Chapter 6: The Unision
Sometimes i forgot that i was actually a boy. I am adapting ladyship more.
Four months had a way of erasing the lines between what I was and what I had become. The mornings blurred into afternoons, the afternoons into nights, and somewhere in that haze of silk and candlelight, the peasant boy from the village stopped feeling like a memory and started feeling like a stranger wearing my skin.
The changes came slowly, then all at once. The maids noticed first, of course. Helena would cluck her tongue approvingly as she laced my corsets tighter each week, muttering something about my figure softening in all the right places. Lily giggled when she caught me staring at my reflection in the silver mirror, tracing the gentle swell of my hips, the way my waist curved in like an hourglass drawn by a careful hand. Nina said nothing, but her eyes lingered on my face in that knowing way of hers, like she could see the future written in my features.
I spent my days in the library with Raevor, curled in the great leather armchair by the window while he pored over ancient scrolls with that intense focus of his. He would read aloud passages in languages I didn't understand, his deep voice rumbling through the quiet room like distant thunder, and I would pretend to listen while actually just watching him. The way the light caught the curve of his horns. The way his tail would twitch absently when he was deep in thought. The way his emerald eyes would soften when they found me looking.
"You're staring again," he said one afternoon, not looking up from his scroll.
"You're worth staring at," I answered, and the words came so easily now. Four months ago I would have flushed and stammered. Four months ago I barely spoke above a whisper around him.
He set the scroll down and crossed the room in three of those long, powerful strides. His hand found my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. "You've changed, Avery."
"Good or bad?"
His thumb traced along my jawline, which had grown softer somehow, losing its sharp edges. "Good. You glow."
I leaned into his touch like a cat seeking warmth. "That's what the maids say."
"The maids are right." He bent down and kissed me, slow and deliberate, like he wanted to memorize the shape of my lips. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark with something that made my stomach flip. "I have a council meeting tonight. Wait for me."
"I always wait for you."
That was the truth. The nights he didn't summon me, I lay awake in my too-large bed, tethered to him by an invisible thread that pulled taut somewhere in my chest. And the nights he did summon me, I went to him eagerly, wearing the finest gown Helena could find, letting him unbind me from all my careful layers until I was bare and trembling beneath his hands.
The sex had evolved too. What started as tentative and clinical had become heated and desperate and sometimes achingly tender. He learned my body like a scholar learning a sacred text, finding every place that made me gasp, every spot that made me arch into him. Last week he had me bent over his desk, my gown bunched around my waist, his cock driving into me from behind while he growled words of praise in that deep voice. He had poured himself inside me and then carried me to his bed, washing me gently with a warm cloth, kissing my forehead until I fell asleep.
I loved him.
The thought crystallized one evening while we sat in his chambers, sharing a decanter of wine by the dying fire. I was perched on the edge of his massive bed, wearing a thin shift he had given me months ago, and he was in his chair, his tail curling lazily around his ankle. We had been talking about nothing and everything. The winter storms that battered the castle walls. The scrolls he had been studying. The progress of my body, which he examined with a physician's care and a lover's wonder.
"Do you remember the first night you came to my chambers?" he asked, swirling the wine in his glass.
"Every detail."
"You were terrified." There was a note of something almost like guilt in his voice. "I could feel it coming off you in waves."
"I had never been with anyone. Male or female."
"Neither had I. Not like that." He set down his glass and met my eyes across the dim room. "I had only ever done my duty, Avery. I had never let anyone close enough to touch me. To see me."
I slipped off the bed and crossed the room to him, settling onto his lap, my legs straddling his hips. His hands found my waist automatically, a gesture so familiar now it felt like breathing. "But you let me close."
"They hungered for something in your eyes, and I didn't have the strength to deny it. Not anymore." His voice was rough. He stroked my thigh, his thumb tracing circles on my skin through the thin silk.
I leaned forward, brushing my lips against his. "I'm glad you didn't."
"Let's get married."
The words hung in the air between us. I pulled back, searching his face for some sign that I had misheard, but his expression was deadly serious. His eyes held no mischief, no hesitation. Just that fierce, predatory stillness I had come to love.
"What?" The word came out as a whisper.
"When I look at the future I see, I don't see a lab specimen or a vessel for my progeny. I see you." He cupped my face, his large hands so gentle against my cheeks. "I see my wife. My consort. My mate, if you'll have me."
I felt the words catch in my throat, my heart hammering against my ribs. "My lord, I... I haven't given you a child yet. What if I never do? What if this was all for nothing?"
His hands tightened on my waist, and some dark thing flickered behind those emerald eyes. "Then it was not for nothing. You think I've been counting the months, waiting to discard you if your belly doesn't swell?"
"I know what this was supposed to be. An experiment. A last desperate hope." The words tasted bitter as I spoke them. "If I fail, you'll need another boy. Another candidate. I understand that. I've always understood that."
"Look at me."
I forced my gaze up to meet his, and the rawness there startled me. He rarely let his walls slip, but in the dim firelight, with my legs wrapped around his hips and my heart in my throat, I saw the man beneath the lord.
"I love you, Avery." The words rumbled from his chest like distant thunder. "I have loved you since the night you fell asleep in my arms, trusting me enough to close your eyes in my presence. I have loved you through every dinner we shared, every story you told me about your village, every stupid question you asked about the scrolls I thought I'd never share with anyone. Loving you has nothing to do with whether you carry my child."
"But the future of your kind—"
"Will be secured however it can be." His voice hardened, but his gaze never wavered. "If you fail to produce an heir, I will seek another boy. That is my duty, and I will not lie to you about it. But that doesn't change what you are to me. You are my wife, or you are nothing. My mate. The one I want beside me when the fires burn low and the years stretch on."
"Even if I can't give you what you need?"
"You give me what I need every single day." He pressed his forehead against mine, his breath warm against my lips. "Before you, I was a relic going through the motions of survival. I had forgotten what it felt like to want something for myself. To want someone."
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away, and his thumb caught one before it could fall.
"I love you too," I whispered. "I love you so much it terrifies me."
"Then say yes."
"Yes. Yes, I'll marry you. Goddess above, yes."
The kiss that followed was different from every kiss before it. It wasn't the slow, patient kiss of seduction or the heated kiss of desire. It was the kiss of two people who had chosen each other, who had looked at the terrifying unknown and decided to step into it together.
When we finally broke apart, breathless and trembling, Raevor's eyes were shining with something I'd never seen there before. Joy. Pure, unguarded joy.
"I will give you a wedding worthy of a queen," he murmured against my lips. "Silks from the eastern provinces. A feast that will make the castle walls groan. I'll have Sebastian plan—"
"I don't want any of that." I laughed, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep and warm. "I want you. Just you. A quiet ceremony with the people we care about, and then I want to fall asleep in your arms as your wife."
"You're certain?"
"I've spent four months being dressed and paraded and examined. For once, I want something simple."
He kissed me again, deeper this time, and I felt his hands slide down to cup my rear through the thin silk of my shift. "Then you shall have simple. But I'll have my physician speak with the seamstress regardless. A wedding gown, something that shows off how beautiful you've become."
"I'm wearing a gown."
"Yes." He grinned, a rare sight that made my heart flutter. "You damn well are."
---
The month passed faster than any month of my life.
There were fittings that made me stand still for hours while Clara pinned and tucked. There were whispered consultations between Helena and the cook about menus and seating arrangements. There was even a moment when Sebastian, the proper and unflappable butler, caught me sneaking a cake sample from the kitchens and pretended not to see.
---
The wedding was small, as I had asked.
Cedric stood as witness, his weathered face unreadable but his eyes warm. Helena wept quietly into her handkerchief. Lily and Nina and Clara clustered together in the corner of the solar, dressed in their finest, beaming.
I wore silver silk that shimmered like moonlight on water, cut to accentuate the curves I had grown so used to seeing in the mirror. My hair was pinned back with wildflowers Lily had gathered that morning, and around my neck hung my mother's locket, the only piece of my old life I carried with me.
Raevor wore black velvet, his horns polished until they gleamed, his tail wrapped around his own leg like he was holding himself back from crossing the room to me.
The priest was an old dragon-touched man with scales along his forearms and kind eyes. He spoke words of binding and devotion, words that had been used for centuries in ceremonies like this. I barely heard them. I was too busy watching Raevor's face, watching the way his breath caught when he looked at me, watching the way his hands trembled ever so slightly when he took mine.
"By the old fires and the new," the priest intoned, "I bind you together as one. What flames join, let nothing sunder."
Raevor leaned down to kiss me, and the gathered guests erupted in applause.
"Hello, wife," he murmured against my lips.
"Hello, husband."
And for the first time in months, I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.
The celebration was modest, as I had asked. A long table in the great hall, draped in silver and white, laden with roasted game and sweet pastries and wines from the eastern cellars. The servants drank and laughed and toasted us, and for once the cold stone walls of Castle Valdrake felt warm.
Sebastian approached me near the end of the feast, his stiff bow deeper than I had ever seen it. "My lady," he said, and the words carried weight now. Not the hesitant uncertainty of that first day, when he had called me 'Madam' and I had stared at him blankly. This was recognition. Acceptance. "The household is yours. We are at your command."
I had to resist the urge to glance over my shoulder to see who he was addressing. Four months of 'Madam Avery' and no one had ever bowed to me like that. No one had ever offered me their service so formally.
"Thank you, Sebastian," I managed, keeping my voice steady. "I am fortunate to have such a dedicated household."
Something flickered across his weathered face. Approval, perhaps. "If my lady requires anything, she need only ask."
Evening settled over the castle like a velvet shroud, and the candles in the great hall burned low as the feast wound to its natural end. The guests dispersed in small clusters: Cedric clasping my hand and murmuring a genuine blessing before retiring to his quarters, the maids giggling as they blew kisses and disappeared down the servants' corridor. Helena paused at the doorway, her eyes wet and her smile tremulous, and she pressed a kiss to my cheek that smelled of rosewater and years of unspoken maternal affection.
"She's a lucky bride," the old woman whispered, her voice thick with emotion. Then she was gone, pulling the heavy oak doors shut behind her.
The great hall fell silent. The remains of the feast spread across the long table like a battlefield of empty platters and half-drained goblets. The candles flickered, casting dancing shadows across the stone walls, and I felt the weight of the silence settle around me.
Raevor rose from his chair at the head of the table, his black velvet coat hugging his massive frame, his horns gleaming in the low light. He crossed the room slowly, deliberately, his tail swishing behind him like a hunting cat's. When he reached me, he said nothing. He simply gathered me into his arms, one hand sliding beneath my thighs, the other bracing my back, and lifted me off my feet as if I weighed nothing.
I let out a startled laugh as my arms instinctively wrapped around his neck. "I can walk, you know. The castle isn't that large."
"I know." His voice was a low rumble against my ear. "But I've waited a month to carry my bride over the threshold. I'm not wasting the opportunity."
He carried me through the corridors with that effortless, predatory grace of his, his steps sure and steady. The servants we passed melted into the shadows, averting their eyes with knowing smiles. I buried my face against the warmth of his neck, breathing in the scent of him, the familiar musk and smoke and something sharp and electric that had become the taste of home to me.
His chambers were warm when we entered. The hearth had been stoked high, and the firelight painted the room in shades of amber and gold. The heavy curtains were drawn against the winter night, and the bed loomed large and inviting, its dark silk sheets turned down by unseen hands.
He set me down gently beside the bed, his hands lingering on my waist. For a long moment, we simply stood there, drinking each other in. His eyes roamed my face, my bare shoulders, the silver silk that clung to my curves like water.
"I can't believe you're mine," he said, his voice rough.
"I've been yours for months." I reached up to trace the sharp line of his jaw, the scales that edged his cheekbones. "You just finally caught up."
Something dark and hungry flickered in his emerald eyes. "I want to take you apart tonight. Piece by piece. I want to learn every inch of your body again like it's the first time."
My breath caught. "Is that a promise?"
"It's a vow." He leaned down, his lips brushing against my ear, his voice dropping to a growl that sent shivers cascading down my spine. "By the time I'm finished, you'll forget your own name. You'll only remember mine."
I was already trembling as his hands found the lacings of my gown. He worked them loose with deliberate slowness, his fingers trailing fire across my skin with each inch of fabric he peeled away. The silver silk pooled at my feet, leaving me in nothing but a thin shift and my mother's locket.
He stepped back, his gaze raking over me with an intensity that made me flush. "Goddess, you're beautiful. Even more than the first night I saw you."
"I was terrified that first night."
"You were. And still, you gave yourself to me." He reached out and grasped the hem of the shift, pulling it up and over my head in one smooth motion. The locket swung against my collarbone, the only thing left covering my skin. "I'm going to worship you, Avery. I'm going to make you feel things you've never felt before."
His hands found my hips, and he kissed me. Not the careful kiss of our wedding ceremony, but something ravenous and claiming, his tongue sliding against mine with that forked tip that always made me gasp. I melted into him, my fingers curling into the velvet of his coat, desperate to feel his skin.
"I want this off," I breathed against his lips, tugging at the fastenings.
He chuckled, low and dark. "Patience, little one."
"Lord. Please."
He growled and tore the coat from his shoulders, his shirt following a moment later, revealing the vast expanse of his scarred, scale-studded chest. My hands found his skin, mapping the ridges and planes, the warmth of him sinking into me. His tail curled around my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I felt his hardness pressing against my stomach, a heavy, insistent weight that made my mouth water.
"On the bed," He said, his voice rough with need. "On your knees."
I obeyed eagerly, climbing onto the silk sheets and settling onto my hands and knees. The position was shameless, wanton, my back arched and my body presented to him like an offering. I felt exposed and raw and alive.
His hand slid up my thigh, hip, and lower, cupping my rear with a possessive grip. "Do you know what I want to do to you tonight?"
"I have a few ideas." My voice wobbled with anticipation.
He dropped to his knees behind me on the bed, his hands spreading my cheeks apart. His mouth found me, his tongue swiping across my entrance, the fork splitting to tease both sides simultaneously. I cried out, falling forward onto my elbows, my knees shaking.
"fuck—"
His laugh rumbled against my flesh, sending vibrations through me. He ate me with the devotion of a man at a feast, lapping at me, pushing his tongue deep inside, circling the rim until I was gasping and twitching under him.
"Look at you," he murmured, his voice thick with approval. "So wet for me. So ready."
He rose, his body covering mine, his weight pinning me to the bed. His cock slid between my thighs, tantalizingly close to where I needed him, dragging slick heat across my skin.
"Please," I whimpered. "Please, my lord, I can't wait anymore—"
He entered me in one smooth thrust, deep and full, and I felt the world blur. My cry was swallowed by the pillows as he began to move, a slow, grinding rhythm that reached depths inside me I didn't know existed. His hands gripped my hips, holding me steady, and his tail wrapped around my thigh, anchoring us together.
"That's it," he growled, his voice ragged. "Feel me. Feel me buried inside you, so deep you won't know where I end and you begin."
I couldn't form words. I could only cling to the sheets and take him, letting him set the pace, letting him drive me higher. The slow rhythm built into something harder, faster, his hips snapping against mine with a force that made the headboard groan against the wall.
He pulled out and flipped me onto my back before I could gasp. His face was flushed, his eyes wild, his cock glistening with my slick. "I need to see you. Need to watch your face when you come."
He drove back inside me, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. The angle shifted, hitting that spot inside me that made stars burst behind my eyes, and I clawed at his shoulders, begging wordlessly for more.
"You're so tight," he said, his voice pitching low with strain. "So perfect."
The pace turned frantic, animalistic. He fucked me with a raw, desperate hunger, his weight pressing me into the mattress, his movements roughening until there was nothing left but the frantic rhythm of our bodies colliding. My hands slid down between us, and I took myself in hand, stroking in time with his thrusts.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes—" I couldn't stop saying it, the word becoming a litany, a prayer, a plea.
"Come for me, wife." His voice was a growl, commanding. "Come on my cock. Let me feel you."
The orgasm tore through me like a river flooding its banks, roaring and unstoppable. My body clenched around him, rippling waves of pleasure crashing through me, and I screamed his name as I shattered.
He followed me over the edge a heartbeat later, burying his face against my neck as he surged deep inside me and emptied himself in thick, pulsing spurts. The sensation was overwhelming, molten heat flooding my insides, and I felt myself clenching around him greedily, milking every last drop.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. His weight pressed me into the mattress, his breath hot against my throat, his cock still deep inside me. Then he stirred, pulling out with a wet sound, and I felt his seed leaking from me onto the sheets.
"Not yet," he said, and there was a dangerous edge to his voice. "I told you I planned to take you apart tonight."
"Now, turn over."
I obeyed, my body pliant and trembling. He positioned me on my back again, but this time he climbed over me, straddling my chest, his cock hovering above my face.
"Open your mouth, wife." His voice was dark velvet, absolute command. "I want to watch you taste me."
I opened my mouth wide, and he lowered himself inside it. I touched my lips to the tip, tasting the musk and salt of him, the faint tang of my own slick. He began to move, shallow at first, then deeper, his hips gliding in a slow, lazy rhythm.
"That's it," he breathed, his voice ragged. "Take me. Suck me. Let me feel your beautiful throat working around my cock."
I worked him with my mouth and tongue, my hands braced against his hips. He filled me to the back of my throat, and the wet sounds of his sliding in and out of my mouth filled the room like a filthy melody.
"I'm close again," he said, his voice strained. "Don't stop. Swallow every drop, wife."
I looked up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes, and something in that gaze undid him. With a shuddering groan, he thrust deep and came in my mouth, hot and thick, flooding my throat. I swallowed around him, and he pulled out with a breathless laugh.
"Goddess, you're perfect." He slid up to lie beside me, pulling me into a crushing embrace. "Absolutely perfect, and entirely mine."
I barely had time to catch my breath before his hands were on me again, that urgent, possessive heat rolling off him in waves. He rolled me onto my stomach, dragging my hips up into the air, and I cried out as he entered me from behind in one slick, brutal thrust.
"My lord," I gasped, my fingers fisting in the silk sheets. "You said you'd take me apart."
"And I will." His voice was ragged, his claws pricking just slightly at my hips as he gripped me. "But I'm not done with this yet."
He set a punishing rhythm, his balls slapping against my skin with each deep stroke. My face pressed into the pillows, my cries muffled, my body trembling with each impact. He was relentless, driving into me again and again, and with every thrust I felt that familiar pressure building, coiling low in my belly.
"Come for me again," he grunted, his tail wrapping around my thigh. "I want to feel you clench around me."
I came harder than I thought possible, my body convulsing, my vision going white. He pulled out at the last moment, stroking himself frantically, and spilled hot ropes of seed across my lower back, painting my skin with his release.
He collapsed beside me, both of us panting, sweating. But he wasn't done. Barely a minute passed before he was pulling me onto my side, spooning behind me, lifting my leg and sliding back inside with a groan.
"This position," he murmured against my ear, his cock deep inside me. "I've wanted this all night."
He fucked me slowly this time, languid and intimate, his hands roaming my body, tracing my curves, cupping my breasts, rolling my nipples between his fingers. I whimpered, overwhelmed by the tenderness interwoven with the raw pleasure.
Then he flipped me again, pulling me on top of him. "Ride me, wife."
My thighs trembled as I straddled him, positioning myself above his cock. When I sank down, taking him fully, I let out a shaking sigh. He gripped my hips, guiding me into a rhythm, his gaze fixed on my face with a reverence that made my heart ache.
"That's it. Look at you. Riding me like you were born for it."
I moved, undulating my hips, and watched his eyes roll back. I leaned forward, planting my hands on his chest, the scales of his shoulders warm beneath my palms, and he moaned wantonly, his claws digging into my thighs as I took him deeper.
"I'm close again," I gasped, the pressure building so soon.
"Let me feel it."
I came around him, my walls milking him, and he followed with a roar, filling me so deeply I felt it in my bones.
The night blurred after that. We went through positions I didn't know I was capable of: me bent over the foot of the bed, him standing behind me; me on my knees on the floor, taking him in my mouth until he came down my throat again; him carrying me to the window seat, pressing me against the cold glass while he fucked me, my hands splayed against the pane, my breath fogging the glass as the winter night look on.
He tried to have me on the chair by the hearth, and we ended up on the floor, tangled together before the dying fire. His tail coiled around my leg, his cock sliding between my thighs, and I straddled him, pressing him down onto the fur rug.
"My lord," I breathed, looking down at him from astride, "I love you."
His eyes, wild and reverent, found mine. "And I you. Fuck, I love you so much."
I rode him with abandon, grinding my hips against his, and we came together in a rush of heat that left us both gasping.
By the time the first grey light of dawn crept under the curtains, we were a tangled mess of limbs and sheets, the both of us utterly spent. He was on his back, me draped across his chest, my head resting over his heart, which still pounded a hard, steady rhythm.
He kissed the top of my head. "I'll get you with child tonight. I can feel it."
I laughed, weak and shattered. "Is that a promise too?"
"That's a certainty." He traced his hand down my back, over the swell of my hip. "You're going to be beautiful swollen with my child."
I shivered at the thought, even as exhausted as I was. The words sat in my chest, something to carry forward through the coming months. His wife, his consort, his vessel.
I closed my eyes, and I felt his arms tighten around me, pulling me impossibly close. The fire had burned down to embers, and the dawn was young outside, and I had never felt more safe, more claimed, more loved in my entire life.
And when I fell asleep, still tangled against his body, I dreamed of golden scales and a tiny heartbeat that matched my own.