Arranged marriage AU’s typically aren’t in my brain BUT…
Make it Nikto.
You only know him as Count Yurievich. But you imagine a man must reside within that shell somewhere.
Reclusive in the extreme. He came back from overseas different, forever altered physically and mentally.
As such, he’s never been seen in public since, haunting his crumbling family mansion in the depths of the harsh countryside. His servants are sworn to secrecy, but rumours abound about his mysterious life.
The townsfolk say he’s seen the devil, has been to hell and back, losing his soul along the road and gaining terrible scars in fighting his way out.
Others say he is old St Nick incarnate, sent to inhabit the earth and ensure sins are observed and punished. The few that have seen him in recent years never speak of the experience, even when plied with wine and food to tell their tales.
The times he’s appeared in public can be counted on one hand by most. Before he was handsome, though now nobody has a clue what he looks like. They only understand that he is an outcast, an outsider not only by rank, but by appearance also.
Alone he lives on if it can be called that, with a few devoted souls to tend to his needs. The gardens around the big house bloom every summer. Though no one is ever seen in the gardens admiring the fat, velvet petals on the red roses he grows.
So imagine your dismay, when your frivolous family, riddled with debts payable to his estate, barter you into a marriage with him as payment…
CW: Dissociative Identity Disorder. Nikto is hesitant about losing front. Hurt/Comfort/Hurt, tagged as both angst & fluff.
The voices in his head confuse him — overlapping and overly loud, he leans towards the quiet.
Only then does he find those scarce bits of peace. But the voices are relentless, restless; difficult. They only allow him so much reprieve.
They yell at him, berate him, they don’t leave gaps in his memory without his knowing, Nikto remembers everything. He knows and understands why his teammates look at him sideways after their last mission.
After what they did.
The enemy ripped open his mask and his bare face felt the sun for the first time in ages.
But that was against Nikto’s will.
He’d immediately torn a chunk of raw flesh from the jugular of his opponent, the memory distant and hazy but present nonetheless. The taste, Nikto recalls it clearly: vile, coppery and warm.
The team knew not to fuck with the fabric that covered the tortured man’s face from that day on.
Maybe if he refrains from blinking, his eyes will tear up and Nikto will show some semblance of remorse.
But that day never came.
Emotionless, they called him. So what if he can’t show emotion? It doesn’t mean he didn’t feel, somewhere deep in that shriveled heart that begged for the light, Nikto felt, he just didn’t know what.
All he knew was that it ached, some nights beyond agony, pulling him into this spiralling state until he was numb, until the pain grew so much and Nikto ended up feeling nothing.
Some called him a freak, other trained professionals called it dissociating, the body’s natural way of protecting itself from further harm.
Like a child with nowhere to go, he curls onto himself on most nights, between choked sobs and the holes in the wall, Nikto lashes out.
It was as if something, or someone was taunting him, no matter how many achievements, he still wasn’t fulfilled enough to quiet the growing cries in his head.
A pat on the back, a simple kind word and Nikto would cradle it close to his chest until the day the earth decides to claim his rotting corpse.
Yearning.
That was the feeling.
The pull on his heartstrings, the nag in his ribcage, why couldn’t he be held like the others?
What was so wrong, what did he do that was so bad that even the people whom he deemed as friends ignored him in his time of need?
Which, this would only reinforce the idea that he truly was a nobody, no one, he couldn’t fault anyone for not visiting.
Even after spending weeks in the hospital.
Even after saving countless lives, apparently they were only fixated on the ones he took.
He doesn’t deserve to live. Not like this.
Nikto wakes up one morning to a vase of flowers sitting on his nightstand. Chrysanthemums, of all colours and shades. They added a nice contrast to the blinding white of the hospital.
There you sat, with puffy eyes and remaining tears clinging to your lash line, all tuckered out from bawling your eyes out.
The voices grew quiet and Nikto’s heart settled, as if somehow they’d come to a silent understanding. A sense of satisfaction washed over him and Andre allows his eyes to drift shut.
Andre allows himself to be, to feel, for the first time since his capture. He was hesitant, but with enough time and enough love, he became a somebody. Your somebody.
On the month of his birthday, he was called in. You pleaded him not to take the job but it’s what he does best.
I will be back, Moye Vse. Do not worry so much.
Nikto now, cradles your tear soaked cheeks in his calloused palms and hushes your cries with a kiss.
He didn’t want you coming with him. Even after arguing with the board to let you tag along, be his backup for Christ’s sake, they were adamant this was a one man mission.
The day of his birthday arrives, the house has never felt emptier.
The candles on the cake illuminate the worry lines in your skin, you sob into your hands.
Missing him felt more like mourning.
He was made. A vehicle stops in the middle of the dirt road, spotting him.
The knife slices through him like his body was made of cake, he wishes it was raspberry couli soaking his attire.
He shouldn’t be thinking about food right now, a mirthless laugh chokes him.
Cake. He thinks.
Our angel is going to hate us for not coming back to taste that damn birthday cake.
Usually, sleep was never so quick to claim him, but tonight, under the open stars, things were… different.
The jeep finally pulls away, the crackling sound of tires over pebbles grow distant. He is alone once more, with nothing else but a biting wind and the moon to keep him company.
If you ever get a cut, don't let Nikto near it. He's convinced his saliva is the cure for anything and everything. You've nicked your finger on the knife whilst making dinner? Now it's in his mouth as he fiddles with a bandaid with his rough fingers- how he stands the taste of iron, you don't know. (He's not fond of the taste- but it's yours, and that he can stand).
You've scraped your knee somehow? You'll be pushing against this man's forehead with both hands as he cradles your leg and Is determined to lick it better. Nikto, no. Gross. He's stubborn that he's right- but will passively kiss against the bandaid on your knee later as an apology. Influenced perhaps by the soft worrisome voice who chided in his head for acting like a fool. Go kiss them, idiot. Say sorry.
I'm writing a new Nikto fic. Even though my first one kinda flopped, I'm gonna keep pushing. I'm genually starting to enjoy writing now a bit.
This time I'm writing first person obsessed stalker!reader x Nikto. Like the first half they don't even interact, it's just reader being unhinged and going step my step to get noticed by Nikto and set up to have to be together socially.
Here's a really tiny excerpt. You're not even gonna get the begining this time
Also, I'm gonna say it right now, the reader is male. I haven't decided if it is going to be trans or cis. But 100% man. I'm kinda sick and tired of seeing fem!reader fics for Nikto. So, I'm only writing male readers.
You are a witch preparing for winter. Luckily, you have an extra set of hands - if they'd ever help.
Content:
Possessive behavior, Semi-Safe/Semi-Sane/Consensual Intimacy, implied (pseudo) cannibalism, Violence and Death, Unhealthy but Happy Relationship
You haven’t been the same since the ritual.
Souls are tricky things, somewhere on that rickety fence between the Seen and Unseen, a bit of practical magic so common that people don’t think much of it.
Souls are like stones or plants. Abundant, but varied. Some are rare and precious, some are beautiful, some are poison. One soul does not weigh the same as another, and the beings that deal in their collection and sale value them differently. Souls aren’t rare and only some of them are powerful.
It’s a narcissistic misconception of humans - even the ones that can perceive beyond the physical world. That a soul is considered precious and coveted and powerful by all things of heaven, hell, and beyond.
Not so.
That said, like a bit of gold or a well-woven blanket, a soul can be commodified. Reshaped and displayed, butchered for parts, sold…
The selling of a soul has its merits, though not many. High risk, high reward sort of gamble. Tempting for clever witches - or desperate ones.
You were neither when you built the summoning circle that night.
You weren’t looking to forge any contracts or make deals beneath that moon. Didn’t expect to invoke any infernal beings or heavenly apparitions with the stars.
Well, best laid plans and all that - not that it had been an especially well laid plan anyway.
Baring your soul that deep into midnight had not yielded the results you intended. Or maybe it had and your expectations were just skewed. Souls are tricky things.
And yours hasn’t been the same since.
You always rouse as the sun begins to set. Late afternoon at the earliest, when most everyone else is finishing their suppers.
You can manage stark daylight, but poorly. It hurts your eyes and prickles your skin. A deep hood and long sleeves does the trick when required, but you don’t make a habit of it if you can help it, if only for the teeth that bury in your throat when you return.
Tend the garden in the dying rays, light the shop candles before night nestles in. Say your blessings, leave your offerings, wriggle out from beneath clingy weight to secure any provisions or materials from the town.
As the temperature cools and the shadows deepen, you settle into your work.
The shop once belonged to an apothecarist. Died in a plague some four decades ago, or so you’ve been told. No one of any skill or natural talent replaced them afterwards. Too frightened, perhaps, of what could be lingering within.
It wasn’t haunted until you (and your shadow) occupied it.
You’ve stocked it up quite nicely now. Herbs and spices, vegetables and fruits, roots and seeds. Thistles hang from the ceiling and bones rattle in the drawers. Mortars and pestles line a wall, weights and measures beneath the counter. Not a single thing labeled or organized, the latter of which disconcerts your… companion.
Fickle is not the word for him, but it’s the one you use.
(And he is a he, at least according to the long, thick cock he crams into you every chance he makes for himself. Though you suppose such trifles as gender are superfluous to nonhumans. A categorical fallacy for your own ease of reference.)
You told him once, that if he did not like the disarray of the shop, he was welcome to rearrange as he saw fit. In response, he left teeth rings around the base of each of your fingers, telling you how easy it would be to bite them off. He didn’t, of course - wouldn’t - but you spent a good portion of that evening updating the inventory logs (sat on that long, thick cock.)
The shop was never reorganized.
Tonight you wake to his tongue, a dark and wicked thing, improbably dexterous, lapping at your thighs.
“Winter comes,” he drawls into your skin. His voice is dredged up from the deepest pit in his chest, scrapes against his throat before nuzzling into your ears.
“I thought so,” you sigh, sleep laden and languorous. “Felt it on the wind yesterday.”
He hums. Or maybe it’s a growl. It’s hard to say when he’s sinking his teeth into the plush of your thigh, though he does it without hurry.
For a creature without definite expiration, there is little need to be hasty.
You click your tongue when he threatens to break skin. His jaw locks like that, just on the verge of taking without being asked. This is his price for greeting the evening with you - or so he claims.
“We’ll have to begin preparations,” you muse to the inky ceiling. “I’ll make a list over tea. You’ll help, won’t you? What kind of winter will it be?”
He relaxes his bite, laps at the iridescent fluid left on your skin. His saliva, or what passes for it in this vaguely human form.
“Long,” he drawls. An unseen thumb rubs circles into your calf. “And frigid.”
You hum, can already see it in your mind. Howling winds and a silent earth. Still and peaceful, little creatures huddled down and hibernating. It was a good, warm, lush summer that promises a sweet, abundant harvest.
“A lot of snow?” you ask, fingers buried in something almost too coarse to be hair.
He unseals his mouth from a fresh, livid mark on your hip. “Da. Snow.”
Your fingertips trail over the gnarled, raised topography of long-healed wounds. Marks that go beyond flesh, wounds of essence. No matter his appearance, he will always be scarred - disfigured, even.
Sometimes you fancy that he was some fearsome fae king or warlord of hell before retiring to become yours.
Sensing the direction of your thoughts, he nips at the meat of your thumb. Draws blood the time. You hook your index finger around a too-sharp canine and shake a bit. He grunts and slides his tongue over the pinprick of blood.
“Any storms?” you ask.
“Two,” he rumbles around your finger. “Maybe three.”
You didn’t used to love winter so. But this will be your third with him. As the climate chills and the nights lengthen, he comes into his patron season. It’s helpful to have a thing of the cold and dark when times are lean and everything (even people) lose their pretty foliage.
“Shall I expect more pelts, then?”
You balked the first time he brought (more) death to your door. Thought him cruel and ruthless. Perhaps he is without you to metamorphose the slaughter into necessity.
Furs for warmth, meat for food, bones for your work. Nothing gone to waste under your care.
“Pelts,” he agrees, “skins, down.”
You trace your thumb over the bridge of his crooked nose, press between his brows when he tries to tilt his head into the warm apex of your thighs. He bares his teeth against your wrist but cannot defy you.
“Tea for that drop of blood,” you bargain.
He sighs deep and vexed. “Mistress.”
Before slithering from your blankets, though, he buries his nose against your pubic mound and takes a deep, noisy inhale.
“Nikto!”
A village girl comes a little after the sun has fully set.
You finished your tea (and bread, for the price of a wet, filthy kiss) while making a list of preparatory chores. Have started grinding up rosemary to replenish your stock.
Nikto senses her before you do, pthalo eyes flicking up. She hesitates at the closed door, poised to knock, then decides against it and simply pushes in.
You pretend as if you’ve just glanced up from your mortar, an easy smile at your visitor.
“Good evening,” you call.
“E-evening,” she replies, lingering in the door.
While you’ve taken measures to keep the air of the shopfront clean and light, it’s something of a fruitless endeavor when Nikto’s made his den here. (Or more accurately, in the room behind the shopfront, where you dwell.)
Still, she only wavers another moment, finding nothing immediately alarming or perilous. She can’t see him lounging on the back counter like a lazy cat.
“Have you need of something?” you ask.
Your easy, friendly tone loosens her shoulders, coaxes her from the doorway.
“I’m here for something for my grandmother?” she says.
You tilt your head. “Anna?”
She blinks. “How did you know?”
Because Nikto grumbled it just now.
“You have her eyes,” you lie. “I have her medication just over here. One moment.”
You turn away to collect the little parcels that make up Anna’s bi-weekly order. Brews for her tea, ointment for her joints. You’ll mix extra as the chill sets in, fewer trips while seeing her through the harsh season.
“Usually Alexei comes to collect these things,” you say.
She rocks back and forth on her heels, a more curious eye trailing over your wares now.
“Mama and I have come to take care of nana. She’s getting older, you know. And this town has better prospects than our old village.”
You hum in agreement, neatly bundling all the items in a cloth and tieing a length of twine to secure it.
“Uncle Alexei is away with papa to finish sorting matters back there.”
“So you and your mother have come ahead, then,” you summarize.
“Mhmm!”
“Well, Anna is lucky to have you. She speaks fondly of you and your mother,” you say.
The girl lights up, cheeks rosy with pride. You slide her grandmother’s order across the counter.
“Anything else?” you ask.
“No, thank you!” she replies, dropping coins into your palm.
You glance at them (overpaid as usual, oh Anna) and sigh fondly.
“Hold on,” you call, “here.”
You pass her a little jar sealed in wax. She accepts it with a bemused smile.
“What is it?”
“For travel sores, when your father and Alexei return.”
She absolutely beams. Any apprehension she had when entering your shop is long melted away.
“Thank you, Miss!” she chirps, waving, and sweeps out the door.
Niko pounces in an instant, arms so tight around your waist that you don’t even stumble from the force.
“What’s gotten into you this time?” you ask.
“You were thinking of those men,” he grumbles. You’d call it childish if he wasn’t damn near mauling your neck.
“They’re well-paying customers,” you scoff, “and more good will is never remiss.”
He snarls, but moves on quickly. “You were so kind to that little girl. She had stars in her eyes.”
You hum in question, surprised.
“Makes me think of you with little ones. Younger ones.” He’s near rambling, drool soaking into the collar of your dress. “My brood. Clinging to your skirts and your hips. Getting sticky hands in the beeswax.”
You huff out a startled laugh. “You’re thinking of babies?”
He moans into your ear, pressed tight to your back. Broad palms knead at your lower abdomen.
“Little voices calling ‘mama’. They would all adore you, want to be just like you. Mother is god in the hearts of children.”
“All?” you repeat, twisting to stare owlishly. “How many is ‘all’?”
“As many as you will let me breed into you.”
Another laugh escapes you, a bit bewildered. He’s never spoken like this before, never seemed interested at all by the women (or their husbands) that come to the shop to ease their pregnancies or births.
“You couldn’t stand to share my attention,” you scoff. Which is to say nothing of it even being a possibility. You’re not sure that you and he could produce viable offspring.
He pauses, nose in your hair, considering.
Finally, he grunts, “Maybe.”
You’d thought so.
It’s not just the change in your natural sleep rhythms. You crave the iron of raw meat and inhale deep the burn of black smoke. Sometimes, you’re too preoccupied with the spill of ink on parchment, or the length and depth of shadows.
Subtle things, perhaps. A change beneath the skin, in the dark parts of your eyes.
You used to ask your questions in the sun, and look for the answers in the bloom of flowers or swirls of clouds. Now you whisper into abyssal shadows and they whisper back with a man’s rasp.
Not everyone can see it, the unusual glint in your eyes or the sharp edge to your smile. For those that do, it’s something of an open secret - that you provide more than helpful tonic and tinctures for common ailments.
A serum against pregnancy. A syrup for unkind spouses. Cut cords for bad friends and bent coins for poor business partners.
Tonight it’s the smith’s daughter. She’s just come into adulthood this past spring. A crown of youth on her brow, vitality draped around her shoulders. Darkened, this eve, by deals made with her as the currency. You see it beneath the sweep of her skirt, a chain of her father’s own making, a key in the hand of the mayor’s son. It drags her step in your doorway, rattling along the wood floors.
“Irina,” you greet.
She doesn’t admit it right away, demuring to purchase her father’s usual burn salve. You don’t pry, instead taking your time to spoon the thick, cloudy mixture into a small jar.
“You’ve…”
You tilt your head to show your attention, expression open. She clears her throat, smooths her skirt, tries again.
“My father designs to wed me to Boris.”
She blurts it like the words escaped between the gaps in her teeth, looks shocked in their wake You flick Nikto a reproachful glance.
“Is that so?” you reply mildly, as neutral as you can manage.
“I don’t want to,” she whispers, as though it is a shameful secret. But there is little shame to be found in your presence, and when your expression only reflects polite interest, she repeats herself, stronger. “I don’t want to. Boris is a coward and his father is…”
Mean. Lascivious. A bastard with a heavy hand and wine for blood, kind only to coin.
You don’t make her say it all aloud, you’ve heard it just fine.
“Is it an ear you’re after?” you ask. “I’ll listen.”
You do not offer more. It is something she must request of her own will. For your sake as much as hers.
It only takes another breath for her to gather the courage.
“Would you help me?”
“I would.”
You don’t jump as Nikto pours himself over your shoulders, teeth already scraping the nape of your neck. He’s hard and insistent against your spine, where scars of his teeth have begun to blossom. You sense that you’ll have a new notch for the collection soon, already feel slick and achy with the promise of his maw.
“What will it cost?” Irina asks, fidgety.
Your cunt three times over. Your blood on my tongue. Your juices down my throat.
“That will depend on our solution,” you say over Nikto’s sibilant entreaties.
Irina’s brow furrows. “Not coin?”
“Maybe coin,” you correct. “Do you want any of these three men dead?”
She startles, pales. Nikto groans in your ear, hips jerking hard, cock catching on the laces of your corset. Irina mistakes the sound for your shop settling, eyes flicking nervously around as if either of you will be caught.
“N-no!” she answers. “No, that’s too - I just want papa to change his mind. O-or for Boris to… to wed someone else. Is that wicked of me?”
You shake your head, soften your smile to ease her conscience. Once upon a time, you stood on the other side of the counter like she is now.
“Then coin won’t be necessary. I have a different price.”
Her shoulders lower, just a bit, curiosity where she should be wary. Coin is a paltry payment in comparison to things a creature like you could request instead.
“What is it?”
“Scrap from your father’s forge, as much as you can manage, and whatever Boris gave you for your hand. Bring them to me tomorrow night.”
You fish a shirt button from beneath the counter. Prick your thumb on a needle and press the droplet of blood that wells into the smooth surface.
“This is a contract of my services,” you explain as it dries in the open air. Nikto inhales deep and ravenous, tongue flicking over the shell of your ear.
“If you take this, there is no going back. Do you understand?”
Irina hesitates; she’s always been a smart girl. That’s why she knew to come to you.
“What happens if I don’t come back with the payment?”
You flick a glance at Nikto, but he’s too busy toying with the ribbon around your throat. Patience fraying with each beat of your heart.
“Even I don’t know, but I’d rather neither of us find out, yes?”
“Alright. I understand.”
She accepts the bloodied button and drops it into the pocket of her frock.
“Tomorrow,” she promises, and steals out into the night.
Nikto bends you over the counter, heavy body flattening you to the polished wood. It’s unnaturally warm beneath your cheek. You suck in as much air as you can while he paws at the hidden parts in your skirts. He growls to find you wet and willing (always, regardless of what your mouth says) between your thighs.
“Tithe,” he rasps, sinking to his knees.
Massive arms snake around your thighs as he finds his home between them. Buries his nose in the soft crop of curls so that his tongue and lips and teeth can partake in the sweet offerings below.
“All this for a severed tether?” you gasp, hips twitching in a bid to escape the too much, too fast, too good of it all.
His grip does not relent. On the contrary, it only tightens, dragging you down to smother himself in your cunt.
“Yes,” he hisses.
He takes and takes and takes. Sucks your clit until it’s throbbing at the slightest touch. Licks at the rim of your cunt, forcing his tongue deeper and deeper. Impossibly deep, until you feel the tip of it curl against the hard wall of your cervix, the root of it as thick as two of his fingers.
Your knees have long given out, your voice but a weak trill in your throat. It’s only when he hears you sniffling that he wrenches himself away.
“Give me,” he demands, surging up.
Laves that slick, black, inhuman tongue up your jaw, over your cheek. Doubles back to swipe at half-dried tears that dripped down your neck and onto your hands. He makes an obscene sound when the salt mixes with the dried blood on the pad of your thumb.
“I want to eat you,” he snarls, baring his teeth against the tender veins of your wrist.
“Maybe one day,” you pant, “when I’ve passed on. You can have my corpse.”
His eyes snap open, a manic rage burning so hot it feels cold.
“Never,” he snarls, cruel fingers plunging into your tender cunt.
You cry out and grip onto his shoulders, fresh tears sliding down your hot cheeks. There is no mercy in Nikto, not even for you. He strokes and pets your walls relentlessly, abusing all the sensitive places he’s long mapped out. Brutal as the muscles in his arm bunch and jump with the pace and force of it.
“Never,” he repeats. Teeth in your throat but you can still hear his voice. It’s so loud and rough that glass rattles. “Just like this. You stay just like this for me. Mine, all mine. Always. My little witch.”
He makes you cum on his fingers, then jerks his angry cock using your release to ease the way. Spends himself in burning, sticky ropes directly onto your clit. As you drag in ragged breaths, he draws his sigil inside your cunt with your mixed fluids.
The bond has long been formed, there is no need to renew it. Your soul is no more or less his than before. You still shiver with the memory, an echo of the sublime sensation of your soul taking new shape. Making room for something else to lace through it.
“S-someone is coming,” you whimper, weak in every sense.
“Dmitiri,” Nikto answers. You knew who it was, of course, but you don’t think he would abide you saying any other name right now.
“Leave his order on the counter and make sure he pays,” you sigh, limping away in search of water.
Nikto may be a bastard, but he manages to follow your orders most of the time.
Irina returns the next evening with all that you asked. A bucket of metal scraps and shavings. In a little velvet pouch, a simple gold engagement ring.
“The button too,” you request.
Nikto, raven-shaped this evening, swoops in to snatch it from her fingers. She yelps, moon-eyed as he perches on a tall shelf and swallows the button down his scarred gullet.
“Should… should it eat that?” she asks.
You don’t even glance at him. “Too late now, isn’t it?”
She doesn’t look amused so you laugh softly and assure her, “He’ll be alright. He’s done it before.”
You turn away, scooping up the items for the spell.
“Now then, take this pin. Carve your name into one candle, and Boris’s name into the other,” you instruct.
“Which one is which?” she asks, a green candle in one hand.
“Your choice,” you reply simply.
When she’s done as you ask, you tie a piece of twine between the two, about halfway down. Set them on a metal plate facing each other and light first Irina’s, then Boris’s.
“Pull up that stool. Watch the candles burn down to the wick.”
It takes nearly an hour. You keep half an eye on it. Watch the candle meant to represent Boris start to eat at the twine, a slow encroachment towards the midpoint. Only for Irina’s flame to latch onto its end of the tie and scorch through the knot, the remaining length falling away.
Irina gasps softly, glances up to find you already watching. Studiously turns back to observe the remainder of the melt.
In the meantime, you continue forming the other half of your spell. Irina has been too preoccupied to notice the raven’s disappearance. Nikto is behind you again, guiding your hands to carve the woodblock in neat little peels. His fingers are threaded between yours, dripping raw power that you shape with intent. If Irina were to look, it would just seem that the candlelight casts strange shadows down your forearms.
When the candles have burned down to nothing, and Irina turns to you expectantly, you press a finger to your lips.
“Do not speak again until sunrise. When you get home, throw this into the hearth, as deep as you can get it. No trace of it will remain, rest assured.”
You press the carved wooden key into her palm. Her eyes trace the unfamiliar runes in wonder, but she keeps her silence and takes her leave with one final, grateful nod.
It is only just past midnight, but you yawn. The connection between Irina and Boris was not a strong one, but severing the covetous teeth of the mayor’s greed was tedious.
He has a weakness for fair hair and light eyes - both qualities passed down to Irina in lovely spades. Qualities his own wife doesn’t possess, but he would gladly see in his son’s if he had his way.
“Nikto.”
“All for a severed tether,” he purrs.
You tsk at him, shove his face away when he tries to steal a kiss.
“Finish the spell and then you will be rewarded,” you huff, waving him off. “Useless thing.”
He moans softly, eyes burning into you. “Useless,” he agrees, sharp teeth grazing your cheek. “Worthless.”
“Out with you. We’ve not all night,” you chastise.
He sinks slowly into the shadows; his eyes are the last to disappear.
Winter preparations are well under way.
A small mountain of firewood is steadily accumulating in the backyard, stacking higher and wider by the day. You’ve already finished harvesting the last of the garden, drying, preserving, and pickling by the jar. Have knitted half a dozen more shawls and socks with thick wool yarn.
Cough medicines, warming tinctures, lotions and ointments. You’re accumulating your winter remedies along the back wall and in crates beneath the counter, well-stocked for the town and smaller surrounding villages that frequent your shop.
Thus far, Nikto has brought you two pelts, and promised two more before the season truly sets in. A new pillow has also been added to your nest bed, a puffy, heavy thing of feathered down and cotton.
You like it so much that you bounce on Nikto’s cock until morning when he brings it to you, spitting into his mouth whenever he opens it in supplication. You drop lavender buds into the casing and breathe it deep as he lays you down after daybreak. It makes an excellent throne for your pelvis when you’re too worn (or over-pleasured) to hold yourself up any longer.
Still, as promising as your preparations are, you need items unavailable even in town. The journey to the nearest city is one day's (or night’s) walk there, and another back. Well worth the trouble.
Nikto has no particular affection for any dwelling, so long as it’s yours. He’s just as eager to travel as you are.
Before nightfall, you drop off any orders expected in your absence, and receive well wishes from your customers. No one asks why you are traveling alone at night. No one warns you that it would be too dangerous.
Nikto accompanies you along the well-trod road, a hooded figure more likely to be mistaken for the grim reaper than your familiar. He’s human enough if you don’t look at him for too long. A tall man thick with muscle, broad-shouldered, built for labor. Likely malformed beneath the scarf hiding his features below those blue eyes - or perhaps just shy.
Just don’t try to peer into the depths of that hood, or ponder that mysterious scarf for too long. The moon acts as a strange prism, waters down the light into eerie refractions. One might start to imagine sharp teeth peeking through ripped lips. Or glimpse poorly sewn hills of flesh, nothing but dark, empty space between the seams.
Luckily, there are no travelers on the road this late into the night. Any errant gaze is that of night creatures, and those know well to avoid the shadow at your side - and you by extension.
The trip into the city is no great adventure, but you weren’t looking for one. Nikto, you sense, is something almost like disappointed. You arrive in the small hours of the morning, just as the earliest risers have begun their day.
The innkeeper seems surprised by such an early (or late) guest, but is happy enough to welcome you in. Bread has yet to be bought from the baker, but there’s stew that’s been simmering overnight. It’s warm and hearty and thick. You eat two bowls with a cup of peach wine, pay for food and board for the next two days, and retire to the second story of rooms.
The bed is not nearly as comfortable as yours. The blankets are thin and woven, though they are layered enough to be warm. The mattress and pillow are both straw - comfortable by most standards, but a poor substitute for your cotton and wool and furs and down.
You make due on Nikto’s rumbling chest (prideful that you miss what he has so diligently provided) and let yourself drift into slumber.
At midday, you wake. City merchants aren’t accustomed to your odd hours, and you don’t want anything to be out of stock - you’re not the only one that’s made the journey for winter.
Luckily, it’s an overcast day and the sun isn’t too obnoxious when you venture out. You get a sweet bun from the bakery to tide your hunger while you shop. Follow Nikto’s whispering for directions, or to pick the best items of any selection. Spoil yourself a bit on honey from abroad and a new grimoire.
Return to the inn at the brightest part of the day for a nap. Rouse again in the late afternoon for more exploring and shopping, as well as a drink at one of the alehouses.
You’ve no friends in the city - or anywhere, really, for that matter. But being surrounded by good spirits and bright noise provides an unusual source of energy. There’s a band to watch and strong drink, some gambling that you amuse yourself meddling in from afar.
There are eyes on you, but there always are in such a busy place. You tend to attract very few gazes, but the ones you do will return time and time again, musing at the lone figure by the wall. None are brave enough to approach - especially not when it grows dark enough for Nikto to reveal himself.
Even he is in unusual form, telling you stories of a bygone time. A time when perhaps he was more finite than he is now. He uses names you’ve heard before, in passing, and chuckles at exploits more mortal than he deigns to participate in now. You like to hear it, like to provide him with the excess buzzing in your veins.
When the crowd begins to thin, you take your leave. He stays at your side (always too close, nearly underfoot) all the way to the inn, and is waiting in your room when you come up with the meal. He manhandles you into his lap and feeds you with his fingers, pours water into your mouth from his.
You stave him off until your food settles, and then he’s taking you into his lap. Has you twice before you doze off. Wakes you three hours later with his tongue lapping at your swollen folds. Has you twice more before you settle in properly until dawn.
The second day passes in much the same fashion as the first. Your indulgence this time is a pretty, slender knife, a length of ribbon, and a simple burgundy frock. The combination has Nikto salivating by the time you return to your room to rest. Not that there’s much to be had with you splayed out over your new garment, his hands and mouth and cock working you over until a puddle of slick and cum forms beneath your writhing bodies.
You send him to wash the stains in annoyance, and it’s returned seemingly pristine - though he gloats that the scent of your coupling remains. At least to him.
Nasty creature.
“If I get tired, you will be carrying me,” you huff on the road home.
He nuzzles his nose into your temple, a silent assurance that you need only say the word.
Halfway there, a band of highwaymen makes the fatal mistake of trying to ambush the two of you. Aware that anyone coming from the city will be laden with coins or goods, they would be correct if you were anyone else.
You click your tongue, steps never faltering.
“Kill anyone that’s taken an innocent,” you call over your shoulder.
“Mistress,” Nikto churrs into the air, breath so cold it sinks in the chilly air.
An unnatural growl reverberates off the trees. You don’t spare a glance behind you, steps easy and light, crunching over dead leaves and dry twigs.
A hand lands on your shoulder - heavy… and then not. Heat splatters and soaks into your sleeve, dripping down towards your wrist. The severed arm falls with a wet, fleshy thump.
Always so messy.
You tilt your head, veer off the road and follow your intuition until you find a stream. Humming, you shed your clothes and saunter into the gentle current. It’s frigid, only just unfrozen. You sigh, minding your step for slippery rocks as you wade deeper. The water rises past your scratched calves, over bitten thighs, soothes your well-used cunt and the bruises on your hips. Tingles over the silvery flesh of your scarred back until it’s nearly to your breasts.
Only then does the water darken around you.
Nikto’s hand closes around your wrist, draws your arm back until he can lick away the smears of a stranger’s blood.
Feast before the season’s famine.
You moan softly at the drag of his serpentine tongue along your skin. The ball of your shoulder, the curve of your tricep and bicep. Tickling the bend of your elbow… up your forearm… and wrist. Twisting between each digit. You lean into the sturdy pillar of his body until his other arm curls around your waist. You stand with him in the water like that, cradled by shadow and bathed in moonlight.
He is never hasty, but tonight he’s unusually slow. Almost lazy.
Wait, no. Not lazy.
Deliberate.
Each flick of his tongue, scrape of teeth, brush of lips is applied with the same care and reverence afforded to an altar.
You tilt your head to rest against his shoulder, bare your throat. Peer through lidded eyes at the thick fingers twining with yours.
It’s as if he plunged his hands into a fireplace and didn’t care to dust away the charcoal and ash afterwards. It fades at the forearm into alabaster. In the crease of his elbow, it looks like he has ink for blood. You know from experience that it tastes of almonds and tannins, heavy on the tongue like thick wine.
You let him lay you down on the bank, dry and clean. He pampers you on his cock with slow, languid rolls of his hips. Grinds deep, pulls out only halfway to massage the head into that sweet spot over and over until you’re shuddering apart with a deep, heavy moan. He finishes on your stomach and thighs, drawing symbols into your skin before rubbing it in.
“Nikto,” you croon, thumb drawing a line down the left side of his face. From forehead, over his eye, down to the corner of his mouth where there’s an unnatural split. He lets you scrape your nail against the big canine, amusing yourself on the sharper bicuspid just beside it. “My Nikto.”
He purrs into your chest, drooling down your sternum.
“Who do you belong to?” he asks.
You smile, indulgent.
“I belong to Nobody.”
There is a possibility of a second part. Maybe. If that's something people want.
My take on gothic and grown up beauty & the beast. Melancholy reader, creepy vibes, slow burn, arranged marriage, strangers to lovers, dark themes, virgin reader.
I think that’s it?! This is a super self indulgent project I feel but it took control of me. Sorryyy 🌚 I’ll get back to my other WIPs now.
Part 1 | Masterlist
The rolling of the carriage wheels underneath you shakes yet more pearlescent tears from your sockets. Lachrymose and hunched inwards, your entire body rocks with the movement of your sobs alongside the stammering beat of the unmade road you travel on.
It’s a pitiful sight, one made only more filled with sorrow by the scene outside the windows countryside rolling by in frost frozen images. The sedge is so cold it’s impossible to imagine life ever existed there. Plants curled and recoiling in a wind spread forth from the arctic circle, seeded by the blinding white tundra to sneak across the landscape your new husband inhabits.
Your new husband. Freshly wedded bliss should follow as naturally as the incense used in the ceremony. Though the smoke curling tendrils around your ankles felt like manacles, heavy scent suffocatingly pressed inside your lungs until they burnt with the fragrance.
You’ve never laid eyes on him. No adoring pact was made before the priest between you both. A marriage by proxy, everything performed on paper, with your father and one of the Count’s servants standing witness.
Ominous that he didn’t come himself, for what man could truly want a woman having never laid eyes on her? Was it spite that kept him absent? A marriage he didn’t want, forged under social and societal pressure to produce an heir for his house perhaps. Or worse than that, indifference? You’re unsure which fate is more cruel, one in which you’re actively despised, or another where loneliness seeps into all the small and quiet places once yearning to be loved.
A title and a big house in recompense for your happiness. The formerly destitute, newly elevated bride of Count Vassiliev, plucked out of poverty by a man who clearly cares not for reputation. If he did, you would not have been purchased.
By the ordinary rules of society a Count should court his Countess, a long engagement would have been the next step followed by a lavish ceremony blessed by the church. Not the dismal planting of your name against his on the stark ivory paper of a marriage contract at an empty, dank alter.
A shaky signature within a box marked wife. Another sign among many that this isn’t how it should be, your life tethered to another’s following the exchange of clinking coins. You’re a possession, that much has always been clear, but becomes thrown into startling relief now. Traded and bartered by the man that sired you purely to line his pockets, while another one likely prepares a gilded cage.
Perhaps as a pauper he thinks you have no need of proper romance, conveniently ill-educated in societal expectations so that he can avoid the pomp. The dress you wear may be homespun, its cuffs double rolled so as to hide the fraying lace, but you aren’t an oblivious creature, one made of girlish fantasy built around the lives of the wealthy.
Once your bloodline had been rich, well known throughout all of Russia. Until your grandfather a couple of generations removed had sipped from the poison chalice of a heady bet on bear baiting. The fortune of your family was gambled away in less than two decades. In the time it took for your father to be born, the addiction to gambling had taken root, leathery tendrils dug deep into the noble soil of your house, soaking up every jewel and gold coin to be seen.
Your father was not spared the curse of poor fiscal management left to him by his forebears. There was barely food for you or your younger sisters, let alone schooling or fine silks befitting young ladies. Everything was mended time and again, holes patched up and reading studied during quiet periods at your mothers skirts while she darned.
When she had died one lonely autumn evening, any trace of feminine energy seemed to evaporate into nothingness. It was you left to fend off the cold by collecting firewood, as the eldest the burden was a collar around your throat, even as the threadbare boots you wore let the icy chill of snow inside them through the patches against the soles.
Up to his eyeballs in debt, when the Count’s lawyer came knocking with his clever, dark eyes, your sire had practically fallen over himself for the bountiful sack of coins offered in trade for your fair hand. Your sisters had wept against the hems of your skirts when the deal was cut, begged for reason from your father. It made little difference, you were marked as a fair exchange for more capital over which card games and brandy could pass.
Now like a lamb to the slaughter you’re driven to his side, this man you’ve never met who paid over and above in precious metals to bind you to himself. You know so little of him he may as well be a ghost. In many ways, you wish he could stay as such, a phantom figure never fully materialised, a presence you’re never required to bend for.
What you have heard is preposterous, fairytales meant to frighten the gullible or jittery of heart. If even half of it was true, he would be some kind of mythical creature. Something crafted by a clever tongue and inkiest of magic to make a person.
They say he never leaves his castle, not once has he ventured into the gazes of watchful villagers. Closeted in his rooms, the only sign of life in the stagnant turrets is the occasional flickering of candle light from a vague windowsill on a clear evening.
His gardens bloom every year with the fattest, most voluptuous roses in every shade. By far the prettiest ones are blood red in colour, lasting well beyond the normal season for such flowers, crimson petals stark against the snow, fallen droplets from each thorny stem like blood splashes.
Once the Count had been an eligible bachelor. A proud young man with a slew of women eager to become the focus of his attentions. Some say he was engaged, others scoff that her hand belonged to several suitors and he was only one in a confusing mixture of youthful heartache.
Napoleon had come, he had departed to battle a promising marriage prospect for Russian high society and reemerged a shadow. Rumours abound that he is a great hero, though no one seems entirely sure what feats of greatness he performed that left him nothing but a silhouette on the periphery of life.
Either he is private in the extreme, or something terrible happened on the front. A life and soul altering event. The most you have discovered from the local village gossips is that those who do look upon him, never speak of it afterwards. As though he is some horrifyingly maimed creature whose name is uttered with reverent stillness. His injuries too severe to ever be healed. Whether they lie bleeding still against his mind also, you aren’t sure, though it could be wagered trouble in the psyche is near impossible to soothe.
Perfect snowflakes catch and melt on the glass panes of the carriage, each dainty pattern vanishes as quickly as it falls from the clouded sky. Drifts are whipped up by the thundering of the horses urged through the countryside, plumes of white become compact beneath their hooves as the flurries settle. It’s cold, pressed against opulent velvet seats with the bitter wind whistling around you.
One shiver is suppressed and then another, only partly related to temperature. Treaties are spoken under your breath like prayers. If he is not cruel you will never resent your fate again, if you are ignored instead of beaten you’ll find a kind deed in every daily ritual. Fearfully you twist your mothers old rosary within your anxious palms, asking for protection from saints you know from fleeting visits to church. Their painted faces pious and beautiful, they always seemed to see something in you that others didn’t.
Will he want to bed you? The thought gnaws at your insides, makes them twist and writhe snake like, until the meagre piece of bread shoved into your purse by a sister on your way out the door threatens to make a reappearance.
You couldn’t stand it, a stranger baring down on your body, revealing all the hidden places not meant for anyone but a lover to see. Good sense tells you it’s likely the Count will want to consummate the marriage quickly, make it difficult for you to free yourself, impossible for you to shame him by asking for an annulment. A runaway bride would be one thing, a virgin newlywed quite another.
The shiver quashed earlier grows and swells, crawling along your spine and into your ribcage until you’re wracked with it. A chatter sounds from your teeth, while you tug your cloak higher, hoping the thin fabric will stem the nervous juddering of your heart within the casing of your chest. You think of home, wretched as it was your siblings needed you. Now you have left them abandoned to deal with the rage of your father. He will surely get drunk and gamble, flying into a fury once the money he took from the Count’s lawyer runs dry.
Your mother always knew how to temper his anger, coolness to the fire of his personality. The night she died he disappeared for a long time, leaving you to beg firewood and food from your neighbours. You recall little of it. Her funeral had been paid for with funds unknown, perhaps ones set aside by her before death? It passed in a blur, grief shades all of your memories. There had been kindness, you are sure of it, though it seems such a long time since anything good happened in your small existence the recollection is fuzzy.
On the carriage moves, picturesque scenes beyond the windows becoming wilder as it plunges into the weak afternoon sunlight. Open farmland where wheat fields flourish in the summertime fade into densely packed woodland. Dark trees tower ominously, drowning the air with the smell of pine sap and needles.
It’s as if you’re being led into a labyrinth, coaxed further from your homeland and into the grey wolfs lair. Mountains in the distance could be a trap of jaws, pointed teeth ready to snare you whole and catch on your jugular. The horizon begins to glow gold as the sun sinks beneath snowy peaks, temperatures dropping still further while your breath mists before you.
You dare not draw the thick and opulent curtains at the windows for fear you’ll miss the approach of your doom. The Count’s castle, hidden at the foot of the mountains, shrouded by thickset spruce forests. Only one small village lies nearby, sweet thatched cottages nestled within the hills. You watch it flash by through the glass, see the smoke furling from chimneys and wish you could huddle by their hearths for warmth.
But you are headed for a strangers home, though you expect nothing about his castle will be homely. The best you can hope for perhaps is comfortable, rooms not riddled with damp or cold stone. A bed you do not have to share.
Even while your teeth chatter, fear and nerves mixing into a foul potion within your bones, a vast shape in the gathering dusk begins to appear, framed against the bitter red and gold glowing sky.
A castle. Immeasurable windows set high on turrets, perched against the hillside as an overgrown bird of prey might on a nest. The road to the stone walls is narrow, perilously carved out of the same stone that seems echoed in the indomitable building. Cruel and harsh, it juts earth toned grey against the thick fir forest, trees so densely packed you know it would be next to impossible to pick your way through unguided.
The carriage rocks as it starts to make an ascent along the track, bumping against the unmade surface and jagged stones beneath it. Darkness is falling quickly now, helped along by the canopy of needle like leaves above you, sinking yard by yard into velvet evening.
A pause while the gates are unlocked, words that sound like a greeting exchanged by the driver while you swallow a lump in your throat that feels painful. Everything is closing in, soon you will be either a prisoner or a bride. Which is worse, you can’t say. Hands shaking you clasp at your rosary, shut your eyes tight as the rocking of the road begins again under the wheels of the carriage.
Horses neigh nearby, as if welcoming each other home. But you only feel an impending sense of terror breaking over you in cold waves. Nausea bites again and a handkerchief is pressed tight to your mouth, guts rolling and cold fingers clenched tight around the wooden beads. Your mother left it to you, her eldest daughter. What would she say? Seeing you sold as a filly is at market?
Your thoughts tumble over one another carelessly, the empty seat across from you blurring as tears start to flow thick and fast again. It’s all too much, you can’t breathe. The fear is all you see and feel before -
The carriage door opens, though you can’t bring yourself to look. The air is frigid, stinging at your nose and chest until it aches as much as your heart does. One sniffle escapes, then another.
“Poor thing, almost frozen solid!” Exclaims a soft and kindly voice. “Your ladyship, let us get you inside?”
A hand finds yours, firm and reassuring. It’s calloused, as though used to hard work. The warmth of it draws you out in-spite of yourself, you clutch at it desperately. Asking for an anchor. Even the most hardened of the condemned will look for gentleness in their final moments.
A woman is framed in the carriage doorway, hair springing around a neat cap in the dim light flooding from the great front doors beyond. Her gaze is fixed upon you with obvious concern, while you blink, confused, through bloodshot and puffy eyes.
This was not the welcome you expected, if indeed you expected any welcome at all. She has the aura of a carer, someone devoted to the service of kindness. You can’t make out the finer features of her face, though she squeezes your hand lightly then tugs you out of your seat.
You follow her because there is no choice, though dread still flanks your every step. A grim carnivore intent on swallowing you whole, your stare fixed on your feet to avoid acknowledging the fear. You try and make yourself smaller, tread a minimal path behind the woman into the fortress along twisting corridors in her wake.
It’s far grander than expected, even under the thin beam of the candle she holds in one hand. High vaulted ceilings, ornate and polished dark wood furniture and floors shining as the light catches them at intervals. Finally the panelling turns to flagstones beneath your feet, the walls becoming rougher and more worn.
The smell of baking bread and a bright, open fire meets your face through the next doorway. A huge kitchen filled to the brim with dancing light bouncing from the hearth against burnished copper pans makes you blink suddenly, eyes used to the darkness of the corridor. Its magnificent, grander even in domesticity than anywhere you’ve been before, neat and tidy in a way that feels safe.
The woman herds you towards the fire and it’s then you get a true look into her face, a genuine smile blooming there, lined with age but full of energy in one breath. She grins toothily and the sick feeling you’ve been carrying since you left home starts to trickle away, though the anxiety of your situation is impossible to ignore entirely.
You’re positively deposited in a stool by the grate, heat lapping across you in languorous waves. It feels entirely luxurious to bask in the warmth of a roaring blaze after the chill of your carriage ride, so wonderful in fact you get distracted by the orange tongues before you and forget about the woman for a moment.
She busily examines your worn clothes, right down to the torn seam on your skirts where a sister clung desperately to you before your journey here. The woman makes a disapproving noise between her teeth, then glances at your tear stained cheeks and runny nose with a hand at your chin.
You’re informed she is Katherine, housekeeper and cook. Though everyone calls her Kitty. You give her your own name because it seems polite, though in reality you have little else to exchange. Kitty asks if you are hungry with a rye look, that only intensifies when you’re unable to stop yourself devouring a bowl of thick broth along with the bread just baked. It tastes like manna from heaven, the best food you’ve eaten in years, certainly since your mother passed.
Another bowl is in your hands before you have time to glance up at her again. Kitty leans comfortably against the chimney breast, watching you ruefully.
“The cold makes you hungry I imagine your ladyship? Along with the travel.”
You sniff sadly and rub a sore eyelid.
“I am not a lady. I am not anything of the sort.”
Kitty raises a brow.
“You are married to the Count, that makes you mistress of this house by rights.”
“I don’t want to be.” You whisper hoarsely. “I want to go home.”
Kitty watches your silent sobs with worry written in her sweet face.
“Come now. There is nothing to be gained from weeping.”
She passes you a neat cotton square, her own handkerchief, patting you on the cheek as your mother did when you were small. That only makes the crying evolve into wet sounds.
“Why don’t I draw you a bath? Then I can show you up to your rooms? It is natural to be homesick! But you are very welcome here…despite the unusual circumstances…”
Kitty smiles softly and pats your knee.
“I have been so looking forward to having a mistress! It is wonderful to see a young bright thing here!”
You gaze at her, all watery eyes and a wobbling lip. You’re sure you look utterly pathetic, but Kitty’s niceness if anything makes the missing of home worse. It’s unnerving, unplanned. You expected brusque attendants and a confrontation with your new husband. Not home comforts and a delicious meal.
Kitty continues in a low and steady voice, obviously trying to soothe you, temper the stress of your arrival.
“You will see! We are not all bad eh! The sooner you are tucked in bed the better, sleep will help.”
“Do I not…am I not to see him yet?” The words leave your mouth in a hiccup as you twist your fingers nervously. Images of your strange new spouse sneaking into your bed in the middle of the night to acquaint himself, makes the bile rise in your throat once again.
“His lordship is away on business currently, did Krueger not mention this?” When you shake your head meekly Kitty hisses fiercely. “That man. Honestly he will be the death of me.”
“He isn’t here?” Relief temporarily floods every artery and vein until you feel lightheaded.
“No his lordship is not expected back for a fortnight. I am sorry to tell you this, are you disappointed?”
You gulp, then shake your head, quashing the confusion you feel and deciding to thank god for tiny mercies.
Kitty does draw you a small bath, heating water in a pot and helping you remove your ragtag clothing. She fetches soap that smells of heavy roses and sweetness, by far the nicest you’ve ever used, along with rich undergarments and nightclothes made of soft cotton.
By the time you’re placed in a vast four poster bed in rooms bathed in blue moonlight, you’re too exhausted to take in much more. Grateful for the heated pan beneath the sheets and the crackling wood stove, you drift into uneasy dreams filled with howling winds fading to the fluttering of fire.
If you didn’t know better, if you hadn’t been so reassured by Kitty - you would be sure you had heard the creaking of floorboards in the middle of the night.
Sleep rolls over you in waves. You’re dreaming surely, rocking back and fourth gently against a solid and warm foundation.
There’s a rough voice in your ear, murmuring in a language you don’t understand, toying with the strands of your hair until you sigh with molten pleasure. It starts at the base of your spine and rises, the harshness of his baritone that sounds as if it whispers only the most loving praises makes your body vibrate. Unbidden your face seeks that of the man you rest on, a tickle of coarse hair and fat padded peck meets your flesh.
“Andre?” You whisper. It’s dark now, you must have been asleep for hours. As still as a statue your strange companion steadfastly comforts you, rubbing patterns into the back of your neck. It’s like he can’t get enough of touching you, keeping your body close to his own. Occasionally the rough pads of callouses across his fingertips catch, someone burned the print off them long ago. Fleetingly you wonder if he did that himself, or whether it was inflicted on him by some hideous and unseen evil.
“Da, I am here.” His words rumble through his chest, rasping yet tempered with a soft, sighing happiness.
He must have taken his shirt off at some point, the combination of illness and exhaustion making you apparently dead to the world. Slowly you follow the dim line of a puckered scar across the place his nipple used to be. It runs so deep the skin is almost ruby coloured, twisted and sensitive under your fingers.
Nikto shudders, his breath quickens beneath you. In all that dark, smoke scented masculinity, it’s more than a little satisfying to realise you have some effect on him. Nikto is usually so controlled, his actions precise with clear intent behind every small crinkle of his arctic blue eyes. He runs on a tight leash, allowing himself a few simple pleasures to sweeten a routine he relies on. But now something is stirring in the man with his arms encircled tightly around your body, like a set trap it won’t take much for the jaws of his desire to spring closed, snaring you inside.
That doesn’t trouble you. On the contrary it’s intoxicating the thought of seeing Nikto reduced to base wants and needs. His feline cut crystal gaze narrowed and honed to your form, while the black of his pupils blows wide.
“Your teeth were chattering. I thought this would help.” Nikto slips one finger under your chin and tilts your face to his. “How do you feel little one?”
A simple gesture shared by lovers everywhere, but it seems so explicit, his features entirely obscured. A total mystery who arrived in your life and meshed it with his own. The way he rubs the line of your jaw so carefully is almost unsettlingly sinful.
“Better, a little better. Thank you.”
The kiss he presses to your mouth is placed there delicately. Skin to skin, no mask between you, the taste of warmed cloves and nicotine on his tongue. Flames that have nothing to do with illness stoke plumes in your heart, his teeth nip at your lower lip just a little too hard. Demanding you submit, let him turn you to ash with his well placed sucks and pecks, the furnace left in their wake is growing hotter by the minute. Nikto trails his mouth along your hairline as he pulls you closer to him, lost in the moment, unguarded greed beginning to show it’s face now as he puts his lips to use against the sensitive skin.
“You’ll catch my cold!”
That’s a smokescreen, you don’t want him to stop, if anything you’re ready to beg him to continue. In the darkness you can’t see his expression, but the tone of his voice speaks louder than your gaze could compute.
“Fuck it. We do not care.”
You pick up on the plural, but Nikto’s hands are rearranging you, placing your form gently on the mattress as his broad body curls over you again, nudging his way between your thighs like he belongs there, as if he’s claimed that space in previous lifetimes until only he knows how to fit.
Suddenly there isn’t room for questions or complaints, because when you run your hands across his muscled shoulders and up to his face, expecting to encounter his mask, it isn’t there. You’ve seen it rolled up, felt the press of his damaged mouth against yours, but this is new ground entirely. He’s shirtless, visage unguarded by fabric and crushing you into him as his big hands knead your hips and his tongue traces patterns against yours. You might actually combust, burst into shards of excitement and ricochet around your bedroom in the same way a vibrant firework would.
You don’t care that this is the first time he’s taken the mask off, there are other rather more distracting things occurring. You always imagined if Nikto removed his balaclava you’d want to gaze at him, trace the lines of his features and revel in them. But your mind is fully blown to hell when Nikto places a blooming love bite on your collar bone, the bruised flesh singing with pain as arousal pools between your thighs.
“Oh fuck Andre!”
He responds with a drawn out groan, lapping over his teeth mark and letting one big paw wander down to your breasts.
“So beautiful. So fucking beautiful. You make us crazy when you speak our name.” Nikto’s blunt fingers dig into the flesh of your tit, his thumb rubbing the teasing material of your pyjama top over the bud of your hardened nipples. Relentlessly he toys with you, draws you into his mouth with soft and warm flicks of his tongue then makes your pussy flutter with alternating nips. His hand works it’s way underneath your t-shirt and finds a home in the valley of your cleavage, where your heartbeat races underneath his weathered palm.
Nikto feels the frenetic rhythm pulsing there, recognising in an instant that it’s drumming for him. His replies in turn, seeking the energy and matching it. You arch up into him when he lets his paw brush the tight peak of your breasts, he can feel the heat emanating from between your thighs through his jeans. Nikto sucks in air rapidly, it whistles through his teeth with a sharp whine. Your hands have crept into the closely cropped hair at the nape of his neck, nails raking into his scalp until he’s seeing only blinding, red rimmed lust.
In a rare moment of impulse, Nikto rolls his hips into you, the bulge of his proud cock nudging the places he knows will have you singing for him if he continues.
And you do sing, letting out the breathiest moan that goes straight to the place inside his head that wants to consume everything in it’s path. Take you right now hard and fast against the mattress until the only thing you see and breathe is him.
Only you don’t deserve a rough fuck, a quick tangling of limbs tinged with the taste of regret. You should only see devotion in his actions, Nikto wants to savour you, roll your softness over his tongue until you dissolve utterly alongside him, lavish your body with attention so decadent its teeth rotting. In response to the shallow grind of your core against him, Nikto pulls up slightly, panting with the restraint needed to lasso the voices begging to peel off your sleep shorts.
“You are sick moya milaya.” His throat sounds rough and strained, the harshness faintly marred by how out of breath he is.
“No! I’m fine! Keep going!” Impatiently you tug him closer again. Nikto’s hair is longer on the top, strands that feel divinely soft under your fingers. You fight the temptation to tug lightly on them so his mouth meets your own again.
“So greedy. This is okay, we are greedy too.” Nikto chuckles darkly, nuzzling his face into your neck, nipping the skin until you writhe. “We will not fuck you tonight though little one.”
Disappointed, you try hard not to pout, then remember he can’t see your lips setting in a downturned line and do it anyway. Uncannily, as if he can hear the scowl you’re wearing, Nikto rests his lips against the shell of your ear.
“Do not sulk, waiting is better.”
“Am I allowed to ask why?” You pause while insecurity starts to creep into your voice. “Why is waiting better?”
There’s a fierce rumbling laugh echoing from the man covering your body with his own. It tickles your skin as his stubble catches with the smile forming on his face.
“Trust us for now da? We promise it will be worth it.”
“Okay.” Your sigh makes him grin wider, you can feel it on the crook of your shoulder. Moving slightly, you attempt to roll out from under him, mainly because feeling the throb of his length resting against the roused folds of your cunt is maddening. Nikto refuses to let you budge an inch, grabbing your face hard and dropping his lips an inch from your own.
“Where are you running to little one? We did not say we were finished.”
He claims your retort in a tantalising kiss, a cocktail of roughness and slow swirls of his tongue making your body jerk involuntarily against his. It’s ecstasy balanced on a knife edge, pleasure held just out of reach until the heat between your legs grows maddening. His thumb digs into the bone of your lower jaw, the movement of his mouth becoming more frantic.
You wriggle again without really being in control of it, brushing the hardness straining against the fly of his jeans. Nikto’s self control Is truly infuriating, you’re coming apart at the seams while he’s entirely stoic, only the occasional gruff noises revealing anything is happening inside the whirling pool behind his frostbitten gaze.
Fair is fair, you want him to suffer alongside you, to see the impact of his teasing and feel the same need you’re so shamelessly expressing. It’s so utterly safe lying beneath him, tucked up against his body heat, the softness of the mattress and comfortable cushions surrounding you. Nikto always brings you a very particular sense of belonging without any expectation on his side. He’s perfectly content sitting across from you at the kitchen table, his big arms resting on the surface while he toys with the rim of his cup.
Time to up the anticipation, see if you can coax that virile, feral nature you sense loitering under the surface somewhere. Headily you plant little, delicate pecks over the surface of his face, feeling the raised flesh of his scars and paying special attention to them. Your tongue darts against a particularly gnarled one snaking over his jawline, while you anchor your thighs firmly around his waist, letting the mound of your cunt rub neatly on his cock.
Nikto grunts, matching the pressure, starting to edge himself with it until you huff and begin to pull away. He swears softly in Russian, gripping your wrists to prevent a further escape.
“You will be the death of us. We are sure of it.”
Privately Nikto can’t think of anything better, being teased by you until his last breath, toyed with until he expires from the weight of longing for your love. He’ll never be satiated, could withstand your exquisite torture forever and a day. It’s tearing holes in his already tenuous grip on any sense of nobility. Yet still the mantra in his head chimes, the need to make your first fuck perfect. Nikto will have you completely, but the timing is everything.
Still, he can’t resist the pretty noises you’re making, the attempts to unfurl his resolve are so adorable he could bite into them, let the delicious scent of your arousal consume his senses entirely. Perhaps he can allow himself that treat tonight, a small inroad on the path to making you his.
Because he knows now that’s the ultimate destination, a home you make together, your body linked with his and shoring up the tenderest feelings Nikto has ever experienced. He understands he’s coarse at times, appreciates that charm isn’t a strong weapon in his arsenal or the first one of choice. Just maybe however, this is a sign from the universe that he can indulge for once without frightening you off.
“My love…” He groans, running his teeth across the sensitive skin of your inner arm. You whimper as the sharpness of his canines catches, a nerve struck deep inside your belly and further fuelling the bonfire now raging between you.
He moves fast, so quickly you don’t have time to think about what he’s doing. Before you know it, Nikto is off the bed, kneeling on the hard wooden floor and dragging your legs to the edge of the mattress. His crooked nose rubs against the damp patch on your shorts, a deeply guttural noise resounding as he inhales.
“W-wait a minute!” You struggle to prop yourself up on your elbows, trying to find the glimmer of his eyes in the darkness. The only thing you can make out is his broad shape, saturated with velvet blackness because even the streetlights have been turned off now.
“Hmm?” Nikto is lost in the tang of your cunt, so close, he could tear off your silly little clothes and take a deep dive into you. Focus is forced upon him when you move in a way that suggests you’re anxious. “Too soon little one?”
Damn it. He thought you might like to come to pieces on his tongue, hoped he would get to witness such a spectacular moment. Truly he would wait an eternity for it, but your discomfort has him curiously watching your hand knot on the bedsheets.
“It’s not that. I just…it just takes me a while to get off that way. Sometimes I don’t at all, and I… I don’t want you to feel bad about it. I’m just warning you…”
“Warning? You think we do not do this for our pleasure also?” Nikto gruffs, wondering who would possibly complain about spending time playing between your legs. He’ll be lucky if the first taste of you doesn’t make him stutter cum into his boxers he’s so unbelievably taut with arousal.
“Well… I just know that some men don’t enjoy it. Especially if they can’t make anything happen.”
The movement of his face against your skin stops abruptly as he thinks that one through. Nikto banks the comment for future reference, but now is not the time to interrogate you about just why that statement is flawed.
“Moya milaya, I ask for a taste before you tell me how to have fun. May you grant me this?”
It’s hardly the most graceful proposition, but Nikto’s voice carries a powerful message that he isn’t worried about the specifics of it, simply put he just wants to fool around and that’s something you can get onboard with, regardless of the lingering doubt of him having to spend hours down there with no pay off.
Nikto peels off the final flimsy, fabric barrier guarding your centre, tossing it carelessly over a shoulder and dipping low without any hesitation. Your head swims as he parts your slick folds easily with his tongue, placing a heavy swipe of his saliva there and curling it neatly against the swollen nerves that bloom under his ministrations. Slyly Nikto coats his face in your wetness, sealing the suction of his mouth over your clit until it borders on over-sensitivity.
Maybe you say his name? Most of your thoughts seem to scatter to the wind as you realise this is unlike any other experience you’ve ever had. Nikto always seems so reserved, like he’s from a different era. But this is a new beast you’re dealing with, one that has your core clenching around nothing within a surprisingly short time frame. He alternates between soft laps and sucks, teaming them with the occasional sharpness of his teeth that drives you into a puddle of melted moans.
“Good huh?” You feel him smile wickedly against your cunt as your legs inadvertently squeeze around him with the sensation of his spit cooling in the air on your highly strung nerves.
“Good!” You gasp, hands finding purchase on his own while his fingers interlace yours.
“Perfect girl. Now let me lick your pussy da?”
Nikto devours you so thoroughly, you’re left a wilted mess on the sheets. Falling asleep on his muscled chest seems like the only natural way to rest now, and when you wake again you’re folded neatly back there, the cold light of morning bleaching away the rather sinful activities of the night that came before it.
Watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, you allow yourself to come to, mind feverishly cataloguing the two orgasms he gave you, how he seemed utterly content even though the floor is extremely solid and he must have bruised knees.
Nikto lets out a small sniff, followed by a chesty cough that rattles. Cautiously you tilt your head up, the mask is back on and he’s watching you closely through faintly bloodshot aqua eyes.
“Are you sick?!”
Nikto blinks once.
“No. It is early.”
“You’re a bad liar.” On shaking legs you drag yourself out of the comfort of his arms, Nikto reluctant to let you go but ultimately conceding when a violent sneeze distracts him. “I’ll make you tea.”
Masterlist
NB: Please don’t copy my ideas, my style and my lines. I’m thrilled if you’ve been inspired by my writing, but I would really appreciate if you developed your own style and approach. Thank you.
