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separatist-apologist · 6 months

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The Wrong Place At The Right Time

Summary: And if I'm all dressed up, they might as well be looking at us

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Four words were enough to wreck her entire week. Strung together, they ruined her. Separated? Fine.

Lucien will be there.

Feyre had the good sense to warn Elain at the beginning of the week, at least. Give her time to get used to the idea, to decide if she still wanted to go. Elain suspected Feyre had invited Lucien specifically to give Elain an out. Afterall: she hated Hewn City. She hated the way they looked at her, how they leered, their whispered slut and whore comments as she passed, tarring her with the same hateful brush they’d once painted her sisters. Guilty by association, for having the same last name, the same smile.

If Elain hadn’t been such a coward, she might have asked why Lucien needed to be there. What could be happening that required his presence, that somber expression, those clenched hands? Elain had slunk up to her room, unmissed by the general revelry of the night, to pick through familiar letters.

Lucien wrote. Elain read. She didn’t respond—that wasn’t what he wanted, wasn’t what he expected. They had their roles, and Elain was meant to witness him. Perhaps he thought she threw them all straight into the fire and that was what made him pour such vulnerability into the ink and parchment. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care if she saw this part of him.

Elain read them like he was her religion. She’d found him in the spaces of his letters, in the way he looped his words.

Lucien asked her for nothing and so Elain offered him just as much, unwilling to admit she would have given him anything he wanted if he put it to paper. If he spoke the words. And now he’d be in Hewn City, the first time she’d seen him since that first letter had been handed to her by a sheepish Rhysand, clearly embarrassed he had to be the messenger. Now the letters were just there, sitting on her bed untouched and unopened, unexposed to the suspicious eyes and unforgiving minds of the Night Court.

They’d never trust him if they saw the things he said. If they knew the things he wanted, the fears he harbored, the dreams he wouldn’t say to anyone else. And Elain knew it would all be used against him, so she never spoke of them either. This was her secret—something just for her.

Knowing she’d see him soon, Elain did the only reasonable thing. She had a glass of whiskey for breakfast before making her way into the Palace of Threads and Jewels.

She wouldn’t wear black. What a mockery it made of her, how everyone knew by sight that she was an interloper, outsider. No amount of spine would ever make that untrue, and if Lucien was coming, she wanted him fixated on her. She wanted to read about it in his next letter—how wrecked he’d been, how badly he wanted to touch her, where he’d put his fingers, his mouth, his teeth.

If she was all dressed up, after all, he might as well look at her. Rubbing the glittering fabric between her fingers, Elain nodded before handing over more gold than she had the right to carry. “I need it quickly,” she’d said. No problem for the High Lady’s sister, which was perhaps unfair. Elain couldn’t find it in her to care. Not when the gown appeared the morning of their trip, nor when she pulled it out of the pale pink tissue paper to admire the way the beads glittered like starlight beneath the faelights.

She was never going to be the cold abyss of night but maybe, at least in Hewn City, she could be the burning heat of moonlight. Warmed by the sun, an echoing promise of what morning might bring if she only just held on.

Elain didn’t dare go downstairs, even when she heard the commotion of Lucien’s arrival and Feyre’s high pitched delight at seeing her friend. She wanted to. Oh, how her limbs ached and buzzed, aware of him even when she wished she wouldn’t be. No—she needed this moment to be perfect, if only to read it through his eyes. So he couldn’t see her at all, if only to prolong the suspense.

To force him to see her exactly as she wanted to be seen.

The dress was silver, soft against her skin and sharp to anyone who might reach out a hand to touch her unwanted. The gems that glittered doubled as knives, drawing blood if they were too forceful, too cruel. Only the gentlest hands could slide over her waist to pull her in for a dance. She’d picked a ballgown rather than something revealing, something that hid anything a lesser male might find fascinating and forced, instead, the gaze to remain on her face. Her eyes. Her mouth.

The soft neckline exposed her collarbones and her neck, the long sleeves giving a glimpse only of her hands. She left her hair to tumble down her back to hide the exposed skin, leaving her a mystery, a fantasy. Elain could be anyone to whoever looked at her, which was nothing new. Men gazed at her, projecting what they wanted without considering who she might actually be.

Lucien could do the same, if he wanted.

Though she hoped he wouldn’t.

Elain descended the stairs in a fog, the last to arrive just as she’d planned. It looked like petulance—a woman so determined not to see a man that she’d made everyone wait on her. Elain kept her eyes on the wood beneath her feet, fingers skimming the rail as she all but floated down. There was a beat of silence before a murmuring of finally, though she didn’t notice who spoke the words.

When Elain looked up at the gathered group, her eyes fell on Azriel first by virtue of him being largest and closest. She saw that familiar gaze—the projection, the fantasy, the hunger. How she could so easily lose every aspect of herself within it, reshaping every inch of her to be what he saw. It wouldn’t have been the first time—Elain was moldable. There was safety there—Graysen had destroyed her, but Azriel never could. He didn’t know her well enough, didn’t care to. He saw a fantasy and Elain could hide within it.

Even when he’d rejected her, there had been no pain. It wasn’t anything special, after all. He clearly hadn’t thought so, and neither did she. Looking at him evoked nothing but appreciation. He was beautiful—perhaps he employed similar methods. Why bother knowing him when he could be anything and anyone? It wasn’t as if Elain had paid any particular time to finding out what lurked beneath the pretty veneer.

That made her uncomfortable, a mirror held to her face, reflecting herself wholly back. She turned her head, meaning to find a wall to stare at.

She found Lucien instead. His expression was unreadable, his one good russet eye gleaming with indifference. Both gold and brown flicked over her for a moment before he turned his own head, a muscle feathering in the cut of his jaw. Bound, auburn hair trailed behind the silver of his jacket and Elain wondered how he’d known.

If he’d known.

Of course he must have. Right? No one commented on it—why would they—and Elain blinked and they were gone, leaving behind the warmth and safety of Velaris for the horror that was Hewn City. Lucien blinked from the edge of the group, both eyes so round they looked drawn against his otherwise beautiful face. Had he been prepared for this?

No one else seemed affected at all. They were used to the cruelty, to the casual nightmares that infected this place. Elain had long thought it didn’t need to exist the way it did, and it was allowed in some manner of tradition rather than practicality. Surely they weren’t all bad? Surely they put on the same masks Feyre and Rhysand wore? Or was it that even the Court of Dreamers like to indulge in a little cruelty at times, if only to purge it from their systems?

Seeing Lucien react made Elain feel settled—like she wasn’t making it all up in her head. She wondered what his letter would make of all this—the smooth, carved out stone and the vaulted ceilings. The walls adorned with swirling silver and that obsidian pair of thrones that served more as decoration than actual chairs. Rhys and Feyre, dressed in black so crushing it stole the light from around them, casting them as blackholes.

Behind them was Mor, unforgiving as she surveyed the room and flanked by the cold, unyielding brutality of Cassian and Azriel. Even Nesta managed to make the ice in her eyes an art, causing those who dared to look upon her to flinch back as though she’d physically struck them.

Lucien fell back a step, shoulder to shoulder with her despite the difference in their heights. Fingers brushed for only a moment, the warmth fleeting against the cold of the mountain. Elain wanted to grab his hands, to demand he tell her something true. This place is terrible, right? I’m not imagining it—I can’t fake it, can you?

Maybe he heard her thoughts, because those eyes of his slid toward her, eyebrows raised as if to say, what the fuck is this?

Elain couldn’t help offering a silent response in return. Home, I guess.

His eyes widened, not with surprise, but recognition. As if he was saying, Hell is where you make it.

She had to suppress her smile, ducking her head to hide behind thick, long curls. Somehow, though, she thought he caught it anyway. He’d tell her about it in his pretty prose, just as he’d done for the last six months. Every memory he had of her, put to paper for her to read as though he wanted her to know what he saw, what he knew.

Proof, she thought, that he caught the little slip ups—saw the light beneath the cracks, diluting the shadow she felt lost in. He wasted no time describing her physical beauty in conventional terms. Lucien focused on the parts—bright eyes, tapping fingers, swinging feet. A curl caught in the breeze, a beam of light illuminating hues of gold and green. He wrote about her like she was something so far elevated that only the poetry of his words could ever do it justice. And he wrote about himself the way a tree might describe the squirrels beneath. Appreciative for the branches, the shade, worthy to look, to appreciate, but to perhaps not to speak.

Rhysand gave some brutal speech that Elain didn’t absorb, didn’t care to hear. Those words made it hard to look at him in the aftermath, made it difficult to like him at all. Better to pretend he didn’t like any part of this and someone else was continuing this spectacle. Elain, instead, took her seat, the furthest from the High Lord and Lady. Lucien whispered something to Nesta, who, with raised eyebrows, nodded her head and stood so they could swap.

And just like that, he was seated beside her rather than at Feyre’s elbow. Wasn’t he the emissary to this court for the evening? Surely he wanted to converse with the ruling monarchs rather than the woman who never spoke to him at all. But Lucien’s broad shoulders relaxed, his hand resting against the thigh of his white pants. Feyre crawled into Rhys’s lap, touching his neck, his face, his chest, while Nesta immediately jumped to her feet to join Cassian on the floor.

So maybe it didn’t matter where they sat, Elain rationalized. Nesta’s chair would have remained empty regardless, and Feyre could simply slide into it if she wanted. Elain dared a look at Lucien and his glazed expression before balling her hands in her lap to suppress the overwhelming urge to touch him. One of them would have to end the stalemate between them, would have to break. She’d known it ever since she’d imposed the silence in the first place.

And Lucien did what he’d always done—he spoke first.

“I’ve been here before,” he said, his voice deeper than she remembered. Hoarser, too. She couldn’t help the incline of her neck, the way her body shifted in her chair to look at him. “In a manner of speaking.”

“When?” she heard herself reply, so quiet she might have whispered it in his ear.

Lucien didn’t look at her at all, expression set with a grimness that betrayed his own nightmares. “Under the Mountain,” he said. “I didn’t think…I suppose I see where Amarantha took her inspiration.”

There it was again—that urge to touch him. Elain suppressed it, though she didn’t quite know why. She didn’t need to be his mate to know he would have welcomed it. Allowed it, without the expectation of anything else.

Elain lapsed back into silence, not because it was demanded but because she had no idea what to say to him. This wasn’t polite conversation. He hadn’t told her he liked her dress, that she was beautiful—she’d told him something personal. Something vulnerable. And when Lucien spoke like that, Elain merely listened, read, remembered. He didn’t seem upset, though in truth how would she know?

And when he stood to be closer to Feyre, their foreheads nearly touching as they conspired, Elain felt a little jealous, unfairly. She could have him like that, if she wanted. Could have been the Archeron he whispered his secrets to with his mouth rather than his fingers. She knew before he ever stood to look at her, that Lucien was going to leave with only a faint goodbye. That he’d seen whatever it was he needed to say, had the information he needed and that was all the time Elain would be allotted.

He’d be relegated back to fantasy until Feyre summoned him again, and Elain would try and be what he wanted without letting him have any of it at all. Every part of her was screaming when he turned his attention to her, that mask slipping for only a moment so she could see the truth of them both laid bare in this terrible place. His yearning, a match for her own, stared back at her. His eyes, screaming too—ask me to stay.

The resignation as he bricked that wall back up to offer her a polite half bow. “I’ll take my leave of you—” “Dance with me.” Elain hadn’t meant to say it. The words had forced themselves out of her with such a rush the consonants tripped over one another, slurring together until they were practically unintelligible. Lucien’s spine straightened, betraying no evidence of the shock Elain was certain graced her own features.

“It would be my pleasure,” he assured her as flame ignited in his one good eye. Sunlight seemed to burn against the other, and when he extended his hand, Elain found familiar golden warmth ribboning along her bones. They so rarely touched that it felt indecent right then with so many eyes on them.

It felt like they were doing something they shouldn’t, that was better reserved for a bedroom than a dance floor, and all they were doing was holding hands. Elain let him guide her out of her chair, wondering if her dress would slice apart his skin or if Lucien knew the right way to avoid injury. If he knew exactly how to touch her, missing the thorns for the blooming petals instead.

Elain hated the music of Hewn City—it was too strange, impossible to dance well to. Perhaps the fae preferred the grinding displays, the sweating bodies, the declaration of obvious intentions. But Elain missed the subtlety of human dances—the careful, precise touches, glances that lingered, bodies that never quite touched. Foolish, she thought, to think Lucien would know the steps or would even want it.

And yet…and yet he didn’t take her to the dance floor where Nesta was holding court. Lucien, with his fingers warm and reassuring, walked her through the archway and back into the night. Only then, with the thudding music a half-distant memory, did he exhale a shaking breath. “I assumed you meant somewhere…else.” “Where—” she bit her bottom lip, because maybe she’d misread this situation. Or maybe he had, too. The dance had to happen before anything else could, and if he skipped it, his letters would have to keep vigil in her fireplace.

“Trust me,” was his only reply, with an earnestness she’d read before. Many times, even. Elain decided she would, that she would give him this one opportunity to prove the man in the letters was the same standing in the entryway to the mountain, rejecting cruelty for something sweeter, something unmasked and real.

He tugged gently, and before she took a step, Elain said, “I hate it in there, too.” Lucien regarded her, a tendril of hair sweeping over her cheek. Those eyes of his softened at the edges, just enough to silently proclaim, I know you do.

They walked out of the ward, the cold air a rebuke of Lucien’s inherent warmth. Was that Autumn, then? Or something else, some innate magic he seemed to carry with him. Gold shimmered from the bronze of his skin and too late, Elain realized Lucien, too, was offering the same amount of skin she was. His hands, his throat, his face—look at my eyes, my lips, my hair. No half unbuttoned shirts revealing swirling tattoos, no armor showing off bulging muscles, or weapons strapped menacingly against his legs. Had he planned it?

Or did he know?

Warmth blazed around them in a bubble as the smell of salt and coconut swept over them. Lucien’s winnow was less snow and cold, and more sand and sea water, and when it faded, Elain didn’t feel so off balance. Looking around, she found herself on a terrace overlooking a violet hued ocean comprised of glittering diamonds and white shores. White marble curved along the balcony, while a little table held a carafe of wine or water—she wasn’t sure, didn’t care—for some unknown guest.

“Where…are we?” she managed, so taken in by this small scene she could hardly breathe. It was warm. Hot, even, despite the night sky. She regretted her sleeves, the heaviness of her skirts, the length of her hair curling gently against the back of her neck.

“Day,” Lucien replied, coming to stand just behind her without touching. Close enough she could feel his heat, too. Elain was tempted to lean back against him, to let him strengthen her with his solid build.

“Why Day?” she asked him.

“It’s my home,” was his simple reply.

Unthinkingly, Elain said, “You didn’t tell me that.”

There was a pause, a sweeping realization that oh. She read my letters. Elain didn’t dare look back, didn’t want to see whatever it was he was thinking so loudly. Lucien cleared his throat.

“I ah…wasn’t sure…how I felt about it. If I wanted to say anything…even to you.”

“What are you leaving out?” Elain dared to ask, thinking she was the only person in the world who could demand honesty from the famed liar.

Lucien chuckled. “Too much, I think. But I brought you here for a dance, not to overburden you with my problems. Come. I want to show you something else.”

Tearing her gaze from this new, warm world, Elain followed Lucien into blazing light. Of course Day would glow golden, some magic causing sunbeams to filter through the faelights hanging overhead. He looked alive here, a rainbow of colors draped across his skin. The silver seemed brighter, and she wondered if hers was just as iridescent as his own. If she looked happy, alive, warm, in the same way.

Shaking off the cold, the cruelty, Elain tried to map and memorize their route through winding halls of high, open windows, draping ivy flowers, and pretty artwork. Down sweeping steps she could have floated toward him like a cloud rather than plodding as she’d done just an hour or so before, until they were alone in the grandest ballroom she’d ever seen in her life. Big enough to fit a thousand people, with a dais that obviously belonged to the High Lord. Lucien wasn’t touching her, though she wished he would. Instead, he left her to make her way inside while he strode toward that throne, jogging the three steps to the top to fiddle with something she couldn’t see.

Another balcony, wide enough to fit her entire bedroom back home, curved on both ends of the room, separated only by sheer curtains caught in a friendly breeze. Elain might have gone to see what kind of view they both offered had music not filled the space so completely, conforming to the grooves of the smooth walls, the domed ceiling overhead. It blanketed her like a breath of air, causing her to turn for its source.

Lucien drank in her delight. “Allow me some secrets, hm?”

“You don’t know what I was going to say,” Elain protested, standing in place as she waited for him to come closer.

“You were going to ask me how I managed this, right? Magic,” he added before bowing with a flourish. “I have to make the most of this dance.”

Because there might not be another. Still, she was grinning and thought that she wouldn’t mind a second, or even a third, depending on how the first one went. Lucien offered her his hand the way a human man might, offering her the chance to reject him if she wished. Elain took it, inkling her head, and then her other hand was on his shoulder, his sliding along her waist so smoothly, so fluidly it was like the beads were made of the smoothest pearl.

“I’ll do my best not to step on your feet,” Lucien said, holding her gaze. His body was inches from her own, intimate and still polite, his steps in time with the music that wasn’t familiar, and yet not at odds with what she’d had growing up.

“Have you been practicing?” Elain dared to ask. Another thing he’d kept from his letters. Color bloomed over his cheeks and how did anyone call him a fox? His every emotion, every secret, was laid bare before her.

“I thought, since you were human…well. I figured I might need to adapt.”

The thought that Lucien might have done something she’d never had another man do—try and change pieces of himself for her, rather than demand she change shape to fit in his puzzle-piece world—astounded Elain. Something so small, that might never matter to anyone other than her. Elain loved to dance, loved the social gatherings that facilitated it, loved the push and pull, the will-they-wont-they, the eroticism of a fleeting touch, the promise in a glance.

“What else did you adapt?” Elain dared to ask him. Because it was allowed, here. She could drop her guard a little, make her intentions more plain.

“The letters,” he admitted, spinning away from him. Had there been other dancers, Elain would have been swept away by another man, forced to watch Lucien while held by a stranger, hoping he, too, would be searching for her across the crowded room. “I ah…well. It occurred to me that I could court you like a human man and maybe you’d like that. But I’m not a human…or a man, really. And after some reading, I found a familiar set of scripts that seemed to begin with letters, and then house calls, a conversation with your father and…anyway, you never responded, but I kept writing. And you were reading them.”

It was a question masquerading as a statement. “Yes,” she agreed, not looking away from him. There was no space to lie within their dance. “Many times.” Lucien took a breath, pulling his hand from hers so he could lift her in the air while Elain gripped his shoulders. Oh, but she wanted him—she wanted him so much it made her knees buckle when she was back on the ground. Of course he’d been courting her. She hadn’t realized, thinking he was merely using her as an outlet to say all the things he couldn’t normally.

He was telling her who he really was. Beyond the facade, beyond the masks. Lucien the fox, the High Lords son, emissary to Spring or Night or Day—all titles, all meaningless. The letters were the man beneath—the male, she supposed—and Elain, too used to playing a fantasy, too, didn’t realize what he was doing until he told her plainly.

“Is it working?” Lucien asked, pulling her back just a little closer than before. His steps were flawless. Or maybe they only seemed that way because she liked him, and could see nothing else but pretty perfection.

“What if it was?” she asked coyly, just to see how he’d respond.

“I’d ask you to dance again. And another after that. And I might pretend there was a queue of other men anxiously waiting for us to part ways so they might have a chance with you, thwarted by my charming manners and my fluid dancing.”

“And what then?” Elain pressed, if only because she was having fun.

Lucien arched a brow, and she wondered how difficult this all was for him. To pretend to be something he wasn’t, to play her games rather than waiting for her to just give in.

“Well…I think I’d take you to the balcony and I’d thank you for humoring me. And I might kiss you, if you seemed like you’d allow it. And you’d remind me I’m impolite and I’d smile—but it would be charming, so you’d forgive me. And then I’d take you home and hope that the next time I wrote you a letter, you invite me to call on you.”

“Is that how a fae male would court a female?” she dared to ask him.

Heat flared in eyes of both flesh and metal. No. It was a dangerous question…but one she wanted to know, anyway. Maybe, she rationalized, there was some middle ground between them. Or maybe she didn’t want him to take her home just yet. Maybe she wanted to stay, to wake up beside him, and pretend she was wholly fae and see what happened when the sun replaced the moon.

“No,” he admitted, their steps slowing to fit the shifting music. Lucien’s grip on her waist tightened, bringing with it the smell of warm salt. He wanted her—she’d known it, of course. But to see it, while he held her, while he admitted he’d been trying to court her, was a different thing entirely.

“How would you?”

“I’d take you upstairs to my bedroom and I’d peel your dress off your body with your teeth. I’d make you see my devotion with my tongue rather than my fingers, and hope you understood what I was trying to say.”

“I’m just a stranger to you,” she managed, the words tumbling out of her gracelessly. Aren’t I?

Lucien pressed his lips together, leashing whatever it was he felt. “Then why do I feel like I’ve known you my entire life?”

The song ended so abruptly Elain nearly pitched forward. Lucien, too, stumbled back, caught off guard by the silence. Neither moved, her hand still clasped in his, him holding her waist, their breath mingling in the space between their bodies. It wasn’t the balcony, like he’d said, but it was still a moment, wasn’t it? A human one, even. Elain inclined her head, drinking in the sight of his delirious relief.

Kiss me.

Lucien lowered his head, his mouth touching hers for the briefest of moments. If they’d both been human, that was all that would have been allowed. Elain felt the familiar flare of heat in her stomach before it spiraled into an inferno, reminding her that she might have been human once.

But now she was fae, with all the instincts that came with it. Separated, Elain could pretend otherwise, but together, tied on two ends by that unbreakable golden cord, all the need she’d been denying suddenly broke through ivy coated lattices.

Were those here hands on his neck, pulling his closer? Her feet surging onto tiptoes, trying to close the distance between them? Her teeth sinking into his bottom lip, earning that echoing groan from Lucien?

Yes.

He tasted sweet, heady and warm, like he’d been napping in the summer sun and when her lips parted so he could taste her, Elain thought it might ruin her entirely. Every possible thought that would have stopped her flew out the window and instead, Elain wound her arms tighter, pressing herself against him.

It was Lucien who pulled back, chest heaving, tendrils of hair loose from the leather band. He looked wild. Like an animal.

“I—” he took a breath, like it pained him to speak at all. “I should take you home before…”

Before he tried to take her to bed. Elain didn’t want to go home. It wasn’t home, besides, some small voice in her head screamed furiously, reminding her that it belonged to Feyre, and Elain was, functionally, just a guest. Out of place. Alone.

“I don’t want to go home,” Elain told him, sliding her hands down his chest to fist them against the fabric of his jacket. “Don’t take me home.”

Lucien was shaking, holding himself still. Roughly, he asked, “Where would you like me to take you, then?”

She didn’t know if she could say the words. She shouldn’t, right? It was impolite. Unbecoming. Lucien was the embodiment of a courtly knight so many human women dreamt of. She could have told him to take her to another room, after all.

And maybe…maybe it was okay, just this once, to be fae. To meet him in the middle, like she’d thought she wanted. Swallowing, Elain squared her shoulders and reminded herself she could do hard things. She would do hard things.

“To your bed.”

Relief washed over his features and still, he asked, “Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

Her feet were off the ground, body swept against his chest before she’d finished the consonants. “Faster, if I walk,” Lucien ground out, and she wondered how he figured. Unless he didn’t think he could walk beside her, which was valid—Elain’s hands seemed to have a mind of their own, interested in careful exploration of the man—male—before her. What would it be like? Would he be quick about it, venting his pent-up need like Graysen had? Or would it be like their dance? Fluid and careful, betraying the immortality stretching between them. He had lifetimes to learn every inch of her—it didn’t have to happen in a night.

Elain blinked when Lucien got the double doors to his bedchamber open, kicking them closed again with his foot.

“You left out some information about your new home, I think,” she murmured, grazing her mouth against his exposed neck. Why was it so erotic to touch him here? The only think she could see, the few bits of flesh she was allowed.

Lucien had her through the adjoining chambers for sitting and hosting, all but slamming his bedroom door closed with a finality that thrilled her. It, too, was absurdly massive. Too big for an emissary—and built, she thought as she took walls edged in gold and a ceiling made nothing of windows—of a bed large enough for six and a canopy of gauzy white.

“Helion is my father,” was all Lucien said before he was over her, back pressed against soft, satin sheets. It was a revelation on top of revelations—Lucien, a different High Lord's son, a prince of this realm, just as his mouth drew forth the realization that she’d never really been kissed before. Not truly. Not like this. It was both secrets told and secrets broken, a promise unspoken.

She’d make him tell her everything in the morning. So what, she decided? It changed nothing, other than Elain could stay here if she wanted and Lucien’s permission would be explicit. Even Feyre couldn’t argue, though Elain doubted her sister would. Besides, asking him the details risked the removal of his solid musculature and Elain didn’t think she’d ever felt safer than she did blanketed beneath his body.

Lucien kissed her like a dying man, like he had only a few seconds left and this was all he wished to do. Desperation clung to madness, drawing them together like crashing waves against unyielding rocks. His hands stayed at her shoulders, tangling through her hair, touching her face, her neck, her collarbone. And Elain did the same, pulling that long, thick curtain of auburn hair free, letting Lucien be wild.

In the middle between the human woman and the fae male was this. The taste of him, his tongue against her own, the rise and fall of his chest. It was all too much, building and building with nowhere to go until release was all Elain could think of. Words bubbled in her throat, the same she knew were echoing in his skull because when Lucien pulled back, one hand holding the entire side of her face, he spoke them first like he always did.

“I’m yours,” he swore, the oath ribboning between them. “And you are mine.”

Elain undid the top button of his jacket in response. It wasn’t the time to repeat them, to make that same vow. She’d know it when it was, wouldn’t sully his promise by rushing what was promising to be a perfect night. Forehead pressed against her own, Lucien closed his eyes and just breathed while Elain made her way down each glossy button, pushing them through the fabric until it was tossed gracelessly to the floor. There was, of course, another shirt beneath which irked her.

He smiled when she yanked a little too hard, pulling it from his breeches. When it was gone, too, she was left to admire a broad expanse of flawless skin, glimmering with that inner, golden light she’d never noticed before.

Elain kissed his bare shoulder. Lucien shuddered. “Do that again,” he whispered, bracing this body weight on his elbows. With a gentle push, she had him on his back, herself on her side so she could look at him.

“Where else do you like to be kissed?” she wondered, doing exactly as she asked.

“I like everything you do,” he said, eyes fluttering shut. That made her smile. Lucien seemed so new here, so inexperienced that any insecurities Elain might have had were washed away beneath his labored breathing and his hands skimming down her lace covered spine. If he liked everything she did, she could do no wrong, she reasoned. And so she took her time with him, mapping out the grooves and contours of his chest with her mouth, kissing to see which little patch of skin drew a shaky sigh or caused his fingers to fist in the sheets.

The further she got to his belt, the more Lucien’s hips arched into the air. This was more restraint, she decided with some glee. She doubted a fae female would make him wait so long, would spend time touching him when there were surely more pleasurable things they would be doing.

She asked, “Do you like this?”

“Yes,” he gasped, eyes opening to look at her. “Yes.”

The problem, of course, was once Elain reached his mouth again, she wasn’t quite sure what came next. Her only experience was with Graysen, who had been perfectly polite, if not a little underwhelming. She’d assumed with time, and experience, they’d get better. Now, though, Elain’s memories of kissing in the dark before Graysen was pushing inside her seemed to do her a disservice. Should she remove his pants? Demure politely? Caught between fae and human, Elain didn’t notice Lucien rolling them over, laying her out even as clever, experienced fingers made quick work of her own buttons.

She was thinking too loudly, she supposed. Lucien looked down at her with such heart aching softness that Elain was the one to push the dress off her shoulders, pulling her hands through the sleeves before shimming out entirely. No corset—those weren’t a thing in Prythian—which left the thin, white slip and her undergarments.

“Would you like me to go first?” Lucien offered, misreading her excitement for nerves. She wasn’t going to tell him no. Elain nodded, rising up on her elbows as Lucien half tripped out of the bed in his urgency. He watched her while she watched his hands, practically holding her breath.

Show me, show me, show me.

It wasn’t voyeurism, so why did it feel like it? Like she was seeing something forbidden to her, that she had no right to look upon? She did try, in her defense, to look at his legs first—but truly, all Elain was interested in was what lay between. The thick, long length of him, jutting outward, betraying just how badly he wanted her in a visceral, undeniable way.

Vulnerable, she thought with no small amount of affection. It was what convinced her to sit up, swinging her legs over the bed so he could be the one to watch. Swallowing hard, certain he’d like whatever he found, she pulled the nightdress over her head. Lucien’s little groan, stifled as he clenched his fingers to keep from reaching for her, was all the encouragement Elain needed.

She took the rest off quickly before meeting his gaze. There was no turning back, now. Even if she told him to stop, they’d always have this memory.

She’d always know what came next. Lucien took two shaky steps before he fell to the ground, knees crashing against marble so roughly the unlit chandelier overhead clinked with displeasure. Elain squealed when he caught her ankles, fingers wrapping around the bone, and hauled her forward.

“Tell me to stop,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh.

“Why would I do that?” Was her whispered reply. “I like everything you do.”

She was also far too curious as to what he was going to do to tell him to stop. Her usual embarrassment didn’t exist here, nor did her sense of propriety. Do whatever you like, she wanted to scream at him as he inched closer and closer to the space between her legs.

Pressing an open mouth kiss to her cunt, Lucien’s eyes found hers in the fading dark. Waiting, she realized, for her to tell him to stop. Elain wasn’t going to—she wanted him to keep going. To end the teasing, the finish what they’d begun and give her a reason to see him again.

She felt his relief swirling around the bond between them, his shoulders relaxing as he drew her closer. Was this what he liked? Elain certainly enjoyed seeing him kneel before her, his face half obscured by red hair, the other half obscured by her leg. And oh, Elain liked the sight almost as much as she liked his tongue, teasing at first, unaware of how desperately aroused she was.

He figured it out, perhaps tasting the wetness, or realizing Elain was in danger of falling off the bed in a bid to draw him closer. Lucien buried his face between her legs, lapping like an unrestrained, wild animal. He was starving and she was a meal, his tongue gliding tirelessly over her clit until Elain was panting through parted lips, nonsensically begging.

That wildfire raged, was an inferno nothing would ever be able to quell. The best she could hope for was his fingers digging into her thighs, holding her against him so she knew she wasn’t alone in this. The flames would consume them—together.

Elain came with a scream so undignified it was unbefitting anything she was trying to pretend to be. It was honest, though—the pleasure coiling through her stripping her of all other pretense before laying her utterly bare. This is what I am, Elain might have said had she any capacity for speech at all. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t like it.

They fell to the floor in a graceless heap, dragging the duvet with them not out of necessity but by accident. It was merely collateral damage in her desperation to kiss him, to be fully beneath him again. Lucien didn’t bother trying to lay it out or make things comfortable on his knees. The cold marble was a shock against her overheated skin, the blanket drowning out the world as it thudded over their heads.

Elain kissed him, eyes open so she could look, could see him staring back with delirious wonder. The head of his cocked nudged between her legs, one last question with one last obvious answer. She didn’t have to say a word, her tongue in his mouth when he pushed himself inside. Lucien likely didn’t mean to bite down on her lip so hard it flooded their mouths with blood. Nor did Elain mean to scratch her nails so violently down his back he arched against the pain. The response to sharing a body was visceral, overwhelming, incandescent.

Something in the world seemed to sing with approval, watching for just a fleeting second before vanishing, leaving them to their own devices. Lucien held himself still for a moment, adjusting to the feel of her body and letting her decide if she’d rather call it all a night.

Everything was perfect.

This was right.

Holding his gaze, her fingers brushing the scars that decorated one side of his face, Elain made her vow. “I’m yours. And you are mine.”

Lucien shifted his hips, pulling himself out as far as he could bare before thrusting back in. He shuddered at her words, forehead pressed against her own with all the unspoken things hanging between them. There was time, she thought, pulling him by the shoulders so no light or air could penetrate between their bodies. She was still coming down from the high of her first orgasm and learned quickly there would be no reprieve. Not for the male writhing above her, a feral gleam in his eye.

He was going to wring every inch of pleasure he could get from her, and then a little more if he thought he could get away with it. Elain sank her teeth into the flesh of his shoulder, biting hard. Maybe she didn’t want to be so nice—not right now, anyway. And maybe there was room for every created version of her. The lady who smiled and the woman beneath who wanted to scream, and maybe even the female that liked her first time with her mate happening on the floor. All these versions, coalescing into one person that Lucien wanted.

Ruinous wreck and all.

They were, at least, matched on that front. There was no pretending Lucien wasn’t a wreck, that he hadn’t told her as much in every letter he’d sent her. And here they were.

Together.

There was no sound but their combined breaths or the occasional whimpering groan from Lucien, his forehead buried in her neck, fingers bruising her hips as he drove them higher and higher toward a mutual climax. Elain came mere seconds before, shattering with a cry he swallowed before offering one of his own. It wasn’t enough, even as she was devoured by the rising flames, swallowed whole by heat and light. She wanted more—wanted all of it, all over again.

Lucien, too, if his frantic kissing was any indication. Long after he was spent, he kept kissing her, catching his breath and settling his hips. He never pulled himself out, though. And Elain didn’t ask him to, long after they both just laid there, his head on her chest, eyes half closed.

“Can I stay until morning?” she asked him.

“It is morning,” Lucien replied, pulling at the corner of the blanket shrouding them so she could see the blinding pinks and oranges of a newborn sunrise. “And you can stay forever, if you like.”

Elain pressed a kiss beneath his jaw.

Maybe she would.

#elucien #dont call it a comeback etc etc #anyway i wrote this in five hours so you cant be mean to me about it

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