Chapter 7: The Claiming Begins
The admission had left a crack in the universe, and Lucifer poured himself through it.
His fingers, which had been idly tracing circles on Alastor’s hip, stilled. A slow, wicked smile spread across his face, brighter than the blade of morning sun cutting through the room. “Yeah?” he breathed, the word full of heat. “You like that?”
Alastor opened his mouth to retract it, to call it a joke, but Lucifer was already moving. His hand slid from Alastor’s hip, slipping under the rumpled black shirt he still wore. The touch was deliberate, searching, skating over the sharp line of his ribs, the flat plane of his stomach, higher. Alastor’s breath caught, a sharp inhale that hitched when Lucifer’s fingertips found the base of his spine.
The skin there was sensitive, always had been, a secret erogenous zone he’d guarded fiercely. Where the faint, velvet-furred deer’s tail began.
Lucifer’s fingers closed around it, not at the tip, but right where it met his skin. A gentle, experimental tug.
A jolt of pure, white-hot electricity shot up Alastor’s spine. His back arched off the mattress, a choked sound escaping his throat that was half-gasp, half-staticky moan. Every nerve was suddenly, acutely awake.
“Fuck,” Lucifer whispered, his eyes wide with delight. “You really do.”
He tugged again, a little harder this time. The sensation wasn’t pain. It was something else entirely—a sharp, thrilling pull of pleasure that seemed directly wired to his groin. Alastor’s composure, so carefully reassembled after the dream, shattered into a thousand glittering pieces. His head fell back, antlers scraping the headboard, as another broken sound was dragged out of him.
“Louder,” Lucifer commanded, his voice dropping to a low growl. He used his grip on the tail to pull Alastor closer, rolling him partway onto his side. “Come on, let me hear it. That pretty, broken radio signal of yours.”
He yanked, not gently.
Alastor cried out. It was undignified, needy, a raw slice of noise that echoed in the vaulted chamber. His hips jerked forward, seeking friction, finding only the frustrating slide of silk sheets. His shadow, which had been clinging to Lucifer’s arm like a proud pet, darted down and wrapped around Alastor’s own thigh, squeezing as if it could anchor him to the bed.
Lucifer laughed, a dark, thrilled sound. He leaned over, his long hair a curtain of gold falling around them. “You’re so pretty like this,” he murmured, his breath hot against Alastor’s ear. “All your sharp edges gone soft for me. Just a needy thing in my bed.”
The words should have been insulting. They lit a fire in Alastor’s gut.
“I am not—” Alastor tried to snarl, but Lucifer tugged his tail again, and the protest melted into a long, shuddering groan.
“You are.” Lucifer shifted, moving with a predator’s grace. He swung a leg over Alastor’s hips, pinning him to the mattress with his weight. The pressure was delicious, solid, real. He kept one hand fisted in the base of Alastor’s tail, a constant, pulsing reminder of his control. The other hand came up to cradle Alastor’s jaw, thumb stroking over his cheekbone. “And I’m just getting started.”
He kissed him then, deep and consuming, swallowing every hitched breath and staticky whimper. It was a kiss that tasted like ownership and absinthe and the metallic tang of Alastor’s surrender. When he broke away, he trailed his mouth down Alastor’s jaw, his neck, his teeth scraping over the frantic pulse there.
“Gonna mark you up,” Lucifer muttered against his skin, his words slurred with want. “So everyone knows who you dream about. Who you moan for.” He opened his mouth, his canines sharp and promising, and bit down.
The pain was brilliant, immediate. It burst through the haze of pleasure like a flare, merging with it until Alastor couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. He writhed, a helpless buck of his hips that ground his erection hard against the seam of Lucifer’s trousers. The friction was agony. It was heaven.
Lucifer growled, the vibration passing from his mouth into Alastor’s neck. He released the bite, lapping at the blossoming mark with a soft, apologistic tongue that felt anything but sorry. “That’s it,” he coaxed, his own breathing ragged. “Use me. Go on.”
Permission given, Alastor’s last shred of restraint vaporized. He rocked his hips up again, again, a desperate, rhythmic seeking against the solid muscle of Lucifer’s thigh. The rough fabric dragged against the sensitive head of his cock, sparking shocks of pleasure so intense his vision spotted. His hands, which had been gripping the sheets, flew to Lucifer’s back, claws digging into the fine fabric of his robe.
Lucifer captured his mouth again, kissing him through the frantic movements. It was messy, all tongue and clashing teeth and shared, panting breaths. He released Alastor’s tail, only to slide his hand around, palming the front of his trousers. The direct pressure drew a sharp, punched-out cry from Alastor’s throat.
“Lucifer—” It was less a name and more a prayer, a curse, a surrender.
“I’ve got you,” Lucifer murmured into the kiss, his hand working him through the fabric with a ruthless, perfect rhythm. “I’ve got you, Al. Let go.”
The coil in Alastor’s abdomen tightened, wound to its breaking point. The world narrowed to the bite on his neck, the hand on his cock, the heavy, welcome weight on his hips, and Lucifer’s eyes, burning into his, reflecting his own unraveling. His shadow erupted from the bed, a wave of darkness that shot up the wall behind them, twisting into jagged, ecstatic shapes before collapsing back down to meld with Lucifer’s own long, demonic shadow on the wall.
He came with a soundless scream, his body bowing off the bed, every muscle locked in a seizure of release. The static in his veins exploded into a silent, blinding frequency.
Lucifer held him through it, murmuring nonsense against his sweat-damp temple, his hand gentling until Alastor’s shudders subsided into weak tremors.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their breathing, the distant whisper of the soul-mirrors on the walls, and the slow, smug thrum of victory in the air.
Alastor floated back to himself in pieces. The weight. The scent of sex and sin. The dull, throbbing ache in his neck. The devastating, complete emptiness where his pride used to be.
Lucifer shifted off him, collapsing onto his back beside him. He was still mostly dressed, though his robe was disheveled, his hair a wreck. He looked utterly, triumphantly pleased with himself.
“So,” he said, his voice hoarse. “The tail thing. Good to know.”
Alastor stared at the crimson canopy above them. He felt flayed open, every layer of performative menace stripped away. He was just a thing that wanted. A thing that belonged, quite obviously, to the King lying next to him.
The realization should have been terrifying. It felt, horrifyingly, like a door swinging shut on a cage he’d never known he was trapped in. A cage with velvet walls and a golden lock.
He turned his head. Lucifer was already looking at him, his expression shifting from smug satisfaction to something softer, more searching.
Alastor didn’t have a witty retort. He didn’t have a deflection. He had nothing but the raw, quiet truth of the aftermath humming in his bones.
He reached out, his movements slow, tentative. His fingers found Lucifer’s where they rested on the sheets between them. He didn’t lace their fingers together. He just covered them, his own hand trembling faintly.
Lucifer’s breath hitched. He turned his hand over, palm up, in silent invitation.
After a heartbeat that felt like a century, Alastor placed his hand in Lucifer’s. The King’s fingers closed around it, warm and sure.
They lay there in the quiet, in the wreckage of the morning, hands joined. The mirrors on the walls finally stopped their whispering, and for the first time, showed only the two of them, reflected truthfully, together in the rumpled dark.