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The Warrior of Light prowled after Ser Aymeric de Borel into his office. Her ears still rang with the clash of steel as he challenged Simeonard in the Vault alone despite being stabbed in the streets a few days prior. She watched him deflate into his chair, unawares, not with pity, but with anger. One hand drifted to her weapon.
"Is it your intent to follow Haurchefaunt, Ysale, and your dear Estinien to the grave? Say the word if so, that I may spare us both the waiting."
Aymeric started upright so fast that he winced and clutched at his midriff.
"My friend. I did not see you enter," he said, voice a strained approximation of his usual calm.
"Then you are in worse condition than even I thought."
"I have seen spryer days, mayhaps, but all's well that ends well, is it not?"
The Warrior of Light was slamming her fist onto his desk before she realised she'd crossed the room. "And when it does not end well? What business have you, to send me scurrying after refugees while you do solo combat with the traitors' champion?"
A confusion of guilt and endearment swarmed his blue gaze. "Of the two of us, I am infinitely more replaceable."
He had her there, distasteful as it was. She glared at him across the desk for daring to be at eye-height, even sitting. He still wore that tenderness in his expression that, combined with the single candle that had not yet burnt out, and her leftover adrenaline, was giving her an idea of the one course of action that might settle her nerves.
"Show me," she demanded.
"Show you- ?"
"Your wounds. Clearly, you cannot be trusted to judge their severity yourself."
Aymeric's brows lifted in the very picture of a scandalised gentleman. It awakened the first flames of hunger within her. "I assure you, there is no need. House Borel's healer has attended to me quite well."
"Since your heroic duel?"
"There has not been a moment to spare, but I will call upon him ere I retire."
"That is far from satisfactory."
"My friend-"
"Ever do you name me so, and yet, you would deny me this friendliest of concerns?" She leaned forward across the desk. "Show me."
He was caught like a worm on a hook. Alarm, guilt, and humiliation all took their turn to march across his fine features and she was a hair's breadth from relenting when his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Friendly concern, is it?"
She only smiled, wide and wolfish, and revelled in his heavy swallow. Finally, he saw the game. Now, he had only to decide whether to take his turn or bow out.
Aymeric rose with a deep breath and began unbuckling his sash and pauldrons. The Warrior of Light slipped around to his side of the desk to perch upon it. He glanced at her, wary, and his fingers were clumsy but she was not in the business of making things easier on him. Not when she could lean back on her hands and enjoy the unravelling. He placed the golden parts of his attire upon the desk beside her and folded the blue beneath them, seeming younger with every article he removed. Last, came the skin-tight black underlayer, which lifted locks of his dark hair out of place with it when he peeled it off over his head. She let her gaze rove over his ridiculously elongated torso, enjoying the heat it brought to her stomach. His bare arms prickled with gooseflesh. He stared ahead, cheeks pink in the low light.
"Pray, give me your diagnosis." His voice was admirably wry.
Her eyes dropped to the offending wrap of bandages at his abdomen at last. Some red had spotted through, but not enough for alarm. Real relief flooded her and she moved closer, unthinking, to lay the backs of her knuckles against it. The muscles there clenched and he sucked in a breath.
"You ought to thank your Fury for having pity on her brave knight," she said, hearing him scoff above her head until she added, "And his long-suffering Warrior of Light."
Aymeric's hands came to circle her wrist, unbearably gentle. She scowled and pushed her knuckles into his wound, just a little.
His grasp on her wrist went tight as he grunted. "Is this the hand of a friend?"
"Sit," she commanded, pushing him so that the backs of his calves hit his stupid, gilded chair, "And I will show you exactly what hands these are."
Aymeric sat down heavily, eyes wide, and hopeful in a way almost too pretty to look at. She climbed into his lap and raked her hand down past the bandages into his trousers to take hold of him with no care for finesse. The knee-guards of his sabatons dug into her arse and tail. Good. His head tipped heavensward and a rough sigh escaped him. She bit at the thin skin of his stretched neck. She swore she could feel the blood pump through him. Alive, alive.
"Pray tell me you locked the door."
She only laughed and squeezed, slowly, until he writhed. It wasn't her finest work, but he didn't voice any complaints.
"Think of this," she murmured into his throat, "The next time an opportunity to risk your life arises."
He made a helpless noise, glanced down at her, then away. "Duty- "
The Warrior of Light growled and dragged his face back to hers by the chin. She trailed a thumb over his thin, fine lips. Her hand stilled below, but he breathed as fast as ever.
"I tire of loss," she hissed.
There was pity in his open gaze, and understanding, and perhaps a sliver of reproach. What she asked, neither of them could promise.
"I will think of you," he said, beneath the pressure of her thumb. It would have to do. "Will you do me the same courtesy?"
After a long moment, she nodded, then, suddenly uncomfortable, pushed her thumb into his mouth. He caught it between his teeth with a faint smile, ungentle for once, and she wrenched his jaw down to replace her thumb with her mouth, kissing him more forcefully than she'd intended. She had only a split-second's guilt before he strained up against her with a moan. His hands flit over her armour with a new frustration that sent thrills through her. She batted them away and guided him further out of his trousers before wriggling out of her own undergarments. When she looked back up, fate awarded her a glimpse of his reddened, sweat-gleamed chest and dark, wanting eyes before the sole candle burned into nothing. Good, she thought again. Darkness was its own armour.
"This seems hardly fair," he rasped tugging at her chest plate when she lowered herself back into his lap.
She took pleasure in the hitch of his breath when she pressed her cold, pointed metal to his bare skin.
"It is more than you deserve, you insufferably…"
She lost the rest of her barb in a shared groan as she slotted him inside of her. A pair of long, thin arms closed about her waist to anchor her as he thrust up. She found his hair in the dark with one clawed hand and pushed it out of his face to kiss whatever part she landed on.
"There," she said, like a challenge, "I want all - all you can give."
"You shall have it," he panted.
Finally, she let herself over to him, thinking guiltily of his wounds when her hand brushed up against the bandages. She could only hope that the position she had maneuvered them into would cause him no more stress than his duel. Her peak took her by surprise, making her clench and bite down on the ear she had been delighted to discover was as sensitive as the rumours whispered. He made a noise that was almost a whine and curled forward into her chest in a manner so defenseless it stole her breath, shuddering out his own release moments later.
Their laboured breaths suddenly seemed abrasively loud. She stood on uncertain legs and he caught her hand. Before she could quip about another round, chaste lips fell upon her palm. The sheer intimacy made mockery of a chivalrous knight's kiss to his lady's hand. Her throat clogged as she pulled away.
"I - have I hurt you?" She asked the night.
He gave a wry and wrung-out laugh that sounded happier than she'd dared hope. "No more than you have helped. Thankfully, any exertion may be safely blamed on the day's excitement when I call upon my family's healer."
They dressed in silence and in darkness; to light a candle would have been reentry to a world of decency and duty. It was Aymeric who finally did so.
"Forgive me, but I've work here that cannot suffer postponement," he said quietly. His hair still stood half-on-end but she did not warn him. She allowed herself the selfishness of making him bear this small mark of her deeds.
"Of course you do," she sighed and dipped into an elaborate, thoroughly incorrect curtsey. He was fighting back a smile when she rose. "I expect I shall see you on the morrow, my lord."
Aymeric inclined his head, sidestepping the buffer she threw between them, "On the morrow, my friend."