His muscles swelled from exertion, D’java has seen them do that so many times now, watching those slim, corded shoulders gleam with sweat as he flaps his metal wings, trying to cool off as he lies his Flamberge down, showing her the strong lines of his back.

Those blasted wings gave way to a strong back, with a well-toned front presented. His face, however, proved a landmark to her, refined, oval, with calm grey eyes and a short ponytail made of auburn hair…

But the neck, filled with juicy flesh…

Something animal loves that sight, she’d love to sink her teeth into those shoulders, bite into the meat, devour his sinew and tendons, rip into his throat and drink his life-blood. By the Goddess, but it was strange. The Hae’l had tales of a creature like that, a… Vam’pier, or something like that; perhaps another legend spawned by her people in ages past?

She looks over at him, and he turns and flashes a smile, rolling his left arm to ease the cramp. Their training bouts have become somewhat brutal, now. Already his bare chest is covered with long cuts, oozing blood where her plasma lances didn’t seal the wounds from their heat.

She watches a small drop of blood, beading to fall from his breast and land with the tiniest of sounds. That stench would be the end of her, she knew it! Already the marble was specked with the blood of her friend, the pearly white staining with crimson.

She tugs at her tunic, peeling the material away from her skin, where it had previously stuck. She catches Naba peeking at her chest before she distorted the outline, equal parts boredom, irritation, embarrassment and a maidenly arousal had filled her head as she contemplated, not for the last time, where following where the latter emotion went might lead.

By the Goddess, she had to do something about him. Kaed’jii always said that a male would make her weak, but the heavens forbid it was this male that would prove her undoing!

He points out that she’s been standing there for a minute, now, since her victory in the training bout. Doing nothing but starring at me, he says. Have my wings been torn? Are you ill? Would you like me to-

“Remove your clothes.”

I gasp as I say it, and stifle to hold in a laugh as his face passes through the stages of hope, dismay, confusion, amusement and finally the famous ‘I hope you can explain this one’ look, with the leaning-back posture and the folded arms, the slow smile and that Goddess-damned raised eyebrow. Whenever I had snuck back late at night, he would admonish me lightly for not giving him notice, that the eve’meal might not be cold as I arrived, and that blasted look would stay, till I had finished my excuses.

I held my face cold, condescending. He was my Goddess-damned right-hand man, and he would obey me.

“Remove them.” I repeated.

He stalled, one arm pouching at his hips, slowly slipping his trousers down in a deliberate movement, pausing as they went no further. He had refused to unbuckle them, the leather fastenings over his crotch held firm. By the goddess, he was a tease.

“But M’lady, most off my clothing is gone as of yet. Whyfore would I need to remove the rest? For you see…” Here, he unfastened the damnedblasteddamned straps, his leggings fell to his feet, and he stepped out of them, “… My body bares no wounds there. Or here, should you feel the need to inspect…” He winked and a waving gesture over the bulge in his groin-covering, the strange materials the Hae’l called Bock’sars.

I blinked, and the reality of the situation. I, D’java Sousdawei, am ordering my friend and confidant to strip and satisfy me within this empty forum, surrounded by pillars and open to the sky. It was quiet, it was secluded…

It was perfect.

“No… Please, put those damned pants back on!” I shout at him, my eyes dry and my body aflame. He was wildfire, he was pure, unadulterated napha, he was blinding my vision.

He was making me weak.

I can hear his steps, those bare feet silently gliding over the marble, feel his hands caress my wings, fluttering up my tips and curving down the cartilage that led to my back, before those hands slid around her waist and he pulled me around and held me. We were joined at the hip, but this was…

Different. He smells like musk, and clean linen, and soft water…

I blinked, struggling to regain my senses. “What in the twelve cities-”

He holds a finger to my lips, “Now, Phoenix, why would a lazy man as I put on what has been so delicately removed?” He jerked his head backwards at the clothing now lying in a heap. “It takes much effort to perform like that; I would know why I did it.”

“I know not.”

“How do you stand up to the council, when you cannot lie for a far’worth?”

“By not lying.”

“Goddess-willing, D’java, you are trying my patience…” His voice grew low, raspy, breathless.

Before I knew myself, I had launched at him, sinking my incisors into the crook of his neck, his cries of pain as I drew blood redoubled when our combined weight forced him to the floor, his wings sprawled beneath him.

Her lips began sucking at the spilled blood, greedy for the taste of iron, for the taste of him. He responded in a way she hadn’t ever conceived, by biting at her ear, carving a line along her lobe before leaning back his head to allow her better access to his neck. Softly, and by degrees, she could feel his reactions, the heat of his breath, the strong pounding from his chest, the way his goddess-damned hands had pulled at her hair, the way he’d growled in a feral manner when she’d stopped to look at her handywork, the blood oozing from two punctures in his side, the bruise there was already beginning to colour.

His eyes were tinting with olive as he starred at me, teeth bared.

“You’re mine, Dhamfeer!” He roared, pressing his wings to the ground and pressing me against a pillar, the rough mound of his sex grinding against me as his lips claimed mine, burning old pathways down to my core.

I pushed him away, sending him to tumble to the ground, his eyes half glaring; half pleading as I walked past him, a cold look in my eyes that we both knew was engineered, only looking back when I heard him rise.

“Like I said, Moth, put your damned clothing back on.”

This Napha can burn, perhaps a little longer…

I could hear his fists collide with the pillar he had trapped me to, frustrated beyond bounds.

Naba can wait, I want to hear him beg for me to bite him…