Page 42 of Sundered By Fate

Perhaps the true dangers in Astaria were only beginning to emerge.

Ten

Aric was back in Malekith's chambers at the Ebon Spire. Or something very like it, at least.

The great, arched windows of onyx were thrown open to let in the ethereal light of the demon realm, illuminating the dark grandeur of the room within. Shadows pooled in every corner, hinting at a space far larger and deeper than it had any right to be. Silken draperies whispered in a breeze that smelled faintly of smoke and wildflowers. And everywhere Aric looked, gold filigree wove through obsidian surfaces like veins of molten metal.

But this time, something was off. Subtly, at first, but undeniable.

The shadows stretched longer, blacker than Aric remembered. The soft glow filtering through the windows had a harsh, unnatural quality to it. And there was a tension in the air, a charge that made the hairs on Aric's arms stand on end.

"Malekith?" he called out, but his voice was swallowed up by the room.

He took a tentative step forward, the polished obsidian tiles cool beneath his feet. The shadows shifted with him, slinking across the floor like ink spilled over water. There was no soundsave for the distant thrum of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

It had to be a dream, surely. Another vision meant to torment him, to keep Malekith forever just out of reach. Yet it felt so real. So painfully real.

And then he was there.

Emerging from the depths of those impossibly deep shadows, their inky blackness clinging to him like a mourning veil. The dark prince himself.

"Malekith," Aric breathed, the name torn from him, half prayer, half plea.

There was no crown on his brow, no blood upon his lips. His black hair fell in tangled disarray around a face weary with shadowed sorrow, and his eyes were wide, vulnerable. Not the regal, untouchable demon prince who'd stolen him away in that long-ago battle at the borderlands outpost—but not quite the shattered shell from Aric's visions, either.

He looked impossibly raw and real. Aric's insides twisted with yearning.

Malekith's breath caught in a sharp inhalation. "Aric," he said, and though he did not move, did not reach for him, Aric felt the silken rush of his presence unfurl like dark wings embracing him whole.

And then they were rushing toward each other in a flurry of shredded silk and whispered apologies. Malekith's hands were on him, tracing the lines of Aric's face as if memorizing them anew, and his mouth was crashing down on Aric's in a kiss that tasted like every missed chance and unspoken word between them.

Aric's mind went blessedly blank. All thoughts of visions and prophecies and looming danger wiped away in a torrent of hunger and heat. It was just them, wrapped up in each other atthe center of this impossible room where time itself bent to their will.

He fisted his hands in Malekith's hair, tugging him closer even as Malekith's grip bruised his shoulders with its fervency. There was an urgency to their touch, as if trying to make up for every lost moment with the fierceness of their embrace.

And through it all, Malekith's voice, hushed and fervent: "I thought I would never see you again." His breath shivered over Aric's skin.

A coil of molten need ignited low in Aric's belly at those words—the thought that Malekith might have yearned for him even half as much as he'd yearned for this man—and he shuddered against Malekith's mouth.

"I never stopped searching for you." It was the closest thing to truth he could offer up—and gods above, if it wasn't worth everything to hear that hitched breath catch once more in Malekith's throat as he dragged Aric into another scorching kiss.

Aric arched into the searing heat of Malekith's touch, a desperate moan tearing from his throat as those long, demon-taloned fingers trailed down his chest. An answering tremor rippled through Malekith's frame, the press of his hardening length against Aric's hip a promise of the pleasures to come.

"Please," Aric gasped out, the word half-lost in the slide of Malekith's tongue against his own. "I need?—"

Malekith swallowed the rest of his plea with a bruising kiss, fingers delving into the sweat-damp curls at Aric's nape to hold him in place. "I know what you need," the prince rasped, nipping sharply at Aric's bottom lip. "I can feel it, the desperate thrum of your sigil, yearning for mine. You crave my touch, my seed, my very essence marking you as mine."

Aric shuddered, his cock jerking against the confines of his trousers at Malekith's filthy words. The demon prince was right, gods help him—Aric had never wanted anything as badly ashe wanted Malekith inside him in that moment, claiming him, owning him, fucking him raw and senseless until there was nothing left but the imprint of Malekith's passion seared into his very soul.

"Then take me," Aric pleaded, writhing against the hard planes of Malekith's body. "Fuck me, fill me, make me yours?—"

A low, possessive growl rumbled up from Malekith's chest, his eyes flashing with unholy light. "As my lord commands," he murmured, and then his mouth was on Aric's once more, devouring him with a hunger that bordered on feral.

Aric was lost to sensation, drowning in the heat of Malekith's skin and the crush of his lips and teeth. He was vaguely aware of the slide of fabric against his own, the cool kiss of air against fevered flesh as his clothes were divested, but it was distant, unimportant compared to the feel of Malekith's hands mapping the contours of his body.

Fingers trailed down the bunched muscles of his stomach, teasing at his navel, dipping lower to brush against the weeping head of his cock. Aric gasped, hips canting forward into the touch, seeking more of that delicious friction.

Malekith obliged, wrapping his hand around Aric's shaft and giving it a slow, deliberate stroke from root to tip. Aric keened as pleasure sparked up his spine.

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