† Mikhail †
Kohryn haunted him. The oracle readings had supplied a plethora of inciters. The stack of cards that'd become like lead weights on his chest. An owl that made its home in a tall pine on the road up the mountain. Her father, who drank too much and shared her features. That wine red that seemed so much more prevalent in the Ipahnish landscape than it ever had before. Sunset after sunset, it saturated the horizon and he'd find time to watch as its color turned violet then navy. For some odd reason, the heady smell of resinous incense and the static crackle of lighting and dark clouds. When a storm front blew in, he sat amongst the cliffgrain terraces and let its waters drench him.
His dreams.
They'd become guilty pleasures and intimate sins he didn't know how to reconcile with once he awoke. Yet while he dreamed he was caught in the current and swept away in the unbinding nature of the astral realm, where inhibitions and conscious thoughts mingled and meddled with the subconscious in a hazy web.
It was where he was, heavy lidded and blood heating in his veins. The demon rolled in the smog of euphoria.
Two fingers dipped into the cup of her palm, pushed up calloused pads and slipped between the webbing of her fingers. Kohryn's hands were rough and soft at the same time, relaxed in his grasp as he traced every line and curve. He spread each finger apart to marvel at their perfection. Long thin fingers that showed the signs of her labor. She possessed hands that created, fed a village, and stitched such beautiful arrangements of flowers that they'd make the most practiced court ladies envious.
Her fingers threaded through his and she brought his hand to her face. Pressed a flushed cheek into his knuckles. Her passive and calm expression gazed down at him so tenderly. His chest ached as dappled light caught in her pale eyes and the corner of her lip just faintly tipped up. He hadn't known his favorite kind of beauty would be one that grew on him. A face he didn't necessarily at first find attraction in. Then as time went on, he noticed more and more little details that put together the allure of her symmetry and the regality of her character. Soon he hungered for even a little glimpse of her.
He brought his free hand up to cup her other cheek, ran affectionate circles across the ridge of her cheekbone. Traced from one tiny little mole to the next, ending at the one that always sat so alluring above her lip and gently caressed their smooth pink skin. They were damp beneath his thumb and he wondered if Kohryn had ever been kissed before. Not in his dreams, he'd ravished those lips in his dreams, but in real life. Had any man ever been so brave enough to dare.
He slid his fingers into her hair, its black silky strands releasing the smell of juniper resin and autumn leaves. "Do you dream of me like I dream of you?"
"Would you like that?" Her coy reply was low and soft. It teased him as she shifted and her thighs squeezed his sides.
"Yes." Shameless. He wanted to taste her. Her astral form was divine but it wasn't Kohryn. The demon moved him, ran his hand down the column of her neck, over her collar bone, lightly teased the outer edge of her breast, and settled on her ribs.
Seated on his abdomen and resting just above his hips, she wore one of his blouses. Frilly and loose, half button revealing a little strip of skin dipping down her chest. It was satiny violet with little flowers the color of her eyes stitched into the cuffs. They looked like her needlework and a delighted smile worked its way onto his face. His hand traveled further down, trailing across a bare thigh. He felt the heat of her soaking into him and the demon hummed.
He was so good at torturing himself.
But he had his limits. Lines he wouldn't cross and places he refused to venture. Certain things needed to be real. A final kiss, eyes closed, and she was slipping through his fingers, shifting away with the fluidity of the astral.
"That looked like it was hard for you."
Mikhail's head lolled to the side, the demon dancing in his eyes.
"I don't think I would have been able to resist. Your version of Koha is so…" the being trilled, slipping from the shadows, "seductive. I can't help but feel a little jealous."
Its voice echoed through the dark in cavernous winds as it prowled forward. Cords and planes of muscle rolled beneath shadow colored skin as it separated itself from the blackness in front of him. Dark eyes with rings of hazel steadily watched him, down-turned on their ends lined in thick kohl lashes.
Ah, it seems our Kohryn is attracting many interesting beings. The demon chuckled from within, cautious but unfazed by the giant that made its way across the bed. It kept Mikhail's body relaxed. He is vypnyr. Or mostly so. The play of song in his voice suggests he is probably fae as well.
The vypnyr prowled closer. Energy charged the air around him, predatory and dominating.
Fauna gods. They can be very instinctual. And yes, some can be incredibly dominating. He's taken an interest in Kohryn and he just saw you fondling her. Try to relax and don't make any fast movements or threats…. Or not. The demon told him mischievously, You could try to fight him.
He stopped an arms length away and sat back on his heels. Loose silks held at his waist with an ornate ring, pooled into the bed, their rusted and emerald folds blending with the patterns on the duvet. His eyes traveled up and down Mikhail, pausing on leather ties of his pants still tight from his encounter.
Mikhail spread his legs apart, 'cockily' letting the vypnyr have a better look at his bulge with half a smile. Careful. A bemused demon warned, you may end up with more than you can take.
The vypnyr rolled a lip, exposing massive canines, and made a point to linger on what was offered for him. Or more appropriately what Mikhail subtly rubbed in his face.
"You know…Koha?" Mikhail asked. It was the name the vypnyr had called her by. An old Ipahnish god if he was correct.
The vypnyr stared down an arched nose and a slow smile set full display of his fangs. He shrugged and leaned forward. "Let me taste her as you do and I will share what I have seen." His deep voice vibrated through Mikhail's chest and the massive man crawled over him. He sunk into the bed as large hands tipped in black claws leveled on either side of his face. The vypnyr held himself over Mikhail, intimate and yet dominating, intently never breaking eye contact.
He'd kissed men before. Occasionally bedded those he found appealing enough, though he would say his preference for women far outweighed the amount of men he could find beauty in. The vypnyr wasn't not to his liking. Different, new, and thrilling to behold. He nodded, watched as the being lowered himself to his elbow and the ridge of his body pressed into Mikhail's. Their lips met with the cooling heat of a day held in place by the bubble of night.
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† Asarath †
He'd fully expected to wake up when Koha had expelled him from her dream. But he had been avoiding sleep for the better part of moon and he should have known that his 'curiosity' nap would turn into full blown recovery sleep. What he hadn't expected was to find a male with an astral version of the woman astride him, looking down at the tawny blonde so fondly. Audaciously in his bed. A dream apparition, but his bed.
He quietly watched with envy. Pangs of jealousy flowing like oil on the waters of curiosity and lust. Then when the woman was gone he pulled himself from the shadows, stalked forward, letting vyra leak from him and lowered himself over the man with one goal in mind.
His words were whatever they needed to be to get him here.
Asarath pushed his lips into the males. There was a moment of hesitation and then they parted and he plunged his tongue into the blonde's mouth. Their breaths mixed in a chill that the heat of their bodies did not possess. Tongues twirled, both men well practiced in the dance.
He tasted mountain air, coniferous trees and sage. Rain, petrichor light jasmine, earthy clay, and the underlying scents of something ancient. Hidden in the depths of the blonde. It revealed itself, tasting of dark attics and mystery. It reveled in the kiss, pushed a tongue further into his mouth and licked his fangs. Asarth purred around the thrill of the double-beinged man. Whatever dark and sinister thing inside of him thoroughly enjoying their little proclivities.
Longing, desperation, lust, uncertainty, and fear. All of the emotions he was sure Koha would incite in a lover. He dove in for more tastes with a greedy need. Licking at the inside of the man's mouth in an attempt to eat up every last taste of her. "You love her." He hummed between licks. At some point his hand had become ensnared in blonde waves and the other gripped a sculpted jawline.
The man did his best to turn from his grasp, blush reddened his tanned face. Asarth held strong and didn't allow it. "I hardly know her," the blonde insisted.
His tongue lathed over the man's lips. "It does not change what you taste like." He kissed him again. Jealousy dotting his mind in green fuzz as he wished he could lick the love from the man's palette. Hoard it to himself. It reminded him of Wynn. How the swordsman was flavored with a glowing pink devotion for his cousin that bordered subservient obsession.
A hand on his collarbone had a low growl rumbling from his chest. Another growl quickly paired his own, the blonde edging the limits of submission. Asarath's eyes widened and he craned his head back, strings of saliva trailing between them.
Green eyes glowed, the other being rose to the surface of the man, present and unafraid. A light rattle of obsidian scales shed from his temples, creeping down his cheekbones. "Tell me about Koha, and you may continue to try and steal her from me through my own breath." His voice was layered, him and the occupying entity speaking in unison.
"I found myself in her dream. Before I came here." He did not move, stayed laying on the man, resting on his elbows, pulled back just enough to speak comfortably.
"Was she okay?"
Asararth titled his head from side to side, thinking of the cuts and bruises on her skin and the clothes covered in blood and grime. The wretched thing she called it. "She was alive."
The blonde tensed. "Did she say where she was?"
"A prison, I assume from her attire. She did not say where."
His breath hitched and his eyes flashed with calculation. "Did she tell you anything else? I have been searching for her." Thick lashes fluttered and he bit his lip.
"Hmm." Asarath shook his head. "Not really. We engaged in banter, she was…. sharp tongued. And then some unsavory monster she was waiting for showed up and she kicked me out." He pouted.
"A monster?"
"Mmm yes. She said that a 'singing' man told her it was her power. And quite the power it was."
When Koha had said 'singing man', Asarath assumed it had been a fae. He didn't know which, but as the man mumbled to himself a name phrased as a question Asarath felt his pupils contract. He slid his hands over and down the man's arms, gripped his wrist and brought them over his head. He settled more on his weight as he subtly pinned the man. "What did you just say?"
The blond man's brow hardened and he gave a push against Asarath's grip, testing if he was actually holding him down or not. He was. "Yuen?" His brow furrowed deeper. "He is the only 'singing' individual she is connected to, I think"
"Yuen Kesaryen." The name curled between them, said with a viscous sneer. It made sense now. The tastes of resin and lighting. It had blended so well into those of the mountain that he had almost not distinguished it. Delta. Koha had smelled of him.
"You know the fae prince?" The entity spoke. It sat on the surface, scales shedding and wisping away as if a breeze flowed through the room. And yet the thing did not move to challenge him. Oddly complacent for such a powerful being. That of which Asarath was sure could potentially overpower him. Whatever it was smelled older than the Inbetween itself.
He slowly let his gaze rake over the blond man again. He was a beautiful human, dipped in sun and golden light. Koha's pale body and dark hair had contrasted beautifully against him, and the mold of envy was growing. "I see your interest entity. You are enjoying this."
The blonde rolled his eyes but the entity only laughed. "I am no demon of pride or ego. It does not bother me to let you feel powerful. I know I could dominate you if I had to."
Asarath arched an eyebrow. This time letting the low growl grow until it was boulders grinding together and his lips were drawn back over fangs.
"Now, you know that prince?" It ignored him with a smoldering look.
Asarath quieted then with a look of disgust offered, "Let me continue to 'steal her from your breath' as you say, and we will talk while I clean the taste of her from you."
"Ha!" The entity scoffed with a smug and curling smile. "You could not lick away lifetimes of love, but as long as you keep talking, you can be my guest."
Asarath's eyes darkened, "Hmm, we'll see about that."