"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
I've learned to live with these fatal gifts and still you're mine
It still warms him to the very marrow every time he hears those words on her lips. The same thrill courses through his chest, expanding until he feels as though his heart might burst right through the cage of his ribs. He doesn’t know how to put into words everything she makes him feel. Everything she means to him.
He presses his lips against her, a small huff of breath, an almost laugh, escaping to fan across her skin. He revels in the softness of her, still almost disbelieving that she could be so indelibly his. “I will never tire of hearing you say it,” he whispers against her, eyes slipping closed. “Just as I will never be able to adequately express how much I love you.”
He wishes he could share it with her. Wishes he could open himself up just so that she could see what she does to him. Just so that she could understand how completely she tamed the carefully guarded feral beast that had once resided in his heart.
He slides his lips along her neck, pouring every ounce of his love, so fierce and possessive, into the motion. As though his touch, such a simple gesture, could adequately express everything inside his heart and soul. His lips move back, tenderly trailing her ribs until the can feel the beat of her heart beneath them. Her beautiful, generous heart. The one the could find within itself the ability to love a man like him.
He aches for her, the beat of his heart so easily matching hers, though it echoes silently in his chest. It his hers, after all. Only hers.
I need you like a heart needs a beat but it's nothing new.
She smiles into his neck at his reassurance, and his breath across her skin sends a shiver of delight along her spine. She wonders again, for the hundredth, or maybe the thousandth time, how she was ever so lucky. How did she possibly manage to find a romance, and a love so everlasting? It was the kind only to be found in fairy tales and stories, and not something ever meant to be for a girl like her. She still found herself to be so plain and ordinary, and he was anything but. He was fierce and kind, quiet but still loud in all the ways he showed his love for her. His golden eyes still had a way of captivating her, and she doesn’t understand how he can look at her like she is the only girl that he sees. He could have had anyone; he was the kind that should be loving a queen, and not some feral, wild thing from the outlands.
But she would love him anyway, with all her wildness and tangled hair and sweet touches. Fate had decided that she was the one meant to love him, and she would spend every day proving that it had not been a mistake.
“I know a way you can show me,” her voice is breathy in her throat, a secret smile threatening to spread across her lips. She had been cautious before of the way her body reacted to his, even though she knew what was to come next would be inevitable. It always was, but it was amusing, at least to her, to pretend like she could resist him for a night. She steals a glance towards where their children slept, but here, in the safety of their forested home, she knows they don’t have to worry. Wrenley was the youngest, and surrounded by older siblings that wouldn’t let anything happen to her.
His touch trails along her ribs, and she knows that he will feel the quickening of her pulse, and the way her heart flutters in response to his. With her chest pressed to his, she lets her teeth graze the skin near his throat, before softening her touch as she lays her lips near his ear and whispers, “Come with me.” There was no denying her intentions, with the way her voice had grown heavy with want and longing. The curves of her body slide against his as she slips past him, letting the natural shadows of the night envelope her as she casts a knowing glance over her shoulder, beckoning him to follow.
I've learned to live with these fatal gifts and still you're mine
Perhaps that is what had drawn them together. The matching wildness in their souls. The way in which they both skirted the fringes of society, never quite daring to let their true selves loose on the world. The feral beast within him had recognized that same, untamed quality in her. Recognized the kindred spirit wrapped so neatly in the perfectly beautiful exterior (she could never be boring to him. Could never be the kind of plain she was so determined to believe herself).
He would laugh if he knew she thought him worthy of a queen. There is nothing deserving of royalty within him. Nothing that spoke of power or a desire for such things. Beneath the trappings of the beast, he is still just a plain boy who had once been terrified of the world.
But he couldn’t bring himself to question her love. Not now. Not anymore. For so long he had feared she might realize her mistake. Might suddenly see him for who he truly is and push him away with horror. Now though, with their children sleeping in the depths of the woods they had made their home, he had truly begun to believe in this reality. Had finally begun to accept that she is truly his. Forever.
He would never tire of hearing her say it though. Would never find more satisfaction than listening to her declarations of love and belonging. An indisputable affirmation that she belongs only to him.
It’s barbaric, in a way. But Ether had never claimed to be civilized.
The ways her breathy voice whispers across his skin and catches in her throat sends an impossible thrill of delight through him. Stirring a hunger and alighting a possessiveness that never seems to linger too far from the surface. Those few simple words are all it takes to drive any polite thought from his head. He can feel the way her pulse kicks beneath his lips, the tempo of her heart picking up, telling him unequivocally just how much such thoughts affect her as well.
A low, pleased growl rumbles almost unconsciously in throat as his glowing yellow eyes leap up to meet her soft brown gaze. Instinctively he presses closer, features lighting with an undeniable hunger. He says nothing in response. He doesn’t need to. His body says everything as he crowds closer, using his bulk to press her deeper into the shadows. To draw her away until he can shroud them with privacy.
Until he need not worry what noise they might make once they forget themselves.
I need you like a heart needs a beat but it's nothing new.
He awakens something in her. He always has, but every day, he finds something new. Parts of herself that had lay secret and buried are suddenly brought to the surface, unearthed and brushed clean, and only for him.
Everytime he touches her, everytime she feels the almost predatory way his yellow eyes watch her and the sharpness of his teeth against her skin, it feels like the first time. She should have been afraid of him, and yet it had never occurred to her to be. He already had felt like hers even on that very first day, and fear was the last thing she felt.
He makes her breath catch in her throat, he makes her pulse spike in want and excitement when he pushes closer, into her. She recognizes the hunger in his eyes, and she meets it with an almost demure smile, heat burning across the surface of her skin despite the coolness of his shadowed-touch. She doesn’t notice as the trees blur and the darkness swallows them, she doesn’t notice as everything around them falls away and the only light is the warm glow of his eyes. “Ether,” she whispers into his skin once they finally stop, and she concentrates on the way his muscles feel beneath her lips as she touches his neck and shoulder.
It feels like it’s been years, centuries since they were last together, even though they never spent a night apart. But she touches him like she is afraid it will be her last, as though she might wake up tomorrow and he will be gone. She touches him, every inch within her reach, like she needs to memorize the shape and feel of him, before he disappears forever.
I've learned to live with these fatal gifts and still you're mine
He doesn’t know how or why every time feels like the first and last, but he does not question it. Does not wish to delve too deeply into the truth of their need for each other. There is too much the beast in him for him to want to understand the full import of those encompassing emotions.
She is his and that is all that matters.
It’s so easy. So incredibly natural, this wanting. As though it is the only thing that truly matters (there is more, of course, but in the moment, it may as well be). The entire world (entire universe) disappears and it is only the two of them. Just the comforting press of the shadows as they close around them and the inviting heat of her smooth, dark skin. His lips are eager and hungry as he presses them to the satin of her flesh, tasting every curve and hollow that he can reach.
And she touches him in kind, stirring the beast that lies so close to the surface, ever present, yet so easily tamed by her. Though she might hold it’s leash in her delicate grasp, it would never truly be absent. Would never miss the opportunity to claim it’s chosen mate. And Ether had long ago stopped trying to quell those basest of instincts.
He presses impossibly closer, the length of her against the cool darkness of his own flesh causing a fire of need to rage within him. His eyes gleam vibrant and yellow in the darkness, the only part of him easily discernible in the dim light the shadows allow through. But she could feel him, no doubt. Could feel every inch of him pressing against her just as he can feel her.
His lips trail the delicate curve of her spine, lingering on her hips, sharp teeth teasing and gentle on her skin, soothed easily by kisses. He wanted to claim every piece of her. Remind her over and over again just how irrevocably his she is. Remind her how much every inch of her desires his touch.
Remind her just exactly what forever could feel like.
I need you like a heart needs a beat but it's nothing new.
There was always a sweet kind of thrill when she can sense that she is luring that predatory side of him to the surface. Maybe it was naive of her, to not be afraid of him – not any part of him. Not even the part that could hurt her, the dark part of him that could be aggressive and relentless. When she had decided to love him it was because she loved all of him; even his shadow creature. Like a foolish girl his darkness had been what drew her in; the only magic in this land that had managed to intrigue her rather than frighten her.
And now she spent every night lost in his shadows, every night with her warm flesh pressed against his cool skin. Some nights were quiet and sweet, with her simply nestled into his side and his nose buried in the curls of her mane. Her nightmares rarely came, and should she awake in the night it was only so that she could stare at their children sleeping soundly alongside of them.
But other nights were like this. Nights like this when their want and passion runs unbridled, when they can do nothing but touch and caress every inch of the other. Nights like this, where it is silent save for her soft gasps as his touch lingers across all the parts that make her tremble with want, that make her teeth bite at his skin and her lips kiss greedily along his jaw and throat. “Take me,” she breathes into his mane, urgent and wanting, finding his yellow eyes in the dark like she has a hundred times before. He can still make her heart beat uncontrollably in her chest, and she is sure that it makes the shadows themselves pulse with the ferocity of it.
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