her, or for just being there at all.
The older Roc smirked down at her, and she resisted the urge to snarl back, or worse, lunge for him. It wasn't like she could take him on, especially not in her weakened state.
"Pathetic."
The word made Asma flinch, and she had to force herself not to look at the person who'd spoken it - the queen always loved watching her pet princess get beaten into the ground. Every lump, every pain, every smack that left her vision blurry about the edges; the Rocmother was there for it all, and to spur Asma on with her peculiar kind of goad.
It worked, at least, Asma thought bitterly, and grunted as she levered herself to her feet. Mahir regarded her with derision and revulsion, and once more the urge to attack him came.
"You move too slowly," he said, with something like a sneer. "How human of you. Your reflexes are terrible, and you move like a board."
"You know, Mahir, I really hate you," Asma replied, and before he could respond, her fist swung around to crunch cleanly into his nose.
He staggered back in surprise, and her leg swept out, knocking him to the ground. His head hit the stone of the arena with a nasty-sounding smack. Asma rammed her staff into the hollow of his throat and placed a foot onto his chest.
He made a strangled noise of hatred at her. As part of the rules the Rocmother had set, he wasn't allowed to don his feathers while he sparred with her; she was to learn how to fight humans, not her own kind. And now, after months of abuse, she finally had him trapped.
Asma allowed herself a brief smile. "I really wish I was allowed to kill you," she told the pinned Roc conversationally. "Unfortunately, I'm not. Too bad. Maybe someday I'll just snap on you, somewhere where there aren't witnesses."
She tossed her staff a few feet away and stepped off of Mahir. He sat up, rubbing his throat and glaring at her, and she gave him a sunny smile.
And she ignored the expression of delight on the queen's face.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #24 - flexible, Cookies N Cream #3 - spin, Fudge Ripple #29 - shock
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Fairhood arc
Word Count: 248
"This isn't dancing!" she protested, but under the protest there was a laugh, and Astor smiled at her. He swept her back across the floor as smoothly as the silk of the blue dress she wore, and in a single flow of motion dipped her - the world was upside-down for an instant, as dazzling inverted as it was when right.
He spun her up and around, an arm hooking under her leg, and pulled her to him, and then down again, her bare foot sliding along the floor. The violin - she thought, at least, that it was a violin - hissed up, and she laughed as he pulled her up again.
Then Astor threw her out as far as their arms could stretch, and she spun back into his arms -
And then his arms were around her waist, holding her closer to him than she'd been before -
The music screeched to a halt. Asma was looking into his eyes, as deep and calm as they'd always been.
She could feel his heartbeat against his chest.
Astor's hand came up to touch the side of her face, and Asma jerked back, tearing herself out of his grasp. Her thoughts were dizzy, as though he'd spun her mind out of circuit as well as her body.
What? she thought, and then; Why?
"I have to go," she blurted, and ran for the door, Astor's call lost to her ears as she clapped her hands over them.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #3 - flamboyant, Chocolate #10 - awe, Cookies N Cream #26 - settle
Rating: G
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Godhood arc
Word Count: 348
They were all sorts of colors, all the colors of the rainbow and some Asma thought didn't exist on the rainbow, and she tore her hand out of Astor's and ran after them, shrieking gleefully. The butterflies scattered at her first approach, and she skidded to a stop, whirling on her heel to scowl at Astor.
"They're leaving!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot, and he raised a hand to conceal his laugh.
"Help me!" A demand. Stamp.
He knelt carefully in the flowers, and she clambered onto his shoulders, small fingers curling in his hair. From Astor's height the world was much bigger, and Asma wondered when she'd be able to see it like this.
"Over there!" she cried, pointing at the nearest clump of butterflies, and tugged on a clump of Astor's hair. He winced, tapping her knee.
"Calm down, up there."
"But they're - "
"Shhh."
She was about to say I'm the princess, you don't have to tell me to shhhh! - and if it were Haytham or Janan she probably would have - but his voice was calm and not at all bossy. Asma settled down on his shoulders and was resentfully silent.
Astor stalked through the flowers as cautiously and slowly as a hunting cat. When they neared the butterflies, he sank again to his knees, slipping the princess off of his shoulders - "Stay here," he whispered to her.
Nervously, but curiously, Asma rested her knuckle against her lower lip. Astor crept forward, extending a hand; the knuckle crept into her mouth.
Gently, the elder Roc slipped a hand under the closest butterfly - a vivid blue one with green markings, whose wings beat lazily as he picked it up. Asma bit down lightly on her knuckle in surprise.
"How'd you do that?" she hissed, forgetting to be quiet, but Astor just smiled.
"Patience, princess," he chided, pressing his finger to her nose. The butterfly clambered from his hand, and Asma's habitual, comforting hand dropped to her side.
"Whoa," she breathed, and Astor's smiling face disappeared behind a film of blue and green.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #6 - lazy, Cookies N Cream #18 - slip, Fudge Ripple #14 - urgency
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 654
They'd left the ropes just a little loose.
Asma knew this because she'd been left leaning against a tree for the past five hours, and when one has one's hands tied behind one's back for five hours and no one to amuse or free them, one tends to seek entertainment in other ways. Such as breaking out of one's bonds, for instance.
The people who'd kidnapped her - Black Glass still rang in her mind - had carried her for quite a long way without worry, the ragged gag still between her jaws. Apparently they knew who she was; not only that she was the princess, but that they had no need to fear her change.
A knot of shame twisted in her stomach; she was the only one left, and she couldn't -
They'd left her propped up on this tree, ankles and wrists tied, black cloth wrapped around her eyes. Her feet, still in the stiff dance shoes, hurt from the rope digging into them, and she could feel her dancing dress ripple in the slight breeze.
She waited until she could only hear their soothing sleep-breaths and laughed to herself; they hadn't even bothered to leave a guard.
Fools.
Asma shifted slightly. Wherever she lay was neither stone nor sand - a bumpy, painful surface that dug into her skin. The trunk was not a smooth palm such as those she was used to; it was rough against her back, and when she moved it scraped on her shoulderblades. Ouch.
Her ankles were tied tightly; whoever had done that had done a good job. She couldn't shift her legs even slightly against each other, and when she tugged at the ropes, precisely nothing happened. The cord at her wrists was a different story - while at one point it had been tied tightly enough to chafe, it had loosened over their journey, and apparently no one had bothered to check it.
For such a well-planned attack-
She pushed that thought away - shoved it away, really, so forcibly that were it a physical object it might have been broken. No. Not now.
She curled her fingers carefully, twisting her hands to feel the knot. Asma's breath huffed out of her in an incredulous snort; one that was, for better or worse, masked by the gag. No one awoke, at least, so she supposed she was thankful for that - but this knot was just so -
She could break it. Well, no, not break it, but if she slid her hands just the right way she was sure it would loosen, and then she could get to work on the rope on her ankles -
-- what rope on her ankles?
Asma froze, sitting bolt-upright. She heard nothing except the slow, calm heartbeats and breathing of sleeping humans. But she knew there had been a cord there, it had been digging into her skin and she could still feel it resting on her legs -
Her arms fell abruptly forward, the rope around her wrists severed by something unseen and unheard. Slightly panicked now, Asma yanked the cloth from her eyes, whipping her head around -
- to stare into a pair of troubled blue eyes she had thought (hoped?) were dead.
"Don't speak," he said almost soundlessly, before she could tear out the cloth and do just that, at extreme volume. "Just come with me. We need to leave before they realize their guard is dead and their captured princess is gone."
A dozen questions swirled in her mind as she pulled the gag out of her mouth - how did you find me? how are you alive? where were you hiding? why didn't you get me sooner? - but as he tugged her to her feet and into the dark of the woods, the one that pressed most insistently to her tongue was Why did you come after me?
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #21 - modest (aka Asma being totally not), Fudge Ripple #23 - lust, Sour Apple #9 - open mouth, insert foot
Rating: NC-17 - Enter at ye own risk, for here be porn.
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Fairhood arc
Word Count: 1054
She didn't even wait until the door was shut before reaching to wrap her fingers around his hips, clutching him tightly enough to leave bruises. He ignored her, deliberately swinging the door to and reaching to twist the lock. He would probably have tried it a few times - tugged the door, relocked it a few times, just to make sure - but she rested her mouth against his bare shoulder, and she whispered - "Haytham."
A shudder went through him. Asma felt it in her fingertips, and a weird triumph went through her as he turned to wrap her in his arms. Then his fingers were curling through her hair, and his mouth was at her neck -
She shuddered when his tongue ran across her collarbone, slick and cool against her skin, and again as it slid down, tracing the lines of her breast, the plane of her sternum. His hands shifted at the back of her head, trailed down to splay along her back - Asma's fingernails dug into his hips as he caught a nipple in his mouth, the very tips of his teeth scraping across it.
"Haytham," she said again, and then with a gasp, "Haytham - "
His tongue flicked teasingly against the nub, and she arched against him, pressing her hips into him, scraping her fingers over his back - she felt him laugh against her chest, the huff of breath hot, and then he raised his head, his eyes burning blue.
"Princess?" he murmured against her mouth, and she kissed him.
Somehow they made it to the bed, a tangle of pale skin and blue eyes and tongues and lips and teeth. Haytham pressed her against the mattress, hands sliding along the outside of her thighs, and she fumbled with his breeches, her nails - almost claws, if Asma was going to be honest with herself - nearly tearing through the fabric.
"No," he told her, low and gentle, but the simple authority with which he said it made her pause. Then his mouth was on her neck, his fingers slipping to caress the inside of her knees, dancing along her legs, pausing to rest with tips splayed lightly on the swell of her buttocks. His teeth caught against her throat. Asma inhaled, back twisting, and his thumbs slid along her skin to touch the lips of her sex.
Bright gods preserve us, she thought, hazy and sick with want.
His fingers touched her, lighter than a whisper, and his eyes flicked up to watch her face. Something darkened in his pupils, and his lips parted, and for some reason the lust boiling in Asma's stomach deepened -
"Haytham..."
Then his tongue was on her and in her and her claws were scraping across the sheets, a hoarse cry bursting from her mouth - like lightning on her skin, his fingers tracing fire along her sides, her hips, her thighs. His name shuddered from her lips, and then an incoherent moan, and his mouth paused. She felt a smile curling across his face.
"Princess," he purred, and the hum of his voice against her made her whimper and clutch at the covers. Haytham laughed, his breath brushing hot along her skin, and his tongue licked a trail up her front - stomach, sternum, gods, the line of her neck - until he was murmuring something against her mouth.
Toes curled over the edge of the cliff, she was pinwheeling, pinwheeling -
“Please,” she gasped, and his fingers wrapped around her hips and he thrust inside of her (and somewhere Asma wondered dimly where his breeches had gone), hard and deep and she felt his nails raking down her sides, leaving vague purple furrows -
Making love? Not quite, not this - making love was something he did to Janan. Making war was closer. There was a snarl on Asma’s lips, her hips jerking to meet him, and her hands scrabbled for purchase on his back - Haytham’s teeth were pressed to her neck, not quite biting, not quite resting. They moved, not quite together, but with a sinuous rhythm that made conflict into accord, rage into ecstasy. Not a dance, not a dance at all.
Almost at once it hit her, and she was tumbling off the edge of the cliff, no wings to catch her and no end in sight. Desperately she clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder, “Hay-tham -”
He slowed slightly, resting his mouth lightly on the edge of her jaw, hands relaxing to cup instead of claw. She shuddered as his tongue flicked out, trailing along to trace the shape of her lips. His silver hair stuck to his forehead, blue eyes cloudy and beautiful in their animalistic, furious desire.
Haytham was like this with her. And only her.
Asma loved it.
She said his name, authoritatively, and he rolled onto his back, hands settling on the base of her spine. A low hum of approval escaped her mouth as she began to move, hands stretching to grip the swirls of the bedstead, and Haytham, Haytham -
It was rare for him to allow this to her - poor Haytham and his authority complex, she supposed - but when he did she took advantage of it. Leisurely, slow - she set the pace, grinning down at his face. It was a mask of frustration and amusement and the ever-present lust, and his hands flexed on her skin.
“Since you said please,” she murmured, and began to move faster, the knot tightening in her stomach. He rose to meet her, thrusting with the rhythm of the soft whimpers falling from her mouth, and he watched her, watched her, watched her like-
And she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, and his eyes were calm and blue-
“Astor-”
No, Haytham, Haytham’s nails were scraping viciously down her thighs and it was Haytham’s eyes that were widening with betrayal- or was it just that? because then she shuddered in shame and ecstasy, the burnt-lightning feeling in her veins again, and she slid off of his body and lay beside him and it was over.
They lay for a moment, catching their breath. Then Haytham sat up, anger carefully hidden behind his eyes.
“Who am I again?” he inquired, dangerously calm, and Asma felt a sinking feeling in her chest.