Archive of Our Own

    It had not been a yes, Nikolai reminded himself for what had to be the hundredth time, hazel eyes flicking to Alina’s sleeping form, curled up on the carriage’s cozy cushions right across where he was seated, the glorious white and gold kefta Genya had whipped up for her in less than one hour after the final battle draped over her like a mere blanket. 

    After crashing to the ground, cushioned and spared death by a swoop of Zoya’s wind, he had had only a few minutes to take in everything that had happened while he had been trapped in his own mind. While the volcra he had become had somehow enough of his own mind to follow Alina around and attend the final moments of the war, he had no concrete memories from it. The Darkling’s shadows at the spinning wheel, falling to the ground in the middle of the Fold and seeing Alina in the middle of both the Darkling and Mal’s corpses, and in between those two scenes— only hunger, gut-rotting hunger, rage, and worse of all, an incomparable feeling of ultimate freedom as he swept through the skies. 

    It had been easy to jump into action after that. That was always the easy part for Nikolai. Adapting, facing the problems head-on. Gathering everyone, planning out how to announce the end of the war, the best ways to subdue the rest of the Darkling’s followers— had gotten into a mighty argument with Zoya who did not agree to a policy of forgiveness rather than a witch hunt. Their heated debate had woken up Alina from her slumber, barging in the room to side with him and remind them all of how much loss Ravka and the grishas in particular had already suffered and how ridiculous it was to portray all of the Darkling’s followers as cruel or mad like they hadn’t been normal people just months before.

    Zoya had given in and Nikolai had fallen even more in love, even as she stomped back to her cot asking them to keep it down now. 

    She had had to decide what to do next. Somehow Mal had survived the whole thing. Nikolai wasn’t very proud of the fact that the first thing he thought was 'how inconvenient' but at least Alina wouldn't suffer. Or so he thought. As as soon as she approached him, he flinched away. Later, he told her he couldn't see them living together.

Rationally, Nikolai knew he couldn't blame him. Alina had killed him, it didn't matter that he agreed to it or that it had been necessary. One couldn't erase such a terrible thing.

It was for the better, anyway. He wasn't blind. He saw the way Malyen looked at her whenever she summoned the sun. Fear. 

    In the end, Malyen went back to the orphanage they grew up in. Alina, once again defying all of Nikolai’s expectations, came to his tent and asked him if his proposal still stood. If he still thought she’d be useful to Ravkans by becoming their queen. He had had to shove his own desires deep inside to answer her, to explain how much it’d meant to the Ravkan people if their beloved saint became their queen, how much it would stabilise his reign if he had her added legitimacy, considering how shaky his own was.

    She said “I need to think about it,”.

    And she had been thinking about it since then.

    Now stuck in a carriage driving them to Os Alta, after a short funeral for the Darkling at Alina’s request (Nikolai hadn’t been opposed to it, the man had served Ravka for centuries after all), everything was coming back to him. He couldn’t stop staring at his marred hands, his veins tainted black. What kind of King would he be? What kind of King could he be? He had been a prince, a soldier, a privateer and a monster. How could he serve Ravka? And everytime the question came back, his hazel eyes fell back on Alina, as if she were an answer. Orphan, otkazat’sya, Grisha, saint. 

    Friend.

    In the end, she said yes.

“Consummation of marriage is a rather outdated tradition and I’ve often suspected someone with voyeuristic tendencies was behind it,” Nikolai’s clever fingers found yet another pin buried in Alina’s white locks, freeing them easily. “It’s one of those things—” he kept going, “—that can only be used against you. If we consummate, nobody is going to care. If we don’t, it’s going to be used to argue the legitimacy of our marriage should our enemies ever need that. Not that they would—” another pin lightly clattered in the silver tray he had been using to collect them. “—I’m illegitimate enough on my own,”

“One more bullet for them, wouldn’t it be?” she turned around, tipping her chin up to look him in the eye.

    It should have been illegal to look as perfect and polished as he did but here he was. Like a skilled sculptor had carved each curl of his hair into solid gold and his face into marble. 

    Then again, he was the one making the laws now, wasn’t he? Him and her, she reminded herself. 

    She trailed a hand down his shoulder, following the line of the epaulette indicative of his military rank, a rank he had earned and made sure to include in his royal wedding suit. Nikolai’s cunning and Genya’s talents were a terrifying combination of skills.

“You’re probably the most legitimate Tsar Ravka has had in a long time,” she murmured, dropping her hand. 

    He caught it in his, bringing it up to his lips to kiss her fingers.

“And you its most legitimate Tsaritsa,”

    An uncontrollable snort escaped her, making him raise bemused eyebrows. His hands tried to return to her hair to finish destroying the careful updo Genya had spent at least one excruciating hour on but she captured them before, running her fingers over the fabric of his gloves in a silent question. One second of hesitation passed, imperceptible if she didn’t know to look for it, and he tilted his head in agreement. 

“You were in the army the same as I was. Might even be the only person who was in both the First and the second armies. You nearly died in the Fold. You risked your life multiple times to face the Darkling. Your battlefield wasn’t the one most Ravkan soldiers fight on, but you were the only one who could fight in it,” Alina avoided his eyes, carefully sliding his gloves off and revealing the scarred hands he had to hide on his own wedding day. “Ah, and I suppose you did do that tiny little thing of getting us all rid of the Fold that has been tearing our country apart for centuries, but that’s a detail. Then you agreed to be my Queen because you knew how much it’d mean for Ravkans. You could have chosen martyrdom and a quiet life in anonymity. I’m glad to have you by my side,” 

    Mirroring what he had done earlier, Alina brought his hands to her lips, kissing each of them lightly as she refused to reply. His eyes widened slightly and he couldn’t do much more than dumbly drop his hands to his sides once she let go of them, looking up at him again.

“So. Consummation, right?”

“If you’re willing,” Got it, she didn’t want to talk about her previous achievements.

“You said it’d be used against us if we didn’t, anyway,”

“Well, yes, but I have a plan B if you don’t want us to do it. It involves jumping so hard on the bed the entire Palace hears the springs creak, though I think for added realism you should scream stuff like ‘This is the best sex I ever—’” 

    She shoved his chest with a laugh, one hand going to his mouth to try to force it shut when he gave her a roguish smile, batting her hands away and suggesting other ideas of extremely realistic things she could say to make sure all of Os Alta would think their marriage was well consummated and their Tsar very adept at making his wife happy in bed. Their wrestling ended with her cheeks flushed from the effort and both her wrists trapped in only one of his large hands, the one where his gold wedding band shone, tying them together forever.

“Well— We are both adults, and friends, I think we can do it the traditional way,” she suggested, the red on her skin deepening. His hold on her wrists loosened, his thumb softly stroking her skin. 

“Of course. And we can stop if you change your mind,”

    She nodded and fumbled for a moment, unsure what to do now that she had just dropped that. Unsure what to do with the way Nikolai’s eyes seemed ready to devour her whole, contrasting harshly with the tenderness of his hand and the friendly words leaving his mouth. Sensing her sudden hesitation, he released her and encouraged her to turn around so he could remove her elaborate dress, all white and gold, the sparkling embroidery resembling both the sun and her usual kefta. Not wanting to startle her, and knowing Genya would have his head if he damaged the dress, he slowly unclasped the bindings on her shoulders, folding the long cape-like train over his arm to set it on a table. He then wound his fingers in the laces of her corset, the white of them contrasting starkly with the black lines streaking his skin.

“Have you ever?” he asked, feeling her shiver when he brushed against the waist to remove the contraption altogether.

“No,” she admitted, getting a hum in answer as he made sure to hide the surge of undeserved possessiveness at the thought of being her first. “You have, I presume,” she added, getting a chuckle out of him.

“You think that because I’m handsome or because I look easy?”

    Alina snorted and stepped on his foot, making him laugh with her. He closed the few centimeters still between them, pressing his chest to her back and lightly resting his hands on her hips.

“I actually haven’t, not all the way with a woman anyway,”

    She whirled around to face him, eyebrows raised. “You haven’t?” soldier, university student, privateer and prince, she had many reasons to be surprised at his lack of experience so he gave her an indulgent smile.

“Royal bastard is an uncomfortable enough position to be in but bastard of a royal bastard might as well be a death sentence if it’s known. If I had laid with a woman and she bore a child from me, my best option for them would have been to disappear and never claim any of them. I kind of believe in breaking generational patterns of being a lame parent, you know? So I figured I should just go with the best contraception— keeping it in my pants. No morning tea in the world can beat that,”

    Of course , Alina thought. she should have guessed Nikolai would think that. Always thinking of the future, always thinking of others, no matter how easy it would have been for him, the too clever fox, able to change skins and names as easily as he breathed, charming and beautiful, to have anyone he wanted and escape consequences and responsibilities without a word. 

    He must have taken her silence for disapproval as worry etched itself on his face, drawing unfamiliar worry lines on his forehead.

“Is it a problem if I haven’t?” 

“No,” she let out a small laugh of disbelief. They had just gotten married for the sake of the country, him not having experience in bed was the last of her worry. She drew her hands up to cup his face, stroking his smooth cheeks. “I was just thinking there were worse men to be married to,”

“For sure, I could give you a list—” his sentence was abruptly stopped when Alina’s tentative lips pressed against his, soft and light. His eyes widened but his hands tightened on her hips. He gently pushed back against her mouth and closed his eyelids, heart hammering in his chest. He had promised her a marriage of politics and friendship but he hoped, oh, he hoped… 

    Her hands explored the long expanse of his neck before catching in the collar of his heavy jacket, all cream, Lantsov blue and her very own sunshine like golden colour, blindly finding the clasps of it and opening them one by one, making their way downward much like most of Nikolai’s blood. She then pushed it off his shoulders, letting it crumble on the floor with much less care than he had given her own clothes (not that he could muster a shred of care for the jacket either right now) and broke their kiss. Her cheeks were flushed and Nikolai could feel his weren’t any better, probably the only place northward where he still had blood and she worried her bottom lip with her teeth. He knew better than to give her the time to worry, to doubt, to second guess, and took her lips once more with more fervor, swallowing her little gasp, getting started on the front buttons of her dress. Their hands clashed a little when she tried to open his shirt as well and they were forced to separate once more to laugh, keeping each other close enough to press their foreheads together. Unable to wait any longer, as soon as her dress was off her shoulders and pooling onto the ground, Nikolai swept her off her feet, making her squeal so loudly he actually worried Tamar (dutifully guarding the door) would barge in the room to check for danger, and dropped her on the bed. She playfully tried to kick him away and he grabbed her ankle so he could remove her shoe. She helpfully lifted her other leg so he could do the same for the other shoe, her underskirt rumpling all around her thighs. 

    He had just seen her at the altar in what had to be the most gorgeous wedding dress in all of Ravka’s history, and yet he found her even more beautiful with her white hair a messy crown around her head, only clad in her undergarments, white stockings, underskirt and smock, her dark eyes glimmering and the only touch of colour in the lovely tableau the blush spread across her entire face. His heart was going to stop. 

    She stilled when his hand slid down her calves, maintaining eye contact to make sure she still wanted it, until he found the top hem of her stocking, blindly opening the small buckle that kept it attached to the waistband of her underskirt, fingertips barely brushing the skin of her thigh. He blessed the complete silence they were in when he was able to hear the tiny hitch in her breathing.

“You’re overdressed,” her voice sounded strangled. He didn’t trust his to be any better so he merely nodded, rolling her stocking down and letting it drop on the floor before stepping away.

    Alina lifted herself up on her elbows to watch him and he felt more exposed than he did standing in front of thousands of people. He finished undoing the buttons of his shirt, the fabric joining her own clothes on the floor, and toed off his shoes.

“I’m feeling strangely self-conscious,” he admitted with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“Of what? How long has it been since you last saw yourself in a mirror?” she replied bluntly.

“I’ll have you know I have many physical flaws,”

    She raised an utterly unconvinced eyebrow, black eyes roaming all over his chest. Even on their very first meeting, with him grimed as Sturmhond, she had thought he was beautiful. He might wear lavish clothes wonderfully but he was even more incredible without, looking less perfect, more… More like himself , more like Nikolai Lantsov, soldier, prince, privateer, with the scars to match, the strong forearms more fit for pulling on strong ropes than for holding a delicate quill. 

“Of course, like I have kind of uneven toes,”

“You do?” it was so absurd a flaw to mention her eyes immediately flicked to his feet just as he lifted one to remove his sock. 

“Shouldn’t have told you,” he winced. “Now you’re going to look. I’m going to keep my socks on,” even as he said that, he removed it and moved on to the other foot. 

“Keep your socks on and I’ll divorce you,” 

“That’s no proper motive for a divorce, my dear wife, you’re stuck with me,”

“I’m a saint, I decide what’s a proper motive for divorce and I hereby declare keeping your socks on in bed is one, let Ravkans be free of this heresy!”

“Says the one with still one stocking,” he pointed out, muffling his laughter as she hurried to remove it so she could still be right.

    He opened the fastenings of his trousers and stepped out of them once they fell to his ankles. He figured it was fair enough to stay in his breeches and kneeled by her on the bed, lightly stroking her calf. Saints he wanted her. Saints he hoped she wanted him too, even just as a friend one could share a bed with. 

“I might have not gone all the way with a woman before…” he started carefully, helping position her further up the bed. “But I have still practiced a thing or two to make this night worth your while, if you’ll let me,” he offered with a rakish grin, gently spreading her legs, stopping as soon as he felt her tense.

“What thing…?” she asked with a confused blink and he quietly pondered over orphanages’ utter lack of sex education.

“What were you taught to expect for your wedding night?” he couldn’t help but ask and the immediate reply didn’t surprise him though it still made him wince.

“Pain,”

    He had heard as much from the chats among high-born ladies back when he frequented his mother’s tea parties as a child, letting them all preen over the well-behaved little prince with the silver tongue and concerning themselves little with what else he could hear, figuring he wouldn’t understand anyway. 

“Well, it doesn’t have to hurt, and also we can do lots before actually getting to the part that might hurt a bit. Namely I was thinking of putting my mouth on you,” might as well be blunt and clear.

    Not blunt enough considering her blank stare. 

“Between your legs,” he clarified. 

“Oh,”

“If you want me to, of course, it’s not— necessary or anything… Just pleasurable,”

“ You want to?”

“ Fuck , yes,”

    Her eyebrows shot up in surprise at his unusually crass language, though her body warmed up from the sheer amount of desire she could see in his hazel eyes.

“I meant— No, I meant what I said, actually,” 

    When he had first proposed, she had assumed it was for her powers, for what she represented. And maybe it had been, at first. Alina was not used to being desired. She had been, shortly, by the Darkling, for her powers he wanted to control, for her lifespan that would guarantee him another companion to share eternity with that wasn’t his mother ; by Mal, though she had also never gotten rid of the feeling that maybe it was only since she had her powers, since she wasn’t sickly Sticks anymore, but even he turned out afraid of her in the end, flinching at the sight of her. Nikolai did not fear her. Nikolai did not want to control her. Nikolai could have made this night a perfunctory act to properly officialise their marriage but he didn’t because he wanted her . She had not even noticed the way his breeches strained at the front, his desire obvious enough on his face, laid bare for her. 

“Saints, do whatever you want to me,” she covered her face with her hands and heard more than she saw his laugh as he finished spreading her legs to move between them. “Wait!” he stopped immediately, and that sent another wave of warmth down her core, her body moving along with the tide of desire and want inside of her. “I want to— Take off my underskirt, I want to see your head,” 

“Aye, my lady,” he smiled sharply and slipped underskirt and breeches down her legs, leaving her bare save for her smock. He slid his hands up her waist, lifting his eyes on her questioningly, and at her nod removed the smock as well, heart thumping in his ears at the sight of her small breasts. 

    He did say he would put his mouth between his legs, but he couldn’t help but press a kiss to her sternum first, then another one to the side of her right breast, slowly making his way up to the melody of her sharp little intakes of air. He was rewarded with a gasp when his lips closed around her nipple, flicking his tongue over it and feeling it harden in his mouth. He was forced to lay down on her more to reach her collarbones and a gasp of his own echoed hers when his erection pressed against her knee. She was going to undo him, as his lips roved over every inch of soft bronze skin he could reach, he thought he might actually die tonight. 

    He started traveling down again before looking up to check on her. She looked unsure but did not try to stop him, unsure that he would want to touch her there so intimately rather than whether she wanted it or not. 

    And so he did. He pressed an open-mouthed kiss against her slit, delighting in the surprised spasm of her legs. He wrapped one arm around her left thigh and brought his other hand to the right to caress her lightly as he licked around her folds, pressing the flat of his tongue against every inch of dark flesh he could find. she cried out when the tip of his tongue went up just enough to find the small swell of her clitoris, slipping beneath the hood to tease it and getting her to buck her hips against his face. 

Her hands gripped at the sheets, disoriented, only able to see Nikolai’s golden hair from where she was, clashing greatly with her own still black curls covering her mound. She reached out, meaning to merely put a hand on his head in hope of helping him touch her clit again, but he didn’t need any help for that and when another shock of pleasure went through her she could only grip at the first thing her fingers found: his beautiful locks. She let go as soon as she heard him gasp and he raised outraged eyes on her. She thought him outraged at her pulling his hair until he took her hand to return it on his head, pressing a kiss to her thigh as he kept looking at her.

“You’re gorgeous from this angle,”

“Didn’t I hurt you…?”

“Saints, no, pull as much as you’d like, I have plenty of hair, I can afford losing a few,” he chuckled and gave her another kiss, this time on her mound which he eyed curiously. “Funny the merzost only turned the hair on your head white,” he pointed out.

    Her face went crimson and she gave him a light slap on the top of his head, making him laugh.

“Don’t be embarrassed, I had the same problem. Couldn’t quite ask Tolya to dye my hair down there as Sturmhond, you know, so it was mismatched,”

“I didn’t want to know that!” she giggled and her second hand joined the first in his hair. “I think I prefer what your mouth was doing just before than when it’s talking,” she huffed.

His lips curled up in a devilish smile. “That can certainly be arranged,”

    And just like that, his head dipped once more between her legs. Her back arched when pleasure went through her. Far from the gentle waves of warmths his kisses all over her body and his heated gaze had given her, it felt like shocks and lightning crackling through her at every swipe of his tongue, every scrape of his teeth. Free from the fear of hurting him that way, she pulled on his hair to try and keep him as close as she humanly could, feeling his nose rub against her mound when he sucked on her clit. And then— his tongue was in her. 

    Far from the tales of painful and hard penetration that was to be expected during one’s wedding night, it was soft, warm, pliant, and it didn’t even occur to her to wonder whether it was disgusting or not as she had initially worried when he had suggested the whole thing. The sensation of being filled by something was new, something so hot and that was moving inside of her, something that belonged to a man she liked so much— A noise was buzzing in her ears and she suddenly realized it was, in fact, her. Her, babbling Nikolai’s name over and over in rhythm with the buck of her hips against his face, chasing her pleasure. 

    She was powerless when her orgasm wracked through her, yet it was not unlike the drunken feeling of infinite power claiming the amplifiers had given her. From the arch of her neck to the curl of her toes, her entire body contracted and shivered, somehow both hers more than ever and belonging entirely to the man who had just pulled her apart..

    Man whom she expected to see smiling smugly and throwing a teasing comment her way, or a self-aggrandizing joke his own, when she opened her eyes, but there was none of that. His hazel eyes looked the darkest she had ever seen them, pupils completely blown as his lips were shiny with her slick —oh, saints, she realised how wet she was and most of it wasn’t his saliva. He caught her eyes flicking to his mouth and ran his tongue over it before crawling on top of her, all his muscles straining from his restraint.

“Alina…” he mumbled in a strangled voice, running a hand along her side.

“Nikolai,” she hiccuped back and wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him closer so they could kiss again.

    She couldn’t even find it in her to care about her taste on his lips, especially as he dragged his clothed erection against her core and immediately swallowed her overstimulated moan. 

“Wait—” he gasped between kisses. “I need to— Take off—” he wiggled out of her hold so he could slide down his breeches, ditching them away across the room so he could press himself against her, both of them gasping at the feeling. Alina's hands scrambled to reach behind Nikolai's back, eager to touch every inch of him, fingertips searching and feeling each ridge and bump from his many battle scars, finding the occasional mole and feeling the strong line of his spine. Then they went down and gripped his hips, abruptly pulling him toward her to try and get them what they both wanted. He let out an undignified noise that was more a pitiful squeak than a moan, the head of his cock hitching against Alina's slit and nearly entering her. 

"Wait, Alina, Alina—" he pinned her down to the bed, her frustrated whine going straight to his painfully hard cock. "It is going to hurt if we just do it like that, alright? Can you trust me?" 

"Only if you hurry," she huffed petulantly. 

Nikolai gave her an indulgent chuckle, softly stroking her cheek. The heat between them hadn't died down in the least, merely changed shape to become a warm lick of heat deep within them rather than the raging fire consuming them mere instants before. Alina pulled him down so their bodies could meet once more, soon followed by their lips, then their tongues exploratorily dancing together. She took her time to map the expanse of his shoulders and back, fingertips finding the two long scars that ran down, forever reminders of his monstrous transformation. She moaned when she felt his hand rather than his cock dip between his legs, his thumb softly rubbing against her clit, mindful of how sensitive it still was from his mouth. A long finger entered her after sliding up and down her slit and she blushed when her body clenched down on him, making him chuckle softly. 

"You want me," he commented, and it should have been a teasing comment, maybe he tried to make it a teasing comment, but he merely sounded in utter awe at the fact. 

Not trusting her voice as he started to thrust his finger in and out, Alina nodded with a little whimper, lifting her legs to wrap them around his hips. He pushed a second finger in, leaning closer to kiss her neck, pressing his nose against the underside of her jaw. 

"To prepare you," he whispered. 

She cast a long glance down the length of his body, nervously swallowing at the sight of his cock straining against his stomach. It was prettier than she thought it would be, was her absurd thought. Some of her fellow girls back in the military told her a little about it, the ones who had tried a thing or two with boys anyway. That a dick looked a lot like a shriveled mushroom-y thing, that it stank more often than not (to be fair, a King and a soldier did not have the same access to hygiene) though she wasn't close enough to actually tell if it smelled anything— unlike Nikolai who had his face to her crotch just before, and she hoped it hadn't smelled, saints she didn't even think about that, and should she have offered to do the same to him afterward? Should she offer now? 

"Nikolai— would you— do you— do you want me to put my mouth on— like you did?" 

The look Nikolai gave her could only be qualified of bewildered as he stopped what he was doing, two fingers still deep inside her, and it then turned bemused. 

"Alina, dear, another time if the offer still stands and you'd actually like that, absolutely. Right now, if you do that… we are not going to be able to properly consummate that wedding before I recover," he admitted with a chuckle. "Do you feel ready? Do you need more?" 

A third finger teased her, not quite joining the other two inside but still making her clench in anticipation, stirring the pool of lava in her core. Yes, she needed more. No, she didn't want another finger. 

"I'm ready, I think… it's still going to hurt a little bit, isn't it?" 

"Well, a little bit, yes. But if you are in a lot of pain you need to tell me, that would not be normal," he warned. "I'm serious, don't try to bear with it if it really hurts," she nodded meekly, pulling herself up a bit so she could lay her head against his shoulder. 

He pulled his fingers out of her in a wet noise that had even her ears become red and, because it was Nikolai, and such tenderness without trying to drive her mad at the same time was starting to be suspicious, brought them to his mouth, slowly sucking each of them clean of her juices. She swore she felt herself become wetter at the sight, unable to take her eyes off his shiny lips. Two can play this game, Lantsov , she ferociously thought, although Lantsov might as well apply to her now. He had more experience than her but she was nothing if not a quick learner. 

"Nikolai… I want you in me, stop delaying…" she hoped her voice sounded as lascivious as it did in her head, and perhaps it did because Nikolai looked ready to jump her bones. 

"Yes, moya tsaritsa," he murmured against her lips, lining himself up against her pussy. 

She gulped at the feeling of his blunt head against her hole but nodded encouragingly, letting out a breathless moan when he pushed in. 

For some absurd reason it hadn't occurred to her he would do it slowly. She had pictured a sharp and immediate pain, not this long agony of pleasure, feeling every single inch of him penetrate her. The stretch ached slightly, as he told her it would. She wasn't sure what she expected from losing her virginity, to feel something inside of her break perhaps, blood, some kind of tangible mark to stain her soul to signify she was not pure anymore— there was none of that, and as they were joined together in such a delightful manner, there was nothing more absurd than thinking of this as impure.

    A soft hand caressed her cheek— a soft trembling hand, she realised, her glassy eyes focusing again. The air was once more knocked out of her lungs, this time by the sight of Nikolai on her, body weight resting on one forearm next to her head so he could use his other hand to touch her oh so tenderly. His blush had spread all the way down his chest and even his eyes looked wet. She reached up to lightly swipe her thumb under his hazel eyes, his eyelids fluttering close. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked her. 

“Full,” was her immediate, too honest, answer, getting a chuckle out of him. “Good,” she added, closing her eyes again to fully take in the new sensations. “I didn’t think it’d fit, honestly,” she admitted with an embarrassed laugh.

“Well—” Nikolai knocked his hips forward a little and a surprised moan spilled past Alina’s lips. “It doesn’t yet, actually,” he buried his face against her shoulder, gathering her in his arms to hold her close. “You drive me mad, I’m afraid to hurt you,” 

“You can’t,” she whispered back and he finally, finally, finished pressing into her until their hips fully met, snuggly fitting together, made for each other. “Please, move,” she begged, digging her nails into his back. She figured he said yes, though his voice was so strangled it was hard to tell, and she was glad she wasn’t the only one completely undone. 

    Then he started moving and she stopped thinking. Focusing entirely on the languid thrusts of his cock inside of her. He panted above her, one hand now buried in her hair, his lips pressed to her head and murmuring words of adoration to her. None of the worship she had ever received as a saint could measure up to his moaned prayer at the altar of her body. His hand left her hair and she whined but not for long as it instead slipped between their bodies, slick with sweat, so he could press his thumb against her clit. She bucked up and cried out in pleasure as it caused him to thrust even deeper in her, the head of his cock hitting something on the way that had her see stars.

    Even behind the fog of pleasure, she saw the twinkle in his eyes, the one he always got when he figured out how something worked. Something, here, being her. He stopped moving just so he could angle his hips differently, lifting her up a little before starting again. His only miscalculation was that he did not realise what it would do to him, as he started thrusting into her again and she arched her back with the most delicious cry, her body tightening down on his cock like a vice. He swore loudly, dropping his head, his entire body straining from the effort to keep moving. He could never have enough of her cries and moans, never have enough of her nails raking across his back or her legs crossed so tightly around his hips he wouldn’t be surprised to find bruises on both of them there afterward. He was drowning in the best of ways and, just as he thought they had reached a point of no-return, she sobbed her pleasure beneath him, tears running down her cheeks, and clenched down on him. Alarm bells rung in his mind and he could have cried of frustration when he forced himself to pull out, a struggle with how tightly entangled they were, spilling his seed all over her stomach, his release coursing through him like a shock of lightning. 

    They all but collapsed together on the bed, their pants filling the royal room as they loosely held each other. 

“I didn’t mean to—” he started, having initially, back when his mind had still been clear, meant to come somewhere civilised, like in his own hand, but Alina cut him off by running a finger across one of the white streaks and bringing it to her lips, her tongue darting out to taste it as his mouth hung open. “Saints, you are going to kill me,”

“It’s only fair!” 

    He got up on shaky legs to retrieve a towel in their bathroom, dipping it in the washbasin before coming back to Alina. She rolled over on her back to help him, watching him kneeling at her side and cleaning her through half-shut eyelids.

“You’re so pretty,” she mumbled.

“That is one I don’t get often,” he replied, bemused. He leaned closer to press a kiss to her stomach but thought better of it before he reached her skin. What now? Were they still just friends (or rather, was he still just a friend to her) and this had only been for the sake of their political marriage? 

“Was it worth the wait…?” she asked, making him look up and smile roguishly.

“Very much. Could have even waited a few centuries more and it would have still been worth it. And you?”

“Mmmh,” she stretched like a lazy cat and it was answer enough before she took the towel from him, folding it to get a clean side as she sat up to wash him up too. 

    They stayed quiet for a long time, enjoying the comfortable silence as they prepared themselves for bed. Talks of whether to get separate rooms or not could wait, Nikolai decided, as Alina slipped under the heavy blanket and did not object to him joining her and gathering her in his arms.

“Good night, Alina,” he whispered as softly as he could, as if he feared bursting their bubble by talking too loudly.

“Good night, Nikolai,” she answered quietly, pressing her cheek to his chest, lulled to sleep by his steady heartbeat.

    The first time it happened, it felt like a nightmare. Horrible but unreal. But there was no waking up from it. When Nikolai came back to himself, he was no longer in the bed he had fallen asleep in. Alone, as they had chosen to sleep in separate beds. Or rather, Alina had chosen, but as his eyes slowly came back into focus and he realised the familiar stench in his nostrils was from the litres of blood sprayed all around him, he thanked the saints for it. 

    He had turned into the volcra, the demon, again. 

    His body felt like a ton of lead and one look at his clawed hands showed he hadn’t fully turned back into himself yet. 

    Light brutally entered wherever it was that he laid, it was only moonlight yet it burnt his eyes enough for him to close them. He hadn’t realised it was completely dark before yet he could still see.

“Nikolai!” The voice reached him as though he was underwater but he recognized Alina’s. He tried to garble her name back but his mouth was full of razor-sharp fangs he nicked his tongue on. He didn’t even notice— as the taste of blood was already everywhere in his mouth. 

“Don’t approach him, Alina, it’s dangerous!” 

    The next thing Nikolai felt was Alina’s warm hands on his, as she hadn’t listened to Zoya’s order, true to herself. 

“Nikolai, can you hear me?”

    Not trusting even a hum to not sound like a hungry growl, he nodded. More warmth surrounded him, sunshine draping over him like a blanket. The full body ache set deep in his bones did not go away but he felt the claws and fangs retract. Smells, sounds and tastes stopped all being so sharp and intense, leaving him with only his exhaustion, and he dropped his heavy head on their joined hands.

“Please… Please just tell me I didn’t hurt anyone,”

“Shhh you didn’t…” she promised, running a hand through his hair. He could feel the way her fingers kept catching against bloody knots. “The Crown just owes four cows to someone, now,”

    He let out a weak chuckle.

“I can’t wait to write that letter. Please accept those four cows as compensation for the ones you lost due to the King’s nightly munchies, they were delicious, by the way, great work,” his tone was not as light as he tried to make it and he opened his eyes, squinting to make out his surroundings through the halo of warm light Alina still had him covered in. Even through the haze he could make out mangled parts in pools of blood. It turned his stomach, making the iron tang on his tongue even harder to ignore, but at least it was indeed cow bodies. He turned his gaze away from the macabre spectacle, eyes locking on a form standing guard by a large wooden door —he must have been in a barn. Zoya, dutifully giving them space though her hands were flexing by her sides, ready to blast him if he showed any signs of trying to bite Alina. Good. And then, crouched down in front of him, Alina herself. Her kefta rode up, showing her bare legs and the hem of her nightshirt. She must have jumped out of bed as soon as they realised he was gone. 

“Good thing I left that window open for the night,” he mumbled to himself.

“You flew through the other one, actually,”

    He groaned and closed his eyes again. The Darkling could have at least given his creature a degree of intelligence before infecting him with it. Then again, he supposed that had been exactly the point, the punishment . Turn him into a mindless beast.

“Let’s go home,” Alina coaxed him softly. 

Alina would never stop being amazed and, to a degree, creeped out by Nikolai's uncanny ability to change back into his perfect prince (or rather perfect King, now) costume. They had sneaked back into the Grand Palace and it had taken him all of thirty minutes to scrub himself from all the blood, change into a fresh set of clothes and step out of his bedroom looking like he had spent his night sleeping and resting instead of flying around Ravka and mangling livestock. His voice was as even and composed as it usually was, a stark contrast to his quiet plea just one hour earlier, begging her to tell him he hadn't hurt anyone. As to not raise the alarm, they discreetly summoned the rest of the Triumvirate into a lounge room, as if sitting around for some tea. Genya was not easily fooled though, immediately asking what was wrong.

    The air was thick enough to cut as Nikolai explained the situation, a heavy silence settling all over them once he was done. Finally, Genya spoke up.

“Do you think… Could that mean the Darkling is somehow… back?”

“No, I doubt it,” Nikolai shook his head. “Though his death allowed me to become human again, I wasn’t cured, I still had the scars and I still felt it lurking in a corner of my mind. I can’t say I’m too shocked by this development, though I thought I would feel it happening. I think it will get worse and I think we should prepare ourselves for the worst case scenario,”

“Which would be…?” Alina asked hesitantly.

“Him turning into a volcra forever, eating you in front of the entire court, turning in the middle of people and causing a carnage, take your pick, there are lots of worst case scenarii here,” Zoya grimly answered before turning to David. “You started thinking about a cure with the healers, how is that going?”

    Although most people who knew about Nikolai’s predicament avoided staring at his gloved hands out of politeness, David did exactly that, likely picturing the dark lines underneath from memory.

“We have a few ideas we could try out… We were thinking some form of exposure therapy using Alina’s light,”

“...Our Tsar turns into a volcra and your solution is sunbathing?”

“What about merzost?” Alina cut them off. Merzost was the source of their problem but since her power cancelled the Darkling’s out, couldn’t it be the solution too?

    David looked at her with a thoughtful expression before shaking his head.

“We don’t even know what exactly the Darkling did, imitating it would be impossible,”

    And would she even be able to do it, anyway? Something the Darkling elaborated after centuries of studying the small science and merzost. She had made progress since the war, Zoya trained her personally, and she had been reading more, but how long would it take her to catch up to his level of knowledge?

    Too long , she knew, glancing at Nikolai who did not look happy with the idea anyway.

“I’d rather avoid merzost. Let’s try the… Exposure therapy, sunbathing, whatever you call it. Until we find a cure, though, we need a temporary solution. I’ll have chains commissioned, solid ones. I don’t know if I’m only going to turn during my sleep, but it would solve that at least,”

“How will you be able to sleep while chained down to your bed?”

“Oh, Alina, perhaps you could sing me a lullaby or two,” he winked before shrugging. “I’ve slept in chains before, and not in a bed, I’ll be fine,”

    Alina decided she did not want to know why he had gotten himself chained up at some point.    

    They talked about safety and confidentiality measures, keeping the secret much harder now that it couldn’t simply be hidden by gloves. Her eyes caught Nikolai’s hands flexing against his thighs beneath the table and she nudged his foot with hers. He gave her a surprised look, his hands stilling, then a smile that did not fool her, so she nudged him harder.

“I should move rooms,” she decided.

“Our Tsar turns into a volcra and now you want to sleep with him?”

“In the en-suite!” Alina cried out, ears reddening. She had heard enough from Zoya about the fact that they slept in separate rooms and hadn’t done anything since their wedding night, of her own decision. Nikolai was her friend, but she knew of his feelings for her, it wouldn’t be right to entertain a physical relationship knowing it wouldn’t mean the same thing to them. “If I’m in the room next to his I can intervene quicker to help him turn back!”

“Can you actually help?” Genya asked curiously.

“Well… In the barn…” she exchanged a look with Nikolai, who had diplomatically not looked at her earlier.

“It helped,” he confirmed. “I wasn’t turned back yet but her light helped,”

“I think we should do this by the lake, it’d be even better,”

“I’m not sure what the grishas would think about their Tsar using the sun summoner to perfect his tan,”

    Nikolai laughed, shifting on his chair to try and get rid of the ants in his legs. When David had asked Alina and him to free up their schedule (a feat in itself), he did not expect to have his hands held by Alina for two hours straight. A moment he would have greatly enjoyed if not for the presence of David and two healers in the room and the heat emanating from Alina’s hands, making him feel like he was getting baked like a loaf of bread.

“One hundred and thirty minutes mark: no change,” one of the healers, a shu woman looking to be in her thirties (not that he ever really knew with grishas), announced.

“How much longer?”

“Tired of me already, moi Tsar?” Alina teased him.

“Never, but we could be holding hands while doing anything more interesting than just sitting here,”

“I think that’s enough,” the healer (Xiao, as Nikolai finally remembered) confirmed. The light from Alina’s hands receded but she did not let go of him. The scars on his hands were unchanged. “But we’ll do it again regularly,” Nikolai internally groaned. Maybe they should bring books the next time. Or ask to do it without the supervision, so they could chat more freely. 

    Alina finally released his hands, giving a long look at them before standing up and straightening her kefta. She thanked David and the healers before leaving, waiting for Nikolai at the door so they could walk back to the Grand Palace together. His gloves were back on but he gave her a smile, even as she scowled worriedly. 

“I shouldn’t have killed him,” she confessed as they made their way through the corridor, earning a surprised raise of eyebrows.

“The Darkling?”

    Alina had not directly killed that many people so the list was short. She nodded meekly. 

“Maybe— If I had just made him prisoner, we could have gotten him to tell us how to help you,”

“I highly doubt that, chances are he would have just taunted us about it and frankly? I wouldn’t have trusted anything he would have said so even if he gave us the solution on a silver platter, I wouldn’t have risked it. Next thing I know I’m not a volcra anymore but a toad,” 

    She snorted in spite of herself and nudged him. “You’d make a very annoying toad,”

    He shoved her back, a bit too strongly and he had to grab her arm to stop her from stumbling, the two of them giggling like teenagers.

    Genya stood quietly as Alina read the letter in her hand. Once upon a time, she had been ordered to not let the letters from this man reach her. Now, she almost wished that was still the case, as she feared they would just hurt her. Alina’s face stayed neutral.

    News from the orphanage. She pinched her lips together.

“He thinks I should come visit,”

    Genya did not even try to hide the face she pulled so Alina was quick to correct her words.

“The orphanage. To see the way it was restored. Maybe meet some of the children… He thinks it’d be good for me, after seeing it—” she stopped, the memory of it burned down still too fresh in her mind. “And it’d be good for the orphanage, to be visited by the Sun Saint and all that… And remind people of their Queen’s roots, probably,”

“Sounds like something Nikolai would say,” Genya pointed out sceptically.

    Alina gave a guilty smile. Some things were bound to rub off on her, after all. 

“Maybe seeing the orphanage would be good for you, but what about seeing Mal?”

    She could still see it when she closed her eyes. The flinch when she had called her light to her once again. After coming back to the world of the living, Mal had lost his amplification powers, and with them his tracking talent. He had assumed Alina would be the same. Had promised her a new life for the two of them, Malyen Oretsev and Alina Starkov left to burn. Told her he could handle a bad mood, a knife to the chest had been nothing. 

    Nikolai had asked her to summon again, disbelieving that she would have truly lost all her powers. So she had. And the light came to her, freely, feeling even more natural than before. But all she had seen had been the way Mal flinched away from her. 

    She hadn’t decided to go back to the Grand Palace and marry Nikolai then, but she at least knew she would not be coming back with him to the orphanage. Even if the grief burnt a hole in her heart.

“I’m a big girl, Genya, I can handle it. I think I’ll go. I need to get out of the Grand Palace a little, anyway, I feel cooped up in here,”

“I could come with you,”

“You could but I said no,”

    Nikolai did not hide his scowl quick enough and Alina laughed, reaching up to pinch his cheek.

“You are really not used to being told no, are you?”

“I’m used to being able to turn “No” into “Yes”, which I found works spectacularly badly with you once you have decided something,”

    He could anyway, Alina knew, after all he was the Tsar, she couldn’t actually tell him not to go somewhere just because she wanted to go alone. But he wouldn’t. 

    The preparations hadn’t taken long, the trip meant to be simple, the Queen and Saint reconnecting with her humble roots, visiting the place that saw her grow up. Nobody could guess her nerves were raw from the prospect of seeing Mal again. Would there be regrets? From him, from her? Should she avoid using her powers for his sake? 

    Nikolai watched her go, many of the same concerns running through his mind. Would there be regrets?

“Tamar is with her, she’ll be fine,”

“Mh,”

“And she can slice off mountain tops, actually it’s Tamar who will be fine with her,”

“Mh,”

“Tolya, he’s not worried she’ll get attacked, he’s worried she’ll get attached ,”

    Nikolai did not even grace Zoya’s words with an answer, watching the fire slowly dying in the chimney of the study they had gathered in to spend the evening. He could be worried about both, attacks and assassination attempts were rarely as straightforward as a physical ambush, he would know. As for the other problem… There was nothing he could do. 

    He’d be lying if he pretended it hadn’t been very convenient for Malyen to be put off by Alina’s powers. If she had truly lost them… Nikolai knew he would have lost her as well. They would have burnt a fake body for her and given Alina Starkov a grave. He would have gone back alone to the Grand Palace. 

    So if Malyen were to change his mind, to get over his fear, or if Alina convinced herself she could just live without using her powers ever— No. He had seen the grief and loss in her eyes when she thought she had lost them. He knew (he was not naive) some of it had been for the Darkling’s death, but it hadn’t been all. In spite of them being thrusted on her so late in life, of giving her such a struggle, forcing her into a destiny she hadn’t wanted, Alina loved her powers, he was sure of that. She deserved a life surrounded with people who loved them as well. 

“She likes you, captain, she won’t stay with him,” Tolya said helpfully, getting a laugh out of him.

“I know she likes me. But she loved Malyen. I know that’s not your thing, Tolya, but trust me there’s a huge difference. No point worrying about it all, anyway,” he would still worry about it, it would still gnaw at his heart and make him feel every inch the greedy selfish monster that lurked in his bones, “I just hope she’ll be fine and unhurt by the time she comes back,”

“If she comes back,” Zoya taunted, and he knew she said it just to get a rise out him.

“You know just as well as me that the Alina who tried to run from her responsibilities is far behind,” She might have died on the True Sea, actually. “She’ll come back,”

    The trip back was gruelling and had Alina curse out horses, carriages, roads, the world, the Making, a few Saints and Nikolai (for his terrible intendence of the road, although rationally he couldn’t change all the roads in just a few months of rule). 

    When the driver finally announced Os Alta, jolting her awake as she had been dozing off and copiously drooling on the carriage’s curtain in a terribly unsaintly manner (thankfully the only person in the carriage with her was Tamar, who for all she worshipped her had seen her at her worst and most miserable already and would not be phased by a little drool). She pushed open said curtain to glance outside.

“The weather is miserable,” she mentioned, voice slightly raw from her slumber.

“You could get rid of it,” Tamar mused, getting an undignified snort out of her.

“If I start summoning the sun to chase away the rain everyday, Ravka’s peasants might burn me at the stake for ruining their crops. We can endure a little rain,”

“That’s very reasonable,”

    They’d be dry under the roof of the Grand Palace, anyway. She could see its rooftops from where they were, and she was surprised to find herself eager to be back there. In spite of how stifling it could be at times, there was also a warmth that was now familiar, the Little Palace, her friends, Nikolai—

“Speaking of reasonable, I hope Tolya managed to keep Nikolai from doing too many reckless things,”

“Becoming Tsar steadied him a lot. I remember back on the Volkvolny, we did not even try managing him,”

“It must have been… Lively,”

    Tamar gave her a toothy grin. Alina knew her well enough by now to know she probably prefered the Alina who sliced off mountain tops than the one who reasonably decided against getting rid of the rain, and the Nikolai who fed a man’s fingers to his dog to the dutiful King mindful of his every decision.

“A Captain’s word is Law on his ship. The only way of disagreeing is by leaving or challenging him for his position. Neither Tolya nor me were interested in that, Sturmhond promised us something for our loyalty and we believed he would fulfil it,”

“What did he promise you? If that’s not too personal,”

“You, Sankta,”

    Alina’s eyebrows shot up at that. A mild feeling of uncomfort she had come to associate with that whole being worshipped business seeped inside her, though it was duller than it had been, as she got used to it.

“He wanted us on his ship, but Tolya and I were with the Followers of the Sun. He said waiting around for the Sun Summoner was useless and what would our Saint think of worshippers who stood around doing nothing but pray?” In true Nikolai fashion, he had gotten that right, Alina cared not for worshippers who dedicated themselves to praise and prayers to her grandeur when so many people needed help and so much needed done in Ravka. “Come with me, he said, and I’ll find your Saint for you. We had never met a man quite like that, and he convinced us. We left the Followers of the Sun and joined him. And what do we know? You’re here, now,”

    Alina was willing to bet this younger Nikolai (how old could he have been? Nineteen? Twenty?) had fully talked out of his arse when promising the twins he would find the fabled Sun Summoner for them, and he was lucky she was even born in the same era as him. If Aleksander was to be believed (a stretch) there had been no sun summoners in centuries. What had been the odds? Perhaps some things were meant to be.

“Did he also predict he would marry me?” 

“No, then again that would have been blasphemy and I would have killed him for it,”

    And although the prospect of Nikolai being murdered merely for some words he said (which, mind you, was likely how he would one day meet his end) was horrifying, Alina laughed as she only now realised he must have gotten the shovel talk of the century from the twins when they decided to marry. She glanced outside again, as their journey was nearly over at last, and as the wheels of the carriage hit the pavement outside the Grand Palace, her heart jumped in her chest at the sight of Nikolai waiting in the large door frame, a step back so he wouldn’t get wet from the rain. 

    She hopped out as soon as they came to a stop and, without a care for the rain drenching her hair and kefta, ran to him. She vaguely heard Tamar call after her to take her umbrella but she was too far away now, and Nikolai closed the distance between them by stepping out of the palace, reaching out to brush a wet strand of white hair away from her reddened cheeks, her breathing heavy.

“What’s the hurry for?” he mused, arranging another strand of hair away as they all started sticking to her skin.

“Well, it’s raining,” she huffed back, although they were both standing under it unbothered, his own blond curls growing heavy. 

“If only someone could summon the sun,”

    She beamed at him and, with a relief she could hardly conceal after days of trying to not use her powers around Mal, mindful of his comfort, brought her hands together. A small ball of light and heat rose between them, hovering above their heads and evaporating any raindrow that dared come too close. Nikolai’s hazel eyes shone as he looked up and he did not change expression when he looked back at her, cradling her cheeks in his hands.

“Welcome home, Alina,”