“It is the way of things, here. Relax, my soldier. Let me do what you have asked of me, and when it is done, you may use all that dominance I know you still have and fuck me until I sob your name into the sheets.”
Nyx gave him a fierce smile, and Azaiah returned it as he went back to what he was doing. It required a great deal of concentration, forming the bolts, sliding them over Nyx as if they were fingers. He watched as the lightning slid into Nyx’s mouth, thick as three or four fingers, and then thicker, the width of a cock. Nyx’s eyes were wild but no longer full of that bright grief, and his cock thickened as he made a choking noise around the press of the lightning in his mouth.
“Oh, look at you. You’re beautiful—yes, that’s it,” Azaiah urged, fucking in and out of Nyx’s mouth with the lightning as other, thinner arcs sparked up and down his chest, his nipples, the sensitive skin of his upper arm. He was writhing in seconds, grabbing at the sheets, thrusting up and seeking friction as the lightning teased his thighs and Azaiah urged him to spread his legs.
“You—you’re not— Oh, fuck me,” Nyx moaned, as the lightning left his mouth to travel lower, down chest and thighs and between his legs, making him kick his heels as it sparked. “That should fucking hurt, why— Fuck, don’t stop.”
He babbled as the arcs danced over his skin, back into his mouth, even his eyes, lighting him up like it was trying to meld with him, become part of him. Azaiah was transfixed as the lightning formed a tentacle of sorts, thick and bright white, pressing at the entrance to Nyx’s body.
“Can you feel this?” Nyx gasped. “I want you to. I want you to like it.”
“I do,” Azaiah assured him. And oh, he did—watching Nyx writhe under the full assault of his powers, painless butintense,was making him almost desperate to fuck him. But he had waited for centuries, so he could wait a bit longer. Yes, this was exactly what he wanted, Nyx pinned and helpless as Azaiah formed the lightning into bonds to hold him on the bed. His body was glowing as the lightning made cuffs for his wrists, a collar around his neck, a gag that had Nyx’s eyes wide from the electric pulse of it. More cuffs held his ankles spread wide so Azaiah could see all of Nyx, and a thin, small ring around the base of his cock made Nyx twitch deliciously every time it flared with light.
“Let it go, Nyx. Let all of it go. Your guilt, your sorrow. The pain I know you felt, losing your family. The rage, even the satisfaction you took in watching the empire fall before you. The years you waited for me and I didn’t come. The hope that was dashed when I drew back my cowl and you saw it wasn’t the man who loved you but the god who didn’t care as long as you did his bidding. You were always mine, Nyx. My soldier, my beloved, my butcher, my glaive. But here you can just be Nyx.”
With that, Azaiah slid the lightning into Nyx’s entrance, careful and slow, letting the pulses echo through him, too. It was a strange sensation, not painful but impossible to ignore or hide from, and that was as it should be. He used the magic to fuck Nyx, his own cock aching with the desire to be where the lightning was, but he pushed that aside and drove the lightning into Nyx all over his body: his mouth, his eyes, his nose, the head of his cock. It was impossible to tell where Nyx ended and the storm began, and in that moment, Azaiah felt his own last lingering doubts and grief ebb away.
“Come for me, let me see you. Let it all out, my beautiful, beautiful Nyx…”
Nyx came with a shout, thrashing on the bed, and he didn’t stop once the pleasure ran through him and his cock spilled wet on his stomach. He screamed, crying out words and names, some Azaiah knew and some he didn’t, until he was hoarse and the sheets were a mess, the lightning flaring with every yell, driving Nyx to another orgasm in seconds. It went on and on until no sound came from Nyx’s mouth and his body was trembling, unresisting. Azaiah slowly drew the magic back, one piece at a time—the slivers of lightning in his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his ears. The ones wrapped around his neck, his wrists, the firm muscles of his upper arms. As each one withdrew, Nyx’s breathing started to even out, and by the time Azaiah drew the last of the lightning from his cock, he was smiling.
“That was—I know you did that for a reason, but you might do it again sometime, yeah?”
That sounded like Nyx, the one who’d laughed with his soldiers by the fire, who smiled so sweetly at Azaiah, the man Azaiah had fallen in love with. He kissed him, stroked his face, and pulled back to nod. “Of course. How do you feel?”
“Better,” Nyx said, stretching. His body was still twitching occasionally. He didn’t seem to mind. “But I’d be even more so if you’d fuck me. You, not your magic. Just you.”
“The storm is me, dear one. And I am the storm. But I understand.” He would like Nyx to ride him, he thought, but perhaps not quite yet. Nyx didn’t look inclined to move from the position he was in, so Azaiah climbed on top of him, kissing him and pressing his cock against the entrance to Nyx’s body. Here, in this place where pain was only a memory and things adapted to their desires, they did not need oil to ease his way inside.
Nyx was quiet as Azaiah fucked him. He stared at Azaiah, eyes half-closed as Azaiah moved over him. He wrapped his legs around Azaiah’s hips and drew his fingers through Azaiah’s hair, over and over. “Gods, you’re so beautiful,” he said. “Even as—even as him, you were beautiful.”
“Your ability to see that in that part of me, it is why I love you. Why your soul never fully faded,” Azaiah gasped, kissing him hotly as he neared his own release.
“And you, you were worth it. I—would do anything for you. I’m sorry I forgot that. I should have chosen love, not hate.” Nyx pulled him closer, arms and legs wound tight around him. “Fuck me harder, come on.”
Azaiah buried his face in the crook of Nyx’s shoulder and did so, fucking him until the pleasure washed over him and he came, buried deep inside the warmth of Nyx’s body. When it was over, they lay tangled up together, the soft sound of the river filling the small room. Nyx turned toward him, overcome, and Azaiah held him while he cried; not the sobbing grief of earlier but a quiet rush of tears for the time they’d lost, the people he’d lost, the life they didn’t have for so many years, kept apart by the choices they’d made, the fear they’d given in to, the deeds that made the world a harsher, darker place. They came together again and again, Azaiah moaning on his back, then on all fours with Nyx kneeling behind him, and then with Nyx on his back, Azaiah riding him slow and easy, teasing the last shuddering orgasm from him.
“I like this part of being dead,” Nyx said at last, lying exhausted at Azaiah’s side.
“You’re not dead,” Azaiah said. “But I take your meaning.”
Nyx yawned. Then he blinked. “Do I need to sleep? Or eat? I feel… like I don’t, but I want to.”
“Then you may. I don’t sleep—Death doesn’t, as you know—but I think you may, if you wish it, because it helps you keep your humanity. But if you don’t want to be tired, you don’t have to be.”
“Oh. Well. Is it strange? I… want to sleep. With you, in this house that is ours now. I want to sleep, dream, and wake up being happy and with you. Before, when I was… Glaive, I was only ever happy when I dreamt of you.”
“Ah, Nyx.” Azaiah drew him close. “If I could have dreamt in those long years we were apart, I would have wanted to dream of you, too.”
Nyx did sleep, breathing easy, and if he dreamt, Azaiah did not know what he saw in the Weaver’s realm. Azaiah lay there, listening to the sounds of his home and watching Nyx, touching him constantly, tracing the shape of the flower for what felt like hours… until Nyx stirred, blinked his eyes open, and saw Azaiah. “For once, I’m not sad about waking up,” he said, and when he reached for him, Azaiah went easily and gladly into his arms.
ChapterTwenty
Nyx didn’t know how long he lay with Azaiah in their little house on the shore of the river. His muscles didn’t ache anymore, he had no contracts to fulfill or vows to make, and he was content to idly stroke Azaiah’s hair and breathe, just for the pleasure of it.
Then he heard a sound in the distance, and he sat up. Azaiah smiled at him, looking as blissful as Nyx felt.
“Listen,” Azaiah said, and Nyx strained to hear. It was a voice, someone singing terribly off-key, and several softer voices echoing his words. There was something about the way he spoke that made Nyx feel like Azaiah’s lightning was rolling over his skin, and it finally struck him that the singer was using the language of the old empire. The words that drifted across the river belonged to one of the old songs parents used to sing to teach their kids the elements of the world.
