Chapter 119: The Length Inside Her Mouth

The shove caught Xelvyn off guard, which was rare enough on its own. Yvaine planted both palms flat against her shoulders and pushed, and the Alpha staggered back a single step before the edge of the long dining table caught her behind the thighs and stopped her cold.

The hall had gone quiet a while ago. The meal was long over, the plates had cooled where they sat, and the only things left on the table were the drink and the two glasses they kept refilling and the candles the servants had lit before being sent away. The chairs had been pushed back at odd angles, the runner was bunched and creased, and the whole room carried that particular stillness of a place that had been used and then abandoned for the night.

Yvaine had been waiting most of the evening for a reason to do that. Somewhere between the third glass and the fourth she had stopped listening to Xelvyn’s voice and started watching the way her shoulders moved under her coat instead — the way the Alpha’s fingers drummed once against the table before going still, the way she kept her chin up and her eyes level as though nothing in the room was worth her full attention. Xelvyn was good at that. She had spent a lifetime being good at that.

Tonight, Yvaine had decided, she wanted to see it crack.

Xelvyn opened her mouth to say something sharp, but Yvaine was already moving, closing the short distance between them without a word. Her hand slid down, past the line of Xelvyn’s waist, and pressed flat against the bulge between her thighs.

Then she felt it properly — the thick ridge straining against the cloth, warm even through the fabric, and far too ready for how little had been done to it.

She had wondered about this for weeks, in the idle way one wondered about things that were none of one’s business. Whether the Alpha’s body would give her away as easily as her face never did. Whether the cloth had been hiding something worth all the trouble of finding out. The answer pressed back against her palm, and Yvaine had to bite down on her own smile to keep it from getting away from her.

The Alpha’s jaw tightened. Her whole body went still in that particular way it did when she was deciding whether to pretend that nothing was happening, and Yvaine felt the decision being made under her palm. Xelvyn’s hips stayed exactly where they were. Her breath did not.

"Haah~ don’t... Touch me!"

Her voice came out wrong, and she heard it herself. There was no weight behind the protest and no edge to it. She sounded needy. Pleading. Of all the things to sound in front of Yvaine, that was the worst.

Yvaine noticed, of course. Her smirk said as much.

"Really?" She murmured, and dragged her palm along that ridge in a slow, deliberate stroke that made Xelvyn’s hips twitch. "But you’re flushed while I touch it like this. I haven’t even stroked it raw yet, and you’re already this hard, Alpha."

The title landed low in Xelvyn’s stomach. She had heard it from a hundred mouths — from her own guards, from envoys who bowed too low, from omegas who said it the way one said a rank on a ledger — but it had never sat this heavily before. It had never been whispered at her by someone with their hand between her legs.

She didn’t answer, because she didn’t trust her voice to hold steady if she tried.

So she raised one hand instead. The power moved through the hall like a held breath, and the tall doors at the far end swung shut one after the other, heavy wood meeting wood with a sound that rolled along the stone and settled into the walls.

The windows followed, shutters folding inward, cutting off the cold night air and the distant murmur of the grounds beyond. Somewhere outside, a servant’s footsteps stopped and then hurried away. Xelvyn didn’t care where they went.

It was only after the last latch clicked that she realized what she had just done. A door could be opened again in a moment. A shut room meant she intended to stay in it, with Yvaine’s hand exactly where it was, and there would be no slipping out to collect herself in the middle of things. If Yvaine had understood the meaning behind it, she was polite enough not to say so.

There were still candles burning along the length of the table, dozens of them, and in the shut-in quiet their flames bent toward the sudden stillness before straightening again. The long dining hall went dim and gold, lit by nothing else.

Yvaine’s smirk didn’t falter, but her breathing hitched, just slightly. She had not expected Xelvyn to close the room. Xelvyn caught the hitch and felt a little of her footing return.

She turned them around. It was easy enough, since Yvaine was smaller and the table was right there, and she pressed her down onto the edge of it until she was sitting with the long runner bunched under her hips and the empty plates rattling somewhere behind her.

The wood was cool through the thin cloth of her dress, and Yvaine let herself be moved, hands braced loosely on either side of her, watching the Alpha with an expression that was trying very hard to be calm and not quite managing it.

Xelvyn stepped between her knees and pushed them apart, ignoring the way Yvaine’s skirts slid up her thighs at the motion. The cloth pooled against her hipbones, and Xelvyn noted, without surprise, that Yvaine made no move to pull it back down.

Then she leaned in close enough that her breath moved the loose strands of Yvaine’s hair.

"Undress," she whispered, "or you want me to rip your clothes off."

Yvaine’s smirk widened into something brighter and more dangerous. "We’re demons, Xelvyn. Surely I can take your roughness if that pleases you."

She said it quietly, almost into Xelvyn’s mouth, and her breath came hot across Xelvyn’s lips. It was not the answer Xelvyn had expected. She had expected flustered, or defiance, or that particular way Yvaine had of pretending not to care. Instead the omega had simply handed her the permission she hadn’t asked for and waited, easy and unbothered, to see what would be done with it.

The Alpha’s arousal spiked so sharply that her hands moved before her mind caught up.

The veins along the backs of her hands stood out like cords, as if something beneath the skin was about to burst. She caught the collar of Yvaine’s dress in both fists and pulled.

The seams gave with a tearing sound that filled the whole hall, and the cloth came away in a long strip from collar to waist. It peeled off Yvaine’s shoulders and down her arms, and instead of flinching at the violence of it, the omega moaned — a loud, shameless sound that went straight through Xelvyn’s chest.

The smell of her rose up, warm and close, and Xelvyn ducked her head and bit down on the curve of Yvaine’s neck, right where the skin was thinnest. Yvaine arched into her with a broken little noise, head tipping back, throat bared further than it needed to be.

The liquid they had been drinking all evening was taking effect now. Xelvyn could feel it moving in her own blood, a slow heat that had been gathering since the first glass and had very little to do with how strong the drink actually was.

Every place their skin touched felt hotter than it should. Every sound Yvaine made seemed to land twice as hard, twice as deep, until Xelvyn’s own thoughts started thinning out at the edges. She was still holding the torn edges of the dress in her hands and had forgotten to let go.

She dragged her mouth down Yvaine’s throat to her collarbone and felt the omega’s hands come up to grip her coat robe, not pulling, just holding on.

"Xelvyn~"

The whimper barely left Yvaine’s throat before she did something unexpected and straightened up, pulling away from the table’s edge. Xelvyn stopped mid-motion with her hands still hovering where Yvaine had been, and watched with widening eyes as the omega sank down onto the stone floor in front of her.

Yvaine lifted her chin, and her voice was steady when she spoke. "Lordess, will you allow me to take you?"

She asked. That was the part that snagged on Xelvyn and held. Yvaine was already on her knees, already submitting, and still she waited for permission as though Xelvyn’s answer mattered more than her own wanting.

Alphas were supposed to take. Omegas were supposed to be taken. It was in the stories and in the ledgers and in the way everyone in the hall looked at the two of them when they thought no one was watching. And here was Yvaine, kneeling on cold stone, offering to turn that order on its head and asking politely first.

Kneeling had been her own idea too. Xelvyn could tell from the set of her shoulders that Yvaine had thought about it before she moved, had chosen it anyway, and was now waiting to be told whether the choice had been a good one. The stone had to be biting into her knees. She did not shift.

Something in the Alpha’s chest pulled tight and warm.

"You’re really bold," Xelvyn said at last, once she trusted the words to come out level. "Fine... Then don’t crawl just to escape later."

Yvaine’s lips curved, but she didn’t take the bait. Instead she reached up and worked the fastenings of Xelvyn’s black breeches loose with quick fingers, then pushed the leather down over her hips and let it fall past her knees.

Xelvyn stepped out of them without being told, and Yvaine’s breath caught — she actually gasped, small and soft — when she saw what she had been pressing her palm against, standing free of the cloth and far larger than the shape of it had suggested.

Xelvyn watched her face, waiting for the hesitation. It was a common enough reaction, and she had learned to expect it.

There wasn’t any. Yvaine leaned in and dragged her tongue along the tip, slow and curious, and a shudder ran the whole length of Xelvyn’s spine. Her head fell back.

"Haah~ ah~"

The sound came out of her before she could catch it, higher and more honest than the last one, and it echoed off the closed doors. Xelvyn opened her eyes and looked down. Yvaine was still on her knees, hair a mess from the ruined dress, cheeks flushed, mouth wet. Submitting completely, and looking up at her as though there was nowhere else she would rather be.

Something in Xelvyn went soft at the sight, so quickly that it startled her.

"Just call me Xelvyn," she said. "That’s better."

The moment the words left her, heat rushed into her face and painted her cheeks a deep pink. She heard it too late — how much it gave away, how plainly it said she wanted to hear her own name in that mouth rather than a title meant for halls and councils. Titles belonged to the outside world. This did not.

Yvaine’s eyes lit up, and she smiled like she had just won something. "You love it when I call you by your name?"

She didn’t wait for the answer. She leaned in and took Xelvyn’s length into her mouth, all the way to the base, and whatever Xelvyn had been about to say dissolved.

"Ahhh! Ngh! Haah!"

Her hands found Yvaine’s hair and gripped, and the omega’s mouth pulled back and slid forward again, and somewhere in the middle of it Xelvyn’s hips stopped being something she controlled and started moving on their own. They learned the rhythm quickly, matching Yvaine’s pace like a dance set to fire, and the wet heat around her was so good that it made her vision blur at the edges.

Yvaine’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. The Alpha’s length was impossible — too long, too thick, more than her mouth had any business handling — and every time she took her deep it pressed past her tongue and reached the back of her throat, until her eyes watered and she whimpered around the fullness.

She had meant to go slow. She had meant to tease, to take her time and make Xelvyn wait for it, but the liquid in her blood had other ideas and so did her own body.

She pulled back after a while just to breathe, dragging air in through her nose while her lips stayed close to the shaft, and Xelvyn’s hand tightened in her hair as though to pull her straight back down. That answered a question Yvaine had not asked out loud, so she smiled against the skin and went back in.

The sound Xelvyn made was barely human. Her fingers twisted in Yvaine’s hair and pulled, and Yvaine let her, letting the Alpha guide her head into a pace that was harder and faster than she would have chosen on her own. It hurt a little. It felt good.

"Oh! Yes, ah! Yes, it feels good!"

Xelvyn was screaming now, and she didn’t care who might hear it. There was no one left to hear it, since the doors were shut and the windows were shut and the whole hall belonged to the two of them and the candlelight. Somewhere above them the rafters took the sound and gave it back, thinner each time.

"Yes! Yes! Faster, faster, ugh!"

Yvaine gave her faster. Her hands came up to brace against Xelvyn’s thighs, and Xelvyn’s nails dug into the edge of the mahogany table behind her, gouging deep marks into the wood with each surge of her hips.

Her thighs trembled under Yvaine’s palms, and her voice climbed, and the heat in her belly wound tighter and tighter until it hurt, until she was chasing it with small, desperate thrusts of her own, and she could feel the release waiting just past the edge of everything.

"I’m near! I’m near! Oh! Haah! It feels good! Yes, faster!"

She was begging. Some distant part of her noted it and decided it didn’t matter. Yvaine gave her exactly what she asked for, took her deeper and faster until Xelvyn’s voice cracked on a sound that wasn’t quite a word, and then she broke.

She came with her head thrown back and her fingers knotted in Yvaine’s hair, spilling into the omega’s mouth until her hips stuttered and slowed. The release left her weak everywhere, and she sagged back against the edge of the table for support, one hand braced on the wood, knees barely holding her upright.

For a long moment she simply breathed, and the candles burned on around them, and her own heartbeat sounded loud in the quiet. She had to look at the floor for a while before she could look at anything else.

Yvaine swallowed what she could, and the rest escaped the corner of her mouth in a slow, warm trail down her chin. She didn’t wipe it away. She just knelt there with her lips parted and her chest rising and falling, looking up at Xelvyn with that same soft, waiting expression, as though she would stay exactly where she was for as long as she was allowed to.

Xelvyn looked at her — at the mess on her mouth, the ruined dress, the flush that had spread all the way down her throat — and felt the heat coil tight in her belly all over again. Whatever the liquid had put in her blood, it had not finished with her yet.

"We’re not done yet," she said.

Yvaine’s eyes widened slightly, and she gulped down the last of it before lifting her gaze. "Y-yes... Alpha."

Hearing it — the obedience, the small stutter, the title handed back to her so willingly — pulled a sly smirk onto Xelvyn’s lips. She straightened up off the table and looked down at her omega with fresh heat in her eyes, no longer the least bit interested in being gentle.