on this blog, you'll find the fanfiction i write (which is currently of the love & deepspace variety) as well as fanworks (created by others) that make brain go brrr
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i'm an adult with a full-time job and various irl responsibilities, so i write when i can (which is not as often as i'd like, but what can ya do)
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i believe in the 3 pillars of fandom etiquette: ship and let ship, don’t like; don’t read, and your kink is not my kink (and that’s okay)
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i'm a fan of polycules involving the LADS boys, and i'm also a fan of LIxLI pairings
my interpretation of calebmc's dynamic is a blend of the CN canon (where they grew up as adoptive siblings who had their adoptive ties legally dissolved after caleb's presumed death) and EN dub (because i am hopelessly endeared to caleb's EN VA and the drawl he uses)
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writing tags
fics, regardless of length: #cardinal fics
drabbles: #cardinal drabbles
one-shots: #cardinal oneshots
multi-chapter fics: #cardinal longfics
blurbs & unedited ideas: #cardinal muses
other tags
personal thoughts & yapping: #cardinal yaps
love & deepspace fan art: #lads art
fic recs: #cardinal recs
master lists
caleb (main tag: #caleb x mc)
rafayel (main tag: #rafayel x mc)
sylus (main tag: #sylus x mc)
xavier (main tag: #xavier x mc)
zayne (main tag: #zayne x mc)
polycules & more (polycules, LIxLI, multiple LIs, NPCs, etc.)
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summary: sylus has once again talked you into being vulnerable around him, and this time you don't even have clothes to hide behind
pairing: sylus x reader
rating: mature 🔞 (mdni; suggestive content)
word count: 480
tags: fem!reader, nudity (reader is nude; sylus is clothed), under-negotiated mirror kink (reader is slightly uncomfortable), implied D/s dynamic, use of pet names (sweetie)
note: written for day 6 of the #sylusbday2026 event hosted by @aliciascanvas (prompt: jewels); also available in my love & drabble-space collection on ao3
In the candlelit stillness of Sylus’s quarters, a tall, filigreed mirror looms before you, silver and imposing.
There are easily a dozen other things you’d rather be doing tonight—most of which involve hands and mouths and working up a healthy sweat—but Sylus has a way of talking you into activities just like this one. Activities that raise your hackles. Activities that make you wriggle like a worm on a hook. And yet, you agree almost every time.
Damn your trust in him.
An old melody crackles through the gramophone on the far side of the room, something jazzy and slow and just a touch sensual— no doubt meant to help you relax.
Hah, as if that’s a possibility.
You hold your breath as Sylus unties your robe and slides it over your shoulders. Lets it drop to the floor. You track it like a quail flushed from the underbrush, this puddle of shimmering silk that’s taken flight— or rather was brought down by a skilled hunter. Your skilled hunter.
Sylus tsks, the sound sharp against your ear. “Let me see those eyes, sweetie.” He stands behind you, close but not touching, still dressed in his suit, and you suddenly feel like a marble bust on display at a museum.
But at Sylus’s encouragement, you lift your gaze and take in the sight of yourself like this, bare save for the jewels he placed around your neck, a cast of chunky emeralds and diamonds set in white gold. It must be worth a fortune. Flawless gems for a flawless woman, he’d said. Discomfort curdles at the base of your skull, half because you’re unaccustomed to such luxury and half because you don’t make a habit of staring at your naked form. You fight off the urge to look away and instead look at him.
In the reflection, his eyes, red as ripened elderberries, light on yours. “Breathe,” he says, the order so soft it feels like a caress.
You do. One shaky exhale. Another shaky inhale.
He doesn’t give another command.
You keep breathing.
The music makes it easier. Or maybe it’s the vintage texture of the sound, like logs popping in a fire. The record turns, the needle dances over vinyl, and you breathe.
With each rise and fall of your chest, the gems wink like faraway stars. And like stars, their gravity tugs your gaze lower, to the body beneath the stones, to your breasts, your stomach, your thighs. Every part of the canvas of you bears marks of Sylus’s own design— crescent-shaped bruises made by teeth, rounded splotches from when he took you in his mouth and sucked.
Memories of nights’ past bloom hot through your veins, and your breath hitches.
“Mmm, there she is,” he says, the honeyed praise sticking to your skin in a way that makes you ache for his touch. “Beautiful.”
A tale of how much Zayne loves you and the lengths he’s willing to go just to make you smile.
read on ao3
➻➻ ABOUT | 3800 words. zayne x fem!reader.
➻➻ TAGS | domestic fluff. humour. crack-adjacent? established relationship. hot nerd zayne. teasing. voyeurism if you squint. suggestive.
NOTE: Some much needed Zayne fluff for us all, dedicated to my amazing, kindhearted, talented, and most dearly beloved @mythblossoms! If there was a 5-star Zayne card made with you in mind, I imagine it would be like this xoxo
It's funny how the simplest things can set your mood for the whole day.
Waking to the warmth of the sun's rays filtering through the curtains instead of the chill of an empty bed.
Hearing Zayne's gravelly "awake?" and burying your nose in his warm throat, instead of a whispered apology and nuzzling the cooling pillow.
Playfully bumping your elbow into his when you brush your hair instead of getting ready alone in silence.
Sitting down to share a small breakfast instead of tucking a protein bar and your thermos into your bag and rushing off to the Association.
Maybe it isn't glaringly obvious how giddy you are over it all, you think as you scrub the last of the food from the dishes. Maybe you can erase the beaming smile from your face, you hope as you wipe your rolled sleeve over your mouth and reach for the dish soap.
But as the corners of your lips once again overtake your cheeks when warm palms slide around your waist, you realize that maybe you're just a lost cause when it comes to Zayne.
"Oh, I already made yours." You nod at the thermos he set beside you as your soapy hands reach for the pan.
His lips curve into the hair at your temple and it takes catching the scent of brown sugar and oat milk to realize the thermos isn't his. "And now, I've made yours," he murmurs.
You take a peek at the clock on the microwave. He leaves an hour earlier than you and he still managed to get ready with time to spare.
"Show-off," you mutter, elbowing his abdomen lightly.
He huffs a laugh through his nose, pressing his lips into your hairline. Fingers start moving over the material of your work clothes, absentmindedly rubbing out the faint creases of disuse you haven't been able to erase.
In your defense, it never crossed your mind that you'd end up going a month without wearing your Hunter's uniform, so you hadn't done the best job taking care of your office wear.
"Just a few more weeks," he encourages quietly. "You'll be back to making wanderers beg for mercy before you know it."
"Five more weeks," you grumble as your fingers hunt for silverware in the soapy water. "It feels like I've been put in time out."
You still remember the sharp, splintering heat behind your sternum, the way your vision had whited at the edges even as you forced your evol to respond during your last mission. The fear and worry on Zayne's face as he stared at your third EKG report, still searching for answers even after your symptoms faded and you insisted you were fine.
Unfortunately for you, Zayne would never be lenient about your aether core, and Jenna would never further risk an injured team member. So you weren't all that surprised when your doctor's treatment plan, coupled with a recent lull in wanderer activity, led to her executive decision to sideline you until you properly recovered.
Still, nine weeks on desk duty was a bit of an excessive sentence, in your humble opinion.
"You're not being punished, you're recovering." He gives your hips a scolding pinch that has you splashing a bit of water when you squeak in surprise. "It would be worse to send you out there before we make sure you're fully healed, no?"
"I guess you're right," you sigh, setting the clean silverware aside. "I think I'm just starting to realize how bad I am at having free time."
Ever since you joined the UNICORNS, you've been in the field. High-stakes, high-danger missions one after the other, keeping your body running and your mind active for days, even weeks, on end. So the slower pace was welcome at first: not coming home fatigued to the bone with wanderer blood staining your clothes, spending your nights being kissed by Zayne instead of stitched up by him.
But as the weeks dragged on, the novelty faded when you realized there were only so many shows to binge, only so many video games to beat, before your new day-to-day filled with admin work and reports started to make you a bit… restless.
"I disagree," Zayne says simply.
You glance back at him with raised brows, neither of you needing a reminder of your attempt to sneak out to a mission with Simone — that tattling traitor — two weeks ago, when Zayne had shown up mid-huddle, stern expression gentling into something half-empathetic, half-amused on the way home. And you call me a workaholic, he'd teased.
"Your free time has been great for many reasons. You're conserving our bandage supply, for one." You snort because of course that would be an achievement to him. "You're actually sitting down to eat your meals. You're spending more time with me." He takes the kitchen towel and wipes the water around the sink. "You've rediscovered a forgotten passion."
As was frustratingly often the case, Zayne was right. Because just as you'd started to worry that maybe you’d let work take up too much of your mind, too much of your personality even, you stumbled into a subject you used to adore but never had time to pursue properly. What had started with a social media rabbit hole had led to series of documentaries that reignited what thought had been a long-extinguished spark for anthropology.
Before you knew it, you were venturing into online forums, brushing up on research, and remembering how much it all gripped you: the way tracing human patterns across time feels like mapping constellations, how you love talking about the evolution of rituals, how the smallest of artifacts could unveil entire civilizations.
You hum in excitement, turning your head over your shoulder to face him as the mention reminds you, "Speaking of! There's a news article that just came out about an ancient burial ground near Snowcrest. It made me realize I haven't taught you about cultural burial symbolism yet."
He leans into his palms on either side of you, hazel eyes magnified by his glasses, and the way he's paused everything to focus on you makes your next question a bit breathless, "Maybe we can go to dinner after work? So I can deliver your weekly lecture."
Since the first documentary he watched with you, Zayne's done nothing but listen with that attentive focus of his. Asking questions to learn from you, picking up on details to get you rambling, remembering concepts you'd taught him by referencing them in future conversations. He's even started sparking debates with you recently, and every time he challenges you with that sharp mind of his, your lips part and your stomach tightens with more attraction for him.
Though he's never been anything but engaged and interested, a small part of you worries if you might just filling the space your missions left behind with another hyperfixation. Might be talking too much about your interests and not enough about his.
Because ever since you started your discussions about anthropology, Zayne's also been spending a lot more time on his own research. Late nights in the lab, early mornings in his office.
Which is why you aren't entirely surprised when he says, "I'm going to spend some extra time on research after work this evening, so it might get too late for that." You turn back to the last of the dishes in the sink as the tip of his nose traces from your temple to the shell of your ear. "Can I take you to dinner tomorrow night?"
The last thing you want is to be greedy with Zayne's time. You'd hate to stand in the way of his research, his own passions, when he so lovingly encourages yours. So it's only with the smallest grain of disappointment that you nudge the back of your head into his chest and sing-song, "Dr. Zayne. Are you asking me out on a date?"
"No."
Gasping in indignation and surprise, you whip your head and have just enough time to see a small smirk curving his mouth before he leans in to kiss you.
"I'm simply asking to spend tomorrow evening the way I want to spend every evening," he explains, moving toward his messenger bag, slotting his books inside, and adjusting the strap over his shoulder. "With you."
You're wiping your hands dry on the kitchen towel as he makes his way to the front door, so you know it's a premeditated attack when he pairs the kiss on the top of your head with a light swat to your ass.
You yelp in surprise and he pauses with his hand on the knob, a downright cheeky smile on his face when he says, "See you tonight."
Smiling as the door shuts behind him, you grab your thermos and make your way to your own belongings, packing your stuff for yet another day of desk duty, when a small slip of paper on the chair catches your eye.
When you flip it over, you see a reservation slip with Zayne’s name next to the Linkon Library logo. It’s for a study table this evening in the regional studies section.
Your eyes narrow. For Zayne? Shouldn't he be in the biology section?
Now that you think about it, he’s been really vague about his research. Part of you had worried it was because of your aether core flare-up, but when you'd straight up asked him he'd denied it. You assumed he was just trying not to scare you but Zayne also never lies to sugarcoat things. If he was worried about your heart, he'd tell you.
So then, what was he researching?
You tuck the slip into your pocket, pull on your coat, and head to the door. You've finally got your first mission after a month of desk duty: stealth mission at the library
You can't even pretend to be productive for the last hour of work.
The reservation slip has been burning a hole in your pocket all day, your mind circling the same question as you do your best to skim reports and respond to emails.
What the hell is Zayne being so secretive about?
By the time you shut your laptop and gather your things, you're practically bursting with nosiness and curiosity.
The Linkon Library greets you with its usual hush when the automatic doors slide shut behind you. The soft hum of overhead lights taking over for the dimming daylight, the muted shuffle of pages flipping, the smell of paper and ink, and the low murmur of librarians assisting students and patrons.
You adjust the strap of your bag on your shoulder and head toward the regional studies section, smoothing your expression into something neutral and casual as you pass the neatly organized rows of bookshelves. This might be a self-appointed recon operation with no stakes and nonexistent danger, but it's a mission nonetheless, and you're a UNICORNS Hunter, you'd never be sloppy during a mission.
So the familiar instincts settle over you as you thread your way through the shelves, climb up the stairs, and catch sight of the section's study area.
It must be testing season because a lot of cubbies are occupied by students, textbook spines labeled everything from civics to history resting on the surfaces. A cluster of what looks like professors are at one of the tables, toggling between grading and chatting.
There’s also a trio of older gentlemen back by the window, all in neatly pressed button-ups, sleeves rolled to varying degrees. Two of them face your direction, grey-peppered hair catching the evening light, brows drawn tight in what looks like a heated discussion over the spread of newspapers between them. The third has his back turned to you, dark hair untouched by silver, posture more relaxed. He seems far more invested in the book propped open before him and the tin of cookies at his elbow than the two chatting across from him.
You scan the area again more carefully, your gaze sliding back to the men by the window just as the dark-haired man unfurls his body, turns to stretch his lean muscles and- oh.
Not an older gentleman. Anything but old, actually. You'd know the width of those shoulders, the angle of that jaw, the frames of those glasses anywhere. Have spent long days and longer nights memorizing each detail of him.
Your lips twitch when you see his hand reach into the package again. You even have that brand of cookies memorized.
If only you could see the books he's reading too.
Switching back to neutral and casual, you move deeper into the section, letting your fingers drift over book spines labeled sociology, linguistics, archaeology as if you’re deciding what to browse until you've circled the perimeter of the section and concealed yourself behind one of the empty study cubicles.
He's only a few feet away from this angle, an ankle resting over his opposite knee with one book in his hands and two stacked to his right. You rise subtly onto your toes to catch the titles on the spines that face you but his forearm reaches into the cookie tin right as you do.
It would be easier to be annoyed by the obstruction if the muscles of his forearms didn't flex like that when he reached for his snack. If he didn't push his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index and middle finger like that. If he-
You duck back behind the cubicle when he shifts in his seat, concealing yourself a split second before his line of sight is able to sweep over your gawking face. Taming your galloping heart with your palm, you enjoy the familiar way the adrenaline and determination to succeed rush through you as you peek around the edge again and finally have a clear view of the books stacked by his elbow.
Rites of Passage: Comparative Burial Practices in the Arctic
Regional Funerary Symbolism and Mortuary Theory
The Ancient Arctic: Death Rituals and Burial Symbolism
Before you can fully process what you're seeing, someone bumps into your shoulder and if you were anything but a trained Hunter, you're certain your surprised squeal would've been deafening.
An elderly lady peers at you over the rim of her glasses, a few magazines folded under one arm. “Miss, this cubicle is reserved!”
You wince at the volume of her voice, not even sparing a glance behind you as you whisper a quick "sorry," reach blindly for the nearest book on the anthropology shelf next to you, and do your best to calmly retrace your steps back toward the staircase.
You only exhale once you spot the circulation desk downstairs, checking out the book you'd snagged on autopilot. Your pulse buzzes faintly under your skin as you recall your words from that morning.
I haven't taught you about cultural burial symbolism theories yet.
And here he is, reading about it. The librarian scans the barcode, and you listen to the soft mechanical chirp of the system logging the loan as something warm unfurls in your chest when you realize he must've been coming here after work for weeks. After spending his days helping patients, saving lives, he came here to be a bigger part of yours.
That's why he's been able to ask you insightful, in-depth questions. Why he's had that downright bashful smile on his face when you've praised his questions or observations.
He's been studying.
When you take your stamped book and nod your thanks, that warm feeling makes its way from your ribs to your cheeks and once again there's a beaming smile on your face because of Zayne, somehow even wider than this morning.
You’d been worried that maybe you've been talking too much and asking too little, but all Zayne wanted to do was keep up with you. Maybe even impress you.
You clutch the book to your chest as you step outside, feeling embarrassingly like a university student with a crush when a small giggle bubbles out of you. The evening air cools your flushed cheeks and a familiar sense of triumph hums through you: stealth mission complete.
As make your way home, you assign yourself a new one.
Tomorrow’s dinner lecture is officially being rescheduled.
“So, how’d your research go? Learn anything new?”
The barest hesitation stutters Zayne's hand as he lifts one of the macaroons to his mouth. You still aren't sure how he can stomach them after eating all those cookies at the library as well as dinner, but you're glad you picked them up on the way home as you follow suit and bite down on your own.
When you shoot him an expectant look he pops the macaroon in his mouth with a hum, nodding his head as he chews.
“Good,” you reply with an innocent smile, brushing crumbs from your fingertips. “I actually got up to something after work too.”
“You did?” he asks curiously, finishing off the plate and setting it aside.
Your body is still humming from your discovery earlier. From the sight of renowned medical researcher and the city's top cardiac surgeon tucked into the library so he could impress his partner by learning more about your favorite subject.
You'd thought of a few ways to go about this as you waited for him to get back from work this evening: bringing it up point blank that you know and seeing what unfolds. Whipping out the reservation slip that fell from his bag that morning for a flare of drama.
But then you remembered the way he’d looked in the library, entirely absorbed as he traced his long fingers over the pages. Glasses low on his nose, dark lashes casting shadows over his cheeks. A seeker of knowledge in his element, unaware of the world beyond his studies. The same look he gives you when you get excited to share new things with him.
That's how you knew you wanted, no, deserved to see your confident brainiac flushed and bashful. Which is why your next statement is said with the most amount of provocation and the least amount of remorse. "I did! Linkon Library."
He couldn't have reacted better if you'd staged it, you think, as he coughs into his fist and swallows.
"Oh?" He clears his throat and you pretend you don't notice faintest hue of peach starting to stain the tips of his ears. "You haven't gone there in a while. Were you looking for something in particular?"
"I was." You spring up and go to your bag, using the chance to tamp down your smile as you take your new library book out. "And you'll never guess what I found."
His ears deepen from peach to crimson when you set your new anthro book on the table.
“I also found this really hot guy in the study section. Dark hair. Glasses. Very serious about his… research." Your teasing smirk finally breaks through. “He had a very impressive stack of textbooks and cookies in front of him too. What was it again… burial practices? In the Arctic?”
Colour continues creeping across his temples, along the sharp crest of his cheekbones, setting high into his cheeks like ink. You lean forward and resist the urge to bat your lashes as you rest your chin on your palm.
“And the way he pushed his glasses up when he was concentrating?” You exaggerate a groan of appreciation. “Unfair. Honestly, I almost introduced myse-”
Two fingers press gently to your lips, his mouth twitching at the corner. “Even soldiers are granted the mercy of surrender before they’re tortured.”
"Oops." You finally break with a laugh, thoroughly enjoying the way his flaming cheeks warm your hands when you lean in to cup them. "I guess I have no mercy when it comes to you."
Hazel irises sprout into sage. "My cruel mistress," he murmurs.
“What’s truly cruel,” you counter, sliding your hands down to rest against his collarbones, “is you studying my favorite subject without me. Were my lectures not good enough?”
“Your lectures are perfect." He says firmly, hands making their way to your sides to squeeze teasingly. “They may have actually ruined all future medical conferences for me permanently.” He smiles when you laugh. “I just… needed additional help after class.”
"Are you trying to impress me?" You raise a brow in suspicion.
He shakes his head with a huff. "I'm always trying to impress you."
“No wonder you knew so much,” you grumble. "I should've suspected when you started bringing up topics that even my forums weren't discussing."
“How else could I keep up with your brilliant mind?”
“Zayne.” You roll your eyes, but this time you're the one unable to stop the flush that betrays you.
Wisps of hair brush against your forehead when he leans in, voice softening. “How else could I keep making you smile at me for so long?”
His hand comes to your jaw, thumb tracing from cheek to chin before he kisses you. It's deep but slow, languid, a hungry beast finally holding the prey he's been waiting for. Pulling his lips away every few kisses to study the tremble of your lips only to dive back in and consume them.
Your hands slide around his shoulders, bringing your chest close as he pulls your hips closer, humming against your mouth as he sets you on the table and slots your hips against his. You suck in a few unsteady breaths when he pulls a few centimetres away again, knowing it's doing nothing to fan the flame of your cheeks.
His voice scrapes over you, “How else could I keep putting this look on your face?”
"What look?" you ask cooly, though the way your gasps are gusting out of your lungs probably ruins it. You don't even remember how you got here, if you're honest. Onto the table, onto this topic.
“The one you make when I asked you if languages shaped the way people fell in love,” he reminds you, trailing open-mouthed kisses down your neck.
“Or when we debated how different cultures defined beauty." He licks each word into your skin.
Zayne continues trailing slow kisses over your chest, over your ribs, until he's lifting your shirt and sucking louder kisses into your stomach, nipping the skin at your waistband.
You gasp when he does it, eyes wide, lips parted and he finally looks up, smiles a secret smile, and whispers, "This one."
The rest of the conversation dissolves as heated skin and wandering hands take over. As quiet laughs are swallowed by moaning mouths.
He knows without thinking where to touch, where to trace. He doesn't need to read any books know how to make your breath hitch, how to coax those soft sighs from your throat. Doesn't need any extra help to figure out how to hold you so you feel steady when you tumble over the edge.
Because Zayne doesn't need to study you, he knows you by heart.
sinking onto sylus for the first time in two weeks—demanding work schedules are the bane of your existence—and the fit is so snug, the stretch so severe, that you can feel his every twitch, can even feel the fluttering drum of his pulse
sylus x gn!reader, size kink, edging 🔞
The sensible part of you knows you should wait a moment, should let your body remember how the two of you fit together, should breathe deeply until the burn subsides… but Sylus has a way of knocking all sense from your mind.
He got you so close—worked you up to a fever pitch and then tore his fingers away, the scoundrel—and now you’re keen on claiming your prize. It won’t take much with the way he’s seated inside you, pressing hot and hard against your sweet spot.
Surely you can handle a bit of friction?
Yeah, you can handle that.
You engage your thighs, greedy for release, but your impatience is swiftly tempered when he squeezes your hips and pins you against him.
“What’s the rush?” he rasps, muscles tensed, cheeks flushed the loveliest shade of pink.
Mmm, seems like you’re not the only one who’s close. You contract around him, and he shudders. Groans. What delicious sounds he makes. You do it again.
Sylus’s grip on you turns a bit mean, fingers dimpling flesh in a futile attempt to force you still. “Kitten…” It’s a warning— one you don’t intend to heed.
“Either you let me move,” you say sweetly, “or I milk it out of you this way.” You engage your core again for emphasis, and he bucks beneath you.
The makings of a curse spin on the tip of his tongue.
“What’s it gonna be, Sy?” You bite at his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, each time reveling in the way he pushes himself farther into your mouth, bids you mark more of him. “You gonna let me come with you? Or are you feeling selfish today?”
explicit 🔞 | sylus/reader | 5.4k
summary: sylus is a god long sealed away by those who once worshipped, but now admonish him. you turn up looking to strike a deal and soon find yourself bound to him. now, to have you forever, he'll ascend you to godhood.
tags: god au, altar sex, sylus pov, tender sex, loss of virginity, size kink, cunnilingus, fingering, light bondage
author's note: this fic can also be read on ao3! + find the zaynemc companion fic by smoochable here!
For centuries, Sylus was perfectly content with being a scorned God. Solitude came easily to him; even preferable to being subject to the whims of mortals. So when they turned on him, deeming him evil and sealing him on this desolate plane, his rage felt like only a way to pass the time. And once he was finished with that, he settled into loneliness comfortably.
Of course, back then it wasn’t loneliness. It never felt like it, at least. That was until you landed in his domain, and so quickly he learned what it meant to be alone.
That life without you - even a consecrated life - was so, achingly lonely.
How silly he feels to have been annoyed when you first arrived, as if you were disturbing his peace. Before, he thought that only the truly damned would commit a ritual that sentenced them to this place, and only the most foolish among them would come with demands. And then came you, waltzing into Hell itself like you owned the place. Making demands of Sylus like you owned him.
Revenge, you wanted. Payback against those who groomed you into their perfect sacrifice - only to offer their God another vessel in your place. A betrayal of your entire existence as you had come to know it - leaving you with nothing, no life to continue living. You wished for nothing more than to raze your entire village in retribution.
Sylus could care less for the village-razing, long since bored of human trivialities. It would have barely been a margin of his power to do away with you and return to his solitude. But when you had the nerve to call him useless, to say that he was wasting your time, he found himself… amused. The nerve of this woman to oppose a God, to think yourself as anything but insignificant in his presence.
And you were right.
How could he not be intrigued? For the first time he felt what could only be described as a calling - he was inextricably pulled to stoke your flame, to bind you to him, to assure that now that he had you, he would never be without.
He found himself doing anything he could to prolong your time together, from the moment you were bound.
He had a crater of loneliness to fill, a chasm made perfectly in your shape. And the more he learned of you, the deeper that chasm grew, the more sides of you he needed to fulfill himself.
Your snark-filled attitude was the first part of you that he came to know. This is how you faced the world, with your ego first and everything measured against it. The kind of ego that sees yourself as better than him, more correct than him, that fights to challenge Sylus on each and every point. This makes you delicious to tease, to push, to prod and see what new reaction you’ll have to his insolence.
After that, he discovered your greed. This is a woman who wants for everything and sees herself inexplicably deserving of it. And you’re correct about this, too. He’d give you anything you desire. The world, if it’d please you.
Then he learned your diligence, your perseverance. Your ability to push yourself beyond human limits to achieve the impossible. The kind of woman who dedicated her entire life to being the perfect vessel for a better God, who sacrificed so much of herself long before you were rejected from the altar. You’re the kind of woman who didn’t think twice before going against a lifetime of teachings to seek out Sylus instead, gambling your soul on a forgotten evil for just a chance at achieving your revenge.
The part he’s only scratched the surface of, that he’s just come to explore, is your softness.
It started with your sorrow, the fragile part of you so carefully guarded with all the layers before it. The part of you that grieves for the loss of your future, your past, your people. The tears you weep when you think he can’t hear.
But it’s not just your pain.
It’s the blush that blooms on your cheeks when he calls you beautiful. The way you turn away in embarrassment when you’re held too gently. The push at his chest when he’s lost himself in your eyes, when he peers past the resolve and into the delicate person beneath it.
When you kissed him for the first time, nervous, hand trembling against his cheek despite your boldness, he knew that was it for him.
He will go down as a mad God with how desperately he loves this one mortal woman.
So here he finds himself - no longer able to stall for time - on the precipice of change. You’ve been bound to him, yes, but he can give you something more than just a binding. He can ascend you to Godhood.
But in order to complete the ritual, you must give yourself to him, wholly.
You’ve gone ahead and laid yourself on the raised stone plateau covered in plush pillows and satin blankets. You still wear your dress, though not for lack of trying - he’s already had to stop you from stripping prematurely.
You prop yourself up on your elbows and glare at Sylus with a raised eyebrow. “Well? Hurry up.”
“Patience, kitten,” he hums. He has no intention of rushing through any part of this. Quite the opposite, in fact. He wants to savor every moment, wants to take you apart with all the delicacy you deserve. You’re owed this tenderness, even if you don’t realize it.
“I don’t need patience. What I need is to get this over with.” Indignant as ever.
Sylus moves to the plateau, floating candles illuminating with red mist as he takes each step.
“This ritual isn’t just about giving your body to me. It’s surrendering yourself in your entirety. Mind and soul included. We can add your patience to the list as well.”
You roll your eyes with a huff. “You’re being dramatic. It’s just sex.”
Just sex, you say. But Sylus knows full well what’s expected of mortal sacrifices - purity, in all its forms. He also knows well enough that you are one to search for loopholes in every rule you find contemptible. Still, despite your bravado, he sees the way your ears tinge red with inexperience - your body betraying your nerves.
He doesn’t want this to be just sex. He wants this to be good for you.
When he settles on the plateau, you go to reach for him as if to pull him closer. He catches your hand instead, bringing your knuckles to his lips for a kiss. “You forget you’re in my domain, so we’ll be doing this with as much drama as I see fit,” he murmurs against you.
Sylus laces your fingers through his as you try to pull away, watches as you turn your head away from him with a blush. Always so shy when it comes to this earnest intimacy.
Kissing your hand goodbye, he moves to trace his fingers against your thigh with delicate, graceful touches. He trails his fingertips down you leg, feeling your skin raise under his feather-light touch. As he reaches your ankle, he curls his hand around it and spreads your legs so you bracket him, pulling you just close enough that he settles between your knees.
You gasp with the sudden movement and face him once again. Your eyes narrow to meet his, glaring in challenge. “Finally done teasing?”
“Just getting started, my dear.” He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, as light as his other touches, his hand following as he kisses up your body. He hears you suck in a breath as he inches up your thigh, feels you twitch under him when his lips draw closer and closer to your core. You squirm as your dress hikes up your hips, his breath ghosting your cunt.
And then he pull your dress back down, placing a kiss to your clothed stomach instead.
“You are insufferable,” you groan above him, the impact of your disdain doused by the redness on your face.
He can’t help his chuckle as he rests his chin on your middle, looking up to soak in your frustration in all its revelry. “And yet, you suffer me.”
“I see now why they call you evil.”
“Oh, I get so much worse, kitten. Trust me.” He resumes his ministrations, lips working their way across your midsection, your sides, making their way to your breasts. Sylus bites through the fabric, drawing a symphonic whimper out of you. His hand squeezes your nipple and you shudder. Even with the barrier between the two of you, you’re so sensitive to his touch. He aches with his own restraint, wanting nothing more than to ravish you and pull any sight and sound he can from the woman beneath him.
His own sacrifice is to resist every urge he has to rip off your clothes and pump you full of his cock right now, to fuck you until you’re so unraveled, so undone that you can no longer quip or banter.
How humbling, to be a God and yet unwilling to indulge in the offering spread out on his altar.
He finally pulls himself from your breasts, at last returning to your bare skin as he kisses your neck. You keen at the contact, whole body lifting from the stone as he sucks at your nape. Your hands fly up, moving to his head, but red mist manifests itself to curl around your wrists, drawing them above your head and leaving you at his mercy.
“Ah, ah. Who said you could touch?” he hums against your skin, punctuating his sentence with a lick. He drinks in your sweat along with the whine you fight, and fail, to hold back.
“Come on, Sylus,” you draw out his name melodically and he purrs at the sound. “Don’t you want me to touch you?” With that, you sneak your leg in between his, pressing yourself against his clothed erection.
And he does want it. He wants it so desperately - in an animalistic way, in a human way. He groans deep and guttural, feels it reverberate in his chest and into your nape. You continue to rub against him, and he allows himself the brief indulgence, let’s himself grind against your shin, seeking a relief that’s both not enough and all too much.
With an unbidden hunger, he finally gives in, claiming your lips in a frenzy. His hands come to cup your cheeks, drawing you as close as he can get. He moves against you as if possessed, lips moulding to the shape of you, tongue wasting no time delving into your mouth and tangling with your own.
You meet his passion, kissing him back as if you have something to prove - as if maybe you’re better than him at this, too.
It's competitive, it's ruthless, it's divine.
He feels you speak into the kiss more than he hears it at first, chasing your mouth when you pull away the slightest bit. And then your knee comes to his abdomen and shoves , just enough to cause the two of you to break apart, pressure releasing from his cock.
“- breathe, Sylus,” you pant, gasping for air. “I still need to breathe.” Your pupils are blown wide, spit covering your lips and jaw, your hair a mess from his hands tangling themselves in it without him realizing. You’re disheveled in a way Sylus has never seen before - wild, untamed and feral.
Here, he’s discovered a new side of you. This one belonging to him alone.
“We’ll have to fix that, won’t we?” he says with a satisfied grin, though a part of him feels he’ll miss your humanity - he quite enjoys the feeling of your chest heaving beneath him. He hopes that once you ascend, you’ll still blush as you do now, fevered red while he strokes your cheeks with his thumbs.
“You’re staring,” you say incredulously, as if he was not aware.
He hums, ignoring you while he brushes away the mess of your bangs from your forehead, smoothing his fingers across your brows, memorizing the shape of you through his touch. “The Gods had their work cut out for them when they created you.”
“Oh, because I’m so difficult, is that it?”
“You’re beautiful.” He cradles you in his hands, lost in those depthless eyes. “Exquisite.”
“I- You-“ You bite your lip, turning your head as much as you can to avoid him, your whole body squirming, wrists desperate to break free of their restraints if only to hide your face. “Don’t… say it like that.”
“You’ll have to get comfortable being worshipped sooner or later, kitten,” he says with another kiss to your lips, one that's short lived this time as you knee him once again.
“If you really want to worship me, you’ll quit stalling and give me what I want,” you bemoan, accompanied with an eyebrow arched in irritation.
“I’m at your service, my lady. Why don’t you tell me what is you desire?” Sylus traces his hands down to your waist, massaging against your hips, eyes fixed on you. Eager for a response.
“I need to complete the ritual.”
“Mmm. More specific.”
You suck in a breath, and he can hear your heartbeat racing in your chest. Your expression remains as stoic as you can manage, but the fluster moves through the whole of your body as you speak. “I… I need you to touch me.”
His own breath hitches just hearing you say those words. “Where, kitten?”
“You know where.”
It seems he’s found the limits of your boldness. How endearing - the way you have no hesitation stroking his cock, but stiffen at this slightest of vulnerabilities. Perhaps another night, the two of can explore what it’d be like with him beneath you. With all the power of a God on your side.
But he’s getting ahead of himself. There is a very important task at hand.
“Hmm, in that case it seems I’ll have to guess,” he teases. His lips go to your neck first. “Here?” He punctuates with a kiss, then moves down to your stomach. “Here?” Another press of his lips, this time feeling you tense under him. So he travels down even further, spreading your legs and ghosting his mouth against your thigh. “Perhaps here?”
“Sylus,” you just barely whisper, the word carried on the edge of your breath. “Please… ”
He growls against you, arms curling around each thigh and fingers burying in your skin. Nothing in his immortal life has ever aroused Sylus like this. Like you.
In a second, red mist devours the dress covering you, vanishing it from existence. Now you’re laid bare, and Sylus feels himself grow delirious at the sight of you - naked, skin flushed and legs spread. All for him. His most sacred offering.
So finally, he licks against your cunt - one long stripe through your folds, tasting you at last. The yelp that escapes you is just as delectable as your arousal. You’re the sweetest thing he’s ever had, and he can’t resist pulling you closer, burying himself in you body as you writhe beneath him.
Your hips buck, cunt chasing his tongue just as much as you try to pull away from the stimulation. Too much, too little. Not enough and yet completely overwhelming. He can’t help but peer up at you, needing to absorb as much as he can of the sight of you nearly in tears once he sucks at your clit.
It’s clear you’re trying to speak, but every word comes out malformed, syllables lost to your moans. To think that he’s the one bringing you to incoherence has him so desperately hard it’s painful, cock screaming to be free, to be touched.
In a second, his own clothes are vanished and the open air on him feels akin to a blessing. As his tongue plunges into you, his hand wraps around himself and you both moan in tandem.
Sylus sees you grin above him, something devious and delighted in your crooked smile. Is it because he’s touching himself? Or is it because you’re close? Your legs are shaking and your noises grow louder and louder as his pace and pressure increases on your cunt. Both, he settles on, and strokes himself even faster, grip tightening on himself.
“I’m- Sylus-” you gasp, and that’s all it takes for him to be pushed over the edge, releasing himself all over his own hand. His name on your tongue ringing in his ear.
He doesn’t let up, won’t until you’re brought to your own climax. And he can feel you on the precipice, your entire body quivering as it builds, hips no longer running away from him, only chasing his tongue and the pleasure it brings.
You release with a scream, body convulsing like a current is ravaging your body.
“Perfect, so beautiful for me, kitten,” he murmurs into your skin, gazing up at you to soak the sight of eyes wrung closed, smile still dancing on your lips, chest heaving and stuttering with every stray lick to your clit.
Your senses come back to you quickly, and though you’re not wholly composed, you certainly act like it when you peer down at him. “Is that all?”
Sylus can’t help but bark out a laugh. Oh, so you’re just as greedy with this, are you? “What an insatiable mortal, you are. Your first climax at the hands of a God and it’s still not enough for you.”
“I have high standards - you should know this by now.”
“That, my dear,” he says, plunging the tip of his finger inside of you, “I know very well.”
You keen, eyes blowing wide and closing just as fast, overwhelmed with this new feeling but if your sounds are anything to go by, most definitely enjoying it. You’re so wet it’s obscene, your body opening around him with ease.
He pumps his finger inside you, slowly, delicately, allowing you the chance to adjust, taking special care not to hurt you. You, of course, have other ideas.
“Come on, I can take more than that. Faster,” you demand, staring him down as you attempt to wriggle your body onto his hand. If it weren’t for the restraints at your wrists, no doubt you’d be doing anything you could to assume control, to do more than just command him.
Sylus can’t help but oblige, crooking his finger as he increases his pace, searching, searching, searching until you buck against him, jaw agape and gasping in pleasure.
“Yes, yes, right there, that’s so good.” You keep mumbling praise, directing him on how best to please you, and Sylus grows hard again so quickly he feels he’d see stars if he were human.
Just as he adds a second finger, he bites against your thigh - hard enough to bruise, any harder and your flesh would conform to the shape of his teeth. He forgets for a moment his intention to be gentle, but the way you groan - low, deep and animalistic - leaves him with no regrets.
He continues nipping at your skin, lapping at you and sucking marks into your flesh. Some part of him hopes the ascension will leave them a permanent addition, a constant reminder of his rightful place between your legs.
“Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop,” you chant over and over, his fingers scissoring inside of you, curling just where you want him to. He couldn’t stop if he tried, not when you are like this.
“You’re intoxicating. So wet for me. You’re close, aren’t you? Come again for me, kitten. I know you can.”
Your second climax crashes through you, this time he can truly feel it as you clench down on his fingers, your walls closing in on him. There’s a searing, quiet intensity with the way your mouth is agape - a long, hoarse moan emerging only on the tail of your orgasm.
His fingers slow, but don’t stop, wanting to feel each pulse and twitch of you around him at every angle.
It takes you a moment to come back down, as much as you can come down, what with your hips still grinding slowly on his hand, greedy for more.
You groan as he inserts a third finger, first with the stretch - he truly feels just how tight you are now - and then with impatience. “Just how much more of this must I endure before you take me?”
“Endure? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds to me like you’re enjoying this more than you’re enduring it.” To punctuate his point, he focuses his fingers on your favorite spot, rhythmically pulsing in quick succession as to pull a near-scream from you. “More importantly, I need you prepared for me.”
As soon as he relents his pace and you catch your breath, that unscrupulous glare is focused back down at him. “I’m beyond prepared, Sylus.”
“I’m not human, you know. We have to be sure I’ll fit,” he mutters against your thigh, following with a bite to let you know he’s serious. He is well aware of being far better endowed than most humans. He also can’t stop thinking about your virginity. Your first time will be on his cock - it has to be perfect. It has to be good.
Your constantly waning patience cares nothing for his trepidation. “You will. Now take me.”
“Someone’s overconfident.”
“Someone’s tired of your excuses.” You squeeze your thighs together, crushing his hand between your legs, his fingers contorting in a way that would have a mortal yelping in pain, intent on breaking him. “I want you inside of me. Now.”
Your sudden commanding confidence has him reeling. Desire suppresses your shyness. How does he resist that look in your eyes? Sharp, lustful, demanding. Everything he’s ever wanted right in front of him, for him, wanting him. He is reduced to putty.
Do you even see what you do to him? The power you have - a mortal over a God?
He is sure, now more than ever, that this is what you were always meant for - divinity, power. Humanity doesn’t suit you. You are already wearing your Godhood before it’s even been imposed on you. So easily you hold his devotion.
So he acquiesces, your legs parting once he starts to pull himself free, a victorious smirk on your face interrupted by a moan and then a sigh at the loss of him.
Wetness spills from you, soaking your thighs and the cloth beneath the two of you. He’s unable to resist the urge to lick his fingers clean, meeting your eyes as he does. They widen in scandal, that bashfulness returning to overcome your sudden burst of dominance, forcing you to look away with a quiet gasp.
Following the trail he left earlier, he gropes and kisses his way up your body, feeling every part of you as he works his way back up to your face, missing your lips dearly.
He turns your head to face him, and sees you innocent and shy behind blown pupils. Tenderly, he kisses you. Needing to melt your nerves with his lips, to pour his assurance into you, unsaid. You do not rush anything this time, meeting his pace, letting him lead.
There is break for a moment, and with eyes closed, forehead pressed to his, you whisper, “It’s going to work, right?”
His thumb strokes from your temple to your cheek, fingers tucking your hair behind your ear. “You have my word.” You have all of me, he wants to say.
He cannot give you back your old life, but he can give you this: immortality, and the power to reduce the world to ash, if you so please.
As he lines his cock to your entrance, he releases the power restraining your wrists and you groan with the sudden freedom. Instantly, you grab at him, feeling along his pecs, his shoulders and eventually come to wrap around him, gripping the hair at the nape of his neck.
Sylus purrs with your touch, feels a pang of regret for keeping your hands away from him for so long.
The head of his cock drags along your folds, drawing more glorious noises out of you with every press against your clit. The way you keen with anticipation, with your heart loud in your chest, makes him want to stay like this forever - locked into this teasing precipice. Both of you edging into oblivion. He files the thought away, another idea for another night.
As he starts to enter you, he feels you constricting around him, already the size of his cock stretching you well beyond what his fingers accomplished. There’s a sharp inhale as you tense, unbelievably tight, eyes cinching closed as your brows furrow.
He pauses his hips, instead lavishing you with kisses to your neck, your cheek, your forehead, your hair, every part of you he can reach. He already knows telling you to relax will only have the opposite effect, as contrarian as you love to be, so easing you in other means is a necessary task.
“Why are you holding yourself back? You can just have me,” you murmur sweetly into his ear, playing the part of a temptress even if your body resists your efforts.
When he doesn’t surrender to you immediately, you swirl your hips, bucking in an attempt to get him deeper inside.
Tendrils of mist materialize to wrap around your waist, holding you still as he growls. “You get as much as I give you.”
His hand migrates downward until it reaches your clit, rubbing sweet circles against you that has you panting in his ear. Your hot breaths send shivers down his spine, your nails digging into his back with a painful intent, pulling him closer against your body. It’s nearly impossible for him to resist slamming into you, his restraint dangling on a rope so frayed as to be left with a single string.
By the grace of all the Gods, he feels you relax, your body opening up for him, welcoming his cock deeper inside your cunt. You both moan in harmony, a frantic relief with every inch enveloped in your walls.
Once he’s finally, finally, fully sheathed inside of you, Sylus collapses to his elbow, head falling next to you. The sensation of your cunt around him is so perfect as to be completely overwhelming. He feels juvenile, humanly juvenile, with how utterly gone he is, heaving desperately even without the need to breathe.
Maybe this is how immortals die, because surely this is what heaven feels like.
“You’re so tight,” he growls in your ear, feeling you squirm and shiver beneath him, hips held tightly still by his power.
You swallow heavily, collecting yourself enough to speak - though the words come out as more a moan than anything. “You’re too big.”
Despite his efforts to stay still, he feels his cock twitch inside of you involuntarily. “Is this a competition?”
“Only if I’m winning.”
He laughs hoarsely, nuzzling his nose into your nape, laying a nip to your pulse. How do you make his heart so heavy even now, with his cock throbbing inside of you? He can’t help his smile, a joy that mortals spend their whole lives praying to find suddenly flooding through him.
Sylus realizes then, that no matter the rituals, you were never bound to him. No, that would be impossible. He has always been the one bound to you . From the moment you appeared before him, he belonged to you alone, entirely devoted. This ascension - it’s physical, it’s spiritual, but he’s never needed divinity to worship at your altar. He’s been doing it all along.
He has lived a thousand lifetimes in a thousand forms - from the petals of a flower, to a single crow in the country, even the very wind that caresses the plains. But no part of his immortal life has ever felt so whole, so complete, as this moment.
Here is his love beneath him, surrounding him, enveloping him in body and soul. Your breath on his ear and his name on your tongue.
“Sylus, what is…” you whisper, pulling him from his thoughts.
He sees it as soon as his eyes open (since when were they closed?), the shimmer that coils around your body, a golden glow that bleeds red at the edges.
“I promised to make you holy, didn’t I?” He draws back to meet your eyes, the back of his fingers caressing your cheek. You are so beautiful he wishes he could cry.
“It feels good,” you breathe, a shudder coursing through you that he feels on his cock. “You feel good, Sylus.”
He almost climaxes there, hips stuttering inside of you, the hand on your clit moving once more and coaxing a whimper from you. “Tell me I can move, I don’t know how much longer I can hold back.”
“Please, Sylus. I want it.”
His hips draw back just as slowly as they entered you, feeling every part of you along the thick girth of his cock, until finally thrusting back in. You yelp into a moan, brows furrowed and then relaxing with pleasure as he continues to pump his cock inside of you, rubbing your clit all the while.
Every movement is delicate, intentionally careful with you, his fragile mortal. It’s a torturous pace, but he wants to take you like you deserve - tenderly, lovingly. An unspoken declaration in every thrust. Do you know? Can you feel it, the words he is desperate to say?
The tendrils around your waist squeeze, pressing down on his cock from the outside and you moan dirty and loud, tightening around him as your nails claw down his back. “More, more, like that.”
He obliges, increasing his pace now with his cock and his hand, feeling you everywhere as you convulse. The glow around you grows, red light taking over the golden shimmer almost entirely. His colour.
“So beautiful. You’re made for me. Perfect, you’re perfect,” he chants against your lips, the words spilling out of him without thought. His hand draws from your face and laces between your fingers, palm against palm, needing to mould every part of himself to you until you are just one shape, one body, one soul.
You kiss him so fiercely he almost doesn’t feel the wetness that pools on your upper lip, not until he tastes salt on his tongue.
He couldn’t hold you closer if he tried, and yet it’s still not enough.
The glow is near blinding, overwhelming everything with it’s luminescence, and yet Sylus refuses to look away, to miss even a second of your ascension. He feels it, too, the way you clench on his cock, your thighs tensing and your hips squirming restlessly against his hold. He pummels into you with abandon now, no longer held back with fear you will break - your body on the cusp of Godhood.
It feels it like thunder when he releases inside of you - a desperate, sudden eruption as he releases, flooding your cunt as his hips stutter against your entrance.
You shine like lightening, radiance bursting so bright as to wash his entire domain in gold and red, your body spasming on his cock as you find your own climax.
There’s a holy thrum in the air, your explosion of power eroding the lingering traces of his, overwhelming everything your light could touch, darkness stripped away. It dissipates slowly, like dust settles, leaving just a faint, lingering glow on your skin. A glow that envelops him too, a warmth he feels from the inside out.
It’s interesting, how you look much the same. He’s never seen someone achieve divinity before, and he expected some grand transformation. But he quickly realizes, foolishly, that you were already perfect, made in no one’s image but your own.
When you open your eyes, it’s with a smile, soft and only for him. “I feel… different.”
He cups your face with his hands, feels the warmth of your cheeks, and takes in the sight of you with long, drawn-out reverence. He smiles too, knowing you still blush after everything.
“You’re staring.”
“I believe it’s called worshipping, now.”
And so he kisses you, knowing this time he can have you for as long as he pleases, or until you smite him. Whichever comes first.
find the zaynemc companion fic by smoochable here!
sum: he should be lecturing you about propriety. decorum. your chain of command. instead, as he takes you apart beneath the breath of the dying lantern light, all he can think about is how grateful he is that you came to him.
cw: general!qin che, fem!reader, loss of virginity, childhood friends, forbidden romance, historical inaccuracies, no specified time period, reader described w/ hair, smut, 3.4k wc, mdni
notes: breaking in my new keyboard with something soft. [ ao3 ]
Here, the stars are more prominent, like white paint flecked onto violet cloth.
They don’t have to compete with the pollution of lantern light and the cacophony of the capital. It’s as if the universe is setting a stage for you. Slowing itself to encourage you when you need it most.
The camp slumbers after an endless week of campaigns. A few soldiers patrol its outskirts, the light of their torches breathing between tents like dwindling flames, and their armor clinking faintly amid the cicadas’ melody.
Wind cradles your cheek, carrying the scent of petrichor and scorched wood with it. It threads through your cloak in ghostly wisps. Your teeth chatter, but you don’t let its bite deter you. Bundling the cloth tighter around you, you wait for a sentry’s light to fade before darting down the row of tents leading from yours and emptying into the camp’s center.
Movement is made easier without the weight of your armor. You shed it earlier as the last flames of the post faded. Traded it for the soft cling of your underrobes and the scent of clean skin following a bath, the ends of your hair still damp from the spring. Your footfalls are nearly soundless against the packed earth. A product of your efficiency and devastating elegance on the battlefield.
The sky wheels above, so impressively vast. If you weren’t already on a mission, you’d take time to appreciate the view. However, what you’re doing is dangerous, and should you take pause to consider it, you'll surely turn back.
Your mission is more harrowing than scouting ahead for enemies or leading a siege against an army that outnumbers you. Far worse than the glacial steel of a sword held to your throat. Than the threat of the guillotine should you choose to defy the Emperor.
Yet, your feet urge you forward. Through lines of sleeping soldiers towards the cause of your rocketing pulse.
You know where his tent stands. It's ingrained into the folds of your mind; you could find it blindfolded. It’s taller than the others. Larger, bearing his insignia on the banners out front. Sometimes, it’s policed by guards for show, the tips of their spears gleaming dauntingly in the moonlight. Tonight, it’s thankfully defenseless.
You’re in no mood to explain why the Deputy General is sneaking around camp so late at night. And so scandalously dressed, too…
Pausing at the entrance, the weight of your decision bears down on you.
He’s been straining himself these past few days. Meeting with ministers, foreigners, the Emperor. Sleep has been an afterthought. Food a luxury you badgered him into eating. He shoulders the load of an empire like the obsidian armor he wears into battle. Stands straight-backed through it all, serving as a pillar of stability for his men and a country that spits on the very ground he paces.
After swallowing, you roll your shoulders back and steel yourself against the hot gush of anxiety swelling inside you. Against the violent thrum of your pulse. You remind yourself that you’re not doing this for selfish reasons. The General relies on you to keep his soldiers alive. To carry out the Emperor’s will in his stead. But your dependability doesn’t limit itself to the battlefield.
Squeezing your fingers until your nails leave waning crescents in your palms, you part through the heavy drape of the tent flap, prepared for a type of combat that doesn’t ask for blood.
Gilded light spills across your boots in greeting. The air here is warmer, contrasting with that of the wind outside. Here, if at all possible, the world quiets even more as if yielding to the man inside. His homely scent wraps around you like fur, slightly easing the rigid stack of your spine.
At the tent’s focal point, seated cross-legged behind a low table, is your general—Qin Che.
Maps and documents lay before him, sprawled across the lacquered wood like an enemy scout awaiting trial. Lanterns and a brazier of ebbing coals adorn the wide space, highlighting the exhaustion dimming your general’s eyes, shadows cutting in jagged brushstrokes across his visage. His hair spills in rivulets down his shoulders, half-tied at his nape. He’s stripped his armor, too, exchanging it for something less restrictive. A rare moment he allows himself some semblance of peace.
You know he sensed you from the moment your shadow slanted across the thick canvas of his tent. He may be tired, but exhaustion doesn’t dull the blade of his senses. He doesn’t look up at first. Then again, you’re the only person who would push into his private quarters without announcing yourself. The trust he extends to you, which he rarely shows anyone else, makes your chest tighten.
You watch him scrutinize the documents a moment longer before he sighs, pats his thigh, and finally glances up.
Scarlet eyes glaze over you, from your untied hair to your state of dress. His mouth hinges open on a greeting that doesn’t quite make it to his tongue. His eyes flit to yours, and he sits up straighter, seemingly blinking himself from a trance, caught beholding something he shouldn’t.
Despite the ache of your nerves, warm pride wades over you. It’s embarrassing to be wearing something so thin. To be this bare and exposed to your general, the telltale white of your underrobes peaking from beneath your cloak.
And yet, you don’t retreat.
Remembering himself, Qin Che grants you the courtesy of a greeting after clearing his throat.
“Deputy General,” he acknowledges in that low rasp, voice frayed around the edges with fatigue. “It is late.”
Your heart hurls itself against your ribcage. He only ever calls you his second in formal settings, in front of his soldiers, and when he means to create distance. Distance you’ve waited until tonight to sever.
Pinching your sleeves, bashfulness clots in your throat. You feel the confidence you gathered to come here in the first place slowly draining as you look down at your feet.
His eyes have always been the catalyst for your unbinding. They’ve always been expressive, often revealing thoughts he refuses to vocalize. You’ve never been able to hide from them, and vice versa. Not back then as children, and certainly not now.
“I know,” you counter, sounding smaller than you intended.
An elegant brow raises. With his fingers splayed on the table, he pitches himself slightly forward as if taking part in a conspiracy.
“Has something happened?”
Shaking your head and gathering what modicum of nerve remains in your veins, you caution a step forward. Your pulse climbs in your throat, rooting itself in the meaty lining of it like thorns. You choose your next words carefully, your courage a trembling, fragile thing when war isn’t on the table.
“No. Nothing urgent.”
He slackens at that, brows still pinched, the air still rife with tension.
You suck in a steadying breath. Another step, another heartbeat. “You’ve seemed…stressed lately.” No formalities. Merely your face warming and your resolve gradually reorienting itself.
For the first time since you impeded on him, he scoffs something humorless, lips canting into a smirk equally as sardonic.
“A general’s burden, I’m afraid.”
You wince at that. Somehow, you knew he would say that. Knew he’d dismiss your concern, your plea for him to take care of himself for a change.
Your voice descends with a gentleness you grant few people in your life. You feel your fortitude burning at the back of your throat, urging you forward.
“Perhaps. But it’s not a burden you should bear alone.” You stop before the table, and he peers up at you, already familiarizing himself with the undercurrents of your words.
“Even a general needs rest.” Swallowing, you fiddle with some loose threads on your cloak. “And comfort.”
The word peters, echoing in the air like the vibrating skin of a war drum. The atmosphere tightens into something oppressive. It’s enough to be fashioned into a noose and wrapped around your neck. You feel it, the rigidity of his muscles as he freezes like you thrust a dagger into his stomach.
His fingers rasp against the table, tightening into a fist until his knuckles pale. He isn’t angry. Rarely is. And he’s never turned that uncommon rage onto you.
Beneath the mantle of the amber flamelight, your gaze flickers to his face, unwavering despite the heat branching up your neck towards your cheeks. What you see makes something arctic lock in your belly, and you momentarily forget the purpose of your lungs.
The lanterns don’t do the potency of his eyes justice. They resemble rubies held to the sun. The smoldering aftermath of a star that’s outlived expectations. Those eyes unweave your genetic structure, accompanied by lips thinned with contemplation. With self-discipline slowly splintering at the seams.
Cautiously, you kneel with the same poise you wear whilst presenting him his sword, your cloak slipping from your shoulders and puddling on the ground with a dull thump. You sit back on your heels, shaky hands balled into fists on your thighs, squeezing as your breath shudders out in rhythm with your rabbiting heart.
“Let me help you,” you implore on a whisper.
Silence hangs, agonizing. For a while, it’s just you, tight-lipped, staring down the man who commands not just your sword, but your heart. And then there’s him, mouth slightly parted with the effort of breathing, scrutinizing your face like terrain he intends to conquer, searching for any signs of a jest.
“I see,” he relents, humor curled around the edges. “You’ve simply decided to test my self-control tonight.”
Tentative fingers lift despite the restrained edge of his words. They shudder in the candlelight, unsure if they’re meant to touch. You hold your breath as his knuckles graze your cheek with surprising tenderness. Few know that a man so calculative, so ruthless on the battlefield, is capable of such gentleness when the moment allows for it.
“You shouldn’t offer yourself to me so carelessly,” husked as his gaze follows the languid scrawl of his fingers towards your chin. A battle-worn thumb edges the swell of your bottom lip, and his breath stalls almost imperceptively at its suppleness.
You sigh, relieved, tight, eyes slipping shut beneath his touch. Nudging your cheek until his fingers unfurl and you’re met with the warm texture of his palm, you pin him with a gaze that’s an amalgamation of innocence, uncertainty, and something comparable to yearning—the need to please, to satiate, to relieve.
“I’m not being careless. I want this.” Chewing your lip, the words congeal in your throat before you allow them passage. “Want you.”
Whatever restraint he has left fractures. Anguish slips through the cracks. Hunger, filling the veining splinters like gold restoring porcelain.
“I’m not sure if you know what you’re asking of me,” he husks around your name, his tone dampened by the weight of his desire.
Your fingers wreathe around his wrist. You hold it in place, affectionately nuzzling into his hand, cheeks several degrees warmer, but the flame of your resolve burning hotter.
“I do.”
His eyes give him away before anything else, revealing years of untapped feelings he’s housed for you. Feelings that have coagulated from the moment he met that thorn in his side child decades ago, to the woman who sits before him now. His fierce-eyed, strong-willed Deputy General shamelessly offering herself to him on a golden platter.
The sound of his fingers slipping down your jaw and beneath your chin contends with that of the coals hissing in the brazier.
With a crooked finger, he tilts your head back, beholding you. Your courage, your devotion, your willingness to ease his mind in a world where tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, and rumors carry like ashes to the wind, threatening both of your positions. In a world where people scorn him simply because of the blood that scorches his veins, and you’re the only one most familiar with his plight.
“Come to me,” he commands, the abrasive sound snaking around your limbs. Puppeteering you. Pooling hot and molten in the pit of your stomach as he draws your lower lip down to examine the bottom row of your teeth.
You need no further goading. With an expert hand, Qin Che slides the table from between you—the final barrier, both figurative and physical. Paper flutters to the ground, official seals gleaming in the jaundiced light, forgotten amid the roar of your blood in your ears. On your hands and knees, you conquer what distance remains between you before he meets you the rest of the way, scooping you onto his lap with the same fluidity he wields a sword with.
Gathering his cheeks between your palms, panting, quivering, you take time to truly appraise him. To take in his eyes that watch you with equal fervor and fear. Up close, the cloying aroma of ink, parchment, steel, and sandalwood wafting off his skin disorients you. Pleasantly. Ruthlessly. He’s warm. Dizzying. Delightfully rigid, honed from years of training. His hair is soft as spider silk between your fingers, and he groans something quiet and bitten off when you tug lightly.
Tonight, he is no longer your general. He isn’t an imperial tool with blood caked beneath his nails and scars hidden below the surface of his skin. He isn’t your commander. Formalities don’t reside here. No rank or duty.
Tonight, he is just a man. And tonight, two souls bleed into one. Two souls that have called to each other through the years, the sound of their symphony dampened by war, decorum, and distance.
In this moment, you aren’t his sacrifice. You’re his liberation. Lantern light through an endless fog. Cold salve to wounds that have festered since he took up the mantle of a general.
As his hands frame your waist, burning through the silk fibers of your robes, scorching down to bone, and he looks up at you in his lap as if you bore the universe yourself, the world holds its breath alongside you.
You no longer hear footfalls from the guards patrolling the camp outside. No longer pick up the banner bearing Qin Che’s name flapping in the breeze outside. You don’t hear that voice in the back of your mind telling you that this is wrong, cradling your general so close to your heart. A general and his deputy, bound by duty, scrutinized by a nation that had already marked them for death before either of them had a say.
The lanterns adorning the tent flicker. As they dance, no hesitation lies in his gaze. No means to pull back. You’ve watched him bear the weight of thousands of men without complaint.
So, before whatever surge of confidence you gathered can abandon you, you lean down, your shadows merging against the thick sprawl of the tent canvas, and you kiss him.
It’s tentative at first. Questioning. Though his lips are slightly chapped, they’re warm and supple beneath yours. You knew they would be as soft as the rose petals they resemble.
For a pulsing heartbeat, he’s petrified beneath you. His hands slacken on your waist, breath corked in his chest, and you wonder if maybe you’ve misread his intentions.
Before you can draw back, his grip on your hip tightens. His other hand creeps up to grip the back of your head, fingers threading into the fine hairs of your nape. He deepens your liplock, steering it into irrevocable territory as he pushes a long-held sigh into your mouth along with his tongue, lips slanting possessively over yours. The self-restraint he’s carried for years snaps like a worn bowstring pulled too tight.
The air is dense with the sounds of your breath. Of cloth rustling. Of hands gliding across bared skin, and the wooden flooring of his tent creaking beneath your combined weight. The world moves like a smear of heat thereafter, from the moment your underclothes are delicately stripped away and your spine meets the embroidered silk of his bedding.
Everything bleeds into obscurity—war, duty, rank. Inhibitions. You only know the warm press of his body above yours. The weight of his hips slotted between your thighs, his hair falling like a moonspun curtain over your naked shoulders and cheeks.
“Are you sure you want this?” he breathes, his tone shaking with the density of his desire.
Even hard and blisteringly hot against the inner cut of your thigh, he still checks on you. Still ensures you know what you’re asking for, giving you time to leave should your wits return to you.
You nod drunkenly, panting, lost in the bewitching stir of his irises beneath the candlelight. Your fingers find solace on his shoulders, squeezing, drawing him down into a kiss that pilfers his breath.
He twines your fingers together, one hand pinned above your head, the other burning through the flesh stretched over your hip. With a sigh of your name, he nudges against the slick clench of you, hissing through gritted teeth at how tempting your innocence is.
Qin Che is a man who prides himself on temperance. So, despite how everything in him screams to ruin you, he savors this moment. Presses into you slowly with shallow strokes, coaxing you down from the sky when the breaching of your sex clots your vision with blinding white phosphenes. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t pressure you, swiping tears from your eyes with his thumbs as he takes you apart.
He treats you as if you had come to him in a dream. A dream he fears dispelling if he handles it carelessly. You are clay in warmed hands. Silk in skillful fingers. He talks you through the pain, assuring you that he’ll stop if it’s too much. When you refuse to let him go, your ankles locked around his waist, he shifts gears. Praises you. Tells you that you’re doing well—his beautiful deputy, his childhood friend, his heart—taking him like your soul was molded in his shape.
When the pain concedes to a distant flicker of pleasure, you arch up into him, your unoccupied hand clasping around the back of his neck while your fingers, threaded through his, tighten. He answers you with a kiss so achingly tender, so deep, it melts the tension in your bones and causes your chest to swell with emotions.
He rocks into you with agonizing gentleness, as if slotting something priceless back into its home. His breath shudders against your ear, your cheek, your lips, as he moves, both your hands pinned above your head now. He undulates his hips like the slow drag of a tide, ensuring he presses every inch, every unspoken confession he’s swallowed down for years like poison, into you.
“Shh,” he whispers against the hot streak of a tear cascading down your cheek. His voice is warmed milk and honey, your bodies pasted together with sweat and heat. “I have you. I’ll always have you.”
Each thrust coaxes your breath, voice, and soul from hiding. He litters your face with kisses whilst he dismantles you, claiming all the parts of you he’s longed to exalt. Your spine arcs beneath him so wonderfully, so beautifully, as pleasure mushrooms in the quivering space between your legs.
The moment is too surreal. The sensation of him moving inside you, weighing down on you, so intense that no one beyond this tent would believe General Qin Che is capable of such aching thoroughness. He draws you into a kiss again, learning your mouth one breath at a time. Your name slips from him like an incantation enmeshed with a plea, his brows furrowed with pleasure.
“Stay with me,” he pleads, his heart a fragile, bleeding thing melding with yours. “Always.”
Your nails embed crescents into the clutch of his hands in response, and that delightful, sparkling rush begins to curdle in your veins. Everything curls around you—his voice, his warmth, his essence—and it’s nothing like the cold, unforgiving fingers of the battlefield, but everything like a man bleeding love in the only way he knows how.
“Always,” you parrot, so deliciously out of your mind, so pathetically taken by the man above you.
Your name abandons him in fragmented groans once more, matching his thrusts, the comforting clutch of his fingers. You are the one thing in this world he can’t contain, no matter what rank he bears on his chest. And yet, you’re the only thing he can no longer live without, especially after tonight.
Trickles of rainwater create a winding path across walnut flooring, puddles blooming at every sharp curve. The sound of soft giggles and murmurs hum in the air, along with the crackle of a fire that had been lit ahead of time. Giddiness sparkles and fizzes beneath your skin like champagne as Sylus crowds you against another wall, his hands warm along the curve of your waist.
“Someone’s restless today, hm?” you tease, breathless from running into Onychinus’ base from the pouring rain. Your lip catches between your teeth to stifle your gasp when he squeezes your body teasingly in his grip. Your arms tighten around his neck as he noses at your cheek, lightly licking over the flushed skin and catching a swirl of rainwater and sweetness in the curl of his tongue.
“Is that what you think this is?” he purrs, voice low and smoky in that way that you both know makes your knees buckle. A wet kiss is planted on the corner of your mouth, still shining with a mix of your saliva.
“You can’t seem to keep your hands to yourself today, Sy. Did you miss me that much?”
“What do you think, kitten?” he says, hoisting you into his arms smoothly and carrying you over to sit by the fire. He leans back against the sofa, legs spread to allow you to slot yourself comfortably on his lap.
“I think we’re both very wet right now and should probably go change,” you tell him honestly. With a firm tug, he has you pressed tightly against his torso before you can so much as yelp. Despite how soaked your clothes are, you can still feel his warmth through the fabric.
“We’ll dry off. That’s what the fire’s for,” he says simply, one hand roaming suggestively between the line of your hip and backside. His voice softens when you wrinkle your nose at him. “But if you wish to change, we can do that first.”
“We could.” You lean in, until your noses brush and your breath dances together. “But I kinda think that might ruin the mood.”
Your soft whisper makes his fingers tighten and squeeze again. He chuckles, chest vibrating against yours. “That would be devastating, wouldn’t it?”
“It would,” you agree, breathless and itching to close the space between you again. “I quite like this mood we’re in.”
“Mm, me too,” he rumbles, and then his lips return to yours after being kept apart for all of three minutes. Three minutes too many, in your humble opinion.
His kisses are so slow and languid tonight, at complete odds with the way the two you had been racing through the city earlier astride his heavy motorbike. It’s like he’s drinking you in, savouring you the way he does a fine, expensive wine, taking you upon his palate and cataloguing every note of your sweet noises to recreate later. The way his tongue lazily laps at yours is truly intoxicating, and your head spins as he brings every nerve in your body alight all over again.
If you could choose any moment in the world to last forever, it would be this.
When he pulls back to breathe, you’re huffing and drawing him back in, as if you’re unsatisfied with how much of his air you’ve stolen. But he likes you like this, loves it even, and you’re all too aware of that fact. Sylus adores it when you’re insatiable, a greedy, whining little kitten that always wants more, more, more of his attention, his affection- more of him.
Sylus withdraws again, pecking your swollen pout away before feathering kisses across your cheek, tracing the well-traversed landscape of your jaw and throat with a deliberate slowness, pausing to inhale the fruity-floral scent of your perfume and bite approvingly into the give of your flesh. You reward him with a hitched gasp when his teeth sink daringly into your skin, teetering on the edge of pain but not quite crossing the line. You know that when you look in the mirror later, you’ll find indents and dark blooms in the shape of your lovers’ maw decorating your neck.
“Sy-” you whine, pawing at his broad shoulders. “Kiss me.”
“I am kissing you,” he murmurs, pressing another lingering kiss to your exposed collarbone to prove his point. Your hands thread through his partially damp hair, tugging at the silvery locks in an effort to pull him back to your lips.
“You’re so annoying, you know that’s not what I mean” you complain, but your irritation quickly melts into giggles when his fingers flutter over a particularly ticklish spot. “Don’t-!”
“Don’t tempt me, sweetie,” he warns playfully, leaning back to smirk at you with that crimson glint in his eye. You follow the ebb of his body with your own, refusing to leave the circle of his personal space until the tips of your noses kiss.
“Should I tempt you in a different direction, then?” you challenge.
One eyebrow arches elegantly. “Oh? Are you bored of the ‘mood’ already?”
“Hardly.” He makes a curious noise in his throat as you readjust yourself in his lap, pressing yourself down just enough to make his snowy lashes flutter. “I’m just getting started.”
“Interesting,” he hums, locking you in place before you can release him, teasing you back with a subtle upward roll of his own hips. Your mouth falls open in a silent gasp and Sylus licks his lips in anticipation. You know perfectly well that you've been tempting him in that direction since you perched your pretty self at the front of his bike earlier. You’re not exactly subtle.
But he likes this game. You both do. The way it makes you both burn slowly, heat creeping steadily through your veins until you’re a smouldering pit of desire. Sometimes it lasts hours, sometimes even days. But it just makes going up in flames that much more rewarding when the kindling finally catches.
