The Princess and the Blade

[Emora Deen]

Tenara glanced at Elias just as he looked their way. She averted her eyes. “Elias wants to sword,” she said. “He offered Havi three times whatever he thinks we’re paying him, and land, a title and…” Tenara ground her teeth together, unable to meet their eyes. She hated talking about herself. “He offered him me, if it would settle things. I guess, because of how he looks, Elias suspected him to be someone we hired out, someone corruptible. I don’t know what was said after that, the connection fizzled out. He must have said something that upset him. A threat.”

Tenara already spotted another man coming to take her to dance. She motioned for one of the guards to divert them. “I am so tired of dancing… and I’m tired of this party.”

She wanted to go to the dungeons with Havitharon. She wasn’t even certain it was close enough to the sword. He was likely to get jerked back to his room on the way.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad scrubbed a hand across his face in frustration as he absorbed her words. "That little shit's smarter than he looks. If he had succeeded, he would have a powerful asset under his thumb. If not, he forces us to take a valuable piece off our board." He hissed out a sigh. "You've done well to indulge this lot. If you'd like to retire for the evening, I see no reason you can't use the situation as an excuse to take yourself off the board as well."

A guard entered through the side door and approached the dais, leaning in to deliver a message. "Kingsoul, the prisoner has...uh..."

[Emora Deen]

Tenara sighed, relieved by her father’s words.

Her gaze drifted to the worried guard. “I’ll get him. The dungeon’s a few too many floors away from our rooms,” she said to her parents with just enough details for them to grasp what she meant without divulging too much in front of the guards.

“It’s just as well. I have a lunch date tomorrow with the red head and his Ivis.” She spoke as if it was the most casual thing in the world—this odd life of espionage and magic weapons. She placed a kiss on each of her fathers’ cheek and one on her mother’s.

She curtsied to the room, and left with a procession of guards in her wake. Elias watched her go, and turned his attention back to his aids.

Tenara’s pace was hurried, and when she reached her chambers she immediately bypassed them for the door to Havitharon’s adjoining suite. She didn’t knock. She never did. Usually they kept the doors between their rooms open, passing back and forth at will, taking turns on whose bed they occupied on any given night.

“Havi?”

[Soran Nightblade]

Havitharon was standing at the window, watching the men tending to carriages outside. It was possible the kings would treat his disappearance like an attempt to escape, but he wasn't really sure what to do next. He could go present himself to the guards again, but that would mean carrying the sword openly through the palace, and given what had happened, he didn't want it leaving this room. And then, there was the added issue that they might not be able to see him. He glanced down at his semi-transparent hands. Each time the sword reclaimed him, it seemed to bite a chunk out of his corporeality.

It was senseless to worry about it. Tenara would sort them out, or she wouldn't. Nothing he said or did was likely to make a difference.

He spun as the door sounded. He recognized Tenara's way of turning the knob.

"Havi?"

His eyes flickered with interest as she called his name. The sight of her was a relief, even under these circumstances. "The sword pulled me," he said in explanation. He passed a clawed hand back and forth through the lamp beside him to demonstrate his situation.

[Emora Deen]

“I thought that might happen,” Tenara said, coming further into the room. She paused, stooping and rifling through her skirts for one of her shoes. She plucked it off with a sigh, moving for the other. When she was done, she lost a good two inches in height.

She padded to him, her dress swishing loudly against the floor. “I’m sorry for what happened. I know Elias pushed a button on purpose. He didn’t like that you rejected his offer, I guess.” She reached out to touch him, out of habit, but her hand passed through.

“Let’s get you solid?” She knelt next to the bed and reached between the mattress for the sword.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi looked down at himself. "I still should have controlled my reaction," he acknowledged. "Your parents and their guards will want me accounted for, after what I did. That is simpler if they can see me." He grimaced. He didn't want to put the burden of returning him to normal on Tenara right now, after everything else that night.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara shrugged. "They don't care, Havi. They understand. It was a show, to keep everyone comfortable. You're not in any real trouble. If it wasn't for the crowd, Daddy would have let you pummel him and ate a snack while he watched."

She pulled the sword free and laid it on the bed, standing straight to admire it. She bit the inside of her cheek, admiring him near the lamp. It hadn't been that long ago since they'd needed to do this. It seemed the spans between needing to... recharge him... were getting shorter. Or, maybe it was her imagination. She hadn't really paid much attention to it because, thus far, the side effects of doing this hadn't been anything to complain about. Especially, when the situation allowed, it sometimes ended in mind-blowing, lust-woven, magic-fueled sex... Well, there were the headaches. And the vertigo...

She sat on the bed, billowy gown fanning out around her, and drew the sword into her lap. Tenara didn't necessarily need to cut herself anymore to make him corporeal, but every now and then she did because it seemed to move things along faster, and she was feeling particularly lazy where magic was concerned at the moment.

She slid her hand along the flat edge of the blade, glancing at Havi before she pressed her thumb to the sharp edge and slid it across. The pain was a blip compared to the power. It was a drowning heat that burned through her. She made a soft, surprised sound in the back of her throat as everything curled tight inside her. Pleasure and want warred with her focus, but she managed to string enough thought together to will her power into Havitharon and wish him whole.

It was only a minute of magic, but it felt like an eternity straddling the line between utter bliss and unimaginable need. When the magic fizzled out, it left a burning ache in her center. Her skin tingled with the want to be touched, screaming to be devoured. She took a deep breath, her flushed face tilting towards him, heavy eyes lifting to see if it had worked. The room spun a little, and he wobbled against the wall, though she suspected it was her vision and not actually him doing the wobbling. "Better?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi was still processing his relief that her father's ferocity had been at least partly for show when Tenara sat and prepared her magic. "Tenara, you have had a long night. If you would prefer to wa--it!" Havi's voice pitched up as the need that always came with her magic tumbled over him. He gave up trying to speak and braced himself for what was coming. Ever since she'd claimed him, it seemed like her magic hit him like a freight train, and added a few cars each time. He leaned against the wall, panting and fully engulfed in her magic. When the barrage of sensation finally began to settle, he was nearly twitching with the need to physically connect to the source of that phantom pleasure.

"Better?" she asked.

"Better," he answered her in a half-moan. He took in the sight of her flushed and eager on the bed and shuddered. This wasn't the time, and yet he felt an overpowering desire to answer the need he thought he saw in her eyes.

"Ask what you wish of me, Yurivis," he said, his voice a sultry whisper.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara took a steadying breath, swallowing the words threatening to tumble out of her mouth, but then he spoke again—"Ask what you wish of me, Yurivis."—and in that voice.

Tenara gently set the sword aside. "All night, the only thing I wanted was you. I wanted to dance with you—endless circles around a room. I wanted you to hold me tight. I wanted to come back to this room—our rooms—and tangle myself around you." She traced her collarbone and down the center of her chest, feeling the heat of her flushed skin beneath her trembling fingers.

She smiled, bending and taking up some of her skirts. "You know... we never did find out if there are any ties under this dress for hiding swords. Do you want to check?"

[Soran Nightblade]

Her words sent a shiver of pleasure through him. She could have commanded him, and during a rut he might have needed her to, but instead she framed her desires as questions, decisions to be made together. Warmth spread through his chest. She'd wanted him all night. He knelt before her and drew one of her slender ankles up to his lips. He tilted his head and ran his tongue along the dip above her heel, over her achilles tendon, and pressed devastatingly light kisses along her calf, up towards her knee. Here, he made a show of inspecting the lining of her skirt as he pushed it higher.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara shivered at the feel of his lips on her sensitive skin. She bit her tongue to keep from rushing him and instead snickered at his show, helping him by gathering layers of tool and chiffon around her hips. She felt a little ridiculous with all the fabric gathered around her. "Nope, nothing there," she said, reaching out to brush her hand down one of his horns and along his cheek to his chin. She tilted his face to look at her. "Search higher." She grabbed her dress and threw it over his head, giggling as he disappeared beneath the sparkling black.

[Soran Nightblade]

Havi smiled against her skin as darkness enveloped him, leaving him surrounded by her scent. "Well, there you go. I think we've proven your skirts hide swords quite well," he teased.

"But I suppose if I back out now, I could tear this valuable fabric. Higher is a wise choice." He laved his tongue over the lower part of her thigh until he came upon one of her garters. "Is this to hold a sword?" he mused. His fingers slide behind it and slipped it off. "Hm. Not strong enough."

[Emora Deen]

She giggled softly, covering her mouth to stifle the sound. "Definitely not strong enough," she agreed, watching the fabric of her dress shift with his movement. She could tell where he was by the point of chiffon over his horns. She liked the secrecy of it—not quite knowing where his hands were or what he'd do next.

She parted her legs a little and brought her bare foot to rest on the edge of the bed. "Higher." Her voice was a little more authoritative than it had been, but only because she knew he liked it.

[Soran Nightblade]

He huffed at her quiet order, his breath a stroke of heat up the inside of her leg. His tongue run a wet line higher, to her inner thigh. He kissed and sucked at her skin while his fingers slid higher. They brushed against her, over her panties, while his mouth kissed ever higher. Finally, he pressed his hot tongue over the fabric and licked. "These are in the way," he murmured. "Definitely can't hold a sword," he added as he pulled aside the thin fabric and let his mouth go where it was so desperate to be.

[Emora Deen]

Tenara huffed out a breath, her magic-sensitive skin screaming at the feel. She clenched a hand in her dress, tilting her head back and humming at the sensation. She was already wet, already so close to the edge of losing her reason. She was a coiled spring threatening to break. "Havi," she murmured at the feel of his mouth. Her hand reached forward, grabbing a horn through the fabric. Her cheeks burned as she pulled him closer to her skin, and whispered playfully, “That's it... that's my good Ivis."

She tilted her head, and the world tilted in the opposite direction. She swayed and fell back along the bed. Tenara pressed a palm to her head, closing her eyes to the swirling room and focusing on the feel of Havi's tongue on her skin.