there are no wanton, suggestive stares. only a shiver of anticipation at the order, her breath hot in her throat, still feeling the dimpled pressure of his chokehold. her hip twinges with each sway; gauze peeks out, sweater still rucked up and exposing her midriff. she fishes for her key card.

he's behind her and after the reader beeps and she puts weight on the handle, she turns. spine against the door, hands smoothing over his shoulders, nails sinking into his back.

no more words now. only this language they'd uncovered that first night all those years ago, when the culmination of their violent dances had sparked into ecstasy.

KING WAYLAND

☉

her ribs protest at his fervent grasping and her mouth opens, aching keen drowned out as she tilts her chin up, tongue darting past teeth, tasting whiskey and a terrible familiarity that makes her shudder. she wants to chase that. hands skirt messily around whatever inch of him she can grab - which isn't much, because he twists her around. 

hands on her throat, nosing through her hair, all the pain in the world alight in her hip and in her bruised, worn body, but none of that matters now - it would hurt more to stop.

she swallows and steps neatly out of her flats, hooks fingers in her spandex, smirking as she takes care to leave one layer on. the leggings fall by her ankles and she tilts her cheek, brushes the lace of her underwear, the hem of her shirt.

"make me."

KING WAYLAND

☉

there is an urge there, with a snarling curl of her lip, exposure of tooth, to nip at the thumb grazing her cheek. but the strangled sound she makes as he claws her bare makes her cheeks flush with wildfire heat; the hold he has over her is absolute.

she wants to beg for her sense of self obliterated. she wants to beg for union. she wants to beg for his anger and his frustrations and everything else he's been holding onto and she wants it shoved ruthlessly against her by whatever means necessary.

so she does. with a straining against his hold, she teethes at his lower lip and pants, "fuck me. please."

KING WAYLAND

☉

no, he doesn't.

her loneliness emanates with every painful thud-thud-thudding of her heart, the press of her palms against the door, the whistle of air in her strangled throat. her staccato pants turn to growls and half-snarls as shockwaves of pain ripple from her hip, but he does not stop because they cannot stop. 

more - please - yes - gods - king - fuck 

and somehow they end up a tangle of limbs, sheets on the floor and pillows too. they drink their fill with an avarice known only to them as the earth turns and burns and all the world means nothing to her - just her fingers in his hair and his flesh in her mouth and inside of her, around her, as one with her.

KING WAYLAND

☉

his blood is under her fingernails. there are criss-crossing lacerations on his shoulder blades, wings rent from his back. purple and red bruises line his collarbone and favor one side of his neck. her breath, her sweat, her spit is all over his body.

the sky is dark. she has no idea what time it is. the clock by the bedside is facedown on the ground, pulled from its socket on the wall. her calf had clipped it when he threw her onto the bed. 

he stares at the ceiling and she perches on the side of the bed. gooseflesh prickles her bare skin as sweat starts to dry, his lack of warmth a sudden and horrible discomfort. and gods, she's weak. 

she shifts, crawls on top of him, straddling his waist. pins her palms on his shoulders and leans forward. mussed starlight slips around them. shadows stretch across her face. 

"so now you know," she says, throat rough from thirst, "i will always be yours."

KING WAYLAND

☉

hands slide around her sides. she sees a shadow of a smile, but she knows what's coming before he pushes her aside. it never reached his eyes. 

i am - 

tired of not being enough.

she ignores the pain in her hip, and with his back turned, does as she has a dozen times before. something about it is still playful, delicate with rough edges as she crouches and leaps onto his back from the bed. 

"no," she snarls. "no. more. running."

KING WAYLAND

☉

he can't shake her. she's tenacious and she wraps her legs around him quickly, ducking against him, nose to shoulder, lips on skin. her teeth bare, scraping against slash marks from hours before, and her eyes smart from the pain. 

"fighting," she says.

"tell me why. you've already made me the object of your anger." there are hungry bruises on her body; there's a soreness between her legs. "so tell me why i'm not enough."

KING WAYLAND

☉