The Way We Live

True Love

Author's note: Warnings for both blood and sex

Enjoy!

~*~

Ten years ago, or perhaps even five, if someone would have asked Aeler what love was he would have laughed right in their face. Love was nothing more than a luxury he'd respond sometimes, or if he was well into his cups, love was nothing more than a lie; a false and gallant name given to manipulation. When he was a boy, and foolish, he had thought the cruel games his master played with him were love, but now, now he knew better. There was no such thing as love, only lust, want and greed. People fucked because it felt good, because they wanted something, or they wanted to hurt one another. That was it.

But that was before he had met Dasha. He met Dasha, and he loved her. He knew that with a ringing certainty in his bones. The love that others spoke of was still shit by and large, but real love, true love, what he shared with his wife wasn't a lie. It was simply very, very rare.

He looked up at her, her long hair unbound, spilling over her shoulders like blood, stunning as always, even moreso with the flush highlighting her cheeks and chest and sweat dampening her perfect pale skin, a drop or two rolling between her high, firm breasts. His hands, large and scarred lightly traveled down her lean sides, and down to her belly. She was slim and taut there, but despite all the ointments and oils she had rubbed over her skin, there still remained the faint, pale scars of stretchmarks, betraying her previous pregnancy. He traced over them, lightly, almost reverent, until her hand swatted at his, her green eyes flashing, her hips flexing over his. He laughed, low and throaty, and obediently moved his hands back to her hips, his own rolling up in turn, pressing his cock deeper into the wet heat lying between her legs. He was rewarded with a long, drawn out moan from her, and she leaned forward, her small, soft hands bracing against his chest, lean thighs flexing slowly as she lazily rode him, her normally sharp eyes hazy as she stared down at him.

Aeler stared up in turn, drinking the sight of her, breath rasping in the back of his throat. His wife, his love. He rolled the word in his mind, turning it over and over. Love yes, but it wasn't the sentimental tripe of songs. Or perhaps that was the smallest part of it. He had been drawn to her beauty, yes, but also to her cruelty that bordered on savagery, the ruthlessness that made her eyes shine bright. He had found a like spirit in her, someone chewed up and spat out with the rest of the dregs, and yet who survived. Thrived even.

Most people might say that he fell in love with her vices. But it was simpler than that: he simply fell in love with her.

Another low sigh trickled from between her soft lips, and Aeler's eyes had fallen closed but he felt her lean forward, hand sliding under their pillows. He opened his eyes then to catch the sight of her, razor in hand.

It had to be a razor, sharper than any dagger or dirk, forged in Noldor fires, she had told him, her eyes for once without the bitter hatred as she said that name. Forged in the fires of the most skilled smiths, it opened with a whisper, and cut with the blink of an eye.

She didn't need to say anything, they never need to, and Aeler held his hand out, pressing it palm down against his chest. The heavy scarring of his slave's brand stood out, the scar tissue thick and slick with age. It was the screaming raven of his old house, along with the symbols of his master's name, an added vanity. Or would have said that, but for the lettering was recently obliterated by a set of fresher scars, flat and shapeless.

Dasha rolled her hips, slow and deep, just the way he liked, and carefully set the edge of the razor against that flat, scarred surface, and sliced up, her hands steady, avoiding the tendons of his hand, not piercing down to the layer of fat.

Pain blossomed behind Aeler's eyes, starbursts of it ricocheting through his skull, but when he cried out it's from pleasure, not pain, his gasps ragged at the edges.

"Again, again my love." He whimpered out, and of course, Dasha obliged, cutting again, deft and careful, skinning away one more ghost from Aeler. The Easterling felt his chest slick with the hot blood, and looked up at his wife and knows true love.