YVIN’S HOME, DES PATIER, EDITHIR SUMMER, 578 CE
His fingers traced up her palms, threading through her thin, long fingers. She was beautiful, with thick flaxen hair and high arching brows. Her lips, the color of azaleas in bloom, parted as she sighed and turned to rest against his chest. Dancing her fingertips over his bare skin, she hummed to herself, comfortably cradled in his arm. Haros slipped his hand under her jaw and turned her glassy gaze to meet his own.
“I paid you.” His eyes wandered to her lips, longing for another taste of them. “Where’s my fortune?”
“Prick,” she whispered, curling closer.
“You love it, darling.” He leaned down, kissing her slowly.
Fanning her finger over his chest, she pushed herself back with a disappointed groan. Her hazel eyes, dark on the outer rim and nearly yellow around the pupil, dulled as she stared at him with a deep frown. Yvin was a fortune-teller by trade, profession, lineage, and choice. She was one of the best in the kingdom, and in the entire Northern Region, renowned in her own coven and a high-sitting witch in the Council of Covens. And she had long held a special place in her heart, and bed, for Haros.
“Give me your hand, you whore.” Yvin flipped around, her naked back to his chest as she pulled their hands apart and spread his fingers open and palm wide.
Delicate, as if stroking the petals of a flower, she traced the lines and grumbled low as she reached back and took his other hand, pulling him over. Haros chuckled, kissing the side of her neck as his body tangled around her. Yvin examined the other hand, unbothered by the way he molded to her or how his cock hardened against her back, ready for another round. She bit her lip as his nose traced along her jaw, the dark raven-black locks of his hair falling over her cheek and forehead as he nipped the edge of her ear.
“Tell me it says I can fuck you again.” His rough words barely distracted her from her work.
“It doesn’t, but if you don’t, Haros, I won’t tell you what it does say,” she purred, flipping onto her stomach.
He grinned from ear to ear and positioned himself over her. Brushing back her hair, he dragged his fingers down the length of her spine. Her ass was plump and perfect. Taking a cheek in his hand, he groaned, eager for more. With a hard slap to her bottom and a gasp from her pretty pink lips, he took his cock in one hand and slid his fingers inside her with the other. Stroking himself, he licked his lips as she wriggled against his hand.
Of all the women he’d enjoyed, she was by far his favorite. And damn, she felt good. The head of his dick was already damp before he slid in. Yvin raised her hips, taking him deeper as he pressed against her ass. She hummed happily as he brought her fully to his base and dug his fingers hard into the thick of her bottom.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“Your palms tell quite a tale,” Yvin said between breaths as she took hold of the pillow beneath her. Haros, clutching her hips, steadily rocking against her as she continued to explain. She moaned softly at the even tempo. It was deliberate, giving her the opportunity to speak before he made her breathless… or filled her mouth with his cock again. Whichever happened first. “It says you will be the last king, and die over and again for the one you love, the one who will never bear your children in this world.” She gasped as he thrust hard and deep and fell to her shoulder, kissing the crook of her neck. She reached back and stroked through his hair. “Haros, one day you will sacrifice everything for your lover. Future, fortune, and name.”
“Well, sweetheart,” his hands planted beside her, “I think I may have fucked the foresight right out of you.”
“I’m never wrong,” she said proudly.
“You are this time,” he sat back, pulling out of her. “Ass up.”
She slid her knees under and lifted as instructed. Yvin’s fingers twisted around the narrow bar at the head of her bed. “One day, Haros, everything will change for you.”
“I doubt it.” He took her by the hips and guided her back. He hummed, watching the way she slid up and down his length and her fluids dripped from her and drenched him with every meeting of their bodies. Sliding his fingers along the length of his cock, wet from her, he raised them to his lips and licked them off. “How the hell do you taste this good?”
Yvin rolled her eyes at his question. He always asked, and she was sure he asked everyone. It was just a playful script. She sucked in a breath, trying to push away the visions of his future swimming through her head. It was confusing and endless and wrapped with a woman she’d only seen once before. The woman from the vision she had the last time he’d asked about his fortune.
“Harder,” she breathed out.
“How hard?” He slammed against her, hoping for an opportunity to indulge in one of the rarer pleasures she offered.
“Make me shake.” Yvin looked over her shoulder, eyes narrowed at him. “Make me forget your name.”
He smirked, smoothing his hands along her backside and parting her cheeks to watch his cock as he fucked her a moment longer. He slid out, drenched and dripping in long, glistening streams between them. Haros scoffed as his cock twitched, too close to the end for his own good. Pressing his fingers into her, he took from the pool of pleasure spilling between her legs and then moved higher. It was tighter, fitting even one wet finger into her ass always made her whimper.
It was a wonder she could take all of him. The sound she made when the head of his cock pressed into her other hole made him damn near lose every sense of control he had left. Plunging in faster than he meant, he cursed under his breath as she cried out, collapsing forward onto the bed.
“Dammit, Haros,” she gasped, squeezing the blanket and pillows, her eyes shut tight.
“Tell me how much you love it when I fuck you.” He slowly withdrew, watching her carefully as she caught her breath before slamming into her again.
Her guttural groan and the way she bit the pillow made him harder, pushing him to the edge as he pushed into her. Yvin reached back, and her fingers slid from her clit to the warmth of her lower lips. She delved inside, squirming against her own touch, and his cock buried deep in her ass. Her voice strained as she forced the words out in thin breaths.
“Thinking about you makes me so wet, I ache. You fuck me in ways no one else can, no one else will. No one, Haros, no one feels as good as you.” A desperate moan rose from her lips as she sank back, trembling through her legs and gushing into her hand.
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“Yvin, you lying little bitch.” His thrusts turned quick and short. His hand slapped across her backside, leaving a red mark on her skin in his wake. “You’re trying to get me to finish early?”
“Fuck,” she hissed, burying into the pillow.
“I knew it,” he chuckled, grabbing a fist full of her loose golden curls, and yanked her head back. Haros knew what she liked and played her games, knowing she would, in turn, make sure he left as satisfied as herself. Of course, that wasn’t hard to do. Sex was his favorite drug.
“Please,” she whimpered, “Haros, I need it.”
“Tell me what you need.” His hand slid under her jaw, keeping her chin as high as she could lift it.
“I need to feel you come inside me.” Yvin choked out as his grip tightened around her thin neck.
“Once wasn’t enough?” he growled into her ear as he pulled out of her ass. Quickly glancing around, he spotted the damp cloth from earlier and grabbed it from the corner of the bed. Cleaning himself off, he sucked in a breath, considering how the rest of his day might go at the rate it was trending. He might be in her for the better part of it and sleep well through the night for a damn change.
He flipped her onto her back and scooped her legs over his lap and around his middle. There wasn’t a thing about the way he shoved into her that was nice or gentle. Her back arched in response. Her small breasts jiggled as he slammed into her faster than before. Fuck, they were hypnotic. He blinked and followed the trail of her stomach to where they met. She was soaking wet, and the tremors in her legs kept her tense.
“Damn,” he said, mostly to himself as he watched her lower belly rise and fall with each thrust.
She was petite and the first time they were together, he was absolutely sure he wouldn’t fit without tearing her in half. Yvin promised it would be fine if he took it slow and, of course, she was right. It was more than fine. He hadn’t had a release like that one in a long time, not since… fuck, he couldn’t remember. It was years, maybe one of the first. Still, Yvin was unique. She let him do more things with her, and to her, than he could name in public before someone stopped him for being too indecent.
“Haros,” she groaned, gripping his wrists.
“I’m trying,” he said through clenched teeth. And he was trying. He was trying his best, but he couldn’t get there fast enough. For reasons he had yet to understand, he couldn’t get her words out of his head. Her bullshit fortune of a lover so great he’d give up everything was the sort of trash the lonely wanted to hear. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about it even when her porcelain skin, damp with sweat from their intimate play, was on display for him, and he was so deep inside her that he could feel her back wall when he thrust hard enough.
“This lover,” he swallowed down a breath, “have we met?”
“Not yet,” Yvin spoke quietly, “and you won’t even like her at first.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“You’ll nearly hate her,” Yvin breathed, her eyes rolling back in her head. “She’s the last person you’ll ever love, and you will love her more than anyone or anything. Forever.”
“That sounds more like a fucking condemnation than a fortune.”
“She already loves you, Haros.” Yvin looked up at him, her eyes bright as the sun.
It was that look, that helpless pleasure in her face, that sent him hurtling over the edge. He lurched forward, groaning in release as he spilled inside her. It would have been a problem if she wasn’t so diligent with contraceptives. She made them, dried the herbs herself, and sold them to the lovers she told fortunes to—some of those whimsical tales were real, but most of them fake, ensuring a few extra purchases on their way out from her mystic’s tent.
She knew her herbal concoctions worked well, almost exclusively because she used them herself. Yvin made no secret of how many lovers she had, or at least how many she took to her bed between times when she was with Haros. He was the man she always returned to and yet had no interest in keeping. Her heart, unlike the rest of her, belonged to a man who was long dead. It was unfortunate. He died days before they were to be wed. She carried his ring on her necklace beside her own.
Haros felt sorry for both of them. Danren was his best friend, and had been since they were young kids playing in the streets of Des Patier, and when he and Yvin started dating, he’d never been so happy to see them happy together. They brought out the best in one another. It was a shame, though, that Danren had not spent a single night with Yvin before his death, the prude, especially when Haros was in her bed every other Wednesday afternoon. If he was lucky, he was there on Thursdays, too. Yvin dreamed of a happy, married life with Danren since they were teenagers and told Haros all about it the entire time he was screwing her.
His death, when it came too soon, was unexpected. The coroner tried his best to explain what happened, how Danren, like his father before, had a complicated heart problem. It was difficult to treat and eventually was too much. The heart simply stopped. Or at least that was the story he sold and printed in his obituary. The truth was worse. He, like his father and his grandmother, had suffered the fate of Styxin’s Curse. They were one of many families with Styxin blood and paid the price for the magic they carried in an early death. It was better to keep that part out of the public eye.
When it had happened, Yvin was devastated and spent months with her would-be mother-in-law mourning. Haros took it upon himself to visit them both more often than usual. He brought food, made sure they ate, checked on their laundry, on Danren’s brother and his brother’s daughter, the only niece he’d ever known, and tidied the house for them. Not once during Yvin’s mourning did he so much as attempt to solicit to her the way he did in the past. Instead, he cared for her. He washed her hair on the days she couldn’t do it herself, grief-sick and barely able to get out of bed. Haros didn’t judge her for a moment for the way she curled into a ball and wept into the blankets that no longer smelled like Danren. They’d spent more than half their lives together and he was gone. Most days, Haros stretched out next to her and talked quietly until the tears dried.
He’d never tell her the other reason he came so often. It wasn’t exclusively for her sake. It was, in part, out of selfishness. Losing Danren hurt him in a way he couldn’t describe. There was only a painful emptiness in the place where Danren once resided. He couldn’t walk by the old school without feeling it ache and nausea rising from his gut from the sickening hope that his best friend would round the corner the way he always did, greeting him with a tight-lipped smile and flipping back his glossy chestnut hair. But he never did. The street remained empty, haunted only by the ghost of a man who’d died too young. There were too many places in Des Patier with memories Haros couldn’t force back, and he sought comfort in the only place he knew he would find it. For him, spending time with Yvin helped him feel less alone. She loved Danren with all her heart, and so did Haros.
Even after years following his death, he couldn’t help but think of him when he was with Yvin. He was the lucky bastard who lived and fucked her when it shouldn’t have been him at all. Haros chuckled to himself as his cock nearly fell from her, wet and mostly limp. His thick white seed dripped in globs between her legs as she panted softly. He loved it when she was breathless, sated, and content. It wouldn’t last long, but there was something about how rosy her cheeks got that made him want to come back for more.
“As much as I’d love to stay here all day, I have to go.” He swung her leg over his lap and scooted to the side of the bed. Grabbing his clothes from the floor, he pulled them on and went to the mirror, and fixed his hair.
“Another day of peace talks?” She sat up, grabbed a ribbon from her nightstand, and tied back her hair.
“At this rate, they’re never going to end.” Haros looked at her, exhausted by the idea of sitting through another pointless Chambers meeting, as he cleaned off his hands and straightened his shirt.
War was a way of life, and it had been for years. The fighting never stopped because no one knew exactly how it started. So much of it was a mosaic of pointed fingers, hearsay, and gossip tangled up with dubious facts. It didn’t really matter anymore how it started in the first place. The trouble was, though, with all the constant fighting, resources were growing thin. Famine was spreading to everyone, and the illness following close behind was even worse. Even the nobility was suffering from shortages and the threat of plagues. Haros saw the writing on the wall. The kings and high lords of all the warring kingdoms were falling out of luxury and would do nearly anything to hold on to it a while longer, even if it meant making peace with their enemies.
If they could make peace with their enemies.
Haros sat through enough meetings to realize peace wasn’t truly attainable. It was as fantastic of a dream as Yvin once had for her future and equally out of reach.