Private Tales The Price of Defiance

[Sadie]

"Hmm?" Sadie's eyes fluttered open at the sound of Nikolai's voice, bleary and confused. The apology hung in the air like a ghost. Unexpected, unwanted. She blinked up at him, brows knitting together, still half-asleep, her mind catching up to the words he'd said.

"What.." She murmured, barely audible as she tested the word aloud. Her lips pressed into a thin line and she shifted, dragging herself up and over him, her wings trailing behind like her shadow. One hand braced against his chest as she settled herself atop him, straddling his waist. Dark hair spilled around her shoulders, a curtain veiling her face in shadow.

Her other hand moved to cup his chin, forcing him to meet her gaze. She was still half-dreaming, she was sure of it. Still caught in remnants of a world where she could be so bold. A world where he didn't look at her like he was breaking apart. "Stop." She whispered. Her tone was sharp. "You didn't make me a part of anything. I know what I did."

Her thumb brushed across his cheek, tracing faint stubble. "You are a part of me. Not the other way around. You have been since before I even knew your name." She continued, her voice softening. "I don't know when it happened, but I read the story. From Eluin. The one of my life. Fate did this. It was written before we ever met."

Her attention focused on the hand over his chest, to the ink that crept over her own skin. Thorny vines and delicate flowers woven together. Her finger traced the patterns. "The darkest of the Ail'thain...with a void where his heart should be...would find a light to fill it..."She was murmuring, mostly to herself. "A flame he couldn't put out. A life he would claim, but one which would claim him. Salvation and ruin tied together with a crimson thread."

Sadie's fingertips brushed over the dark ink, her hand splaying where the pattern continued from him to her. A matching mark, proof of the bond. Proof that no matter how hard he fought it, no matter how hard she fought it, this was how it was meant to be.

"I didn't understand it at first. I didn't want to." She admitted, "But now...I know. It isn't just the bond. It's not just fate. I wanted this, too." Her hands moved to his shoulders, anchoring herself there. "I did what I was supposed to do," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly but wholly unyielding. "I did what I wanted to do. Because you are mine. And if this is what ruin feels like, then let it ruin me like the prophecy claims."

She leaned forward, pressing a gentle, almost chaste kiss to his throat. "I am not afraid of you. I chose this."

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai stilled as she climbed atop him, his breath catching the moment one hand settled on his chest and the other locked his gaze in place. He hadn’t expected her boldness. Nor had he expected her softness. He had expected to see disgust, fear, regret, but instead found steel wrapped in silk. Her voice was a blade, sharp and certain, and yet it soothed him. Undid him.

His hands moved without thought, settling on her waist, the press of his palms possessive, grounding. His fingers slid down, slow, fitting themselves into the curve of her hips like he’d held her a thousand times before. Like he might never let go again. He didn’t interrupt her, didn’t dare. His eyes, dark as storm clouds and just as full, tracked her every word, every movement.

And then she spoke the prophecy.

The darkest of the Ail'thain...with a void where his heart should be...would find a light to fill it..

He couldn't help but cast his gaze from her as she recited the words she'd read. A void... Light and flame and claims and salvation and ruin...His jaw tightened and he swallowed. Her voice echoed with a weight he’d only ever known in blood and death, but now… now it tasted of something dangerously close to hope. She said she knew what she was doing. That she wanted this. That she chose him... That he was hers.

His gaze snapped back to hers. He should have denied her, he should have told her to run far and fast, to burn the thread between them and find a life that didn’t lead to ruin. But as she claimed him as her own, kissed his throat, and anchored herself to him like he was something solid instead of the chaos he’d always been… he knew it was already too late.

He was the void. And she was the first light to ever dare shine into it. A breath shuddered out of him. A sound low and full of something ancient. Relief. Hunger. Worship.

"You should be terrified of me," he whispered, voice hoarse, fingers curling into her skin as if to remind himself she was real. "I am everything you’ve been warned about. Everything that should have destroyed you." His hand ghosted up her sides. "And yet here you are… undoing me with every word you speak."

His fingers dove into her hair, his hand gripping the nape of her neck, his eyes half-lidded and his voice a vow drawn from the bones. "Gods help anything that tries to take you from me now."

 

[Sadie]

She didn't flinch when his hands slid over her body, curling into her skin and trailing up her bare torso. She didn't retreat when his fingers speared into her dark tresses and gripped her by her neck. If anything, she leaned into hit. Into him. Looking down at him, her breaths were steady, eyes sharp.

"I'm not the one who should be afraid, Nikolai." She murmured. "You don't know fear...Not yet."

Her fingers traced the ink along his skin, the proof of what had taken root between them. What was always inevitable. But it was only half of the story. The part of them that was safe. The part which could have been normal. Happy, even.

Sadie's gaze dropped to his lips, a flicker of something sad and strangely fond was present in the way she looked at him. "That," Her eyes dropped further down, back to the ink which bound them together. Eternally. "Was not the crimson thread being tied." That sadness flickered again when she looked back up to his face.

"Mates..." Her lips quirked into a small, knowing smile that still didn't match her eyes. "That was what Eluin said, wasn't it?" The name aloud made her want to cringe, but she fought it. If he was lucky, Nikolai would be quick with the kill when he found him. "How unfortunate for you. To be bound to such a cursed fae girl."

Sadie's eyes glinted as she let him pull her down closer. "And how unfortunate for you, Nikolai, that I am yours. Not just by a thread or a prophecy. Your mate." She tilted her head, hair cascading around them as she brought her lips dangerously close to his throat. Her lips hovered there, breath grazing him like a phantom touch.

"Tethered to me in every way. In blood. In soul. In the darkness the gods would have warned us of." He looked like he might devour her, but still she pressed in closer until her lips pressed gently against his throat. A moment later, her teeth ghosted along the skin, refusing to pierce it. "You took from me. Ravaged, drank, claimed me."

She kissed the hollow area beneath his jaw. "But you didn't finish it." Her hand slid to his ribs, trailing lower. Heat curled into her voice like smoke and shadows. With an exhale, her tongue flicked against his pulse. "You're forgetting that you're mine, too. And to seal the crimson thread, I have to taste you."

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai’s breath caught in his throat. Mates.

The word echoed through him like a curse, a prayer, a death knell wrapped in silk.

He hadn't thought it possible. Because a mate required a soul to bind with, and he had never believed himself capable of being bound to anything but shadows. Until her.

His body shifted beneath her, tension rippling through every muscle as her fingers trailed fire across his skin, as her voice wrapped around him like velvet and thorns. Like Ilithore. She leaned in like she wasn’t afraid to burn, her mouth grazing his throat, her breath fanning his pulse, and it took everything in him not to snap. Not to give in completely.

She was stunning. Lethal. Soft in all the places he didn’t deserve and wicked in all the ways that made his darkness rise to meet hers. Had he ever wanted something this much? In all the centuries of carnage and silence and solitude? No. Nothing like this. Nothing like her.

To seal the crimson thread, I have to taste you.

The world narrowed to the press of her lips and the promise of teeth. He froze.

The full weight of her words slammed into him, more than lust, more than fate. The final tether. The exchange of blood that would finish what had already begun. Forever.

His fingers clenched at the back of her neck, dragging her head back just enough to meet his gaze. His eyes burned a violent, dangerous glint that flickered between fury and hunger and something terrifyingly close to fear.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” he growled, voice low and cracked with restraint, his lips brushing hers with the threat of it. “You have no idea what that would make you.”

His grip trembled. Not with anger, but with the terrible effort it took to hold back.

“You think I claimed you before?” His laugh was low, humourless. “That was nothing. A scratch. A whisper. If you drink from me, Sadie, there is no going back.”

He stared at her, wild-eyed and raw. “You’ll feel everything. Every wound. Every sin. The ghosts. The hunger. My blood will change you. Mark you. You’ll never escape me, not in this life, not in the next.”

He leaned in until their foreheads touched, until his lips grazed hers in a breath of surrender. “You’ll be mine. Entirely. In ways that break people.”

His hand slid from her neck to her jaw, cradling it with a tenderness that betrayed every vicious word he’d just said. His thumb stroked over her lips, parted, waiting, aching.

“I should stop you,” he whispered, almost to himself. “I should spare you from this.”

And in his chest, the ink pulsed again. Alive, waiting. Wanting.