Page 256 of The Reckoning of Starlight

Fangs dragged lightly along his jaw. Jassyn turned into the touch. Then Lykor’s mouth crashed over his.

The kiss breached the last of the distance Jassyn had fought to keep. His fists locked in Lykor’s armor, holding him there while the accusation between them lost its shape against fang and tongue.

Lykor steered him backward, and Jassyn gave ground until the council table struck the backs of his thighs. Papers slid under his palms when he caught himself. Maps and laws, borders and treaties—each written in ink and careful lines, each crumpling under his hands while Lykor pressed closer, breath hot against his mouth.

Jassyn planted his palms on the polished wood and lifted himself onto the table. His knees opened in invitation and Lykor stepped between them, fingers digging into his thighs.

The chamber stood exposed to the canopy on every side, wraith visible along the winding corridors and nothing but air flowing in the arches. Jassyn glanced toward the nearest span. Lykor’s shadows surged up the living pillars and spilled from arch to arch until darkness enclosed the chamber from every direction.

“No one’s getting through that.” Lykor’s eyes flared, landing on Jassyn’s mouth as his palm closed over him through his trousers. “Doesn’t mean the whole fucking tree won’t hear you come apart though.”

A groan broke from Jassyn before he could stifle it. He was already hard, his body revealing with merciless clarity how little the argument had dulled his want.

Jassyn snatched Lykor’s belt buckle and wrenched it open. “This conversation isn’t over.”

Lykor kissed him again, impatient fingers tearing through the fastenings at Jassyn’s waist until the leather gave way. Jassyn kicked free of his boots as Lykor dragged the trousers down and stripped them away, humid air sweeping over his bare thighs. Lykor stepped back between his knees, the hard line of his body pressing against the table’s edge.

His talons grazed the bare curve of Jassyn’s hip, and Jassyn arched into him, seized the straps of Lykor’s armor, and tore at the leather until a buckle struck the floor, then another, the pieces falling away one by one.

When the last strap loosened, Lykor rolled his shoulders out of the remaining weight, bare to the waist, his belt riding low where Jassyn had pulled it open.

Jassyn reached for him, fingers following the raised paths of scars across Lykor’s chest. Five years had taught him the flex of those shoulders when restraint began to fail, the shiver that traveled through Lykor’s wings when pleasure carried him past speech, the particular glow in his eyes when all that violence narrowed to want.

Lykor’s attention dropped to the armor fitted across Jassyn’s chest.

“You still wear the set I had made for you,” Lykor murmured. His thumb brushed one of the dark plates, shed dragon scales polished to a black sheen. “Not those stiff robes like the council.”

Heat climbed Jassyn’s throat, but he held Lykor’s stare. “I know you like seeing me wear it.”

It was the truth, though hardly all of it. He wore the armor when Lykor was away, the familiar weight making him feel less alone.

Lykor’s pupils narrowed to draconic slits. He peeled Jassyn’s armor open buckle by buckle until the plates slipped free, leaving only the tunic clinging to his skin. A talon hooked into the fabric, splitting it down the front.

A protest rose in Jassyn’s throat at the loss of another shirt, only to vanish when Lykor sank to his knees.

Jassyn’s length stood hard between them. Lykor’s lips curved, but he made him wait.

His mouth moved along the inside of Jassyn’s thigh, slow enough to curl Jassyn’s fingers against the polished wood. Higher still, until Lykor’s breath warmed the places Jassyn had once hated to see touched.

Studs and rings caught the dim light, bright against skin once marked for humiliation. Lykor regarded them with a dark reverence, taking in what Jassyn had chosen to keep and what he’d made of it since—the pleasure wrested from old cruelty, the body that had learned desire could belong to him.

Then Lykor lowered his mouth.

The first sweep of his tongue along the laddered line of metal stole the strength from Jassyn’s arms. His palms skidded across the table as each ring sparked a bright shock of pleasure.

Five years had made Lykor fluent in him. Any hesitation had burned away into certainty, and now it was Jassyn who had to keep pace with the confidence he’d once coaxed from Lykor. The care remained, though, and in this moment, Jassyn felt it in every pause and shift of pressure. Lykor lingered where Jassyn would feel it longest, grazed fang against metal, then closed his mouth around the head of Jassyn’s cock until Jassyn’s spine arched.

Jassyn tangled a hand in Lykor’s hair, fingers tightening as Lykor growled against him and slowly drew him deeper, one hand bruising his hip, the other spread against his stomach. Jassyn’s body chased each retreat, already reaching for what Lykor withheld, and every return broke another sound from him, ragged and far too loud for the shadows to conceal.

“Lykor,” he breathed, though he had nothing left to say.

Lykor’s tongue curled under a ring, and Jassyn’s legs tightened around his shoulders. Parchment crumpled in his fist as pleasure ripped through him, scattering breath and thought.

Lykor held him there, mouth relentless, patient as vengeance.

Jassyn tipped his head back as the chamber blurred away, leaving only Lykor’s mouth and the tree’s low hum pulsing through the table.

Then Lykor pulled back with Jassyn balanced on the brink. A small portal split the air beside the table. He reached through and returned with a spinebender broken at the stem, its severed crown beaded with sap.