05-30-2021, 09:20 PM
ILLUM
With her forehead pressed to his neck and her words so soft against the frost of his cold, frozen skin, he feels momentarily at peace. You say that now, because you haven’t met her yet. He blinks once almost as though he’s been struck, but then his eyes are forced blank again, a quiet gold that looks almost bronze in this new evernight as he struggles with the urge to turn to her and laugh. In the end the urge wins over and he surrenders to it almost tiredly as he half-turns to study her face again with something like exhausted amusement burning in his darkening gaze. “Haven’t I though?” As if there could be anyone but her, anyone but Ryatah. As if she doesn’t already know this.
But there remains in him a vein of sharpness even as that hollow amusement simmers in his gaze, and it is only when she bows her delicate head close enough to touch her own chest that he remembers to be softer for her, to be more than his own nature would have him be. “Be sorry for nothing, Angel.” It is still a reprimand, and his eyes still burn at her with a strange stoniness that doesn’t fade immediately, but there is something gentle in the way her frowns and reaches for her again, tracing his mouth along the curves of her impossibly pale neck. “Leave that to me.” And though he shouldn’t, though he knows it is only one more thing for him to be sorry for, his mouth finds that familiar hollow of her throat in a row of three quiet kisses as though the tremble of her pulse is something he is starving for.
Isn’t it, though?
She speaks again and his dark gaze is drawn to the movement of her wings, a gentle kind of restlessness that makes him wonder. But though her wings are beautiful, they do not hold his attention for long. “I won’t ask about the things I do not want to know.” He tells her, and his eyes burn for a moment like dark suns. “I am not so naive as to assume you haven’t had children since Radiance and Illuminae.” But his words don’t match the tension that twists his expression, the pain that flashes in his eyes or the way they burn will all the frustration of wanting the rest of her children to have been his. It is a possessiveness that tastes like metal on his tongue even while he is glad that she found something better than him, something more and worthwhile.
He closes his eyes as his pulse pounds in his ears, once, twice, and then when he opens them again they are calm and quiet in a way that only forced distance can convey. “I am not so fragile.” He says finally, though he is quite certain this is at least some kind of a lie. “It would be worse to know only half truths, half of you.” That at least feels true.
When he looks at her again and she is suddenly closing distances he could not, there is something that both breaks and hardens within the cage of his chest. “There is nothing you cannot share with me. It would be worse to know you felt like you couldn’t.” It is not a lie, and yet somehow he knows it is not entirely true either. There are much worse things she could tell him, he is sure. But this piece of who he was fights to be someone worth knowing, fights to be more than the dark that lives inside his chest and the desire that eats away at his gut. He can want her without having her, love her at a distance. But this is no distance at all, and when he reaches for her again it is with the parts of him that she was right to leave behind.
“I will make you regret it.” He says, and it is a promise he leaves in a low whisper beside her ear, a vow he presses like a kiss as he breathes the words against the pale of her damp, glowing skin. He knows he should stop there, but she is so close and so warm and so right, and so his mouth wanders on across the curve of her neck, his teeth grazing the hollow of her delicate shoulder. It is impossible to be still now, impossible to think, to be anything good, and his feet carry him further to her wings where he winds shadow through the gossamer feathers until each one is etched with the dark of him. “Angel.” He says, and his voice is a low, desperate growl, his eyes too dark to be molten as he closes them and presses his nose to the curve of her hip to breathe her in. “Tell me you’re sure.” It must be some kind of self-torture, just another way that he is so broken, because he is sure it’ll kill him to hear her say that she is sure she does not want him.
But she must, she needs to blind him with this pain because the dark inside him is roiling for her light, for her love.
But there remains in him a vein of sharpness even as that hollow amusement simmers in his gaze, and it is only when she bows her delicate head close enough to touch her own chest that he remembers to be softer for her, to be more than his own nature would have him be. “Be sorry for nothing, Angel.” It is still a reprimand, and his eyes still burn at her with a strange stoniness that doesn’t fade immediately, but there is something gentle in the way her frowns and reaches for her again, tracing his mouth along the curves of her impossibly pale neck. “Leave that to me.” And though he shouldn’t, though he knows it is only one more thing for him to be sorry for, his mouth finds that familiar hollow of her throat in a row of three quiet kisses as though the tremble of her pulse is something he is starving for.
Isn’t it, though?
She speaks again and his dark gaze is drawn to the movement of her wings, a gentle kind of restlessness that makes him wonder. But though her wings are beautiful, they do not hold his attention for long. “I won’t ask about the things I do not want to know.” He tells her, and his eyes burn for a moment like dark suns. “I am not so naive as to assume you haven’t had children since Radiance and Illuminae.” But his words don’t match the tension that twists his expression, the pain that flashes in his eyes or the way they burn will all the frustration of wanting the rest of her children to have been his. It is a possessiveness that tastes like metal on his tongue even while he is glad that she found something better than him, something more and worthwhile.
He closes his eyes as his pulse pounds in his ears, once, twice, and then when he opens them again they are calm and quiet in a way that only forced distance can convey. “I am not so fragile.” He says finally, though he is quite certain this is at least some kind of a lie. “It would be worse to know only half truths, half of you.” That at least feels true.
When he looks at her again and she is suddenly closing distances he could not, there is something that both breaks and hardens within the cage of his chest. “There is nothing you cannot share with me. It would be worse to know you felt like you couldn’t.” It is not a lie, and yet somehow he knows it is not entirely true either. There are much worse things she could tell him, he is sure. But this piece of who he was fights to be someone worth knowing, fights to be more than the dark that lives inside his chest and the desire that eats away at his gut. He can want her without having her, love her at a distance. But this is no distance at all, and when he reaches for her again it is with the parts of him that she was right to leave behind.
“I will make you regret it.” He says, and it is a promise he leaves in a low whisper beside her ear, a vow he presses like a kiss as he breathes the words against the pale of her damp, glowing skin. He knows he should stop there, but she is so close and so warm and so right, and so his mouth wanders on across the curve of her neck, his teeth grazing the hollow of her delicate shoulder. It is impossible to be still now, impossible to think, to be anything good, and his feet carry him further to her wings where he winds shadow through the gossamer feathers until each one is etched with the dark of him. “Angel.” He says, and his voice is a low, desperate growl, his eyes too dark to be molten as he closes them and presses his nose to the curve of her hip to breathe her in. “Tell me you’re sure.” It must be some kind of self-torture, just another way that he is so broken, because he is sure it’ll kill him to hear her say that she is sure she does not want him.
But she must, she needs to blind him with this pain because the dark inside him is roiling for her light, for her love.
what are you talking about, i wrote this in five minutes