Fic: Playing with Matches, Cal/Terzian
Hello folks,
Thought I'd post my first attempt at a Wraeththu fic. Hope you all like it! If you want more, please tell me.
~elfscribe
Playing with Matches 1/?
by elfscribe
Pairing: Calanthe/Terzian
Rating: Adult
Unbetaed.
Spoiler: Enchantments
Disclaimer: Storm Constantine owns all to do with the Wraeththu universe. I am borrowing her characters for my own nefarious purposes.
Summary: What exactly happened during those hours when Terzian seduced Cal “with the fire power of a volcano?”
Author's note: A line of dialogue was taken from The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit. It is indicated in italics.
Terzian was drunk. That, right there, was cause for alarm. The first crack I’d seen in the cool, controlled exterior. He paused at the door, “Cal, I have to speak to you,” he’d said ominously, then walked into the room, his leather garments creaking softly as he moved, the sound vaguely menacing. He dropped into a chair at the table where we were finishing dinner. “Pellaz!” he growled with a dismissive jerk of his chin.
Pellaz, sweet, innocent Pell with the face of an angel, took the hint. Got up from his chair, excused himself, and left. Left me to my devils. Oh Pell, why? I’m not strong, you know that. I’m a tramp, a cat in heat. And Terzian is stretching his claws.
I smiled at him - a lazy Cal smile, like a laser beam of charm. Well do I know it. “What do you want, Terzian?”
His eyes: hungry, shadowed, direct. “You know what I want.”
Well, so much for a long, slow seduction. But we’d already been at it for weeks. He wasn’t one to play coy and I must have been making him crazymad. Oh Pell didn’t see it. But I did. An arched eyebrow. A hand: clenched, unclenched. A twitch in the jaw. The very air between us thrumming with aruna magic. Beckoning. And I must admit, I played him. Batted him about in the sunshine like a ball of twine. Slanted glances, a flip of tawny hair, the insouciant remark. There is only so long you can do that with one such as him before the explosion comes. Bad Cal. Playing with matches.
During this dance, I was aware of his consort Cobweb in the background. I could feel him, hissing quietly, mouth open. Green as a viper. It adds to my sin that I didn’t care. For right now, there was only Terzian: a powerful, dominant presence: pulled taut like a longbow, growling, needy. Power such as his draws me. It always has. Fills me with a desire to bite and claw, a need to surrender. My blood itched with challenge. I was Uigenna to his Varr. Showdown.
“What do I get out of it?” I asked, examining my nails, noting the nicks in the black nail polish. I’m such an imposter.
“What do you get out it,” Terzian repeated thoughtfully as if assessing a trade. He picked up a spoon, tapped the bowl against his lips. “It would seem lodging, food, security, would already be payment enough.”
“I was under the impression that you extended your hospitality to Pell and me in gratitude for rescuing your consort. You never said there was a price for it.”
“There wasn’t,” Terzian said abruptly. He got up from the table and walked about the dining room, picking up objects and setting them down again. Finally, he turned to look at me. “I would hope you would get pleasure out of it.”
I leaned back in my chair, laughed. He narrowed his eyes.
He was used to being obeyed, not to being played. I could tell it was making him agitated, as if feeling his way along uneven ground, whereas I’m an old hand at this. In the game of seduction, I always win. He was quite attractive in a lean, sinewy way. His prominent cheekbones were set off by a long triangle of shadow beneath; lips lush and sharp-edged; predatory blue eyes surrounded by an unnaturally long fringe of dark lashes, one of the few feminine things about him. His thick, blond hair was cut in shaggy layers almost carelessly, shorter on the top. Attractive yes, but it was more than that. I could feel his male side channeled into a deadly machine of control. I didn’t expect him to be a subtle lover, but yes, now that it had come to it, I fancied feeling his weight on top of me. I’m sorry Pell. I can pretend he overpowered me. I am pretending.
I took a cigarette from his case on the table. Tapped the end on my plate. “Give me a light,” I said and placed it between my teeth. Grinned at him around it.
He smiled back. A rare thing for him and it was charming. I could almost hear the self-satisfied purr. He moved towards me with deliberation. A snap of a metal lighter. Flare of heat. I leaned into it. The smoke rushed into my lungs and I released it slowly, let it curl seductively out of my mouth. Looked at him sidelong, tongue sliding along the soft interior of my lips, coming to rest just in the seam between top and bottom lip. His eyes followed every movement.
He sat down in the chair next to me, straddled it backwards and rested his forearms on the top of it. Just the proximity of his forceful presence was making me hard and yet soume at the same time. It was a strange reaction, not unknown for me, but strange to be feeling so completely androgynous. I suppose it was pure Wraeththu, except that it’s how I felt before I was incepted - when all I knew was that I was a boy who liked boys.
“I’m not very good at this, I admit,” he said. “But, I want to tell you that you are beautiful. The most beautiful har I’ve seen in a long time - maybe ever.”
“Mmm,” I said. The cigarette dangled loosely from my lips as I picked up one of his hands and examined the palm. Traced the lifeline to where it ended. His hand, relaxed and heavy in mine. Dry skin. Long fingers, sensitive and blunt. I thought about other parts of him, whether they would be like that. Looked back up to his eyes: narrow diamond shape, glittering sky-pale in their fringe of black. Removed the cigarette from my mouth, flamboyantly. “Is that all you’ve got, Terzian? Because if you think you’re the first to tell me I’m beautiful, you’d be quite mistaken.”
“No feelings of inadequacy, huh, Cal?”
“Not when it comes to how I look. Even before I was incepted, they all told me - all the pretty boys told me that I was the prettiest. Becoming har only made it more so. Frankly it bores me.”
No one has so many lies to tell as I. Truthfully, I’m always pleased when they find me beautiful. Who isn’t? And in fact, I was incepted before I had a chance to do much more than dream of hot, smooth boyskin, although there had been one.
I dropped his hand. Rested my elbow on the table, wrist cocked. The cigarette smoke fretted lazily into the air, ladder to heaven. “Feelings of inadequacy about other things, yes. I’m really quite worthless, you know, Terzian. I’m a liar, a cheater, a murderer. You don’t want me.”
“Now, you are bragging, Cal. Do you think me shocked by such things?” I could see he was amused, as well he might be. I imagine nothing I’d done in my sordid past was a patch on his crimes. And yet all I’d seen during my sojourn in his house was a somewhat distant and magnanimous host who had developed a . . . thing for me. But I knew better. Could feel darkness in him.
He raked a hand through his unruly blond hair, played with one of the three silver hoops in his ear, watched me. The narcissist in me preened at such regard.
I stood up, nudging the chair out of the way, went to the large earthenware jug on the sideboard and poured myself a draught of sheh. Turned to look at him again. I was not sure why I was doing this. Flirting with him, I mean. He was eating me up with his eyes. Cannibalistic. His thoughts were not at all subtle. I saw him mentally rip off my skin-tight pants and my shirt, which was unbuttoned halfway down my chest. It was intoxicating. I shifted my weight to a cocked hip, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other.
“Do you know you have a short lifeline, Terzian?” I said.
“So Cobweb tells me. Do you know that you are insolent?”
“So many a har has told me. It’s an endearing quality, don’t you think?” The sheh was burning its way down my throat. I’d already had too much.
“Will it take promises?” he said with a hint of hesitation, as if plunging into a cold lake. “I would do anything for you, Cal. I would make you my consort. Give you anything you want.”
I stopped mid-gulp. Eyed him. For the first time feeling an edge of fear. “Why do you think I would want that? Besides, you already have a consort.”
“Yes, I have one. There is no reason why I can’t have another.”
“Oh, so this isn’t about attraction, it’s about power. About showing off to the world. ‘I am Terzian, the Varr, head of an army, master of my house. I can have any har I want.’”
He scowled. That had made him angry. Good.
“I can have any har I want,” he growled. He stood up, approached like a lithe, tawny cat in all his crunchy, black leather menace and glory. I felt a thrill prickle up my spine. He came close, too close, leaned his shoulder up against the wall, arms crossed. He said, “I could snap my fingers, like that,” which he did, right under my nose, “and five hara would be here ready to do my bidding.”
“You think I don’t know that,” I replied. I took another drag on the cig. Blew a thin stream of smoke at his face, ever so gently. “So then, Tiger, what would you bid them do?”
He reached up, rolled a strand of my hair between his fingers. With wonder in his voice, he said, “So fine your hair, like a skein of silk.” Then his tone changed to a smooth, low rumble that hit just the right note to reverberate in my loins. “What would I tell them? Perhaps it would be, ‘Drag this insolent har to my room. Tie him to the bed - spread eagle. Bring me a whip and a candle.’”
I laughed lightly, although I was responding to him like a bird pretending a wounded wing. “Skilled, are you, in the art of sweet pain? Would that be enjoyable for you, to have me at your mercy like that?”
“Yes, but not as enjoyable as having you writhing under me, screaming with ecstasy.” His voice went softer, almost pleading. “I want you, Cal. I’ll take you any way I can, if I have to, but I’d rather . . .” He hesitated, bit his lip gently.
“You’d rather I wanted it too,” I finished. “How novel.” I ran a hand down his chest, feeling the smooth cured leather under the balls of my fingers, plucked at a metal fastener on a placket over his heart, pulling and twisting as if it were his nipple. “How un-Varr,” I continued.
He inhaled a quick breath, then seized my arms in a grip of steel and threw me against the wall hard enough to let me know he meant business, not so hard that it could be considered pelki. My glass flew from my hand, dropped to the floor with a crash. The cigarette sailed in after it, drowning with a soft phsst.
“I’m done playing games, Cal,” he growled. The impact knocked away my breath for a moment, then Terzian was giving me his. A taste of iron and blood, oak leaves, mist, ragged wings fluttering. He brought his knee up between my legs, pressed his thigh against my crotch, leaned his weight into it as he ravaged my mouth, his warm tongue hunting mine. A long ridge at his groin brutally rubbed against my hip. My body thrilled, snapping like green lightning, making the juices flow. Then he was biting my neck, his hands slid down my back, cupped my rear as he pulled me right up onto his thigh. “Ride it,” he husked.
“Yes. Yes,” I moaned.
“I’ve run out of patience. You’ve played with me too long, Cal. You knew exactly what you were doing. Didn’t you? But I think you’ve miscalculated. You need to learn more respect. And I’m the one who will teach it to you.”
“You’re hardly the first to want to try,” I gasped.
He turned around with me still perched on his knee and tossed me onto the table amidst a clatter of dishes. I remember thinking, rather prosaically, that it was a good thing the table was so solid and that the servants had already cleared most of the meal. Then he was fumbling with the zipper on my pants, jerking it down, pulling the fabric apart enough to get a hand inside. “Ah, soume and wet,” he said with a triumphant flash of his eyes. “Insolent little Cal.”
“Wait, wait a moment,” I said as I attempted to extricate a fork from under my backside, but he was preoccupied, having hooked his fingers over my waistband, and was violently working my pants off my hips and downwards, scraping nails across tender skin. One leg caught on my boot and he tugged the boot free and the pants with it and tossed them to the floor. There I was, bared from the waist down and spread out for him, another feast on his table, with my ass on a damned plate to boot. I would have laughed if I’d had any breath left. He grasped the edges of my shirt, pulled it apart with a snap. The buttons flew. I didn’t care. It was his shirt anyway.
“Um, Terzian,” I gasped, but he was already unzipping his pants, pulling himself out. Oh yes, just as I’d thought, long and thick and so hard, pulsing with color: scarlet and gold. He was going too fast. This wasn’t aruna, not really, and did I care? No. And then, oh Aghama, he had seized my hips, pulled me forward, speared me in one long, searing, heart-stopping thrust. I heard the scream. Was that me? I thought the whole household would come bounding in. Before I could catch a breath, he was going at it, violently. Bang, bang, bang. The table shook, glassware and crockery clanged and rolled. Oh, but it was good. It was good. I wanted to be hurt, to be ravished. I heard myself laughing, crying out, “Terzian, you bastard. Is that it? That’s all you can do? Damn you! Harder. Harder.”
Fast. Too fast. My mind was in a whirl, the pleasure blazing. I felt myself tearing at his leather-clad arms, arching and rolling, as if I was a beast lashing and curling my tail. I wanted him, wanted him. Harder. The table shuddered with every thrust, holding fast in its steadfast solidity. A glass rolled and smacked into my head but I hardly felt it. “Please, please, please,” I was chanting. Deeper. And then finally, after an age, an eon, when sweat laced my chest, dripped into my eyes, he gasped, his eyes rolled back, then he leaned down and sealed his mouth to mine, sending me his breath, alive with lust. A shudder, stillness, and then movement deep, deep within me as the feeler tongue licked the nerve, sparking a wildfire that roared up and engulfed me. I screamed again. Heard him roar with me. Everything went black for a moment.
When I opened my eyes, he was tucking himself back into his pants. He met my glance and the look was surprisingly tender. He bent over me, ran a hand down my cheek. “I knew we’d get on together. You’re a hellion.”
Shivers of electricity raced through me, now cold, now hot.
“What the fuck did you think that was?” I growled and pulled the plate out from under my ass, where I swear it had left a permanent imprint. Tossed it over my head. Crash of fracturing china. “That wasn’t aruna, whatever you Varrs might think.”
He just smiled. Slow and taunting. “Not so cocky now, little Calanthe. The Uigenna don’t have so much to brag about either when it comes to niceties.” And before I could think of a good retort, he’d grasped my hair and gone for my mouth again. At first hard. Then more relaxed, slow and deliberate. “Better now?” he purred, when mouths finally separated. “That was just the beginning. A get acquainted fuck. I intend to roon you to the stars and back before we’re done. Tell me you didn’t find that pleasurable. I know you liked it.”
I could only shudder with aftershocks, like sparkling wine.
He moved away from me, looking like a cat with cream around his mouth. Found the cigarette pack somewhere in the mess, shook out two, put them in his mouth and lit them, then handed one to me. When I took it, I noticed my hand was shaking. Sat up, rested my feet on a chair, elbows propped in my lap, and eyed him narrowly. Beneath me the tablecloth was wet. “A fine mess we’ve left for your staff,” I muttered.
“No one will complain,” he said. “There are times when it’s good to be lord and master.” He blew a billowing cloud to the ceiling like the exhale of some dragon.
Oh damn. I wanted to say, ‘Take me up to your room, strip me naked, do unspeakable things to me,’ but I kept it to myself. I imagined that it would happen soon enough without my begging for it.
At that moment the door opened and in came Cobweb wearing a flowing green robe, hair wild. I had only seen him once since the rescue. He was still pale and much too skinny but now I could see why Terzian valued him. All eyes and delicate bones, long white arms, a prescience of beauty that, given more care and food would bloom into an arcane lily. However, at the moment his face was painfully pinched, aghast. His eyes filled with thorns as he took in the scene and my nakedness. “How could you disgrace me like this!” he hissed.
“This doesn’t concern you, Cobweb,” Terzian said. He flicked an ash on the floor.
“It would be one thing, quietly in your room, but like this so that the whole household knows!”
Terzian’s eyes narrowed. “Get out,” he said in a voice like low thunder. “Make sure we’re not disturbed.” Cobweb gave me a look of sizzling venom and fled.
I hopped off the table, found my pants and wriggled into them, ignoring the wet spots I created in the process. The shirt hung off my shoulders, flapping open. “Now what?” I mocked.
“Now,” he picked a purple iris out of the vase on the sideboard and presented it to me, with that charming smile, “we go up to my room and see if we can plumb the depths of aruna magic. What do you say?”
“You’re actually asking?” I replied. “I thought you would just club me on the head and throw me over your shoulder.”
He curled his lips around the cigarette, pulled in a puff, blew it out slowly. “That can be arranged, if you prefer.” Voice cool, with the faintest menace behind it. He stubbed out the butt on a plate.
What I preferred was keeping at least some shreds of dignity. Going with him was a foregone conclusion. I opened the door and gestured. “Lead on, my lord Varr.” We left the dining room without a backward glance.
He paused at the foot of the stair. “You go on up. You know where it is. I have some things to arrange.”
And so, I found myself treading up the wide curving staircase, shadowy in the dim light, my footsteps muffled in the dark red carpet. Suddenly images from an animation I’d seen when very young - when still human - came to me. Surrounded by an eerie light, a beautiful woman with waist-length blond hair wearing a long, blue dress climbed a stair. A disembodied voice of evil called to her and, spellbound, she was unable to resist. She walked as if in a dream, floating, up and up the winding staircase, compelled to such an extent that there was no conscious thought involved. Was that me?
I buried my nose in the iris, which smelled like gum. ‘Calanthe,’ the dream voice called. ‘Coming,’ I thought. Oh yes, Calanthe, mesmerized by a leather-clad King of Alley-cats. That’s what he was, no matter the elegance of the trappings. I couldn’t help myself, had to see where the stairway led to, had to reach that siren voice.
-tbc-
Thought I'd post my first attempt at a Wraeththu fic. Hope you all like it! If you want more, please tell me.
~elfscribe
Playing with Matches 1/?
by elfscribe
Pairing: Calanthe/Terzian
Rating: Adult
Unbetaed.
Spoiler: Enchantments
Disclaimer: Storm Constantine owns all to do with the Wraeththu universe. I am borrowing her characters for my own nefarious purposes.
Summary: What exactly happened during those hours when Terzian seduced Cal “with the fire power of a volcano?”
Author's note: A line of dialogue was taken from The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit. It is indicated in italics.
Terzian was drunk. That, right there, was cause for alarm. The first crack I’d seen in the cool, controlled exterior. He paused at the door, “Cal, I have to speak to you,” he’d said ominously, then walked into the room, his leather garments creaking softly as he moved, the sound vaguely menacing. He dropped into a chair at the table where we were finishing dinner. “Pellaz!” he growled with a dismissive jerk of his chin.
Pellaz, sweet, innocent Pell with the face of an angel, took the hint. Got up from his chair, excused himself, and left. Left me to my devils. Oh Pell, why? I’m not strong, you know that. I’m a tramp, a cat in heat. And Terzian is stretching his claws.
I smiled at him - a lazy Cal smile, like a laser beam of charm. Well do I know it. “What do you want, Terzian?”
His eyes: hungry, shadowed, direct. “You know what I want.”
Well, so much for a long, slow seduction. But we’d already been at it for weeks. He wasn’t one to play coy and I must have been making him crazymad. Oh Pell didn’t see it. But I did. An arched eyebrow. A hand: clenched, unclenched. A twitch in the jaw. The very air between us thrumming with aruna magic. Beckoning. And I must admit, I played him. Batted him about in the sunshine like a ball of twine. Slanted glances, a flip of tawny hair, the insouciant remark. There is only so long you can do that with one such as him before the explosion comes. Bad Cal. Playing with matches.
During this dance, I was aware of his consort Cobweb in the background. I could feel him, hissing quietly, mouth open. Green as a viper. It adds to my sin that I didn’t care. For right now, there was only Terzian: a powerful, dominant presence: pulled taut like a longbow, growling, needy. Power such as his draws me. It always has. Fills me with a desire to bite and claw, a need to surrender. My blood itched with challenge. I was Uigenna to his Varr. Showdown.
“What do I get out of it?” I asked, examining my nails, noting the nicks in the black nail polish. I’m such an imposter.
“What do you get out it,” Terzian repeated thoughtfully as if assessing a trade. He picked up a spoon, tapped the bowl against his lips. “It would seem lodging, food, security, would already be payment enough.”
“I was under the impression that you extended your hospitality to Pell and me in gratitude for rescuing your consort. You never said there was a price for it.”
“There wasn’t,” Terzian said abruptly. He got up from the table and walked about the dining room, picking up objects and setting them down again. Finally, he turned to look at me. “I would hope you would get pleasure out of it.”
I leaned back in my chair, laughed. He narrowed his eyes.
He was used to being obeyed, not to being played. I could tell it was making him agitated, as if feeling his way along uneven ground, whereas I’m an old hand at this. In the game of seduction, I always win. He was quite attractive in a lean, sinewy way. His prominent cheekbones were set off by a long triangle of shadow beneath; lips lush and sharp-edged; predatory blue eyes surrounded by an unnaturally long fringe of dark lashes, one of the few feminine things about him. His thick, blond hair was cut in shaggy layers almost carelessly, shorter on the top. Attractive yes, but it was more than that. I could feel his male side channeled into a deadly machine of control. I didn’t expect him to be a subtle lover, but yes, now that it had come to it, I fancied feeling his weight on top of me. I’m sorry Pell. I can pretend he overpowered me. I am pretending.
I took a cigarette from his case on the table. Tapped the end on my plate. “Give me a light,” I said and placed it between my teeth. Grinned at him around it.
He smiled back. A rare thing for him and it was charming. I could almost hear the self-satisfied purr. He moved towards me with deliberation. A snap of a metal lighter. Flare of heat. I leaned into it. The smoke rushed into my lungs and I released it slowly, let it curl seductively out of my mouth. Looked at him sidelong, tongue sliding along the soft interior of my lips, coming to rest just in the seam between top and bottom lip. His eyes followed every movement.
He sat down in the chair next to me, straddled it backwards and rested his forearms on the top of it. Just the proximity of his forceful presence was making me hard and yet soume at the same time. It was a strange reaction, not unknown for me, but strange to be feeling so completely androgynous. I suppose it was pure Wraeththu, except that it’s how I felt before I was incepted - when all I knew was that I was a boy who liked boys.
“I’m not very good at this, I admit,” he said. “But, I want to tell you that you are beautiful. The most beautiful har I’ve seen in a long time - maybe ever.”
“Mmm,” I said. The cigarette dangled loosely from my lips as I picked up one of his hands and examined the palm. Traced the lifeline to where it ended. His hand, relaxed and heavy in mine. Dry skin. Long fingers, sensitive and blunt. I thought about other parts of him, whether they would be like that. Looked back up to his eyes: narrow diamond shape, glittering sky-pale in their fringe of black. Removed the cigarette from my mouth, flamboyantly. “Is that all you’ve got, Terzian? Because if you think you’re the first to tell me I’m beautiful, you’d be quite mistaken.”
“No feelings of inadequacy, huh, Cal?”
“Not when it comes to how I look. Even before I was incepted, they all told me - all the pretty boys told me that I was the prettiest. Becoming har only made it more so. Frankly it bores me.”
No one has so many lies to tell as I. Truthfully, I’m always pleased when they find me beautiful. Who isn’t? And in fact, I was incepted before I had a chance to do much more than dream of hot, smooth boyskin, although there had been one.
I dropped his hand. Rested my elbow on the table, wrist cocked. The cigarette smoke fretted lazily into the air, ladder to heaven. “Feelings of inadequacy about other things, yes. I’m really quite worthless, you know, Terzian. I’m a liar, a cheater, a murderer. You don’t want me.”
“Now, you are bragging, Cal. Do you think me shocked by such things?” I could see he was amused, as well he might be. I imagine nothing I’d done in my sordid past was a patch on his crimes. And yet all I’d seen during my sojourn in his house was a somewhat distant and magnanimous host who had developed a . . . thing for me. But I knew better. Could feel darkness in him.
He raked a hand through his unruly blond hair, played with one of the three silver hoops in his ear, watched me. The narcissist in me preened at such regard.
I stood up, nudging the chair out of the way, went to the large earthenware jug on the sideboard and poured myself a draught of sheh. Turned to look at him again. I was not sure why I was doing this. Flirting with him, I mean. He was eating me up with his eyes. Cannibalistic. His thoughts were not at all subtle. I saw him mentally rip off my skin-tight pants and my shirt, which was unbuttoned halfway down my chest. It was intoxicating. I shifted my weight to a cocked hip, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other.
“Do you know you have a short lifeline, Terzian?” I said.
“So Cobweb tells me. Do you know that you are insolent?”
“So many a har has told me. It’s an endearing quality, don’t you think?” The sheh was burning its way down my throat. I’d already had too much.
“Will it take promises?” he said with a hint of hesitation, as if plunging into a cold lake. “I would do anything for you, Cal. I would make you my consort. Give you anything you want.”
I stopped mid-gulp. Eyed him. For the first time feeling an edge of fear. “Why do you think I would want that? Besides, you already have a consort.”
“Yes, I have one. There is no reason why I can’t have another.”
“Oh, so this isn’t about attraction, it’s about power. About showing off to the world. ‘I am Terzian, the Varr, head of an army, master of my house. I can have any har I want.’”
He scowled. That had made him angry. Good.
“I can have any har I want,” he growled. He stood up, approached like a lithe, tawny cat in all his crunchy, black leather menace and glory. I felt a thrill prickle up my spine. He came close, too close, leaned his shoulder up against the wall, arms crossed. He said, “I could snap my fingers, like that,” which he did, right under my nose, “and five hara would be here ready to do my bidding.”
“You think I don’t know that,” I replied. I took another drag on the cig. Blew a thin stream of smoke at his face, ever so gently. “So then, Tiger, what would you bid them do?”
He reached up, rolled a strand of my hair between his fingers. With wonder in his voice, he said, “So fine your hair, like a skein of silk.” Then his tone changed to a smooth, low rumble that hit just the right note to reverberate in my loins. “What would I tell them? Perhaps it would be, ‘Drag this insolent har to my room. Tie him to the bed - spread eagle. Bring me a whip and a candle.’”
I laughed lightly, although I was responding to him like a bird pretending a wounded wing. “Skilled, are you, in the art of sweet pain? Would that be enjoyable for you, to have me at your mercy like that?”
“Yes, but not as enjoyable as having you writhing under me, screaming with ecstasy.” His voice went softer, almost pleading. “I want you, Cal. I’ll take you any way I can, if I have to, but I’d rather . . .” He hesitated, bit his lip gently.
“You’d rather I wanted it too,” I finished. “How novel.” I ran a hand down his chest, feeling the smooth cured leather under the balls of my fingers, plucked at a metal fastener on a placket over his heart, pulling and twisting as if it were his nipple. “How un-Varr,” I continued.
He inhaled a quick breath, then seized my arms in a grip of steel and threw me against the wall hard enough to let me know he meant business, not so hard that it could be considered pelki. My glass flew from my hand, dropped to the floor with a crash. The cigarette sailed in after it, drowning with a soft phsst.
“I’m done playing games, Cal,” he growled. The impact knocked away my breath for a moment, then Terzian was giving me his. A taste of iron and blood, oak leaves, mist, ragged wings fluttering. He brought his knee up between my legs, pressed his thigh against my crotch, leaned his weight into it as he ravaged my mouth, his warm tongue hunting mine. A long ridge at his groin brutally rubbed against my hip. My body thrilled, snapping like green lightning, making the juices flow. Then he was biting my neck, his hands slid down my back, cupped my rear as he pulled me right up onto his thigh. “Ride it,” he husked.
“Yes. Yes,” I moaned.
“I’ve run out of patience. You’ve played with me too long, Cal. You knew exactly what you were doing. Didn’t you? But I think you’ve miscalculated. You need to learn more respect. And I’m the one who will teach it to you.”
“You’re hardly the first to want to try,” I gasped.
He turned around with me still perched on his knee and tossed me onto the table amidst a clatter of dishes. I remember thinking, rather prosaically, that it was a good thing the table was so solid and that the servants had already cleared most of the meal. Then he was fumbling with the zipper on my pants, jerking it down, pulling the fabric apart enough to get a hand inside. “Ah, soume and wet,” he said with a triumphant flash of his eyes. “Insolent little Cal.”
“Wait, wait a moment,” I said as I attempted to extricate a fork from under my backside, but he was preoccupied, having hooked his fingers over my waistband, and was violently working my pants off my hips and downwards, scraping nails across tender skin. One leg caught on my boot and he tugged the boot free and the pants with it and tossed them to the floor. There I was, bared from the waist down and spread out for him, another feast on his table, with my ass on a damned plate to boot. I would have laughed if I’d had any breath left. He grasped the edges of my shirt, pulled it apart with a snap. The buttons flew. I didn’t care. It was his shirt anyway.
“Um, Terzian,” I gasped, but he was already unzipping his pants, pulling himself out. Oh yes, just as I’d thought, long and thick and so hard, pulsing with color: scarlet and gold. He was going too fast. This wasn’t aruna, not really, and did I care? No. And then, oh Aghama, he had seized my hips, pulled me forward, speared me in one long, searing, heart-stopping thrust. I heard the scream. Was that me? I thought the whole household would come bounding in. Before I could catch a breath, he was going at it, violently. Bang, bang, bang. The table shook, glassware and crockery clanged and rolled. Oh, but it was good. It was good. I wanted to be hurt, to be ravished. I heard myself laughing, crying out, “Terzian, you bastard. Is that it? That’s all you can do? Damn you! Harder. Harder.”
Fast. Too fast. My mind was in a whirl, the pleasure blazing. I felt myself tearing at his leather-clad arms, arching and rolling, as if I was a beast lashing and curling my tail. I wanted him, wanted him. Harder. The table shuddered with every thrust, holding fast in its steadfast solidity. A glass rolled and smacked into my head but I hardly felt it. “Please, please, please,” I was chanting. Deeper. And then finally, after an age, an eon, when sweat laced my chest, dripped into my eyes, he gasped, his eyes rolled back, then he leaned down and sealed his mouth to mine, sending me his breath, alive with lust. A shudder, stillness, and then movement deep, deep within me as the feeler tongue licked the nerve, sparking a wildfire that roared up and engulfed me. I screamed again. Heard him roar with me. Everything went black for a moment.
When I opened my eyes, he was tucking himself back into his pants. He met my glance and the look was surprisingly tender. He bent over me, ran a hand down my cheek. “I knew we’d get on together. You’re a hellion.”
Shivers of electricity raced through me, now cold, now hot.
“What the fuck did you think that was?” I growled and pulled the plate out from under my ass, where I swear it had left a permanent imprint. Tossed it over my head. Crash of fracturing china. “That wasn’t aruna, whatever you Varrs might think.”
He just smiled. Slow and taunting. “Not so cocky now, little Calanthe. The Uigenna don’t have so much to brag about either when it comes to niceties.” And before I could think of a good retort, he’d grasped my hair and gone for my mouth again. At first hard. Then more relaxed, slow and deliberate. “Better now?” he purred, when mouths finally separated. “That was just the beginning. A get acquainted fuck. I intend to roon you to the stars and back before we’re done. Tell me you didn’t find that pleasurable. I know you liked it.”
I could only shudder with aftershocks, like sparkling wine.
He moved away from me, looking like a cat with cream around his mouth. Found the cigarette pack somewhere in the mess, shook out two, put them in his mouth and lit them, then handed one to me. When I took it, I noticed my hand was shaking. Sat up, rested my feet on a chair, elbows propped in my lap, and eyed him narrowly. Beneath me the tablecloth was wet. “A fine mess we’ve left for your staff,” I muttered.
“No one will complain,” he said. “There are times when it’s good to be lord and master.” He blew a billowing cloud to the ceiling like the exhale of some dragon.
Oh damn. I wanted to say, ‘Take me up to your room, strip me naked, do unspeakable things to me,’ but I kept it to myself. I imagined that it would happen soon enough without my begging for it.
At that moment the door opened and in came Cobweb wearing a flowing green robe, hair wild. I had only seen him once since the rescue. He was still pale and much too skinny but now I could see why Terzian valued him. All eyes and delicate bones, long white arms, a prescience of beauty that, given more care and food would bloom into an arcane lily. However, at the moment his face was painfully pinched, aghast. His eyes filled with thorns as he took in the scene and my nakedness. “How could you disgrace me like this!” he hissed.
“This doesn’t concern you, Cobweb,” Terzian said. He flicked an ash on the floor.
“It would be one thing, quietly in your room, but like this so that the whole household knows!”
Terzian’s eyes narrowed. “Get out,” he said in a voice like low thunder. “Make sure we’re not disturbed.” Cobweb gave me a look of sizzling venom and fled.
I hopped off the table, found my pants and wriggled into them, ignoring the wet spots I created in the process. The shirt hung off my shoulders, flapping open. “Now what?” I mocked.
“Now,” he picked a purple iris out of the vase on the sideboard and presented it to me, with that charming smile, “we go up to my room and see if we can plumb the depths of aruna magic. What do you say?”
“You’re actually asking?” I replied. “I thought you would just club me on the head and throw me over your shoulder.”
He curled his lips around the cigarette, pulled in a puff, blew it out slowly. “That can be arranged, if you prefer.” Voice cool, with the faintest menace behind it. He stubbed out the butt on a plate.
What I preferred was keeping at least some shreds of dignity. Going with him was a foregone conclusion. I opened the door and gestured. “Lead on, my lord Varr.” We left the dining room without a backward glance.
He paused at the foot of the stair. “You go on up. You know where it is. I have some things to arrange.”
And so, I found myself treading up the wide curving staircase, shadowy in the dim light, my footsteps muffled in the dark red carpet. Suddenly images from an animation I’d seen when very young - when still human - came to me. Surrounded by an eerie light, a beautiful woman with waist-length blond hair wearing a long, blue dress climbed a stair. A disembodied voice of evil called to her and, spellbound, she was unable to resist. She walked as if in a dream, floating, up and up the winding staircase, compelled to such an extent that there was no conscious thought involved. Was that me?
I buried my nose in the iris, which smelled like gum. ‘Calanthe,’ the dream voice called. ‘Coming,’ I thought. Oh yes, Calanthe, mesmerized by a leather-clad King of Alley-cats. That’s what he was, no matter the elegance of the trappings. I couldn’t help myself, had to see where the stairway led to, had to reach that siren voice.
-tbc-