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The Favonius Keep was restless, soldiers with nothing useful to do. Everyone involved with the plan had gathered here, waiting for the Traveler and the last group of knights to return.
Flins had kept himself to the far corner of the largest tent. The weight of collective unease simply sat differently on him than on the others. Illuga and Nikita were already en route back to Piramida, the Lightkeepers having their own matters to attend to. He remained stationed at the knight's camp for further news and updates.
When the sound of approaching boots reached him, he moved closer to the center of the camp. The returning group was smaller than it should have been. He found the Traveler's familiar face among them, but the one he was searching for was missing.
They appeared calm—but Flins could see something frantic at the edges of their eyes. Despite that, they recounted what had transpired between Varka and the abyss-possessed wolf with precision, their companion adding what they could. Flins had always appreciated that quality in the Traveler.
The fight had ended with the Grand Master taking a hit for the Traveler. Varka was then consumed and merged into the ley lines, his presence not gone but it would require considerable effort to reverse. The Traveler did not stay long after, stating they would need to head to Mondstadt to seek guidance from a certain bard.
Flins did not stop them. At this point there was nothing he could do. The only thing any of them could do was contain the remaining Wild Hunt. The veteran knights had already established a security measure in the absence of their Grand Master.
With nothing holding him back at the Favonius Keep, Flins left. He had his own responsibilities. The Wild Hunt waited for no one and would strike at any moment. He made his way to Piramida for a status report to Nikita. He did not look at the direction of Mondstadt.
Seventeen days without word. No news from the Traveler since they had left for Mondstadt. The Wild Hunt's activity had slowed, and Flins' days blurred steadily together.
There were reports he had postponed writing. His Skeleton Jigsaw had acquired a few more pieces from the last Wild Hunt skirmish, still sitting half-assembled on his workbench. He reminded himself to cook the perishables in his pantry and pass them to the next patrol squad he encountered, lest they go to waste.
Lauma came in the afternoon, as she sometimes did, with a container of something hearty—the very same he would prepare for Varka, if the alpha were around. The omega moonchanter would fuss over Flins the way one omega did over another. They had grown close over the last few months, through the Rächer of Solnari situation.
On her way out, she pulled Flins into a hug—not minding his small flinch. Her soft scent flowed out between them, gentle on the nerves. The flame in his lantern went still. The unfamiliar weight of being held, Lauma's pheromones easing the tension he'd been carrying since the Traveler left. "I'm sure we'll hear about him soon."
At the door, she paused, hand resting briefly on the frame. "Come find me. If you need someone close by." She looked at him, turquoise eyes steady on him. "Yes?"
Flins nodded. He had taken it for concern—the same kind she had always freely given. She left with the look of someone who wasn't entirely sure the offer had landed.
He watched the moonchanter return to Nasha Town, letting small fragments of his azure flame guide her path.
The passing of time worked differently for a Fae with a long life. Seasons folded into one another; years did the same. He had never felt the particular weight of waiting. There had always been too much time ahead for any specific stretch of it to matter.
That had changed recently.
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Flins was at his workbench, fitting a stubborn piece into the Skeleton Jigsaw. The postponed report sat at the other end of the table, untouched since morning. His train of thought broke off when the sound reached him from further down the path.
Not alarm. The opposite of alarm: a hyperactive, joyful chaos, paws on the path stones, then dirt, then stone again. The whiny pitch his assistant usually made when asking for a belly rub. The same sound it only made for one person.
He set the bone piece down and opened his door. The cold outside air came in first, the wind gentle, whenever an Anemo vision bearer was near. From outside, a blur of blond and teal, the puppy already running tight circles around his feet. Then the man himself, large and alive and carrying a barrel under one arm as though it weighed nothing.
Varka looked well. Somewhat wind-burned, hair loose from however he had traveled, but his eyes were clear and his grin was already in place by the time Flins had registered he was standing there.
The familiar scent of petrichor first, then leather underneath, and beneath that the warmth of smoked wood that no amount of travel seemed to wash out—the azure flame surged inside his lantern before he could quiet it.
"Told you I'd get us a barrel." Varka lifted it slightly, the contents shifting with a low slosh. "Snezhnayan Fire-Water. The real kind, not the watered-down export."
Flins' vessel ran cool by nature, a few degrees short of human warmth. Varka was the opposite—he radiated heat the way a forge did, constant and excessive. Standing this close made the difference impossible to ignore.
He glanced up at the taller man. A finger traced the arm holding the barrel, moonshine eyes curved to crescents, soft azure escaping at the corners of his eyes. "I was not aware that I would be the Grand Master's first stop after such a perilous feat."
The alpha's ears went faintly pink. The scarred arm on the barrel tightened. The grin came back, easy as before. "The knights can wait." His voice dropped to a rumble. "Let me in?"
Flins stepped back from the door.
Varka stepped inside. Just past the doorframe the Grand Master paused, his pupils dilated as he breathed in—deep and slow. Flins watched and said nothing. He was aware of what the cabin would smell like to him: years of it, layered and close. He moved to the pantry, his long midnight hair trailing.
Varka brought the barrel in without being asked, set it on the table with ease. His eyes went to the scarred arm as it flexed. The puppy moved to follow but Flins shut the door before it could wander in, sending it a heartfelt apology.
There were perishables he had been reminding himself to cook for several days—a task he had been routing toward the next patrol squad, or the one after that. He retrieved them now: preserved cuts, root vegetables, a jar of stock Lauma had left alongside the stew. More than enough to prepare a hearty meal. He had been saving them, he realized, a habit that had formed, quietly, around Varka.
A jar of spice almost fell when he reached for the ingredients he needed. Grabbing hold of it, he inspected the small bottle. It was one of the rarer imports given to him from Illuga's last supply run. He smiled to himself. This will do nicely.
Flins coaxed a small flame from his lantern onto the stove. It licked playfully at his fingers, then sprang into a lively dance, before settling beneath the slab of meat and warming it steadily.
Varka stepped away from the barrel and moved through the cabin. The creak of the floorboards tracked his path—one quiet circuit, checking the door, the window, the latch. He chuckled, resisting the urge to reprimand the knight for the silly routine the alpha always went through whenever he came over, even though Flins had told him numerous times it was unnecessary.
The cabin was too small for a man Varka's size not to fill it. The moment he reached for the cups over Flins' shoulder, the heat radiating from the alpha landed first. Leather and smoked wood enveloped him like a warm blanket.
A shiver crept up his spine from the heat of the alpha, before an ache settled low in his belly. Flins frowned at himself for it—almost a millennium, and he still found something new about this vessel.
Varka leaned in over his shoulder, and the heat of him sharpened at the closer distance. "Smells amazing as always. Can't wait." Varka's free hand hovered above a small cut of meat before Flins nudged it aside.
"This is bad manners, Mr. Varka. It's almost done, please do set the table."
Varka straightened and lifted his hand in mock surrender. If he had canine ears and a tail, they would have flattened and drooped from being caught like a child stealing from a cookie jar. The knight was far from feeling guilty with that big toothy smile spread across his face. Shameless.
Varka found his chair without looking for it before dropping his full weight—the wood creaking under his bulk, familiar. He poured both cups without being asked. The Fire-Water barely caught the light when he pushed one toward Flins. Clear as water, smelling of raw grain and cold. The fumes alone reached his flame first—a small, anticipatory flicker before it brightened at the core.
The table fit them the way the cabin did—barely, their legs nearly knocking beneath it. Flins slid the plate of perfectly seared meat toward Varka and took the cup. He lifted his drink, letting his flame burn the surface of the liquid. The first sip melted into his vessel before it reached his stomach—fuel, not drink.
He watched the knight eat as he savoured his own slowly, waiting.
A few bites in, Flins heard the change in Varka’s breathing—a sharp inhale, quickly suppressed. Flins' smile deepened as steel-blue eyes went wide and held there. Varka’s jaw worked steadily, and when he glanced up, moisture had begun to gather at the corners of his eyes.
The alpha reached for another piece of meat before draining his drink in one long swallow. Flins watched with quiet amusement. A poor decision; strong liquor would do little but spread the burn.
"I hope you know I'm still irked with you."
Varka jerked to a stop. The half-choke he was holding back slipped out as he stared at Flins. Looked at the plate. Looked toward the spice jar on the counter. The grin came after, slow and shameless. He refilled his cup.
"Reminds me of Lohen." His eyes were still watering at the corners. "Kid's been spiking my drinks to see if he can finally knock me flat." The grin eased into a quiet smile, warm. "I'd take yours over his any day."
Between bites he talked—about the leyline, finally, the part he'd been circling since he walked through the door. He kept it light at first. About Boreas and Roland. The pull of the domain. Being part of nothing but seeing white for a while, he said, and laughed like that wasn't the worst thing he'd ever said out loud.
Flins did not laugh.
"It wasn't—" Varka caught the look on his face and softened, set the cup down without drinking from it. "It wasn't like dying. I want to say that first. It wasn't that."
"You were unreachable for weeks."
"I know." He said it plainly, resigned. "I know that's what it looked like from the outside."
The second cup went down faster than the first. Flins noticed before Varka seemed to—the easy slur creeping into his consonants, the slight flush on his face as he leaned forward like the table might be further away than it looked. Fire-Water did that. It always did, eventually, to anyone foolish enough to treat it like a normal drink, and Varka, for all his bulk and his tolerance and his pride in both, was not exempted.
Neither of them spoke. A few moments later, Varka reached to the space at his side; a faint breath of Anemo stirred before a small box materialized. The knight set it on the table in front of Flins.
"Picked these up when I passed by Fontaine." He pushed it toward Flins. Pale green, white ribbon still neat. Elegantly packed.
Flins lifted the gift box and slowly unraveled the ribbon. Inside, the macarons were whole. Perfectly whole, no crushing or crumbling at the edges. He'd kept them that way. The journey from Fontaine was not short.
His vessel did not need a heartbeat. It was a trick of flesh and gears, a rhythm he mimicked because humans found silence unsettling. He didn't need lungs to breathe or a pulse to survive. But his carefully crafted beat quickened the moment he took it—pulled taut by the incorrigible, reckless, infuriating human.
Who was still smiling at him as if waiting for a verdict.
He did not say thank you immediately. He took one instead, and ate it.
The shell carried a faint char at the surface, sugar pulled tight by heat. His flame knew it before the rest of him did—unlike Fire-Water, which was fuel. This was something tempered by fire. Shaped into sweetness by it. It dissolved differently in his core, a rare indulgence from his time as a noble.
He took a second one. Pale blue shells, the same shade as the eyes fixed on him across the table. The azure flame in the lantern brightened at every soft bite. Perhaps Varka could be forgiven for his grievances. For now.
The tension he'd been carrying all evening settled back—a quiet exhale, barely there. He reached across the table. The hand that settled over Flins' was bare to the wrist: broad, calloused at every fold and grip point, the palm running hot. It covered his completely. Pale against weathered.
Varka did not squeeze. He simply caressed his knuckle, as if cataloguing each curve and dent of Flins' fingers.
"In the white space." He turned his free cup without lifting it. "There's nothing to do in it. No edges to push against. No way to know how much time is passing." The alpha paused. "I could only think of those I hold dear. To keep myself sane."
The warmth from Varka's hand had not stayed at the edge of his awareness. It had moved—up his wrist, his forearm, settling low in his belly. The scent of smoked wood and leather, which had been at a manageable distance all evening, sat at the back of his throat now. His vessel, by nature a few degrees short of human warmth, was running warm in a way that had nothing to do with the Fire-Water.
"I kept coming back to the same place. Coming home. Stopping here." The corner of his mouth moved. "You, specifically."
He turned Flins' hand over. Pressed his mouth to the back of it—brief, deliberate, simple. Then set it back down and kept his palm over it. This time, he squeezed. Flins held his gaze. The pupils had gone wide; the grip hadn't loosened. He returned the squeeze with one of his own.
"I thought about what I'd say when I got back. Took me a few attempts to actually get here." He set the cup down, the grip tightened against his. "I don't have a clean way to say this."
"Mr. Varka—"
"I'd like you to be my mate."
The heat rose in his face before he could stop it—deep, immediate, climbing to the tips of his ears where the glamour had already slipped, the points sharp and unmistakable in the low light. The azure flame did not stay in the lantern; it bled from the seams of the glass in pale wisps, curling upward without instruction. He was aware of all of it and could correct none of it.
"Mr. Varka... I—"
His voice caught at the blunt confession. Having a mate had never been in his life plan for centuries. There had been suitors bold enough to approach him during his noble years. No one had managed to get far into courting him.
The deepest impression he still held in his mind came from the benevolent White Tsar—the oldest and most powerful of all fae, who had made his vessel pale blond with eyes the cold blue of a Snezhnayan winter. He had, apparently, a type—and had managed to go several centuries without noticing.
But like everything else, the cataclysm took everything.
No one since had been worth the cost until him.
Flins rose from his chair, pulling his hand back from the warm grasp. "Knight of Boreas." He came around the table, tracing its edge as he went. "Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius." He stopped in front of the wide-eyed alpha. "Varka."
"...I accept."
The word had barely landed when Varka was on his feet. Flins had no time to prepare—the arms closed around him first, lifting him clean off the floor, and the cabin spun. Once, twice, low light and dark wood blurring past. Varka was laughing. The sound of it, the heat of it, pressed against the top of his head.
His eyes closed. His hands found the fabric of Varka's black shirt, and he held on.
Varka set him down without letting go—both feet on the floor, arms still locked, wrapped low around his waist, the laugh dropping lower now, chest-deep against his hair. He could feel Varka's broad chest against his, still shaking with laughter. Flins dropped his head against the knight's shoulder, breathing in the leather and smoked wood scent of Varka that he had come to love. A shiver moved through him where Varka's hands rested at his waist.
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The laugh had run out of him and Varka felt Flins' weight against his chest, both hands still in his shirt, the top of Flins' head tucked under his chin. Varka’s arms tightened around him, and for once, he allowed himself to indulge in the fae's coolness in close proximity.
Wait, hold on...
His—his!—lovely omega always ran cooler. Flins himself had reminded him whenever they were out hunting late at night—something about his fae constitution, the cold never registering the same way it did for humans. But the warmth Varka felt radiating through the thin blouse was different.
His arms tightened. He let it hold for one breath—the heat of Flins against his chest, the scent closer than it had been all evening—then made himself loosen the grip and step back. Just far enough to see him properly.
Flins came with the shift without resistance, his hands releasing Varka's shirt as Varka's hand came up to cup his face, and the heat reached his palms before full contact.
He breathed in slow. Deliberately. Close like this, with Flins' face between his hands and the distance reduced to almost nothing, the scent reached him fully. The white pine gone warm at the edges, he could almost taste the sweet white tea bleeding through from underneath it.
The flush had deepened and reached the tips of his ears—indigo, not the red of a human. Flins' gaze was half lidded as he stared up with a drunken look that had nothing to do with the alcohol they had both partaken in.
Without the lightkeeper's usual high collar coat on, Flins' neck was fully revealed to Varka's eyes. Small, faint periwinkle crystals traced across his skin on the side of his neck like wisps, glittering in the low light. Fae marks?
He hadn't seen them before. Varka remembered seeing similar markings on the lively advisor from the Adventurer's Guild. He didn't know if Flins knew they were showing. The calloused pad of his thumb grazed one. Light. Smooth and warm beneath his thumb.
The fire inside his lantern sat calm, tinted a faint violet, not the shade it turned when Flins detected danger, but lighter. Almost pink.
His thumbs settled against Flins' cheekbones, grazing the flushed skin beneath his eyes as he watched the heavy-lidded golden eyes blink open slowly. The hazy gaze he'd learned to recognize from long expeditions—preheat—slowly cleared, confusion coming in behind it.
He brought his forehead down to rest against Flins', slow enough that Flins could stop it if he wanted to.
"Kyryll... Do you need a heat partner?"
The question sat in the space between them.
Varka held his face between his palms and said nothing. The warmth still ran up through his thumbs. If anything it had deepened. He breathed in slow. The sweet undertone beneath the white pine was still there, stronger at this distance than it had been all evening.
Flins' lips parted slightly before closing with a small curl. The crystals by his neck glittered in the low light, trailing toward his collarbone.
"...Ah." Flins nodded sagely to himself, as if placing the last bone puzzle pieces of his collection into place. He looked away from Varka in a rare moment of shyness. "That would explain several things."
The little pink hue inside Flins' lantern pulsed like a small heartbeat.
"I have not done this before—in this form."
A small shudder moved through Flins with the admission. His gaze dropped, not away, but somewhere near Varka's collarbone.
Then his arms came up and wrapped around Varka's neck, pulling him down—Varka's hands dropping from his face to settle at his hips. "Would Sir Knight do the honor of giving my first?"
"Yes." First. His. And no small amount of glee about that. His hands at Flins' hips tightened once—brief, instinctive—before settling deliberately. "I'll go slow."
He shifted his grip—one hand sliding to the back of Flins' neck, the warmth there pronounced against his palm and brought him in close. Not a forehead press this time but a small peck of lips. He pressed his mouth to Flins' temple, the sweet undertone reaching him fully at this distance. White tea, beneath the combination of their scents.
His thumb moved in a slow graze at the nape of Flins' neck, brushing across the scent gland. Flins shivered from the contact but made no move to pull back.
Varka shifted and gathered him up effortlessly—one arm at his back, the other beneath his knees—and carried him the short distance to the cabin bed. Flins did not protest. His head came to rest against Varka's shoulder, one hand still loosely at his collar. Flins laughed, small and surprised. "I trust you, Varka."
He set Flins down on the bed and sat back on his heels, watching Flins' expression for any sign of distress.
Varka worked the buttons of Flins' blouse from the bottom up, unhurried. The fabric parted slowly. The warmth radiated out with each inch, not the ambient cool he was used to from Flins, but heated and erratic, running several degrees above it. He spread the blouse open and left it.
"Don't hesitate to stop me, alright?"
His beloved fae chuckled and kissed him lightly on the lips, then unclipped his lantern and let it drift back to the dining table. Now safely out of reach.
Varka moved him back against the pillows and took his time. His hands worked lower—the waistband, the black elegant laces—and Flins quietly observed him work, lifting his hips when Varka pulled both garments down and away.
The long midnight fall of his hair had spread across the pillow, dark against the pale linen. He lay still, watching Varka with a composed expression, ears still flushed to their points, crystals faintly visible across his chest.
Varka sat back and looked at him. With both garments gone, the lantern fae was all lean, sinewy muscle, his body untouched by scars. Pale skin, smooth and running faintly luminous at the edges, absolutely ethereal. Varka's hands were going to look out of place against that skin.
The crystal marks spread across his chest—periwinkle, faceted to sharp points, branching from the sternum outward to both sides like fire stopped mid-reach, ending at his lower ribs. Between his thighs, the small slit already glistening with heat slick.
Varka's mouth had gone wet.
He looked at his own hands. Broad, scarred at every knuckle, the rough skin of someone who had spent thirty years holding a sword. He spread them against Flins' thighs, rough and scarred knuckles against that pale smoothness.
Flins reached down. He took the scarred hand—the sword arm, the worse one—and turned it over in both of his with the careful attention he gave to things worth examining. His fingers traced the ridge of one scar, then another.
"Like ancient coins," he said. "Each with a story." His gaze came up, steady, full of affection. "I find I am rather fond of those."
Varka looked at his own hand, held between Flins' pale ones. Then back at him.
He lifted Flins' hand carefully, turned it palm-up, and pressed his mouth to the tips of each finger in turn. Light, butterfly kisses. Flins' breath shifted on the second finger and Varka kept going until he'd reached the last one, then turned the hand over and pressed his lips to the back of it.
Then the chest.
He followed the crystal marks with his mouth, beginning at the sternum where the trail was densest and working outward, tracing each branch as it spread toward Flins' sides. The crystals were faintly raised against his lips, smooth and cool against the heat of the skin beneath. He traced the left branch to its end, then started again from the center.
Flins' stomach rose and fell faster. One hand had found the bedding.
He didn't rush. His mouth left the last of the crystals at Flins' lower ribs and he sat back to look, taking in the sight of his beloved, guard down. His long legs trembled, trying to close and hide the slick heat between his thighs.
Varka moved forward and settled between his thighs, his weight spreading them open, and Flins' legs came to rest on either side of his hips with nowhere left to go. Flins stilled. The attempt to hide abandoned, stranded against Varka's sides instead.
Varka moved his thumb inward. He traced along the outer folds first, the softest edge, not parting anything yet. Just learning the shape. Flins ran warm against his fingertip, warmer here than anywhere else on that cool pale skin, and already wet with it, heat-slick and abundant, the petals parting under their own weight before his thumb had done more than graze the seam.
Varka parted the folds with two fingers, careful and unhurried. The flesh inside was flushed, wet, the clit already swollen and just visible beneath its hood. He dragged his thumb up slowly along the inner lips, not touching the clit yet, only tracing the length of the slit below it, feeling slick coat his fingertip thickly from base to top. He did it again. Slower.
Flins' breath had already changed. Not the slow deepening of building arousal—the shallow, uneven quality of a body that had no prior experience for what it was receiving.
Varka circled below the clit, barely-there pressure, and watched Flins' stomach pull taut on a held breath.
"Are you this—" Varka's thumb moved up and Flins stopped, an unwilling moan broke from his mouth. "—attentive to all omegas you're involved with?"
Varka grinned up at him, taking that as a complimentary praise. The alpha inside him preened unabashedly as a result. He pressed his thumb firmer and lifted Flins' left leg, settling it over his forearm. The new angle spread him wider.
"Only for you, Kyryll."
He kept his thumb circling over the clit and lowered his mouth to the inside of Flins’s knee, sending slow, affectionate kisses along the soft inner thigh toward the hip, the faint rasp of his stubble brushing against him. His skin was flushed and warm, the fae's scent growing stronger as his mouth moved closer.
When Varka reached the soft skin high on the inner thigh, he bit down, hard enough to leave marks. Flins made a startled sound and his thigh pressed close against Varka's forearm.
His hair had come loose at his temple, dark strands caught against his cheek. "Var—" One hand had pressed to his mouth—not fast enough. His breath had gone shallow.
Varka kept the same pressure, circling slower, and watched the flush deepen past his ears. Flins' hips shifted—pressed back into his thumb, craving for more. Each low moan caught high in his throat, behind his palm.
Varka held the pace, then brought a second finger down—kept his thumb circling the clit and dragged slow along the slit beneath it, the calloused pad catching against the wet flesh. The hips pressed up instead of back. The sound behind Flins' palm changed pitch. It went straight down Varka's spine, and his cock had been hard against his trousers for a while now.
"Let me hear you, darling."
He felt the clit pulse under his thumb, slick now spreading wetly at the entrance, the cunt clenching around nothing. He smiled in triumph before pressing down against the bundle of nerves.
Flins' free hand found his wrist when his back arced off the bed. The grip on Varka's wrist tightened. His mouth was open now, the hand fallen, and a sound came out that his throat had never made—not a cry, not a moan, something pitched too high for one and too quiet for the other. His hips stuttered. His thighs locked against Varka's sides.
Flins came apart quietly. Varka worked him through every second of it—his free hand settled at one hip, caressing slow, his mouth dropping to press against the other hip. He held the pace until the stuttering of Flins' hips stilled, until the grip on his wrist went from white-knuckled to loose.
The slick had gathered on his palm, sliding between his fingers as it leaked onto the bed linen. The trousers were starting to feel like divine punishment. He eased his thumb away when the last tremors went to stillness—slowly, reading the small flutter of Flins' hips as he drew back.
He kept his palm flat at Flins' hip. Flins lay still, chest rising and falling in slow, uneven draws. His eyes were closed, the flush still deep at the tips of his ears.
"If I knew the pleasure of flesh was such a thrilling experience, my past actions are indeed foolish."
"I'm glad it's me, then." His thumb passed over Flins' cheekbone, light.
Varka leaned in and pressed his lips to Flins' mouth. Flins opened into it—one hand catching the back of his neck—and his tongue slid against Varka's lips, slow, asking. Varka opened for him. Flins licked into his mouth deliberately—Fire-Water, still sharp, but sweeter from him than it had ever been from the glass.
He reached up and brushed the loose strands of hair from the fae's temple.
"Ready for more?" Varka smiled at his beloved fae.
"...You," Flins panted, after a moment. His voice unsteady at the end of the word. A soft laugh came as he took in a deep breath. "are insufferable."
In one easy pull of Varka's shirt collar, Flins overturned and switched their position. The fae now sat astride him—wet heat pressing against the white tent of his trousers, slim hip rocking slow. "It seems rather unfair that you should remain so properly attired while I am not."
Varka chuckled. He reached back and pulled his shirt off in a single motion.
Flins was already pawing at his trousers before the fabric hit the floor—with none of the grace Flins usually carried himself with. Varka held back the chuckle and helped remove them before Flins tore something.
Flins looked at him, taking in the full length of him. Varka shivered when Flins reached down, both pale hands wrapping around him, with the same careful attention he gave to his precious gems collection. His fingers didn't meet.
"Are all alphas like this, or is it only you?"
He held him there a moment before shifting his hips forward—dragging the wet heat of his cunt along the underside, discovering just how much there was. He shifted his grip, pressing the head to his wet entrance and rolling his hips down.
Varka's hands closed at his hips and held him up. His own jaw had gone tight. "I'd hurt you like this. You'll take me easier after."
Flins whined at the obstruction, hips straining against it. It would have been easy to let him. The heat-struck fae leaned in and kissed him instead.
Varka rolled them over, settling Flins back against the pillows, and moved down between his thighs. His mouth found the inside of Flins' knee then dragged inward along the line of the thigh. He nipped as he went, the pale skin marking easily beneath his mouth. The jut of the hip, then lower to the soft plane of the belly. Flins' stomach tightened with each one.
He parted the folds with his thumbs and put his mouth there. The slick met him immediately—thick, sweet, the taste of it sharp on his tongue. The scent at this distance was saturating. He pressed his tongue deeper.
The walls gripped around his tongue—tight, tighter than he'd expected, the entrance clenching as he pressed in. The wet heated passage squeezed with a stubborn grip, trying to keep it close, only making the slick run more freely.
Flins' hands found his hair and gripped. Above him, a sound broke that had no composure left in it—pitched high, his name repeating somewhere inside it.
He drew back and moved his mouth up to the clit and nibbled the swollen bundle of nerves with his sharp fangs. Flins' hips came up off the bed immediately. The grip on his hair tightened until Varka felt a slight tingle of pain.
Varka pressed his forearm flat across his hips and held him down, kept his mouth working the clit, and worked a finger in on the next pass. The walls closed around it—that same immediate clench, tight and pulling—and Flins' sound came high, muffled into the pillow.
He kept the pace. Switching between sucking and licking the clit, while his finger worked deeper. The slick was everywhere now, warm across his knuckles. Flins' hips had stopped fighting the forearm and started pressing up into it instead—seeking more than the finger was giving.
A second finger on the next pass. The walls gripped and released as the clench loosened gradually as the stretch settled in. His own hips ground down into the mattress once out of pure instinct. He kept his mouth moving around the clit as Flins groaned above him.
"Varka—Please!"
He had never heard the fae beg before. He was going to be thinking about this for a while. Varka smiled and pressed a kiss to the inside of his thigh and worked a third finger in. Flins' cunt was stretched wide and taut, slick and saliva soaking through the bedding beneath him.
With three fingers seated, he pressed upward against the front wall—a slow, deliberate curl. Flins' sound cut off entirely. His hips jolted hard against the forearm and his thighs pressed in around Varka's shoulders. Slick gushed out around his fingers—warm, copious, soaking his knuckles before it hit the bedding.
Varka lifted his head against the grip. The hands in his hair tightened once before they released the tight hold, then dropping limply onto the bed.
Flins lay against the pillows, eyes half-lidded and hazy, mouth open, a thin wet line at its corner. His chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven draws. With the way his body was still trembling, his heat was still running hot.
At the ends of his hair, near his temple, a few dark strands had dissolved into azure flame—flickering, dispersing at the edges.
"Kyryll, still with me?"
Varka drew his fingers back. The calloused pads dragged against the walls on the way out—catching, pulling—and the cunt clenched around them, hard, trying to hold what it had. Flins made a sound into the pillow, his hips tilting up to follow. The walls gripped and released as each finger cleared, slick running warm down his hand.
When they slipped free, the gap remained open—stretched, flushed, slick running down the bedding beneath him. The walls still clenched slowly around nothing.
Varka stared, his cock hard and leaking.
"Varka, please come in already." Flins whined, hips tilting. "I will not hesitate to walk out of here to find another alpha if you don't something right now."
The sound came from his chest—low, more vibration than voice. It came out while Flins was still talking, before he even finished. Varka felt it in his sternum and in his jaw, and underneath it, the pull to claim running hot and immediate.
That one part of the demand snagged. Another alpha.
Mine.
He reached down and took his cock in his hand, already slick from what was still on his fingers. He pressed the head against the entrance and ground forward once, dragging the underside along wet, swollen tissue. Varka groaned, the sound low and chest-deep. The sound Flins made went high and cut short and it only spurred him on.
"As you wish."
Varka kept his pace slow, working in by degrees, watching what each one drew across Flins' face—the crease between his brows, the press of his lips, the small catch of breath, until long slender legs wrapped his waist and pulled him in the rest of the way.
He exhaled hard at the grip of it. The walls clamped around his cock, tight and slick. Flins' inside pulsed with each wet clench, as if trying to pull his cock further inside.
Flins cried out as the stretch hit him, the sound sharp as he panted from the aftermath of his own undoing. Varka's hands shifted to his hips and gripped there, fingers pressing in deep. The fae trembled beneath him, hips rolling in short hitches against the hold.
Flins' face was flushed, lashes low, eyes barely open. A faint blue fire flashed across the gold of his eyes—there and gone, swallowed by the lust-filled daze of his gaze.
"More, Varka. Give me more."
Varka chuckled as he moved, giving in to the little fae's bold request. A slow roll of his hips, pulling back and pressing in—reading the way Flins' walls gripped around him with each draw, how the slick leaked and gathered on the bed. Varka set his pace to what Flins' body was asking, one hand flat at his lower stomach, feeling each small jerk there.
The fit left no room for each thrust to go unfelt. He watched pleasure work across Flins' face.
Pleasure was building quickly for the omega fae, with the heat heightening his already sensitive body, his hips rising to meet each thrust before Varka had completed it. His small mouth open on sounds that kept pitching higher, already cresting toward his peak.
Varka lowered himself and mouthed at the neglected nipple—sucking and licking the pink nub until it swelled and reddened while keeping his thrusts steady. Flins' body was doing the work on its own—tightening around him on every draw, the walls fluttering in quick successive clenches, slick running warm down his cock and thighs.
It was not long before Flins' sounds had gone ragged, his breath coming in short draws that couldn't catch between thrusts. His hands had moved from the sheets to Varka's forearms. The grip was hard, fingers pressing deep. Varka quickened his rhythm.
"Var—" Flins started, eyes wide and glassy. The next thrust swallowed the rest of it. He tried again and didn't get further than that one syllable. Varka pressed in deep and held there a heartbeat then pulled back and resumed the pace. The hold on Varka's forearms tightened as he felt the prickle of blunt nails. The fae's body was running far more sensitive than he'd anticipated. He made a note of it.
The walls clamped without warning, gripping in hard successive pulses—and Flins arched off the bed. The sound he made went straight down Varka's spine. Varka felt the rush of heat before he understood what had occurred. The amount of slick was sudden and flooding, but there was a clear, watery quality to it as it spilled across his cock and the bedding beneath them both. He stilled inside the grip of it and watched in astonishment.
His omega had squirted.
"What—" Flins' hands had gone slack on Varka's forearms. The flush burned past the tips of his ears. He turned his face into the pillow—sharp and swift—the fae in him, shaped by centuries of propriety and impeccable manners, unwilling to be seen like this.
Flins whined, the sound muffled against the linen. His hips shifted sideways, weight sliding toward the edge of the bed, one hand pressing into the mattress. The walls still clenched around Varka's cock with each shallow movement.
Varka's hands caught his waist before he'd gotten far. He drew him back to the center of the bed and pressed forward over him, folding the fae's legs up against his chest and settling his weight down. Leaning close against the fae, Varka caught his mouth before Flins could do anything.
He swallowed Flins' gasps as his tongue dived deeper, licking every crevice he could reach before coaxing the dormant tongue to dance with his own. He sucked at the lower lip until the tension in Flins' hands shifted from the mattress to his shoulders. He pulled back just enough to speak.
"Easy. That's your body telling me you felt good. Nothing else."
Feeling Flins' breathing slow, Varka gave an experimental thrust, then another. He quickened his pace. Flins gripped the scarred arms above him as Varka's hips found their rhythm again, the walls fluttering and clenching with each pass.
Flins squirmed within Varka's hold, his kicks landing soft against solid muscle. The heat of the press was everywhere—chest, thighs, the weight of him above—and the pace held, steady and relentless.
"How—" He stopped. Varka's cock found his sweet spot on the next thrust and the sentence dissolved. He tried again. "How have y-you not finished yet?"
"Boreas' influence, maybe." Varka laughed honestly, he hadn't had the time to have a thorough check up with the healer yet. "Who knows."
"You insatiable wolf."
Varka chuckled as his hips snapped back faster, undeterred by his mate's comment. If anyone could see and smell his beloved now, they would agree with Varka's deep hunger and desire for the fae. He would do this all day if Flins allowed him to.
He glanced down—at the faint rise pressing against the flat of Flins' lower belly with each thrust. He spread his palm over it and pressed down, feeling the movement through his own hand.
"Feel that, Kyryll?" Varka's voice had dropped, rough at the edges. "That's how deep you've taken me." Flins yelped, the sound sharp against his ear, before pale fingers closed around his in a death grip.
It was not long—not with how tightly Flins was pulling him in—before he felt the knot beginning to swell. Varka's thrusts came to a stuttered halt. He was about to pull out before it was too late but Flins' hands found his hips and clung on, the dripping wet entrance already beginning to close around the base.
"Fae do not conceive easily." Flins' raspy voice came out wrecked but clear and full of his usual mischief. "You may proceed inside, Boreas Jr."
It was a blessing, being able to keep going, give Flins everything he needed without running dry. But at the same time a curse, because Flins now had a name for it, and he had no illusions about how often he'd hear the tease coming from the omega.
The opening of Flins' cunt gave way, more slick spilling freely before locking around the knot in long contracting pulses. Flins made a sound that sent heat back to his cock—a shattered exhale—his whole body shuddering through the orgasm, the walls spasming in rhythmic pulses around the swell.
The grip drew him over the edge. He pressed forward as far as the knot allowed and spilled, the release rolling through him in deep successive waves that didn't let up. The heat of it spread inward and Varka went still, both of them locked together in the little lighthouse cabin.
He pressed his face to Flins' neck. The scent hit him fully at that distance. He breathed in, slow. Flins' head had fallen to one side somewhere in the last minute—the long line of his neck exposed, the scent gland at the junction of neck and shoulder visible and unguarded.
"Kyryll." His voice came out hoarse, stripped of everything but the question. "May I?"
The fae turned his head slightly, eyes heavy and red-rimmed, focusing slowly on Varka. His voice barely a whisper. "...You may."
With Flins' full consent, Varka bit down.
The fangs found the scent gland and broke through, the taste spreading across his tongue. Flins jolted at the first sharp pressure, a thin breath catching in his throat. Their scents had mixed in the air around them, layered and permanent.
He held the bite for a breath, then lifted his mouth and pressed his lips to the mark. He licked the blood from the wound clean, then pressed his jaw to the mark—a slow drag of skin against skin, the motion was instinctual and foreign to him but it felt right.
"Kyryll?"
"...Still here."
Varka kissed him again. He would have continued if not for the hand that came up to his chest, pushing gently. Varka lifted his head, leaving one last press to his forehead. Flins' breath came in short pulls, his lips swollen and glistening.
They were still locked—the knot full, neither of them going anywhere for a while. Varka shifted his weight onto his forearm, wrapped his other arm around the fae and pulled him close against his chest before turning them over. Flins grunted from the sudden change of position before going pliant and limp.
Their legs intertwined, ignoring the sweat and slick drying on their skin. His hand drifted to the small of Flins' back. The crystal marks were there too—the same periwinkle flame pattern, tracing up along the spine. He followed one with his thumb. Flins went still against his chest.
As their bond stabilized, Varka sensed a quiet pensiveness settling over Flins. He settled his hand over the fae's hip and waited. If Varka could feel Flins' emotion through the bond, it would work both ways—Flins would feel the question in him.
Flins lifted his head and looked Varka in the eyes, lips pursed, before telling him what was in his mind.
"Do you think the Starshyna would approve my request for a new bed... Maybe that would be a bad idea."
Upon hearing the nonsense plaguing his omega's mind, Varka had a full body laugh. The small tremor shook and jostled the smaller man above him, accidentally pulling his knot from the tight grip below. Flins smacked him hard on the chest in retaliation.
"Ow ow ow, sorry-" Varka settled down before the fae decided to increase his force, a wide smile stayed on his face. "I will help you with that after your heat ends, alright?"
The fae nodded before settling down back onto Varka's chest, his elven ear pressing above his heart. Lured by the slow beat of his heart, his eyelids started to drop as each second passed. Just when Varka thought the omega had finally fallen into a rare slumber, he heard a soft murmur.
"I will help you with your rut."
Despite the words, Varka could feel a slight doubt through their link. He hugged the fae before kissing the crown of his head. Letting what he felt move through the bond.
"Of course, my beloved."
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⚔︎🕯⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
It was several days after the news of the Grand Master's return reached Nod-Krai that the Ratniki at Piramida watched on curiously when the said man came in, hand in hand, together with the reclusive lightkeeper of their own looking for the Starshyna.
Their mixed scent was an obvious sign of what had happened. If that was not enough, the fresh bite mark hiding under Varka's black shirt was a dead giveaway.
Nikita looked like he was about to get another headache when he saw the couple approaching him. Just as Illuga edged closer to join his stepdad, a rambunctious knight with mint-colored hair appeared by his elbow and pulled him away for a spar.
While in Hiisi Island, the Lady Moonchanter received far more private information about the newly bonded couple than she needed, courtesy of her animal companions. She was happy for them regardless.