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It was strange, having a moment to themselves in the midst of a world-ending apocalypse, but that's exactly where Rook found herself, arm in arm with Emmrich as they crossed through the Eluvian into the Necropolis. It was the night before Satinalia and Emmrich had asked if she wanted to spend the holiday with him.
Rather than heading into the same central chamber as they usually would to meet with Myrna and Vorgoth, Emmrich led her up to the higher levels, where the dead chill was less biting, to the living quarters the Senior Necromancers were allotted.
Rook had never seen Emmrich's apartment, his real home instead of their temporary lodgings in the Fade. It was… Well, it was Nevarran. Antique sculptures of skeletal motifs decorated the space, along with what were probably the actual skulls of former friends and colleagues since passed on. Rook tried not to think about that too hard.
The room's colors were dark yet inviting, close and cozy. It was chilly though. The fireplace looked like it hadn't been lit in ages, which she supposed it hadn't been. Had it really been months since he had joined their team?
Had it only been mere months since he had entered her life?
"Oh dear, the chill does set in more deeply this time of year. A moment, Darling, and I shall get a fire started," Emmrich said after they had removed their footwear, squeezing her hand before heading to fireplace. As he bent over to collect some of the wood kept nearby, Rook allowed herself a moment to appreciate the way his pants hugged the curve of his ass.
He did have a such a nice ass.
The gossamer glow of magic was quickly followed by the popping and crackling of logs as they were set alight, the flames flickering a mesmerizing green for a brief moment before a less magical and more mundane orange and red hue overtook it.
"Your place is nice, Emmrich," Rook said when Emmrich returned to her side, looking around now that there was more illumination. The light of the fire had softened the sepulchural edge to the room, brought out the more vibrant colors in the furniture and warmed the area both figuratively as well as literally.
"Yes, being a senior Mortalitasi and tenured professor does come with certain benefits," he mused as he helped her out of her jacket. He hung it, and his own, onto an ornately carved coat rack, before leading her to a plush looking love seat. "Sit, my dear, and I shall ready our dinner."
Emmrich hurried over to the small kitchen area, bringing the bag they had brought with them. Lucanis had been oh so kind as to pack them food before they left, as well as a bottle of wine.
"The finest vintage for the holiday," he'd said with a wink, sliding the bottle into the bag along with the delightful smelling risotto he'd made and a few slices of cake for dessert.
Emmrich, ever the gentleman, made sure to open the wine first, pouring generous glasses for both of them and handing one to her. She took a sip and sighed in Contentment at the rich, bold flavor. Lucanis did know good wine.
As Emmrich set about heating up their food and plating it out, Rook took a moment to allow her thoughts to wander. It was somehow shockingly easy to imagine this as a common, domestic act: her sweet necromancer preparing food at the end of the day, both of them sipping wine and sharing stories of their days. Something that didn't revolve around the world ending, fighting the Blight, or battling ancient gods. Something normal, like rowdy students and grading papers, goings on in the Necropolis, another colleague's final rites.
She had never imagined it before, a life. Something like this: a sense of domesticity, a shared life and love.
Love.
It had to be too soon for that, she wasn't even sure she'd ever felt such a thing in her life. But as she watched Emmrich set his small table with plates and silverware, lighting small candles and calling her over to eat, she couldn't deny the burgeoning swell in her heart.
The risotto—vegetarian, of course—that Lucanis had sent them with was divine, and the wine flowed plentifully enough with the over dinner conversation. It was like they were back in the Memorial Garden on that first dinner date, but this was easier, more comfortable and familiar. They knew each other better now.
Much better, Rook thought with a tinge of warmth, thinking of their post bath foray and the subsequent couplings after that. A trend she was sure would continue tonight.
Once dinner was finished—both plates empty and their glasses topped with the last of the wine—Emmrich cleared the table and pulled her back to the love seat, folding his long body into a seat next to her.
"I have something for you, Dearest. A gift, to match your beauty," Emmrich said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a thin box.
"Well, color me intrigued," she joked, taking it gently from his grip. Inside, on soft, crushed velvet, lay a necklace. On a thin silver chain hung a silver griffon, with eyes of sapphires, sat rampant, more jewels clutched in its talons.
It was beautiful. The details were exquisite, the craftsmanship incredible. It was possibly the nicest thing she'd ever owned. Definitely the most expensive.
"Oh, Emmrich, it's beautiful," she gasped, running a finger down the etched feathers on its wings. "This must have cost a fortune. You didn't have to go to the trouble, or the cost."
"My dear, I would lavish upon you all the finery the world has to offer if it would bring you happiness. But I know you wouldn't accept it, so at least let me give you this one gift."
"I'm surprised it's not gold."
"Ah, well. Silver seemed a more appropriate color for the motif. As did the sapphires."
Blinking away the beginnings of tears, Rook threw her arms around him, lavishing kisses upon his cheeks.
"Thank you, Emmrich. I love it!"
"May I help you put it on?"
She nodded and he picked up the chain, held delicately in his fingers as he laid the griffon upon her sternum, fastening the chain with ease. It lay next to her amulet, her vial of darkspawn blood from her Joining.
"You wear it so well, my dear. I am glad that you like it," he said as he regarded her after, satisfaction written into his small smile.
"It seems a bit underwhelming after this, but I have something for you as well," she said, reaching for the small, wrapped parcel in her pocket. Handing it to him, she shyly tucked a strand of hair behind a pointed ear as she watched him open it.
"Oh, Rook," he said, his voice full of wonder and eyes growing shiny. Carefully he lifted the contents from the box; it was a locket, a small golden thing with a skull engraved on the front. As he opened it, a twisted lock of hair nearly fell out, but he caught it in time.
"I asked about Nevarran customs and gifts. Vorgoth was quite helpful with suggestions," she began, twittering nervously. It had cost her a pretty sovereign, but she had wanted to give him something important, something special. "And a Memento Mori seemed like a good gift. Something to remember me by, you know?"
His brows drew together, concern playing over his features before the wording inside the locket caught his gaze.
"To the Joining of our souls. Jin."
She blushed under his gaze and the question there.
"Jin. It's, uh, it's my name. I figured if I was going to give you something to remember me by, it should have my real name in it."
"It's a beautiful name," he breathed, finger stroking over the words, nail catching on the small loop of hair. "I shall keep it next to my heart, where it belongs. Always."
When the first tear spilled over his cheek, tracking down the sharp plane of his face, she surged forward, capturing his lips in a desperate kiss.
This beautiful, sentimental man. This silly, wonderful, incredible man.
She needed him.
She needed him like she needed air to breathe, food to eat, water to drink. He was the shelter for her battered soul and he didn't even know it.
His lips were gentle, soft and slow against hers. He tended to be hesitant at first; each kiss started like he was afraid she would fade away if he were too forceful. He needn't have been; she couldn't imagine ever leaving him. At least, not until the song in her mind overtook her very senses and led her down into the deep and dark.
She shook the thought from her mind. She wouldn't ruminate on such things when his tongue was slipping past her lips and her hand was crawling up to card through the soft hairs at the back of his neck. Desire shot through her in waves, crashing into her like ocean swells and she'd gladly drown in the taste, the smell, the feel of her necromancer against her.
As always, with him, she needed more.
Careful and cognizant to not break the joining of their mouths, she slid her legs up onto the plush love seat, then grasped his shoulders tightly as she slung a leg over his. Settling down on his lap, she pulled him closer, his chest flush against hers as she kept up the delving of his mouth, the slow dance of their tongues.
It wasn't long until the telltale prod of his arousal pressed against her core, and her mouth was full of his quiet moans. As much as she wanted to stay here, pressed against her favorite person, an undeniable heat was rising in her, a tide that crashed against her self-restraint. She wanted him, and they could do better than this couch.
Nipping at that spot behind his ear that caused the most delectable noises, she murmured, "Surely an apartment as nice as this has an equally nice bed, hm?"
His first attempt to answer her was cut off by a groan as she rolled her body against his erection, the wicked grin on her face an answer to his exasperated gaze. She let him succeed on the second attempt; let it never be said that she wasn't magnanimous in her affections.
"Indeed, Dearest. I think you'll find it quite amenable," he murmured nuzzling his face into her neck and leaving bruising kisses that only served to swell the need bubbling within.
A yelp escaped her as he palmed her ass and stood, lifting her along with surprising ease. Her legs wrapped around his thin waist for purchase, her hands clamping into his shoulders, while his only reply was a deep chuckle that went straight to her aching core.
"There's no need for concern, my dear. I've got you." His steps were confident as he walked them from the love seat and down a short hallway to a closed door. "I'll always have you," he murmured into the top of her head, so quietly that she wasn't sure she was meant to hear it.
The door offered little resistance, swinging open with only a short creak and Rook found herself placed onto a bed as plush as it was wide. Emmrich's hand danced through the air as candelabra around the room suffused with a short burst of green before flames flickered into life and illuminated the room. The waltz of his fingers had her cunt clenching in the memory of just what said digits could do and she barely cared to look around the room.
But this was his home, his life he would return to, and she was curious.
The room's decor was as expected, his quarters in the Lighthouse a seeming echo of this bed chamber. More skulls, real and carved, lined a few shelves around the room, casting eerie shadows in the flickering candlelight. Nevarran ornamentation would perhaps forever confound her, but she didn't find it quite as chilling now as she had at first. Now it was slightly… homey in a way. Maybe only because it reminded her of Emmrich. Maybe because a Warden always felt death like an old friend.
The rest of the room was fairly sparse, but cozy, though the main attraction was most assuredly the bed she found herself seated on. The blankets were soft and cozy, the mattress quite possibly one of the most luxurious she had ever felt.
"Wow, this is quite the bed. I could get lost in here," she joked, crawling to the center and splaying out.
"Yes, it is quite indulgent, isn't it?" Emmrich replied as he began removing the rings and bangles on his hand, depositing them into a bowl on the bedside table that seemed a twin of the one in his Lighthouse bedroom. "It certainly is sizeable, especially when only one is using it."
She caught the melancholy in his voice, like a boat unmoored and left to drift the currents, the brief droop in his shoulders as his eyes became unfocused for a moment while the last of his rings clattered into its bowl.
Gently, so gently, she took his now-bare hands in hers and pulled him onto the bed. His heart was fragile, like hers, after so long without love to buoy it. But he had her now, as she had him, and she wouldn't let this vast ocean of a bed be his alone any longer.
Well. As long as he'd have her. And as long as she could stay.
His lips pursed before he smiled down at her, the fondness cutting through some of the sadness. She would need to kiss the rest away herself. With a grip that was not to be resisted, she pulled his beautiful mouth to hers and did just that, trying to instill all the care she felt for him into her lips. He responded in kind, wrapping those long arms around her as he settled her back against the pillows. She wasn't short; no, she was rather tall for an elf but Emmrich was tall for a human and she felt lost in his size, wrapped in warmth and love and him.
When he nuzzled up her cheek to nip along the length of her ear, worrying at the tip, she couldn't help the moan that tore out of her. Nor could she help the next moan when his large, dextrous hand slid up her shirt and loosened her breastband before enveloping a breast and thumbing at a rapidly tightening nipple. Especially not when a thing but muscular leg slid up to the apex of her thighs and rubbed, the friction along her clit fleeting and leaving her craving more, more, more.
He undressed her slowly, like she was the real present he was unwrapping and the joy on his face said he'd gotten everything he had ever wanted. When she was nude beneath him, weak and wanting for him, he loosened the top buttons of his shirt—a carefree appearance that he knew drove her wild—and slid down to rest between her thighs.
"Oh, Rook. You're soaked for me already. Just for me." His wondrous expression everytime he was met with evidence of her undeniable need for him left her laughing and warm and happy.
Warm peals of laughter turned to breathy moans as he buried his face against her core and devoured her with abandon. He always gave, all of himself, every time they were together.
Made love.
She had always heard the term and scoffed, content with the quick lay or unattached fuck that was common in the Wardens. Even if you were romantically entangled for a little while, it was still just sex. But with Emmrich, she finally knew what the term meant. He lapped and sucked and nipped and licked at her cunt like he was worshipping at an altar, and she never wanted to go back to just sex again.
When she came the first time, he continued to lazily lap at her, little aftershocks twitching her legs around him, until she had recovered enough for him to slide a couple fingers home and continue with his usual passion. When she came again, he had to hold on for dear life against the bucking of her hips as she rolled against his face, moaning her ecstasy as she held on for dear life.
He looked utterly debauched as he rose up onto his knees, his lips shiny with her slick and his hair beginning to slip free from its careful coif, courtesy of her desperate fingers. The smoldering look he shot her had lightning flickering up her skin, a typhoon raging in her blood, and she tugged him up to her eager lips, drowning in the taste of her own pleasure.
Her fingers undid the rest of his buttons, exposing the pale skin of his chest one delectable inch at a time. Once she finished with the last one, she ran her hands back up to settle on his shoulders, her nails scraping through the coarse, graying chest hair on the way. She loved the feel of it, the sight of it, the way it was a treat for her and her alone.
Pulling him down into another kiss, she maneuvered his shirt off, running her hands over every inch of exposed skin that she could, savoring the soft feel of it against her palms, before settling at the top button of his pants. The fabric was straining ever so slightly, pulled taut from the hardness she could feel just below, and she smiled into his lips as she slowly undid it. The next button had him gasping into her mouth, and the next elicited a moan as her fingers brushed against the swell of his cock.
"Oh, Rook," he breathed, breaking away to brace his forehead against her shoulder as she slid his pants and smalls down until that glorious cock sprang free. His whisper became a whine as she ran practiced fingers up and down his length, thumb twirling against the head of him on each pass, slick and leaking with his own arousal. Somehow Emmrich managed the wherewithal to pull his clothes the rest of the way off while she kept up her teasing touch, until he lay over her nude, and hard, and needy.
"I have half a mind to push you over and suck you," she said with a grin, all cheek and sass and completely truthful. She loved having him in her mouth, loved listening to his cries of pleasure and knowing she was the one causing them. But she also needed him inside of her and she didn't want to wait.
Luckily, it seemed like he agreed as he shifted his hips until his cock was nudging at her entrance and began to rock his hips.
"As much as I would love to have your wicked lips wrapped around me, I would much prefer to make love to you now, my dear," he murmured into her ear, sending a shiver up her spine.
She moaned as his cock head slid just that scant distance inside of her and then back out, a rhythm of torment that had need suffusing her very being.
More, she needed more.
"Emmrich, you tease," she whimpered, all crackling heat and swelling need.
Her slow, gentle necromancer gave her a pleased grin and slid himself home, stretching her to fullness and she cried out in a heady combination of surprise and euphoria.
"Oh, Emm—" she gasped, her own words choking on a moan as he began to thrust, her voice replaced with the tinkling of her necklace and pendant clinking together.
She had no chance to catch her breath as he set a relentless pace, fucking her the way she loved: hard, fast, enough to chase the worries from her mind and fill it with nothing but the feel of his cock sliding in and out of her, caressing the very depths of her. She couldn't think, couldn't do anything but whimper his name as she rocked beneath him.
His wonderful, beautiful, talented fingers slipped down to their joining and gathered her slick before circling around her clit. She shuddered, his expert touch crashing her over the edge and into a shuddering, clenching release. Sweet nothings were whispered into her ear as he fucked her through the high, holding her close.
When she surfaced again from her orgasm, Emmrich shifted to a slower, more languid pace. Once she had been thoroughly wrecked by him, he enjoyed savoring her slowly. The leisurely, lazy lovemaking after his relentless onslaught was possibly her favorite part.
She kissed him, their mouths as much a joining as their hips: slow and langorous, sweet and gentle. She swallowed down his moans when she brought a leg up to wrap around his hip, tilting her hips so he hit deeper on each thrust. In turn, he breathed in each gasp and cry of hers as he hit that spot inside of her just so and soon she was seeing stars.
When she came again, it was slow and deep, her cunt clenching and pulsing just as leisurely as Emmrich was fucking her. As she cried out his name again and again, the words dripping with pleasure and devotion and, dare she say it, love, he followed her over that precipice with a stutter to his hips followed by a long groan, wrapping her in his embrace as tightly as he possibly could. It was a wonder he could contain all of her, so full to bursting with pleasure and emotion as she was.
When they both caught their breath and their hearts had slowed back to a normal pace, Rook tightened her grip on Emmrich. When he raised his head to regard her with one raised brow, she ducked her head shyly, glancing up at him through lowered lashes.
"Emmrich, I have a confession," she whispered.
"What is it, Dearest? I shall keep any secret you entrust to me."
Rook took a deep breath, quelling her sudden nerves. She had never done this before; had never confessed to such feelings. Hell, she wasn't even sure she'd ever had them to confess to.
Not like this.
"My sweet, wonderful man," she began, freeing her arms to cup his face in her hands. Her eyes locked with his, face open in complete sincerity. "I love you, Emmrich. I don't think I've ever been in love before this, but it's the only way I can describe the way my heart bursts for you."
Oh. And there, that little 'o' of surprise. She hadn't seen as much of it recently, replaced more often with warmth and open adoration. It was followed by the glassy wetness of tears brimming up slipping down his face and over her thumbs as a sharp inhalation broke the silence after her confession.
"Rook— No. Jin," he said, voice catching on her name and hearing him utter it sent her heart into little paroxysms. "My darling Jin, my beautiful, dearest girl. I love you, too, with my entire being. Know that I will love you until the day I shuffle off this mortal coil, and for an eternity beyond that."
"Oh, Emmrich!" She couldn't stop the sentimental giggles welling up, nor the flood of tears at his own ardent feelings, and both fought for control of her emotional state leaving her both crying and laughing in equal measures.
"My dear, please, I'm still quite sensitive," Emmrich gasped with a little moan, pulling back far enough that his now softened cock slipped out of her and away from her clenching muscles. "Though I don't believe I've ever received such a confession while still buried deep inside my confessor."
"I won't apologize for the timing," she said with a smirk as he rolled onto his side and pulled her against his chest.
"My dear, there could be no greater gift than hearing those words leave your heart for mine. The circumstances of your speaking them merely reflect how open our lovemaking has made you feel. Why would I ever hold that against you?" he murmured into her hair before kissing down her cheek to peck her lips.
She smiled against him, kissed away the tears that had slowed to a trickle before pulling away, extricating herself from his arms and crawling to the edge of the bed. When she caught his curious gaze, she explained, "I want to clean up. And then I want the dessert and hot chocolate that Lucanis also packed for us. I want to sit on your love seat and feed you cake while I tell you how much I love you and then I'm dragging you back to this, frankly, oversized bed for round two."
"My dear, that sounds like an excellent idea," he replied, standing to join her.
"Emmrich?"
"Hm?"
"Happy Satinalia. I love you," she said, her words as certain as anything she'd ever said and a smile radiating from her very heart.
His answering smile was just as beatific, just as full of love and joy.
"I love you, too. Happy Satinalia, my darling Jin."