Work Text:
Outside the warped windows of the training hall, the Fade curled like breath on glass. Inside, only the sound of their footsteps filled the space - bare, deliberate, measured like a duel that hadn’t begun.
Lucanis stood across from her, a training knife in his hand. Not the real kind. Not the Crow kind. Blunt edges, dulled for practice. But his grip was still precise, elegant. Like it mattered.
Rook mirrored him, blades in hand, but her eyes were on his face.
He wasn’t present - not fully. She knew the look. Shoulders tight. Eyes haunted, even when he was trying to hide it behind that polished stillness. Something had gotten to him earlier. A mission gone wrong. A spirit whispering through him. She didn’t know yet. He hadn’t said.
So she hadn’t asked.
Instead, she offered the one language they both knew better than talking.
“First to five?” she said, tossing a knife from hand to hand.
Lucanis nodded. “Try not to cry when I pin you.”
There it was. A flash of a smile. Tight, but real.
Then they moved.
The first bout was swift. Controlled. They circled like dancers, knives sweeping and turning, blades meeting with muted clacks. Lucanis disarmed her - delicate twist, elegant footwork, as always. She let him win that one.
The second, she pressed harder. Forced him to step back. Got a slice in under his arm before he countered, and this time, the look he gave her was sharper. More alive. She could feel the tension in him shifting - not quite relaxing, but uncoiling.
By the fourth round, they were breathing harder. Rook’s hair stuck to her neck with sweat. Lucanis’s shirt was clinging to his back. They had stopped scoring.
She moved fast, feinted low, and caught him with a leg sweep that took him down hard. Before he could react, she straddled his hips and held her blade - flat and harmless - against his throat.
“I win,” she murmured, lips close to his ear.
Lucanis didn’t move.
His chest rose and fell beneath her. She could feel his heart pounding through his ribs.
And then she saw it.
Not desire. Not yet.
Fear.
Not of her. Never of her.
But of himself.
His hands stayed at his sides. His blade had slipped from his fingers.
“I win,” she said again, softer this time.
Lucanis swallowed. His voice was quiet, hoarse. “Rook… if I touch you, like I want to… what if I cannot stop?”
Rook didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She only looked down at him, her thighs still firm around his hips, breath calm despite the storm that had passed between them.
“Then stop now,” she said, not a challenge, not a dare - just a quiet offer, laced with something gentler. “Or stay. Your choice.”
Lucanis stared up at her like she was something holy. Or deadly. Or both.
She reached for his hand - slow, careful - and lifted it. Brought it to her throat. Pressed his palm flat over the quick beat of her pulse.
His breath caught. His fingers curled, almost unwilling.
She guided them with hers.
“You feel that?” she murmured. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Lucanis closed his eyes. Just for a second. Like he needed to steady himself against the weight of it.
When he opened them, they were darker. Not with Spite - no flicker of violet Fade-light - but with want. And wonder.
“I am,” he whispered. “Of what I might become, if I let myself want this too much.”
She leaned in until their foreheads touched, her voice like velvet against the heat of his skin.
“Then don’t want it too much. Just want it tonight.”
That was what undid him.
His hands moved before his mouth did. One tracing the line of her jaw, the other gripping her waist like he was anchoring himself. He kissed her like a man who had thought about it for years. Not hungry - careful. Like he was still asking for permission with every movement.
And Rook gave it. Again and again.
She rolled her hips, testing him. Rewarded with a soft gasp and the brief tremble of his fingers at her side. When she kissed him again, she let it deepen, her tongue sliding against his with a kind of patience that made his restraint shatter.
Lucanis groaned into her mouth, and this time, he gripped her tighter. Pulled her flush against him. There was no mistaking the hard line of him beneath her, no hiding how much he wanted her.
Still, he pulled back.
“Rook,” he rasped, voice torn between reverence and apology. “If I--”
She kissed his throat.
Then whispered, right against the place where his pulse pounded, “I trust you.”
That was the last thread holding him back.
He shifted, hands sliding under her tunic with a worship so fierce it almost hurt. His mouth followed - down her throat, across her collarbone, open-mouthed kisses that tasted like desire.
When he flipped her, laid her down on the training mat, he moved over her like he was afraid she might vanish.
Lucanis kissed his way down her sternum, breath shaky, reverent.
Rook arched slightly beneath him, guiding his hand to the hem of her tunic, wordless but certain. He hesitated for only a breath before easing the fabric upward. His knuckles brushed her skin - bare now, warm beneath his touch - and he paused.
Not to gawk. Not to hesitate.
To breathe her in. To feel the heat rolling off her, the soft rise of her breasts, the quick thrum of her pulse.
She looked at him - really looked - and saw the flush spreading down his neck, the way his fingers trembled as he drew the tunic off her completely and laid it aside with almost absurd care. Like it was something precious. Like she was something precious.
“You can touch me,” she said softly, reaching up to thread her fingers through his.
His eyes met hers. Something fractured behind them - like glass under pressure - and then he leaned down again, kissing between her breasts, then lower, mouth hot and open and hungry. His hands followed, palms splaying over her waist, her hips, until they rose to cup her breasts, thumbs brushing over each stiffening nipple until she gasped.
When he unfastened the ties at her waist, he did it slowly, gaze flicking up once - silent question. Rook answered with a nod, hips lifting to help him. The rest of her clothing joined the tunic but more carelessly now, in a heap, and she was bare beneath him, warm, wet, aching.
Lucanis inhaled sharply. “Mierda,” he whispered, voice ruined.
Then he bent his head and pressed his mouth between her thighs.
Rook cried out, fingers twisting in the mat. His tongue was soft at first - gentle licks over her folds, teasing at her clit - but he didn’t stay gentle for long. He dragged his tongue through her slick heat, savouring the taste of her, the way her core clenched when he moaned against her.
He devoured her.
He circled her clit with his tongue, then sucked - hard, messy, thorough - until her hips bucked beneath him. She was dripping, wet and open and pulsing on his mouth, and he held her there, fingers digging into her thighs, keeping her still so he could feast.
“Lucanis--” she gasped, thighs trembling, back arched.
He groaned into her pussy, the vibration making her cry out again, grinding against his mouth. Her taste, her heat, her need - he took it all in like it would burn away the rest of the world.
When her moans started to spiral, when her hand flew out, searching blindly for him, he kissed his way back up her body - slow and lingering, lips dragging across her stomach, the soft underside of her breast, her collarbone, her throat.
She was breathless, skin flushed, gaze heavy-lidded with need, thighs still twitching from the edge he’d left her on.
Lucanis hovered above her, his shirt still on, hands braced on either side of her head. Like he wasn’t sure he could let the last layer fall. Like he wasn’t sure he deserved to.
Rook reached up. Undid the buttons one by one, trembling fingers brushing his chest as she went - skin hot, pulse pounding beneath her touch.
He let her.
The shirt joined the rest of their clothes, and when he pressed against her again, it was skin to skin. His cock nestled hot and heavy against her slick folds, and he hissed through his teeth when her hips tilted up to rub against him.
His breath stuttered. She felt him tremble.
“I haven’t--” he began, voice thick, voice raw.
She silenced him with a kiss, her hand curling around the back of his neck.
“You don’t have to be perfect,” she murmured. “You just have to be here.”
“I am.” The words fell from him like a prayer. “Maker, I am.”
He guided himself to her, slow, reverent, cock pressing into her inch by inch. Her wet heat swallowed him down, her body clenching around him with a need that stole the breath from his lungs.
The groan he let out was wrecked - half-worship, half-desperation.
They moved together in slow waves, bodies tangled, sweat-slick and gasping. Every thrust dragged along her slick, fluttering walls, every grind against her clit making her moan louder, needier. She clung to him, wrapped around him, pulling him deeper, tighter.
Her core throbbed with every push, every deep roll of his hips, and when he looked down at her - flushed, mouth parted, utterly undone - she had never seen him more real.
“Rook,” he gasped, over and over, like her name was the only thing keeping him tethered. “Rook, please--”
“I’m here,” she whispered, legs wrapping around his waist, pulling him deeper. “You’re safe. You’re mine.”
Lucanis groaned, burying his face in her neck as he thrust deeper, harder, each movement now slicker, more frantic. The rhythm between them unravelled into something rougher, needier.
“Maker,” he panted, voice ragged, each word torn from his throat like it cost him something. “You feel-- you feel like--”
“Like you need me?” Rook gasped, her nails dragging down his back.
“Yes,” he choked, hips snapping forward with a sharp slap. “Like I need you-- Rook, mierda--”
She clenched around him, tight and fluttering, and he nearly lost it right there.
Her legs tightened around his waist, holding him deep as his cock dragged over her sweet spot again and again, thick and hot and so, so perfect, her slick dripping down between them. The sound of it - wet, obscene, raw - filled the space around them, and neither of them could stop anymore.
Rook’s breath caught on a sob as the pressure in her core coiled tighter, hotter, impossible to ignore. Her body pulsed around him, greedy, frantic.
“There,” she gasped. “Lucanis, there-- d-don’t stop--!”
He didn’t. Couldn’t. His thrusts turned wild, sharp, hands gripping her hips as he fucked into her like he needed to come apart inside her just to be whole again. His cock throbbed deep in her core, thick and twitching and so close.
“Rook-- I can’t--” he stammered, voice breaking as her nails bit into his shoulders.
“Yes,” she moaned, arching beneath him. “Come with me. Please, Lucanis-- please--”
Her orgasm hit first - sharp, hot, a wave crashing through her and taking her breath with it. She cried out, head thrown back, cunt spasming around him in tight, fluttering pulses.
Lucanis shouted, something in Antivan, something filthy and reverent and wrecked, and thrust once - twice - then came with a groan that shook through his entire body. He spilled deep inside her, cock twitching with each pulse, hips jerking helplessly as her walls milked every drop from him.
They stayed like that, tangled, shaking, dewy and panting, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath trembling in her mouth.
“Mierda,” he whispered, still buried in her, voice low and hoarse. “I have never-- never…”
Rook cupped his cheek, thumbing the flushed curve of it, her body still trembling beneath his.
“I know,” she whispered. “Me neither.”
He eased down beside her, slipping from her slowly, and she whined at the loss, at the lingering throb between her thighs. Lucanis gathered her into his arms without a word, pulling her close, holding her like he thought she might vanish.
His breath was still uneven. She felt it ghost against her neck.
“You’re still here,” she said, softer now, fingers tracing the sweat-damp strands of his hair. “You didn’t lose control.”
“No,” he murmured, eyes closed, lips brushing her collarbone. “I did not.”
She smiled, small and quiet, and curled against him in the hush that followed.