His body ached with loss and the echo of fury. Snow clung to what little remained solid of his shadowed form, trails of darkness licking at his footprints before being blown away by the wind.
He was lost, but he had been so long before he was cast out of the Crystal Empire. A white horizon stretched into a white sky; he alone stood out as a dark smudge against the snowy landscape, only knowing the way he couldn't go by the array of colors that poured into the heavens above.
A glance over his shoulder told him the crystal inhabitants were still effusing love into the Crystal Heart in celebration of his forced departure. Ribbons of ruby, gold, and sapphire light rose into the sky as physical manifestations of the sacred emotion.
All he wanted was to have that feeling for himself. Perhaps the way he had gone about it was not quite orthodox, but he was desperate.
His own heart beat and nothing more. It was incapable of emotion, so when he had come into contact with the Crystal Heart, he became obsessed with the rush it gave him. The warmth of its love was an addiction he craved down in the depths of his soul.
And he had possessed it all for his own... for a time. He was an empty vessel that could never be sated, and the Crystal Heart was not an endless font. When it was drained, it took from the crystalfolk. And when they were drained—
—he was left with nothing. A king who grew weaker and weaker until he was defeated and presumed dead.
The ache in his chest, the phantom pain of where love once resided, made him wish he was dead after all. Perhaps he would have been better off if he had never encountered the Crystal Heart, had never known what he was without.
However, he refused to die out in the frozen wilderness like a wounded animal. He was Sombra, Lord of Shadows, Harbinger of Destruction, Once-King of the Crystal Empire. And he would not die.
He knew that, if he continued to force his way south, he would eventually reach the border between the Frozen North and the rest of Equestria. There was little plan in his mind beyond getting as far away from the Crystal Heart as possible.
In time, he was certain he would forget why his chest ached. He would be able to move on and move forward, to seek out a new kingdom to make his own. He had existed for centuries prior without the Heart, after all.
As the wind howled and its icy bite nipped at his exposed face and ears, he sensed the warmth of something nearby. He squinted against the whirling snow and saw a small form moving toward him. His instinct was to prepare for a fight, but his body was too weak. He was barely able to maintain a corporeal form in this state.
The approaching creature turned out to be a snowshoe rabbit. Its nose wiggled at him, and he bared his fanged teeth in response. It only blinked back.
“I’ll eat you,” he told it. “Don’t mistake me for a soft, weak thing.”
The rabbit took a few hops closer.
He would have made good on his threat, but he honestly didn’t have the energy. So he huffed an indignant breath and kept walking forwards.
The rabbit followed a few paces behind him, hopping from footprint to footprint. Soon, he heard a second thump, thump and glanced back to see another rabbit had joined in the leisurely chase.
“I’ll eat the both of you,” he snarled without conviction.
Their beady, shiny black eyes didn’t believe him.
He felt like some kind of princess, lost after being cast out and taken in by the local wildlife. What next—would he break out into song?
The very idea was laughable. He even managed a chuff of amusement. One of the rabbits chittered, an odd clicking sound of teeth against teeth.
Three more emerged from the winter storm, and then four. They grew brave enough to hop alongside him, and one even darted between his legs.
“Enough!” he yelled, pivoting on his right leg to face his entourage. The sheer number of them trapped the rest of his words in his throat.
He was, for lack of a better word, surrounded. By rabbits. It shouldn’t have been intimidating, but there was a chill seizing his spine, and it wasn’t from the frigid air.
The instinctive sensation of being a hunted prey set him on edge. Rabbits were harmless creatures, he tried to remind himself, but the primal fear in the back of his mind continued to scream at him to flee.
As the first lunged at him, green fire enveloped it, and the rest followed suit. He wasn't sure whether he was grateful that the merciful end of his existence seemed at hand, or irritated that he would be felled by rabbits.
♥
The humid cavern was nothing like what living in Canterlot would have been like, had Chrysalis not grown so frenzied by the first taste of love that she lost all sense and reason. What was supposed to be a careful, cautious, clever infiltration over the course of several years fell apart in a matter of days.
She was loath to admit it, but she was responsible for the current state of her people: their numbers drastically reduced, their health dwindling nigh beyond repair, and their home nothing more than a series of underground caves on the border between Equestria proper and its Frozen North.
Few wandered there, which made it both a serviceable place to hide and a terrible place to find sustenance. They would survive, however. Changelings always survived.
Her people were gathered in the cavernous space that served as the central quarters, black eyes focused on her as they waited. The air thrummed with anticipation, hunger, need. She knew they blamed her for leading them into ruin.
They weren't wrong.
Chrysalis closed her eyes and breathed in. She summoned up all the energy within her and felt it scraping like needles in her bones. The wave of pain was soon washed away by pleasure as she did her best to draw on the memory of that blast of pure love.
Though it had cost her the lives of many changelings—and though it had been the moment that sealed their doomed fate—when the bubble of love struck her, ecstasy filled her veins from the sheer magnitude of it.
She felt the air around her shift, and she breathed out. Weak tendrils of love connected her and her people, who greedily devoured every bit of it they could.
It was enough to survive, so long as she could continue to remember. And the memory was already fading.
There were rumors of a sect that sought to take her throne. She couldn't blame them, considering the state they were living in. However, she doubted anyone would have been able to keep their wits about them after tasting Shining Armor's love.
The last of the love she could muster slipped past her lips and she clenched her fists, digging her nails into the flesh of her palms to keep herself awake. Her body wanted to crumple in on itself, but she willed it to remain tall, to look the part of queen.
"I love you all," she announced, her voice sounding stronger than she felt.
"And we love you," they droned back. She could taste the insincerity like soured wine.
She walked away, sweeping through the greenfire-torch-lit tunnels to her makeshift room. There, in the relative privacy an open space could provide, she collapsed, her glamour falling away.
Her ebony skin had long since grown wan and was stretched tight over her atrophied muscles. Everything she was, she sacrificed for her people who would, sooner or later, turn on her. The emptiness in her chest was clawing its way to the surface, and it was so tempting to give in and give up.
Hurried footsteps echoed from the tunnel, and Chrysalis dragged herself upright and tried to regain visible composure. She needed more time to recover. She couldn't be seen like this.
"My Queen!" the young changeling exclaimed, his excitement preceding him like a gust of warm air.
It gave her a small but magnificent rush of energy, and she was able to put on a proper face just before he ran into the room.
"Yes, my pupa?"
Hatch beamed up at her, and her heart nearly stopped. He was flush with pure emotion. For a moment, the briefest desire to drain him of it gripped her, but she shoved the horrible notion down.
"The guards discovered a man dripping with love and have brought him here, my Queen!"
She felt want and need burn in her chest. "Take me to him," she said, breathless.
With a quick bow, Hatch turned on his heel and marched back the way he came, head held high with purpose. It had been so long since anyone had looked so pleased.
The air grew cold the closer they drew to the cavern's entrance, but there was something else. Something sweet. Something—
Just as she turned the corner, she was startled out of her thoughts by a man who could hardly be called such. His body was obscured by shadows that twisted and shifted, as if trying to latch onto the shape of him.
“What is this?” she growled out, the sound harsher than she meant as she tried to push past the wonderful haze that clouded her mind.
The leader of the guard—Maxilla—replied with an incoherent few clicks. She was thoroughly drunk; as Chrysalis looked at the entire group, she realized they all were.
Chrysalis took slow, measured breaths to expose herself only a little bit at a time as she examined the man held aloft between Maxilla and another guard. Love and hate radiated off him in ephemeral plumes. It was as though his heart was a porous thing, letting every emotion escape from it.
She reached out a hand and ran her fingertips across his skin as dark as a moonless night, yet tinged with a warm hue where her own was cool. Then she gripped him, hard, digging her nails into his jaw.
His eyes flashed open and he took a shuddering breath in before trying to jerk his face free of her grip.
"Who are you?" they demanded of one another in near perfect unison.
Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. "You are in my domain. I ask the questions, and you provide the answers."
The man's lips peeled back to reveal sharp, fanged teeth. After a momentary pause, she gave an open-mouthed sneer to flash her own.
"Who are you?" she demanded again.
The black curls of his hair seemed more like wisps of smoke as he gave his head another futile twist. "Sombra," he spat, as if the name were venom against her.
She gave a derisive snort. "And what are you?"
Though he was hunched and weak, she recognized the way he set his expression: it was a mask of calm, controlled nobility. "An umbrum, and I demand that you let me go. I have no quarrel with you or your people."
Chrysalis's gaze flickered over him. The love was gone, as was the hate; he was a void, a veritable black hole of emotion. Even the air around him tasted empty. He was still a delicious sight, a perfect specimen of raw masculinity where he wasn’t melting into shadow.
"I've never heard of your kind," she finally said, unable to keep from biting her lower lip as she slipped from an interrogative mindset to something darker.
"Nor I yours." Sombra didn't even blink as he glanced at the two lovedrunk changelings who still held his arms. "I'm not familiar with... shapeshifters."
"Changelings," she corrected as she let go of his jaw and straightened up. "And as their queen, I bid you welcome. Maxilla?"
The changeling commander blinked a few times at the sound of her name. "Yes, my Queen?"
Chrysalis tried to calm the racing of her heart. "Take him to my room, and ensure that he is bound to stay with us."
Maxilla's lips parted in a toothy, eager grin. "As you wish, my Queen."
♥
Sombra couldn't be certain, but he believed he was in danger. These creatures—these changelings had looked at him with a wicked hunger. And now he was left alone, bound by a strange webbing that was a laughable attempt to keep him contained. He waited nonetheless, however, because he wanted to know more.
The self-proclaimed queen was taking her time. Was this a power play to make him nervous? To keep him on edge in anticipation?
He scoffed. She would have to work a lot harder than this if that was her goal.
Eventually, he heard slow, leisurely steps approaching the entrance to the so-called room, if it could even be called that much. He inclined his head and schooled his expression to something haughty to make her think he was indignant at his capture.
When the queen stepped into view, their gazes locked and it seemed that time stood still. Neither moved, breathed, or even blinked. Her expression was as unreadable as he knew his own to be; all he could do was watch as she took in the sight of him.
He felt her gaze like heat under his skin. Everywhere she looked burned from her focused attention, so he did what he could to return the favor. Dark cerulean hair cascaded down her back and reached past her hips, which weren’t quite round or plump. He drew his eyes over them nonetheless, following the sharp curve that led down to her long, long legs.
The slight, serrated rasp of her voice broke the silence. "I apologize for my delay. I had to distribute your bountiful offering among my people."
Sombra's brow twitched into a brief furrow. "Offering?"
She sauntered forward to close the gap between them, the tattered black dress clinging to every movement her angular frame made. There was a fragility about her, as though a single touch might scatter her to dust, and yet she moved with confidence and certainty that made it hard to take his eyes off her.
"My people feast on love,” she explained, drawing his attention back to her rather than her appearance ass he crouched down in front of him, “and you were practically drowning in it when my guards brought you."
"Love?" He huffed, trying not to flinch as she drew her long fingernails through his dark sideburns. "I sincerely doubt that. My people do not feel, love or otherwise."
Her eyes flashed as she grabbed his face, but this time didn't dig her nails in. "I beg to differ."
Sombra paused to consider the sincerity in her voice and broke his gaze from hers to think. "I was—perhaps—dreaming, just before I woke up in capture."
The grip on him loosened and she caressed his cheek with the back of her hand. Her eyes followed her own touch, as if entranced. "Then tell me of your dream."
How could she possibly understand? Just before he woke up to the blinding pain of her clawing at his face, he had been back in the Crystal Empire, wrapped in the warm embrace of the Crystal Heart's aura. Love had been flowing all around and through him; into the hollow, empty core of him; filling him up and making him whole. There was no way to put such a miracle into something as mundane as words.
When he focused on her, her eyes were half-lidded and her lips was parted to let out the softest of moans. He had never seen an expression quite like it, and it tugged at something deep within him.
"Marvelous," she whispered in reverence. "How do you do that?"
He blinked. "Do what?"
She ran the very tips of her trembling fingers across his face, down his neck, and along his shoulders. It was a soft, almost worshipful caress, and he found himself leaning into it.
"You are effusive with love,” she replied, lifting her eyes to meet his. The “Do you really not feel this?"
"I feel nothing. I remember when I did, briefly, but that's all it is: a memory."
She took a shudder of a breath. "Don't say it like that. A memory can be a powerful thing." With a sudden movement, she stood and turned to walk away. "Whatever you require to be comfortable, just ask and I will ensure it is provided."
"Provided?" he repeated, his lips starting to curl into a frown. "Unless you plan to remove these bonds, I'm a prisoner, not a guest."
She stopped at the mouth of the room. He watched the lines of her shoulders drop, briefly, before tensing back into rigid posture. "I will see what I can do, but I can't afford to lose you. I'm sorry."
There was slight tremor in her voice, and he didn't know what to think about that. He had no plans on being some sort of food source for an entire species, however, so he closed his eyes and let himself fall into shadow.
Or, at least, he tried.
His eyes snapped open and he looked down at the webbing that clung to him. It wasn't just binding his physical body in place—it was attached to him, reaching deep inside him and sticking to his core.
"Clever girl," he muttered, uncertain whether he was more impressed or irritated.
♥
Chrysalis made it only halfway down the tunnel before she had to duck into a side room. Her head was spinning and she was so full that she thought she might be sick. It was bad enough that he was drowning her in such potent emotion, but she wanted to touch him so badly it hurt.
A changeling looked at her in surprise, and she did the only thing she could: she pulled him to her and stroked his hair. The all-consuming love laved against him in slow, gentle waves. When he started to give off a hum of pleasure, she purred deep in her chest to soothe him to sleep.
While she set him into his nest of webbing and leaves, she let out a sigh of relief. They had been starved for so long that she didn't know what to do with such a feast of emotion dropped in her lap. All she knew was that she couldn't risk falling into a frenzy like before.
First thing was first: she needed to prepare secure but comfortable quarters for him. She gathered her most creative subjects and, after a long debate, they settled on a room with its entrance covered in web. There would be gaps to pass him food, whatever that would be; none of them had ever heard of an umbrum before, and none had a clue as to what they ate, but they would find a way to get it.
She had her best spinners set to the task while she returned to her room to check on their guest. "Knock, knock," she called as she stepped through the threshold. "Answer me this: what do you eat?"
Sombra's eyes were closed. He was sitting perfectly still, looking almost content in spite of his present state of capture.
He was also empty, again. There was nothing in the air. As curious as it was, she was grateful for it; she still hadn't fully come down from the high of the earlier feast.
She seated herself on a rock carved into a chair, crossing one long leg over the other. "If you don't tell me, then I'll presume you don't eat at all. It would certainly save my people the trouble of having to hunt or gather."
One eye opened to peer at her. "I have no intention of staying here."
"And I have no intention of letting you leave." She feigned interest in her fingernails. "Little grows here, so it would be easiest if you preferred meat."
He frowned and opened the other eye. "Your plan is to, what? Force me to relive a memory that I don't want to so that you can feed on the emotions I can't even enjoy for myself?"
She shuttered her eyes and didn't meet his gaze, lips drawn tight into a thin line. "I am a queen, first and foremost. I must see to the needs of my people." Though it hurt, she looked at him, baring her regret on her open expression. "If there were another way, I'd take it. Please let me make this easier for you."
There was a long pause as his gaze raked over her. She shifted uncomfortably under the weight of his stare, feeling it pierce her through and through.
"What?" she finally snapped, clenching her hand against her thigh.
"Is this what you really look like?" His eyes met hers again. "I can't trust someone who hides from me."
Chrysalis sucked in a breath and bit the inside of her cheek. As she released it, green flames flared over her form and she dropped her eyes in shame. Though the recent rush of love had brought some depth of ebony back to her ashen skin, she knew her face was still too gaunt, her limbs too thin. She hardly looked the regal queen she once was.
He made a small sound that was almost surprise. When she glanced up, she saw understanding wash over his features. "You're starving," he said more as a statement than a question.
Self-conscious, she returned to the appearance of who she used to be. She couldn’t stand the pity in his gaze. "I'm desperate."
"So am I," he almost whispered as he leaned toward her, flexing against his restraints. "You said you distributed the love among your people. Can you distribute it to me?"
She blinked a few times, certain her face showed her surprise. "I—I've never tried such a thing." Slowly, she rose from her seat. Her eyes darted over the open sincerity in his expression, trying to suss out the trick or trap. "You want me to give back what I've taken from you?"
His head twitched with the faintest nod, attention rapt. "Please."
There was no clear, obvious risk. Tentatively, pulled from the pool that buzzed with fresh energy, and released it on a slow exhale. As she let go of the tendril, she felt it tugged—yanked toward him and watched his eyes flutter closed. He leaned back against the wall, his breathing erratic as the love slipped through him and fell back to her.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled and planned to say more, but the intensity of his sudden stare cut her train of thought.
"Sorry?" He licked his lips. "That was exquisite. It was divine." Somewhat awkwardly due to his bonds, he tried to shift to be closer to her. "Again. Please."
Chrysalis slowly lowered herself to the floor in front of him, touching his face, feeling where he was more solid than he was before. Love flowed from her fingertips and brushed over his warm skin. She watched in awe as he gave himself over to the feeling, despite how fleeting it was.
He hummed, but the sound was different from her changelings'. It was a low and deep noise that reverberated all the way from his chest to her fingers as they stroked his cheek. "More."
"No." She jerked her hand back and met his gaze with a frown. "You must agree to stay. I will give you as much as you want if you do the same for my people."
"Yesss," he replied without hesitation, half-lidded eyes searching hers as he leaned in for her renewed touch. "Anything you want. Just, please. More."
Chrysalis tried not to look as excited as she felt. Instead, she offered him a gentle smile and cupped his cheeks in her hands. "Then let us seal our agreement." She closed the distance between them, pressing her lips to his, breathing his own love back into him.
Chrysalis had kissed and been kissed many times throughout her life.
She still remembered the way Shining Armor would caress her as he poured his love into the woman he thought was his fiancée. The way his gentle hands cupped the sides of her head, thumb caressing her cheekbones, lips wind-rough from hours spent out on the battlements.
Her first lover was a changeling who preferred biting over kissing, but when they did indulge, there was more tongue than lips. For him, their relationship was a game of domination, and she had been nothing more than a young princess who enjoyed how the bite marks on her neck infuriated her mother.
When she experimented with another woman, everything had been a slow and sensual slide of lips against one another’s most intimate places. The fact that her partner had a tongue piercing made it all the more exhilarating.
But this—this moment where her lips met Sombra’s, she experienced something new. Her skin prickled with a rush of heat that left goosebumps in its wake, the sensation traveling down to pool low in her stomach. At first, it seemed that this would be a one-sided endeavor—which she didn't mind, because it felt so nice just to kiss him—but then he growled low in his throat and changed the dynamic entirely.
The slightest tilt of his head slotted them together with ease: his nose nestled right beside her own, and his teeth scraped against her lower lip. Just the tease of it, the possibility that he could bite her at any moment but chose not to, thrilled her in a way she hadn’t expected.
He exuded dominance and confidence with how he shifted the kiss to be the one in charge of it, pressing into her and guiding her. And yet it remained soft, gentle, and almost—sweet.
She shuddered from the raw want that coursed through her veins. Her hands moved to drag through his hair from root to wisp, trying to predict exactly where it morphed into shadow. What was still solid was thick and brushed against her fingers like coarse wool.
“Untie me,” he growled, the sound rumbling against her lips.
Panic shot up from the back of her mind, and she pulled away to look at him with wide eyes that quickly narrowed. “We have an agreement. If you betray—“
His eyes rolled as he leaned back as well, spreading his legs and angling his head to gesture downward. “Do I appear as if I’m in any hurry to leave?”
She stole a glance at his groin, then allowed her gaze to linger there. The too-tight black leggings he wore outlined him in almost obscene detail. She could even make out where the shaft ended and the head began, and all of it looked thick and hard.
“Oh,” she practically purred, tongue darting out to wet her lips. This was an unexpected turn, but not unwelcome at all, if the sudden warmth between her own legs was any indication.
With a deft flick of one fingernail, Chrysalis sliced the webbing and it fell from him, as harmless as spidersilk. Sombra wasted no time; the moment he was free, he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to him in a rough, needy kiss.
She gave herself to pleasure without hesitation, but she had enough wits about her to tilt her head back and ask while he lavished her jaw with nipping kisses, “I thought your kind—”
A tongue tracing the shell of her ear reduced her question to a moan. “I don’t need a heart to want to fuck you.”
The vulgarity snapped her attention into place: she was a queen, not a common harlot. Her palm found the side of his head and she pushed him away, then forced him to meet her gaze. The fact that his eyes darkened with desire when she did so didn’t escape her notice, but was selectively ignored.
“I don’t fuck,” she said, repeating the word with all the disdain it deserved.
His lips quirked into a smirk. “I do.” He turned his head in her grip and took her thumb between his teeth to first bite and then suck on it.
It took all of her resolve not to shudder at the way he held intense eye contact while laving her thumb before she yanked it out of his mouth. “Need I remind you that you are in my domain, and here, I make love.”
Sombra gave a derisive snort and a roll of his eyes. “Need I remind you that—“
“You don’t need a heart to make love in this sense of the phrase,” she cut in with no attempt to hide the mimicry in her voice, then softened as she stood and offered her hand. “Let me show you.”
There was reluctance in his face, but he sighed and stood on his own. “Very well.”
Chrysalis took a moment to look at him while her head was clear of love and lust. He was little more than a stranger, with the bearing of a king but the look of a scoundrel. There was no need to do this; she could feed him the love he required and provide her people the love they needed.
But, oh how she wanted to do this. A stranger arrives as not only a solution to her problems as a queen, but also has the sex appeal that sets her skin on fire as a woman?
“Lie down,” she whispered as she took a step backwards toward the web-spun bed. When he made to remove his clothes, she stayed him with a hand on his own. “No. Let me have the pleasure.”
His brow quirked with a question that he dismissed with a light shrug. Three long strides brought him to the side of the bed, which he nudged warily with his boot. “This seems awfully like a trap.”
She tutted at him as she stepped up behind him, running her hands down his arms. “A different enchantment than the bindings. Trust me.”
There was a small grunt in his throat, something just shy of a chuckle, before he lowered himself to his knees and rolled onto his back. He blinked up at the rocky ceiling in surprise. “Oh.”
“As firm as cushions yet as soft as silk,” she said, sliding into place above him, her knees on either side of his thighs. Her hair fell all around their faces as a deep blue-green curtain.
Sombra arched one brow. “Well, then. Show me.”
Slowly, she lowered down toward him and pressed her lips to the side of his mouth. As soon as he tried to turn his head to meet her, she moved further down, following the well-defined curve of his jawline.
“Just,” she breathed and flicked her tongue against the dip where his jaw met his neck, “relax.” Her fingers slid under his tunic to glide over his stomach, teasing the trail of coarse hairs she found. “And enjoy.”
He breathed out through his nose, a near silent assent, confirmed when she glanced up to see his eyes closed.
Gentle ministrations became her sole focus. She wanted to know if the crook of his neck tasted different from the crook of his elbow, or what it felt like to nuzzle the places where he faded into shadow.
The firmness of his stomach gave her fingers a wonderful series of dips and rises to explore. Each individual muscle was cherished by a caress until she counted six in total, then brought her hand higher to ruck his shirt all the way up to his shoulders.
When she pulled back to look at him, her breath caught in her throat. Just left of the very center of his chest was an array of pure black marks, thick in the center over his heart and fracturing outward like broken glass.
Her fingertips traced the design to find that it was cold to the touch. There was a heart beating beneath the blackened skin, steady and seemingly unaffected. A glance at his face showed parted lips and furrowed brow; another glance downward showed him straining to full attention.
“Fascinating,” she murmured under her breath, smiled to herself, and leaned down to brush lips and tongue over the very center of the mark.
It tasted divine, a pleasant mix of not only sweat and skin, but uncertainty, intrigue, and desire—the emotions swelled out like water from a cracked vase.
Her fingers curled around his arms as a buzzing sensation crawled along her spine and settled in her chest. She could have spent eternity there, breathing in the feelings he couldn’t contain, but there was a different hunger vying for her attention. Almost reluctantly, she forced herself to sit upright and scoot back.
First, she removed his boots, then his socks. Every movement was slow and deliberate until both his feet were bare. She drew one fingernail along the underside of his foot, tracing the arch and finding exactly the point where his toes would curl.
As she took the foot in both hands and worked her thumbs along the muscle, she heard him release an impatient puff of air.
“This isn’t sex,” he said, voice rough in spite of his words.
Chrysalis smiled. She kept her focus on massaging in long, slow strokes. “Yes, it is.”
He grunted when she pulled her hands away, then groaned when she repeated the attention on the other foot. “You have a strange fetish.”
“My ‘fetish’,” she said, pausing to dig the heel of her palm into his arch, “is pleasure. Given, more so than taken.”
Once the muscles of his feet were sufficiently relaxed, she slid her hands up his legs until she reached his waist. The hard lines of his hips as they dipped below the tight band of cloth demanded exploration, and she was more than happy to obey.
“How did you even get this on?" She teased her fingers at the waistband of his leggings, barely able to wriggle them underneath it.
He managed to get one hand in the air to wave it in a dismissive gesture. "Determination. Now get it off."
Instead, she smoothed her hand over the front to palm his erection; heat radiated against her skin, and she smiled with no hidden delight as he twitched from the simple touch.
“Could you...” Sombra trailed, his head raising, a dark flush crawling up his neck. He stared at her with a mix of bafflement and shame. “What is your name?”
A rasp of laughter escaped unbidden, and she leaned down to mouth his cock through the cloth. “Chrysalis,” she mumbled, lips and the slightest scrape of teeth emphasizing every syllable of her name.
He groaned, dropped back down, and placed his hand on the top of her head, threading his fingers through her hair. “Chrysalis,” he repeated with a tone of reverence, then growled out, “Could you get on with it already?”
“Get on with what?” She licked a trail along his length with only the very tip of her tongue.
He gripped her hair, and she shivered with delight. “Your point is made.”
She relished in the hitch in his voice as she nibbled at the base. “Mm?”
“This has been—” He moaned and gripped tighter. “It’s good, your love-making, but I need more.”
Chrysalis tutted her tongue against the roof of her mouth, sitting up and tugging at his leggings to peel them halfway down his thighs. “Oh, sweetheart,” she cooed when his erection sprung free and jutted into the air, flush and dark and so, so hard. “You have a lot to learn.”
A low growl rolled into a sharp intake of breath as his gaze locked onto the movement of her hands. She pulled her dress up past her hips, shimmied to get it over her shoulders, and tossed it off to the side.
His dark crimson irises were completely overtaken by black, pupils dilated wide with desire. Warm hands skimmed over her skin, fingertips following the rise and fall of her ribs.
Surprise caught her off guard and fell into embarrassment. At some point, her glamour had fallen and she hadn’t even noticed. She sat above him as a gaunt, awful thing; shame cooled her desire.
“I can—” she started, her voice cracking and her eyes unable to meet his while he fondled her breasts. “I can change. I can look however you’d like me to.”
When his hands stilled, she chanced a glance up to see open surprise on his face. He then frowned, grabbed her by the arms, and suddenly flipped their positions so he towered over her.
She gaped up at him, but he spoke before she could. “This is because of you.” He ground down to rut against her, hot flesh pressing into the narrow curve of her hip. “You did this to me.”
Chrysalis melted into a needy shiver and bit her lower lip. She watched as he undressed, clothes torn off in rapid succession until he could press against her, bare skin on bare skin.
His hand snaked between them, and she gasped when a finger slipped easily inside her. “So eager,” he praised, his nose pressed just behind her ear. “Is this all for me?”
“Yes,” she gasped out. Her legs moved to wrap around his waist and open herself up to more of his touch.
The room echoed with the sound of her low moans and the wet slide of his finger pressing in, curling up, and moving back out. When he added a second finger, pleasure bloomed behind her eyes so intensely that she had to close them.
He gave an occasional twitch of his hips whenever he teased a soft cry out of her, whenever the crook of his fingers hit just right. She clawed at his back, turning her head to the side and panting from the effort just to form words.
“Sombra,” she managed in a tight voice.
He hummed inquisitively, lips pressed to the back of her neck.
All of it—his weight above her, his fingers in her, his lips on her, his cock against her—was too much and yet not enough. “Please.”
The slow withdrawal of his touch pulled a whine from her. She waited, both patiently and impatiently, but the movement he made resulted in nothing more.
And then she heard the sound of tongue against skin, and she forced her eyes open to catch sight of him as he licked her off his fingers. His gaze was locked on hers, a smirk on his lips, as if he had been waiting for her to notice.
A broken sound caught in her throat, and she lunged forward to kiss him, tasting herself on him with twisted delight. His hands roamed down her sides while they pressed and bit and breathed one another like starved animals.
He grabbed onto her buttocks, squeezing them once before he canted her hips into the air. There was a blunt press against her entrance, but she was so ready and so eager that he sunk in, inch by inch, with ease.
When he was fully seated inside her, his hips flush against her skin, she clutched at his shoulder blades and let her head fall back, baring her throat to him. The exquisite feeling of his girth filling her completely sent a thrill up and down her spine.
The first few thrusts were shallow, as if to test the angle, but then he pulled all the way out and slid back in, forcing a loud moan from her throat. Though he dug his fingers into her flesh with a tight grip, each movement in and out of her was slow and gentle.
It was equal parts wonderful and strange; she relished how it allowed her to feel every inch of him, but confusion rose up through the haze of pleasure. Her neck had remained untouched despite being on display, so she cracked open one eye to peer up at him.
Every line of his shoulders and arms were tight with restraint, tension beading up on his skin in the form of sweat. His expression was a mix of clenched eyes and parted lips, soft huffs of breath escaping with every carefully measured thrust.
He was trying to make love to her, she realized with a whole-body shudder, eyes going wide.
Something ached deep in her chest, and she blinked away the stray tears that welled up unbidden. She hurt from the intense surge of emotions she couldn't quite put a name to, certainly not when she was half-drowning in ecstasy—most of it hers but some of it, thrillingly, his.
Time stretched on in rolling waves, her skin hot everywhere he touched and tingling where he didn't. His lips ghosted across her forehead, nose buried in her hairline, as if struggling to hold himself up without the increased physical connection.
Sweat dripped off his chin and landed on her cheek. There was a long pause between thrusts, his breath coming in quick, shallow pants. He was so close; she could feel how painfully hard he was, his balls drawn tight where they pressed against her.
Her heart swelled and she raked her nails along his back, one hand going as far down as she could reach and the other curving around his neck. “Sombra.” With a soft tug, she pulled him down closer so she could whisper into his ear, “Fuck me."
The taut wire of his composure snapped. A growl rumbled in his chest and he captured her lips in a rough kiss of teeth and tongue. Then, with sudden movement that startled a near-squeal out of her, he sat up on his knees, pulled her legs up to prop them on his shoulders, and thrust.
Stars filled her vision and her mouth fell open in a soundless cry. She barely had a moment to recover from how overpowering it was before he did it again, and all she could do was grip the webbing beneath her and hold on for dear life.
It was pure rapture as the room filled with the sounds of skin on skin, of her lust-addled cries melting into one long, blissful song. She felt him deep within her, overriding whatever pain may have tried to rise up from being nearly bent in half.
There was a distant, wicked glee in her mind as she imagined how she looked: her breasts were helpless to the vigorous motions as she was practically bounced by the force of him taking her. It was filthily degrading, being used like an object with the sole purpose of chasing an orgasm—and she loved it in spite of herself.
Her arms and legs tingled with growing numbness and her voice became hoarse until she struggled to make a sound. With one final, hard thrust, he shuddered and groaned, the grip he had on her legs tight as he held them almost desperately in place while he throbbed inside her.
They panted together, neither moving, both trying to come back down from the high amidst the smell of sweat and sex. Eventually, he fell onto the bed beside her as if he were as boneless as she felt. There was a rhythmic twitch between her legs, either a phantom sensation of where he had been or a desperate plea for his return.
When she had enough of her senses back, she twisted onto her side and placed her head on his chest, feeling the rise and fall with each ragged breath he took.
"That was—" she began, but found herself still too breathless to speak.
He hummed in agreement and fumbled an attempt to place his hand on top of her head. It flopped onto her cheek, dragged up, and finally settled on her scalp, where he rubbed slow, lazy circles.
In return, she dragged her fingertips along the black marks above his heart. It felt colder than before in contrast to the heat that radiated from the both of them. She closed her eyes and breathed in the emotions that spilled forth, tasting satisfaction, pleasure, and—
Her hand froze, her eyes widened, and she looked up to see him half asleep already. She slowly relaxed into a smile and breathed in again, letting her lungs be filled with the warmth of it.
Affection.
