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His dark eyes bored into hers.
It was striking—the grey was darker, like a storm, swirling clouds of lust and desire. His hands gripped her face, kissing her gentler now, softer like she was something precious to him.
“I’ll leave my guards outside the door until I return,” he whispered breathlessly into her mouth.
“I’ll be waiting,” she replied, the longing for him pulling at her to draw him to her again.
He walked away and just as she tried to calm her breathing, he grabbed her face again and kissed her. He kissed her desperately, passion fuelling the heat in her stomach, pulsing lower again. His mouth seemed familiar to her lips like he had kissed her before. A soft groan pushed into her mouth as he forced himself to pull away. He trailed his hand over her face before he left and Alina felt her heart pounding in her chest.
After she was alone in the war room, she thought back to the demonstration. How proud he was of her. How powerful she felt when she stood there and drew the sun to her into that closed space. The way he had looked at her then. All her life, she had never felt like she was special. When she was at the orphanage and the army, Alina was always made fun of. Laughed at and called “stick” by Mal’s friends. She never felt like she mattered.
Now, being here, being in his arms, being seen by him.
She truly felt like she belonged. She had a purpose now. She was the Sun Summoner. A woman of power, who had agency and who was going to take down the Fold. She couldn’t have done this without his guiding hand, without his words of encouragement, without his belief in her.
It didn’t take long for him to come back.
“There you are,” he said as he came to circle her in his arms again.
She reached up to grip at his hair. She wanted him closer and closer still. The fumbles in the camp tent when she was with the First Army, the brushes with danger of being caught, the touches she did to herself in the dark was nothing compared to this. The feel of his body on hers. The way he licked into her mouth. The way he moaned her name.
“Please,” she murmured into his mouth, voice high and desperate, “I want this.”
The Darkling smiled. She didn’t know how she knew this but she suspected that he did not smile often. Except when he was with her. He moved away only to take her hand and lead her into his bed chambers. She had only been to his bedroom once when she was putting on his kefta for him, so he allowed her to dress him. It had been intimate, bringing heat into her cheeks again at the remembrance of the act. Their first kiss was shared just outside it when he told her she was important and that she could truly make a difference. She finally let herself look at his room. Dark bed sheets and blankets tucked neatly into the four poster frame. Brass and painted gold. Always black and gold. The mirror adjacent was also lined in gold brass and the vanity told of his particular grooming methods. She wanted to know what his routine was in the morning, as she longed to know how he took his tea.
They had never dined together but now she wanted to have mornings with him. Evenings too. Late nights whispering and kissing in the dark. Alina closed her eyes to imagine it. Just for a moment she let herself be happy. She pushed all her thoughts of Ravka and being a Sun Summoner out of her mind. The Fold and their plans could wait an evening while she learned the feeling of his body on hers. She wanted to trace his skin like the line of her pencil outlining the countries and borders on a map. Alina needed to know what he sounded like when he first slipped inside her. To hold him close and breathe into his mouth. Was this what it felt like to be truly desired?
The Darkling kissed her shoulder as he began peeling off the layers of her kefta . He unbuttoned each button sensually slow and kissed every inch of skin that was exposed. She shivered as his lips met with her warm goose-pimpled flesh. Once she was just in her chemise, a slip that certainly left nothing to the imagination, her kefta folded neatly on the bench sat in front of the vanity. He paused to look at her and she felt flushed under his intense dark gaze. His tongue came to lick his lips, the barely contained lust warming his usually cold, slanted eyes. Alina’s lips parted and she lifted the chemise herself and pulled it off her body. It dropped to the floor and she stood naked before him. Her nipples pebbled in the cold air of the room and she saw his jaw clench.
“Come here,” she whispered. He was too far away.
You can have this. All of it. You’re allowed to want. To give in to your desires.
At the thought, she wasn’t sure if she was thinking of saying it to him or to herself. Either way she knew they both needed this. They had been made for this. She was certain of it now as he drew his lips to mouth at her breasts. She gasped at the first contact of his mouth closing around her nipple, the wet glide of his tongue around the sensitive nub. He suckled softly and teased her. She pushed into him and moaned, the need racking through her with heat into her core that was slicking down her thighs.
“Please, just…” she whimpered.
It was like she had never been touched before. Nothing compared to him.
He was older and stronger, wiser and nurturing. A mentor. A guardian. A friend. A lover.
He was everything.
He hushed her and slipped his hands around her thighs as he picked her up so easily and placed her onto his large bed. She fell back and her legs trembled as he drew them apart. His head descended between the space and her knees hooked over his shoulders.
“Just close your eyes. I’m here. Nothing else matters,” he said before he latched onto her cunt.
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Breakfast was with the other Summoners and Grisha as usual. Except that after the presentation of her power, everyone seemed to be whispering about her. She suspected as much that things would change now that they knew and truly believed that she had come to save them. Genya had told her as she came into her own bedroom this morning, embarrassed that she was in a rumpled kefta , hair a complete mess. Her friend had come to see if she was okay since she was missing after the presentation and once her eyes fell on Alina walking in, she knew.
Genya had warned her when she felt the softness of her kefta ….his kefta … his colours that she should be careful of powerful men. She didn't want to pry but she had seen the far off look in her eyes, the tension in his posture. Genya said nothing as she took it upon herself to make sure Alina was washed and dressed. When the Tailor brushed her fingers over the bruises and bites that littered her neck, her lips pressed into a line as she tailored them away.
Alina couldn't come to regret the events that led to last night. Her body was sated and her heart was full with the possibility of a shared romance between her and the Darkling. Genya had said that people had seen the way he looked at her, the way he doted and gave her flowers as a gift. Everyone had seen that she had walked off with him. People would talk. The red head still wanted her to be careful.
As she sat eating her porridge with honey, she overheard her name being whispered. She was the Darkling’s favourite. She would have been bothered by that before, but after last night she felt secure in her feelings, in his. Last night had changed everything. Gossip would spread as soon as he made it known that they were a couple. She assumed that was where their relationship was headed. She busied herself while eating with dreams of them wearing their black keftas and taking down the Fold together. Settling into his bedroom, living with him. Maybe being a part of their plans when they went to war against Fjerda. She could be made a part of it all. She could actually help Ravka like he said he wanted to.
She made her way down the corridors after breakfast and was caught in strong arms, plastered against a wall. Before she could summon to get away, dark tendrils moved around her and she calmed. The Darkling. She looked up at him with wide eyes and she opened her mouth to speak, but his lips were already on hers, tongue invading her mouth. She moaned and yanked at his hair. His hair was silky smooth and her body remembered how it felt in his hands when he had eaten her out. Her body warmed at his touch on his waist, his kisses desperate. He groaned as he tasted her, eager and dizzy himself.
“The problem,” he panted, “ with wanting..,” he kissed her again, “...is that I can’t seem to stop.”
She smiled into the kiss and pulled him closer. They could be caught here and that thrilled her even more. That he wanted her so badly he had to kiss her right here and now. She wondered what else he’d do…She wondered if his leg would slip between hers and she could grind….
“Come ride with me today,” he asked her, massaging at the flesh around her hip bones.
“And what shall you do to me out alone in the fields?”
“Whatever I want.” His words held a darkness, an edge and it made her shiver in a way she didn’t yet understand.
She knew he was powerful. She had seen first hand his use of the Cut.
He could kill her if he wanted. And Alina should have been scared of that.
She wasn’t.
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The dangers of being alone with him never occurred to her. Not when she saw him use the Cut. Not when she was given the option of using his colours that signified that she stood with him despite the whispering in the halls that he frightened everyone and was fearsome. Not when he had clouded the room in shadow. Alina thought that was what drew her to him—the way his darkness and her light seemed to eclipse.
Somewhere inside her was a cord. A cord she had tugged on but found not what was on the other end. As she rode alongside the Darkling she knew it led to him. That she had been made for this. For power. For greatness. For his love. He seemed so lonely and scared that evening she came to him. He was fighting some kind of inner battle. She wanted to soothe his wounds and let him kiss her own scars in turn.
She was free, arms lifted up, when her white horse galloped into the distance to the broken down well that he loved to frequent. When they arrived he did what he always did. He tossed a coin in the fountain. She recalled what he had said. That he could be anyone else.
She had wished before that she could be anyone else. Accepting she was a Sun Summoner, that she had to leave what she knew, was something she had taken to be a burden at first. That it had to be someone else. That there was no way she could do this. She used to believe that she had to fit in and be quiet. Not draw attention to herself, make herself small.
It was why she had donned the blue kefta of the Ethearaki. It was better to hide than to be seen.
The Darkling had taught her that her power should not be hidden. That this was a gift. That she did not have to hide what was special about her. And she was special in her eyes.
I’ve been waiting a long time for you
Something about him saying that had struck her which was why she had to leave. Something old and powerful caught a hold of her. Mirrored her. Her powers called to his.
So when she looked to him by the well now, the tale of how the Fold was created etched into the side, she asked him.
“What are you wishing for?”
He blinked and turned to her. The coin landed with a soft splash in the water.
“Safety for all Grisha.” His eyes met hers. “And you…”
“Me?” she teased, but her chest was tight.
“For you to love me,” he breathed his confession and suddenly he was right beside her.
“I brought you here to tell you that there is no one like us. That there never will be…” His eyes trailed over her face like he was awaiting rejection. “And it is because I love you that I need to tell you the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Of who I am. I have lied to everyone. I am not just the Darkling of this time. I am the Darkling of old and of all the ones I have called ancestors. I am the only male Shadow Summoner. Which means I was the one that created the Fold.”
He paused to give her time to take it in. Her heart beat louder in her ears and she curled her hands into first, the power within her thrumming at his confession.
“You’re…the Black Heretic…”
He nodded, still searching her eyes. She had not moved from him yet.
“Why? Why did you create the Fold?”
His lips pressed into a thin line. “I thought I could use it to create an army to overthrow the monarch that sent Grisha to slaughter. It did not work out as I intended. I could not contain the power within me and it resulted in the creation of the Fold. I did not intend for it to be the blight it has become.”
He was being honest and what more could she ask of him. She could not change who he was, neither could he. He wanted to be someone else and looking at him now, open and vulnerable, asking her to love him, to love him even now that he revealed who he was.
“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered, throat tight.
“And how do you feel now? About me?”
Alina stared at her palms. He couldn’t take back the mistakes he had made any more than she could purge this power from her body. It was within them. And she knew that it had taken a lot for him to admit this to her. She knew that no one else knew.
“I’m not sure. Something tells me to trust you and I’m not sure if I should listen to that.”
“Our powers are unique and that’s what makes us equal, Alina.”
“You said that you’re the only male Shadow Summoner. Are you the only one?”
“No, my mother was the first.”
“Who is your mother?”
“Baghra.”
She snorted. “Well, that surprises me.”
“Why?”
“She….you seem so…when you….” She struggled to find the right words. “She’s cruel and when you’re with me you’re so…”
“I’m only like this when I’m with you.”
“She hurt you, didn’t she?”
“She did what she had to to teach me.”
It was then that she could see the suffering of the wounded boy again. She reached for him and cupped his face. He leaned into her touch, hope shining in his eyes.
“Like calls to like,” he said.
They were stronger together. They had always been. He was standing in front of her asking her to see him and do this with him. To help him to safeguard all Grisha. To be with him.
“Alina?”
“Yes?”
“Can you do something for me?”
“What is it?”
“Can you have my name?”
Alina felt warmth spread through her.
“I want you to have it. My true name. My first name. Will you have it?”
She closed her eyes. “Yes.”
“Aleksander.” She opened her eyes again to find him staring at her with an intensity that took her breath away. “Say it, please.”
“Aleksander,” she said, sure and true.
My Aleksander.
No matter what happened now, whether their ideals and values would cause a rift between them, whether they were doomed by the narrative of the story they were meant to tell, she had him. And he had her.
“I will keep it safe,” she promised and drew his head into her chest to hold him.