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The dagger bites into her throat, a viper’s kiss. From somewhere far away, she can hear the gentle sound of water lapping at the edges of a pool. Her legs slip and slide on the tiled floor as she tries to keep her balance, to keep the blade from greeting more of her flesh.
“What do you think you’re doing,” she hisses, squirming against his hold.
The Count's hand, elegant and broad, fits neatly against her mouth and nose. Nadira can smell the sea salt on his skin, her own breath warming the space between his palm and her lips. “Hush now,” his voice, sly and sinuous, drifts into her ear and winds down her body. “That’s enough from you.” What skitters down her spine in reaction to the sussuration is not fear, but desire, a desire so acute it cuts into her effortlessly and has her trembling with expectation, the scales scattered across her shoulders standing on edge.
His fingers dig deeper into her flesh, the sharp nails leaving little pinpricks along her jawline. Her chest heaves with the effort of drawing in air, her lungs making their displeasure clear. She makes a low noise, a grumbling sigh, and reluctantly stills, knowing any effort to free herself would be futile. His chest is pressed tight to her back, not a hair’s breath between their bodies, and the warmth of him - surprising, given his usual icy demeanor - seeps into her like an inkblot on parchment.
When it’s clear she’s not going to fight, he presses an abstract kiss to the top of her head. “That’s better,” he murmurs, sliding the sharp edge of the dagger up her throat till the point of it presses into her jaw. “Now,” he caresses the curve of her cheek with the flat of the blade, “are you going to be more trouble?”
She should say yes. She should spit at him, fight him, free herself from his grasp – and yet she does nothing. Dimly, distantly, her shoulder starts to throb, like a warning beacon of sorts. When she attempts to look down, to investigate further, he slaps her with the blade - hard enough to reel back her wandering mind, but not hard enough to incite fear. A hand slides into her braid, grips her hair by the roots and gives it a good, sharp tug. She gasps, the prickling of her scalp only adding to the sense of anticipation.
“I asked you a question,” Nalos snarls. His tone is harsh, but there’s something greedy about it as well, as though he’s jealous that he does not have the entirety of her attention.
Anticipation flares at the greed in his tone, a spike of arousal following close in its wake. She sighs against his palm, relaxes the slightest bit against him - barely noticeable, but it’s enough.
“Good girl,” he croons, then drags the blade back down her neck, his control leaving delicious trails of fiery heat instead of bleeding wounds. Nadira hadn’t thought a dagger could be capable of that – her dagger, she remembers distractedly, the very first real dagger Brissa had given her–
“Focus,” the Count warns, his grip shifting so his fingers wrap neatly around her throat. “I will not have you distracted.” The hazy view from her peripheral vision grows even more dream-like, colors and shapes blurring into the vaguest of smears. The tip of the knife catches the edge of her tunic, digs into the fabric, pulls inexorably at it–
A sharp rip has her gasping out loud, her focus once more on the present. Nadira tilts her head to see the clean tear in the cloth. Nalos nips her ear, his sharp teeth digging into the soft flesh of her lobe. With a quick, graceful motion, he cuts through the rest of her tunic, the torn strips dropping soundlessly to the ground.
“I did say I was going to enjoy you,” she can hear his smirk. Her fingers momentarily flex in his grip with the instinctive urge to slap him. “I was correct, as always.” A biting kiss placed in the sensitive skin behind her ear has Nadira shivering. He smiles against her skin, his breath like the ocean breeze, and with another deft motion tears away her breastband. Before she can think to protest, he’s running the tip of the dagger around her areola, tracing the shape of it. The cold metal has her nipples tightening, her body filling with liquid heat.
“Though it does appear,” he taps the flat edge of her blade against her nipples, pulling a low whine from her, “that I’m not the only one enjoying this.” Nalos pulls her harder against his form, and his meaning is clear; there’s no mistaking the hard flesh pressed up against her ass.
“I could be enjoying more,” she grumbles, grinding back up against his length, a triumphant smirk curling her lips at his sharp intake of breath.
“So greedy,” he chides. “Take off your pants. If you insist on using your mouth I have better plans for it.”
Nadira undoes her belt with a fluidity borne of years of practice. It takes some maneuvering, and a good amount of shifting - it is hard to move when he does not ease his grip on her throat - but she’s soon naked, her skin pebbling against the chill air. Nalos hums consideringly as he uses the dagger to trace abstract patterns on her abdomen, the angry red marks no match for his own crimson skin.
The contrast of his deep scarlet hand against her own rose pink breasts is mesmerizing, He outlines the curve of them, his thumb stroking the hilt almost indulgently, and says, “You need better weapons, Nadira.”
“That dagger is perfectly fine,” she struggles to maintain her snark. “Not all of us can afford pearl-encrusted blades, Nalos.”
“You misunderstand me,” the blade digs the slightest bit deeper into her breast, a silent reprimand, allowing drops of carmine to bloom against her skin. She inhales at the sting, moans the next second when his thumb rasps against her nipple. “This hilt is poorly shaped–”
“Like hell it is–”
“–for fucking,” he continues calmly, as though she hadn’t interrupted him.
Nadira makes a strangled noise. “You aren’t seriously considering fucking me with that dagger.”
“Not this dagger, no. As I said, the hilt is most unfortunately designed.”
She eyes the dagger, notes the tapered grip, the spiky pommel at the end. “No, she concedes, “I suppose not.”
“So the question is,” he nuzzles her cheek, his fingers still idly toying with her breasts, “how shall we proceed?”
“I have a few ideas–” Again, her shoulder starts to itch, like there’s something stuck in her flesh, some sharp piece of metal that will be forever embedded if she does not pull it out–
“ Tch,” his breath carries a whiff of expensive wine. The scent drags her back to the present. “I do not require your input. If you cannot hold your tongue,” he presses the pommel against her lips, coaxing her to part them, and sliding the hilt into her mouth. Her teeth close around the worn leather just below the quillion. The pommel is dangerously close to her throat; it’s a task for her to swallow around it. Should she try to talk, she will gag. “Then I will do it for you,” he brushes a kiss to the high point of her cheekbones.
Nadira glares at him, but makes no move to remove the dagger.
“I rather like this look on you,” he smirks, his fingers trailing down her throat, down the valley of her breasts, down, down until they encounter the thatch of dense curls between her legs. She shifts to give him room, a muffled moan clogged in her throat as he drags two fingers up her slit. “And it appears you agree,” he mocks, lifting his arm so she can see the slick-coated digits. His knuckles glisten in the light. She feels herself flush, her ears turning a deeper shade of pink. “I did not think you so wanton, Nadira.” There’s a cruel, possessive kind of affection in the way he says her name. “Is this a result of your extensive imagination?”
Before she can make a rude noise at him, he drops his hand to the junction of her thighs and traces a half-circle around her clit. Her knees buckle, her hips chasing his touch, and she chokes for a second before righting herself.
“Hmm. I’m curious,” His fingers tense momentarily around her throat. “How long can you keep that bladed mouth closed, I wonder?”
She doesn’t bother replying, instead raising a brow at the challenge even though she knows he cannot see it.
Nalos chuckles, low and sly, the sound plucking at the taut strings of her arousal. Every part of her feels warm, too-warm. “Shall we find out?” he remarks almost conversationally. It’s only the rasp threaded with the syllables that tells her he’s not as unaffected as he’s pretending to be. His fingers delve into her folds, parting them with practised ease, allowing just the very tips of them to sink into her passage.
It’s not enough, nowhere close to what she wants, and she clamps her legs around his hand in blatant demand. His scales rasp against the inside of her thighs, the minute pain only heightening the liquid pleasure. Nadira tries to bear down, to get more of him into her aching, empty cunt, but he only laughs and squeezes her throat a fraction tighter. “I will do this as I want,” he murmurs into her skin, brushing his lips up and down her temple as his fingers mimic the rhythm between her legs.
She whines, the sound coming from deep in her chest. It makes him laugh, maliciously delighted, and as a reward - or fresh torment, she can’t tell - he shifts to press his palm against her clit, giving her the barest amount of pressure and friction. Her hips twist and shift, a parody of her earlier attempt at freeing herself, but no matter what she does he does not let her take more than what he wants to give.
She begs, the please little more than a muffled, mumbled garble of sounds. Her thighs are soaked with her slick, her cunt pulsed with a deep ache, and she’s certain she can’t take much more of this–
Nalos slides two fingers into her, a rough thrust, so unexpected after all his restrained teasing. He sets a quick, almost brutal pace– it’s rough and lewd and it should alarm her that he’s able to make her body desire it so desperately, but instead her head tilts back in a gesture of surrender. His grip on her throat tightens by fractional increments, till she can feel each finger’s imprint on her skin, till she’s only barely able to draw breath, till the lack of air and the lightning-like pleasure push her into a place in her mind that’s quiet and still, till she’s floating within and without her body.
Fire burns through her veins, sears her nerves, leaves her flesh ablaze. Everything is too little, and too much. Her vision grows darker, her lungs beg her for air, but she’s so adrift in space she doesn’t even think to spit out the dagger. Pleasure, a taut coil in her chest, winds tighter and tighter, spreads outwards from her core; her abdomen clenches with anticipation for the glorious fall. There’s nothing but this, nothing but this blazing burn, nothing else but the push-pull of clever, elegant fingers that fill her so well, nothing but the sharp scent of the ocean and the wet sounds of her cunt.
Little sounds pour from her thoat, high pitched whines and whimpers and mewls. She doesn’t hear them, but he does, and he laughs, a soft, dark laugh that vibrates through her and stokes her desire. He kisses her sweat-covered cheek, his tongue darting out to sample the salt of her skin, then croons something she can’t make out. She nods, operating on primal instinct, and his fingers push deeper into her, the pads pressing against the bundle of nerves within her walls at the same time his palm grinds against her clit–
Nadira howls.
The sound covers the clunk of the dagger hitting the floor. Her back arches away from his chest as she climaxes, the muscles of her thighs and stomach tightening to a painful degree as her release washes over her. Her cunt clenchs and grips his fingers as though it will never let go. The darkness that threatened to consume her rapidly recedes as he eases his hold on her neck, his indulgent, amused murmuring a distant melody to the waves of pleasure flooding through her system.
As she drifts back down, she can make his words out. “Excellent,” Nalos praises, his hand splayed out across her jaw, his thumb stroking her lip. “I believe we may have found a good use of your abilities,” the cool, malicious smirk has returned to his tone, “though it will take time to shape you into your ideal self–”
“Nira? Nira!” A voice drifts towards her, as though it has traveled across mountains to reach her. She blinks, frowning as the landscape swirls and grows hazy. The space behind her is suddenly empty, Nalos’ distinct presence clearly noticeable. She spins on her heel and searches for the source of the voice. It’s warm and familiar, and it pulls at sluggish memories…
“Nira!” There’s a spectre touching her shoulder, and she screams again, this time in pain, as agony shoots through her system. She sobs, eyes squeezed tightly shut, as the pain threatens to overwhelm her, as something holds her in place and keeps her from moving about, as it demands she remain where she is and endure.
“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” the voice, masculine and so intimate, soothes. There’s a touch on her forehead, so gentle and tender it pulls tears to her eyes. She’s yearned for this touch, she knows, has desired it for so long. Her lashes flutter as her eyes struggle to behold the owner of the voice. “Rest,” he urges, sounding so sad she has the urge to console him. “I have you. You’re going to be okay,” he promises, and she believes him.
She settles deeper into the silence, the strange distraction fading into nothingness. Wherever she is, she’s fine. She’s not alone. Taking a deep breath, she opens her eyes–
Nalos is standing in front of her once more, his lips pulled into a cruel smile, an unsettling hunger dancing in his gaze.