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Child, Aleksander is the Black Heretic.
Alina’s sure her heart stops.
Aleksander is the Black Heretic. He created the Fold. He was immortal.
She should be terrified.
But instead it’s like something inside her clicks, like the final piece of a jigsaw moved into place and she was only now just seeing the full picture. The way he talked of lost soldiers, of lost friends, of the otkazat’sya turning on the Grisha yet again. The pain behind his eyes wasn’t for recent events, it was pain held by a man who spent centuries repeating the same vicious cycle over and over again.
Until she came along.
Baghra’s grip on her arm is tight but Alina pries her arm from the old woman, his mother.
“Child-”
“I’m more of use under his nose than hiding in the woods like a scared little girl,” Alina bites out. She glares at the old woman, willing her to challenge Alina.
“He will strap that collar to you like a vice,” Baghra spits.
“Not if he thinks I’m with him,” Alina argues, “he already thinks he has me so why correct him?”
She can see Baghra considering her. Alina’s not even sure how true the words that come from her mouth are when she can still taste him on her tongue.
“He’s harder to kill than he looks,” Baghra warns.
“So am I,” she replies.
The woman’s lips purse and she gives Alina a curt nod before she disappears into the darkness of the tunnel. Alina closes her eyes and tries to collect herself with a sigh. What the hell did she just agree to? The moment she walked back into Aleksander’s room he’d know something was wrong.
She opens her eyes and turns around, ascending up the stairs from which she came.
No, she tells herself, he won’t see through her at all. Her and Mal hid for years, this was no different.
Except it was.
She’s Grisha now. They’re calling her a Saint. The man she almost let bed her was the Black Heretic.
His laugh on her skin, his forehead on hers.
She shivers despite herself.
Alina opens the door, thankful it’s still as empty as she left it. She closes it behind her and walks back to the table of the war room. She considers her options, leaving would cause suspicion, but staying, Saints, what would staying mean?
He’s coming back to finish what he started with her.
What’s wrong with her that she still wants him to?
He’s going to expand the Fold, Alina reminds herself. But what did that even mean? Expand it to who? How far? What would they gain from it?
Her fingers drum on the table as she thinks, remembers. Remembers, the Drüskelle, the weapons they used against the Grisha, the man that wanted nothing more than to send his axe through her face simply for existing. She had one story, how many did Aleksander have?
Alina’s thoughts are interrupted when the door opens. She looks up to meet Aleksander’s gaze and any thought she had dies in her mind, instead her eyebrows draw together.
“What’s happened?” she asks.
He makes his way towards her and she sucks a breath when his fingers find the bottom of her chin to tilt her face upwards.
“An attack on your life was made,” he tells her, she wonders if the sadness behind his eyes is real, “you’re safe, there are guards at the door.”
“And you’re here,” she muses.
The look in his eyes revels the one he gave her when he saw her walking into the throne room earlier that day. Lovely, he'd called her.
His mouth descends on hers and she lets it. His hand on her chin cups her jaw and she lets out a soft noise when his tongue asks for entrance into her mouth again.
It shouldn’t make her feel this way, but she drowns in him. His mouth on hers is intoxicating, his hands on her skin. Her own hand finds the back of his head and into his hair, drawing him closer, making the Black Heretic himself moan into her mouth.
His fingers hover over the buttons of her kefta.
Only when she nods does he begin undoing them.
He nips at her lip, his hands tracing at the thin shirt she wears under her kefta the more he exposes her. Every new piece of her that he touches makes her arch into him more, makes her want more.
Aleksander’s mouth moves from her lips to her jaw, drawing a hot line of kisses to her neck.
“My Alina,” he breathes against her.
Her hands are gripped on his kefta and her eyes open, snapping her back into reality. He must feel the change in her because he draws back, searching her eyes with his.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Alina asks. The question is out of her mouth before she can draw it back. She hates the way her eyes fall to his lips, red and swollen.
His eyebrows draw together in question and she uses her grip on his kefta to bring him closer to her, her mouth just hovering above his.
“That you were the Black Heretic,” she finishes quietly.
His eyes that were on her mouth, snap to hers but he makes no effort to try and move away.
“Who told you?”
“Who says I didn’t figure it out?”
He swallows and her eyes trace the movement.
“You don’t seem all that scared,” he says barely above a whisper.
“Should I be?”
Both his hands find Alina’s face and she lets out a small gasp at the contact.
“Full of surprises,” he murmurs.
He leans in to kiss her again, but his lips stop right as they brush against hers, hovering, waiting.
If you’re going to run, do it now. He doesn’t say it outloud, he doesn’t need to. She knows once she closes the distance between their lips again there’s no going back. She knows what he is, but she’s willing to give herself to him anyways.
Not all of herself, not for that collar.
That will be hers to hold.
Hers to decide if she wants to use it to kill him or not.
She closes the distance.
This kiss is different. It’s different from when he lifted her onto the war room table. It’s different from when she kissed him earlier that day. It’s different from the kiss they just shared moments ago.
This kiss makes the sunlight in her want to flood the room.
He works his tongue against hers in way that’s no longer trying to claim her but like he’s finally coming home. It’s torn between passion and desire and undertones of relief that coil around her heart like a vice in her chest.
Aleksander pushes her kefta off her and it falls to the ground with a soft thud. Her arms find themselves around his neck, desperately trying to get him closer to her. She’s lifted from the ground but instead of lifting her onto the war table he walks her deeper into his room. Alina’s losing herself in every press of his mouth against hers, unwilling to pull away as he carries her. She groans into his mouth when he sits back onto his bed, the hard length of him in his pants pressing into her core.
She tugs at his hair, her hips grinding down against him at their own accord.
He gasps into her mouth.
“Not very Saintly, Alina.”
“I can leave,” she warns against his mouth.
He chuckles into their kiss.
“Of course you can, lapushka.”
Aleksander pulls at the hem of her shirt and she lets him tug it over her head until she sits in his lap in nothing but her pants and bra.
His hands palm at her breasts and she lets out a pleased sigh.
As he pushes the straps of her bra down and places his mouth against her shoulder it hits her that no one has ever touched her like this. She should feel scared when his long fingers undo the clasp behind her, leaving her bare before him. She should feel panicked when those hands find her breasts, working her in a way she’s never thought to do herself.
She should feel a lot of things but all she feels is empowered.
Alina works at the clasps at his kefta, proving difficult with the way Aleksander’s teeth graze at the juncture of her neck.
“Get this off,” she commands, still trying to push at the garment.
She wants to see him the way he’s seeing her. In ways she selfishly hopes only few have seen him before. Maybe you’ll be the last, a dark part of her brain screams.
Together they manage to get his kefta off of him, his shirt, and Alina runs her hands along the planes of his chest. Aleksander’s mouth finds hers again, his hand wrapped lightly around the edge of her neck so that it almost rests against her throat.
Alina presses herself further against him, their bare chests pressing together causing a gasp to draw from his mouth. Everytime she brings a noise from him something stirs inside of her. A reminder that she’s doing this, she’s causing him to react this way, he wants this just as badly as she does.
He flips them suddenly so that she’s laying with her back to his soft bed. His mouth is wet on her chest as he kisses his way to her nipple. The sensation of his tongue against her draws out a moan from her lips so loud she shoves her own fist in her mouth.
“Aleksander,” Alina breathes around her hand. He gives her other breast the same attention and her hips push upwards, desperate to feel his hardness against her again.
He pushes her hips down lightly and she sighs somewhere between pleasure and frustration.
Aleksander leans back, his dark eyes trailing across her body causing her to flush under the intensity of his gaze. His fingers trail across her stomach, sending tingles along her body. Her eyes are on his when his fingers stop at the button of her pants.
There’s still time to go back.
There’s still time for her to put her clothes back on and flee this room, maybe even flee the palace.
She doesn’t want to.
Saints, why doesn’t she want to?
Alina nods.
He undoes the button of her pants, slowly, too slowly, pulls her pants and undergarments down until she’s left in nothing below him. He takes her in with an intensity that should scare her but she can only imagine what the mirror behind her own features looks like to him.
“You next,” she says, her voice slightly strained.
Aleksander’s hands run up and down her thighs, his eyes roaming over every plane of her body like he’s trying to burn it into his memory. Maybe he doesn’t think he’ll get this again, maybe he’s right.
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
She laughs.
“No,” she replies honestly.
He smiles as well, his own laugh falling from his lips. Saints, she loved that sound.
Aleksander leans down and presses a kiss to one of her thighs, then the other. He spreads them gently as he settles himself between them and Alina’s heart starts racing in her chest.
He kisses her thigh again, closer to her center. He pauses and looks up at her again.
“Do you trust me enough for this?” he asks again.
She’s not completely certain what he means. The sex? The pleasure? Not to kill her? Not to enslave her? Not to ruin her?
His teeth graze her thigh lightly.
“No,” she replies with a sigh that’s pleased and resigned, “but I want you anyway.”
It must be good enough for him because his mouth closes around her center. She thought that mouth on her breasts made her feel like she could bathe the room in her sunlight, but the way his tongue moves against her now makes her feel like she could destroy the Fold from here.
It draws a surprised laugh from her lips that quickly transforms into a moan when one of his fingers enters her.
He pulls his mouth back to look up at her, but another finger enters her alongside the other.
“Something funny, milaya?”
It’s hard to form a coherent thought when his fingers are still pumping in and out of her with a clear practiced ease.
“Just thinking,” she gasps, “that if you did this to me close enough the Fold,” she moans as he curls those fingers in her, back arching off the bed, “I probably wouldn’t need the amplifier.”
It doesn’t matter that he might want to expand it, not in this moment, not when she’s starting to fall apart for him.
He laughs again and she feels his smile against her stomach, her chest, her neck, as he kisses his way back to her lips.
Aleksander’s thumb works that spot where his tongue had been and she gasps into his mouth.
“But you still want it,” he says against her mouth, “the amplifier. The power.”
“Yes,” she moans. Her hand tangles in his dark hair, deepening their kiss. Her answer to him is true, she wants the power the Stag will provide. She wants to be able to be strong enough to kill the man with his fingers buried inside her.
Alina can feel herself getting close to something she’s only managed to achieve herself a few times alone in the dark. He must sense it too and he works his fingers in her a bit rougher, not enough to hurt, just enough to leave her panting against his mouth. He kisses her jaw, her neck, letting her soft moans fill the room as she gets closer to her release.
It crashes over her like a wave, like the first time the sun poured from her body, suddenly and all at once. Her nails dig into Aleksander’s bare shoulder and they release twin groans into his bedroom.
“My Alina,” he sighs into her neck.
“No,” she whispers, “I don’t belong to anyone, Aleksander.”
She feels him smile again and she’s almost grateful when he draws back to look into her eyes, just so she can see that smile on his face. He’s beautiful, even more so when her hand runs through his beard and rests on his cheek, his eyes fluttering at the touch.
“You may not be mine,” he says, opening his eyes to look at her again, “but I am yours, Alina.”
The truth in his words startles her. He may have told her other lies, but this, those words from his lips belonged to her, to them.
The Black Heretic was hers.
Their next kiss meets in the middle.
She coaxes his mouth open with little resistance and with a sudden sense of urgency both their hands meet at his waistband. There’s no laughter this time, only a new sense of desperation. She undoes the top button of his pants and he pushes them the rest of the way down. When he’s finally as naked as she is, his body presses against every plane of her.
“Alina,” he gasps into her mouth.
“Yes,” she moans, “Aleksander, please.”
She can’t think of anything else but him. When he enters her she gasps. She expected pain, but everything about him consumes her, snaking around her and covering her the same way his shadows would.
Alina knows they’re going too fast, a girl’s first time should be slow, with someone you love. This is neither. His thrusts are rough, but so are hers. She doesn’t love him, but maybe he loves her, maybe he hates her, maybe they hate each other. It doesn’t matter, nothing matters, not in this moment, not with him buried inside of her.
She wants to find that same release, but she never wants this to end. She doesn’t want Aleksander to stop kissing her, she doesn’t want his hands to ever leave their position on her hips.
He is hers.
For this? Maybe she could be his.
“Aleksander,” she moans.
Their hips meet together in time with each other like two ends of a book closing together. It should bother her how intune they are, how as soon as she wants his hand to bring her over the edge she doesn’t have to ask, he already knows.
“Aleksander,” she gasps again.
“I know,” he kisses her neck, “I know.”
Tears prick the corners of her eyes and she knows the moan she lets out is obscene, but she can’t hold it in. She doesn’t want to and it causes the reaction from Aleksander she wanted, his fingers just a bit harder against her, just enough for her to find that release again.
This time the light does come from her skin, it bubbles around them the same way it did when she helped Aleksander call back his shadows. She can barely feel when his hips still, burying himself deep inside of her, but she hears the soft sounds of her name on his lips along her neck.
She doesn’t know how long they lay there. It could be minutes or hours. Her only constant is the warm weight of Aleksander’s body against hers and the way she mindlessly runs her fingers down his bare arm.
“Are you going to expand it?” she asks. He’s still laying on her chest so she knows he can hear how steady her heart is. Her question should have been nervous, but it wasn’t.
“Yes,” she hears in reply.
Her fingers find his hair, carding through it lightly.
“Why?” she asks.
“To save the Grisha and all of Ravka,” he replies, echoing her from earlier.
“Were you going to force the amplifier on me?”
“Yes,” the reply is immediate. It doesn’t surprise her, it doesn’t even hurt her.
“What if I said I’d help you do it,” she asks, “that I want to help you expand it. Would you trust me?”
She feels his smile.
“No.”
For some reason she smiles as well.
“I won’t let you put it on me,” she warns. It’s borderline teasing. Maybe she’s lost herself in the afterglow, or maybe something in her craves the fight.
He lifts his head up from her chest, positioning himself so that his head hovers directly above hers. Her eyes fall to his lips and he smirks.
“We’ll see.”
He leans down to kiss her.
“Maybe I’ll kill you,” she says when he pulls away.
“Maybe you will.”
He closes the distance between them again.
The Saint’s lips are warm against the Heretic’s.
Maybe she’ll kill him.
Maybe he’ll kill her.
Maybe the world will get lucky and they’ll simply kill each other.