Heir of Beasts

Ch. 3.1- All the Good and Evil That Remains

(Content warning for language, innuendo, and extreme sass)

Ch. 3- Shira

"Would renting a carriage really be so bad?" I ask for the third time. "Fuck, Rei, I'll blow you in the damn carriage if you just get me off of this- this thing."

"Tamazh is just a horse, Shira. Not a mythical monster come to devour you whole. Not an unknown species crawling up from the primordial abyss. And let's be honest, darling," he adds with a dry chuckle, "we both know that you'll blow me anyways."

Well, the man isn't wrong. I kind of hate that.

"I've got ten years of sexual repression to make up for," I protest. "Sue me if I'm a little overzealous."

"There are plenty of things I'd rather do to you than sue you, Amshira," he says, his soft breath tickling the back of my ear.

"Pervert."

"What else am I supposed to think about when your perfect ass is nestled between my thighs for hours on end? When the soft curve of your back is pressed flush to my chest and I can smell your hair as the wind whips through it? I'm the victim here. Let's not forget that."

"Victim!" I scoff, mock offended. "I promise you, you're horribly mistaken. You're a rich, powerful older man preying on a naïve, emotionally vulnerable refugee lost in a foreign land."

"This land is in your blood, my prince, just as you are in mine. To my very marrow, Amshira. You're the fickle deity I pray to."

"I'm not fickle!"
"Capricious and willful. Wicked and fey. And how sweetly you shatter me."

"How sweetly you flatter me," I scoff, but I'm pleased. How can I be anything else when he's looking at me not like I'm the god he prays to, but an answered prayer? As if my mere existence on the horse in front of him is a miracle he can't quite unravel or explain?

It puts a knot at the back of my throat even now, a slight tightening that speaks of unspeakable emotion. There are not enough words in my language to contain what I feel when he looks down at me with that covetous, careful reverence. His words might be flirtatious, even lewd, but the way he watches me is strangely innocent. It makes him seem younger than his years.

"And the only things being shattered around here are the muscles of my ass and thighs from riding on this damnable beast," I huff, covering up my moony thoughts with a gruff tone.

"Oh, I think you ride my damnable beast just fine," he replies with a teasing lilt.

"You're an impossible, unregenerate pervert," I pronounce sweetly, wiggling back against him a little bit because there's not a damn thing he can do about it while his hands are on the reins. "And because you refused to do the decent thing and hire a coach, I refuse to do the decent thing and slake your lust. You're going to ride for hours with my pretty ass nestled between your spread thighs, and when you reach for me tonight, I'm going to tell you that I only ride one beast of burden a day."

"Strange nickname for my cock, but alright," he jokes. I smother my laughter with my hand, because I really shouldn't be encouraging this. But I like seeing him this way- playful and silly and sly and relaxed- because I know he doesn't show that side of himself to many people. It feels special to witness his façade crack and dissolve into the truth of his blooming soul.

I feel like we're growing something together, and I like that. It scares me how much I like that sometimes, because if I lost him, I already know the place he used to occupy would ache like a phantom limb. And he's so good at chasing my ghosts away, at soothing my demons and lightening my mood. He makes me happy.