#koschlain

Naked.

Tied to what felt like a rather hard stone surface, her legs splayed wide, arms tied up over her head. She’d struggled for what felt like hours—until her wrists were bloodied and her body chafed. It did no good. Her restraints were magic and unless the person who’d created them willed her free, Elain was stuck as she was. 

She couldn’t even ask. Her mouth was bound in cloth, her eyes covered so she couldn’t see. Terrified as she was, Elain couldn’t pretend her predicament wasn’t of her own making. She’d made a deal with the wind days after coming out of the cauldron.

It had whispered so sweetly in her ear, promising to make her human if only she was their eyes and ears. Listen to private conversations, whisper it back when no one was around. Elain had done as she was told and this was what she’d gotten for her trouble.

The sound of boots echoing around her stilled her heart. The steps were deliberately slow to draw out her fear, her torment. Against her better judgment, Elain began writhing again which earned her a dark chuckle in response.

“Prettier than I imagined,” the dark, disembodied voice murmured. 

What did you imagine? She couldn’t ask. Elain didn’t realize he was close enough to touch her until she felt a leather gloved finger slide up her thigh. Elain shivered, jerking once again for all the good it did. She barely moved an inch at all. That finger was, just like everything else, torturously slow as it made its way further up her leg.

It paused at the seam of her thigh.

“I can hear your heart,” the dark voice whispered, “beating through stone.”

Elain screamed through the fabric, the sound muffled. He only chuckled. 

“I like the sound of that,” he admitted, taking what felt like a truly massive hand to push her legs wider. Her scream became a whimper as she wondered what he was going to do to her. She knew, of course—knew the intent behind stripping her to nothing and spreading her out—but there were so many things he could do in between having his way with her.

The not knowing only heightened her fear. 

“I hope you’ll forgive me for this, in time,” he continued, squeezing her flesh lightly. Her body responded to the closeness of his fingers, the whispered air that ghosted over her exposed cunt. Elain swallowed hard, leaning her head back until it touched the stone slab she was resting atop of. 

I’ll never forgive you.

He chuckled again.

“I’ve been watching you, Elain Archeron. I admit, you were nothing but a convenient little pawn to me. At first. But you’ve become so much more. They trust you. I trust you.”

Elain squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the way his hands were sliding up her thighs, closer and closer to meeting in the middle. Hadn’t she wanted him to trust her? 

Hadn’t she worked harder than she needed to, slipping into spaces she didn’t belong, making friends with servants who gossiped, ingratiating herself with Rhys’ inner circle until they trusted her implicitly? 

And she knew who was touching her, though Elain didn’t want to admit it. She’d kept her whispered bargain a secret from everyone—even her sister, who could read her mind—including herself in some ways. Elain had never let herself truly think about what she was doing or who she was betraying.

In that way, she could still hold on to being a good person. 

“Your human remarried,” the dark voice murmured just as one of those gloved fingers spread her cunt open wider. “Did you know that?”

Elain turned her head. She hadn’t known. It had all been for nothing, then. She'd made a bargain with a death god for a man who wouldn't even wait. Who'd left her behind like garbage. Anger pooled in her gut.

“It's been three years. He’s forgotten you…but you still cling to him. I mean to make you forget.”

Take my memories, she pleaded silently, trying not to think about what was happening between her legs. There was some sort of excruciatingly slow exploration happening from a creature that knew it had all the time in the world. 

“Your anger is potent,” he sighed. Was it his thumb drawing indolent circles against her cunt. Elain felt the shallow dip of a leather finger into her body, drawing forth slick heat that humiliated her. She didn’t want to enjoy this—her body was its own animal, acting outside of her control. “I want to taste it.”

No! 

There was nothing but that whispering wind, too cold to feel comfortable as it trailed over her breasts, teasing sensitive, exposed nipples. Elain struggled vainly, though she and the man between her legs both knew it was fruitless. 

“I mean to make you my queen,” he whispered, his breath warm against her thigh. Elain jerked, again, for nothing. His tongue pressed flat against her skin, licking up, up, up—

“Don’t you want revenge?”

Elain didn’t know what she wanted. Sometimes she indulged herself in dark fantasies—begging Nesta to drag Hybern from the grave so she could make him suffer as she had. Of watching everyone around her get the life they’d always dreamed of while she was trapped in a body that she hadn’t chosen. She wanted to feel safe in her skin again, wanted to feel alive as she must have once. She'd forgotten how that felt. Everything had been ripped from her. 

Stripped of the life she’d wanted so desperately.

It’s unfair, she thought, a tear sliding from the corner of her eye. What did it say about her that the first time she cried since she’d been unceremoniously stolen from her bed was when she thought about how her sisters were getting the lives they’d always wanted? And not about the creature kneeling between her legs, breathing on her cunt? Surely there was some other way. Some other path.

“It is unfair,” he murmured, proving he could hear her thoughts. “They treat you so abhorrently…like an afterthought. Like you’re nothing but an ornament. But you’re not…are you?”

No, she thought, another tear slipping down her cheek.

“They use you and then discard you,” he continued, kissing the very bottom of her cunt. Elain shivered from the intimacy of the touch. “I would unleash you.” How? 

He didn’t respond, that tongue that had once teased over her cold skin now finding a home between her legs. His mouth was hot, like flames licking over her as he took his time. It was languid the way he licked up the center of her body, swirling over her clit before returning down the same path.

Elain whimpered, unsure if she hated it or she liked it. It was wrong—so, so wrong. Was he making her want it? Elain thrashed, trying to extend her legs so she could kick him in the face. He only laughed, that tongue dipping into her body with a heady groan. 

“That rage…it’s potent,” he murmured, sliding his tongue into her body a second time. “The taste is divine.”

Elain couldn’t move, was pinned to that slab and forced to endure the slow torment of his mouth. He was unhurried, teasing around her clit without touching, or using his fingers to press against her entrance as if he’d go further only to draw back. The cold air blew against the heat of his mouth, keeping Elain confused and off balanced.

She couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t get used to the sensations so she could block them out. As consequence, her mind traced every little touch which seemed to only heighten the pleasure she didn’t want to feel, which she suspected was the point. 

He pulled back, using his thumb to draw lazy circles over her clit as arousal flared bright in her lower belly.

“Why are you fighting me?” he asked, his voice breathless with excitement. “You know who I am…what I am.”

Elain shook her head back and forth, still blinded to everything around her, still rendered mute by the cloth pressed tight over her mouth. She didn’t want to know anything.

He sighed, clearly disappointed if the click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth was any indication. He returned to her body, though all the slowness was gone. He was determined, it seemed, to pull the reaction from her that he wanted. To hold her strings like his puppet and make her dance.

Just like everyone else. Elain felt her anger building just as surely as her arousal, drawing her higher and higher as his teeth scraped against delicate skin. There was nothing nice, nothing polite about what he was doing now. It was a show of force, of dominance. Fingers plunged into her body, one after the other until Elain was stretched so painfully around him it made her ache. His tongue stayed on her clit, swirling and sucking loud enough she could hear the obscene sounds echoing from the stone.

The pain was its own distraction. When he began pumping those three fingers into her body, Elain hissed as she arched her hips into the air to try and escape the onslaught.

“Take it,” he ordered, his voice edged roughly. “This is what you like.”

I hate you!

He only laughed, sucking her clit into his mouth so roughly that Elain screamed around the cloth again. 

He laughed again. 

Elain didn’t enjoy it—she repeated it over and over in her mind, even as her hips jerked of their own accord, rolling into the rhythmic thrusting of his fingers and the heady warmth of his tongue. This wasn’t what Graysen had done. He’d been soft, he’d been kind, he’d—

“He didn’t make you feel anything,” the creature between her legs all but snarled. “He chose someone else. You mean nothing to him.”

Elain tried to kick again, despite how her legs were bent, feet flailing helplessly in the air. She’d done everything for Gray, and where had it gotten her. Tied spread eagle in a madman’s palace while he licked her cunt. 

His tongue moved faster, up and down the length of her as he fucked her with his fingers. Elain was barreling toward release and nothing was stopping it. Her mind might not love what he did, but her body was desperate, moving of its own accord even when she forced herself to stop. He knew it, licking and sucking until Elain couldn’t keep it to herself.

She’d told herself she’d just come quietly. That she’d swallow the scream clawing at her throat, that she wouldn’t let herself clench around him.

She screamed anyway. Loud enough it felt like there was nothing covering her mouth, the sound echoing through the whole world. It felt primal—she heard the rage. He heard it, too, drinking it down as Elain lost herself to the unspooling pleasure.

She’d only ever finished around her own fingers, hidden beneath blankets in the dead of the night. Elain had wanted to with Gray, but she’d been so nervous and he’d been so quick that there hadn’t been time. 

They’d never had the chance to try again. 

For a moment, the bliss of shattering silenced the screaming in her mind. She forgot who was touching her or why, forgot that she was tied up. The pleasure was so intense it nearly drew forth a vision—Elain felt the magic crowding against her vision, desperate to show her some terrible glimpse of the future she didn’t want to see.

Reality came crashing back all too soon. He was still at it, as if determined to take as much as he could get. Elain’s body liked the onslaught, cresting immediately toward that precipice before she’d managed to catch her breath. She wiggled against him—everything was painfully sensitive, though not so sensitive she couldn’t come again.

And she did, this time with a strangled cry that seemed to please him because finally he pulled back.

“Your cunt is the prettiest shade of pink I’ve ever seen,” he murmured, sounding as though he’d run a marathon. She felt him wipe his wet fingers over her thighs before turning to lick it right back up. “I’ll have a dress made for you.”

Elain jerked her whole body like a child throwing a temper tantrum. She hadn’t realized he’d waved away the gag until her voice exploded, hoarse and unused, from her throat. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“My pretty little liar,” he murmured, rising to his feet. Those same gloved hands slid up her body, twisting her nipples painfully before they reached for the edge of the blindfold. “This is part of the game, isn’t it?”

“There is no game,” she informed him, hating how she could still feel the aftershocks of two orgasms rocking through her body.

She hated more how her cunt was mourning the loss of his fingers. 

He pulled at the blindfold, allowing her to see both her surroundings and himself for the first time. Their eyes locked—his a solid black, devoid of the familiar white that would have made him look human.

He was otherworldly, his dark hair falling over his face to drape against his shoulders. A spiking, onyx crown gleamed like vicious knives in the flickering torchlight hanging overhead. Beautiful in a way no human or faerie could ever be. Power radiated from his powerful form, swirling around her in the form of that cold wind.

“You’re the sweet little lady, are you not?” he questioned, cocking his head as his lips pulled upward with an amused smile. “Ever prim, ever proper. Little Elain would never ever hurt someone's feelings.”

His words mocked her. 

Elain glared, drinking in the pale skin that looked as if it hadn’t seen the sun in a milenia, the cut of his cheekbones that gave him such an imperious look, the power of his jaw, the largeness of his body.

Koschei the deathless. 

“We had a deal,” Elain whispered. This had never been part of it.

He shrugged. “I am not bound by the rules of the fae. I can lie,” he said, wrinkling his nose as if the thought of honoring his word was distasteful. “Why would I destroy perfection?”

“Please,” she whispered. “I’ll do anything.”

“Careful,” he replied before snapping her fingers. The wind around her contorted her body in a rush of air, pressing against her ribs as the restraints around her forced her to the ground, kneeling before him. Her hands were restrained behind her back, tied to her ankles so there was no escape save for just falling on her side. 

He reached for her chin, holding it gently. “Please,” she whispered again.

“It is I who will do anything you ask,” he informed her, pushing her face away as he reached for the dark trousers he wore. “And you who will give the commands. I who will lead our armies while you tell me where to place them. And together, we will bring ruin to this world.”

Elain turned her head when he pulled out his cock, well aware of what he expected her to do. He only laughed, as if the entire thing amused him, but she was determined she would not do anything before he agreed to make her human again.

He turned her head forcefully, making her look at the thick, large appendage staring her down. “Open.”

“I—”

She lacked the experience to know better than to try and talk back. He forced himself through her lips, gripping the top of her head to keep her from rearing back. 

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he whispered, the words punctuated by a groan. “I want to serve you. It pains me to see you on your knees, debased in this way.” Elain had no experience doing this sort of thing. Graysen had merely penetrated her in the ways she expected, and Elain’s knowledge around sucking came from conversations she overheard and from some of the books she’d read. It didn’t seem hard, save for how far back he pushed. Elain drooled around him as she adjusted her jaw to fit him.

She knew what he was doing. He was trying to break her down. To make her beg. Elain gagged softly around him, which only seemed to frenzy him. His grip in her hair tightened as he thrust, using her as though she were nothing of consequence. Just long enough she was growing a little frightened he’d forget she was a living thing at all.

He pulled back, withdrawing himself so strings of saliva connected them. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, snapping his fingers. Elain’s restraints vanished, as did the small dungeon she realized she’d been held in. Blinking as she scrambled to her feet, Elain found herself standing in a bedroom a mere second later. 

“You make me feel alive again,” he informed her, pants pulled back up over his hips. Had that been magic, too? Elain didn’t move as he prowled toward her, grabbing her face roughly between long, still-gloved fingers. Lowering his face, he placed a vicious, claiming kiss against her lips.

Elain reached for the tops of his arms to shove him away, fingers curling over muscle. She didn’t shove, though. She merely held him there, nails digging through the black fabric until he groaned.

“That’s what I want,” he whispered, dropping his forehead against her own. “Use me as you wish.” She slapped him hard, the ring on her pointer finger cutting across his lip. Their eyes met as he realized what she’d done. It had only just caught up with Elain, too. She’d slapped a death god across the face.

He could snap his fingers and end her life if he wanted to. He reached forward, faster than her eyes could track, to grip her by the throat.

“Did that feel good?”

“Yes,” she whispered, half scared, half aroused. “I hate you.”

“Liar,” he replied, lips ghosting over hers as his fingers squeezed tighter. She could still breathe, but he controlled it. He controlled everything. 

Using his hold on her neck, Koschei shoved Elain to the bed before prowling toward her. She managed to scramble back just a little before he grabbed her ankle and dragged her back. 

“You asked me to remake you,” he snarled, using magic to hold her still so she could watch him undress. Elain didn’t bother trying to fight him, too curious about his word. “Begged me to and yet you would reject immortality?”

Elain couldn’t even argue his point. What was she holding on to? “Immortality?” she asked softly as he revealed a sculpted chest inch by inch. “You’ve lied about everything else.” “Not this,” he breathed, pants falling to the ground. He was wholly naked—wonderfully so—and Elain was still lying there, propped up only by her elbows.

“Prove it,” she demanded. “You’re a liar.”

That amused him. Crawling onto the bed so he could kneel between her thighs, he cocked his head so all that dark hair spilled to one broad shoulder. “Immortality hurts.”

“So did the cauldron,” she replied with more fierceness than she felt. “I survived.”

“That you did,” he murmured, caressing her face. “I could make it pleasurable. Could unmake you while you screamed around my cock.”

Elain only stared at him, ignoring his fingers that caressed her bared breasts. “In exchange for what?”

He chuckled. “Why are you fighting me?”

“You stole me out of my bed,” she reminded him. “Tied me up—”

“Gave you pleasure beyond your wildest imagination,” he finished, triumph gleaming in those lightless eyes. “Swore to make you my queen.”

“Queen,” she repeated slowly as those fingers made their way toward her neck. “Not queen consort.”

“Your vengeance is mine,” he breathed, squeezing again as he lowered his body against her own. “Your will, my will.”

“Swear it,” she ordered, holding his gaze. "Make me your equal."

“Even though I lie?” “

Swear anyway,” she said, knowing full well trusting a liar was a mistake. 

“In this, you can trust me. I swear,” he said, cock lined up against her cunt. Elain didn’t have time to take a breath before he plunged himself into her, causing her to cry out in a mix of pain and pleasure. At the same time, air poured through her nose, chilling her body from the inside out.

Elain’s body jerked upward, unable to cope with the onslaught of sensations. Balanced on the edge of a knife, Elain could feel him thrusting into her as the magic worked its way through her blood just as the magic of the cauldron had once done.

Only this time, Elain wasn’t alone. She wasn’t drowning—she wasn’t drying. It felt like living. Every feeling was intensified—like falling in love, like a broken heart. Elain laughed breathlessly as her sharp senses intensified and vision after vision flitted behind her eyes. The wind picked up, warm and soft to drive away the chill. The images were fleeting—of flames and shadows, of fear, and death, and life, and rebirth. 

Koschei the Deathless would wreck destruction but Elain…Elain would remake life itself. Elain looked up through hazy eyes, her vision strangely clouded.

“Beautiful,” Koschei murmured, a triumphant smile crowning his face. “Absolutely beautiful.”

“I feel…” Elain exhaled as the pain subsided, reminding her of the pleasure that had faded to the background. Whatever magic he wove—or, perhaps he was simply good with his cock—had

Elain panting before she could truly come to grips with the body she found herself in. “I feel alive.”

“You are alive,” he breathed, pressing his mouth to her neck. Sharp teeth scraped delicate skin, drawing a soft moan from her throat. “No one can take anything from you ever again. Do you feel it? Feel your power?”

“I do,” she agreed, fingers fisting the silken black sheets beneath her. “The power to restart.”

“Revenge, first, my dark queen,” he murmured, licking up the column of her throat. “They don’t deserve to live in your paradise.”

“No,” she agreed, dragging her nails down the muscular ridges of his back. 

“Tell me you hate me,” he demanded.

“No.”

“Tell me you’re mine,” he demanded, those fingers back around her neck. 

“I’m yours,” Elain managed, pleasure washing over her. She was so close—close to everything she’d ever wanted. And as her new power began to slip through her blood, mending all the cracked parts of her soul, Elain felt peace for the first time maybe in her life. No more pretending, no more showing everyone what they wanted to see. No more making herself small, letting herself be touched by those who would harm her.

“There you are,” Koschei whispered, when their eyes met. “I have been waiting centuries for you.”

Elain reached for the crown atop his head, held by some kind of absurd magic, and tossed it across the room. The deathless god threw his head back and laughed, rising upward while pulling her into his lap. They were still connected, his cock still lodged in her body as his thrusting slowed. 

Fisting his hair, Elain kissed him. Not as his victim, or his captive, but as his ruination. He groaned, gripping her hips to bounce her over his cock until he was breathless and desperate. He didn’t know, too lost to his own pleasure, his own plans, to realize he no longer held any power. Not over her. He’d made her his equal.

In Elain’s perfect world, there was no death. Only beautiful, everlasting, incandescent life. 

Koschei pulled back to look at her. “You have given me everything,” she whispered, wondering if he knew that one day, she’d step over his lifeless body with a smile.

He didn’t know. Her own magic pulled, telling her the truth of the matter. She could see his rotting face smiling at her with bleached bones and hollow, bird-picked eyes. The future was clear to her now. No longer a puzzle but a complete picture. 

He slammed her against him roughly, and Elain came with a cry. Her nails dug sharply into his shoulder, though no blood welled from the wounds. He was immortal—and for now, she couldn’t hurt him.

He came, too, filling her with come that dripped down her thighs to pool between them. He couldn’t speak, could scarcely breathe, tucking her against him like she was precious. Like she was fragile.

Like she wasn’t a knife in the dark.

 Elain sighed, wind ruffling her hair. From across the room, she saw her own beautiful face staring back at her, reflected in a large mirror. Her once brown eyes had become a whiteless gray, clouded like a storm over the sea. 

No light. No dark. No death. 

Did he know, she wondered? Did he know what she'd seen all those years before? The means to destroying him kept secret from everyone but her own tightly guarded mind. Her careful planning, the betrayal of her friends, her family, her very world. Would he guess, someday? Would he ever to stop to think how easy it was to pull her from her once carefully guarded existence? How he'd seen only what he wanted, just like the rest of them? 

Did he think he'd broken her, bent her to his will? Or would he realize when his bones turned to ash, and the same wind she'd been whispering to carried him away. It was her favorite fantasy, lulling her to sleep night after night- and had ever since she'd emerged from the Cauldron.