note: semi-permanent hiatus? idk guys i just don’t feel too well lately and writing isn’t really making me happy anymore and i want to write but i just hate everything i write and that fucking depresses me especially when i come here and i see all these amazing people cranking out fics that absolutely rock (wow sorry for dumping this) but yeah. so i might come back (to writing) but im not really sure :/
throne of glass:
drabbles/oneshots
multi-parters/chapters
a court of thorns and roses:
multi-parters/chapters
special events:
dorian havilliard week
12 days of rowaelin (info here)
sjm romance week (info here)
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
also tagged by: fandom, ship, #rowaelinismyotpwrites
Chapter fourty…. WHAT THE FUCK??? Thank you so much to everyone who is reading, you guys mean so much to me❤️
Warnings: angst, tears, lots of curse words, physical violence, very dark thoughts | Word Count: 7,000
Time stopped, so did her mind as Aelin felt as if she was falling from her chair. Both her parents’ gazes were on Rowan, Rowan who didn’t look away, who stared at her father with no signs of apparent fear. His back was straight, chin high.
She felt a heavy gaze settle on her, and when Aelin looked away from her boyfriend, it was to find her uncle with his eyes on her. What was he doing here? If her parents wanted to settle this matter, if they truly know… Why would they allow someone else to witness that?
She tried to look at any hint in his eyes, trying to look for what he was feeling or thinking, but she couldn’t read him. She looked away, her uncle wasn’t the man she should focus on. No matter that she had seen a hint of shame on his features.
Aelin laughed. A loud, amused sound escaped her lips as she laughed. It sounded all shades of wrong, the anxiety gripping her stomach enough to almost make her sick. But, Aelin laughed. And as she did, everyone’s eyes snapped to hers.
i am screaming crying no words.. ii love it thank you for this angsty spaceship from heaven (or hell maybe) i am litearlly incoherent right now because i am SHOOKETH but thank you thank you thank you
Happy writing/drawing/headcanon creation/playlisting/etc., and we look forward to seeing what you create!
If you are having a hard time viewing the prompts on the calendar for whatever reason, or if you struggle with images, the prompts are also listed out below the cut.
September 11: Songfic
September 12: Babies and Pregnancy
September 13: Travel/Vacation
September 14: Royalty or Modern Royalty AU
September 15: A Trip to the Hospital
September 16: College or University AU
September 17: Holiday Celebration
September 18: Rowaelin Dancing
September 19: Single Parent AU
September 20: An Unconventional Way to Get a Date
September 21: Work Rivals
CANON PROMPTS:
September 22: Rowaelin in the Library Rowan Gifted to Aelin
I second the opinion to post the bonus erina/elucien pollen fic because it indeed would be a waste to not see the Vanserra boys go at it. I agree with you on that statement.
This is LYR bonus content- spiked wine edition. While the sex pollen trope is considered dubious, there is clear, enthusiastic consenting happening beneath the cut. + filth obviously, and a look at what my plot once was, at the earlier stages
“There you are,” Eris crooned, looping his arm through Elains as she all but jogged through the hall. “Are you headed towards the festivities?”
She tried to yank away but Eris held firm. “Not with you.”
“Nonsense. We are family, after all.”
There was no use arguing, not when Eris’s hand was holding her in place or when, technically, he was her brother in some form or fashion. Besides, Eris’s sharp eyes kept all the other males from looking at her too closely and after weeks of being nonstop ogled, Elain could admit it was nice to use Eris as a shield.
“Do you plan to participate today?” Eris asked conversationally. “I’ve heard it’s quite the spectacle.”
“Participate?”
“How poorly they inform you,” he chuckled, as if her ignorance was funny to him. “All the males compete to be crowned champion as part of their little games.”
“Games for what?”
“Independence,” Eris said dismissively. “This land was once controlled by a different sort of Faerie. Crueler, more powerful…Gunnar’s ancestors threw off the yolk of oppression and they remember every year with their little revels. This morning they’ll fight and this evening they’ll dance and at some point the whole thing devolves into fucking…or so I’m told.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet your were,” she grumbled as Eris grinned widely.
“I’m sure I won’t be the only one. You know, I thought the frenzy would last longer than a few days—”
“Maybe that’s your problem, Eris,” Elain interrupted sweetly. “You think about things you have no business wondering about. Imagine what you could accomplish if you spent less time thinking about what Lucien and I do in the privacy of our own bedroom.”
Eris chuckled. “I like you.”
The two entered the great hall, reassembled to look like a huge obstacle course—one designed, primarily, for battle. Males, the majority shirtless and coated in whorls of blue paint, stretched and sparred with each other, holding massive silver swords half as tall as her. Eris hesitated, eyes sweeping the room.
“What do you make of this place?” he asked after a moment. Elain was only half paying attention, her eyes on the lovely Hilda, already sitting on her iridescent throne practically dripping in glittering diamonds.
“She looks so miserable,” Elain murmured, noting the vacancy in her blue and green eyes.
Eris released Elain’s arm to ghost his hand over the middle of her back. “Her father sold her for pennies.”
Elain looked up at him, surprised Eris would offer her any information about this place. His own expression was muted—unreadable.
“That would make me miserable, too,” Elain murmured, wondering if Eris wasn’t speaking from some experience. She’d heard the story of Morrigan, of the evil, ugly Eris Vanserra who left her to die with a nailed note in her body. Elain thought, her hand reaching for the crook of his elbow all the same, that Eris wasn’t talking about himself as he watched.
“This place reeks of rot,” he finally said.
“How can you tell?”
“I’m the Lord of rot and ruin,” Eris murmured, eyes cutting towards her. “What do you think is lurking beneath the jeweled leaves of Autumn’s famed forests?”
“What are you truly doing here, Eris?”
A smile ghosted over his lips. “I’ve never fucked a female from the continent–”
“You’re so gross,” she complained, trying to pull away. Eris caught her, keeping her at his side as they watched, half hidden at the far end of the room.
“Oh, come on. Lighten up. Surely you didn’t think you’d bat your pretty little eyes and I’d spill my guts?”
Elain poked him hard in the ribs. “You’ll tell me everything before you go home and I won’t even have to ask.”
“Oh, I’m certain of it,” Eris agreed. “But not today. Today I just want to observe.”
“And tomorrow?”
Eris grinned. “I hope to be too sore to even get out of bed.”
She poked him again.
“Speaking of spending my day in bed…what do you know about Helion’s scholar?” Eris asked, catching sight of a golden dipped Arina swanning across the room. Every head turned as she walked, not that Arina noticed. Or cared. Eris was no better, watching with that same hungry stare.
“She doesn’t like you.”
“I’m serious. Helion doesn’t get involved…he likes to let Rhysand do his dirty work. Thesan, too. The solar courts are more united, fight less often. Tell me what you know.”
“Why would I help you?”
“I’ll owe you a favor?”
“I don’t need a favor,” Elain retorted. “And I don’t want Lucien’s father—”
“My father, too,” Eris reminded her without any of his usual amusement. “I wonder if any of us know what game we’re truly playing.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. Eris only shook his head.
“You’ll come to trust me, Elain. And when you do, I’ll still owe you that favor.”
Eris shooed Elain towards the ladies, sauntering off to torment some different lord, leaving Elain to join Arina on the outskirts of the revel. “What did he want?” Arina asked, watching a very shirtless Gunnar stride into the room. The whole chamber grew quiet at the sight of his honed, muscular body covered in that same whorling blue. Only Hilda remained unmoved, as if she’d seen it all before and it hardly impressed her. Both Elain and Arina watched, a soft haze filtering over the ugliness of the upcoming competition.
This place reeks of rot.
Elain looked across the room to Eris, arms crossed over his black coat jacket. He was staring, too, his eyes hardly gloating. She knew what he was trying to say.
You sense it too.
Eris thought it rot but Elain considered it the pretty film of magic. Gunnar lifted a sword as he strode into that ring. The iridescent light that coated his skin, the air, her very eyes, shielding them all from the vicious display. Lucien often complained that everyone let Gunnar win when they played cards, that he was a poor loser. A spoiled king, was the all but stated words.
Not here, though. If there is magic to be had, it’s in the way Gunnar wields his blade, moving like silk in the air. Every inch of him seems to be born to do nothing else—he is forged of the very blood he draws, made of the dripping iron and howling cold.
Male after male came forward to challenge him, sword gripped in hand. Gunnar needed no crown to prove his mettle, required no proof he was lord of the land to take down his foes. Elain watched, after each defeat, how he looked to Hilda with the same hopeful eyes she’d seen too often on Lucien.
Do you see what I would do for you?
Hilda offered no praise—not in her body, or gaze, or lips. She might have been carved from the same stone that once hewed the mountains for all she seemed to care. Elain almost felt bad for Gunnar as the day wore on. He pushed through punishing task after task, always turning to his wife and always rebuffed. Perhaps he had humiliated her too many times for her approval now. Maybe once she’d been like the other gathered females, watching with heated interest, her body pulled in fascination. Even Elain couldn’t help the admiration she felt. He was beautiful. You’d have to be blind not to notice. Arina, too, had shifted, her gaze softened. What had once seemed predatory and menacing seemed approachable.
Safe.
Elain glanced over the room throughout the day, always finding Eris’s eyes. Always with that leveled stare, his lips flat with accusation. You’re falling for a trick, his body seemed to warn. Something in her mind, too. Something that continuously pulled her away from fully walking into the glimmer, the same feeling when her dreams were just a little too lifelike.
Lucien.
Lucien, off on his own, chatting casually with courtiers and lords like he had no care in the world. Lucien, in a coat so purple it was nearly black, the color offsetting the copper hues in his hair vibrantly. Every time Elain looked at him she saw something new, some little trick of the light bouncing off his cheekbones or his muscles shifting beneath the black of his pants that reminded her he was real. The room would clear, the walls spread back to their original place and sometimes Lucien would see her, offering a whisper of a smile.
Arina tugged at Elain when it was time to change. “They say this dance devolves into an orgy,” Arian told her as they walked from the hall, both of them shaking off a day of milling about watching men fight and climb and swim. “After midnight, when the children are asleep.
“I’ll be asleep too,” Elain replied, reaching for the staircase. Arina grinned.
“Well, I’ll be up.”
And Elain wondered if she hadn’t decided on the king after all.
~*~
It took Lucien a moment, blinking as he was, to realize the music hadn’t abruptly cut. There were still revelers, dancing and twirling and smiling. People still milled about tables piled high with food and wine, still sat on settees and reclined against iridescent walls. They were still talking, voices a low hum beneath the strings of the music thudding in his veins, the chandelier still pouring soft fae light into the massive, arched space.
Only—maybe it had all vanished and he was standing among the heavens because Elain had stepped in draped in plunging, clinging gold and robbed him of air. Tumbling curls fell over bare shoulders, dark eyes framed by even darker, longer lashes and Lucien was certain she was not real. He’d merely imagined her and any moment she would shimmer into nothing.
He needed her to dance with Gunnar. He’d had it planned all day, had kept his distance specifically so the king might sidle up, might think her more willing than she was. Now, standing across the room, Lucien only felt hotly burning jealousy. Gunnar wasn’t anywhere here, was talking to his absurdly beautiful wife who was, somehow, not even the most beautiful female in the room. Elain outshone everyone and if Hilda wanted to compete, she had to settle for bronze. Arina, shimmying in beside Elain in that vibrant Day Court white, made one of the violinist's bow slip loudly. How was it, he wondered, to be so outshone by these foreign females in a place you out to have held dominion? Lucien turned, gulping down his cup of wine before setting to the table so he could pour twin glasses for Elain and Arina. It gave him a reason to go talk to them, to sweep Elain up at least once before he unleashed her on Gunnar.
She was a prize and every male in the room knew it. Stunning, sweet, and mated. Elain radiated pure, hazy sunlight—softer than the warmth pooling at Arina’s feet and draped about her skin like a cloak. If Arina was the midday sun then Elain was radiating dawn. Lucien all but sauntered to them, pushing the cup into Elain’s hand.
“You look nice,” he lied. Nice was all wrong—Elain was ethereal, his every fantasy come to life. She beamed before pressing red lips to the glass. Lucien’s whole body tightened at the sight, earning an irritated look from Arina who gratefully did not comment on the scent he knew must be rolling off him. Elain might trust the Day Court princess but Lucien didn’t—not yet, at any rate. Not when his brother was watching her so hawkishly, caught up in the rivalry that had always existed between their courts. Lucien didn’t trust Arina to keep Elain safe if it came between Helion and Lucien’s mate.
“I was hoping you’d let Gunnar dance with you,” he murmured, hand trailing down her back. Little pearl buttons lined against her spine, creating the most delicious friction against his palm. He needed to get himself together. Lucien took another long, slow drink to try and steady himself.
“Why?”
“Because he wants you,” Lucien replied. “And I’m getting nowhere with him. I want to see the border but he’s suspicious of me. Maybe you could work a little of your magic?”
Elain’s eyes sparkled as she looked up at him, her fingers brushing over the back of his hands. “And what magic is that?”
Lucien licked his lips. How did he even begin to explain? “You’re doing it right now.”
She pressed just a little closer, hand pressed against his chest. “I’m just looking at you.”
He almost called the whole thing off. Lucien almost pulled her into his own arms so he could dance her silly and stupid, could let everyone else watch her twirl in his grasp. Jealous. And in his mind, he didn’t gloat though his eyes told everyone watching what they all knew—she’s mine.
It was hard to pretend, even as Elain offered him one last dazzling smile before slipping away, finishing her drink and leaving the cup with a serving fae. He could only watch, eyes trained on the slight sway of her hips. Gunnar had noticed too, giving up on seducing his own frigid, angry wife. She was in a mood and Lucien could guess why. Rumors abound that he’d been caught with the Vallahan emissary the night before who just so happened to be some sort of relation, though that might have been just a vicious court rumor. He’d embarrassed her and now she would shun him, for all it deterred anyone. She didn't want to leash her ladies and as a result, none of them respected her.
Elain was caught in Gunnar’s easy grasp with a friendly smile. Game on.
“You’re letting him touch her?” Eris asked when Lucien went back to the table, his body warm from all the liquor. Eris held his own glass between two fingers, his expression one of supreme boredom. “Say the word and I’ll cut off his hands.”
“Since when do you care who touches Elain?”
Eris glanced over at Lucien before swirling his cup absently. He threw it back like a shot, shuddering at whatever it was he tasted. “She doesn’t belong here with the monsters, Lucien.”
“Sure she does,” he replied with just an edge in his voice. What did Eris know about Elain or where she belonged? She wanted to be here, dancing with the King of Rask. She could have been his consort for how fluidly she moved, how utterly regal she seemed. Elain, whether she thought so or not, had been born to be High Fae. Maybe even a King’s wife, had she not been paired up with him. Lucien could see it all so clearly, how powerful men would fall to their knees just for a kind word from her lips.
Mine.
“She doesn’t,” Eris grumbled, looking into his empty cup. “If we were smart, we’d leave tomorrow.”
“Then go.” Lucien’s words were a dismissal. He didn’t want to have this conversation with his brother, not when he was watching Elain laugh, head tossed back so the tips of her hair brushed against the soft swell of her ass. Lucien had always been attracted to Elain but tonight felt different. He was needy, achy. The mere sight of her hands sliding up Gunnar’s shoulder, as if he were the most fascinating male in the world, was doing something strange to him. It wasn’t jealousy—not exactly, anyway. It was desire. Watching her was enough to ignite a flame in his stomach, raw, rabid lust shooting into his cock. Eris was watching with the same lurid fascination, as if he’d never seen two people dance before.
Gunnar dropped his face, blonde curls spilling over his forehead and Elain arched into the touch, letting his lips brush over her cheek. Lucien imagined what it would be like to touch her like that, to drag his tongue over her skin and taste the sweet, musky salt of her body—
“Oh fuck,” Eris snarled, slamming his cup to the table behind them. Lucien’s attention snapped to his brother, catching the rough smell of arousal…not just from Eris, but everywhere. He’d been so busy staring at Elain that he hadn’t noticed a pair grinding against each other a mere ten feet away from him and Eris, pulling at each other’s clothes with talons and teeth.
“They spiked the fucking wine,” Eris swore.
It should have alarmed him, given Gunnar had Elain flush against him, his hand sliding down her back. Her eyes were heavy lidded, body pliant beneath the Kings touch. Lucien thought to join them, perhaps. Or maybe he’d—
Eris strolled across the room, all but dragging Elain out of Gunnar’s embrace. She was laughing, nearly tipping to the ground. Only Eris, his hand firm against her arm, kept her on her feet. Lucien trotted just behind, unsure what to say. “Eris,” she was giggling, shoving futilely against Eris’s grasp. “I was having fun.”“You were about five steps from falling to your knees,” he grumbled.
“I would never,” she protested, twisting in Eris’s grasp to look at Lucien. “Tell him. We have never—”
“Yes, Elain, why don’t you scream it a little louder,” Eris interrupted. “I am well aware of what’s happening between you two.”
Eris all but shoved Elain into Lucien’s grasp at the foot of the stairs. “Take her to your room and bolt the fucking door. No orgies.”Lucien frowned before hauling Elain up over his shoulder. “Wait! Eris, wait–!”
He paused, the tension in his body practically rippling beneath his skin. “Find Arina. Don’t let them…she’ll be so upset in the morning.”
Eris’s eyes darkened. “Done.”
Eris vanished before Lucien could remind his brother that her regret would extend to him, unable to do much more than suppress the groan building in his chest. Elain’s breasts were squashed against his shoulders, the scent of her arousal practically in his nose. It was effort, dumping her on their shared bed before turning back for the door to bolt it. He did the sliding door, too while Elain giggled on the bed, kicking off her shoes.
“How long is this going to last?” she asked him breathlessly and fuck if Lucien remembered. The last time he’d had wine like this he’d been practically a boy running amok in the Forest House. It had been one of his older brothers to lace their drink during Autumn Equinox and their mother had been irate, silent tears streaming down her face the next morning. At the time, Lucien had assumed she was embarrassed by how they’d defiled the forest but now…he knew she’d hated how the wine made her want her husband, how she’d all but crawled in Beron’s lap that night.
“Hours,” he panted, back pressed against the closet door. “Until the wine is out of our system.”
Elain’s eyes were blown out, so dark he could practically see his reflection. It wasn’t like her nightmares—there was bright light just behind, making her seem particularly mischievous.
“If you lock the closet—”
“Why would I do that?” she murmured, kicking off her shoes. “I like you where you are.”
He exhaled hard. “You’re not thinking clearly–”
“Or maybe I’m thinking clearly for the first time since we met,” she replied, rising from the bed like his every fantasy come to life. Lusty bedroom eyes beckoned him before she turned, sweeping her hair with one fluid motion to the side. “Will you at least help me out of this dress?”
“And into what?” he whispered, his fingers already undoing her buttons. Inch by inch, Lucien began barring her tanned skin, his fingers trailing over her smooth body.
“You could help me into bed?” she suggested when he’d finished. She held the front of the dress against her breasts, pulling her arms from the sleeves before she let it pool entirely at her feet. Elain was all but naked beneath, her body hidden in a matching pair of pink, lacy underthings she presumably wore because she liked them and not because she imagined he might see. Lucien’s knees shook at the sight.
She slid into bed with all the grace of a practiced seductress. “Elain, I—”
Her eyes silenced him. His mate.
“You’ll regret it in the morning,” he managed, his fingers reaching for the silver buttons on his jacket.
“I don’t think so,” she murmured appreciatively when he pushed the offending cloth from his shoulders, letting it join her dress on the floor. “Shirt, Lucien.”
“You want to see me with my clothes off?” It was meant to sound suggestive–flirty. It came out sound awed, breathless.
“Yes,” she agreed. And so off when his shirt, and then his boots, until all that was left were his pants and his aching, raging cock just behind. His blood pulsed in time with his heart, thick and heavy, urging him to do something about his aching need.
He crawled up the bed, both terrified and desperate, so certain he’d screw this whole thing up. And Elain, pliant and warm and wonderful Elain, let him guide her back to the mattress. “I’ve only done this once before,” she told him, eyes dark and wide.
“I’m not fucking you,” he breathed, running his nose over the hollow of her neck. “Not yet, anyway. If I only have this one night…” If he only had one night and the magic of the wine laced with aphrodisiac, Lucien intended to make the best of it. He wanted everything, wanted her to remember his hands and mouth just as surely as she’d remember his cock.
“If you only…oh…” she whispered as his mouth replaced his nose, kissing softly against her neck. It was supposed to be this way…but it wasn’t. Elain’s hips flew off the bed, grinding against him and Lucien’s last little thread of control shredded to dust. Maybe, if she ever let him touch her again, he’d give a slow, sweet seduction. The sort that would take hours to finish, the kind where she’d tremble from just a featherlight touch. The wine urged them to take, to do something about the burning desire they both were writhing beneath. Lucien pushed his cock against her, groaning at the heat he felt radiating between the cloth separating them. Lucien needed to taste her, needed to put her pussy on his face. He reached, her mouth sliding against his own and Lucien was utterly lost, awash in the taste of the wine still bright against her tongue, the heady honeyed smell of her mingled with the musky sweetness of her arousal.
Fingers threaded through his hair, tugging at his careful braid until the strands cascaded around them. Elain moaned, unsatisfied with his scalp. He pushed against her, desperate for relief when those same nails dragged over the skin of his back, sliding into the band of his pants to grasp at his ass and push him harder, to all but forced them together, over and over until they’d created a bruising pace, grinding their half naked, sweat slicked bodies against the other. Nothing had ever felt better in his entire life than kissing her with all the pent up passion he’d been forced to swallow those last five years, her body rolling rhythmically beneath him. She was going to come—Lucien could feel how she trembled, how she was seeking more friction, was gasping into his mouth, her eyes rolling backwards. He might have pulled away had the sight not been so intoxicating. Let her, he decided just a moment before she came apart, grinding so hard against his pants he could feel the wet soaking against his cock.
Only then did Lucien find some semblance of strength, peeling himself off her. Elain watched, breasts jiggling with each new breath, practically spilling from that lace ensemble. “Did I buy you that?”
“Yes,” she whispered, running her hands over the skimpy fabric. Lucien let himself admire her for one more moment, dressed in the underthings he’d purchased for her.
“Take it off,” he ordered, rubbing his own erection through the wet stain of his pants. Elain arched her back, reaching for the clasp in the back, sending his eyes rolling back into his head. Elain tossed them to the side, eyes daring him to tell her to keep going.
“Touch,” he managed, his voice hoarse. She did, her hands reaching for the soft swells, fingers tugging at the rosy tipped peaks.
“And the rest.”
“What about you?” she demanded softly, breath hitching in her throat. Lucien stepped forward, gesturing at his pants.
“Come look at what a mess you made.”
Elain rose to her knees with a curved, wicked smile. “You know,” she began as she rested the most perfect ass Lucien had ever seen on the heels of her feet. “The ladies of court have discussed quite loudly what they’d do if they were to ever get their hands on the laces of your pants.”
He was only half listening, drunk on her gentle tugs, a mere moment from freeing him into her hands. “They talk of all sorts of terribly wicked things.”
“Like?”
Elain reached, squeezing her soft hand around his shaft. It was with nothing but pure, masculine pride to see her fingers unable to touch, at the stripe of untouched skin where she couldn’t quite grasp him.
“I wasn’t aware you could use your mouth,” she said, lowering her face so her lips touched the crown of his cock, her breath fanning over the sensitive skin. Elain looked up through thick lashes with her fuck me eyes and Lucien realized she knew exactly what she was doing.
“You’ll tell me if I do something wrong?”
He threaded his fingers in her hair, nodding desperately as her petal soft mouth linked the length of him, tongue swirling against the head. Hollowed cheeks swallowed a third of his shaft into her throat with relative ease for someone who claimed to be unpracticed. Lucien groaned, using his hand to guide her head.
“That’s it,” he praised. “My pretty girl.”
Elain hummed her approval, squirming with pleasure. He needed to eat her. “Elain,” he tried but she was rubbing her tongue in time with the movements just beneath the tip of his head and oh, Gods, he’d come if she did that. “Get on your back.”
She released him with a wet pop of her mouth, the sound so obscene he could have died. “Is something wrong?”
“I haven’t eaten tonight,” Lucien all but growled when she did as he asked though she was all wrong. Her legs hung over the bed and Lucien very much was not done feeling her silky tongue caress him. “I’m starving, Elain.”
He turned her, spilling her lovely hair against the edge of the bed as he came towards her. He could feel the strands brush against the hair of his leg. He reveled in it, cock in hand as he rubbed it over her swollen lips. “Take your clothes off.”
Elain scrambled from her underwear, balling it into a wad and throwing it to the end of bed. The noise that escaped him was hardly elegant–the desperate keen made her smile. She wiggled a little before her knees fell open, draped over the bed like the most tempting offering he’d ever seen.
Carefully, Lucien slid his cock back into her mouth, all but bruising the back of her throat. Elain pressed at his thighs, telling him when she’d had enough. “Good, that’s good,” he praised, spreading his legs wide so he could control the angle of his thrusts even as he hovered over her. “I’m going to fuck your mouth with my cock while I fuck your cunt with my tongue. Would you like that?”
She whimpered, swallowing him down when he moved his hips and fuck Lucien was already too close, too desperate. It was all he could do but grab her by the legs and bury his face between her thighs, taking that first needy taste of her. It was meant to be a teasing lick, his tongue slow as he worked up the length of her. Elain practically sobbed with pleasure, the rumbling vibration of her moan settling in his sac. Lucien was trying to control his hips, to resist the urge to slam into her throat and make her take all of him whether she wanted to or not. Instead, he distracted himself from the wet slide of her mouth and her perfect little tongue by spreading her wide open with his thumb.
He’d never get over the slight of her gleaming, trembling pink cunt, still swollen from when she’d come against his clothed erection. Elain ground against him, inadvertently taking more of his cock with the new angle of her body. They moaned in time, Lucien taking every inch he could get before he gave up, once again, trying to draw her out.
“Make a mess of my face,” he ordered, speaking the words against her clit before he did as promised. She whined, choking softly when a little more of his length pushed against the back of her throat. He could feel her working to breathe even as she kept her lips wrapped tight, sucking in air before he slid back in, over and over.
Lucien was let wild need take over, feasting on her pussy like it was the finest meal he’d ever had. It was easy enough to figure what she liked, to slide his tongue as far into her tight heat as he could before dragging it up her middle and swirling over her clit for a hot, wet kiss. Elain bucked and writhed, covering him in her slick arousal. If he was close, so was she. She could feel her shaking legs clenched tight around his face.
She hit at his thighs, not to tell him to stop but in warning. Elain screamed when his lips closed once again around that swollen nub of flesh, dragging him into climax with her. Lucien poured himself down her throat, grunting with each thrust of his hips.
Lucien pulled his still aching cock from her mouth if only to crawl over her, to pull her back to the bed. “You want more.”
It wasn’t a question. He knew she did because he did, too. Elain, panting and flushed, her lips bright red from swallowing his cock, watched him with those dark, lust stained eyes. “Say it,” he ordered, if only to give himself something to fantasize about when she inevitably decided they’d made a terrible mistake.
“I want more,” she said, her voice clear—strong.
“You want my cock,” he continued, pushing apart her legs, taking himself in hand. “You want me to fill you up?”
“Yes,” she whimpered, licking her lips as Lucien dragged the head of his aching arousal up her slick cunt, teasing her clit until he, too, was practically panting. Lucien all but fell over her, his hand closing around her neck.
“There will be no one else,” he whispered against her jaw. “Regardless of what happens in the morning. There will only be me, only be you.”
She looked up at him, fingers grazing his stubbled jaw. “Mate.”
He hadn’t meant to thrust into her the way he did. It was as if she’d pulled a string and Lucien had merely obeyed the command. Elain gasped, her whole body tensing and too late, Lucien remembered what she’d said at the beginning. Only once before. When she’d been human, about to be married. Lucien slanted his mouth over hers in apology, holding himself utterly still despite the wild flame demanding he claim her. Lucien kissed, tongue stroking her own, until she relaxed against him, her rigid body warming, her fingers sliding up over his back.
“You’re doing so well,” he praised, kissing her cheek, her neck, behind her ear. “You take my cock so well.”
Elain arched, letting him suck one of her nipples into his mouth and lavish it with the same sweet praise. Sweet, pretty mate, he through, trading one breast for the other until she began to whine, lifting and wiggling with need. Lucien was coming apart, the seams that held him together slowly unraveling. Elain, with her tight, perfect pussy and her soft, warm body that conformed to his every contour. Lucien couldn’t be slow, couldn’t be nice, couldn’t give her the slow seduction he’d once dreamt of when they were newly mated and he’d been sure she’d come around if he only gave her time.
Driving need pushed Lucien to thrust back into her, withdrawing to the tip only to push back. Elain met him savagely, lifting her hips to grind against him. He wasn’t the only one who was working out whatever was happening, whatever had been happening. “Five fucking years,” Lucien growled against her neck, sucking the skin until she yelped. He soothed the little hurt with his tongue. “You’ve denied me this sweet pussy for five fucking years.”
She kissed him, sinking her teeth into his bottom lip. “You’ll fuck me when I say you can,” she whispered when blood flooded into his mouth.
Lucien had never been harder in his life. He put his hand back around her throat. “You’re a fucking brat.”
Elain’s eyes found him. “Your fucking brat.”
His balls tightened painfully, forcing him to squeeze his ass to keep from pouring himself into her. She was so fucking sexy, so utterly stunning. He was losing his mind. “Come on my cock, Elain. I want to fuck you again.”
She moaned, grinding against his body until she’d found that sweet spot. Elain broke with a scream he all but sucked from her throat, strangling it with the press of his fingers to her windpipe. Climax couldn’t have come a moment too soon. Lucien all but burrowed himself in her cunt, spilling every last drop of come into her body.
“Oh, my Gods,” Elain whispered, throwing her head back against the pillow. Lucien knew why. He kissed her mouth.
“Again?”
She nodded. “Please.
3.5 [Eris bonus pollen]
Find Arina. Eris stalked through the palace, trying to ignore the scent of arousal burning in his nose. When he’d hoped for a devolving orgy, he’d hoped for consent, if nothing else. Everyone was mindless with need, hardly caring who touched who or if they even liked each other. For some pairs, like his idiot brother and giggling Elain, Eris thought it was likely to work out.
For him, though?
Eris stopped in the throne room. There she was in that clingy white dress, her back bared save for a thin line of chains draped against her skin. Arina wasn’t Autumn Court–she was pure Day and Eris knew the reputation of Helions court. She clearly had no compunction with reaching for the first person she saw—some pretty little strawberry blonde, tits already bared. Eris halted, ignoring the way his control was fraying.
Arina wasn’t just Elain’s friend or Helions scholar or emissary or lover or whatever she fucking was. Arina was his mate. The snap had been brutal, near violent in its intensity and since he’d felt it, Eris had been merely ignoring her. He didn’t know if she’d felt it too, though he’d seen her eyes on him often enough.
Unlike Elain and Lucien, who were fun to taunt, Eris avoided Arina entirely. No conversation, no traded barbs. Nothing that might make someone look at her twice, that might cause them to think she was a tool that could be used against him. Until that moment, Eris had made peace with sending her back to Helion, to maybe seeing her again in two or three centuries when Beron was dead and he’d brought Autumn to heel.
That was before he watched his mate drag her tongue over the other female’s neck. She wasn’t looking at whoever she touched—Arina was looking at him. Eris’s lips parted and some small part of him wanted to be difficult. He wanted to turn entirely and leave her there. Let her see how little he cared.
But fuck she was so gorgeous. He had an excuse, he told himself. If he fucked the Day Court scholar under the influence of an aphrodisiac, Beron would hardly care. No one would think twice about it. She was there, he was there…this other fucking female he ever much wanted to get rid of was there.
“Are you going to just watch?” she taunted as he approached. Eris cracked his neck as if he wasn’t being ridden hard with lust.
“Maybe. I see this shit every day.”
Arina shrugged, reaching for the broached clasps on her shoulders. With one easy tug, she removed every stitch of clothing. Eris nearly knelt before her. She was glorious, all soft bronze skin and lush curves. “Every day?” she challenged, turning her backside to him to go back to her quivering female. Eris grabbed her around her middle, keeping her from sinking to the floor and burying her face into cunt.
“I don’t think so,” he whispered, grinding his hips against her ass. She gasped at what she felt, his painful, aching erection sliding over her bare skin, leashed only by the laces of his pants.
“Jealous?” she taunted breathlessly.
“Desperately,” he agreed, hauling her into his arms, limbs flailing, to take her out of that throne room. He’d be damned if anyone looked at her perfect body but him.
“Is this the kind of male you are?” she asked when he tossed her on his bed. She looked good there, spayed out among his immaculate sheets. “Possessive?”
“To a fault,” he agreed, reaching for the buttons on his jacket. She all but crawled to the edge of the bed, blonde hair falling around her perfect face. “I don’t want your lips on anyone but me.”
Her arousal was sweet in the air, driving him insane as he peeled himself from his clothes. Arina merely watched and he wondered how often she called the shots. Maybe Day Court males liked being bossed around.
Eris fucking didn’t. Not when he had so little control anywhere else in his life. Not when he knew his mate would yield, would trust him. No one trusted him. Eris walked to the bed, erection bobbing between his legs. Forest green eyes looked at nothing else, head cocked as she drank him in. He let her for one anxious moment. It was a terrifying thing.
Do you like me?Arina’s eyes found us, a smile curved over her mouth. “Who knew the sons of High Lords were so well equipped?”
His hand shot forward, wrapping itself in her long, silken hair. “Get on your knees, Arina.”
Defiance flared in her eyes. “Or what?”
“I’ll make you,” he replied coolly. “We both know what you want.”
She let him tug her from the bed. “And what’s that?”
Using her hair as a leash, Eris dragged her flush against him until he was nestled in the cradle of her thighs. Their eyes met, breath mingled in the inch of air between them. “You want to please your mate.”She sucked in a breath. “You feel it?”
For one stupid moment, Eris nearly pulled her into his grasp and held her against him. Maybe if he’d only been overcome with his usual lust he could have slowed himself down, could have reassured her of his terrible–yet honorable–intentions.
“I feel it,” was all Eris could manage as he pushed her to her knees. “Open your mouth.”
There was no hesitation when she looked up at him. No fear. Even the females in his own court couldn’t quite manage that. Oh, they tried. They wiggled and teased and did everything he asked but he saw the flicker of uncertainty if he was just a little too rough, a little too bossy.
Beron.
Arina blazing defiance, her unguarded trust made his legs shake even as he pushed his cock against her firmly closed lips. “Open your mouth,” he ordered again, praying to the Mother above she wouldn’t.
Let me show you what we could have.
“Make–” she didn’t get to finish that bratty fucking sentence. Eris pushed past her teeth, hissing at the scrape before he had himself in her throat. She gagged, a tear slipping over her cheek. He thumbed it away, tilting her head, stuffed to the gills with his cock, and smiled. “You’re so fucking sexy like this.”
He had practically no control, dragging himself a mere inch out before plunging back in. She gagged loudly, eyes flooded. Eris exhaled a breath. “I wish you could see how well you swallow me.”
He had no intention of finishing this way—at least, not the first time. Eris wanted to watch his come drip out of her pussy, wanted to see it stain the sheets beneath them. He was merely jealous she was going to put her perfect mouth on one of Gunnar’s worthless courtiers. It was an absurd thing to expect her to be like Elain—chaste to a fucking fault, likely upstairs crying all over Lucien’s chest while he politely divested her of her virginity. Eris liked Arina’s experience, liked the sheer faerieness of her.
And he was jealous, all the same. Jealous of everyone she’d ever opened her mouth for, jealous of every cock that had ever spread her legs.
Eris withdrew himself when her face was a mess of mascara and lipstick. “Fuck,” he breathed, hauling her to her feet for a bruising kiss. She tasted like him—like his salt, his musk, mingled against her own citrusy sweet scent. Eris swallowed it down, tongue chasing that taste as he walked her back to the bed. “How do you like to be fucked?” he moaned, hand sliding between her legs. She was dripping, her thighs practically coated in her slick arousal. Eris brought his fingers to his mouth to taste.
Arina crawled on the bed, burying her face into the mass of silken pillows and Eris thought he might be in love. Her round, curved ass wiggled in the air, cunt presented in all its gleaming, wet glory. Eris came up behind her, sliding his hand over her cheek before slapping hard. “Is this what you like?”
She whimpered, turning her head to look. Eris slapped again and again, until her skin was ruddy and imprinted with his hand. He liked the look of it. Maybe, he thought as he lowered his chest to the bed, he’d cover that pretty body of hers in come, too.
“What are you—”
“I’m hungry, Arina,” he interrupted, pushing her legs further apart. “Let me eat in peace.”
She whined, the sound music to his cock. Pretty, pretty mate, he thought with delight, sliding his tongue up the center of her. His fingers hadn’t done her justice, had barely scratched the surface of the heady arousal now branded in his mouth. Eris knew he’d never get that taste from the back of his throat. It was worth it, though he knew it would be torture to go back to pretending she was nothing, to have this one little moment with her. To know what was waiting if he was patient enough, careful enough.
Arina was responsive, grinding her cunt against his face to get what she needed. He wasn’t going to give it to her—she’d come on his cock and only his cock. At least this time, at least. Perhaps if there was another stolen moment where he could risk being drenched in her cunt and he wasn’t under the influence of laced wine. He’d lay her out and have her properly, would make love to her and tell her he thought her beautiful—and whatever else he felt, assuming he felt anything at all. He only knew what he could see, was too afraid to learn anything else about her. Anything that could be pulled from his mind and used against him. It wasn’t just Beron constantly trying to hurt him. Rhysand was always digging in his brain for secrets. He’d seen what they done with Elain to keep Lucien docile. What was stopping Night from asking to borrow Arina for a century or two?
“Eris,” she whispered, bringing him back to the task at hand. He was offering her slow, languid licks. Working her up without letting her crest any further. Teasing was good, he reasoned, dipping his tongue as deeply as he could before withdrawing. Arina all but sobbed for relief but Eris didn’t offer her an ounce of mercy. He wanted to hear her beg, was rewarded when his lips closed around her clit, sucking softly.
“Eris, please!” she pleaded near- incoherently. He removed his mouth entirely, slamming himself to the hilt into her soaking cunt. His rolls backed into his head at the tight stretch of her body, of the way she immediately came, the walls of her pussy convulsing around him, sucking him in. He hadn’t been prepared for that. His fingers curled against her hips, bruising her flawless skin. Eris felt like a unseasoned male all over again, fucking his very first female. He could have come from her climax alone, was already bruisingly on edge.
He slapped her ass, enjoying her breathless yelp. “You come when I say you can.”
She pushed against him, ass flush against his abdomen. “Come for me, mate,” she whispered instead, squeezing around him until Eris had his head thrown back in ecstasy. He needed more, had to wrap his hand back in her thick, golden hair and pull her back so he could kiss her.
“It’s not the fucking wine,” he growled against her throat. “This is us. Say it.”
“This is us,” she whined before he captured her mouth in a bruising kiss. Eris came, pouring more than just come into his mate. He pressed his forehead against her sweaty back, kissing and licking as his hips bucked. He couldn’t stop, even after he’d poured out, using his own emission as lubrication.
“I’m going to come for you,” she whispered when he got her on her back. She reached for his face, caressing his cheek. Eris leaned down and kissed her, wondering if the tightness in his chest wasn’t arousal at all. Wondered if he wasn’t, impossibly, in love with this female.
“I hope you do.”
Human AU: When Prince Rowan Whitethorn had gone to Terrasen at the request of his Queen he never imagined to lose his heart to it’s princess along the way. With a new monarchy holding his loyalty and his heart, returning to Doranelle to introduce his new wife to his family was no longer his only motive. Spying was always dangerous and often had it’s own consequences. Days away from their departure, all their plans unravel and a safe and easy journey home is slipping away.
Lucien Jedi making babies with Elain Sith and that making Lucien go to the dark side. Would you write this? please
Yeah, I would. I would even do multiple parts if people asked.
Lucien was falling to his death. Heart slowed, mind clear, he reached through the force just as he’d been taught by Master Tarquin. The force was his ally, his friend. He swallowed, closing his eyes as the world shuttered to a stop. He could no longer hear the taunting shouts of the Sith on the cliff he’d been kicked off. Only his own heart beat, echoing through stone.
His feet landed on a riverbank gently, boots crunching against the rock. He was given all of a moment to breathe before he felt her land behind him, featherlight despite the fall.
“Who knew Jedi were so hard to kill?” she crooned.
“They should educate your lot better,” Lucien replied, turning to face the twisted beauty of Elain Archeron. She was a work of art, clad in obscene black. Like her sisters, Elain wore the same skirt around her hips with the long panel of cloth that fell between her legs. Lucien had spent one too many nights wondering what he might find just beneath, if he ever dared to look. Unlike her sisters and their swirling, sith tattoos, Elain’s skin was flawless and observable. Her strappy black top cut just above her belly button, as if she dared someone to try and pierce her flesh. She wore no other armor, no sleeves to hide her arms, her breasts pushed tantalizing close to her collarbone. Even her hair, twisted off her temples, flowed in loose, buttery brown curls down her back. Of the three of them, Elain seemed to dare anyone who wished to try and grab her. She made it easier than Feyre and Nesta, who wore tightly coiled braids and clothes armed with spikes and knives. Elain had only her twin sabers and the hungry desire to crush her enemies into dust.
Her and him had been playing the game of cat and mouse for far too long. They were, perhaps, too evenly matched. Lucien ignited his blue blades, a near match for the humming red in her hands, and reminded himself he was everything she was not. A Jedi Knight, a guardian of the republic, pulled to the light. Elain’s pretty, pink mouth curved upwards at the sight, her liquid brown eyes rimmed in gold sliding towards his face…to the scars she’d given him not a year earlier.
“A matching set, Vanserra?”
Her blade crashed over his, silencing whatever retort he might offer. Elain was acrobatic, her motions fluid. He appreciated the artistry to how she moved—as if they danced instead of sparred. Every slash of her blade was precise and elegant, just as Lucien liked it. There was no brutal chopping or unnecessary pageantry. He stepped and so did she, their blades working in tandem until Elain was coated in a pretty sheen of sweat he was far too interested in tasting.
One day, he’d be put in a position to kill her and Lucien wasn’t sure he could manage. They were not friends—she’d never gone to the temple, had not been instructed in their ways. He often wondered who she might have been if she had. Elain had grown up outside of the Jedi, trained by some long-dead Sith lord that the youngest sister had apparently slaughtered. He knew what they called them—the eldest, Lady Death, the youngest Night Incarnate, and Elain, the Kingslayer. Elain had a face that could topple empires and, apparently, destroy monarchs. He could not help his attraction to her though he fought it all the same.
She slammed him up against the cliffside, pinning him with the force. He felt her hand curl around his throat as she approached. Lucien left her, still gripping his blades. They hummed mere inches from her exposed sides as she controlled his air, nearly cutting it off entirely.
“I dream of that day,” she murmured, her own blades hanging from her hips as she brushed her knuckles over the scars on his face. “You should have died.”
“Dreaming of me, are you?” he asked, eyes locked with hers. The attraction between them was not one sided. She’d let him live and they both knew it.
Her fingers trailed down his cheek and over his jaw. Lucien didn’t move, his heart beating quick against her touch.
“Do you see them?” she asked, her breath curling against his cheek. She smelled sweet, like jasmine and honey. He wanted to taste it. “My dreams, I mean.”
Their eyes locked again. Lucien didn’t dare admit that he did, even when Elain said, “I see yours. I see the way you grip yourself at night, thinking of all the things you want to do to me.”
Her hand slid between his legs, holding him through the fabric of his trousers. “When are you going to just do it?”
He loathed the way a groan slipped from his lips and how she smiled at the sound. Her hand rubbed, nose brushing against his own. “You know where I am, Lucien. Why don’t you come for me?”
“In that ruined Jedi temple,” he replied, well aware she’d stopped holding him by the throat. He could have shoved her off him. Instead, Lucien turned off his blades so he didn’t hurt her. Elain looked amused, as if she found his affection ridiculous. “You’re too sentimental for what you are.”
“You misunderstand me,” Elain murmured, leaning upwards on her tiptoes so her breasts crushed over his chest. “I’m going to ride you in the council chamber so hard it’ll be felt reverberating through the force for a millenia.”
Between her words and her hand, Lucien had never been harder in his life. Elain rubbed, her forehead pressed to her cheek. “Let it go, Lucien. Join me.”
Her words forced him back to reality. It was wrong to let her touch him like this, to be so easily seduced. He shoved her back, catching the fleeting look of disappointment on her face. His ship wasn’t far—if he ran, he could make it back before he took things between them any further.
“Lucien, don’t—” Elain tried to stop him but he took off, needing to put as much distance between the pair of them as he could. It was no use and they both knew it. There was a thread between them, iron and unbreakable no matter what he did. It was how she knew what he did in the dark of his room just as clearly as Lucien could watch her hack monarchs apart with ease. Running from her did no good, though Elain, to her credit, did not chase him. He could feel her exasperation settle in his chest
He knew where this led—he’d seen it in his dreams. Touching her was the road to ruin, because Elain Archeron would not turn. He would. If he gave in, if he had her the way she was offering, Lucien would not be able to keep himself from the possessive wanting that already kept him up at night.
So he ran. Ran for his ship and in some ways, his life. He didn’t look back, not when he felt her pulling on their shared cord, reminding him they were still a dyad in the force—and he could not escape her forever.
The trip back to Coruscant was long and Lucien knew Elain was waiting on the edges of his periphery. No amount of meditating could keep her at bay. Not when she slipped through his consciousness like a weed.
He could see her bathed in sunlight, striding across a landscape he couldn’t quite make out. When she saw him, those liquid brown eyes rimmed in gold lit up with amusement. “Jedi.”
He was always Jedi when he was her enemy. Vanserra when she was trying to tempt him. And Lucien when—
“Still alive, I see,” he couldn’t help but say, drawing her in further. She had been his ever present companion his whole life, since he’d first had awareness of the force, he’d had an awareness of her. In some ways, they’d grown up together. Before he’d realized she was his opposite in the force, his twin in darkness, he’d thought she was a ghost. He often wondered if she’d thought the same.
“You didn’t stick around to kill me,” she replied blithely, crouching to the ground where she procured a rather lovely bloom. Elain and her poisons. What might she have been had she been nurtured properly?
“Next time,” he lied. Lucien couldn’t kill her even if he wanted to. One day he knew it would be a requirement of him and privately, he dreaded it. Master Tamlin had been preparing him for his battle with this Sith, unaware of the truth. No one knew the truth. It was his shameful secret. He was afraid if he admitted their connection he would be forbidden from seeking her out and someone else would kill her on his behalf.
Lucien was certain it would be tantamount to severing his soul.
“Liar,” she crooned, twisting the red stalked plant between her fingers. “You’re close. I can sense it.”
He knew it too. Hours from her—if that.
“Change course, Vanserra,” she said, watching him carefully. She could feel his indecision. Everything was easy for her. She was guided by her wants, by her selfish desires.
“I’m not coming, Elain. Not anymore.”
“Liar,” she said again, watching his fingers hover over the data pad. “I can feel you, too, you know. How tired you are. How they run you ragged all over the galaxy…how it’s never enough. They have never understood you.”
Her words were seductive because they were true. Elain watched him carefully.
“Is this what you have, then?” he asked her. “Peace?”
She laughed, a pretty sound. He’d forgotten how much he’d missed that. Lucien’s chest ached. “No, Lucien, I don’t have peace. You were the only peace I ever had and you left.” Her every word was a curse, practically dripping with condemnation. “Just as you are restless because you crave chaos.”
There was a beat between them and then, foolishly, Lucien punched in the coordinates that would take him to her. Elain exhaled her relief, still walking towards some unknowable horizon. Bright light gilded against her hair, making her seem deceptively lovely.
“I’ll be waiting, Lucien,” she told him before blinking out of his awareness. Any seasoned Master would warn him this was likely a trap, that he shouldn’t go alone. That he shouldn’t go at all.
Lucien knew Elain’s deepest fear, the thing that gnawed at her was the same one he shared. One day she’d be asked to kill him, that she’d have to make that final blow and cleave apart her soul. He couldn’t hide from her but she couldn’t hide from him, either. Lucien didn’t dare let himself think that he was tired of fighting her, of denying this connection.
It took him four hours to land on the lush world Elain chose to live on. It was exactly as he’d imagined her, surrounded by wildflowers and swaying grass, tall trees and glittering lakes. At times Lucien thought the Jedi misunderstood all Sith, at least a little. Whatever connection she had to this place was based in nature and despite the humming darkness lurking beneath the vibrant, waving blooms, there was light here, too. Lucien could feel it, which meant Elain could, too.
That was the way between them. Her darkness collided against his light, swirling like gray fog between them. Lucien had never known true, pure light when he’d always had her. The pull existed and always would, just as it would for her. Perhaps that was what she found comforting about this place and the ruined temple set atop a nearby hill. Curling ivy threatened to bring the whole thing down. Towering spires were still intact and the sprawling campus made of marble and sandstone glimmered like gold beneath the warm overhead sun. Lucien was careful not to trample anything beneath his well-worn boots as he approached the towering entry way, arched and carved with ancient Jedi symbols.
He ran his hands over the text. There is no emotion, there is peace. How did she walk beneath that every day and not find it reassuring?
“Because there is emotion, Jedi,” she replied, reading his thoughts through the force. Elain was just inside, illuminated by a buttery shaft of light. She wore an off shoulder lavender dress and had little, poisonous blue flowers adorning her hair. Apt, he thought wryly, stepping into the cracked marble foyer.
“And you are my peace,” she added, softening her expression ever so slightly. “I think only of you when I come in and I feel…” she trailed off, cocking her head for a moment. “I feel like you are almost with me.”
He envied how open she was, how easy she found it to just say what she felt. The words were stuck to his tongue. Lucien wanted to tell her he felt the same but that familiar coldness was pricking at his chest. She sensed it.
“I don’t have a weapon on me,” she warned him, though he knew she could drive him to his knees in other ways, with other uses of the force. “If you need to fight your feelings in a literal sense, you’ll have to give me a moment.”
It was their way. Battling with their sabers until he was exhausted and sweaty and broken down enough to admit the truth. Lucien swallowed the urge. What kind of coward couldn’t admit that he felt love?
Elain waited, hesitant and guarded while Lucien, too, didn’t move. It took him a moment to center himself, to remind his body that love was pure and even if she was mired in darkness, she still deserved it.
He crossed the floor and swept her up, holding her tight against his body. Elain went rigid for a moment and then relaxed, twining her arms around his neck.
“I missed you,” Lucien admitted, speaking the words into her hair. Elains grip tightened, hands holding the back of his neck through his shoulder length hair.
“It’s nice to hear you admit it,” she all but teased. Raised up on her tip-toes, she was nearly eye level with him. Lucien swallowed the urge to kiss her, ignoring that they had once done that sort of thing freely. He’d been a youngling and she…she’d been something else. Never in person, only through the force. He had a sense it would not feel the same.
Elain stepped out of his embrace, smoothing her dress carefully. “How long do you intend to stay?”
Forever. It was on the tip of his tongue. “I can’t be gone long. I will be missed.”
She nodded, tucking a curl behind her ear. “For the night?”
Dangerous, to say yes. He already wanted too much, was too close to breaking every core tenant he held dear. Tell her no.
She expected him to. Lucien could see the walls going up over her expression, her tensed pose. Muscles tensed, Elain was a tightly coiled spring, ready to run for her weapons. Lucien reached for his own twin sabers hanging against his belt and dropped them loudly to the floor. For this time, there was only surrender.
A soft light flickered just behind her eyes. “For the night,” he agreed, swallowing hard. She blinked, her shoulders relaxing.
“Pick those up,” she murmured, reminding him that in the morning, he might very well find a blade against his neck. “Your Master would be terribly disappointed if he knew how easily you surrendered.”
“He is perpetually disappointed in me,” Lucien replied, pulling his blades to his hands all the same. She watched with fascination, though if it was his ability or his hands that held such curiosity, Lucien could not say.
“I can’t imagine why,” Elain said softly, holding out her hand. Lucien took it without hesitation, reveling in her soft skin. “You have always been magnificent.”
And a poor Jedi who could not wholly abandon his attachments. A decent enough diplomat but too quick to pull out his blade when things didn’t go his way. Lucien knew the criticisms Master Tamlin offered him were not unfounded. He knew Elain would be subtly trying to convince him to leave just as he would be trying to pull her towards the light. One of them might win, though he doubted it would be tonight.
“Do you remember when you were a padawan?” Elain began, leading him towards spiraling, crumbling stairs? “And we used to meet at night?”
“I do,” he agreed, not daring to think about those evenings at all. Evenings spent kissing, spent touching, spent doing things he shouldn’t, because he’d realized she wasn’t a ghost at all, but his opposite in the force. A dyad, so rare it had been centuries since one was last seen. And his childhood friend wasn’t a little girl anymore but a beautiful woman who looked at him with the most absurdly gorgeous pair of eyes and told him she wanted him.
Fumbling exploration had been the defining feature of those stolen moments. Lost in an in-between world where Lucien wished, for the first time, he wasn’t a Jedi at all but just a regular man who could be with this woman the way everyone else could.
“Has…has there been anyone since–”
“No.”
She ought to know. Elain swallowed hard, nodding her head. She’d begun picking those flowers out, tossing them at their feet like a breadcrumb trailing this terrible decision they were both about to make.
“Neither have I,” she whispered. He wasn’t going to ask but felt relief knowing all the same. It had been him who’d ended things and had, perhaps, made her his enemy. He’d demanded she come to the light, declaring he could no longer spend his evenings with someone like her. She’d felt his shame, his regret…and she’d hated him for it.
She still did. Lucien could feel those lingering feelings of hurt and anger pulsating between them. This was a chance to set things right, if only for a night. One night Lucien feared might turn into a hundred nights if he wasn’t careful. Vowing he would go to the archives and seek out information on dyads like him, dyads where the counterpart was Sith, Lucien let her walk him through a half ruined hall overlooking the entryway they’d just been standing in. Each footstep seemed to echo in his head, a warning to turn back. This was something he could not undo. Lucien was so close to the rank of Master, to having everything he’d ever worked so hard for.
Elain pushed open a marble door with more of those same runes on the doors. She ran her fingers over them, sighing softly.
He kept his mouth shut, well aware their night was dependent on her good will. She was steeped in the light here. What more could Lucien ask for? She wasn’t locked away in a dark mountain like he knew one of her sisters was. Elain was bathed in softness and chose, still, to walk her path.
His every thought died when he saw the room she’d brought him to. A bedroom. Pretty pink blankets draped over a large four-poster bed draped in gold. Her clothing hung from an exposed piece of pipe half draped in more ivy. The whole room was half overtaken by her plants, a labor of love if Lucien ever saw one.
“I’ve only ever seen you at night,” she told him, turning to face him with teeth bitten lips. She was nervous. It was a revelation to him.
“Do you want to see me in the light?” he asked, stepping closer to the window. It was late afternoon and the golden hour was bouncing off her cheeks, making it seem as if she glowed. Elain hesitated and then nodded. Lucien set his sabers just beside her own on a white dresser on the far end of the room. Four blades made to fight, temporarily made allies instead of enemies. While Lucien’s hilts were sleek and chrome, Elain’s were wrapped in pretty pink and gold fabric, so at odds with the violent red he knew would pour through if she flipped them on. Elain took a step back, hands curled to fists at her sides while Lucien reached for his belt. He should have felt that familiar warring in his body urging him to stop, to walk away. There was a sense of rightness to his actions as he reached for his robe, pulling it over his shoulders so she could see the white shirt beneath.
“I always assumed…” she bit her lip again. Lucien almost laughed.
“I’ve had too many close calls not to put a shirt beneath my robes,” he told her, pulling the shirt over his head. Elain sucked in a soft breath while Lucien tried to pretend he wasn’t pleased she liked his body. Elain stepped closer, fingers outstretched. A large gash over his midsection was still visible, the scar not fully healed.
“I did that,” she murmured. Lucien remembered it well. Chasing her across the ice planet Illum while she tried to hunt down a new kyber crystal from the blade he’d broken. It was yet another instance in which Elain could have killed him. She’d hand her boot on his neck, her blade at his cheek.
“I can’t,” she’d whispered, as if she hadn’t cut open his insides. Lucien had been forced to stagger back to his ship holding his organs in his hand. She’d never know how close she came that day.
“You did that,” he agreed, heart pounding at the feel of her hands against his bare skin. She didn’t say she was sorry. It would have been a lie, besides. Elain merely lowered her mouth and kissed a soft trail against the now healed wound. Lucien’s legs nearly gave out at the feel. He’d been right—having her in person was not like meeting through the force.
It was Elain who reached for his pants, fingers sliding beneath the band for the button. “What do you wear beneath these, Jedi?” she asked breathlessly.
“Nothing,” Lucien admitted, well aware she could see the outline of his desire through the brown fabric. She stepped back again, withdrawing her hand, eyes wholly fixed on his lower half. Lucien took a moment to divest himself of his boots and socks, never taking his eyes off her. She was so utterly perfect that he forgot they were anything but lovers.
Removing his pants was an act of trust. He was utterly naked before her, his cock jutting between his legs. Elain stared, lips parted, eyes hungry. “Just like I remember,” she whispered, her own knees trembling.
“Now you,” Lucien ordered with more authority than he felt. If he was naked than she would be too. Elain reached behind her without hesitation, unclasping the buttons of her pretty dress. There was nothing beneath. Pert breasts peaked towards the sky, set against a toned stomach with their turbulent history mapped in scars. He knew if he turned her around he’d see the remnants of a particularly violent fight etched over her spine. He’d been so afraid he’d killed her that day.
A soft thatch of golden curls hid her pussy from him, the same one he used to tentatively touch and lick as a younger man. He wondered if it would have that same musky sweetness, if she’d still arch her hips into his face and scream. Force, but Lucien wanted to hear her come again. He wanted to taste her on his tongue, wanted to feel her wrapped around his cock.
“You look like you might kneel, Jedi,” she taunted, her words too breathless to be believable.
“Tell me to,” Lucien replied. He wanted to be on his knees, wanted to bury himself against her. She shook her head.
“Kiss me.”
Lucien crossed the room, pulling her naked body against his own. Hooking his arm beneath the soft swell of her ass, Lucien lifted her into the air so he could kiss her without her having to stand on her tiptoes. It had been too long, he thought miserably at that first taste. Too long since they’d touched, too long since he’d let himself have her this way. Legs wrapped around his torso, Elain pulled the rest of his hair from the leather strap holding it off his face as Lucien all but pried open her lips to sweep his tongue into her mouth. The violent creature in his arms moaned, tangling her finger in the strands of his hair and tugging.
“Bed,” she gasped and Lucien was all too happy to oblige. He laid her out among the massive mattress, admiring how beautiful she was in the late golden glow. Perfect. Elain smiled when she realized he was memorizing her, reaching out her hands for him to join.
“Come here,” she murmured and Lucien could hardly deny her this. Pressing his large, muscular frame against her much smaller one, Lucien indulged in the feeling of her soft skin, of her hands against his back, his ass, his face. His cock slid between her thighs, dragging through slickness until he was grinding against her, unable to tear his mouth from hers to do something about his terrible, aching arousal.
“Too long,” he gasped, kissing again and again. “It’s been too long.”
“Swear you won’t stay away like before,” she panted, holding his face between her hands so he had to look at him. “Swear it, Lucien.”
“I swear, Elain,” he replied, leaning to kiss her one last time. He began his slow descent down her writhing body, relearning a palace he’d once felt so comfortable. In some ways it was like coming home, like realizing what he’d been missing had been her, had been her smooth, jasmine and honey scented skin, her peaked nipples, her raking nails. Lucien licked down her neck until he reached her breasts. He sucked the pebbled peaks into his mouth and as reward, earned one of her soft moans.
“Lucien,” she breathed, running her fingers through his hair just like he liked. Arching her spine, Elain’s soaking pussy slid all over his leg, desperate for friction. He didn’t take his mouth off her, licking and sucking in equal measure though he did run his hand down her body until he found that slickness. Lucien rubbed over the trembling little nub, drawing another moan and another frantic jump of her hips.
He’d forgotten how responsive she was. Ignoring how he was already leaking precum and how badly he wanted to forego all the playing and feel that tight heat wrapped around him, Lucien continued his descent down her body until he had her legs spread as wide as they would go.
“I forgot how much I missed this,” Lucien whispered, rubbing her clit with his thumb. Elain was watching, head lolled over her shoulder, her hair a soft halo of gold around her gorgeous face.
“You should never have stopped,” she whispered as he lowered his mouth.
“Forgive me,” was all Lucien could think to say before he took that first taste. Grinding his desperate cock into the sheets, Lucien was suddenly awash in a million sensations. Sliding back to his youth, when he lived and died between her legs, when he might have been tempted to give it all up for her.
How much of that did she know, did he wonder? Had she ever guessed? Lucien had always been so ashamed of it but now, as a man, he thought it all so silly. Why would the force connect them if there was something wrong about their feelings?
He merely needed to consult the archives for guidance. He didn’t have to make any rash decisions in that moment. All he had to do was eat pussy like it was his job. Lucien sucked her clit between his lips, dragging a ragged, desperate moan from her mouth.
“Too long,” Elain panted. Lucien hummed his agreement, licking that nub over and lover with the flat of his tongue. He remembered what she liked when she began to roll her hips, forcing him lower, to fuck her with his mouth before dragging back up to swirl over the clit. Lucien’s face was coated in the wet arousal of her body and when he slid two fingers in, noting how her thighs were trembling and her moans were breathier, Elain flew off the bed, screaming and grinding against him.
This, he thought hotly, pulling off her though just barely. Seated between her thighs, dragging the weeping head of his cock against her wet pussy, Lucien thought this was the only real religion. Her writhing body, her flushed lips, her bouncing tits.
“I missed you,” Lucien breathed before pushing himself into her body. She inhaled sharply but her body remembered. There was the softest moment of tension and then she relaxed, allowing him to slide wholly into her.
“Look at you,” Lucien praised, holding her open wide beneath his hands. Their bodies were flush, her cunt clamped impossibly tight around him. He wanted to die, nothing in his life had ever felt so good. He couldn’t believe this had filled him with shame. Maybe it was his lust talking, but Lucien didn’t think he could go another decade without being inside her.
“I–” she didn’t finish that thought, whatever it was. Lucien had begun to slide himself out of her, pumping back in with a rough jerk of his body. They moaned in time, their shared relief a physical thing.
“Stars, sweetheart,” Lucien whispered, settling on his elbows as he began to thrust a steady rhythm into her. Elain leaned up to kiss him and Lucien was lost for a moment. Everything faded until they were the beginning and the end, two sides of the force colliding messily, broken apart and made new. Lucien couldn’t stop himself anymore than he could have stopped her. He needed to mark her, to claim her as his.
Some small part of his brain warned him the possession he felt would be his ruin. He was normally so good at heeding those warnings but just then Lucien banished it. He didn’t care, didn’t want to analyze what he felt. What he felt was good. Whole. Right, for maybe the first time in his life.
There was no sound as the sun began to set but the sucking slap of their skin combined with their mingled moans of more and please. Elain came first in an explosion of messy passion, her teeth biting against his shoulder so hard he was sure she’d broken his skin. It was enough to send him careening over the edge, pouring himself inside her before he could think better of it.
“You promised me all night,” Elain breathed, reaching for him when he pulled back to watch his come slide out of her body. Using the head of his cock, Lucien pushed it back in, dragging himself through their combined release.
“I’m not leaving. Not yet.”
Elain exhaled, those gold rimmed eyes relaxing. “Then come here,” she whispered.
And Lucien did exactly as she asked.
One night became too many. Lucien had a million excuses as to why he needed to be out in the Mid-Rim, why he was away longer than usual. Nights stolen with Elain became Lucien’s favorite thing. Sometimes they had time to talk, to lace their fingers together and stare up at the stars in the middle of a soft patch of grass. Other times he barely made it out of the hold of his ship before she was sprinting towards him, tackling him against the cool metal to satisfy their need. It was all Lucien thought about anymore.
That, and what it meant to be a dyad at all. He could find no written records of a pair like them, though he was certain it must have existed. Two people connected by the force who were also in love with the other. Because that’s what it was, even if she hadn’t said it and neither had he, he knew what it was. Lucien knew when Elain popped up in the middle of the day just to see him and when he pushed into her consciousness at night to tell her he missed her.
He had broken too many rules, not that anyone had noticed. He could see the path barrelling towards him and too late, Lucien remembered why he had cut her off in the first place. Lucien could not have both. He could not have Elain and the Jedi path. Too often, he wondered if she wasn’t ready to leave it all behind, too. If she wanted to just step away, to find a space beyond Sith and Jedi where they could just be.
“Do you have a moment?” Master Tamlin cut through Lucien’s musings in the meditation chamber. “Can we talk?”
Lucien nodded, certain his master had discovered his secret. Tamlin, with his forest green eyes and his shoulder length, blonde hair had been Lucien’s ever present friend these long twenty something years. He’d been nine years old when Tamlin chose him and Lucien had been infinitely grateful the warrior had seen anything worth mentoring at all.
How disappointed would Tamlin be if he knew how Lucien had failed him? Of the secrets Lucien had been keeping? He knew if he’d gone to Tamlin earnestly, his mentor would have helped him sever the connection entirely.
Standing, Lucien left the darkened chamber to join Tamlin in the light. “What is it?”
“I have only good news today, “Tamlin said, putting his hand on Lucien’s shoulder. “After you completion of the trials, you know I couldn’t have been prouder. Watching you move through the force…and your skill, your devotion, well. When Master Rhysand vacated his seat, I urged the council to consider you.”
Lucien froze. He’d imagined decades before he was ever granted such an honor. “Master, I…”
“They wish to tell you but I could not help but tell you first.” Hands on Lucien’s shoulders, Tamlin held Lucien’s gaze. “You are a Jedi Master in every sense of the word and I know you will do great things.”
How did Lucien tell his oldest friend he was genuinely considering leaving? Swallowing hard, Lucien followed his master over gleaming durasteel floors, so shiny he could see his own terrified reflection.
“I feel your stress,” Tamlin murmured, unaware of the beat of panic that pulsed through his shared bond with Elain. Lucien pushed her out for a moment. “There is no need for it. You were chosen carefully, with much thought. I trust in you and your judgment.”
How did Lucien explain to his oldest friend and mentor he was considering leaving the Order entirely? Another pulse of Elain’s frustration bit through him. She’d told him only a month before she wanted to talk to him, that she had something urgent to say. Lucien had sworn to see her just as soon as he could and wondered if this wasn’t an extension of that conversation. Maybe she’d realized what was happening and decided to just force the conversation now.
Later, he sent back before closing the connection entirely. I’ll talk to you later.
He heard her frustrated screaming in his mind for only a moment before everything went dark. That wasn’t unusual—it was her favorite way of punishing him when he wasn’t available, cutting contact until he was buzzing with worry. Lucien couldn’t think about her, not as he followed after Tamlin over gleaming durasteel floors, so shiny he could see his own terrified reflection staring back.
The double doors into the Masters chambers opened and twelve smiling faces looked back at him. Lucien almost vomited on the floor, even as his traitorous mind wondered who had voted against him. Ancient Master Amren, certainly. Master Emerie, too, if he had to guess.
It doesn’t matter.
But it does.
“Master Tamlin gave you the good news?” Master Amren asked, rising from her seat.
“Yes. I am…” he was what? Grateful? This should have been the best day of his life and it was tainted by his worry for Elain. “So honored you would consider me at all.”
“You will do great things, young Master Vanserra,” Master Tarquin murmured, gesturing for Lucien to take a seat in one of the large, red-lined chairs. He could see all of Coruscant from his spot, like a king surveying his domain. Of course the Jedi were not rulers and yet from his perch, he certainly felt like one.
It was all wrong.
“Normally we have a celebration but we have another matter to consider,” Master Kallias murmured as the room nodded. “Master Tamlin has captured a Sith.”
Elain’s screaming echoed through his mind.
Tamlin, seated just beside Lucien, nodded his head. “She’s being held under the temple for now. I do not think she can be persuaded into seeing reason. She is…quite feral.”
Lucien didn’t dare move. It wasn’t Elain. It was only a coincidence.
“To have one of the Archeron sisters—”
Lucien almost threw up on the floor again. He couldn’t risk opening the bond between them and yet his ears were buzzing. Trust only in the force. Lucien knew it was her in one of those cells beneath the temple, just as he knew they would decide killing to be a mercy. He swallowed his fear before anyone realized what was happening. He’d just go down and talk to her. He’d help, he’d–
“Pregnant,” Tamlin continued, turning Lucien’s blood to ice. “So we’ll need to wait, I think. Move her off-world.”
“Use her as bait?” Lucien interrupted, his words colder than he’d meant.
“Her sisters will come,” Emerie reminded him. Lucien’s fingers itched towards his saber. His child, that was his child—
“It’s wrong,” Lucien breathed, unable to focus. No one noticed, not as Lucien recentered himself in the force, willing himself to feel nothing at all. Just for the meeting. Just until he could go down and see her.
“I will oversee her transport,” Tamlin murmured as the meeting concluded. Lucien looked over at his Master. His friend.
“I’ll accompany you.”
Tamlin smiled.
But Lucien was going to kill him. He decided it in that moment without any of the hesitation that had always plagued him. Peace stole over him for the first time and Lucien understood what Elain meant when she said he was the only peace she’d ever known. There was comfort in making a decision, regardless of what it was.
He chose her. Above everything. Above his whole life, he chose her, he chose that baby.
It took Tamlin most of the remaining day to ready a ship, to find the appropriate guards, to finally lead Lucien down the winding, stone cut stairs to the cells far underground. The smell of rot permeated his senses. This was no place for the mother of his unborn child. He swallowed his hatred so Tamlin would not sense it. His former Master misread his unease.
“I loathe this place as well. It used to be a sanctuary for the dark.”
Lucien could feel it, that humming cold invading his bones. It wasn’t corruption like he’d always imagined—it was more like admitting a certain truth that he’d tried too hard to avoid.
Welcome, welcome, welcome, the shadows chanted.
Elain sat on an overturned box, disarmed of her weapons and dressed in her usual black. A slash across her cheek had made her usual beautiful face too pale. She’d likely backed down quicker than usual, terrified for the life living inside her. Their eyes met. Brown, rimmed in gold, widened at whatever she saw.
“You have no force ability down here,” Tamlin warned, one hand holding his unlit green saber. “If you try and run, I will cut you down.
Her eyes watched only him, gripping the blade on his belt, ready to stop his Master if he tried. She hesitated and then nodded, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “As you say, Jedi.”
Tamlin unlocked the cell with the pad of his thumb and the two guards, draped in white and red, rushed in with stun cuffs. Elain merely held out her wrists, smirking as she did so. Like the whole charade amused her.
She was a spectacle, walking silently through the temple. What had she been doing so close to the core? Had she been looking for him? Had she thought she’d come see him, would tell him in person? Lucien swallowed his guilt as they paraded towards the landing pad where a sleek, small cruiser awaited them. She balked when she saw it.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“A prison world,” Tamlin replied. “You will have your baby under the watchful eye–”
“No,” she breathed, twisting to look at Lucien. “No, you can’t—”
“There is no use fighting,” Tamlin all but snarled, struggling to contain his patience. “You will—”
Lucien couldn’t stand another second of it. Igniting his blade, he took down both guards on that landing pad before Tamlin could blink. His Master, once his closest friend, stood agape, reaching for his own saber. Lucien held his nearly parallel to Tamlin’s neck.
“I wouldn’t,” he warned.
“You didn’t,” Tamlin breathed, eyes sliding towards Elain, still restrained just beside him. “I vouched for you.”
“I would have told you I was leaving if you asked,” Lucien breathed, saying the words aloud for Elain to hear. “I don’t want to be a Master…or to be part of the order.”
It was almost freeing to admit what he’d always known out loud.
“Stand down, Lucien,” Tamlin warned. He didn’t understand the lengths Lucien was willing to go to in that moment. Perhaps he merely underestimated how serious Lucien was. Lucien would never know what prompted Tamlin to reach for his blade, despite Lucien’s saber at his throat. The warrior who had trained him, who had shaped him feel to the ground like little more than garbage when Lucien ignited his second blade, divesting Tamlin of his head in one fell swoop.
Beside him, Elain pushed closer. “They’ll be coming. You need to go.”
Lucien took Tamlin’s saber, recognizing she’d need something to defend herself with, before pushing them both into the ship. He punched in random coordinates, just enough to get them into a lightspeed lane while he disabled the tracking.
No one came as Lucien pulled into the atmosphere. He took one look backwards at the landing pad and the three bodies he’d so casually left behind. Elain tugged at her restraints, drawing him back to the immediate. Divesting her of them, Lucien pulled Elain into his lap in the pilots chair and kissed her until he couldn’t think straight.
“We’re going to crash,” she whispered, pulling the accelerator overhead.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, running a hand over her semi-exposed midsection. “I was going to come—”
“I was coming for you,” she said instead. “I was going to bring you home. What changed?”
“You,” Lucien told her as the galaxy came into view, hand still pressed to his stomach. “The both of you, but always you. I’ve been fighting you my entire life and I don’t know why.”
“Was what you told that man true?” she asked him as everything bled into blue and white, taking them screaming away from the interior. Lucien intended to let them travel a little before disabling and pulling out. There would be those in the temple who would use the force to try and sense his location, even bathed in darkness. They would want him to atone for Master Tamlin’s death.
Lucien wasn’t sorry. Some new, angry part of him wished he’d killed the entire council before he left.
“Yes,” Lucien breathed, mouth against her jaw. “It was true the first moment I saw you. I only regret making you wait so long.”
“Because if you don’t want us—”
“I do—”
“I always meant to free you of the burden—”
“You are no burden to me—”
“So you could continue on with your life—”
“Elain,” he protested, lips still pressed against her skin. “You are my life. You always have been. I was foolish to ever think otherwise. Scared and foolish. You and this baby are everything to me.”
She blinked, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. “Swear it?”
“On my life,” Lucien replied, holding her close. “I love you, and I swear it on this life and another others I might live.”
“And is that how you mean to defend it?” she asked him, clearly riding the high of Lucien’s feelings. “In blood?”
“With pleasure,” he snarled, capturing her lips with his. Elain moaned, raking her fingers through his hair roughly. There would be time to lay her back out like he still dreamt of. To bury his face between her legs and feast like a vicious, rabid thing. In that moment, speeding as far from the inner rim as possible, Lucien only bothered with getting them semi-undressed, just enough to slot himself against her.
“If anyone ever touches you again,” he breathed, thinking of how Tamlin had put those stun cuffs on her wrists. He brushed his knuckles over the cut on her pretty face before slamming his cock into her body. “I’ll kill them.”
Elain moaned, kissing him messily. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“I would have waited,” she panted, clenched so tight Lucien could barely breathe. “For the rest of my life, I would have waited for you.”
“Say it,” he ordered. Her eyes flew open, searching his own. A strange new feeling had invaded his chest, filling him with that same turbulent sense of calm. It was colder than he was used to but still familiar. Like Elain’s presence had finally rooted in him fully, spreading outward from his chest to his very fingertips. It was the dark side, he realized, and from the curling smile on her lips, he guessed she could see it made manifest on his face.
“I love you,” she told him, kissing him sweetly despite their frantically thrusting hips.
He came like a bomb, dragging her down, down down. Down into the darkness, into that frigid abyss. Somewhere that, despite its lack of warmth, she could still make things grow.
Lucien reached behind him, destroying the paneling while she continued to cant her hips, still coming down from her orgasm.
“We can’t go back home. Not yet,” she breathed. Home. The rightness of it clanged through him.
Lucien grinned.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeves,” he murmured with another kiss.
Lucien Jedi making babies with Elain Sith and that making Lucien go to the dark side. Would you write this? please
Yeah, I would. I would even do multiple parts if people asked.
Lucien was falling to his death. Heart slowed, mind clear, he reached through the force just as he’d been taught by Master Tarquin. The force was his ally, his friend. He swallowed, closing his eyes as the world shuttered to a stop. He could no longer hear the taunting shouts of the Sith on the cliff he’d been kicked off. Only his own heart beat, echoing through stone.
His feet landed on a riverbank gently, boots crunching against the rock. He was given all of a moment to breathe before he felt her land behind him, featherlight despite the fall.
“Who knew Jedi were so hard to kill?” she crooned.
“They should educate your lot better,” Lucien replied, turning to face the twisted beauty of Elain Archeron. She was a work of art, clad in obscene black. Like her sisters, Elain wore the same skirt around her hips with the long panel of cloth that fell between her legs. Lucien had spent one too many nights wondering what he might find just beneath, if he ever dared to look. Unlike her sisters and their swirling, sith tattoos, Elain’s skin was flawless and observable. Her strappy black top cut just above her belly button, as if she dared someone to try and pierce her flesh. She wore no other armor, no sleeves to hide her arms, her breasts pushed tantalizing close to her collarbone. Even her hair, twisted off her temples, flowed in loose, buttery brown curls down her back. Of the three of them, Elain seemed to dare anyone who wished to try and grab her. She made it easier than Feyre and Nesta, who wore tightly coiled braids and clothes armed with spikes and knives. Elain had only her twin sabers and the hungry desire to crush her enemies into dust.
Her and him had been playing the game of cat and mouse for far too long. They were, perhaps, too evenly matched. Lucien ignited his blue blades, a near match for the humming red in her hands, and reminded himself he was everything she was not. A Jedi Knight, a guardian of the republic, pulled to the light. Elain’s pretty, pink mouth curved upwards at the sight, her liquid brown eyes rimmed in gold sliding towards his face…to the scars she’d given him not a year earlier.
“A matching set, Vanserra?”
Her blade crashed over his, silencing whatever retort he might offer. Elain was acrobatic, her motions fluid. He appreciated the artistry to how she moved—as if they danced instead of sparred. Every slash of her blade was precise and elegant, just as Lucien liked it. There was no brutal chopping or unnecessary pageantry. He stepped and so did she, their blades working in tandem until Elain was coated in a pretty sheen of sweat he was far too interested in tasting.
One day, he’d be put in a position to kill her and Lucien wasn’t sure he could manage. They were not friends—she’d never gone to the temple, had not been instructed in their ways. He often wondered who she might have been if she had. Elain had grown up outside of the Jedi, trained by some long-dead Sith lord that the youngest sister had apparently slaughtered. He knew what they called them—the eldest, Lady Death, the youngest Night Incarnate, and Elain, the Kingslayer. Elain had a face that could topple empires and, apparently, destroy monarchs. He could not help his attraction to her though he fought it all the same.
She slammed him up against the cliffside, pinning him with the force. He felt her hand curl around his throat as she approached. Lucien left her, still gripping his blades. They hummed mere inches from her exposed sides as she controlled his air, nearly cutting it off entirely.
“I dream of that day,” she murmured, her own blades hanging from her hips as she brushed her knuckles over the scars on his face. “You should have died.”
“Dreaming of me, are you?” he asked, eyes locked with hers. The attraction between them was not one sided. She’d let him live and they both knew it.
Her fingers trailed down his cheek and over his jaw. Lucien didn’t move, his heart beating quick against her touch.
“Do you see them?” she asked, her breath curling against his cheek. She smelled sweet, like jasmine and honey. He wanted to taste it. “My dreams, I mean.”
Their eyes locked again. Lucien didn’t dare admit that he did, even when Elain said, “I see yours. I see the way you grip yourself at night, thinking of all the things you want to do to me.”
Her hand slid between his legs, holding him through the fabric of his trousers. “When are you going to just do it?”
He loathed the way a groan slipped from his lips and how she smiled at the sound. Her hand rubbed, nose brushing against his own. “You know where I am, Lucien. Why don’t you come for me?”
“In that ruined Jedi temple,” he replied, well aware she’d stopped holding him by the throat. He could have shoved her off him. Instead, Lucien turned off his blades so he didn’t hurt her. Elain looked amused, as if she found his affection ridiculous. “You’re too sentimental for what you are.”
“You misunderstand me,” Elain murmured, leaning upwards on her tiptoes so her breasts crushed over his chest. “I’m going to ride you in the council chamber so hard it’ll be felt reverberating through the force for a millenia.”
Between her words and her hand, Lucien had never been harder in his life. Elain rubbed, her forehead pressed to her cheek. “Let it go, Lucien. Join me.”
Her words forced him back to reality. It was wrong to let her touch him like this, to be so easily seduced. He shoved her back, catching the fleeting look of disappointment on her face. His ship wasn’t far—if he ran, he could make it back before he took things between them any further.
“Lucien, don’t—” Elain tried to stop him but he took off, needing to put as much distance between the pair of them as he could. It was no use and they both knew it. There was a thread between them, iron and unbreakable no matter what he did. It was how she knew what he did in the dark of his room just as clearly as Lucien could watch her hack monarchs apart with ease. Running from her did no good, though Elain, to her credit, did not chase him. He could feel her exasperation settle in his chest
He knew where this led—he’d seen it in his dreams. Touching her was the road to ruin, because Elain Archeron would not turn. He would. If he gave in, if he had her the way she was offering, Lucien would not be able to keep himself from the possessive wanting that already kept him up at night.
So he ran. Ran for his ship and in some ways, his life. He didn’t look back, not when he felt her pulling on their shared cord, reminding him they were still a dyad in the force—and he could not escape her forever.
The trip back to Coruscant was long and Lucien knew Elain was waiting on the edges of his periphery. No amount of meditating could keep her at bay. Not when she slipped through his consciousness like a weed.
He could see her bathed in sunlight, striding across a landscape he couldn’t quite make out. When she saw him, those liquid brown eyes rimmed in gold lit up with amusement. “Jedi.”
He was always Jedi when he was her enemy. Vanserra when she was trying to tempt him. And Lucien when—
“Still alive, I see,” he couldn’t help but say, drawing her in further. She had been his ever present companion his whole life, since he’d first had awareness of the force, he’d had an awareness of her. In some ways, they’d grown up together. Before he’d realized she was his opposite in the force, his twin in darkness, he’d thought she was a ghost. He often wondered if she’d thought the same.
“You didn’t stick around to kill me,” she replied blithely, crouching to the ground where she procured a rather lovely bloom. Elain and her poisons. What might she have been had she been nurtured properly?
“Next time,” he lied. Lucien couldn’t kill her even if he wanted to. One day he knew it would be a requirement of him and privately, he dreaded it. Master Tamlin had been preparing him for his battle with this Sith, unaware of the truth. No one knew the truth. It was his shameful secret. He was afraid if he admitted their connection he would be forbidden from seeking her out and someone else would kill her on his behalf.
Lucien was certain it would be tantamount to severing his soul.
“Liar,” she crooned, twisting the red stalked plant between her fingers. “You’re close. I can sense it.”
He knew it too. Hours from her—if that.
“Change course, Vanserra,” she said, watching him carefully. She could feel his indecision. Everything was easy for her. She was guided by her wants, by her selfish desires.
“I’m not coming, Elain. Not anymore.”
“Liar,” she said again, watching his fingers hover over the data pad. “I can feel you, too, you know. How tired you are. How they run you ragged all over the galaxy…how it’s never enough. They have never understood you.”
Her words were seductive because they were true. Elain watched him carefully.
“Is this what you have, then?” he asked her. “Peace?”
She laughed, a pretty sound. He’d forgotten how much he’d missed that. Lucien’s chest ached. “No, Lucien, I don’t have peace. You were the only peace I ever had and you left.” Her every word was a curse, practically dripping with condemnation. “Just as you are restless because you crave chaos.”
There was a beat between them and then, foolishly, Lucien punched in the coordinates that would take him to her. Elain exhaled her relief, still walking towards some unknowable horizon. Bright light gilded against her hair, making her seem deceptively lovely.
“I’ll be waiting, Lucien,” she told him before blinking out of his awareness. Any seasoned Master would warn him this was likely a trap, that he shouldn’t go alone. That he shouldn’t go at all.
Lucien knew Elain’s deepest fear, the thing that gnawed at her was the same one he shared. One day she’d be asked to kill him, that she’d have to make that final blow and cleave apart her soul. He couldn’t hide from her but she couldn’t hide from him, either. Lucien didn’t dare let himself think that he was tired of fighting her, of denying this connection.
It took him four hours to land on the lush world Elain chose to live on. It was exactly as he’d imagined her, surrounded by wildflowers and swaying grass, tall trees and glittering lakes. At times Lucien thought the Jedi misunderstood all Sith, at least a little. Whatever connection she had to this place was based in nature and despite the humming darkness lurking beneath the vibrant, waving blooms, there was light here, too. Lucien could feel it, which meant Elain could, too.
That was the way between them. Her darkness collided against his light, swirling like gray fog between them. Lucien had never known true, pure light when he’d always had her. The pull existed and always would, just as it would for her. Perhaps that was what she found comforting about this place and the ruined temple set atop a nearby hill. Curling ivy threatened to bring the whole thing down. Towering spires were still intact and the sprawling campus made of marble and sandstone glimmered like gold beneath the warm overhead sun. Lucien was careful not to trample anything beneath his well-worn boots as he approached the towering entry way, arched and carved with ancient Jedi symbols.
He ran his hands over the text. There is no emotion, there is peace. How did she walk beneath that every day and not find it reassuring?
“Because there is emotion, Jedi,” she replied, reading his thoughts through the force. Elain was just inside, illuminated by a buttery shaft of light. She wore an off shoulder lavender dress and had little, poisonous blue flowers adorning her hair. Apt, he thought wryly, stepping into the cracked marble foyer.
“And you are my peace,” she added, softening her expression ever so slightly. “I think only of you when I come in and I feel…” she trailed off, cocking her head for a moment. “I feel like you are almost with me.”
He envied how open she was, how easy she found it to just say what she felt. The words were stuck to his tongue. Lucien wanted to tell her he felt the same but that familiar coldness was pricking at his chest. She sensed it.
“I don’t have a weapon on me,” she warned him, though he knew she could drive him to his knees in other ways, with other uses of the force. “If you need to fight your feelings in a literal sense, you’ll have to give me a moment.”
It was their way. Battling with their sabers until he was exhausted and sweaty and broken down enough to admit the truth. Lucien swallowed the urge. What kind of coward couldn’t admit that he felt love?
Elain waited, hesitant and guarded while Lucien, too, didn’t move. It took him a moment to center himself, to remind his body that love was pure and even if she was mired in darkness, she still deserved it.
He crossed the floor and swept her up, holding her tight against his body. Elain went rigid for a moment and then relaxed, twining her arms around his neck.
“I missed you,” Lucien admitted, speaking the words into her hair. Elains grip tightened, hands holding the back of his neck through his shoulder length hair.
“It’s nice to hear you admit it,” she all but teased. Raised up on her tip-toes, she was nearly eye level with him. Lucien swallowed the urge to kiss her, ignoring that they had once done that sort of thing freely. He’d been a youngling and she…she’d been something else. Never in person, only through the force. He had a sense it would not feel the same.
Elain stepped out of his embrace, smoothing her dress carefully. “How long do you intend to stay?”
Forever. It was on the tip of his tongue. “I can’t be gone long. I will be missed.”
She nodded, tucking a curl behind her ear. “For the night?”
Dangerous, to say yes. He already wanted too much, was too close to breaking every core tenant he held dear. Tell her no.
She expected him to. Lucien could see the walls going up over her expression, her tensed pose. Muscles tensed, Elain was a tightly coiled spring, ready to run for her weapons. Lucien reached for his own twin sabers hanging against his belt and dropped them loudly to the floor. For this time, there was only surrender.
A soft light flickered just behind her eyes. “For the night,” he agreed, swallowing hard. She blinked, her shoulders relaxing.
“Pick those up,” she murmured, reminding him that in the morning, he might very well find a blade against his neck. “Your Master would be terribly disappointed if he knew how easily you surrendered.”
“He is perpetually disappointed in me,” Lucien replied, pulling his blades to his hands all the same. She watched with fascination, though if it was his ability or his hands that held such curiosity, Lucien could not say.
“I can’t imagine why,” Elain said softly, holding out her hand. Lucien took it without hesitation, reveling in her soft skin. “You have always been magnificent.”
And a poor Jedi who could not wholly abandon his attachments. A decent enough diplomat but too quick to pull out his blade when things didn’t go his way. Lucien knew the criticisms Master Tamlin offered him were not unfounded. He knew Elain would be subtly trying to convince him to leave just as he would be trying to pull her towards the light. One of them might win, though he doubted it would be tonight.
“Do you remember when you were a padawan?” Elain began, leading him towards spiraling, crumbling stairs? “And we used to meet at night?”
“I do,” he agreed, not daring to think about those evenings at all. Evenings spent kissing, spent touching, spent doing things he shouldn’t, because he’d realized she wasn’t a ghost at all, but his opposite in the force. A dyad, so rare it had been centuries since one was last seen. And his childhood friend wasn’t a little girl anymore but a beautiful woman who looked at him with the most absurdly gorgeous pair of eyes and told him she wanted him.
Fumbling exploration had been the defining feature of those stolen moments. Lost in an in-between world where Lucien wished, for the first time, he wasn’t a Jedi at all but just a regular man who could be with this woman the way everyone else could.
“Has…has there been anyone since–”
“No.”
She ought to know. Elain swallowed hard, nodding her head. She’d begun picking those flowers out, tossing them at their feet like a breadcrumb trailing this terrible decision they were both about to make.
“Neither have I,” she whispered. He wasn’t going to ask but felt relief knowing all the same. It had been him who’d ended things and had, perhaps, made her his enemy. He’d demanded she come to the light, declaring he could no longer spend his evenings with someone like her. She’d felt his shame, his regret…and she’d hated him for it.
She still did. Lucien could feel those lingering feelings of hurt and anger pulsating between them. This was a chance to set things right, if only for a night. One night Lucien feared might turn into a hundred nights if he wasn’t careful. Vowing he would go to the archives and seek out information on dyads like him, dyads where the counterpart was Sith, Lucien let her walk him through a half ruined hall overlooking the entryway they’d just been standing in. Each footstep seemed to echo in his head, a warning to turn back. This was something he could not undo. Lucien was so close to the rank of Master, to having everything he’d ever worked so hard for.
Elain pushed open a marble door with more of those same runes on the doors. She ran her fingers over them, sighing softly.
He kept his mouth shut, well aware their night was dependent on her good will. She was steeped in the light here. What more could Lucien ask for? She wasn’t locked away in a dark mountain like he knew one of her sisters was. Elain was bathed in softness and chose, still, to walk her path.
His every thought died when he saw the room she’d brought him to. A bedroom. Pretty pink blankets draped over a large four-poster bed draped in gold. Her clothing hung from an exposed piece of pipe half draped in more ivy. The whole room was half overtaken by her plants, a labor of love if Lucien ever saw one.
“I’ve only ever seen you at night,” she told him, turning to face him with teeth bitten lips. She was nervous. It was a revelation to him.
“Do you want to see me in the light?” he asked, stepping closer to the window. It was late afternoon and the golden hour was bouncing off her cheeks, making it seem as if she glowed. Elain hesitated and then nodded. Lucien set his sabers just beside her own on a white dresser on the far end of the room. Four blades made to fight, temporarily made allies instead of enemies. While Lucien’s hilts were sleek and chrome, Elain’s were wrapped in pretty pink and gold fabric, so at odds with the violent red he knew would pour through if she flipped them on. Elain took a step back, hands curled to fists at her sides while Lucien reached for his belt. He should have felt that familiar warring in his body urging him to stop, to walk away. There was a sense of rightness to his actions as he reached for his robe, pulling it over his shoulders so she could see the white shirt beneath.
“I always assumed…” she bit her lip again. Lucien almost laughed.
“I’ve had too many close calls not to put a shirt beneath my robes,” he told her, pulling the shirt over his head. Elain sucked in a soft breath while Lucien tried to pretend he wasn’t pleased she liked his body. Elain stepped closer, fingers outstretched. A large gash over his midsection was still visible, the scar not fully healed.
“I did that,” she murmured. Lucien remembered it well. Chasing her across the ice planet Illum while she tried to hunt down a new kyber crystal from the blade he’d broken. It was yet another instance in which Elain could have killed him. She’d hand her boot on his neck, her blade at his cheek.
“I can’t,” she’d whispered, as if she hadn’t cut open his insides. Lucien had been forced to stagger back to his ship holding his organs in his hand. She’d never know how close she came that day.
“You did that,” he agreed, heart pounding at the feel of her hands against his bare skin. She didn’t say she was sorry. It would have been a lie, besides. Elain merely lowered her mouth and kissed a soft trail against the now healed wound. Lucien’s legs nearly gave out at the feel. He’d been right—having her in person was not like meeting through the force.
It was Elain who reached for his pants, fingers sliding beneath the band for the button. “What do you wear beneath these, Jedi?” she asked breathlessly.
“Nothing,” Lucien admitted, well aware she could see the outline of his desire through the brown fabric. She stepped back again, withdrawing her hand, eyes wholly fixed on his lower half. Lucien took a moment to divest himself of his boots and socks, never taking his eyes off her. She was so utterly perfect that he forgot they were anything but lovers.
Removing his pants was an act of trust. He was utterly naked before her, his cock jutting between his legs. Elain stared, lips parted, eyes hungry. “Just like I remember,” she whispered, her own knees trembling.
“Now you,” Lucien ordered with more authority than he felt. If he was naked than she would be too. Elain reached behind her without hesitation, unclasping the buttons of her pretty dress. There was nothing beneath. Pert breasts peaked towards the sky, set against a toned stomach with their turbulent history mapped in scars. He knew if he turned her around he’d see the remnants of a particularly violent fight etched over her spine. He’d been so afraid he’d killed her that day.
A soft thatch of golden curls hid her pussy from him, the same one he used to tentatively touch and lick as a younger man. He wondered if it would have that same musky sweetness, if she’d still arch her hips into his face and scream. Force, but Lucien wanted to hear her come again. He wanted to taste her on his tongue, wanted to feel her wrapped around his cock.
“You look like you might kneel, Jedi,” she taunted, her words too breathless to be believable.
“Tell me to,” Lucien replied. He wanted to be on his knees, wanted to bury himself against her. She shook her head.
“Kiss me.”
Lucien crossed the room, pulling her naked body against his own. Hooking his arm beneath the soft swell of her ass, Lucien lifted her into the air so he could kiss her without her having to stand on her tiptoes. It had been too long, he thought miserably at that first taste. Too long since they’d touched, too long since he’d let himself have her this way. Legs wrapped around his torso, Elain pulled the rest of his hair from the leather strap holding it off his face as Lucien all but pried open her lips to sweep his tongue into her mouth. The violent creature in his arms moaned, tangling her finger in the strands of his hair and tugging.
“Bed,” she gasped and Lucien was all too happy to oblige. He laid her out among the massive mattress, admiring how beautiful she was in the late golden glow. Perfect. Elain smiled when she realized he was memorizing her, reaching out her hands for him to join.
“Come here,” she murmured and Lucien could hardly deny her this. Pressing his large, muscular frame against her much smaller one, Lucien indulged in the feeling of her soft skin, of her hands against his back, his ass, his face. His cock slid between her thighs, dragging through slickness until he was grinding against her, unable to tear his mouth from hers to do something about his terrible, aching arousal.
“Too long,” he gasped, kissing again and again. “It’s been too long.”
“Swear you won’t stay away like before,” she panted, holding his face between her hands so he had to look at him. “Swear it, Lucien.”
“I swear, Elain,” he replied, leaning to kiss her one last time. He began his slow descent down her writhing body, relearning a palace he’d once felt so comfortable. In some ways it was like coming home, like realizing what he’d been missing had been her, had been her smooth, jasmine and honey scented skin, her peaked nipples, her raking nails. Lucien licked down her neck until he reached her breasts. He sucked the pebbled peaks into his mouth and as reward, earned one of her soft moans.
“Lucien,” she breathed, running her fingers through his hair just like he liked. Arching her spine, Elain’s soaking pussy slid all over his leg, desperate for friction. He didn’t take his mouth off her, licking and sucking in equal measure though he did run his hand down her body until he found that slickness. Lucien rubbed over the trembling little nub, drawing another moan and another frantic jump of her hips.
He’d forgotten how responsive she was. Ignoring how he was already leaking precum and how badly he wanted to forego all the playing and feel that tight heat wrapped around him, Lucien continued his descent down her body until he had her legs spread as wide as they would go.
“I forgot how much I missed this,” Lucien whispered, rubbing her clit with his thumb. Elain was watching, head lolled over her shoulder, her hair a soft halo of gold around her gorgeous face.
“You should never have stopped,” she whispered as he lowered his mouth.
“Forgive me,” was all Lucien could think to say before he took that first taste. Grinding his desperate cock into the sheets, Lucien was suddenly awash in a million sensations. Sliding back to his youth, when he lived and died between her legs, when he might have been tempted to give it all up for her.
How much of that did she know, did he wonder? Had she ever guessed? Lucien had always been so ashamed of it but now, as a man, he thought it all so silly. Why would the force connect them if there was something wrong about their feelings?
He merely needed to consult the archives for guidance. He didn’t have to make any rash decisions in that moment. All he had to do was eat pussy like it was his job. Lucien sucked her clit between his lips, dragging a ragged, desperate moan from her mouth.
“Too long,” Elain panted. Lucien hummed his agreement, licking that nub over and lover with the flat of his tongue. He remembered what she liked when she began to roll her hips, forcing him lower, to fuck her with his mouth before dragging back up to swirl over the clit. Lucien’s face was coated in the wet arousal of her body and when he slid two fingers in, noting how her thighs were trembling and her moans were breathier, Elain flew off the bed, screaming and grinding against him.
This, he thought hotly, pulling off her though just barely. Seated between her thighs, dragging the weeping head of his cock against her wet pussy, Lucien thought this was the only real religion. Her writhing body, her flushed lips, her bouncing tits.
“I missed you,” Lucien breathed before pushing himself into her body. She inhaled sharply but her body remembered. There was the softest moment of tension and then she relaxed, allowing him to slide wholly into her.
“Look at you,” Lucien praised, holding her open wide beneath his hands. Their bodies were flush, her cunt clamped impossibly tight around him. He wanted to die, nothing in his life had ever felt so good. He couldn’t believe this had filled him with shame. Maybe it was his lust talking, but Lucien didn’t think he could go another decade without being inside her.
“I–” she didn’t finish that thought, whatever it was. Lucien had begun to slide himself out of her, pumping back in with a rough jerk of his body. They moaned in time, their shared relief a physical thing.
“Stars, sweetheart,” Lucien whispered, settling on his elbows as he began to thrust a steady rhythm into her. Elain leaned up to kiss him and Lucien was lost for a moment. Everything faded until they were the beginning and the end, two sides of the force colliding messily, broken apart and made new. Lucien couldn’t stop himself anymore than he could have stopped her. He needed to mark her, to claim her as his.
Some small part of his brain warned him the possession he felt would be his ruin. He was normally so good at heeding those warnings but just then Lucien banished it. He didn’t care, didn’t want to analyze what he felt. What he felt was good. Whole. Right, for maybe the first time in his life.
There was no sound as the sun began to set but the sucking slap of their skin combined with their mingled moans of more and please. Elain came first in an explosion of messy passion, her teeth biting against his shoulder so hard he was sure she’d broken his skin. It was enough to send him careening over the edge, pouring himself inside her before he could think better of it.
“You promised me all night,” Elain breathed, reaching for him when he pulled back to watch his come slide out of her body. Using the head of his cock, Lucien pushed it back in, dragging himself through their combined release.
“I’m not leaving. Not yet.”
Elain exhaled, those gold rimmed eyes relaxing. “Then come here,” she whispered.
And Lucien did exactly as she asked.
One night became too many. Lucien had a million excuses as to why he needed to be out in the Mid-Rim, why he was away longer than usual. Nights stolen with Elain became Lucien’s favorite thing. Sometimes they had time to talk, to lace their fingers together and stare up at the stars in the middle of a soft patch of grass. Other times he barely made it out of the hold of his ship before she was sprinting towards him, tackling him against the cool metal to satisfy their need. It was all Lucien thought about anymore.
That, and what it meant to be a dyad at all. He could find no written records of a pair like them, though he was certain it must have existed. Two people connected by the force who were also in love with the other. Because that’s what it was, even if she hadn’t said it and neither had he, he knew what it was. Lucien knew when Elain popped up in the middle of the day just to see him and when he pushed into her consciousness at night to tell her he missed her.
He had broken too many rules, not that anyone had noticed. He could see the path barrelling towards him and too late, Lucien remembered why he had cut her off in the first place. Lucien could not have both. He could not have Elain and the Jedi path. Too often, he wondered if she wasn’t ready to leave it all behind, too. If she wanted to just step away, to find a space beyond Sith and Jedi where they could just be.
“Do you have a moment?” Master Tamlin cut through Lucien’s musings in the meditation chamber. “Can we talk?”
Lucien nodded, certain his master had discovered his secret. Tamlin, with his forest green eyes and his shoulder length, blonde hair had been Lucien’s ever present friend these long twenty something years. He’d been nine years old when Tamlin chose him and Lucien had been infinitely grateful the warrior had seen anything worth mentoring at all.
How disappointed would Tamlin be if he knew how Lucien had failed him? Of the secrets Lucien had been keeping? He knew if he’d gone to Tamlin earnestly, his mentor would have helped him sever the connection entirely.
Standing, Lucien left the darkened chamber to join Tamlin in the light. “What is it?”
“I have only good news today, “Tamlin said, putting his hand on Lucien’s shoulder. “After you completion of the trials, you know I couldn’t have been prouder. Watching you move through the force…and your skill, your devotion, well. When Master Rhysand vacated his seat, I urged the council to consider you.”
Lucien froze. He’d imagined decades before he was ever granted such an honor. “Master, I…”
“They wish to tell you but I could not help but tell you first.” Hands on Lucien’s shoulders, Tamlin held Lucien’s gaze. “You are a Jedi Master in every sense of the word and I know you will do great things.”
How did Lucien tell his oldest friend he was genuinely considering leaving? Swallowing hard, Lucien followed his master over gleaming durasteel floors, so shiny he could see his own terrified reflection.
“I feel your stress,” Tamlin murmured, unaware of the beat of panic that pulsed through his shared bond with Elain. Lucien pushed her out for a moment. “There is no need for it. You were chosen carefully, with much thought. I trust in you and your judgment.”
How did Lucien explain to his oldest friend and mentor he was considering leaving the Order entirely? Another pulse of Elain’s frustration bit through him. She’d told him only a month before she wanted to talk to him, that she had something urgent to say. Lucien had sworn to see her just as soon as he could and wondered if this wasn’t an extension of that conversation. Maybe she’d realized what was happening and decided to just force the conversation now.
Later, he sent back before closing the connection entirely. I’ll talk to you later.
He heard her frustrated screaming in his mind for only a moment before everything went dark. That wasn’t unusual—it was her favorite way of punishing him when he wasn’t available, cutting contact until he was buzzing with worry. Lucien couldn’t think about her, not as he followed after Tamlin over gleaming durasteel floors, so shiny he could see his own terrified reflection staring back.
The double doors into the Masters chambers opened and twelve smiling faces looked back at him. Lucien almost vomited on the floor, even as his traitorous mind wondered who had voted against him. Ancient Master Amren, certainly. Master Emerie, too, if he had to guess.
It doesn’t matter.
But it does.
“Master Tamlin gave you the good news?” Master Amren asked, rising from her seat.
“Yes. I am…” he was what? Grateful? This should have been the best day of his life and it was tainted by his worry for Elain. “So honored you would consider me at all.”
“You will do great things, young Master Vanserra,” Master Tarquin murmured, gesturing for Lucien to take a seat in one of the large, red-lined chairs. He could see all of Coruscant from his spot, like a king surveying his domain. Of course the Jedi were not rulers and yet from his perch, he certainly felt like one.
It was all wrong.
“Normally we have a celebration but we have another matter to consider,” Master Kallias murmured as the room nodded. “Master Tamlin has captured a Sith.”
Elain’s screaming echoed through his mind.
Tamlin, seated just beside Lucien, nodded his head. “She’s being held under the temple for now. I do not think she can be persuaded into seeing reason. She is…quite feral.”
Lucien didn’t dare move. It wasn’t Elain. It was only a coincidence.
“To have one of the Archeron sisters—”
Lucien almost threw up on the floor again. He couldn’t risk opening the bond between them and yet his ears were buzzing. Trust only in the force. Lucien knew it was her in one of those cells beneath the temple, just as he knew they would decide killing to be a mercy. He swallowed his fear before anyone realized what was happening. He’d just go down and talk to her. He’d help, he’d–
“Pregnant,” Tamlin continued, turning Lucien’s blood to ice. “So we’ll need to wait, I think. Move her off-world.”
“Use her as bait?” Lucien interrupted, his words colder than he’d meant.
“Her sisters will come,” Emerie reminded him. Lucien’s fingers itched towards his saber. His child, that was his child—
“It’s wrong,” Lucien breathed, unable to focus. No one noticed, not as Lucien recentered himself in the force, willing himself to feel nothing at all. Just for the meeting. Just until he could go down and see her.
“I will oversee her transport,” Tamlin murmured as the meeting concluded. Lucien looked over at his Master. His friend.
“I’ll accompany you.”
Tamlin smiled.
But Lucien was going to kill him. He decided it in that moment without any of the hesitation that had always plagued him. Peace stole over him for the first time and Lucien understood what Elain meant when she said he was the only peace she’d ever known. There was comfort in making a decision, regardless of what it was.
He chose her. Above everything. Above his whole life, he chose her, he chose that baby.
It took Tamlin most of the remaining day to ready a ship, to find the appropriate guards, to finally lead Lucien down the winding, stone cut stairs to the cells far underground. The smell of rot permeated his senses. This was no place for the mother of his unborn child. He swallowed his hatred so Tamlin would not sense it. His former Master misread his unease.
“I loathe this place as well. It used to be a sanctuary for the dark.”
Lucien could feel it, that humming cold invading his bones. It wasn’t corruption like he’d always imagined—it was more like admitting a certain truth that he’d tried too hard to avoid.
Welcome, welcome, welcome, the shadows chanted.
Elain sat on an overturned box, disarmed of her weapons and dressed in her usual black. A slash across her cheek had made her usual beautiful face too pale. She’d likely backed down quicker than usual, terrified for the life living inside her. Their eyes met. Brown, rimmed in gold, widened at whatever she saw.
“You have no force ability down here,” Tamlin warned, one hand holding his unlit green saber. “If you try and run, I will cut you down.
Her eyes watched only him, gripping the blade on his belt, ready to stop his Master if he tried. She hesitated and then nodded, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “As you say, Jedi.”
Tamlin unlocked the cell with the pad of his thumb and the two guards, draped in white and red, rushed in with stun cuffs. Elain merely held out her wrists, smirking as she did so. Like the whole charade amused her.
She was a spectacle, walking silently through the temple. What had she been doing so close to the core? Had she been looking for him? Had she thought she’d come see him, would tell him in person? Lucien swallowed his guilt as they paraded towards the landing pad where a sleek, small cruiser awaited them. She balked when she saw it.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“A prison world,” Tamlin replied. “You will have your baby under the watchful eye–”
“No,” she breathed, twisting to look at Lucien. “No, you can’t—”
“There is no use fighting,” Tamlin all but snarled, struggling to contain his patience. “You will—”
Lucien couldn’t stand another second of it. Igniting his blade, he took down both guards on that landing pad before Tamlin could blink. His Master, once his closest friend, stood agape, reaching for his own saber. Lucien held his nearly parallel to Tamlin’s neck.
“I wouldn’t,” he warned.
“You didn’t,” Tamlin breathed, eyes sliding towards Elain, still restrained just beside him. “I vouched for you.”
“I would have told you I was leaving if you asked,” Lucien breathed, saying the words aloud for Elain to hear. “I don’t want to be a Master…or to be part of the order.”
It was almost freeing to admit what he’d always known out loud.
“Stand down, Lucien,” Tamlin warned. He didn’t understand the lengths Lucien was willing to go to in that moment. Perhaps he merely underestimated how serious Lucien was. Lucien would never know what prompted Tamlin to reach for his blade, despite Lucien’s saber at his throat. The warrior who had trained him, who had shaped him feel to the ground like little more than garbage when Lucien ignited his second blade, divesting Tamlin of his head in one fell swoop.
Beside him, Elain pushed closer. “They’ll be coming. You need to go.”
Lucien took Tamlin’s saber, recognizing she’d need something to defend herself with, before pushing them both into the ship. He punched in random coordinates, just enough to get them into a lightspeed lane while he disabled the tracking.
No one came as Lucien pulled into the atmosphere. He took one look backwards at the landing pad and the three bodies he’d so casually left behind. Elain tugged at her restraints, drawing him back to the immediate. Divesting her of them, Lucien pulled Elain into his lap in the pilots chair and kissed her until he couldn’t think straight.
“We’re going to crash,” she whispered, pulling the accelerator overhead.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, running a hand over her semi-exposed midsection. “I was going to come—”
“I was coming for you,” she said instead. “I was going to bring you home. What changed?”
“You,” Lucien told her as the galaxy came into view, hand still pressed to his stomach. “The both of you, but always you. I’ve been fighting you my entire life and I don’t know why.”
“Was what you told that man true?” she asked him as everything bled into blue and white, taking them screaming away from the interior. Lucien intended to let them travel a little before disabling and pulling out. There would be those in the temple who would use the force to try and sense his location, even bathed in darkness. They would want him to atone for Master Tamlin’s death.
Lucien wasn’t sorry. Some new, angry part of him wished he’d killed the entire council before he left.
“Yes,” Lucien breathed, mouth against her jaw. “It was true the first moment I saw you. I only regret making you wait so long.”
“Because if you don’t want us—”
“I do—”
“I always meant to free you of the burden—”
“You are no burden to me—”
“So you could continue on with your life—”
“Elain,” he protested, lips still pressed against her skin. “You are my life. You always have been. I was foolish to ever think otherwise. Scared and foolish. You and this baby are everything to me.”
She blinked, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. “Swear it?”
“On my life,” Lucien replied, holding her close. “I love you, and I swear it on this life and another others I might live.”
“And is that how you mean to defend it?” she asked him, clearly riding the high of Lucien’s feelings. “In blood?”
“With pleasure,” he snarled, capturing her lips with his. Elain moaned, raking her fingers through his hair roughly. There would be time to lay her back out like he still dreamt of. To bury his face between her legs and feast like a vicious, rabid thing. In that moment, speeding as far from the inner rim as possible, Lucien only bothered with getting them semi-undressed, just enough to slot himself against her.
“If anyone ever touches you again,” he breathed, thinking of how Tamlin had put those stun cuffs on her wrists. He brushed his knuckles over the cut on her pretty face before slamming his cock into her body. “I’ll kill them.”
Elain moaned, kissing him messily. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’m sorry it took me so long.”
“I would have waited,” she panted, clenched so tight Lucien could barely breathe. “For the rest of my life, I would have waited for you.”
“Say it,” he ordered. Her eyes flew open, searching his own. A strange new feeling had invaded his chest, filling him with that same turbulent sense of calm. It was colder than he was used to but still familiar. Like Elain’s presence had finally rooted in him fully, spreading outward from his chest to his very fingertips. It was the dark side, he realized, and from the curling smile on her lips, he guessed she could see it made manifest on his face.
“I love you,” she told him, kissing him sweetly despite their frantically thrusting hips.
He came like a bomb, dragging her down, down down. Down into the darkness, into that frigid abyss. Somewhere that, despite its lack of warmth, she could still make things grow.
Lucien reached behind him, destroying the paneling while she continued to cant her hips, still coming down from her orgasm.
“We can’t go back home. Not yet,” she breathed. Home. The rightness of it clanged through him.
Lucien grinned.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeves,” he murmured with another kiss.
Alright here it is! I know it’s a bit late, but this week was very hectic for me, so I appreciate your patience. This chapter is BIG in plot, so I hope you all like it! And I hope you aren’t… too mad. Anyways, without further ado, chapter 4!
masterlist
TW: Swearing, brief mentions of violence
Till Death Do Us Part- Chapter 4
Six months. That’s how long they’d said she would be here. Six. Fucking months.
Aelin- no, she was Celeana now- was only fourteen, but she was well aware she was not going home anytime soon. She realized that a little bit after that first year had passed. And she was sick of “staying undercover”. She sat in front of the fire, whittling a knife, her eyes peering into the deep forest beyond her.
Her new home was a cabin tucked into the depths of her mountains, the trees watching her grow up now instead of her parents. When she’d first arrived, she didn’t much mind the creaking boards, the two little bedrooms, the stove that only worked if there were logs burning underneath it. After all, it was only meant to be a safehouse. Then, she was on lockdown until the Adarlian guards and Hamel’s men were caught. Then they were never caught.
So, here she was, a year and a half later. And she was extremely sick of lying about, filling out taxes and forms for her country. She knew she could be doing more. There were men out there who’d ripped her bedroom to pieces, slaughtered her guards, who’d killed her rutting parents. Who’d attempted to do… horrible things to her.
Celeana closed her eyes. It wasn’t fair. Those men needed to pay. Needed to suffer.
It would be difficult. Not impossible. But difficult. The good news was, Celeana had been nothing but underestimated her whole life. Terrasen was not kind to the women of the land. But her parents had been.
Everything Rowan had been taught about their world, their country, she’d sat next to him as he’d been told it. The Court had not known what they’d released into the forests when they’d all but banished her here. She knew her lands, her forests. Who resided in them. And Celeana was all too aware that somewhere in her mountain range was one of Hamel’s bunkers.
She would not rest until she found it. She would not rest until she was strong enough to beat them, to do to them what they’d attempted to do to her. She would not go quietly. Let Rowan run the country, to be the face of it. She would do the dirty work, and keep Terrasen safe and free from those monsters. She would tuck Aelin into her heart, and keep her there, safe and sound where the nightmares could not harm her. And then Celeana would do what Aelin would not have to.
Celeana would become the nightmare.
-
The War Room was freezing. Dreadfully cold.
Aelin shifted again in her seat. The only sound in the room was the popping of the fireplace at her back, and the shufflings of papers. Lord Darrow scrutinized her and Rowan with his dark gaze, and Aelin forced herself to not stick her tongue out at him.
She had only been in the room for a few minutes, her father’s chair at the head of the table still empty, making her heart clench tightly. Aelin used to sit on his lap, even when she was far too old to do so, as he pondered on what to do about the wars raging around them. Either with her mother by her side, or sometimes Maeve and Rowan would join them, too. She had loved it any chance they got to be the five of them. It always felt like they were an actual family.
Now, she wondered why her mother joined her father so often in this room. Evalin’s chair was unbearably uncomfortable. The tapestry above her head also rustled constantly, irritating her slightly.
Rowan was the picture of calm. He sat with his back straight, hands clasped. Aelin nearly rolled her eyes. Rowan was far more wicked, far more like her than anyone truly knew. This picture of a calm, royal man was all an act. Then again- Aelin’s whole life had been an act. So who was she to judge? Besides, perhaps this Rowan truly was just a calm man with a pretty ring, about to have a pretty wife.
“First order of business,” Darrow said, voice stern as always. “Your highness. Welcome back.”
Aelin knew the greeting was not so welcome. But she didn’t think he was particularly ready to battle her right now. Frankly, she wasn’t sure she was up for it either. She wriggled again in her white corset. The white, she supposed, was to make her look just as regal and innocent as the day she left these walls. Even if that was a lie. Aelin had been anything but innocent when those men had broken into her home.
When she’d first seen her rooms, still as paneled and pretty and fit for a princess as it was her whole childhood- she’d promptly thrown her guts up in her bathing chambers. Just seeing it- her body ached with the memory of weight slammed against her, of pain like she’d never known it. It had been muscle memory from when she’d been sick as a child, running into those rooms to hurl as if she’d had a bad dream. Like she’d never left.
Now, she sat in her mother’s chair, trying to do her justice. Her back was steel, even as her dress was tight against her muscles. The seamstress had not considered who was coming home when she’d made this dress.
“It’s good to be home,” was what she said. That seemed to please the other lords. She ignored Rowan’s gaze on her profile.
“And Your Majesty,” Darrow said, a slight bow to his head, addressing Rowan. Aelin couldn’t help but tilt her head at the exchange. Her uncle- once king of Terrasen- had loved this man and this country more than anything else. And Darrow was the only one brave enough to tell him reuniting Orynth and Dornelle to form Terrasen once more was mad. It was the biggest fight they’d ever had. Aelin was surprised he’d even let Rowan’s coronation go through. She may be reckless and improper and- by the gods- a woman… but at least she had Galathynius blood. The same could not be said about Rowan.
“Why have you called this meeting?” Rowan asked, no nonsense. Aelin forced herself not to smile.
Darrow’s old face grimaced. “I- the Court and I thought it would be important that we were all on the same page.”
“With?” Aelin asked.
The table of a dozen men, half Orynth and half Dornelle, all cut her a glare. She’d only used the same tone as Rowan. Inwardly, she begged for the Bane to get here and she can finally find solace in the true hearts of Terrasen. And having a few people defend her wouldn’t be too bad either.
“We have plenty to discuss, your highness.”
“Let’s get on with it then,” Rowan said. He gestured to the long, rolled up Charter of the Unified Lands of Terrasen. “What is the charter doing here? As far as I know, we are not altering any of our parent’s laws.”
Aelin’s heart yearned to see her parent’s handwriting, to see Maeve’s. She had not been able to bring their letters when she left that night.
Darrow’s face grew from stern to… uncomfortable. Aelin squinted at him. “No. We are not… altering any laws.”
Aelin’s stomach clenched. The freezing room just grew colder. “Then what are we doing to the laws?”
Shock rolled through Aelin when Darrow looked down as to avoid her and Rowan’s eyes. Something was wrong. She turned to meet Rowan’s eyes, and his were just as confused and hard as hers were. She could tell all of it was beginning to grate on his nerves.
“You are eighteen, your highness.”
“I’m aware of my age.” Aelin did not like the looks the men in the room were giving to each other. They’d gone from scrutinizing to anxious in just moments. They knew something.
Darrow swallowed. “Well, according to the Article 240-”
Rowan held up a hand. “There are 239 Articles in the Unified Charter.” They’d know more than anyone. They were the ones who had to memorize all of them.
The man hesitantly pulled out a piece of paper, worn and tattered. Clearly, it had been saved from the fires. Aelin and Rowan leaned forward to read it, and she had to focus on what was in front of her instead of their arms as they brushed. She could smell his pine and snow scent as they pulled the paper in front of them.
“Article 240- set in place the day Her Highness was to turn eighteen.”
Aelin’s heart dropped to her throat as she read what was unmistakably her mother’s curvy handwriting.
“Should such events arise that only the heirs Prince Rowan Whitethorn and Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius remain to lead these unified lands, on the day of Her Highness Princess Aelin Ashryver Galathynius’s eighteenth birthday, hereby declared by Her Majesty Evalin Ashryver, His Majesty Rhoe Galathynius, and Her Majesty Maeve Whitethorn, will be legally bound by marriage to Prince Rowan Whitethorn.”
The breath in Aelin’s body left completely. Holy rutting gods.
Rowan’s head shot up and he demanded, “Is this real?”
Darrow swallowed again. “I’m afraid it is.”
And there, damning them, was her father’s sigal, the ring he gave no one, the one he was buried in, was pressed at the end of their three signatures. Three signatures that matched the ones on the charter beside it.
“How long have you known about this?” Rowan pressed.
Aelin sat in shock, reading and rereading her mother’s words.
Wife.
“We were told not to tell you until her return.”
Rowan’s wife.
Rowan stood from his seat. “It’s been months since her eighteenth birthday! Are you telling me we’ve been married this entire time?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Rowan ran his hands through his hair, and Aelin was still frozen, only staring up at him from the chair she suddenly felt so small in. “I am King, legally I can overturn this, can’t I?”
Darrow clasped his hands. “It was your family’s dying wish. It is a part of the charter, unbreakable as any of the other 239 laws.”
“So we can do nothing?”
“We must focus on how to move forward now-”
“How to move forward?” Rowan demanded. Aelin had only ever seen him this angry once, and she had begged herself to forget the look on his face when he found her in her rooms that night. What he did after he put the pieces together of what had happened to her.
“Well this article will be released to the public soon-”
Rowan’s hands slammed into the wooden table, and everyone but her flinched. “The public? Do you know what the public will do to her once this information gets out?” His arm splayed out to the door, face furious and panicked and… and all the things Aelin felt. The lords in the room all piped up, ready to add in their two-sense, and perhaps calm their king.
Somewhere, she found her voice. “I can handle the public,” she said.
“All do respect, your highness,” Darrow chastised. “You have not been in the public for nearly seven years.”
“And yet my back still bears the scars of it.” The room came to a halt. Her voice was like steel when she said, “Do not believe for one second I’ve forgotten who resides in my lands. What kinds of people. It would be a blatant disregard for not only the work I continue to do, but also for the aches I still must put salve on.”
Rowan’s eyes cut down to her, as if he remembered, for the first time, that she sat in this room beside him.
The room was quiet then, and while Rowan remained standing, as tall as a fucking mountain beside her, he had settled just a bit. “And what of Lyria?”
The crack in Aelin’s heart fractured into a chasm. Anger, too, flittered beneath her skin.
The lord beside him, Rowan’s age- Ren, she believed, offered, “She would make a fine consort.”
At that, Aelin stood, her chair squealing behind her. “I need a moment.”
“Your highness-” Darrow’s voice followed her. “We must talk this through!”
Let them think she was emotional, let them think she was angry. Gods damn her she was. And she could handle many things in this life. But she would not be disrespected by those who were meant to serve her. So she pushed through those heavy double doors, ignoring Rowan and the shouting at her back. Ignoring the world as she tried to process her new life.
As soon as the doors closed behind her, she shouted into the empty hall. “FUCK!”
The sound only echoed back into her own ears. She swallowed, and put a hand over her mouth at the outburst. To herself, she whispered, “Fuck.”
-
Surprise!!! As always thank you for reading, forehead kisses and chocolates all around! I hope that wasn’t too painful. More to come soon! (hopefully)
@backtobl4ck ur comments NEVER fail to make me smile and laugh! the “now consummate the wedding” had me GIGGLING like a little girl, I live for ur comments thank u bestie
Could you maybe write something for Rowaelin where Aelin tries to get a vacuum cleaner to work, but can't - then she ends up crying over the ancient broken vacuum and accidentally ends up telling Rowan she's pregnant even though she had an entirely different plan on how to tell him that? I just want something funny and fluffy to make my day better ❤
anon I need to make my day better too ❤️ thanks for the prompt! hope it makes you laugh ;))
word count: 968
warnings: some language
enjoy!!
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For the first time in gods only knew how long, Aelin had an urge to clean. And not just to pick stuff up off the floors--no, she woke up with an insatiable drive to wash the dirty dishes, sweep the floors, vacuum, pick up and put away all the messes on the floors, run a load of laundry, and even wipe down the bathroom counters and mirror.
Which was completely out of character.
She half-wondered if Rowan had somehow switched brains with her, some Freaky Friday kind of shit, because it was always her loving fiancé who had the drive to clean the whole damn apartment, never her. Yet here she was, at eleven o’clock on a Saturday morning, a load of laundry running in the washing machine and the living room, bathroom, and bedroom nearly spotless, save for the floors that desperately needed to be vacuumed. She saved that for last, wanting to get the dishes taken care of before her random burst of cleaning energy left her as suddenly as it had appeared.
Honestly though, she had a rather good idea why she’d suddenly needed to clean.
Damn hormones.
With the dishwasher running and the sink completely empty for the first time in multiple weeks, Aelin sighed heavily, braced her hands on her hips, and headed for the closet where the vacuum was stored. She took a quick detour to the sparkling clean bathroom, internally grumbling at her little bean for already making her change her plans, and then grabbed the vacuum from the closet, tugged it into the living room, and plugged the old thing in. And gods, the vacuum was ancient. It had been Rowan’s aunt’s vacuum, which she lovingly gifted the couple when they moved in together.
Rowan always complained that she’d foisted it upon them so she could buy herself a Roomba.
Aelin was often inclined to agree.
Today, the vacuum sputtered and wheezed and eventually turned on, allowing her to vacuum a decently sized section of carpet.
And then it groaned, clanged, and shut down.
“Fuck you,” Aelin groaned, kicking it.
No response.
Grumbling a string of increasingly creative curses, she unplugged the vacuum, shook the power cord, and plugged it into another socket, then flipped the switch on the vacuum handle.
Still nothing.
“Chingate,” she growled, kicking the damn thing even harder.
As if to spite her, the vacuum sputtered, coughed, and died completely.
She yanked the cord out of the socket with more force than necessary, muttering oaths as she did, and yanked on the dust bag so hard the damn thing ripped open, sending a cloud of dust and dirt into the just-cleaned living room.
And onto her.
And her godsdamned hormones decided that was the perfect time to rip away her desire to clean and replace it with tears.
She buried her face in her hands. coughing the dust away, and tried in vain to wipe the tears off her face, which only resulted in smearing the salty drops around on her skin and making her cry harder.
And that was how Rowan found her when he got home half an hour later from the store, five or six grocery bags in his arms.
“Fireheart!” he exclaimed, setting the bags down on the countertop and rushing to crouch by her side, his hands warm against her back. “What’s wrong?”
She just tucked herself into his chest and cried some more, pointing at the vacuum.
“Um...I’m not following, love,” he murmured, brushing his fingers through her hair in long, soothing strokes.
“Fuckin’ piece of shit died on me,” she mumbled, voice muffled by his chest. “I was just trying to vacuum and it gave out.”
“You were vacuuming?” She didn’t have to see his face to know his eyebrows had shot nearly into his hairline.
“Dumbass,” she muttered, a hint of a smile in her voice. And then she sniffled. “Yes, buzzard, I woke up wanting to clean and I don’t have any goddamn idea why--well, maybe I do, but I thought nesting was supposed to be a third trimester thing, not a nine weeks thing, but hell, maybe it’s because I only just found out I’m pregnant and every single emotion is hitting at once.” She sniffled again. “But gods, Ro, why the hell haven’t we replaced that piece of shit vacuum?”
Rowan’s eyes went wide as saucers, his jaw hanging open. “Aelin,” he gasped, pulling back to stare at her, keeping her in his arms. “Are you serious?!”
“Of course I’m serious!” she wailed. “You try turning on the fucking vacuum and see! It’s dead!”
“Not the vacuum.” One hand cupped around her face. “You’re pregnant?!”
Aelin blinked. Blinked again. “Oh my gods,” she groaned. “I had a whole cute baby reveal planned, leave it to my fucking hormones to ruin it.” A grin formed on her face, spreading into a broad, elated smile. “Surprise?”
Rowan swallowed harshly, tears pooling in his eyes. And this was a man who never cried. “You’re pregnant,” he breathed, like he was trying to convince himself it was real.
She nodded. “You’re gonna be a dad, buzzard.”
“Oh gods,” he whispered, a few stray tears escaping and rolling slowly down his cheeks. “We’re going to be parents.”
“Yeah.” Aelin reached for his hand, drawing it off her face and placing it against her still-flat stomach, right atop the little life that had yet to make their presence known. “We are.”
Rowan wasn’t even trying to control his emotions as he flattened his hand against her warm skin, pulling her back against him so he could cradle both her and the baby. “I love you so much, Fireheart.”
“We love you more, Ro.”
We.
Two of them.
Damn him for being an old sap, but his heart was about to explode.
For wherever you need to go- and then some. The world needs more healers.
....
A Towers woman. A Towers healer. Here- with her. A Towers woman had been singing in this room during the years Yrene had dwelled here. Even now, even so far from home, she had never once been alone.
....
I know what you are.
....
Smiling, Yrene reached out a hand to her ancestor's bell. And rang it.
....
I am not afraid of you, Yrene said onto the dark. And you have nowhere to run.
....
A gift.
A gift from a queen who had seen another woman in hell and thought to reach back a hand. With no thought of it being returned. A moment of kindness, a tug on a thread...
