astro-hours

[astro-hours]

Do You Trust Me?

Eris Vanserra x Healer!Fem!OC (Cleo)

Eris catches Cleo just at the wrong moment; she's on her cycle and she's in agony. For some inexplicable reason, he feels this intense urge to help her, so he does. He struggles to deal with his own vulnerability, and to reconcile how he feels about her with what he expects from himself. [3.9k words]

warnings: major angst, menstruation, misogyny, mentioned sexual assault (in Eris' own internal monologue), toxic masculinity (sorta), it's a bit of a heavy one

Prefer to read on Ao3?

read the first part of this series here! (it's much fluffier than this one, i promise)

Cleo is picking pieces of ashwood out of his abdomen as though they aren't bothering her. Each one she plucks out and sets down in a bowl beside her fills him with such relief that he’s struggling to keep his breathing steady. Dart, as repulsed by the wood as he is, has curled himself in his bed on the other side of the living room, keeping a careful eye on the two of them as she kneels at his side, so close he can feel her breath against his too-hot skin. Her focus is almost absolute, her movements so precise that she has not once nicked his skin or poked the slowly healing wound. 

But Eris has been trying to figure out what’s wrong with her for the past ten minutes. 

When she opened the door for him, her eyes were heavy, like she was somehow exhausted in the early evening, and she afforded him only weak smiles and lazy responses. She hasn’t even asked him how he got stabbed (it was some prick with too much time on his hands and a penchant for spilling secrets. Unfortunately, Eris had underestimated his swordsmanship and thus, here he is). The usual warmth in her eyes is significantly dulled. She wears loose, faded clothes which are clearly too big for her. Every now and then, her jaw clenches and her hands falter slightly. And she’s washed out. Like she’s sick. 

Fae don’t get ill. Ill fae die or else live in misery for the rest of their existence. That would be… unfortunate, and just his luck. He supposes slowly and excruciatingly killing one of the few people he actually likes spending time with is the Mother’s revenge for his lack of piety.

Petty, old cow.

He feels the tweezers grip the last splinter left and he lets out a sigh as she pulls it out. Delicately, she brushes her thumb over the skin near the wound, which stings but it’s not nearly as agonising as having ash in his body, checking to see if she got them all. Judging by the fact that he can relax his muscles, even with the bowl of splinters nearby, she did.

“I think you’re good,” she says quietly, her voice rough, as she withdraws her hand and sits back on her calves. “Can you—?” Swallowing thickly, she nods her head toward the bowl, briefly managing to meet his eyes before she looks away again.

Somehow, he’d rather stick all of those splinters back in his body one-by-one than have her endure whatever is happening to her.

With an easy flick of his wrist, he burns the contents of the bowl and the last, fleeting feelings of physical discomfort vanish. Immediately, Dart pads over and, after sniffing at the bowl, as though to check that the ash really is gone, pushes Cleo’s hand up and sits by her side. She pats him tenderly, her kind eyes so achingly tired that the sight makes Eris’ heart clench—he despises that. 

When he sits forward, he instinctively clutches at his side and her head snaps towards him. “Can I heal this one?” she asks, already moving towards him, ready to over-exert herself more by using her magic, but, and he has no idea what comes over him to make him think this is in any way acceptable, Eris catches her hands before she can reach his wound.

Immediately, he regrets it.

Cleo has the textured hands of someone who works for a living. It isn’t like he doesn’t know this already, but this is different. It’s deliberate, unadulterated contact which is short, quick, and he releases her as soon as he possibly can. Almost flinches away from it. Even dealing with her hands on his skin when she’s healing him has started to get unbearable and it’s stupid, like he’s never been touched by a female before.

He chalks it up to stress, to needing just this one thing, place, person, where he doesn’t have to restrict. Restraint loses him so often these days. As the Autumn Equinox gets closer and closer, the power boiling in his bones gets hotter and hotter. Something has to slip sometime, and he guesses it’s now.

“Leave it,” he says, earning him a frown. “What’s wrong with you?”

He doesn’t care that it sounds like she matters to him. She does. Cleo is important to him and truthfully, if it turns out that she is, in fact, sick, he’s going to move heaven and earth to find some kind of a cure. Bribe whoever he needs to bribe and kill whoever tries to get in his way. 

Cleo cannot die. He won’t allow it, Mother be damned. He’ll take Her out too if he has to.

She blinks like he’s asked her something impertinent then waves him off. “I’m fine,” she says. “Are you sure you don’t want me to—?” 

He stops her bluntly. “You aren’t fine. You look like you’re about to keel over.”

At that, she scoffs, and the sound almost thrills him. “Thanks, might as well have told me I look like shit.” She doesn’t. Eris isn’t sure she’s even capable of that. “You’ll have to make sure you keep that clean…”

“Stop it,” he snaps and she flinches, but he’s so worked up that he continues. “Are you ill? Is that what it is?”

Okay, he sounds a little panicked. Is he panicking? Or maybe just worried? Yes, that’s it. Just a healthy amount of concern for someone he cares about. Not utter, crippling anxiety at the idea of her dying. Not at all.

Her face visibly softens. “No,” she says gently, “no, I’m not ill, Eris.”

Dart shifts with her when she untucks her legs from underneath her, stretching them out as she leans against the arm of the sofa, and it hits him. The faintest, barest scent of blood. Not his own. Hers.

The pieces slot together very, very quickly. The tiredness. The paleness. Her discomfort and inconsistent mood. Panic drains out of him almost as quickly as it came and he grimaces, more at himself than anything else. 

“It’s your cycle,” he murmurs, bracing his forearms on his knees and rubbing the worry off his face. His wound hardly hurts him as he moves. “Oh, of course it is.”

Cleo lets out a hum of confirmation. “You know,” she says, looking at him, half-smile on her lips, “for a clever male, you are interminably stupid sometimes.”

Probably. He can’t even feel insulted, the overwhelming sense of relief is too strong to get anything else. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?” he asks. What little he knows about cycles is informed by the unintentional glimpses of what his mother’s are like, and she practically knocks herself out for a week so she can get through the pain. For the whole day, every day, a handmaiden looks after her and soothes her if she wakes up. Yet, here Cleo is, seemingly not in indescribable agony?

“Yep,” she replies, popping the p, as she turns so her back is against the sofa and a shaky breath escapes her. Increasingly, her voice becomes strained. “But you were an excellent distraction. You don’t think you could get stabbed again, do you?” 

In any other circumstance, he would laugh, maybe throw out a snide comment, but he’s quite suddenly gripped by the urge to comfort her. No, to look after her. That knocks him so completely from all his pain and all the rest of the things on his mind and replaces them with this intense need to do something.

She catches him staring at her and, with Dart lying across her lap, barks a low laugh. “It’s just blood, Eris,” she says.

“It’s not that,” he replies quickly. Too quickly. 

It’s that he doesn’t know what to do. He always knows what to do. Eris always has some kind of plan, or else he can respond to anything and everything which gets thrown at him, but now, he’s at a total loss. This is not something he had ever considered; cycles are female business, and he figured it would stay that way. He’s never had a long-term lover, certainly not one which would expect him to be available to her for any sort of emotional comfort and if he ever had to get married, it would be to some viper who he could rid himself of as soon as he was High Lord. He would simply take a contraceptive tonic (illegal but useful in Autumn) so he would never have a child, let alone a daughter. So, to say he’s clueless is an understatement.

Cleo lets out a regulated, slow breath, tipping her head back against the sofa cushions and closing her eyes. “Do enlighten me then,” she says weakly. 

It’s instinct that makes him move, which is strange, because Eris ignores almost every instinct that occurs to him. Instincts make him do things like flinch and gag and make him feel things such as desire and fear which are plainly useless to him. His instincts threaten the carefully crafted aloofness which protects him from all things.

But Cleo’s house is the place where he can’t afford to do that. Here, their relationship, that protection, is based on instinct, and it is her who provides it for him. She sees how he reacts, and if it’s wrong, she corrects it. He barely appears on her doorstep if he’s of sound mind, only in the direst of circumstances where he has no other option. Being here is a calculated risk that only makes sense to him when he follows those irritating, natural instincts of his.

He pulls himself off the sofa and crouches next to her. He doesn’t dare touch her again; he might find himself incapable of stopping. 

“Tell me how to help,” he says quietly, like perhaps if she doesn’t hear him, he might not feel such a compulsion to stay.

She eyes him. “I’m fine. Really,” she says, the way she shifts her legs betraying her discomfort. “I’m a big girl. I’ve been doing this every six months for a couple of centuries now.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look after yourself.”

For that, she shoots him a look. That’s the line she always uses with him when he feels guilty for accepting her aid. Not that he’s ever explicitly told her he does, she just tends to know these things. Annoyingly.

He says, “Let me help you,” and he doesn’t know why. 

Maybe it’s because he feels indebted to her. Maybe it’s because he can’t stand the sight of her suffering. Maybe she’s actually been tricking him this whole time and he’ll find out that his brothers are right behind the front door, ready to haul him in front of his father. If that’s the case then she’s done such an excellent job of making a fool out of him that he might even be impressed.

Or maybe it’s just because he’s remembered something.

He’d been wracking his brain for anything he could think of to soothe her and he caught it in the corner of his memories. Sometimes, the handmaidens bring his mother warm towels for the pains. He knows it relaxes the muscles. It isn’t often he uses that knowledge for noble purposes, but he is uniquely talented when it comes to producing heat. He has his uses beyond politicking and plotting, you know.

But Cleo shakes her head. “You don’t need to, Eris.”

“I want to.”

Half-bemused, half-pained, she hits him square in the chest with one single word: “Why?”

His response comes immediately, but it doesn’t feel true. “You heal me all the time. It’s only fair—”

“I don’t help you because I want something in return.” Why do you help me then, Cleo? Because, to this day, he cannot work it out. It’s unfathomable to him. He reasons that he would never, ever do the same, and that’s why Cleo will always be a better person than he is. “You don’t owe me shit.”

“Fine,” he says firmly, “I don’t owe you anything. Let me help anyway.”

It’s exasperation she gives him next. “You can’t do anything. It’s not like pain tonics—why are you looking at me like that?”

Ignoring how his heart stutters in his chest, he asks, “Do you trust me?”

A moment’s hesitation, then, “Cauldron, Eris, you really don’t understan—”

“Not what I asked, Cleo.”

“Gods. Yes, I trust you,” she says sharply, “but it doesn’t matter because nothing will help. I have tried everything! I just have to wait it out. There’s no magic…” Eris lets her trail off while he continues to look at her, totally unimpressed. There’s something to be said for being the most patient male in the world. 

“Are you finished?” She tuts at him and he takes that as a yes. “Good. Now stop arguing and tell me where you’re in pain.”

Begrudgingly relenting, Cleo mumbles something that distinctly sounds like fucking asshole, saying through gritted teeth, “It’s here—” she runs her hand delicately across her lower abdomen before going to pet Dart once again, her movements rhythmic, repetitive, “—but I’m serious. You can’t do anything. I wish you could.”

Eris doesn’t think, he just does, or else he’ll stop himself and let her suffer. A muscle ticks in her jaw when he gets closer, but she doesn’t stop him, not even when he pushes the hem of her shirt up with a warmed hand and presses gently against her skin exactly where she showed him. Immediately, she shifts under his touch, lets out a breathy sigh and closes her eyes. Dart moves out of the way as Eris sits beside her.

“Better?” he asks lowly, just a hint of smugness creeping into his tone, because he was right and she doubted him. Instead of glaring at him for it, she just nods and places her hand over his, moving it ever so slightly downward so that his little finger brushes against the waistband of her trousers. Then she keeps her hand there like it’s nothing, like it’s normal, and compulsively strokes up and down the back of his with the pad of her thumb.

After a few, quiet minutes, she seems to relax, but he doesn’t move. He lets her use his heat however she likes, waits it out with her until she tenses again and her grip on him becomes ironclad. The pain comes in waves, sometimes with long gaps, other times with prolonged periods of what seems like total agony. He doesn’t know what he can say to calm her, so he keeps his mouth shut and watches her work through it with a furrowed brow.

This is worse, he decides, than almost everything his father has ever done to him. He hates it, hates that all he can do is sit with her, provide her with only the smallest amount of relief, when she can quite literally bring him back from the brink in a matter of minutes. It looks exhausting. Every time her breath hitches, his heart lurches.

“Cleo,” he says, hoping she might have the strength to look at him. That’s the other thing that gets him. Cleo is disproportionately strong, she can endure hours and hours of using her magic, can manoeuvre him without difficulty. He’s not certain she can even lift her head right now. “Is it getting easier?”

Her eyes stay closed as she shakes her head. The next time she gets a rest, she asks so very quietly, her voice rough, “Do you—Could you—I… my back?”

Again, he doesn’t think. Trusting that she can go without his hand just for a moment, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her towards him into his lap with her knees either side of his hips. He shuffles so his back is against the coffee table and his legs are against the sofa, a more relaxed position so he can hold her better. She offers no resistance when he presses her against his chest, his hand un-demandingly firm on the small of her back while his body heats the rest of her.

She sags against him, her forehead planted on his shoulder while she curls her hands into his shirt, pulling so much that she’ll probably stretch the fabric.

“Comfortable?” Eris asks practically into the shell of her ear. All she does is hum confirmation, so he says, “Okay,” and goes back to waiting with her.

He stays very, very still. Torn between this horrid need to soothe her and all the things he has been taught to think, Eris knows he needs to remind himself why he can never, ever do this again. Knows he needs to get it all out. So, instead of letting himself rest against her too, instead of allowing himself this moment where it is just him and Cleo in intimate selflessness, something within him snaps; he makes himself think the kind of vile thoughts which make his father proud.

Cleo’s so weak that it occurs to him he can do anything to her. The most stubborn female he’s ever met trusts him so much that he can move her however he likes, touch her wherever he wants and she wouldn’t be able to push him away. Might not even want to. He wonders if she is so desperate to be touched that she’d just take whatever he gives her, whine and beg him to keep going like a bitch.

It would be so easy. She’s already on top of him, already pressing her chest against him. He can tell, she’s not wearing a bra, and even if she was, it wouldn’t matter. She can’t stop him, can’t stop his hand from dipping below her waistband just to see how she would react, if she would object. 

He can take and take and take. He already does. He drains the energy from her when she heals him. She makes herself so vulnerable in front of him that he can remind her why she should never, ever allow someone like him access to her like this. If he wanted to take his pleasure from her, use her in the way she unwittingly offers herself to him, he could. He could prove why she shouldn’t trust him at all like everyone expects him to.

But the thought disgusts him so thoroughly that he feels unclean just for considering the possibility. 

A choked sob bubbles up from her throat and she fists the fabric of his shirt to the point where she’s pulling it off his shoulder. He can feel her spiking panic as the pain starts again. Eris just tightens his grip, shushes her gently and says, “You’re doing so well. It’ll pass soon. Breathe.” The tenderness in his voice surprises him, but it comes naturally. 

The idea of her attempting to go through this alone makes him so upset that he forces himself to think of almost anything else, and his mind takes him back to the worst place it can.

Eris can ruin Cleo’s life if he feels like it. He knows so much about her: he can use her brother against her; blackmail the both of them for information; can turn them against each other. He can paint her as a spy and get her fired. He can plant evidence which will have Thesan arrest her. He can let it slip that he knows her and let rumours run wild. Perhaps even her friends will think she’s a whore for letting him into her house in the middle of the night. No one would be able to dispute him. It’s his word against hers, and he has the prestige to discredit her.

It terrifies him that she has given him such power over her and it’s worse that he can formulate a plan for exactly how he would do it. Step-by-step, he can see it unfolding right before his eyes. He wonders if she has ever thought the same, if she has contemplated using what little he has told her against him, but he knows that she hasn’t. That isn’t the kind of intelligence she has. The Autumn Court would drown her. The Autumn Court will drown her.

Despite himself, even as he recoils inside, Eris pulls her impossibly closer and rests his chin atop her head. Instinct once again grips him and he wants to press a kiss against her hair. He wants to inhale her scent and have it cling to his clothes.

At the same time, he absolutely, unwaveringly wants to get as far away from her as possible. He wants to hurt her and leave her and then come crawling back when he needs help. He wants her to view him just as pathetic as he would feel doing that, and he wants her to help him anyway, for her to prove to him that she needs him just as much as he needs her. Eris wants Cleo to struggle with it like he burns when he allows himself to think of her. 

Desires like these are the ones he ignores.

For the better part of an hour—an hour he doesn’t have but gives willingly—they’re locked together. When he whispers soft words to her, she relaxes and lets the pain wash over her, just moves through it like water, and slowly, slowly, it subsides. She doesn’t tell him but he can see just by how she rests against him that she wants to sleep, that the sheer effort of breathing and dealing with it has stolen what little energy she had left.

Whether or not that’s true doesn’t matter to him; he’s making the decision for her. He waits for five minutes, listening for a hitch in her breath or for her to tense, but she doesn’t. Cleo’s eyes are closed and she’s halfway to sleep already. 

Wordlessly, he hikes her up and stands. She just clings to him and mumbles something unintelligible. Dart follows him as he rounds the coffee table and carefully carries her up the stairs. There are three doors leading from the landing and he guesses which one is for her bedroom first-time. 

Usually, Eris would take in every detail, note which books are on the shelves and what fabric the bed sheets are made from, but he has only one concern, and that’s making sure Cleo is asleep before he leaves. He lays her down gently atop the covers—pulling them over her feels far too familiar an act for him to do—and stops Dart jumping up on the bed and jostling her.

When her eyes flutter open, he almost sighs in frustration. “Sorry…” she breathes out. As she talks, a piece of her dark hair falls across her face.

He shakes his head, pushes her hair back behind her ear and says, “Just rest, Cleo.” She nods and closes her eyes again.

By her side, he waits until he sees her breathing even out, then he leaves her door ajar behind him so Dart can get back out. He makes sure Dart has food and water before he winnows back to Autumn.

In his private quarters, he sits and counts. 

One. 

Two. 

Three… all the way to ten.

Then he hauls himself back up, strides to the kennels and sneers at any and every guard who has the audacity to look at him. He takes all twelve of his smokehounds out, heads to a place far enough away from the Forest House, and he has them kill something for him.

a/n: somewhat of a little character study into Eris? not too sure how to feel about it at the moment, but here it is

taglist for the series (let me know if you wanna be added!): @rcarbo1 @corvusmorte

[astro-hours]

Autumn Court villages with colorful roof tiles that match the autumn foliage, and architecture with carved wood for window frames, gables, and fascias, and cool painted decor.

[astro-hours]

Eris Vanserra

Part 1

My eyes almost rolled to the back of my head as the scent of him filled my head. Almost.

My grip on the balcony railing tightened and i was scared I would leave marks. Even velaris chilled breeze did little to sooth the warmth that engulfed me. The fire that threatened to suffocate me from inside, was now stood mere feet away.

I kept my back to him as I spoke. Tone flat and void of any emotions. “What do you want?” from me. From the night court. My court. My home.

My blood boiled and froze at the same time, as he chuckled. Mocking me. Like he was enjoying toying with me.

“We’re allies now, darling. I want everything.” He all but purred and took a few steps closer.

The railing creaked underneath my palms as he caressed the bare skin of my arm. So gentle, barely there. I thought i imagined it.

I cursed myself as goosebumps erupted on my skin. And my body. And the bond.

"You look exquisite in my colour." He breathed out. As if he was in pain... Closer than I thought.

My head tilted and I almost hurled myself over the balcony as I noticed that I was still in my auburn gown from earlier. When I went out for a meal with my friends. My family. The night court.

The very home his presence alone threatened to poison.

I made a note to burn the gown.

I grunted as I glared at him over my shoulder.

He was definitely closer. "And you look positively ill."

That was a lie. He knew it.

The stars always shone brighter in the night court and l often found myself looking up the sky, counting the stars to ground myself when everything simply felt...too much.

I didn't know what to do when our eyes locked and I saw the reflection of those very stars in his. Burning brighter than ever before as if feeding off his fire.

He smirked, raising an eyebrow. I wanted to smack the amusement off his devastatingly beautiful face.

I rolled my eyes looking back at the sky. The stars looked dimmed so l looked down at the city beneath.

"If I asked nicely, would you save me a dance on starfall?" He said playfully. Teasingly. But there was a hint of something else in his voice.

"I guess it was too much to hope you wouldn't be here then." | frowned ignoring his question.

Must he be everywhere all the damn time?

"I wouldn't miss it for the world." He snorted but his tone felt more serious.

"May I be so bold and request my birthday present then?" I gave him a saccharine smile.

Starfall was my day after all.

"Of course, darling. Anything." | ignored the lack of usual playfulness in his tone.

"I want you to stay far, far away from me on starfall. And forever preferably." | grumbled picking at the skin around my nails.

It was quiet for a minute too long then his velvety voice came. Smooth against the back of my neck and I convinced myself it was the breeze that made me shiver. "Is that what you truly want?"

"Yes." | didn't hesitate. I didn't give the bond buried deep in my chest, in my soul, the chance to could my head.

"I am a generous male." His breath hit the back of my ear. "I would give you the world if you asked...” his chest brushed against my back with every breath. "Burn it all to ashes, even..." he groaned and the railing almost rattled as his hands gripped it mere inches from mine, caging me with his body.

"But don't ask me to stay away, darling. I count the seconds when we're apart. l'd rather you sneer and snarl at me than not look at me all." Despite his warmth against my back, I was trembling. His knuckles white as if he was restraining himself from reaching out to me.

"Might as well stab me in the heart." He let out a breathless laugh.

"Is that an offer?" My voice came out shakier than I would ve wanted it to.

His laugh was quiet but beautiful and smooth. "My beautiful, cruel mate."

My body was betraying me. I felt on fire. All thoughts burnt to nothing. Head completely empty.

With our bodies pressed so closely, I couldn't tell if it was my heartbeat pounding so loudly or his.

I don't know when I closed my eyes or leaned back against him. All I know was that he pressed a small kiss underneath my jaw. Just like his touch, it was featherlike and gentle.

I craved it.

"Perhaps I'll get you a dagger. You already have my heart. Do as you wish with it, darling." He whispered between kisses trailing from my jaw to my shoulder and I felt like dying.

"I don't want your heart." He stilled and his warm lips on my skin suddenly felt cold.

I felt cold.

I was still shaking when I turned in his arms and willed myself to look in his hazel eyes again. "You are vile. You are unfair."

I pushed on his chest and he let me. "You scheme and play and deceive. You lie and corrupt and destroy till nothing's left."

My chest caved. The bond roared in pain. Or he did.

"Having a mate is a blessing. Finding your mate is a miracle." I recited the words I was told. Same words I used to wish upon the stars a million times before meeting him. They felt like ash on my tongue.

Fitting really.

“You are not my blessing.” I smiled even if my eyes burned.

I had mourned and mourned after the mating bond snapped for me as I wondered what to do with all the love I had in me to give. Where to put it.

Mother really did have a cruel sense of humour.

“You are my punishment, Eris.”

I was cruel.

I had never called him by his name before but I wanted him to hurt. Just as I had when I lost what could have been if he wasn’t my mate.

He flinched and for the first time it was him who looked away first. With his back now against the wall, his shoulder slumped and he looked utterly defeated.

“Equal in every way.” The words left his mouth quieter than I’d ever heard him.

And he laughed.

Not like before. There was nothing sweet, nothing soothing in that sound. His head rolled back against the wall lazily and he looked at me beneath his long eyelashes.

“I might scheme and play and deceive.” Despite the smirk on his face, his eyes looked dull.

No trace of the burning stars. I struggled not to turn around and look up at the sky again. Just to make sure the stars were still…there.

“I might lie and corrupt and destroy.” His toothy grin was cruel.

Perhaps we truly were the same.

“I fight and stop at nothing to get what I want.” He pushed the hair off my shoulder and traced the skin beneath my gown’s strap before letting it snap back into place.

“So I might be vile and I might be unfair, mate. But perhaps one of us is lying.” His tone was harsh and his eyes on a loose curl he had wrapped around his finger.

“After all we are equals in every way.” He repeated his words from a minute ago, gently tugging on the curl before letting it drop.

“So tell me,” a gasp left my lips as he wrapped his hand around my neck loosely. His eyes snapped to where he could no doubt, feel my pulse quicken underneath his fingers and tugged me towards him.

“Am I truly the monster you make me to be or are you just pretending to be something you are not?” He smiled as my response died in my throat when he gently squeezed my neck. Just enough to shut me up. Like a warning. But that didn’t stop me from glaring at him.

He pouted at me mockingly.

Bastard.

“And why does your heart call out my name?” He purred.

I felt like a bucket of ice cold water was dumped on me. My eyes fluttered and I swallowed.

Which was the wrong move.

His eyes almost rolled to the back of his skull as my throat bobbed underneath his fingers.

“The same name you oh so profoundly refuse to say knowing it drives me mad.” He groaned closing his eyes. “Gods I was dying to hear my name on your lips.”

I didn’t notice I still had hands on his chest. His once perfectly pristine auburn jacket now wrinkled beneath my palms.

We were matching.

“It sounded even better than I’d imagined...” I wasn’t sure I’d still be standing if I wasn’t holding onto him so tightly as he almost whimpered.

“Will you say it again?” He let go of my neck just to cup my cheek. His free palm sprawled on my bare back and I cursed the open back gown.

He looked in trance as he watched my lips part when he traced over my bottom lip.

“Arrogant prick.” I whispered.

The corner of his lips twitched upwards and he shook his head. His nose brushing against mine. “I’ll add that to the list of names you’ve called me.”

His head was once again leaned back against the wall and he was peering down at me with a half smirk. “We know what I am. The question, darling, is what are you?”

Lost.

I was lost.

Velaris had always been my home. I had fought and bled for my court. My family.

But since the night I snuck out the camp war to look into Ouroboros, I felt lost.

What I had seen in that mirror, was beyond all my nightmares. I wailed and pounded at the mirror, trying to break the reflection. Just to stop what was looking back at me.

I almost clawed my eyes out after hours of not being able to look away. The skin on my hands, raw and bloody and broken. Only did I stop when the unbreakable mirror was completely covered by my blood, finally blocking the reflection.

I didn’t regret it. We needed the bone carver’s help even if he didn’t fare well.

But perhaps, I had gone mad. Perhaps it had shattered me instead.

The soft caress of his thumb against my back was what had snapped me back.

I despised the emotions shown so clearly in his eyes. For one of the most guarded males I knew, he was easy to read.

“Don’t look at me like that.” I growled pushing on his chest and taking a few steps back.

I hated the concern in his eyes. The same concern my family looked me with.

But I hated the curiosity even more. Like he was trying to figure out, piece together what was going on in my head all the time.

I hated how vulnerable and bare the bond in my chest made me feel. To unknowingly share everything I felt with someone else. Even worse for that person to be the high lord of another court. Someone who could easily use it to his advantage and harm my home.

So I built shields after shields around my head, my thoughts. Shields even stronger than when I was surrounded by daemati, because this time the enemy was already inside, tucked up in my chest.

I locked away the only part of me that was still fully mine and it would always be my choice if I wanted someone to be let in or not.

“You’ve overstayed your welcome, Vanserra. Leave.” I said, finally being able to think clearly when that he wasn’t stood so close to me anymore.

His arms dropped to his sides, his head still tilted back against the wall but his eyes followed my every move. Unyielding. Piercing through me.

Like he could see past the shields.

My hands shook and I immediately hid my clenched fists behind my back. My nails pressing down on my palms so harshly that it broke skin and I knew he could smell the metallic scent in the air.

Just like when I pounded and pounded at the mirror…

Stop.

“I’m usually a gracious hostess. That is not the case tonight, high lord.” I almost spat out before he had the chance to even opened his mouth to speak.

His eyes narrowed and I would’ve missed the way his left eye twitched ever so slightly had I not been watching him so carefully.

I convinced myself that it was just the shadows casted over his face that made his eyes looked even dimmer, almost black.

“As you wish, darling.” He pushed off the wall and straightened his jacket.

I could still point out exactly where I had been gripping him minutes ago.

His red hair swayed as he bowed his head graciously and in blink of an eye, he winnowed away.

For the second time that day, I felt like sinking to my knees and I almost stumbled towards the railing, holding my stomach as I felt sick.

I had to blink a few times to clear my vision as I saw the prints left on the railing.

Four of them.

I had indeed left mark underneath my palms.

But so had he.

Bastard.

I could’ve sworn I heard him chuckle which only made me cuss him out loudly as I tried to scrub over the marks with no avail. Silently relieved as it distracted me from breaking down.

[astro-hours]

My natal Chiron Aquarius in the 3rd house really showing it’s ugly head rn