Heirot

Laurius frowned at her like she had three heads. "Well, I don't understand a word you're talking about, but this wasn't easy to make. It can't burn."

Havi turned his senses toward the struggling male in the corner. "I think you might be right," he said to Tenara's thoughts. "Somehow, the dagger does not seem to be supporting his flame properly. It doesn't seem like a true rut, but it may as well be. It is difficult to describe, but his...soul does not seem right. It's like... the connection to the dagger is incomplete, and his flame has nowhere to burn."

Tenara bit her lip, glancing between Havi, the other Ivis, the dagger, and Laurius, uncertain of what she should do. Her gaze settled on the Ivis again, and her soft heart hated to see the pain he seemed in. The only way she knew to help him was to make him whole and do for him what she had done for Havi. She knew no other way than that, but she wasn't certain she could make him whole to begin with. He might very well burn to ash, no matter what she did.

From the looks of the blade, they didn't have time to discuss, debate, or experiment.

"Please don't let me regret this," she murmured to herself and reached out for Laurius's piping-hot blade. Tenara wrapped her hand over the blade, feeling the burn at the same instant she dragged her hand up. Blade bit into her skin, cutting and hot enough to cauterize. She wasn't certain if she needed to cut herself, as she had done with Havi's sword in the beginning, but she did.

It was not the sweeping sensation of magic she felt from her sword. It was not like opening a well of unbridled power. Nothing really happened, and the wound didn't magically seal itself shut as it did with Havi's sword. So, she opened the well herself because she had learned to do it (mostly) without taking down entire buildings. She just needed to keep her fear and temper in check.

Tenara's eyes lit red, and she felt heat swell through her. Pleasure and want and maddening power. She could be hot too, she thought, as blue flame danced along her hand and she curled her palm around the blade again. This time, it didn't burn. Her heat met its heat, and they melded welcomingly together. Tenara shivered, making a soft sound in the back of her throat, and she was too focused on the blade to mind how she looked to Laurius. Her cheeks burned. Her chest flushed. She poured her will into the blade, and it felt different from how she used Havi's sword. With the sword, there seemed to be a give-and-take of power. She pulled on its power to pour hers into it. With this, she just forced her will in, demanding the Ivis to be whole and solid. Tenara wasn't certain how much power it would take, so she poured into it until she felt as if she would burn up as surely as the blade, but not in the way of fire. Desire was a molten hand running over her soul and up her thighs. It always felt best when she used her power willingly—when she didn't hold back. Holding back hurt. Letting go was a terrifying kind of ecstasy.

"Stop! Are you crazy?" Laurius demanded as she grabbed the blade with her bare hands. He moved to stop her, but the power that suddenly rolled off of her stopped him in his tracks. "Princess?!" He shouted over the strange roaring in his ears, even though the room had gone eerily silent. He reached out for her shoulder, but didn't. Laurius knew almost nothing about magic, but he knew absolutely that this was something he shouldn't touch.

The pressure in the air built until he was forced to his knees. He became vaguely aware of a new sound joining the roar in his head - a male voice that sent goosebumps down his skin.

The Ivis moaned, a sound that felt ripped from him. He tossed his head and scrambled against the corner walls, his nails digging for purchase until they actually succeeded. The man froze, panting, and stared at his hands that were successfully scraping through the inn's cheap wallpaper. He shuddered, heaving air into his lungs on this world for the first time. He leaned heavily into the wall, grinding his forehead into it until one of his two gold horns, substantially smaller than Havitharon's, carved through the drywall.

"What the hell?" Laurius breathed. He somehow tore his gaze from the alien and turned to Tenara, taking in the sight of her, of her hand clutching the scalding metal. "Princess! Oi!"

Havi's presence filled her mind. *Tenara. It's enough.
Let go, please.* His presence braved the whirlwind of her mind to pull gently at her fingers, asking her to release her grip.

Tenara felt Havi’s cooling presence curl over her mind and her hand. She huffed, her focus snapping, and she released the blade, sagging sideways into the vanity. It clattered to the bathroom floor. She clutched the cold marble counter, flushed and panting. Her legs and arms trembled, and she feared if anything touched her, she would come unmoored.

She wanted to be away. Alone. With Havi. Tenara glanced up at Havi, eyes heavy. Wanting. She wanted to ask him to take her—to bend her over the vanity and have her. Instead, she swallowed, and said in a velvet voice, "It worked.”

Now what?

The intoxicating edge of magic ebbed enough for her to feel the sting of her hand. She turned her palm up, spotting blistered skin and the jagged cut across her palm. The burn, though, wasn’t as bad as it should have been.

Her gaze drifted to the gold-horned Ivis.

"Tenara," Havi said quietly, wrapping his soul around her like a cloak. He didn't need to ask what state she was in... His memories served as a strong enough indicator of what she was probably feeling. Normally, he would be feeling a version of it alongside her, but it hadn't been his blade she channeled her power into this time. He wrestled with a burning wish to be able to soothe her body's needs, but summoning him would only weaken her.

The Ivis in the corner was staring at her now with a dazed expression, eyes burning a bright silvery hue. He seemed to assess her, as if reading fine print from a distance. When she didn't address him right away, he turned his attention to Laurius.

The change in his expression was swift and drastic. Rage flooded his features, and his still-shivering muscles went rigid. He staggered up on unsteady feet and lunged for Laurius's neck, snaring him fiercely to the floor. Laurius gave a shout as the alien straddled him, thumbs digging into his throat.

The moment Tenara felt Havi’s comforting ethereal embrace around her frazzled soul, the Ivis lunged at Laurie’s and tackled him to the ground.

She gasped, and lurched after them. Her knees buckled after the second step, so half slid into them and over them.

Tenara did the only thing she knew to pull the hulking figure of Laurius’s smaller, human frame. She wrapped her hand around his gold horn and pulled back. “Let him go.”

Though, she didn’t blame the Ivis for wanting to kill Laurius. She could sympathize with him. But she needed Laurius to help her.

The Ivis yelped, struggling in vain to maintain his grip on the man's neck. Laurius struggled upright as the alien tumbled back with the pressure of Tenara's hand. "No," he growled in protest.

Laurius switched their positions, climbing over him and pinning his arms safely to the floor. The Ivis cried out, and this time, it wasn't in pain. Laurius hesitated, taking in the hard organ pinned between their bodies.

Laurius actually blushed.

"You treated me like a slave," the Ivis groaned, pulling weakly against Tenara's grip. "You threw me in the water. You left me to burn!". Anger and lust sang a confusing duet in his shaking voice.

Tenara turned her gaze up to Havi, uncertain what they should do with him now that he was whole.

She knew what she had done for Havi… But that was Havi. She didn't know this one.

"He didn't know any better," Tenara told
him. She curled her hand tight around the Ivis’s horn and held him to the floor. “I know what you need. He doesn’t.” She stroked her shaking hand along the curve of his horn.

Her gaze lifted to Havi again. She looked uncertain. Worried. She didn’t want to hurt Havi by giving herself to this Ivis too. Would it hurt him?

Tenara turned her attention back to Laurius, and the world wobbled just a little. She clenched her eyes and opened them to refocus. No. Not now. Not yet.

“He’s in rut. Heat. He needs to mate. At least, that’s what I’ve come to understand. I don’t know if he can weather it, if making him whole has made him able to weather it. I know how to tame it but…” Her already flushed cheeks darkened. “You have to leave us alone.”

The Ivis stared up at her, gradually falling quiet under her grip, but didn't seem to understand a word she said. He glanced from her to Havi's shade for the first time, and suddenly seemed more anxious than angry.

Havi observed the struggling Ivis from his phantom position beside her. "Tenara, it may not be wise. He is different. He has been bonded."

Tenara glanced back at Havi. The world shifted, vertigo turning everything upside down for half a second. She clenched her eyes again.

“Bonded? What does that mean? Is there nothing we can do for him?”

Havi studied the other creature's eyes and horns, and it stared back at him in confusion. "What is she saying," the man demanded of him. "What do you want with me?"

"What is he saying?" Laurius asked, glancing to see who the being was trying to address.

Havi hesitated to answer her. "He's not in rut. He's in withdrawal. His Yurivis claimed him as her own... It's a kind of soul contract. Sort of like mine to the sword. I don't think his soul can reach her here, so the contract will wither. Even if you try to touch him right now, his soul will fight you, and it will exhaust you both."

The other Ivis strained to sit up.

Tenara frowned. She turned back to the Ivis and Laurius, feeling a tug at her heart for the poor creature who had been dragged to this world, and away from the other half of his soul. “It won’t work,” she murmured, brushing a soothing hand over the creature’s head. “He needs the female he bonded to and she isn’t in this world. He’ll have to weather it on his own…”

Tenara felt wet heat slide down and over her upper lip. She reached up to touch the blood. Her hand shook as it drew away to reveal what she already knew would be there.

Unlike with Havi’s sword, though, Tenara felt the exhaustion like a sudden compressing weight on every limb, instead of the slow build towards it.

When the Ivis strained to sit up next, her weak grip loosened and her hand slipped away. She collapsed on her side next to him, the world tilting opposite the direction of her fall.

“His horn!” She breathed, reaching dizzily out to grab hold of him again. “If he tries to kill you grab his horn.”

The Ivis sat up slowly. His hand reached absently to his horn that still tingled from her touch. It had sucked all the wrath out of his bones, and even though he knew he shouldn't be, he felt momentarily detached from what was happening. The nonsensical words being spoken around him felt like white noise inside his skull. When he remembered his surroundings, he glanced to the side and took in the silver-haired Yurivis that had torn him away from his kill. The woman was on her side on the floor, nose bleeding, unconscious. Beside her knelt the half-transparent form of Havitharon.

He'd hoped to never encounter the man again, but in the current circumstances, it felt almost a relief to have someone who could speak his language in the room. "Thvoros," he said warily, unsure why he seemed transparent.

The other Ivis turned to study him impatiently. "Be still," he said, his attention returning mostly to the woman he knelt over. "While I figure this out."

He frowned at Havitharon, evaluating him. His eyes drifted back to the captor he had yet to succeed in killing. "You can't touch me right now," he tested.

Havi leveled him with a cold stare. "Don't try me."

Laurius hesitated as the fight seemed to go out of the phage. The creature was strong, far stronger than him. His fingers flexed and his gaze followed the creature as he spoke foreign words to the air. His gaze drifted down to the princess.

Shit. The last thing he needed was a dead princess in his bathroom, especially given who her parents were.

"Don't move," he told the phage, and reached over to check her pulse. Not dead. Sleeping. He sagged with relief. Then, his attentions turned back on the gray-skinned being, sweeping the sharp angles of his face, his gold horns, down his neck and chest and belly, and to the thing wedged between them.

What had that woman said? He needed his female? He was pretty certain the princess had planned on bedding the creature to fix whatever ailment he seemed to have. Mate? Rut? What?

He pursed his lips, trying to decide how to fix the situation when he couldn't understand a bloody thing the creature said. He reached up and took the being by the horn, as Tenara had done, and forced his attention from the air he seemed intent on speaking to, so he could look him in the eye. "What do you need?" It was useless, he knew, to speak to him. Mate. Sex. He needed sex? What a bizarre thing to need.

The phage withered backward, shocked by the contact. For a male to grab another male by the horns was so far beyond the bounds of propriety that it shocked him silent. The strength went out of his limbs. He looked back at Havitharon, eyes moving without turning his head. The other man looked as baffled as he did. "What is he saying?" he asked shakily.

Havi shook his head. "He's asking how to help you."

"Help?" the phage glanced uncomfortably at the man holding his horn, at the state of their bodies pressed together. "What? Why? Anyway, he cannot help."

"He doesn't know that."

The phage's nerve endings squirmed inside of him. Laurius's persistent grip was more unsettling the longer it continued. "Let go," he growled, pressing his palm to the man's forehead weakly.