pairing: zaros x reader (earis)
cw: smut, gender/sex of the reader is irrelevant and not implied, ideally is set 2+ years of the trials end, reader and zaros are implied to be romantically involved (?), kissing, cum eating, sub-ish zaros, faint oral (a kiss) (?), (. . .) implies a timeskip less then 5 hours, mentions of the reader wearing a ring (the style/type is up to the reader).
you are responsible for your own media consumption.
Zaros had gotten you a ring.
Not an engagement ring—not yet. It lingered somewhere between promise and possession, its presence delicate, deliberate. There was no grand unveiling, no fanfare of nobility, no kneeling. He simply placed it in your palm one night, the same hand he often kissed absentmindedly in passing, as though it were just another part of his routine, as though it were not a ritual of its own.
You’d turned it over in your fingers under the warm light of the study, the metal catching flame-gold beneath the lamps, the gemstone smoldering with that distinct shade of imperial purple—Serulla’s flag etched in mineral. Deep violet, like a bruise well into its healing, and gilded edges that cut across the light. It was not gaudy, nor was it modest. It was crafted with intention, with the kind of thoughtful extravagance that did not need to shout its worth.
The inscription had been what made your throat close.
Without you, I am nothing.
Etched in a script so fine you could almost miss it if not for the way your finger caught the grooves with every heartbeat. When worn, the words pressed in like a whisper you couldn’t escape. Not that you ever wanted to. You wore it when you were alone. You wore it with him. It was not for public display, not for the courts or the assemblies or the open-sky parades. It was yours. It was his. It was something that belonged to the quiet.
And yet, despite the gravity of such a gesture, Zaros remained maddeningly distant from it all. He never remarked upon the ring once it was yours. He never stared when you slipped it on, nor flinched when you didn’t. You remember thinking, perhaps cruelly, that he was almost too composed for his own good. A version of yourself from two years ago—restless, easily impressed, desperate for assurance—would have misread his detachment for disinterest.
Now, you understood better.
If he was possessive, it was only in the way a lion was possessive of sunlight—certain that it would return, even after the longest eclipse. He carried his confidence in silence, an unshakable stillness that made others quake. You’d tried more than once to provoke a reaction out of him, just to see if he’d betray a flicker of jealousy.
You remember laughing too freely at one of the guards’ offhand comments—something toothless and dull, but you laughed anyway, laying a hand on his forearm like you were testing something. You remember the subtle tension in your own shoulders as you glanced toward Zaros, expecting some minute betrayal of emotion. A twitch. A glower. A careless word.
Not a look, not a lift of the brow. Just a continuation of whatever conversation he’d been having—cool and measured as ever. And it had infuriated you. You didn’t want him to lash out, but you wanted to matter. You wanted evidence that your affection was not as asymmetrical as his poise suggested.
You would not receive that evidence then. But later—nights later, when the stone of the manor walls no longer felt so cold and his presence once again spilled into the seams of your solitude—you would learn.
But Zaros was not a man of performative declarations. His affections were not fireworks. They were iron—quiet, slow-warming, and unyielding once forged.
And maybe it was why he always wanted you to wear the ring when your hands were on him.
He looked almost unreal like this—straight out of a painting meant to hang in some dimly lit gallery, caught in the stillness between agony and devotion. His head lay tossed back on the silken pillowcases—ones he’d once mentioned in passing had been imported from Andhra Pradesh, a luxury chosen not for prestige but for how they felt against his skin. They shimmered in the amber glow of the room, catching every ripple of movement as though the sheets themselves responded to him.
And Zaros, in the middle of it all, was beautiful in a way that felt sacred. His golden hair—freshly washed, still carrying the faint perfume of the garden’s blooms—was fanned out like a halo against the silks, a crown unearned and yet utterly his. Honeysuckle. Neroli. Earth warmed by the sun. His scent wrapped around you like a memory you hadn’t lived yet, one you’d chase down corridors in dreams.
His face had softened, all the sharp lines and commanding edges dulled by pleasure. His lashes, so dark and thick they looked painted on, kissed the curve of his cheeks in restlessness. Every few seconds his pink lips twitched, parted just enough to let out the most devastating of sounds—breathy moans, the occasional broken whimper that he tried, halfheartedly, to suppress by biting down on his bottom lip. As though his dignity mattered here. As though you hadn’t already seen him undone.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, stark against the column of his throat, catching the light with every swallow, every stuttering gasp. You watched his face as you worked him—slow, reverent strokes, the pad of your thumb circling the flushed, oversensitive tip. His hips twitched, just barely. He wasn’t trying to thrust into your hand; he was trying not to. Trying to stay still, to give you this, because when Zaros gave, he gave in silence, in restraint.
Pretty, glistening beads slicked the head of his cock—precum catching like dew across the heated flesh, trailing down to the ridges of your grip. The sight alone could’ve made you ache. It was rare to see him this way, to see him reduced to gasps and desperate little hitches in breath.
And yet, he never begged.
Not because he didn’t want to—but because this was how he surrendered: quietly. Utterly. Irrevocably.
You leaned down, slowly, giving him time to stop you—not that he ever did. Your breath ghosted over the head, warm and steady, before your lips met it with the gentlest kiss, nothing more than a feathering press, a soft reverence. And that—that was what broke him.
Your name left his lips like a confession, gasped and raw. Not shouted. Not choked. Spoken. Like it held meaning beyond the body. As though it were an answer to a question he hadn’t realized he’d been asking all along. His voice cracked just around the edges, the sound so vulnerable it made your chest ache. As though, in that moment, he remembered he was mortal.
And you had made him feel it.
His hand reached for you then—not to stop you, not even to guide you, but to anchor himself. Fingertips grazed your shoulder, trembling ever so slightly. As though touching you grounded him. As though your presence alone was a tether to the real world, keeping him from falling too far into the unraveling you were coaxing from him.
Zaros was a man carved in discipline, raised in the cold spires of strategy and stateliness. But here—beneath you, undone by your hands and the faint sting of gold pressed against your skin—he became something else entirely.
Something only you knew how to summon. Something holy.
And gods, he was beautiful in surrender.
You let out a sound—not quite a laugh, but something breathier, softer, threaded with satisfaction. Like a secret exhale, a private pleasure in watching him come undone beneath you.
Your hand moved faster now, a deliberate shift from reverence to something needier, greedier. The strokes grew more vigorous, each motion slick with purpose, and his body reacted as if jolted—muscles tensing in waves under his skin, his stomach fluttering with every motion. He cursed under his breath, the words half-formed and breathless, caught somewhere between restraint and surrender. “Fuck—ah, gods—” the syllables cracked like flint on stone, barely audible over the wet sound of your strokes.
You spat into your hand, warm and steady, and the sound of it alone made him shiver. The spit dripped onto his cock, gathering with the slick of his own precum in a glistening sheen. You rubbed it in, slow at first, spreading it along the length with practiced grace—until your hand started moving again, faster, tighter, your grip more possessive now. The wet noises filled the room in the quiet between his gasps, obscene and beautiful, like a liturgy of flesh.
And still—your ring caught the light.
It flickered gold each time your wrist twisted, each pump catching it just so. The band stayed snug against your skin, the engraved words hidden from sight but not forgotten. You wondered if he could feel the press of those words through the haze of pleasure—if he knew you wore it for moments like this, not for court, not for ceremony, but for truth.
You leaned closer, letting your thumb sweep across the flushed head, smearing the slick mess across it with purpose. You could see how red it had gotten, sensitive and twitching with every motion, the veins prominent, skin flushed so deep it looked like it pulsed.
“You look so pretty like this,” you murmured, voice thick with affection and heat, words poured directly into the space between you like silk onto flame.
Zaros’ chest heaved like he’d been submerged underwater, lungs drawing in desperate, shallow gasps. His mouth parted again, slack and helpless, his jaw slightly tense, as if any more sensation might knock the words clean from his tongue. His eyes remained shut, lids fluttering like he was dreaming, lashes wet with the smallest hints of sweat or tears—you couldn’t tell. His expression flickered with something like pain, but you knew better.
You’d learned how to read him in this state—when his pleasure became too heavy to bear gracefully, when the tension inside him pushed past the border of dignity and became something pure, animal. His fingers curled into the sheets, knuckles white, like if he let go, he’d fall straight through the bed and into something formless, terrifying, and good.
His body was trembling now, hips barely restrained. You knew he wanted to thrust up into your hand—his muscles betrayed him—but he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He’d surrender to you in full, even if it destroyed him. That was how Zaros gave himself. Quietly. Entirely.
He whimpered something—it might’ve been your name, broken in half.
You moved your hand lower for a moment, giving his cock a slow, hard pump from base to tip, letting the ring scrape ever so faintly against his skin, and it made him gasp, the sound punched out of him like he hadn’t seen it coming.
He bit his lip so hard you thought he might draw blood.
“Say it,” you whispered, not quite commanding, not quite pleading. He knew what you wanted to hear.
He didn’t answer at first. His throat worked, Adam’s apple bobbing hard. Then—
“Yours,” he breathed, like it hurt him. “Only yours.”
He let out a sound that was nearly panicked—guttural and sharp, like something alive and primal had clawed its way up his throat. His hips bucked once, desperate and instinctual, forcing your hand tighter around him. Then, as if nothing could’ve held him back, he surged up from the pillow entirely, seizing your face in trembling hands and crashing his lips against yours.
It wasn’t a kiss made of finesse or control. It was open-mouthed, uncoordinated, messy with need. His lips quivered against yours, wet and salt-slick, as if the climax tore him apart from the inside out and he needed your mouth—your presence—to survive the ruin. He whimpered into the kiss, high and keening, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. The sound of it was broken, raw, and so achingly vulnerable that it carved something deep into your chest.
Then you felt it—his orgasm hitting him like a wave, crashing into your hand. Hot ropes of cum spilled across your fingers in pulsing spurts, drenching your skin in white warmth. It rushed between your fingers, down the curve of your wrist, coating the metal of your ring. Some of it streaked across his stomach, pooling in the grooves of his tensed abs, while the rest dripped to the sheets below, leaving a trail of slick heat in its wake.
And even when you gently pulled back, breath catching in your own lungs, his mouth tried to follow. He chased you with glassy eyes and parted lips, willing to collapse if it meant dying there with his mouth still pressed against yours. But his body betrayed him—too spent, too shaken—and he sank back into the pillows with a soft, broken gasp, chest heaving like he’d just run through battle.
You gave his cock a few final strokes, soft and slow, coaxing every last shiver from his hypersensitive flesh. He whimpered again, almost pleading, and you finally let go, letting his softened length fall back against his thigh, flushed and twitching.
Then—deliberately—you raised your hand.
It was a mess. His release clung to your skin in long, sticky strings, painting your palm, your wrist, your fingers. The ring shimmered beneath it, now dulled slightly by the sheen of him. The inscription, sine te, nihil sum, still pressed against your finger—now smudged with the most intimate proof of that very truth.
Zaros watched you, eyes wide, lips parted, pupils blown wide and shimmering with leftover tears. His cheeks were pink, fevered, his body still too shell-shocked to move.
The taste of him touched your tongue—salty, warm, unmistakably his—and the moment felt heavier than even the pleasure had. It was intimate in a way deeper than sex. Reverent. You licked across the gold and purple, collecting what you could of him, slow and unflinching, until the metal gleamed once more.
Then—quietly, gently—you brought your hand toward his face.
He didn’t flinch. Didn’t ask.
You held your hand just near his lips, fingers relaxed, the glinting ring sitting at the center of his view—glistening, cleaned by your tongue, still wet with the heat of him.
Zaros leaned forward slowly, lips parted slightly, expression trembling on the edge of awe. He pressed a kiss to the ring—light, hesitant, but unwavering. His mouth met the metal and the stone like it was sacred, like it was a relic of a moment he would spend the rest of his life remembering. The kiss wasn’t rushed or greedy. It was still. Devotional.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against your wrist, breathing raggedly into your skin.
There were no words. None that would matter.
You allow yourself to settle beside him, the tension slowly draining from your limbs as your body softens into the familiar heat of his. Your head fits into the crook of his neck with practiced ease, like it was always meant to belong there, your lips brushing faintly against the line of his throat. He smells like sex and sweat, salt and heat, and beneath it—faint but undeniable—the sweet, heady scent of those garden flowers still clinging to his golden hair. It had been washed, perfumed earlier, but now it was tangled and damp against the pillow. A halo dulled with sin.
The scent of him clings to your skin like memory.
There’s something grounding about this moment—soaked sheets, twitching muscles, the feel of his chest slowly rising and falling as his breath evens out beneath you. You make a mental note to call for a maid before he passes out completely. A bath would do him good. He wouldn’t ask for one himself—not out of pride, but laziness. He’d lie there, all pleased and warm and ruined, until sleep stole him away.
You were always the one to keep things from unraveling too far. Even now.
But then, through the heavy silence, his voice rises—barely more than a hoarse breath, but enough to pull your attention from the soft rhythm of his pulse.
“Did you really mean it?”
You blink, lifting your head from where it rests just beneath his jaw. His voice sounds different like this—scraped raw, trembling on the edge of vulnerability, the echo of his earlier cries still clinging to the edges of it.
You shift, bringing your eyes to meet his.
He swallows. His mouth is swollen from kisses, his cheeks still touched with a flush. There’s a wry smile on his lips, but it’s soft around the edges, almost bashful. “That I was pretty.”
The question stills you for a moment.
And suddenly, you understand what you’re really looking at.
Zaros knew he was attractive—of course he did. You knew it. The kingdom knew it. Even those who hated him would speak of his beauty like it was an affliction, something both divine and damning. He was the kind of man people looked at twice—once in awe, and then again in disbelief. As though his face had been carved, not born. As though the gods had given him everything.
But knowing it and believing it—feeling it—those were different things.
And there was something so achingly human in the way he looked at you now. Like he needed to hear it not as a compliment, but as a truth. Not from the masses, or from courtiers who whispered it with ulterior motives—but from you. You, who had seen him like this. Who had unmade him with your hands. Who had kissed the tremble from his lips and held his shivering body when the aftermath came.
The way he searched your eyes for an answer—your answer—makes something inside you twist, gentle and painful.
You reach for him, your hand coming to rest on his cheek. His skin is warm beneath your touch, flushed, soft in the way only love can soften someone. And you take him in fully—every detail.
His lashes, long and wet against his cheekbones. The curve of his brows, knitted with something too delicate to name. His lips, pink and slightly parted. His body, still flushed and dappled with the remnants of what you’d done to him. He looked like a painting caught just after the brush was lifted—still fresh, still breathing, not yet dry.
And somehow, still, he didn’t know.
“Have you heard of Michelangelo?” you whisper.
author's note: 'sine te, nihil sum.' is latin, and michelangelo is a painter/sculpture (one of his famous works).
ps: request are back open!
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