Chapter 15: Possession
The crude words hung in the air, a shard of Westfall honesty in the polished Dalaran chamber. Before Alex could even process them, her hands were moving. Not with magic, but with a deliberate, physical purpose that was somehow more potent.
His trousers, still dusty from the foothills, were shoved down to his thighs in one sharp motion. The cool, polished wood of the table met his bare stomach. She pinned his wrists to the small of his back, one of her strong hands easily holding both. Her grip was absolute.
"Stay."
He heard the rustle of her own leathers, the clink of a buckle. Then a softer sound—a ceramic lid being lifted. The scent changed. Overriding the ozone and old books was the clean, herbal smell of pine resin and calendula. Elara’s ointment. The one she’d mixed for muscle aches, now being slicked over Lyra’s fingers with a wet, deliberate sound.
The first touch was cool, a shocking contrast to the heat of her body behind him. He flinched.
"Easy." Her voice was lower now, a thick murmur by his ear. Her other hand smoothed over the curve of his ass, a strangely calming gesture. "Just breathe into it. This isn't the hayloft. We've got all night."
Her finger pressed inside, working the ointment, stretching him with a slow, undeniable pressure. It was clinical and intimate all at once. Her breath was warm on his shoulder. "You're so tight," she whispered, almost to herself. "Every time. Like you were made for this."
A second finger joined the first, and he gasped, his forehead pressing into the wood. The crystal containing the arcane ember was just inches from his face, its pulsed glow matching the rhythm of his heartbeat. She scissored her fingers, the burn a bright, clean signal in the fog of his arousal.
"That's it," she coaxed. "Just like that. Take it."
When she removed her fingers, the emptiness was a shock. He heard her slicking herself, the sound obscenely wet in the quiet room. Then the blunt, insistent pressure of her, not at his entrance, but against the inside of his thigh, a hot, heavy brand.
"You feel that?" she growled. "Every inch of it. And you're going to take it all. You're going to arch your back and beg for it. Because it's mine, and you're mine."
She notched the head against him. Pushed.
The stretch was monumental. A blinding, white-hot fullness that forced the air from his lungs in a silent cry. She didn't stop. She fed herself into him with a slow, relentless piston motion, letting him feel every ridge, every throbbing vein. His fingers scrabbled against the tabletop, finding no purchase. The captured ember flared, as if sensing the unleashed energy in the room.
She was seated fully, buried to the hilt, her hips flush against him. They both shuddered. She released his wrists, her hands coming to grip his hips, her fingers biting into his skin.
"Now," she said, and the word was a promise and a threat.
She pulled back and slammed home.
The impact was thunderous. The table legs screeched against the floor. A cascade of loose parchment fluttered from a nearby stand. She set a brutal, punishing pace, each drive pushing him harder into the unyielding table. The slapping sound of flesh on flesh was a stark, rhythmic counterpoint to her ragged breaths.
"See?" she grunted, her voice strained with effort. "This. This is what you are for me. Not a student. Not a project." A particularly sharp thrust. "My good boy. My dirty little secret."
One of her hands left his hip. Came down in a sharp, stinging crack on his ass.
The pain was a bright flower that bloomed into deeper, hotter pleasure. He cried out, a broken sound.
"Again," he heard himself gasp, the word torn from somewhere dark and hungry and entirely new.
She obliged. Another slap, harder. Then her hand stayed, rubbing the tingling skin, before gripping him again to haul him back onto her with even more force. The violence of it was clarifying. It burned away the last of his anxiety, his self-doubt, the endless echo of his own thoughts. There was only this: the splitting fullness, the sting of her hand, the heat of her body surrounding him, the primal claim of her possession.
He was melting, dissolving into a state of pure sensation. His earlier submission had been hesitant, a surrender. This was active. He was pushing back against her, meeting her drives, craving the degradation and the ownership in her words.
"Lyra—" he moaned, a plea without direction.
"Say it," she demanded, her rhythm faltering as she neared her own edge.
"I'm yours," he choked out, the truth of it seismic. "I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm—"
His world detonated.
It wasn't a release but an annihilation. Pleasure tore through him like a wildfire, burning up every nerve ending. He screamed, his body bowing against her hold, convulsing in a raw, shuddering climax that seemed to have no end.
The sensation triggered her own. She drove into him one final, searing time and froze, a guttural cry ripping from her throat. He felt her pulse deep inside him, a hot, rhythmic flooding that went on and on, merging with the aftershocks of his own ruin.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their struggle to breathe. The table was a wreck. The arcane ember glowed steadily, a witness. Lyra’s weight slumped over him, her sweat-slick skin sticking to his back. She nuzzled into the nape of his neck, her lips soft against his damp hair.
Slowly, carefully, she withdrew. The loss was physical, a hollowing. She turned him, his legs nearly giving way, and caught him. Without a word, she half-carried him to the deep crimson cushions piled near the hearth, lowering them both down into a nest of velvet and tired limbs.
They lay tangled, the sweat cooling on their skin. The civilized world of Dalaran, with its bells and its protocols, felt a million miles away. Here was only the musk of sex and herbs, the dying fire, and the solid, exhausted reality of each other.
Lyra traced the red marks her fingers had left on his hip. "I got carried away," she murmured, her voice hoarse.
"No." He caught her hand, laced his fingers with hers. "You didn't."
She looked at him then, her green eyes searching his. The fierce possessiveness was gone, replaced by a vulnerable softness that was far more rare. "In Westfall… it was different. This was…"
"Darker," he supplied.
"Yeah." She exhaled shakily. "A part of me I usually keep chained up in the cellar. The part that's angry. And scared. And needs to claim things so they can't be taken away."
He understood. He’d felt it. The difference between the sun-drenched loft and this candlelit claiming. Both were true. "I'm not going anywhere."
"You might," she said, the old insecurity flickering. "When you see what I really am. When the new wears off and you realize you're tied to a monster with a perfect smile and a…"
He put a finger to her lips. "Stop." He kissed her, slow and deep, tasting herself on his own lips. "I met the monster today. I liked her. She feels like the truth."
A shudder ran through her. She hid her face against his neck. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. "The Conclave of Elements is tomorrow. Valanor will be there. Half the faculty. They'll all be looking, waiting to see if the rustic vacation ruined my edge."
"So show them your edge," Alex said, stroking her hair. "The one that just mined an arcane ember and fucked me through a table. Seems plenty sharp to me."
A laugh bubbled out of her, watery but real. She lifted her head. "You're terrible for my reputation."
"And great for your sanity."
"True." She snuggled closer. "Stay tonight. All night. I don't care who hears the table screaming."
"As my lady commands."
Sleep began to pull at them, heavy and warm. Just before it took him, Alex spoke into the darkness. "Lyra?"
"Mmm?"
"Thank you for the ointment."
Her arms tightened around him. In the firelight, her smile was quiet, real, and utterly unguarded. "You're welcome, farm boy."
The silence after her words stretched, comfortable and complete. He traced the arcane tattoos that coiled like gilded vines over her shoulder, feeling the slight raised texture under his thumb. She watched him, her green eyes heavy-lidded, the usual blazing confidence softened into something like contentment.
“Did you mean it?” she asked quietly. “About staying?”
“Where else would I go?” He kissed her shoulder. “My dormitory smells of gnome-engineered coolant and despair. This is better.”
She snorted, a genuine, unguarded sound. “High praise.” A pause. “I don’t usually… let people sleep. Afterwards.”
He understood the admission’s weight. “I’m not ‘people.’” He stated it simply, a fact pulled from the wreckage of the table and the ointment and the raw things they’d just spoken.
“No,” she agreed, her voice a murmur. “You’re not.”
They dozed as the enchanted candles guttered, the room dimming to a deep, velveteen blue. The distant chimes of the Violet Citadel marked the passing hours, a reminder of the world outside her sealed door. When Alex stirred again, the light had changed; long, late afternoon sun slants pierced the high window, painting Lyra’s skin in molten gold.
She was already awake, propped on an elbow watching him. The vulnerable softness was gone, replaced by a playful, speculative gleam. Her fingers walked down his chest.
“You’re recoverable,” she observed.
“Barely.”
“Good.” Her smile was a slow, wicked curve. “I’d hate for Westfall to have been our peak. There’s still so much I haven’t shown you.”
He felt a fresh jolt of anticipation, mixed with a profound exhaustion that was deeply satisfying. “Such as?”
She shifted, the cushions rustling, and rolled to straddle his hips. Her movement was deliberate, showcasing the powerful lines of her body against the dark velvet. “You learned to take it from behind. That’s beginner stuff, farm boy. Valuable, but basic.” She leaned down, her golden hair falling around them like a curtain. “Real trust is face to face. Seeing what you’re doing to each other.”
He swallowed. “What did you have in mind?”
In answer, she moved. It was a fluid, commanding rearrangement of limbs. She guided him onto his back, then pivoted, kneeling over his head. Her scent, spiced and musky, filled his senses. The view was dizzying: the strong curve of her thighs, the shadowed cleft of her ass, and her cock, already hardening again, swaying heavy and imposing before his face.
“This,” she said, her voice dropping into a teacher’s calm, instructive tone. “Sixty-nine. It’s a mutual possession. I give you control. You give me your throat.”
The sheer magnitude of her, this close, was daunting. A visceral, animal part of his brain recoiled. But the larger part, the part she had unlocked in the hayloft and claimed on the table, thrummed with a dark, submissive excitement. He wanted to prove he could take it. For her.
“Okay,” he whispered.
She didn’t hesitate. She lowered herself slowly, guiding herself toward his mouth. The first touch of her head against his lips was hot and silken. He opened his mouth, letting the tip press onto his tongue. The taste was clean, salty, uniquely her.
“Relax your jaw,” she instructed softly, her hips beginning a shallow movement. “Don’t fight it. Just let it happen.”
He tried. He focused on breathing through his nose as she fed more of herself into his mouth. It was an overwhelming fullness, a stretching pressure that made his eyes water. He felt her thick shaft depress his tongue, pressing against the roof of his mouth. His throat clenched in automatic protest.
“Further,” she murmured, her own breath catching. Her hands were braced on the cushions by his head. “Take it.”
She pushed forward.
The head of her cock breached the back of his throat. His body spasmed, a gag reflex seizing him. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. He choked, the sound wet and strained. She held there, letting him feel the impossible intrusion, letting his body shudder and adjust around her.
“Good,” she praised, her voice thick. “So good. Just breathe.”
He focused on the feel of her hands stroking his hair. He forced his throat to open, to accept. An inch. Then another. She was embedded deep, a profound invasion that bypassed thought and went straight to instinct. He was full of her, possessed by her in a way that felt more complete than anything before.
He managed a weak, questioning noise around her.
“My turn,” she gasped, understanding. She shifted her weight, lowering her hips until her own body was poised above his mouth from the opposite direction. Her skin was warm, fragrant with sweat and her own arousal. He could see everything, the intimate, hidden part of her she’d once called a flaw.
He didn’t see a flaw. He saw her.
With a desperate, hungry courage born from his own submission, he acted. He pushed against her thighs, urging her down just a fraction. He released his grip on her hips and instead took hold of the full, muscular curve of her ass. He pulled her down onto his face and dove in.
His tongue found her. He swirled it, exploring the heat and the slick, surprising softness. He licked a broad, firm stripe, then pressed the point of his tongue inside her.
Lyra screamed.
It wasn’t a sound of pain, but of pure, shattered delight. Her whole body jerked above him, her cock sliding even deeper into his throat in the process. He choked again, but didn’t stop. He fucked her with his tongue, a frantic, earnest rhythm, lapping and probing and drinking her in.
“Oh, Light—Alex!” Her hips ground back against his mouth, riding his face with abandon. She was shouting, unmoored, the polished mage gone, replaced by something raw and roaring. “Yes! Just like that, don’t stop!”
He didn’t. He was drowning in her, the taste of her, the sound of her, the feel of her hot and pulsing against his mouth. His own arousal was a distant throb, secondary to the power of this, of reducing her to screams with just his tongue. Her pleasure fed his. She was losing control because of him.
She rocked against him, her movements growing erratic, a desperate chase for her climax. Her cries became a continuous, broken stream of elvish and Common, prayers and curses tangled together. He redoubled his efforts, his jaw aching, his world narrowed to the single point of contact between his mouth and her body.
Her end, when it came, was convulsive. She stiffened, a strangled cry tearing from her throat. She pulsed against his tongue, a hot, rhythmic clenching that seemed to go on forever. Above him, her own hips stuttered, and he felt her release flood the back of his throat, salty and abundant. He swallowed, taking all of her in, the final act of surrender.
She collapsed sideways, her weight falling away from him. They lay panting, a tangled, sweaty mess of limbs in the wrecked cushions. Sunlight glinted on the tear-tracks drying on his temples.
For a long time, the only sound was their ragged breathing fighting its way back to normal. Finally, Lyra rolled onto her back beside him, staring at the enchanted ceiling where illusory clouds drifted. Her hand found his, their fingers lacing together.
“No one,” she said, her voice hoarse and wondrous, “has ever done that.” She turned her head to look at him. Her eyes were bright, shining with something more than triumph. “No one has ever wanted to.”
He wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand. “I wanted to,” he said, his own voice rough.
She leaned over and kissed him, deep and slow, tasting herself on his lips. “I know,” she whispered against his mouth. “That’s what terrifies me.” She rested her forehead against his. “Tomorrow. The Conclave. All those eyes.”
“They’ll see Lyra Sunwhisper,” he said. “They won’t see this. This is mine.”
She held him tighter, her body softening against his. The last of the sunlight faded from the room, leaving them in the gentle glow of the arcane ember, its captured light steady and calm in the gathering dark.