Heirot

*I'm here. You're safe,* he answered her, his presence less clear than it usually was. He sounded confused, and then alarmed. *You did WHAT?* He demanded of the man still holding him.

Artisuren glanced up at Laurius's boast. He looked weary, and his eyes were swollen from crying earlier. Rage simmered off him, but he was too sore to move.

*Tenara,* Havi asked with dread piling up inside him. He couldn't see, and he'd been too preoccupied to notice. *The other Ivis... How does he look to you?*

Tenara glanced at the other Ivis and her heart ached for him. He seems… upset or tired. Something twisted in her belly. I think he may have been… crying.

Tenara turned a hateful glare on Laurius. “What did you do to him?”

“What you said. You said he needed a mate. His had abandoned him. I tamed him.”

Tenara shook her head. Everything was a bit fuzzy. She couldn’t quite remember the conversation. “I said he needed his mate. He was ill without her.”

“Well, he couldn’t have her. Obviously, she can’t be here in this world. I stepped up to fill in for her.”

Tenara glanced at the sword he held and then back at Artisuren. She felt the panic again. The ache of hurt splintered in her heart. “Did you rape him?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. She wanted to fling herself out the window, to run away before he spilled the truth. She didn’t want to need answers from a man who would do such a thing.

“No!” Laurius said, looking green. “I asked him… I—“ He turned his gaze on Artisuren. “I made sure he was aware of what was happening.”

Tenara’s eyes burned. “Did you want it?” Tenara asked Artisuren.

“You were there! You gave me the ability to speak to him. He understood what I was saying and—“

Tenara frowned. She didn’t remember doing anything to help them communicate. She didn’t remember anything after Artisuren snatched out of her hand.

*Havi, I don’t know what to do…*

Havi wished he had form so he could see the situation better. *I told you to give him simple commands!
SIMPLE!*

Artisuren looked mystified by the whole argument. Why was the Yurivis stranger so upset? Had she planned to tame him herself?

“They were simple!” Laurius shouted at the sword, holding it out to look at. He felt like a madman yelling at the thing. “I didn’t command him to let me fuck him!”

Tenara felt dizzy. “Did you want him to touch you?” she asked Artisuren again. Then, she thought she should reword the question, because of what she’d gathered from Havitharon’s tales. Men had little choice in sex. Artisuren probably thought he didn’t have one in this case either. Artisuren may have misread Laurius’s questions, may have thought he had no choice but to say yes. “Did you like him touching you?” she asked instead.

Artisuren shifted uncomfortably under the female's scrutiny. She asked the strangest questions. Maybe she was curious because they were both males? The look on Laurius's face was even more confusing. Despite seemingly having the time of his life earlier, the man looked ill discussing it now. Maybe he had lost interest? Or he was intimidated by the Yurivis? Would he hand him over to her if she ordered him? A male had no claim over an Ivis in the first place.

But it wasn't as if he could be bonded again. No female would want another Yurivis' bond-broken throwaways. As much as he hated it, if this man discarded him too, he would be dead soon. The uncertainty tugged at his chest.

So what was he to say? Did he like that man touching him? He was screwed either way. "It was a freak occurrence. Who the hell cares what it felt like. All of you can fuck off."

Tenara frowned. She couldn’t tell what his answer meant.

“Princess,” Laurius said. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to take advantage of him. I established an understanding based on the limited knowledge you provided. If my actions were unwanted…” Laurius was turning more pale and sick-looking by the second. He seemed to be going over the event again in his head, turning it over and over. “I don’t force myself on people.”

Tenara flinched at his sentence, tearing her watchful gaze from Artisuren. “He isn’t like us. He has no clear basis for making a decision on consent. Where he comes from men are slaves. They are subjugated. They are not free to love or experience pleasure. He didn’t know the choice he was making or if he had one!”

“And your Havitharon? You fucked him, right? That’s how you know what a rut was. Did he understand what you gave him? Or was it the magic? The biology. Did he have the basis for a clear choice?”

Tenara’s heart raced. She thought of all the times her magic, blissful and maddening, overwhelmed them both, and how, each time, she feared this very thing. And her magic… it had made Artisuren corporeal, had inflicted all the overwhelming desires she and Havi experienced, made worst by his withdrawal or rut or whatever it had been. Of course he’d given in to Laurius. This was her fault.

“It’s different,” she croaked out.

“Is it? Was it? Are you certain?”

She hesitated.

*Laurius, enough," Havi said. *Return me to her.*

Artisuren looked angry now, but not at Laurius. "Is that what he told you? That we are slaves? I am no slave! Just because Thvoros's mind is broken and refuses to serve doesn't mean it is unnatural. The bond protects our minds and fulfills our purpose. I have always served my Yurivis freely. We are born to serve. Without it, we are broken! Nothing!"

He stopped, realizing too late that his voice was shaking. He was broken now, too. Suddenly, being anywhere near a Yurivis was more than he could handle.

Laurius saw the hurt in Tenara’s eyes and felt it like a knife in his already aching chest. He glanced at the sword as Havitharon spoke, and then gently passed it to her. “Take him,” he said softly. “He is asking for you.”

Tenara blinked the tears from her eyes and took the sword slowly, pulling it to her like a blanket. She clutched it, wishing more than anything in the world he was physically before her, able to pull her into his arms. She took a shaking breath and slipped Havitharon back into the scabbard at her hip. She kept her hand on him, desperately wanting contact.

As for Artisuren, she couldn’t take what he said as truth. It felt like the ramblings of a brainwashed person. Of course he thought those things, they were drilled into him as a child.

“I should go,” she said. “You two have to talk about this amongst yourselves.”

“We should all talk this through…”

“Artisuren is your responsibility. You dragged him out of his world. You killed people to trap him—not thinking of how incompatible his soul would be to steel.” Her anger became a blaze. “Then, you sold your secret to Arken without knowing they might slaughter someone for a weapon that would melt to ash at the changing of a season!”

Laurius bristled. “You survived. I didn’t tell them to choose you! I’m sorry they almost killed you, but it’s not my fault you nearly died!”

“Do you think death is all they offered?” Tenara ground her teeth together, starting to shake and wondered if she looked as broken as Artisuren. “Our arrangement still stands, but I have to go. It’s past evening. I did t make it to dinner. Unless you want a worried vampire at your door who kills first and then asks questions of your corpse.”

Artisuren held back near the corner of the room as the two argued. His confusion had temporarily drowned out his anger. He no longer had any idea what these people wanted with him.
"What does she mean? What arrangement?" he demanded when the Yurivis had left and the door was closed. It was no way to speak to one's Master, but the instincts that bound him to honor his Yurivis didn't really apply with a male, and there was no way an Ivis could truly master him. No matter how real it had felt, before... Perhaps he was so maddened by the pain that his desperation had fooled him.

Laurius hesitantly met Artisuren’s gaze. He was worried about what he would find there. Had he misread things? Had he done something so terrible? He felt ill. He hadn’t eaten dinner and now no longer had the appetite for it.

He cleared his throat. “Ugh, we agreed on a mutual exchange of information. I help her understand how she lived through Arken’s botched attempt to make a soul sword and she will help me understand the full potential of the—your—dagger.”

Once his eyes landed on Artisuren, they didn’t stray. There was sympathy. He had taken Artisuren’s comments as bravado, playing hard to get. And, perhaps, part of Laurius viewed him as a thing—as a weapon he forged—and not a person.

“I should have asked her how long this lasts,” he said, taking in Artisuren’s corporeal form. He mulled the words floating around in his mouth. He rarely apologized. Things were usually not his fault, you see. He was methodical. Calculated. Precise.

This, though, felt like his fault—like a wrong calculation.

—-

Tenara knew how to sneak into the palace. She had come and gone so often when visiting Rami, she knew how to do it like she knew her language or the worry lines around her mother’s eyes.

But sneaking into the palace was a lot easier when she was disguised.

It was well into the street outside Laurius’s hotel that she realized she had no cloak and she’d forgotten her shoes. She was too upset to notice either, and too upset to go back once she had, so she’d fled for home without. She was not inconspicuous, her features making her stick out like a sore thumb, and she could only imagine the types of rumors that would fill the market tomorrow.

But no one bothered her, and she found her way back to the hidden path winding its way through the palace walls to her room.

It was dark, and quiet. She took the sword from hip and placed it on her bed, wanting desperately to call Havitharon back from his prison of steel, but she’d only just recovered (and barely) from the other Ivis.

But she needed him. She needed him.
Tenara lay down in the dark of her room, along the cold steel, and traced it with her fingers.

Was any of it real? This feeling? This need? Or was it her magic that had turned them from enemies to allies to lovers?

Did he need her like she needed him?

Would he be as broken as Artisuren without the pull of her power?

Finally, she made up her mind and ran her finger along the blade, using the already ruined hand, and cut. Her power bloomed, red light burning like torches in her eyes. Pleasure was a scalding touch, enough to drag a sharp gasp from her lips. She winced her eyes shut, trying desperately not to feel the ache of want. Maybe if she didn’t feel she wouldn’t—but Tenara had already tried this. While they lived in the cabin briefly, she had tried so hard not to let this blissful madness pour into him too and it was impossible. Seemed impossible.

She huffed as he took form and rolled onto her back and clenched her firsts to her chest and tried to drown out the want of his touch, the ache of longing, the fire coiled in her center begging for release. “I’m sorry,” she said to him. “I’m sorry it’s this way.”

Havi's senses groggily came back online. Strength was gradually pouring back into him. He reached out with his thoughts for her, and then as they returned to him, his other senses sought her as well, like a flower turning toward the sun. Heat licked up his legs, and the smell of her brought him to aching attention.

"I'm sorry," she was saying, "I'm sorry it's this way."

He opened his eyes and, finding himself beside her in the bed, reached out to stroke the silhouette of her cheek. His transparent fingers literally took form as he watched, shifting from a translucent glow to a solid shadow against the moonlight pouring in from the window. "Sorry?" he murmured. He tilted his chin down to pool his face in her silver hair. "No. Never sorry." His body rolled very slightly against her, his hips pressing his interest along her stomach. "Look. Every part of you calls to me. Neither of us planned it. It's not evil or good. It simply is."

___________

Artisuren tilted his head and tried to understand. An exchange of information. This man was so interested in the dagger. He wondered why.

"What kind of full potential? Why did you create that stupid thing in the first place? What is it supposed to do?" He narrowed his eyes at the cloudy-looking stones on the dagger's hilt. They mirrored the exhaustion he was feeling, but he hadn't put that fully together yet. "Seems like you need this thing a lot. Such a shame, it's broken," he sneered.

The touch of his fingers along her cheek might as well have been a graze along the heat between her legs. She shivered, lips parting with a shaky breath in.

“Every part of you calls to me…”

She tilted her face towards him, pressed her forehead to his.

“It’s not evil or good. It simply is.”

She nodded, relishing the feel of his strong body pressed along hers, the weight of his need pinched between them. She fought every instinct she had to touch him and beg him for what her body screamed for.

Tenara curled her fingers against his cheek and tilted her face. She kissed him, tenderness and warmth that melded into heat and passion, and—before she knew it—she’d nipped his bottom lip with the dull edge of her teeth, and one of her hands was tugging her dress up, and her leg was curling over his hip.

Tears burned her eyes and she fought the feeling of shame trying so hard to ruin what she’d once seen as beautiful.

It’s not evil or good. It simply is.

It simply is.

“Please,” she murmured against his mouth, nipping at him again. “Please. Before…” Before the dizziness and the blood and the exhaustion.

——

Laurius frowned at the dagger, and hated the sneer Artisuren had for him. “This is your body now, Artisuren. If it crumbles, if it is broken, so are you…” He brushed it gently with his hand. “But I can fix you. I can make you feel better.” A twinge of longing went through him along with regret. The words were very similar to the ones he’d used to convince Artisuren to let him…

“I liked being with you,” he said. “I thought you liked being with me, in your own complicated way. I am…” He recoiled at the idea of an apology. “I will make you beg me for it next time. That way I know for certain, it is—that I am—what you want.”

Havi leaned in close, feeling her request like it was a caress. "Perhaps I should just use my mouth," he said. The thought sent a spasm of pleasure through the organ she was practically climbing onto. "Ah," he grunted as she brushed him.

______________

Artisuren let out a short bark of a laugh. "As if I would ever beg for your ugly, pointlessly huge dick." He stared at the dagger. As crazy as the man sounded, what he said lined up with everything that had happened that day. Until today, the dagger had never had so much as a scratch on it. But this afternoon, he'd distinctly felt it when his connection to his Yurivis snapped, and the weapon had nearly melted itself as a result. Then, when Laurius dropped it in the tub.... He shook his head to avoid thinking about those harrowing hours of drowning and burning. "Just... stay on that side of the room." He pulled the chair to the corner and sat - gingerly - down on it, crossing his arms.

Tenara whimpered at the thought, torn between wanting that and wanting all of him. But she felt the hardness pressed between them, felt it spasm, and her mouth went dry. She shook her head, rolling her brow against his. “I want your pleasure,” she whispered, shifting her hips and grinding against him. The thin silk of her panties were slick against his trousers. “I want your pleasure—your fire spilling into me. I want to wake with you still buried, still one with me. Be one with me, Havi. Be mine. Let me be yours.”

She ignored the ache tugging at the back of her mind. Bliss would wipe it away, she told herself.

——

Laurius grinned, slipping a hand into his trousers. “Pointlessly huge, huh?” He blushed a little and settled onto the bed, folding his arms behind his head. After a long bought of silence he sighed, “Just my fingers for now, then.”

He couldn’t tell if he was trying to provoke Artisuren or ease the disturbing guilt still worming through his chest.

He rolled over onto his side. He wasn’t sleepy, but he felt the need to give Artisuren space. Instead, he stared at the dagger and thought about how he could go about repairing it.

Havi huffed needfully and rolled over her. The way she was talking to him... "If I were in rut, words like that would run dangerously close to a bonding vow," he moaned. His hand found hers and guided it so the back of her fingers brushed over his fly. "Do you feel it? I'm twitching just hearing them. See?" His thick length twitched restlessly as he began undoing his fly. When he had freed himself, he touched the soaked spot on her panties, gliding his fingers up and down outside the fabric. His mouth closed wetly over her nipple, through her shirt, and sucked hard.