“I wouldn’t die, Levi,” Erwin replied. “Not really.”

The tone of his voice made Levi bristle. It sounded too gentle, too patient, and just a little bit wry. As if he were making some self-deprecating joke and not debating the semantics of immortality.

“Don’t give me that shit,” Levi muttered, pushing off the wall to pace the length of the table. “You’d be as good as dead. The old laws are clear.”

“You asked me once,” Erwin said, “why I continue to lead men knowing the cost. I told you it was necessary.”

“Don’t start,” Levi snapped. “I’m not in the mood for your heroic bullshit.”

His boots echoed against the stone as he circled the war table, where carved maps gleamed beneath torchlight. Tiny iron ships lined the coast. Small figurines marked villages, cities and outposts—entire mortal lives reduced to neat pieces that could be moved around on a whim. Levi had once been one of those mortals, one of those pieces on the board.

That, perhaps, was what separated him from gods like Erwin. The others had emerged fully formed from myth and worship, born already knowing their purpose. Levi had been dragged into divinity kicking and screaming. He stopped pacing and finally looked at his commander.

“There are other generals who can lead this one.”

A faint smile touched Erwin’s mouth. “You know there aren’t.”

Levi let out a short, bitter laugh, shaking his head. For weeks now, he’d watch the stronghold prepare for his commander’s march north. No one bothered to tell him Erwin wouldn’t be returning. At least, not as himself.

The village bells began to ring below. Levi glanced out the opening in the stone wall. Evening had begun to settle over the coast, and the harbor was dotted with lantern light. Fishing boats had returned early to avoid the storm gathering offshore. It looked idyllic, though he knew better than to romanticize mortals from this height.

“There’s a seeress in Trost,” Levi said, turning back.

Erwin was stone-faced as he considered his oath-sworn captain, then let out a quiet exhale. “She can’t change what’s coming.”

“You don’t know that.”

“She isn’t bound by the old laws, perhaps. But we are.”

Levi’s mouth twisted. He had heard this before, centuries of it—the gods’ endless invocations of fate. But to him, fate just seemed like a shitty excuse for surrender. Especially now.

“So, you’re really going to do nothing,” he said acridly.

“It’s not that simple.”

“It never is,” Levi shot back. He pushed away from the table, iron ships rattling in his wake, and grabbed his cloak.

“Where are you going?” Erwin asked.

“I’m going to see her,” Levi replied, striding toward the door.

“Do what you must,” his commander answered, his voice filled with the kind of tired acceptance that made Levi feel suddenly young and reckless.

You sat near the window and watched the sea.

It was a poor village, though no poorer than most coastal settlements you had passed through. It’d been decades since you last saw it, yet it remained largely unchanged. The houses leaned from the constant spray of wind, and fishnets hung between the battered eaves. The hour was growing late, and everyone, down to the last child, knew that a storm was approaching just from the scent in the air.

You could sense the man coming to see you long before he arrived.

He wasn’t exactly a man, not in the mortal sense of the word. Dark-haired with rain clinging to his cloak and a determined set to his brow. Two long scars you didn’t recognize ran down the length of his face. One cut across his right eye, now milky white. There was something almost fearful and desperate in his expression. You had seen enough love to recognize the uglier forms it sometimes took.

“Seeress,” he said, standing at the threshold of your room at the inn.

“Levi,” you said, watching the hungry flicker of purpose in his remaining steel-colored eye. “It’s been some time. I thought the old gods had little use for mortal prophecies.”

He stepped in, closing the door behind him. “Save your riddles. I don’t have the patience for them today,” he replied with a frown, skepticism rolling off him in waves as he tracked brine over the floorboards.

You sighed and stood from your perch by the window. The god of ambition’s most lethal captain had never been one to mince words. “You have questions. You may as well ask them.”

Outside, the waves were beginning to swell as the storm moved in. Wind whistled over the faded roof tiles. You gestured for the divine servant to shed his cloak and take a seat, but he ignored you. He had always been rude when he had something pressing driving him, and some things, apparently, survived death.

“Tomorrow, Erwin intends to set out and meet the beast descended from the giantess, Ymir, in battle. You and I both know the beast can’t truly die,” Levi said.

You studied him quietly. The years had carved away at him into something sharp and cold—like marble, pale enough to reveal the deep, permanent bruises beneath his eyes. But every so often, you caught glimpses of the boy who used to climb through your bedroom window smelling like seawater and stolen apples. That boy had once spoken about leaving this village. He had once slept.

Then, he had died. And the gods had found use for his rage.

“Whoever lands the killing blow absorbs the beast’s essence,” you said. “Yes.”

Levi’s jaw tightened. “I need you to tell me how to kill it without Erwin dying.”

“Erwin is a god. He cannot die.”

“He might as well be dead if he goes through with it,” Levi hissed. “He’ll be gone.”

“He will be reborn,” you reasoned.

“The Erwin I know will be gone,” he said sharply, fists curling at his sides.

It was intolerable. All of it. Erwin was revered. Mortals followed him into battle, to their deaths, because he inspired belief. His domain was ambition, victory through impossible odds. What was more impossible than defying prophecy and legend? Levi didn’t want to hear your pretty words about rebirth, no matter how pretty the mouth was that spewed them. Fleetingly, his mind conjured an image of that mouth, glistening and ripe, skimming his flushed skin, taking him in—

The memory jolted through him almost physically, and Levi gritted his teeth against it. The room seemed to press in, creaky windows rattling with the first real gusts of the storm. He forced the image away and focused on your silhouette, outlined by the blue of dusk.

“There has to be another way,” he bit out.

You stepped closer, the boards groaning under your bare feet. “Do you ever listen, Levi? Or does your anger crowd out every answer except the one you want?”

He scowled, fingers flexing. “I don’t care about the answers you’ve already given. I want the truth—the real truth. Not what you think will make me piss off and leave.”

Your lips curled gravely. “I don’t see you for several centuries, and this is how you speak to me?”

His stare faltered. His mouth opened, then closed. “What about you?” he demanded. “When’s the last time you passed through this village, huh?”

“You never really leave a place like this,” you said mirthlessly. “You should know.”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“I’m not. You want to bend the laws of the world for his sake. I’m telling you, you’re not the first to try.”

He scoffed. “No one’s tried hard enough.”

You nearly laughed. Was this really the same Levi? The one who flouted authority and took orders from no one? You wondered as much from the very first day you’d heard the songs written about the divine executioner called Levi Ackerman and realized the dead man you had once loved had been remade into a weapon for gods.

“You think yourself different from Erwin, but your desperation is kin to faith,” you said, quietly but no less cutting.

He met your flat stare warily. “Don’t compare me to him,” Levi spat. “He already decided how this ends. He was just going to give up and die. I’m not letting him.” His voice was hoarse, his hand swatting uselessly at the air as he moved toward you. “If I have to drag him back from the edge myself, I will.”

You held your ground, tilting your head. “I see.”

“What do you see?” Levi huffed derisively.

“This is about you, isn’t it? About how you think you cannot survive losing another version of someone you love.”

He went stock still. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

You watched Levi’s jaw clench, the old fury so long denied rising up in him. You remembered kissing that jaw, the hinge of it just below his ear that used to make him melt under your touch. “I know you, Levi. How many have marched behind him because they believed he would lead them somewhere worth dying for?” You reached out softly, only to pause when he flinched. “You were one of them. And then, you spent centuries watching other people die for his ambitions.”

Levi snapped his gaze away. “That’s irrelevant.”

“Is it?” You raised a skeptical brow at him and lowered your hand. “You’re terrified of losing him because you lost yourself, and he gave your death meaning. You don’t want to wake up tomorrow in a world where he is gone, and everyone expects you to kneel before whatever wears his face afterward.” 

His expression darkened. In a flash, his hand lashed out, snatching you by the wrist and hauling you in, close enough that his sharp breaths stirred the strands of your hair framing your face. “Tell me, damn it,” he snarled. “Tell me what I want to know.”

You didn’t struggle, but he could feel your pulse race under his grip. For a long, taut moment, you looked as if you were weighing your response. The conflict flickered behind your eyes, uncertainty swirling with the same violence as the storm raging outside. Then, you swallowed.

“There is a ritual,” you said, the hush of your voice edged with resignation.

“A ritual?” Levi’s grip on your wrist tightened. “What does it cost?”

“It isn’t a loophole,” you said evenly. “Don’t imagine clever words will free you from the old laws. The ritual isn’t a trick; it’s a trade. The essence must pass from the beast to something. Someone. The ritual only changes the vessel.”

His eyes narrowed, searching your face for deceit. “What does it cost?” he repeated coldly.

Waves crashed furiously against the rocks, sending seawater high as Levi climbed down the jagged path to the cavern. Ahead of him, you led the way with a lantern in hand. You had changed from the plain wool dress you wore in the village into ceremonial robes of gossamer fabric that clung to you like mist with the damp, glimmering in the lantern’s glow. His footsteps rang on the slick stone, boots scraping while your feet were silent beneath the sweep of your robes.

You glanced back. “This way,” you said. “We haven’t much time. The tide’s turning.”

Water pooled in the low points, and as Levi passed, he caught his bedraggled reflection. Ahead, the cavern grew drier and warmer with every step, as if they were slowly entering the belly of something ancient and alive.

“Here.”

You stopped at a broad shelf of stone and set the lantern down. You turned and beckoned him, bidding Levi to come closer. With a wary glance behind, he obeyed.

“Stand there,” you said, pointing to the circle hammered into the floor. Its lines glimmered with an unnatural sheen.

Levi hesitated only a moment, then stepped inside. The circle’s edge tingled against his boots. He removed his sword belt and set it aside. Then, his cloak. Then, the leather bracers on his wrists. Each movement felt strangely ordinary, like he was only preparing for battle and not something mystic and foreign to him.

“When this is over,” he said quietly, “he lives.”

You did not answer. Levi looked at you sharply.

“When this is over,” he repeated, “Erwin lives.”

Your lips thinned. “Yes.”

You held out a cup to him he didn’t see you pour. He took it, caution prickling along his knuckles where they touched the rim. The liquid inside shimmered faintly. It smelled faintly of salt and rust.

“Is this entirely necessary?” Levi asked you, catching your gaze.

“For the ritual, yes,” you said with a short nod. “Whether or not you feel it’s necessary personally, well, that’s up to you.”

He scowled at you and raised the cup to his lips. The taste burned with a bracing clarity that shot through his chest and fingers. Your silhouette doubled before his eyes, then steadied somewhat as his temples throbbed. Within moments, he felt his whole body shiver with a cold sweat, as if he’d been drenched by seawater again, and every breath began to heave out of him.

The cup slipped from his hand, landing with a loud clang on the stone.

“Fuck,” he groaned, instinctively reaching out to catch it but failing. The abrupt movement made his stomach lurch, every brush of his own clothes against his skin sending spikes of pain along his overstimulated nerves.

Levi reached out to brace himself, one hand landing on the shelf and nearly knocking over the lantern. The more he tried to focus his vision, the more it swam. He looked up at you just in time to make out the graceful flick of your robe as you untied it, the gauzy material falling open, though he could barely react to the exposure of skin.

“Here,” you said gently, taking him by the shoulders. He was too dizzy to fight you, letting himself be guided back to the center of the circle. Your touch was an instant, stinging pain, yet at the same time, exquisitely pleasant.

His gaze followed the line of your neck, down the valley of your breasts. It was surprising, really, how familiar your body was to him, even after years apart. The shape of you was like a memory from a life Levi had almost forgotten, and yet, the sight of you undressed, even in this strange, echoing place, caught at something inside him that was not divine at all.

Desire shot through him like a burning wave. He tried to speak, but his tongue was thick with the lingering taste of the ritual drink, heartbeat a thunder in his ears. Your face hovered above his as you pressed your palm flat against his sternum, your hand holding none of the reverence mortals normally showed to divinity.

“Don’t fight it,” you murmured, but some part of him knew the burning liquid he’d consumed didn’t construct this hunger from nothing. It only quickened what was already there, leftover from a time when your fingers had held him, not in ritual, but in love, years ago.

Levi’s knees buckled. You let him sink, guiding him down until his legs were half folded beneath him, arms trembling to hold himself upright. Your thighs settled upon his, straddled over his lap, and he realized only then that he was hard beneath you.

You cradled his skull with one hand, threading your fingers into the shorn hair at his nape. The fabric of his shirt seemed to scrape at his shoulders and chest; every brush of your hands, featherlight as they were, sent another jolt of want through him. Your other hand traced the lines of his ribs, pressed over the frantic beat beneath his heart.

A shudder ran the length of his spine as your hips settled more firmly over his. You cupped his jaw, thumb stroking beneath the edge of his scar. For a moment, Levi thought you might kiss him, but instead you leaned in, your breath warm against his ear, and whispered words not meant for the mortal world.

With a groan, he rolled his hips, thrusting up against you involuntarily. The barrier of his clothing between your bodies was unbearable. He almost tore at his own shirt, desperate to strip away whatever kept you from his skin. Your hands helped, fingers quick and clever working buttons and catching at buckles. Salt air swept over his chest as he let the garments be worked from his shoulders and arms.

Your thighs squeezed tighter around him as you guided him through the haze. Your palms mapped the old scars, the hollow above his hip, each touch dragging him further from thought and deeper into fevered need.

The words you whispered slid into his head, curling along nerves already raw from the ritual. Levi craved the meaning but could only seize you, nails digging into the expanse of your back. You gasped, head lolling back in surprise, just enough to let him press his advantage. He rolled, roughly flipping you onto your back and pinning you. The circle’s edge pulsed, silver threads of power humming beneath his knees.

His head pulsed, the pain like a dagger through the eye as his vision whited out. Hazy images intercut with his current reality. The soft outline of your stomach under his unscarred hands. His fingers tracing your spine and tangling in your hair. Tender and warm, contrasting the cold of the cavern and the savage need to devour mounting inside him. Levi groaned, pressing the heel of his palm hard against his brow as he tried to shake the disturbances, but the visions wouldn’t let go.

The world spun; his hands blurred, overlaying memory and now, past and present lovers, mortal longing and the cruel compulsion of divine change. Your legs locked around his hips, robe splayed beneath you, hair unbound and wild over the stone. You dragged his head down, biting at his lower lip, salt and sweat stinging where your teeth pressed above the scars.

(The taste of summer wood strawberries and elderberries on your tongue. Levi’s fingers threading into yours. Sunlit warmth and the sound of gulls over the crashing waves.)

He ground roughly against you, desperate for friction. Your hands claimed his shoulders, nails scraping new lines across old wounds, then slid down to urgently fumble between your bodies. You found his cock through his trousers, palm pressing hard against the aching length of him.

(Your naked back in the firelight, arching as he moved inside you. Levi’s lips ghosting across your shoulder. You had whispered for him to be gentle, but it‘d always been difficult for him, even then, to temper his appetites for you.)

Levi tore at the waistband of his trousers, desperate to be inside you. Your fingers wrapped around his length and guided him to you. The circle’s light flickered, spiraling upward around them as he pressed into you with a shuddering thrust, the collision of your hips echoing in the cavern’s hollow dark.

You clung to him, fingers digging furrows into his back as he rutted into you. The stone beneath you was cold, but Levi’s body above yours radiated heat, his chest slick with sweat and salt as he fucked you hard into the ancient floor. Pleasure burned between your thighs, blurring the guilt that tore through your chest at the cruelty of the ritual, which demanded what little autonomy Levi had left, the one thing you could not grant him, not even now.

The ritual was a violence, and you were its instrument.

The divine servant drew himself up, strong hands lifting your hips high off the ground to pound into you at a new angle. The euphoria burned through him so completely, he did not realize he had missed it all this time. Centuries of training, fighting, and being on constant alert, yet the adrenaline of battle couldn’t compare. Confession buzzed behind his gritted teeth.

“Been too long since I had you,” Levi admitted in a choked groan. “Since I had anything that felt like this.”

The forcefulness of his strokes made it hard for you to respond; you could barely do anything but release your breaths in staccato moans. His pace stuttered then, and Levi released himself inside you. Immediately, the insistent thrum beneath his skin calmed.

You shuddered as he pulled out, feeling the sudden emptiness and the warmth of his seed trickle from you. The ritual was complete. Except, Levi wasn’t done.

“What are you—?” you began as he eased you down and lowered himself between your thighs.

A quiver ran up the length of your body, gathering at the base of your throat. You gasped as Levi’s tongue pressed into your cunt. After the ritual’s violence, you had expected swift withdrawal, but instead his mouth was as gentle as it was insistent. Your knees instinctively clamped around his head as he lapped at the mess of his own release, moaning into you indiscriminately.

“Not done yet,” he murmured, spreading open your folds with his thumbs. “Not until you.”

He latched onto the hypersensitive bud of your clit, making you jerk and cry out, the sound echoing up through the cavern. Your hands found his hair, clutching at him, unable to resist the heat mounting inside you.

You tried to protest. “The ritual doesn’t require—”

“Fuck the ritual,” Levi growled against your cunt. The past was tangled up inside him now, reawakening memories he’d once thought lost, and he had never been satisfied leaving you unsated. That old, mortal urge drove him now as his tongue worked you, each stroke soaking up the taste of you. He groaned out your name, feeling his spent cock kick weakly in response to your pleasure. How had he gone so long without this? He had no answer, but now that he’d tasted you again, he knew nothing else could satisfy him like this.

Your hips rolled up against his mouth, the ache of your need building and building until you shattered on his tongue with a broken moan. Levi licked you through your release, until you’d ridden out every shudder, only then letting you slip from his grip. He pressed his cheek to your inner thigh, breath warm and ragged against your skin. You managed to catch your breath, blinking up at the vault far above.

When he finally rose, shifting himself back up your body, Levi settled himself beside you and drew you into him. You let him, your body aching and sore but not pained. The wind shrieked through the cracks in the cliffs in stark contrast to the muffled thud of his heart beneath your palm.

“I missed this.”

Your stomach churned as Levi’s lips brushed your ear. “Don’t say that,” you said, feeling the words catch in your throat with a pang so sharp it was almost sweet.

His arm circled around your waist possessively. “I missed you,” he insisted firmly. “The campaign north. It’ll be swift now. Wait here for me.” He pressed his mouth to your throat. “When it’s done, Erwin will be alive, and I’ll come back for you.”

Your pulse beat furiously under his lips. You didn’t untangle yourself from him, though you couldn’t help the slight tension in your limbs. It was tempting to believe him, to believe yourself capable of staying in one place. Of being someone not ruled by time and visions and the laws of the gods. But the ritual’s magic was already taking root. You could already feel the pattern of his heartbeat beginning to change beneath his skin. The hollow ache of transformation now seeded in Levi’s soul. It made you want to weep, though you didn’t let it show.

When he returned, Levi would not be the same man he was now. He would not be a man at all, but the same thing as the master he was trying to save. Then, he would serve no god.

The ritual’s influence worked quickly. He would not see it, not yet. But soon, he would realize that agreeing to be remade would lose him the very last vestiges of his old self, of what made him Levi. And would he still want you the same way without those mortal desires? Perhaps, as a consort, to consult on matters of war or prophecy, or to warm his bed—if he even remembered wanting you at all.

Your eyes closed against the salt sting of tears. For now though, you would lay in his arms, listening to his breathing as it slowed. “I’ll wait, but only until the new moon,” you promised. “I can’t linger here forever, Levi. I have duties of my own.”

Levi’s only answer was a faint, unyielding hum of assent. Then, he’d find you, he thought. He’d find you wherever you wandered. Such a task would be mere child’s play for a war god.

+++

The papers are signed, and you are ushered into the hall where a newspaper photographer is waiting. He directs you and Levi through an array of stiff, staged poses, asking you to stand close, closer, closer still—until you can smell the bleach on Levi’s shirt. Flash bulbs pop, and afterward, the general claps Levi on the back and wishes the happy couple luck. You are dismissed.

Inside the vehicle, your husband sits with his hands folded and his gaze fixed out the window. You do not speak until the rumble of the engine settles and the driver—an Eldian from the internment zone—opens the door to the modest apartment assigned to you on short notice.

Inside, it’s boxy and pale, with furniture that reeks of varnish. Two glasses and a bottle of sparkling wine wait for you on the kitchen table—courtesy of Captain Yeager, according to the card. Levi roundly ignores the gesture and goes straight through to the living area, loosening his tie. You follow, trying not to retch at the idea of seeing your picture on the front page the following morning.

“You should go ahead and wash up,” Levi says without turning to look at you. The words are spoken with the same intrinsic authority as every order you’ve ever heard him give.

Bitterly, you drop your meager luggage by the door and walk to the bathroom, which is as sterile as the rest. You lock the door, not out of fear but sickening distrust, before sloughing off your ceremony dress. Your hands shake as you stand under the shower and wipe away traces of the makeup the officer’s wife assigned to “prepare” you had insisted upon. A shame, you think, even if the flesh-toned foundation is a shade off and the lipstick is too bright for your taste, as makeup is rarely available in the internment zone due to glycerin rations.

You linger in the bathroom, taking your time. It’s more merciful to hide here, at least for a while.

When you emerge, dressed in a robe, Levi has already moved your things into the bedroom. The walls are papered in an outdated floral pattern that makes you want to gouge your eyes out. You decide it will have to be one of the first things to go, along with the hideous drapes and the phonograph, which would have been more at home in the living room than in here. A set of freshly-embroidered red armbands sits upon the dresser. The sight of them turns your stomach.

“You can have your turn now,” you say, the words coming out frigid.

Levi glances over from where he’s hung his jacket and nods once.

+++

Alone, you change into your nightgown and wonder if the higher-ups bothered posting extra guards or if they decided you’d be a fool for trying to run. They wouldn’t be wrong; it’s one thing to risk your own life, but it’s not the only one at stake. You think of your cousins, all young and barely old enough to understand what has happened, shuffled off to distant relatives with little more than a promise that they would be cared for. You can’t bear to think of them facing the same fate as their parents. Does Marley have a protocol for sending children to Paradise?

The apartment is quiet. The plumbing rattles faintly from the bathroom where Levi is washing up, and somewhere below, a radio is playing music muffled by concrete walls. You move to the closet and find half of it occupied by Levi’s neatly hung uniforms and the other half carefully kept clean and empty, presumably for your use. You think back to the robe carefully left out for you in the bathroom and the modest non-military-issue soap you found in the shower. The idea that the brusque man you married had thought about everything ahead of time infuriates you.

But Levi, as you’re well aware, has an almost pathological regard for routine. He keeps a shoehorn at the threshold of his office and a dish for pocket change on his desk. And you’ve noticed him reach for a spare handkerchief to wipe at a spill or a stray spot on many occasions.

You work efficiently, jaw clenched, emptying your peeling suitcase onto the bed and stowing everything away into its new proper place. What would happen if you just decided to upend all of it? Leave your worn shoes in a heap, scatter your hairpins all over his military precision in defiance? The urge to do so is so sudden it stings behind your ribs, but you refrain.

You’ve folded your last chemise when Levi returns to the bedroom. His hair is damp, and he’s put on a fresh button down with the hem untucked and the sleeves unbuttoned. It is not the first time you’ve seen him a little dressed down, as he so often is late at night when he stops by the canteen for a cup of tea, but there’s an awkwardness to it now. An intimacy that makes your skin crawl.

“Hungry?” he asks.

It’s a simple question. Only one word, and there’s not much intonation behind it. But it brings your blood to boil.

“Don’t,” you hiss, nails biting into your palms. You can’t stand to stand here and pretend you’re anything other than a broodmare for Marley’s wretched furtherance of the Ackerman bloodline. Their perfect, loyal soldiers.

Levi’s mouth twitches, the ghost of a wince. “It was just a question.”

“Well, there’s no need to act like this is a real marriage,” you sneer.

“I don’t intend to make this worse than it is,” he says.

You want to ask what that means, but you’re not sure you want the answer. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you had my family arrested.”

He narrows his eyes. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“You’re a dog of the Marleyan military,” you snap. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re complicit.”

Something flares in his gaze, and before you can blink, he’s snatching your wrist. “Come,” he snarls, yanking you firmly toward the door. You fight him, but it’s no use. He marches you into the living room and takes both your shoulders in his hands.

“Let go of me!” you demand.

“Watch your mouth,” Levi barks, and the gravity in his tone makes you go still. “Don’t talk like that again. You don’t know who’s listening.”

You stare at him, searching for traces of malice or threat, but find only exhaustion. “Where?” you ask, unable to help yourself.

He sighs and releases you, flexing his hands. “In the bedroom. The phonograph.”

“I see,” you say flatly, and with a deliberate turn, you walk to the kitchen, more rattled than you want to admit.

+++

You sit at the little table with the sparkling wine between you, but neither of you opens it. Levi pulls a loaf of bread and a jar of preserves from the paper sack left by the kitchen sink and sets them out matter-of-factly.

“Eat or don’t eat,” he says. “But don’t cry to me if you choose to starve yourself.”

“Is that an order, sir?” you say acridly.

He shoots you a sharp look. “It’s a suggestion.”

You watch him as he takes the seat opposite you and rolls his sleeves one by one to the elbow. He’s always seemed compact under those military fatigues, but the lean, corded muscle of his forearms reveals the true strength of his frame, shaped by decades of training. You know Warrior training is brutal, designed to take the soldiers apart and put them back together into unquestioning weapons of the state. That’s exactly what Levi Ackerman is to you.

“Do you always make sure your prisoners are fed?” Your voice is tart, but you can’t quite meet his eyes. The jar trembles a little in your hand as you twist it open.

“I don’t see you as a prisoner,” Levi says.

“Just as well. I doubt the commanders will care about your opinion.”

He doesn’t rise to the bait. He spreads preserves on his bread, then sets the knife down and considers you. “I’m sorry for the position you find yourself in, but it isn’t my doing. Treason has consequences.”

The words are cold, yet the fact that they don’t seem to hold any intentional malice makes it all the worse. Your heart hammers, and your stomach turns. You want to see him choke on the dry bread.

“Disproportionate consequences,” you spit out at him. “My whole family was sent to the island, even the ones that had nothing to do with it. The little ones lost their parents and older siblings. Did you torture them, too? Try to get them to give up our neighbors? Our friends?”

Levi’s face hardens, but he is so impassive, it is impossible to decipher whether your anger moves him. “It is harsh, but that’s how Marley roots our traitors.”

“Traitors?” You let out an incredulous scoff. “They were Eldians, same as you!”

“Exactly,” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “And as Eldians, they should have known better.”

The chair beneath you scrapes the floor loudly and you stand. “What do you know?” you ask, voice rising without really meaning to. “You’ve been Marley’s mongrel since the day you were born! And it doesn’t make you any better than us in their eyes.”

“Sit down,” Levi says, eyes darting to the bedroom, where the phonograph sits like a voyeur in the dark.

You don’t sit. You’re too furious to sit. You glare at him, trembling, vision blurring, and consider how far you’d get if you tried to catch a man like Levi Ackerman unaware. When he is asleep, perhaps, or unsuspecting in the shower. It’s a fantasy through and through, because you’re certain you are no match for him in any scenario. But the possibility pulses through your veins, dark and malignant.

Levi calls your name, and you blink. The tears fall hot down your cheeks, and your vision clears enough for you to notice the look on your new husband’s face. He is watching you warily, steel eyes flickering between you and your hand, which you now realize is wrapped tightly around your knife. The blade is still sticky with preserves. You inhale shakily.

“Put it down,” Levi says, almost gently, as he slides out of his chair and inches closer with his hands carefully raised.

You let him approach, lips parted, and his hands close careful around yours. They are shockingly warm for a man that seems carved from unfeeling marble, large and somewhat gnarled from years of strenuous physical activity yet strangely beautiful.

He stands there as you breathe like you’ve just sprinted, and it is almost farcical—as if the bread knife could prove a genuine threat when Levi’s hands are certainly orders of magnitude more deadly. For a moment, you imagine plunging the blade into his chest or your own thigh but loosen your grip instead.

Levi’s shoulders drop. He slides the knife from your hand slowly. There is something unguarded in his face, a momentary slackening.

“Don’t make a scene,” he says, but his voice is low, and if you didn’t know better, you might have heard it as a plea.

The moment passes, and in its wake, exhaustion seeps into your body. You slump back into your chair, and Levi drops the knife to the table with a clatter.

“I didn’t ask for any of this, either,” he says.

He doesn’t scold you further; he just sits down again and resumes eating like nothing happened. You wipe your face with your sleeve, the humiliation mixing in with your anger. You can’t even muster the rage to stomp back to the bedroom. You sit, defeated, and chew mechanically on a hunk of bread

The instant Levi finishes, he stands, collects the dishes, and cleans them at the sink. “You know what's expected of us, don't you?” he says.

You stare at his back, wishing that in all the time you’ve known him in passing, you had learned to read the meanings in his tone. You want to pretend you don’t know, but there are rules, and the rules are as inescapable as walls.

“Yes,” you say quietly.

“They’ll be listening,” he says. “To make sure we comply.”

An image of the phonograph flies through your mind. You want to puke. You want to scream. You want to throw yourself on the floor and cry. But you want to save what’s left of your family, too.

“Fine.” You wipe your face with your palm, surprised not to find more tears.

The faucet runs for several minutes after the conversation has effectively ended as the sound of meticulous scrubbing fills the silence. You wonder if Levi is genuinely that particular or if he simply prefers scrubbing a plate to looking at his wife.

Levi dries the bread knife with a dish cloth, then sets it in the drawer. “I won’t force you,” he says at last. “It—it doesn’t have to be tonight, but—”

He trails off and doesn’t finish the thought, but he doesn’t need to. You understand well enough what he means. It doesn’t have to be tonight, but it will have to be eventually. The government did not arrange this marriage out of charity. Public Security did not spare your cousins because they suddenly discovered a conscience. The officials who witnessed your vows this evening are not expecting companionship or domestic bliss. They are expecting Ackerman children.

“I know,” you say. Perhaps, it should surprise you that he isn’t forcing you. He could do what he wanted; you know this, and that knowledge is worse than fear. You can’t claim to know him very well beyond how he prefers to take his tea, but for some reason, you believe him.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he says. “We can figure out what we’re going to do later.”

“You’d rather sleep on the floor?”

Levi’s expression shifts minutely. “I’ve slept in worse places.”

Military camps, your mind supplies. Years of field exercises and of doing whatever Marley demanded of him, even if it meant sleeping in the dirt like the dog he is. And for the first time, you think of what a sad life that must be.

+++

It’s sometime after midnight when the noise wakes you. Falling asleep had been no easy task after such a tense day, especially with the awareness of the phonograph and of the man lying on the floor somewhere behind you.

At first, you’re not even sure you heard it. You lie still beneath the blankets, listening with your eyes open in the dark. For a few seconds, you almost convince yourself it was nothing. Then, it comes again. A sharp intake of breath, followed by thrashing and the incoherent mumbling of someone deep in the throes of a nightmare.

You sit up, blinking against the gloom, and let your eyes adjust. The moonlight through the hideous drapes paints everything in cool silver. On the floor, Levi is still and silent, but only for a moment; the next gust of breath sounds close to a whimper, and his arms jerk taut around the thin blanket.

You’re paralyzed for a split second, then slide off the bed as quietly as you can. In the shadowy limbo between the window and the wardrobe, you make out the sweat glistening on his brow and his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. You could wake him. You think a wife with even a drop of affection in her marrow probably would. It would be easier to turn away and pretend you did not notice. But you don’t move away.

“Levi,” you say quietly, lowering yourself to your knees.

You reach out, and your fingers brush his shoulder. The reaction is instantaneous. One moment, you are kneeling beside him. The next, you are on your back against the floor beside your bed, the air knocked from your lungs, and Levi is above you with his hand around your throat.

There’s a wildness in his eyes that tells you he’s not fully awake when he lashes out, but the panic surging through your veins is real enough. You can see the moment he realizes what he’s done. His pupils dilate, and Levi recoils, his hand vanishing from your neck. He staggers backwards on his hands, and you touch your throat, searching for damage. Your fingers encounter only clammy skin and a fluttering pulse.

“You—” you choke out, then stop. What accusation is there to make? You had known what the Ackermans were.

“What the hell were you doing?” he asks.

You’re surprised by the tremor in his voice, and you sit up, kneading your fingers over the small ache along your windpipe. “You were…making sounds,” you manage. “I thought maybe—”

You cut off the sentence, not sure if you should admit tenderness after everything between you. Levi cards a hand through his dark hair. He looks like a shell of a man, skin sallow and eyes haunted. You wonder if he dreams of Titans or of men in white coats, or if the nightmares claw at him the same way they gnaw at you.

“It’s nothing,” he says roughly, pushing up to his feet. “This was a mistake. I’ll be outside. You stay and rest.”

Speechless, you watch as Levi turns away and crosses the room to the door, not even bothering to collect the blanket and pillow from the floor. Then, he disappears into the living room, clumsily closing the door behind him. A moment later, you hear the scrape of a chair being pulled away from the kitchen table.

You remain seated on the floor. The room feels strangely empty without him in it.

+++

Sleep does not come after that. For two hours, you lie awake, and no matter what you do, you can’t manage to drift again.

You stare at the ceiling and find yourself replaying the look on his face. Not the one from when he lunged at you, but after—that brief, terrible instant when he woke and understood what he had done. As though nearly hurting you had frightened him more than whatever dream had dragged him from sleep.

The realization is impossible to reconcile. As long as you have been old enough to understand what Marley touts as salvation is actually propaganda, you’ve believed Levi Ackerman to be exactly what they made him. An obedient, unquestioning, dangerous weapon. But tonight has complicated things.

You hate complications.

Eventually, frustration outweighs exhaustion. With a sigh, you throw back the blankets. The hallway is cool and quiet as you make your way toward the kitchen. Your throat still aches faintly when you swallow. You try not to think about that, either.

A dim light spills across the floor from the living room around the corner. You pause, hearing a strange sound. A low-throated noise that makes your heart stumble. You worry Levi has fallen into another nightmare and continue forward, creeping quickly on your toes.

Levi sits at the sofa with his back to you, too focused on whatever he’s doing to notice your approach. You take in the tableau and feel a sense of disorientation at what you’re witnessing. The soft intermittent clinking of his loose belt buckle; the rhythmic plap, plap, plap of flesh; the half-muffled groans falling from his mouth. He mumbles something as you approach that sounds suspiciously like your name.

It doesn’t come together in your head until you’re close enough to see—his member, thick and flushed, standing erect where the front of his trousers have been sloppily undone, shining with precum and furiously stroked in one hand. Heat floods your face as blood rushes south to your cunt in a wave of lust, quickly followed by mortification. But by then, it’s too late. The hand freezes, and Levi lifts his gaze to meet yours.

“Shit!” he hisses, scrambling to cover himself with a handful of the forgotten paperwork sitting beside him.

You stare at each other, the air suffocating but crackling with an undeniable electricity.

“You should go back to bed,” he says with a scowl.

Indignance crawls up your throat. It’s not like you were the one caught with your pants down. “Are you always this loud?” you shoot back, but your cheeks are burning, and your thighs press together unconsciously. “What are you doing up anyway?”

“I don’t—” He sighs, disgruntled. “I don’t like to sleep much.”

You stand very still, wondering if he’s even aware of his hand still tenting the stack of official papers, trembling ever so slightly atop his erection. A week ago, you would have had nothing to say to this man but “Would you like more tea, sir?” You would have scurried from the canteen at night to avoid the Warriors entirely. How perverse, then, that you’re the only person alive to catch Levi Ackerman like this.

“You know,” you say, crossing your arms, “I heard you say my name. I think you owe me an explanation.”

Maybe it’s payback or spite, or maybe you’ve lost your mind from the sleep deprivation and dread. He looks at you for a long beat. Then, to your utter shock, a flush rises under the sharp line of his cheekbones.

“Do I?” he says quietly.

“Yes,” you try to snap. “Jerking off to the thought of bedding Marley’s newest breeding sow? Does that help you relax, sir?”

A faint flush appears at the tips of his ears. “You’re one to talk,” he says. “Don’t think I didn’t see you gawking at my cock just now.” His voice is as icy and flat as ever, but despite that—or because of it—heat begins to spiral in your belly. “Were you getting aroused watching Marley’s loyal dog stroke his cock to you?”

“So, you admit it!” you cry, jabbing your index finger toward him. “You were getting off to me! Pervert!”

Levi’s lips tighten in the most infinitesimal quiver before he looks away, fuming. “Yeah, but not for the reasons you think. I’m not a monster.”

“What, is that supposed to be reassuring?” you scoff. “What reason, exactly, makes this better?”

“I’ve been watching you for a while,” Levi blurts out, looking stricken by his own confession. “Back at HQ. I…” He hesitates. “I always noticed when you were in the canteen. How you pour the tea. How neat you keep your apron even when it’s a hundred degrees and the kitchen smells like dog food. I know you hate this, and I don’t blame you, but—” He breaks off, unable to finish.

Your mind races with the implications. You’ve never, not once, thought of yourself as the object of anyone’s desire, least of all the Levi Ackerman. A tremor runs through you.

“You never spoke to me,” you say, narrowing your eyes. It comes out more petulant than you intend.

Levi tenses. “I couldn’t. It... wasn’t allowed. You were never supposed to see this side of me.”

“So, what. Did you make a deal with them? Did you choose me because you liked the look of me?” you ask quietly.

“No!” he shoots to his feet. “Fuck, no! I told you, I didn’t choose any of this!”

The papers scatter, rustling to the floor, leaving him exposed and still half-hard. You swallow thickly. Your tongue feels frozen in your mouth. You’re aware of your nightgown clinging to your thighs, the painful ache of your own arousal, and the immense exquisiteness of having some tiny inkling of control over the weapon before you. You’re conscious, too, of the phonograph on the other side of the wall. Watching, always watching. Your skin prickles.

You take a step toward him anyway. “You didn’t want to marry,” you guess. “But you wanted to fuck me.”

A strangled, incredulous sound escapes him. “It’s not like that—”

But you’re in front of him now, and the words cut away.

“Should I pretend I didn’t see?” you ask.

He glares at you, and for the first time, you don't see only coldness. You are still adrenaline-sick, pulse roaring from the aftermath of nearly being throttled, and yet, what you remember now is the heat of his hand when it had pried your fingers from the knife, how intimate it felt to be the thing he clung to in that moment instead of the weapon.

You tug at the drawstrings of your nightgown. It slumps to the floor, pooling around your ankles, and you stand there, goosebumps feathering up your arms in the chilly apartment. Levi blinks at your nudity as if you’d doused him with cold water. Between you, his cock jumps and starts to twitch back to life.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he murmurs.

Liar, you think. But you don't say it out loud. Your hands move of their own accord, reaching for the muscle of his forearm, tracing the lines of his beautiful hand until it shudders.

He doesn’t lunge like you expect. Instead, Levi stands stock still, the steel of his eyes thinned out by the black of his pupils, his sullen face aglow in the wash of city lights through the window. He’s stunning, you think, and you want to punish him for it, even as you yearn to be handled.

“You can touch me,” you say softly.

He does not hesitate now. The soldier learns his new orders instantly. His hand finds your waist, and he draws you closer, till the line of your naked body is flush with his. Your skin tingles wherever he touches you, and you feel the rigid length of him against your thigh, sweltering through his half-hanging pants.

When Levi leans in, as if about to kiss you, you turn away instinctively. But his lips land instead deliberately at the side of your neck, pressing hot against the already flushed skin. Your nerves alight with sensation never before experienced. Is it the act itself, the touch? Or the fact that it is Levi who touches you? You’re too stunned to work out an answer.

His palms skim up your sides, over your ribs to cup your breasts. He works slowly, gently, as if to offer penance rather than foreplay. His thumbs tease the pebbled nipples, and you shiver and gasp. The heat in your lower abdomen, which had already been stirred by the sight of his self-pleasure, now rises to a roaring flame. Contrarily, the flesh between your thighs grows slick with moisture at the same time. You can feel it sliding on your skin with every minute quiver of your frame.

It’s sick, you think. There’s something wrong with you that it feels this good.

“Do you want me to stop?” he murmurs into your neck.

You can only shake your head in response. It’s impossible to believe, in this moment, that this man is the same whose boots you’ve scrubbed clean of mud, the same whose name your family cursed behind closed doors. You can’t help speculating. Had he done this before? A Warrior like him, a god in the eyes of Eldians and a novelty in the eyes of all others, must be coveted by many, you assume.

You try to picture him with other women. The power wrapped up in that strong, lithe body. That stoic brow creased just so with effort. Those beautiful hands, capable of violence, yes, but also of throwing someone around with ease. The thought both galls and thrills you. You’re ruined, you realize, already addicted to the contradiction that is Levi. But the answer is obvious in the way he strokes you. No one has taught him to do this; he’s simply learned how to provide comfort in the only way left to him.

As his hands slide down to cup your ass and draw you tighter against him, there’s a hesitance in his grip that suggests he expects admonishment at any second. Perhaps, he expects you to hit him, to flinch, to run. Instead you press yourself to him bruisingly, letting his cock nudge up between your thighs.

Levi groans, and his hips jerk reflexively, seeking friction. “You’re going to drive me insane.”

Good, you think. It’s the least he deserves. He dips his head to your shoulder, teeth grazing, and your whole body shakes. The air is cool, but where he bites, you feel fire, and where he touches, you ache. You’re barely aware of your own hands until they’re unbuttoning his shirt, forcing themselves under the crisp fabric to move over the ridges of his chest and stomach.

Your breath hitches as the button-down slips off his shoulders and down his arms. Levi is unlike any Eldian you’ve seen before. Not even the dockworkers and trainyard men, toughened by labor but robbed of vigor by the hardships of internment, are built quite like Levi. His pale skin is stretched across hard muscle and littered with scars both old and new—not an ounce of him wasted, his ribs and abdomen cinched tight. You scan his form openly and wonder about the origin of each mark. If they hurt, or if anything hurts him at all.

Levi interrupts your ogling by placing a tender kiss to the center of your throat, right where you can still feel the ghost of his fingers pressing into your trachea. His mouth follows the column of your throat down to where he finds your standing pulse at the hollow between your collarbones. He sinks to his knees—your knees buckle accordingly—and his hands find the backs of your thighs. You lean your hands on his shoulders to keep from collapsing onto him.

He buries his face against your belly, breathing you in. “Stop me if I hurt you.”

The warmth of his breath penetrates your skin. You don’t answer, and anyway, he doesn’t wait for permission. When his mouth finds the soft place above your pubic bone, you gasp. He coaxes your legs apart, and you let him, shame be damned. The heat of his mouth moves lower, lower, and then the tip of his tongue is there, tracing over the wettest part of you.

You stifle a whimper; it feels wrong to make any noise, wrong but addictive. Nothing could’ve prepared you for the flicker of Levi’s tongue at your clit. He buries his face in you, and your hand finds its way into his hair. You nearly yank him away from the oversensitivity, but the pressure only makes him dig deeper. His tongue explores you thoroughly, sometimes darting, sometimes sucking, sometimes simply holding you in his mouth, letting you pulse there.

“Are you so desperate to prove you're not a brute?” you ask breathlessly.

“I’m not the one with something to prove here,” Levi says, his voice a rasp. “You’re the one accused of colluding with Restorationists.”

You nearly laugh, but it breaks into a moan as he presses two fingers into you. You think of the phonograph and the ears surely tuned to it; the impulse to keep quiet only makes you want to scream. So, you let him have it, let yourself gasp and keen and moan until you forget the point of it all.

The first crest of pleasure is so abrupt it robs you of thought. Your body and your thighs threaten to crush his head. There’s a brief moment where you imagine you could kill him like this, the great Levi Ackerman suffocated by your traitorous cunt, but as quickly as it comes, the image is gone, replaced by an explosion of sensation.

You come hard with a strangled cry, riding out the spasms as his hair grows damp with sweat against your skin. When you’ve gone quiet and trembling, Levi rises to his feet, face glistening and gaze hooded, guiding you to collapse against the sofa. You expect him to gloat—maybe even sneer—but when your vision clears, the reality of his state is not what you expected.

Levi stands hunched half over you, bracing one hand on the sofa back by your head. He’s panting hard, flushed chest glistening and heaving with every ragged breath. And his cock is straining, so hard it looks almost painful, leaking copiously from the tip. But somehow, he hesitates. There’s an almost childish anxiety that surprises you, stretching his face tight, and it stirs something akin to tenderness in you.

You reach for him. Groping with confidence you don't possess, you close your fingers around his twitching shaft. Levi’s jaw clenches before a faint, desperate groan escapes. In your hand, he is rigid and feverish, and you feel an astonishing surge of pride at his state. You bring your thumb to the head, lightly swirling the bead of moisture, and he shudders so hard the sinews leap in his neck. Some buried part of you purrs at the power of it.

“Get on the couch,” you whisper.

Levi obeys, lowering himself gingerly over you as you shift longways and part your legs to accommodate him. He hovers above you, looking ruined already, like it’s taking everything in him to hold himself back, and you wrap your thighs around his hips. Your nails dig into the muscled plain of his back, tugging him toward you until the smooth head of his cock is kisses the wet, aching opening of your cunt.

Teeth gritted, Levi glances at your face for any sign of hesitation. Finding none, he pushes inside. He moves slowly at first, his arms shaking. But once he finds himself surrounded by your slick, silky warmth, his restraint shatters.

The stretch is sharp; you aren’t prepared for the sheer fullness of it, but the thrill of it drives you mad. You writhe, struggling to take him as he pounds into you. His hands move to your hips for leverage, and his grip is tight enough to bruise, even as his brow knits like there’s an apology on his tongue. But he can’t help himself. He can only rut into you like a man too long denied.

He fucks you with a violence that’s nothing like the care with which he’d touched you before as he groans out his pleasure. He rasps into your ear that you feel better than he’d ever imagined, that you’re so tight he won’t be able to last. Every drive of his hips forces helpless gasps from your throat. At some point you realize you’re moaning his name, begging, but you’re not sure whether you’re begging for him to be gentler or for more.

Eventually, he gives up on trying to piston in and out of your cunt and just buries himself deep, rocking slow and hard like he’s trying to leave a mark inside you. Each time you think you’ve gotten used to his size, he shifts, grinds, spears even deeper, and a fresh pulse of sensation makes your vision go white. You lose sense of place and time. The city beyond the walls, the unseen eyes recording you. Warriors, Restorationists, even your cousins. For now, nothing exists outside this small apartment.

You reach up to seize the nape of his neck, hauling him down for a kiss that is all hunger. His tongue finds yours, earnest and clumsy and desperate. The heat is blinding. You clench around him as he thrusts and feel his whole body shudder around you. Levi tears his mouth away from yours to bury his face in your shoulder. Then, with a broken hiss, he comes.

Thick pulses of his release spill inside you. The feeling is foreign, strange yet oddly satisfying, even when that little voice in your head reminds you that this is exactly what the higher-ups want: you, full of Levi until something takes and you’re swollen with his child. You picture yourself bent over the kitchen counter while Levi stuffs you full from behind, fucked on your back in the bed with your legs folded up to your chest, and shudder around his softening cock.

The city is deathly quiet, and you wonder if the phonograph is silent now, too. Whether whoever’s monitoring them has decided their work is done for the night, and if the sound of your moans have made some Marleyan bureaucrat blush behind his typewriter.

Levi’s head is pressed to the side of your throat, so still you think he’s fallen asleep—men, you’ve heard, are supposed to do that, collapse into a doze the second they’ve finished. But then he sighs, and rolls away onto his side, while his hand stays splayed at your stomach. You feel his cum trickling out of you in a slow leak, and the instinct is to rise and clean presses at the edge of your consciousness, but your limbs are submerged in postcoital honey, and Levi’s hand is heavy and warm where it rests on you.

It doesn’t feel real; you’ve slept with a Warrior. Perhaps, Levi has had the opposite thought. But what would your family think if they could see you now?

“You okay?” Levi asks. “That… isn’t how I meant for this to happen.”

He sounds remorseful, watching you with a wariness you used to mistake for malice. You equivocate, looking down at the place where his hand presses into your skin. There’s no way to answer his question truthfully, not with so much still churning in your chest. You want to tell him you feel nothing, that it was merely your duty, a demand of the breeding program—except that would be a lie, and you’re too tired to lie.

“I’m fine,” you say, and you find that you mean it.

You push yourself to sit upright. Levi’s hand slips off your stomach, trailing down your hip, where it lingers for a moment as if reluctant to let you go.

“We’re being listened to, right?” you ask, staring at the empty air.

He nods, shamefaced as a schoolboy. “They’ll check the tapes. It’s a formality, mostly. But…” He shrugs. “Still.”

“And what if the phonograph couldn’t pick anything up from the bedroom?”

“I think you were probably loud enough that they’ll get the idea,” Levi says, a touch of smugness in his tone that sparks some irritation. You smack him, albeit lightly. “Point is, we performed for them. There’s no need to repeat this mistake.”

Your stomach feels like a pit, anger rising hot up your throat. A mistake. As if he weren’t the one touching himself to the thought of you. And now, he’s trying to play the gentleman? You can’t help but call him out on it, and not just because you refuse to resign yourself to an indifferent marriage with him, detached and devoid of passion. You won’t be denied the feeling of his cock inside you again.

“You don’t get to call it a mistake if you’re going to make it again,” you say, shifting upright to straddle Levi’s lap. You grasp his shoulders roughly. Your cunt is slick, and his chest is sticky with sweat. Levi blinks up at you, stunned, as if he can’t comprehend your intent.

You press the heel of your hand into his breastbone, pinning him. With your other hand, you take his spent cock and stroke him languidly and feel him begin to harden again. He murmurs your name dangerously, as if to warn you that you don't know what you’re getting yourself into. But you most certainly do.

“The performance isn’t enough,” you say, like you’re making a logical argument and not actively trying to goad him into another round of sloppy fucking. “The Ministry will be expecting a report within the next few months, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Levi replies, visibly straining to get ahold of himself.

“And I expect they’ll simply replace me if you have nothing to report.”

He takes a beat to answer, hands shakily hovering at your hips. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Conceiving within a few months is a daunting task. Most Eldian women, raised on poor rations, do not conceive in the first year of marriage. If you do not want to fail, you both will have to be thorough to ensure something takes. You press his length, still wet from you, against your folds, and he shudders violently.

“Then, we had better make sure we have something to report,” you say, trying to sound curt.

You don’t quite want to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how addicted to his cock you’ve become after just one fuck, how much you want to feel him breed you deep again, but Levi clearly senses your ulterior motive. He smirks wryly and bends to nuzzle your throat, drawing a little sigh from you that you don’t quite manage to hide.

If there is one night in your life you expect to remember forever, it is this one. Wed by a bureaucratic order, fucked to the brink of obliteration by a man you believed you could only loathe, and now, wanting it again. And again, and again.

Suddenly, he’s moving, standing, and scooping you effortlessly into his arms before you can protest. His strength is astonishing. You stifle a yelp and wrap your arms around his neck to steady yourself. His cock valiantly rises to the occasion, hard once again against your ass.

“Efficient,” Levi says like he’s impressed. “I like that.”

And he carries you off to the bedroom.