Chapter One
“This isn’t going to work.”
“Ashenivir—”
“Ignoring it isn’t going to fix it.”
Rizeth’s arms wrapped around his waist from behind. “You’re right,” he said. “It is too small.”
The bed—once Rizeth’s, now theirs, a concept that kept making him giddy—sat innocently against the wall, sheets rumpled from a long, lazy morning that had turned into another long, lazy afternoon. For the past few nights, the midsummer heat and attendant humidity had seen them both tossing and turning through reverie, the discomfort of two bodies crowded into a bed built for one only barely outweighed by the distasteful notion of sleeping alone again.
Rizeth kissed his neck. “I can acquire a heat shield from the Watchful Order. That ought to make things more bearable.”
“Even you can’t maintain focus on a spell whilst you’re asleep, Master,” Ashenivir said. He tilted his head to allow Rizeth better access to skin already marked with a half-dozen bitten bruises. His remark gained him a new one, and he let out a quiet moan. “We could…we should…”
“Yes, Ra’soltha?” Rizeth traced light circles over his hipbones. “If you have something to say, then say it, before I become inclined to take your voice.”
“We should get a new bed,” Ashenivir gasped out in a rush. “I mean I…I think it might be more comfortable if it was…if we both…fit. Better.” His disjointed thoughts were only half because of Rizeth’s touch. It had only been nine days since midsummer, all of which they’d spent together in the apartment—saving the brief excursions Rizeth had made to get food—and nine days was nowhere near long enough to be suggesting things like that. Especially when he wasn’t the one who could afford to buy them.
Rizeth pulled him around into a kiss that seemed not to mind his presumption. “Tomorrow,” he said, when they broke for breath, “we will find a carpenter and order something. You may choose whatever you like.”
“Are you sure?”
“Would I say it if I weren’t?”
Ashenivir couldn’t hold his gaze. “It’s just…you keep giving me things and I can’t repay any of it, and I—”
Rizeth tipped his chin up. “Gifts are not to be repaid. I enjoy seeing you happy, xi’hum. That is all there is to it.”
Although sweat pooled everywhere their skin touched—neither of them had dressed properly in days, and today was no exception—Ashenivir pressed closer, twining his arms around Rizeth’s neck. Even awake, being beyond touching distance was intolerable. “I think it’s a little more than that, Master.”
“Oh?”
“You like watching me choose things. You like seeing me struggle, so you can have the satisfaction of seeing me overcome.” He rose on the balls of his feet, bringing his lips within kissing distance of Rizeth’s. “You like making me work for my rewards.”
“You know your Master very well, it seems,” Rizeth murmured.
“Of course I do,” Ashenivir said, moth wings uncurling to flutter beneath his sternum as he spoke. “I love him.”
What a wonder it was to finally be able to say it. And he had said it, frequently, though he worried he was saying it too much, that repetition would diminish the meaning of the words. He didn’t think it had so far, though; every time he uttered them, the way Rizeth’s eyes softened put him right back on that clifftop with the sun sinking below the horizon and the marvel of reciprocation turning him upside down. Rizeth drew him into a kiss, and Ashenivir hummed into his mouth, tongue pressing hungrily to his.
Reciprocation still tasted incredible.
Rizeth lifted him, and Ashenivir hooked both legs around his waist, clinging as he was carried the few short steps to the bed. It took two slaps to make him let go, and even after that it was a struggle not to smile at the hard look that followed—the game of contrition was proving much harder to play when all of it brought him so much more delight than ever before. He bit his lip as Rizeth fastened him into the manacles at the headboard, sighing at the brush of magic in his mark. No more hiding. No more worrying what might be felt there, only hoping that everything would be.
“Master, will you fuck me again?” he asked, as Rizeth finished with the buckles. Rizeth kissed his wrist, just above the leather.
“No,” he said. Ashenivir’s subsequent pout earned him another slap. “Close your eyes.”
He obeyed. He let his breathing slow as Rizeth parted his legs, caressing the inside of one thigh with a featherlight touch. Knee to groin he mapped, mirroring the motion on the other side, and each time he reached the highest point, Ashenivir’s breath hitched. Internal heat pooled low in his stomach, almost a match to the external heat that dampened him with sweat, and he flexed his hands in the manacles. Sweet fall, coming to claim him again. Almost a tenday spent drunk on it, and he wondered if he’d ever be capable of sobering up. Whether he’d ever want to.
Rizeth’s nails scraped along his inner thigh and he gasped, hips jerking up.
“Stay still, Ra’soltha,” came the admonishment.
“Or what?” he retorted, deciding only at the last moment not to stick out his tongue.
“Or”—Rizeth gripped his legs tight, fingers digging in just shy of painful above his knee joints—“you will get nothing. Which would suit very well, given quite how much you’ve had of late.”
No matter how much he had, it was never enough. A tired mind, an aching body, skin a canvas of scratches and bruises and bitemarks; he always wanted more. And so he lay still, breath a touch too fast to be considered perfectly well-behaved, but he suspected Rizeth wouldn’t mind. No, Rizeth would watch him, savouring the uncertainty in the subtle shifts of his body, toying with the silent moments as they stretched out—waiting to see if he’d give in and earn a punishment, or maintain his self-control and gain a reward.
Rizeth’s fingers ran along his hip and across his stomach, until the tip of one just barely brushed the head of his cock. Ashenivir whimpered, but continued to hold still, eyes tightly closed. He could sense Rizeth’s smile, though; feel it in the hand wrapping slowly around his cock.
“Eyes open,” Rizeth said, and caught Ashenivir in place with a look the moment he complied, squeezing tightly. “You may move. As you so astutely noted, I do enjoy making you work for your reward.”
Ashenivir bucked his hips, fucking into Rizeth’s fist. He braced his heels against the bed, a light burn of humiliation prickling the back of his neck at how debauched he must look: naked, slick with sweat, cock hard and dark and wet in his Master’s hand as he chased his own pleasure. His hands fisted above his head, manacle chains clinking, quiet compared to the ragged rush of his breath. Rizeth slid his other palm up over his stomach to his chest, taking hold of one nipple to roll it lightly between two fingers. Ashenivir moaned, struggling to keep the pace of his thrusts.
“Master,” he panted. “Master, I…I…”
“You know how to get what you want.” Rizeth pinched his nipple, tugging and teasing until it was swollen, then set his teeth to it. Ashenivir let out a strained cry.
“I want you to make me come. I don’t want to do it myself, I want you.”
Rizeth bit harder, sending a scattered burst of thread-thin lightning through his chest. “Manners, Ra’soltha.”
“Please,” Ashenivir begged, and there was apparently such need in just that one word that Rizeth granted his wish. His wrist rolled and flexed, firm and steady, pulling Ashenivir along one stroke at a time, and all the while he bit and sucked at his nipple, the pinch of his teeth right on the blissful edge of pain, enough to make Ashenivir arch his back for more.
He didn’t last long enough to get any. He came with a shout Rizeth quickly smothered with his mouth, because whilst the soundproofing was still intact, it didn’t work quite so effectively when the windows were wide open. Not that Ashenivir cared—the whole of Waterdeep could listen in if they wanted, and thank him for the show.
The moment he was clean and freed, he climbed into Rizeth’s lap. “Shall I pleasure you now, Master?”
“Not tonight,” Rizeth said, pinching his still-tender nipple when he impertinently recited the words along with him. The two of them curled together in the definitely too-small bed, too hot by far, already sweating buckets.
Ashenivir wouldn’t have moved for the world.
“I’m going to wake up on the floor again, aren’t I?” he mumbled into Rizeth’s chest.
“Tomorrow,” Rizeth said, kissing his forehead. “Tomorrow, a carpenter. And for tonight…” His brow creased momentarily in thought, and Ashenivir valiantly resisted the urge to kiss it. “For tonight, help me bring the other bed over here.”
It wasn’t ideal—the beds weren’t the same height, and the oppressive heat remained regardless, but it would do for a few days. Probably they should have thought of it sooner—Ashenivir blamed the combined effects of the heat and Rizeth’s hands for the fact that he hadn’t. He sprawled out on what had once been his bed, the minor exertion of shifting furniture having proved exhausting.
“And speaking of tomorrow,” Rizeth said, sitting alongside him and pulling Ashenivir’s feet into his lap. “I ran into Ms Thorne whilst I was fetching us dinner. Apparently, there is a gathering at Lord Stillgleam’s House tomorrow night.”
The House. They hadn’t been since before his birthday, almost a month ago now. He’d acted so strangely trying to hide his feelings that Rizeth hadn’t taken him.
“We are more than welcome to attend,” Rizeth continued. “If I can persuade you to leave the apartment.”
Ashenivir refused to acknowledge his blush. Rizeth had wanted to leave as little as he had. “I can be persuaded,” he said archly. “On one condition.”
“And what might that be?”
“That you dress me.”
Rizeth leaned down to kiss him. “Very well, Ra’soltha. As you wish.”
Ms Rivers was handing out fans as they entered, for what little use they were. Ashenivir flapped his futilely at his face and tugged at the straps of his harness. Sweat already coated every place the dark leather touched, and other parts besides, and the thin material of the cloak clung to his back in a manner that was likely to grow only more unpleasant as the evening progressed. How Rizeth was coping in his high-collared robes, he had no idea.
Not that he was complaining. With his shirtsleeves rolled neatly to the elbow, Rizeth’s cuffs were on full display. The sight of them, and of his Master’s perfectly formed forearms, melted Ashenivir’s insides to match his outsides.
The ballroom was marginally more tolerable than the foyer. Cooling charms rippled in wave-patterns of blue and ice-white along one wall, and a handful of servants were in the process of painting similar magic onto the columns lining the room. They paused by one as the final sigil was completed, and a wave of cold air rolled over them. Ashenivir sighed.
“Can we put these up at the apartment?” he asked, pressing his face to the cool stone. That and the chill of the black marble beneath his bare feet was a bliss worthy of Celestia. “I’ll paint them myself if you like.”
“I will ask Lord Stillgleam for the charm,” Rizeth said. He tugged Ashenivir’s leash, drawing him away from the column and back to his side. “Behave yourself. It has not been that long since last we were here.”
Ashenivir straightened his back, lowered his head, and softened his voice. “Yes, Master.”
“Good boy,” Rizeth said, then tipped his chin up and kissed him.
It was the first time he’d done that in the ballroom. All the times they’d been here as Master and Ra’soltha, any affection beyond the tug of a leash or a firm word had been confined to the playroom. He parted his lips, inviting his Master in if he should wish it, and as Rizeth’s tongue gently pressed to his, his collar felt tighter around his neck, his mark as though it were glowing, a blazing beacon announcing to all the other guests that his, I’m his; he’s mine, and I’m his!
“Master Velkon’yss! I was beginning to think you’d left without saying goodbye.”
Ashenivir couldn’t bite back a gasp as Rizeth broke away. Lord Stillgleam, elegant in a sea-green skirt and drapes of golden chain, stood with his hip cocked and one eyebrow raised behind his fan. He snapped it shut. “Again.”
“Our return to the Underdark has been postponed,” Rizeth said.
“So I see.”
Kelran’s eyes flicked to Ashenivir, who remembered to drop his gaze respectfully—though not before noting the smug curve of the sun-elf’s painted lips.
“Your favourite miscreants are holding court by the punch table,” Kelran said. “Master Velkon’yss, might I suggest you send him to inform them he still lives?”
As hints went it was far from subtle. Ashenivir swallowed a huff as Rizeth unclipped his leash.
“Enjoy yourself, Ra’soltha,” he said.
“Is that an order, Master?”
The corner of Rizeth’s mouth twitched. “Yes.”
“Then I shall obey. Good evening, Lord Stillgleam.”
He made his way across the ballroom, conscious of the eyes on him. Lord Stillgleam wasn’t the only one noting his re-arrival, and many of the heads that turned his way he recognised. Emmyr and some of their friends all gave friendly nods as he passed. All of them were kitted out in full leathers, and how they stood it, Ashenivir didn’t know. Perhaps dwarves were better suited to heat than drow.
There were a dozen or so people by the punch table, and little wonder—the ice in the bowls evidently bore his favourite punishment enchantment, and icy air wafted from them nearly as powerfully as from the sigils on the wall. A collection of pillows piled nearby held a sprawl of guests in varying states of undress, and Mara was perched on the edge of the table, fanning herself with an elaborate arrangement of varicoloured feathers. The second she saw Ashenivir she leapt up with an ear-splitting squeal.
“Where have you been?” Ashenivir found himself with an armful of pink chiffon as Mara wrapped him in a hug so tight she was liable to leave more bruises than his Master. “It’s been forever! I thought you’d left, you said you were going home soon—I missed you!”
“We missed him, you mean.”
Ashenivir managed to extricate himself from the frilly death grip enough to see River grinning at him from the pillow pile. “Hello, stranger. Unleashed tonight, I see.”
“Just while my Master speaks with Lord Stillgleam.”
Ashenivir joined him in the pile, and Mara passed him a cup of punch before depositing herself between them. The others lazing around were all submissives he knew by face if not name; those he’d seen at the House in passing enough to recognise.
“Kelran was worried,” Mara confided, in tones likely intended to be surreptitious that failed to be anything close. “River’s Sir had to keep him from sending out search parties.”
“Don’t exaggerate.” River flicked punch at her. “And call him Lord Stillgleam. Just because Verin isn’t here to keep you in line…”
She stuck out her tongue, and he poked her in the thigh with his bare foot, which made her shriek and scramble away into Ashenivir’s lap. “Ew! River, no, get that away from me!”
Ashenivir joined in the collective laughter. He’d missed this. Just being around those like him took a weight off his shoulders—no need to be conscious of what he said or how he said it, to worry about any part of who he was.
“What have you been up to, anyway?” River asked, sitting up. “Studying, or something equally boring?”
“Not exactly.” Ashenivir tangled his fingers in his collar, suddenly nervous. “I…I told him.”
“Told who—oh!” Mara clapped her hands over her mouth, which did absolutely nothing to stifle her shriek. “You finally did it! What happened? What did he say? Something good, right, you’re here together, aren’t you? Or are you not? Do you need to cry? You can cry on me if you want, this is an old dress—”
“Let him speak, princess!” River interrupted. “Come on, then. How did it go?”
“Good.” His throat had gone tight for some reason, his chest too. “Really, really good.”
Mara leaned in close, her eyes huge and excited.
“Tell me everything.”
“I’m not going to say I told you so because that would be beneath me,” Kelran said, once Ashenivir was out of earshot. “I am, however, going to chastise you for vanishing without so much as a by-your-leave. Keep doing that and I’ll start thinking we’re not friends.”
“I was preoccupied.”
A shriek from the other side of the ballroom announced Mara’s discovery of Ashenivir’s re-appearance. Kelran winced.
“I swear, that girl is part banshee. Now, I know you hate sharing, but I want to know all the sordid details—frankly, it’s the least you owe me.”
“Hardly.”
He could just about make out Ashenivir from here, on the floor amidst a group of laughing, smiling guests, River and Mara on either side of him. His collar glittered in the light of the chandeliers, a sparkling beacon of ownership that now went so much further than the playroom. Everything Rizeth had wanted for so long, sitting right there. Behind his back, his fingers dug into his wrists.
Kelran rapped the top of his head with his fan. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Rizeth said, sharpening his glare to ward off another assault. Kelran spun the fan instead, twirling it in somehow accusatory circles.
“This is the first relationship you’ve been in for the better part of a century. Your mulish silence and the fact you look as if you might throw up all over my very expensive sandals does not incline me to believe that everything is, in fact, perfectly fine. What have you done?”
“Nothing,” Rizeth reiterated, and that was both the truth and the problem. He hadn’t made a single effort to change things the way he knew he should. You’ll command, and I’ll obey, Ashenivir had told him. As simple as that. Only it wasn’t, because a relationship—a real relationship, not an arrangement that had broken its boundaries—needed more than rules and punishments and sex. It needed things he didn’t know—wasn’t sure he’d ever known—how to provide outside a scene. When Ashenivir asked for more, when he needed not a Master but a partner, a lover; what then did Rizeth have to offer him?
Kelran sighed. “Rizeth, I know how much you love to, but don’t overthink this. You care about him, he cares about you. It doesn’t need to be complicated.” He plucked a glass of wine from a passing tray and pressed it into Rizeth’s hands. Rizeth drank without thinking, barely tasting it.
“Talk to Cain if you’re worried about the transition from play to permanency,” Kelran continued. “He and River did much the same thing, I believe.”
And have River gossiping to Ashenivir about how he was so useless he needed the advice of a human less than a quarter his age? The idea did not appeal. “I will consider it.”
“Which means you won’t,” Kelran said. “I’ve told you once and I will keep telling you until it finally gets through that abnormally thick skull of yours—stop letting what happened with Elian’la dictate your life.”
“I am not—”
Kelran held up a hand. “It is far too hot for you to try and fob me off with lies tonight. You’re a damn good wizard, you’re a damn good Master, and you are more than capable of being a damn good partner.”
A lull in the music left space for a ripple of laughter, and in the tangled sound, Rizeth recognised Ashenivir’s voice. He couldn’t help himself—he reached for the mark. A bright swell of joy flowed into him, a warm fullness underlying it that pulled a twin feeling into relieved life within his chest. He’d wondered, after Ashenivir had confessed to him, how he’d never noticed it before. There was no way to lie through the mark, to conceal any emotion, and it was only now that he realised why: because there was no separate emotion. There was no defined and singular thread of love to find. It was woven into everything Ashenivir felt.
And Rizeth couldn’t say three words of it. Every time he’d tried since midsummer, the words that came so easily from Ashenivir’s lips caught in his throat.
“You overestimate me,” he said, flat and quiet.
Kelran touched his arm too gently, his voice too kind to bear. “Don’t convince yourself this is over before it’s even started.”
“Lord Stillgleam?” A servant drew up with a short bow. “Ms Rivers said to tell you Lady Rosznar’s just arrived.”
“Elder or younger?”
“Younger, my Lord.”
“I’ll be right with her.” The servant sketched another bow, and left. Kelran tapped Rizeth on the head with his fan again. “You will be fine. Take him on a date. Buy him some flowers or something.” He started towards the ballroom doors, calling over his shoulder, “And talk to Cain, for Corellon’s sake!”
Summer-light violins and the sunset draw of a cello swelled beneath the endless chatter of the party, seeming infinitely louder in Kelran’s absence. Rizeth took a carefully measured sip of wine, rolling it around his mouth. A date. Some flowers. The basics of courtship.
Surely even he couldn’t find a way to make a mess of those.
After Mara had pried every last possible detail and then some out of him, Ashenivir begged a need to stretch his legs and headed in search of fresh air. The large glass doors to the rear of the ballroom stood open and he slipped out onto the porch, where elegant braziers flickered either side of the steps down into the garden. He paused to let his eyes adjust, regretting that he’d left his fan behind. It was too humid by far without the cooling charms, but the quiet made up for it.
Rizeth was still off with Kelran somewhere—Ashenivir supposed he was being subjected to as much of an interrogation as Mara had inflicted on him, though he doubted it was pitched quite so high. He leaned against the porch rail, breathing in the sweet scent of jasmine and honeysuckle. Supposedly play was permitted out here when the weather was good. Would Rizeth like that? Would he like that? The walls weren’t so high that a keen set of eyes in a nearby villa couldn’t take a stab at spying, if they were so inclined.
His thighs prickled with heat. Maybe he would like that.
“Oh,” a soft voice said behind him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise there was anyone already out here.”
A narrow-hipped moon elf stood with a light hand on the ballroom door. Raven-dark hair hung long over one shoulder, and she held a small book to her bare chest. A diaphanous, smoke-grey skirt fell to her ankles, which glittered with silver links much like his collar. A matching set adorned her slim wrists.
“I don’t mind company,” Ashenivir said.
“Nor do I, it’s only that my Sir sent me to complete my journal for the day, and I’m supposed to pleasure myself afterwards.”
His face heated. “I can leave if you—”
She waved a hand in dismissal and came to join him, hopping up to perch on the rail with her journal on her lap. “It’s fine. He won’t mind if I do it later.”
She took a pen from a cunning slot in the book’s spine and tapped the end. A faint hum of magic lit the patterns along the wood, and she began to write in neat curls of deep blue Elvish. “I have trouble speaking my feelings,” she said, flicking a glance at him. Her eyes were the same shade as her ink. “It caused some difficulties with my Sir for a while, so now I write them down for him.”
“He reads them every day?”
“It prevents miscommunication,” she said. “If I’m pleased with him—or upset—then he knows. If I’m frustrated with other aspects of my life, or longing for something different, he knows.” She paused, tapping her pen against her lips. “If I ache for him, dream of him, fantasise about him when I ought to be doing other things...he knows.”
Ashenivir stammered for a moment in search of a polite reply to that, and in the end couldn’t find one. She laughed and returned to her writing. Music drifted from the ballroom, delicate under the murmur of conversation.
“So, who are you here with?” the moon elf asked, after some minutes of silence. “You’re new, or I’d have seen you before.”
“I’ve been coming the past few months. I haven’t seen you before either.”
“New this year, I meant. And you didn’t answer my question—or are you forbidden to say?”
There was a teasing lilt to her voice that he liked, and he found himself smiling. “My Master is Rizeth Velkon’yss.”
Her nib stuttered, blotching the end of a word. “Is that so?”
“Do you know him? He’s been coming much longer than I have.”
“Yes. He has.”
The tease had vanished from her tone. Ashenivir frowned, but before he could press further, a man appeared at the ballroom doors. “There you are, kitten.”
He was tall, well-built without being broad, clad in deep burgundy, with dark skin and eyes of burnished gold. Aasimar eyes.
“Sir.” The moon-elf flicked a hand over her journal, and silvery light rippled across the page before she snapped it shut. The aasimar held out a hand, and she hopped down from the rail to take it.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Ashenivir called after her. She glanced back over her shoulder, her expression unreadable.
“No,” she said, “I didn’t.”
And as she and her Sir vanished into the party, Ashenivir realised he didn’t even know her name.