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She thought she had been quiet. Sneaking through the camps wasn’t easy these days. Not when she was no more than a prisoner with freshly-embedded antlers as her collar and the Darkling’s wickedness as her leash. But tomorrow, she would be on the Fold, will probably die on it, and her last act of free will was going to be seeing Mal without an audience. She would possibly be telling him goodbye.
He could be found in the brigs located on the outskirts of the Grisha tents. She whispered his name as she entered, lighting what little sun she could afford to locate him. His jail cell, with its dirty floor and rank smell, was more comfortable in its familiarity than the lavish tent the Darkling had set her up in. A prison with a plush bed and lush carpets was still a prison.
He was in the last cell, curled to his side and asleep on the bare cot. Part of her wanted to leave him this way. Let him get the last restful sleep he could before their worlds changed tomorrow. But she was selfish and young, so she hissed his name again and threw an apple at his shoulder when he wouldn’t wake. She knew firsthand what scraps were given to those in the brig.
He awoke with a start, loud enough to draw attention, and Alina was forced to extinguish her light.
“Mal, it’s me! Be quiet!”
He ran to the bars and wrapped his hands over hers. Even in the dark, he was able to find her.
“Alina! What are you doing here? Are you getting out?”
“No, I--”
“No, listen, Alina. You have to get out. Take a horse and walk it out of camp, then ride east to Ryevost. You can’t let him take you on the Fold tomorrow. If you head out now, you can make it to one of the villages by dusk. From there--”
“Mal, I can’t. I can’t go. He’s..” she didn’t know how to describe the antlers penetrated beneath her skin. She was hoping he hadn't seen them. “He’s tethered me to him with the amplifier--Morozova's stag. He can control it, control my power. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I swear to you--”
Suddenly, the entire brig was alight. Its source clutched at her chest, and Alina was uncertain how to stop it. Mal’s eyes widened in horror, but it wasn’t the light from her hands that caught his attention.
Down the narrow passage, the Darkling cocked his head at her mockingly. “Visiting hours are over I’m afraid, Miss Starkov.”
Aware of her precarious position, Alina could only beg. “Please...I just wanted to see him before tomorrow.”
“Your little friend is coming onboard with us tomorrow, Alina.” He smiled at Alina’s shock. “For reasons, of course. An incentive to keep you in line, or, should you fail, a distraction for the volcra who will surely come to rip us apart.”
“Mal has nothing to do with this!”
The Darkling breathed deeply, as though the smell of her fear were the most delicious meal laid before him.
“I do love it when you beg. Come, Alina.”
She held the bars tighter. “No, wait. Wait, Mal--Mal, please. Please, whatever happens tomorrow, you have to get off the Fold. You have to promise me that you’ll--”
“ Now , Alina.”
“Promise me you’ll get off the Fold tomorrow, no matter what. I’m so sorry. For all of this, everything, and whatever happens, you have to- I’m so sorry I never got to tell you. I love you so much, Mal. I’m so sorry this happened.”
Skeins of shadow wrapped around her throat and squeezed her vocal chords into silence. Moments later, and the Darkling’s hand was on the back of her neck with a vice grip that kept her entire body stiff and immobile.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You’ll learn to come when I call, pet.”
The Darkling shoved her out into the camp, walking her along the edge of the Fold. Distant screeches of creatures--the monsters she knew lived inside--echoed to her right. The Darkling, to her left. At the moment, she wasn't sure which was worse.
“You’re not wearing your kefta.”
Alina forged ahead. Her steps were timed with the race of her heart, the beat so frantic that she was sure any nearby Heartrender would hear it like the pounding of a drum.
“I left it. Back at the Little Palace.”
The temperature felt like it plummeted to below freezing around her as soon as his boots stopped crunching in the snow. Anxiety unravelled in her stomach, threatening to heave spectacularly in front of them. His voice, somehow the coldest of all, was deadly quiet. “You defied me?”
It was either stupidity or sheer audacity that had her whirling on him and biting out her next words. “Does it matter what I’m wearing when you send me to my death tomorrow?”
He closed the distance slowly, each step measured and calculated to wring out the most tension. Her version blurred, but she met his glare. His chin lifted so he could look down his nose at her.
“Strip.”
The command was a heavy blow to her chest. A gut punch that knocked her back several steps. She looked around for help, anyone who might by surveying the scene and could do...something, anything. Even if it was just a distraction to buy her time to get back to her tent. But the air was still and quiet with the depth of sleep and a thick white noise of winter. No one was here to help her. No one would have dared anyway.
“General Kirigan--”
“Darkling,” he corrected smoothly. “I am not interested in your pleas for mercy, and I do not do well repeating myself. Strip, or I will have a nichevo’ya do it for you.”
With shaking, frozen fingers, Alina made jerky movements to untuck her white tunic from her army-issued pants. There was no mistaking the terror in her eyes, nor the silent begging that he would tell her this was only meant to shake her up. He waited, which made the painstaking act of undressing all the more unbearable knowing that he was comfortable with her squirming. While his face didn’t betray his patent stoicism, his eyes seemed to follow every part of her shifting body. It was like he noticed every hair that stood on end, every goosebump that rose on her arm. When her shirt was over her head, she clutched it to her chest with a whimper.
“ Please .”
“The rest of it, Alina.”
Defiance felt as white hot as shame while she roughly shoved the zipper down on her pants and made to remove them. There was an awkward struggle with her boots, requiring her to remove them in order to remain upright while she completed the task. All the while, her breath came in heavy pants that bordered on fury and sobbing.
“You may put your boots back on. Don’t want to give your pretty little toes frostbite, do we?”
Alina glared but quickly shoved her feet, covered in wet socks now, back into the warmth of her boots.
She stood as close to bare as she’d ever been in the presence of another man, bra and underwear feeling like invisible garments under the Darkling’s appraisal. His finger twirled in a motion meant to instruct her, and she did so if only to keep from looking at him.
“Walk.”
Her teeth chattered on her reply, “Wh-where?”
“Seeing as how I cannot trust you to remain put where I tell you, I will have to keep an eye on you for the rest of the evening. Back to my tent. And if you’re a good girl, I’ll leave the chain long enough so you can share my bed.”
Every step felt slower than the last, like she was walking through thick sludge that pulled at her muscles. The cold chilled her to the bone, but if he was waiting on her to relent, to cry and offer apologies he didn’t deserve, then he would have better luck speaking to her frozen corpse. Somehow, she didn’t think he would let it get that far.
He tutted behind her, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth with a sound that was so preposterously juvenile coming from an immortal Grisha. It was taking her brain longer to think of a witty retort, but while she was mulling over acerbic phrases, a new weight landed on her shoulders. Warm and heavy, his thick fur cloak engulfed her shivering body, and even her mind couldn’t protest the way she closed it tightly around her and inhaled his scent of crisp cedar and winter bonfire.
If the Darkling minded the way she dragged his cloak on the wet ground, he didn’t show it, and Alina didn’t care enough to try picking up at least a foot of fabric to keep it from doing so. Now warm, her stomach was left to churn over what she was walking towards. She’d kissed him once before in an ill-advised heated moment when she thought him to be something different, but the toe-curling tingles that memory once gave her was no longer accessible once he revealed himself for who he really was and what he wanted with her. Their antagonistic relationship had only grown worse after he embedded the antlers into her and made her the weapon, or shield, to cross the Fold and bring the Ravkan king to his knees.
When she stood unmoving at his tent entrance, feet unwilling to make the voluntary steps forward, he pushed her through and left her standing in wait while he retrieved a metal collar that he clasped around her neck. Attached to an O-ring at the front was a chain that he jerked once so she would stumble as he led her forward like livestock to a spot where he could tether her. There was a rug beneath her feet, his bed to her left, a wood burning stove to her right.
She turned when he began undressing near her, ignoring his soft laugh at the expense of her modesty. It was strange watching him prepare a pot of tea while he readied himself for bed. He wore soft pants and a black silky dressing gown that she only knew existed from her time in the Little Palace, where she was exposed to such luxuries. He checked the tea color and dunked the bag a few times until he was satisfied, then sweetened the pot with a couple of sugar cubes. The domesticity of it all was baffling when she was dressed in his cloak, chained to his quarters, and her clothes discarded somewhere in the snow on the perimeter of the Fold.
He handed her a cup and she had half a mind to throw it in his face, though he must have known it the way his fingers tightened around hers. He lifted a mocking brow at her, a dare with dangerous repercussions, then stepped back from her to settle at his desk. On her feet she was restless, but sitting down and enjoying a perfect hot tea prepared with the correct amount of sugar was too...complicit for her liking.
Inside the cloak she was sweltering, but standing half-naked in the Darkling’s tent was not an option. She watched in silence as he worked, refusing to ask even the most asinine of questions to engage him in any sort of civil conversation. Maybe he would grow bored of her and let her return to her tent. At the very least, perhaps he’d ignore her for the rest of the evening.
After an hour, her legs grew tired and her eyelids were magnets pulling her into sleep. The chain rattled when she nearly succumbed standing up, shaking the Darkling from whatever strategy stupor he was in.
A slow smile creeped along his face when he turned to look at her. “Bedtime, princess?”
To prove a point, Alina sat down on the floor where she stood.
He was knowing and unbothered. The lamps were extinguished with shadows that took little more than a twirl of his index finger. He kept only one on, nearest to his bed, and the fleeting thought that she could cast her own light should he plunge them into darkness had barely taken hold when he sent two skeins of shadow encircling her wrists. Together, they were like manacles that forced her wrists apart or took her arms wherever the Darkling wanted them. He tested that theory, probably for her sake more than his, by drawing up both of her arms above her head. They remained suspended with nothing but the dark manacles doing the work.
He drew closer to her, and from the floor, her head was level with his thighs. She didn’t want to look up at him only to find him sneering down at her, so she watched his knees instead. Watched him lift his foot--a sharp inhale from her as she feared he might kick her--then watched as his toes came up slowly to her chest and pushed apart the cloak to expose her once again. The Darkling crouched down to his haunches to indulge in the view. Now her vantage point was straight at his…. Alina swallowed.
“I like you like this. Knees apart. Arms above you. Open for me. I would like it more if you were my obedient little girl and did so willingly, but...nevertheless, Alina, you were made for me. My only other equal in this world. And if I must break you to make you see that, then you leave me no choice. We have all the time in the world.”
“You really love your triumphant monologues.”
The smack was sharp across her cheek, sending her face into the crook of her shaking arm.
“You continue to push me, Alina. You will not like what you find.”
But the warning did nothing but stoke the desire to find out. She wanted to walk into the darkness and light up all of the corners and nooks that he hid in. She wanted to expose him, not just to Ravka, but to her, and to himself. Maybe if he was going to break her, she could fracture him, too.
How much of herself was she willing to give in order to do that?
Did it matter if he was going to take it anyway?
The Darkling released her arms, but before she could cover herself up again, he pushed the cloak off her shoulders and pulled on her knees until she fell flat on her back on top of it.
“I thought about my bed, but you’ve not earned the privilege, solnishka.”
Alina white-knuckled the black fur bunched in her fists. Her insides clenched in ways she both understood and hated. A few months ago, he could make her molten with harsh words sweetened by false adoration. Possessive and domineering were not qualities Alina was typically attracted to, and in this moment, she wouldn’t label it attraction but perhaps inevitable submission. Maybe she would have given herself to him voluntarily over time. He would have her regardless.
She couldn’t help but think of Mal and how he would have wanted their--well, hers, certainly not his--first time. He would have been soft and gentle, murmuring lovely things in her ear by the moonlight. While the Darkling shrugged off his dressing gown and her eyes became unfocused on the tight muscles of his chest she had seen once before, Alina registered with uncomfortable surprise that nothing about the imagined scenario with Mal felt like a loss.
Not that this felt like a gain either.
With the Cut, the Darkling severed the chain stretched from her throat to the pole and caught it before it hit her face. He wrapped it once around his fist and used it to haul her upright, taking her with him as they stood. There was no ceremony in removing her undergarments. Just expedient work by his infinitely more experienced hands until she stood naked, and not even the burning stove could stave off the chill that pebbled her nipples. She closed her eyes to stop herself from looking down at her own breasts, but she felt them pull taut anyway. And then his palms cupped them, lifted and squeezed, caressed their weight in his hands appreciatively. If she tilted her head back an inch, it would land in the center of his chest. His proximity was a threat, no matter how much the bond between them wanted it to be a comfort.
His hands split in opposite directions: one sliding up to just beneath her jaw to control her head and push it back against his chest anyway, and the other laying claim to her body with a possessive touch that culminated between her legs. She squeezed her thighs together instinctively to keep him from going any farther, but he easily dismantled her efforts by kicking her leg apart and keeping her upright simply by holding her throat and jaw harder.
“I can’t tell whether I like the fight or miss your earnestness.”
In response, something escaped between Alina’s lips that she couldn’t clamp shut fast enough. The only excuse she could make was that his honesty had knocked her off her axis.
His fingers on one hand slid in her mouth at the same time as the others slid between her folds.
“What was that, pet? Louder this time.”
Her teeth found purchase on his knuckles, and he sent her flying forward to her knees while he cursed her insolence. Was it worth it, she asked herself, fighting back when it was clear he would get his way?
Later, when he had her face down in the black fur of his cloak and her ass high to receive a series of punishment spanks, each strike on her red cheeks somehow more painful and sinfully delicious than the last, a deviant voice in the back of her throat would whisper “yes”, and that affirmation would sustain her like a life raft for every orgasm he wrung from her.
For now, she stood on her knees while he fisted her hair to yank her into a backbend. From upside down, she could see him stroking himself, and she wondered if he finished quickly like she heard other men-- boys --talk about in her presence as though she wasn’t there.
“Let’s teach that mouth a lesson. Bite me again,” he warned, “and I will let a nichevo’ya shatter all of your teeth.”
The Darkling stepped in front of Alina and directed her mouth onto his cock. Without any gentleness, he pushed and pulled her head, puppeteered by his hand, until she bobbed along a rhythm he demanded. Instinct, whether she wanted to or not, told her to suck, to hollow her cheeks and press her tongue against the underside of his cock if only to keep her teeth from scraping him. He responded well to this, placing both hands on the back of her head and pushing her down until her nose nudged against his abdomen. He held her there, stuffed so far down her throat she thought she couldn’t breathe, fearing throwing up all over his feet, so she wiggled on her own accord. It tickled her tonsils, and this time she did choke. A gurgling sound flooded her ears until he released her and she heaved air to her lungs, uncaring of the spit that stretched from his cock to her trembling lips, the taunting connection still between them. Saliva also dribbled down her chin, but she couldn’t move her wrists behind her back to swipe at it nor the tears that were stinging her eyes from the sensation. She struggled, practically dislocating her shoulder to break free of the shadow binds, but all it did was send her toppling forward. Her face landed on top of his foot, which felt more degrading than what got her there in the first place.
“I’m not really into feet play, darling, but feel free to kiss them while you’re down there.”
He stepped over and behind her, pressing a hand down on her back to keep her face to the floor while he lowered himself to his knees. She fixated on the idea of the Darkling on his knees for her. Focused on the feeling of his knees between hers, keeping hers opened for him. When she felt his fingers slipping over her seam, wet and pulsing, she pressed the sides of her calves against his, unconsciously twisting her ankles over the backs of his legs to ground her to something--an anchor that drug you to your grave was still an anchor.
One of his fingers found her clit was such practiced ease, she yelped at how unexpected it was to be touched by someone that wasn’t her own unskilled, shaky fingers. The Darkling didn’t slowly work her into a frenzy; he robbed her of her senses with aggressive strokes that were so quick she could barely make sense of the movements until she was coming on his hand and dripping down her own thighs. It was so wet, she thought it was something else entirely, something she should be embarrassed of, but the Darkling didn’t seem to care.
She found her voice when she felt him position himself behind her. It was mumbled into his cloak, the soft black fur that smelled of cedar and bonfire, of comfort and betrayal, but she knew he would hear it all the same.
“If you do this, I will never forgive you.”
A promise she didn’t know if she would be able to keep. A threat she couldn’t weigh carefully.
“Never is a long time, Alinochka. You are mine. The sooner you accept it, the sooner you obey , the better this can all be for you. You were mistaken earlier, sweet girl. You won’t be meeting death tomorrow. You will be building our future.”
He pushed inside her entrance, and despite how slow and savoring he made the first stroke, the sharp pinch and foreign pressure made her stomach leap into her throat. She tried pulling away, but his hands on her hips kept her still until he was fully sheathed. She felt his fingers twitch against her stomach. He pulled back an inch and rutted into her, and she knew she was tight around him--she idly hoped it was as painful and uncomfortable for him as it was for her. But the blood rushing through her ears carried with it an unmistakable sound of his pleasure. A groan that shouldn’t sound as good as it did. A different kind of power she was uncertain how to wield.
The Darkling pulled back, so far back that she thought maybe he finished just like all the boys she’d overheard said they did, and the sigh of relief (or scoff) that she was about to release was knocked out of her throat on his first real thrust inside her. They both cursed at the same time.
It took several thrusts for her to adjust, and maybe she never would, because he felt so impossibly big and her so inadequately small, though he kept making it fit through sheer will alone. And truthfully, he glided so easily in and out of her, every stroke smooth and efficient, if not brutal and punishing in pace and force, because she was somehow wetter than she was when she first came all over his fingers and his thighs that were currently smacking against the backs of hers.
Her body no longer felt like it belonged solely to her. Now it was his instrument, and he played it to perfection. Nothing was more indicative of that expertise than his hand reaching around to her stomach, holding her while he fucked her so hard, her knees began to burn against the fur. His fingers brushed her clit, and Alina’s body gave an involuntary jerk. Above her, he chuckled through his grunts and groans. His fingers curled against her clit again, rubbing tight circles that took her from seeing stars to full whiteout in her vision.
“No,” she cried, because her body was giving him what he wanted and he didn’t deserve it. “No, no, fuck. ” She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking if she concentrated enough, she could make it stop, and she could almost feel herself coming down from wherever he was taking her, but he must have known--must have seen the shift in her shoulders or felt her walls release him infinitesimally.
The Darkling hauled her up, fully seated in his lap and knees wide and open for him. His forearm pressed between the valley of her breasts and his hand, with firm, unyielding fingers, circled her throat and squeezed . Her pulse hammered on his thumb, a violent knocking demanding that he release her, but words escaped her as quickly as the oxygen in her lungs. If he kissed her right now, he would steal the rest of it away.
She hoped he would.
With his other hand, he dragged his knuckles over her stomach, and the cool metal ring of his, the one he’d used to slice her arm and reveal her Grisha power, nestled for a moment in her belly button. Reflexively, she sucked in and felt the sharp point dangerously close to puncturing her, but he continued the descent. Then the ringed knuckle was over her clit, and if she moved, if she so much as straightened her back…
Her breath came in quick pants, part fear and part arousal, and there was nothing she could do with him buried to the hilt inside her, unmoving for several minutes until her breathing calmed and Alina felt lulled.
“That’s a good girl. Sweet girl,” the Darkling murmured over the shell of her ear.
Alina whimpered--couldn’t help it--not when she was on the verge of a breakdown or something equally as consuming.
His fingers shifted; two of them curled and began tapping on that tight bud she was starting to resent, because even when it was the most exquisite torture, it was ecstacy.
“Can you feel me hard and thick inside you, Alina? Do you feel your hot, tight cunt fluttering around me as you take all of me? You are mine. We are a perfect fit, you and I.”
She shifted her hips, desperate for friction.
“Bounce, Alina.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant or how to move, but she lifted her hips from his lap and pushed back down. Short strokes that weren’t enough to get her out of whatever state she was in until he started matching her. Until he took over. Her hands gripped his forearm that lay across her chest as he pounded into her so hard her teeth began to chatter. Her brain felt like it was being flung around in her skull, discombobulated, and that must have been why she cried his name--his real name that she never used--never dared herself to dream of, and now was a form of treachery that she would regret later.
“I’m--oh, I’m, I can’t--please, don’t stop, please. Please , Aleksander, please. Please!”
She was still coming when he pushed her down onto his cloak, hands on her back for leverage while he finished with a roar that rivaled her scream that still rang in her ears.
He didn’t cuddle afterwards. No soft touches or stroking her wet hair back from her face. He did, however, remove the chained collar from her neck and lifted her almost gingerly into his bed, where he deposited her without a kiss or any sign of affection that might further complicate what this was.
The bed was large enough for the two of them that they didn’t touch, and though she wasn’t sure she could walk very far with the ache between her legs and missing her clothes, he gave her the warning anyway.
“Leave again, and the next time I take you, it will be in front of the rest of camp. Including the boy.”