1. The Winter King's Target

I stopped mid-stride as my heart faltered and forgot to start up again. Over the forested hill before me, sounds of battle rang true- clashing metal, painful hisses, grunts and groans of fatal footwork. I flattened my back against a tree and closed my eyes, and after a few deep breaths, ran towards them.

My partner, Lark, was a blur of blonde hair and forest colours as his body gracefully danced around swords and daggers thrust at him by two soldiers. Normally, I loved to watch him fight, but there was no time for that now. Beside him moved a brunette wielding a double-bladed staff, equally as graceful in her dance, as she fended off another two assailants.

I pulled the bow from my back and knocked two arrows. I drew, aimed, and released, and the arrows flew to hit their mark- the empty space left between the female fighter and the Summer Queen's soldiers. Without waiting, I ducked out of sight and moved closer, skirting around a series of ruined stone buildings. The King had said Lark and I were there for a male, but perhaps he was mistaken. All refugees were the same to someone like him, after all.

I took another deep, steadying breath, then rounded the corner, knives in hand. Lark moved wide, allowing me to slip beneath his arm and get close to one of the soldiers as they were committed to a lunge. I stabbed into his extended shoulder with one blade and slid the other across the thin skin of his throat. He fell, and I looked to Lark, who smiled briefly as he nodded towards a ruined wall a short distance away.

"He's there, get him and go! We'll catch up," Lark yelled as he parried another attack, then stabbed into the knee of the closest soldier attacking the female. I nodded and sprinted to the wall, careening over it without thinking, and found a knife at my throat when I landed.

I inhaled sharply and the skin on my neck gave way to the blade, a shallow line of red swelling around the obsidian. I held my hands up, then turned my head to look at the man I was supposed to be saving.

His hair, the colour of hawthorn bark, reflected sun in hues of amber and ebony as it swung from a long ponytail. His skin, paler than most Summer-born, was still the warm, bronzed sand I expected, and much more pigmented than my own ivory complexion. Soft-looking lips pressed together in a near-invisible line beneath wide, adrenaline-tinged eyes. I stared into them, their blue deep and dark as stormy water, drawing me down, drowning my senses until I was left only with the sound of my heart beating in my ears.

Or, maybe it was his heart.

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said softly, "I was sent by the Winter King to bring you and some cargo to him."

"Uh huh," he said skeptically, and as his voice hit my ears, my entire existence reacted to it. Goosebumps erupted across my skin, my lungs forsook their need for air, and my chest threatened to open up and expel my soul, which beat painfully against my ribs in it's desire to go to him.

For a moment, the crashing of swords was silent, the chaos of Summer Light's civil war forgotten. For a moment, the wind stopped rushing, birds forgot their songs, and the Sun paused in the sky. For a moment, nothing mattered except the colour of his hair, his eyes, his skin, nothing mattered except the angles of his face, the shape of his soul, the beating of his heart.

For a moment, I ceased to exist, and there was only him.

"Aevy, get the fuck out of here!" Lark's voice cut through the spell, startling us both, and gave me the advantage I needed to twist the knife out of the male's hand and into my own. His eyes widened and he backed away half a step.

"Let's go!" I yelled, grabbing his arm and forcing him through a crumbled arch to the left of us. Either shock or sense stopped him from arguing. He lingered long enough to scoop up a wooden box, nailed shut and branded with the Summer Queen's insignia, and then we ran into the wooded hills I'd vacated only a few minutes before. I glanced behind, loathe to leave without Lark, but more soldiers had come and I could see neither my partner nor the woman he fought beside. I swallowed hard, held back tears, and pulled the shadows around me. Now wasn't the time for sentiment.

I turned to my charge. He watched me with round, feral eyes, his face shadowed with distrust and hunger, though what kind I couldn't say. I reached my hand out to him and he flinched back, taking a half step away. I dropped my arm, putting open hands at my sides. I took a step forward, and to my relief, he didn't move.

"What's your name?" I breathed, unsure how safe the woods were, but needing to dispel his skittishness. He had to come with me, I didn't have the time to look for him if he snuck away, and neither of us were prepared to run into the soldiers that could be anywhere.

"Dusk," he replied, and his voice rang through me with unsettling depth.

I smiled at him and nodded. "Follow close to me. We need to make it out of these woods as quickly as possible, and we have quite far to go after that before we can stop safely."

"I will not leave my sister," he growled, shifting his footing in case I tried to grab him and run again. My jaw tightened, I inhaled slowly.

"The Winter King contracted us to retrieve you and some cargo. She wasn't mentioned at all, and right now, there is more chance of being killed than not if we try to save her and my partner. Their best chance of survival is together, as is ours. If we go back, we will distract them." His eyes flickered to the right, where sounds of battle could still be heard. His jaw clenched and released, his hands drumming nervously on the side of the crate. I took another slow step towards him, reaching my hand out again. He didn't flinch away. "Please, Dusk, come with me, or I will have to force you into it and I'd honestly rather not. I don't really enjoy being the one holding the leash." 

His eyes flickered down my body, a smirk flashing across his face, and he nodded curtly. I let my breath out and offered him my hand. He shook his head. "You said we need to be quick, but holding onto me will slow us down. Instead, I swear not to leave your side by choice."

"And in return, I swear to get you to the King alive and in one piece. Now, let's go, quietly."

***

I collapsed against the oaken door as soon as the bolt slid into place. Dusk turned a corner, and I heard as he finally set the box he'd carried all day down; his groans of painful relief drowned out the hollow clash of wood dropping onto wood.

Ash covered nearly every surface outside, as it did in many towns that were reclaimed by the Wilds, but inside there was little more than a thin layer of dust on the floor. The cottage's roof had caved in at some point, leaving thatching and shingles in a large portion of the space and blocking off what was probably a staircase leading into an attic room that no longer existed.

I closed my eyes, head leaning back against the door, and took several long, deep breaths. Lark and I often used this forgotten town for various purposes, since tracking in the Wilds was extremely difficult. This was one of my preferred houses; it had enough rooms intact that we could move without tripping over each other, and the kitchen and cellar were still useable. My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn't eaten in over 12 hours. I sighed.

"Hey, are you hungry?" I called to Dusk as I tried to gather the energy to stand. 

"Yes," he replied, his voice low and husky and much too close. I opened my eyes and sucked in my breath. His face was inches from mine as he crouched before me, his eyes darkened by the same emotion I'd seen earlier. This time, though, with it so close, with the danger far behind us, I recognized it. 

I embraced it as it flared in me and lit my body on fire, caressing my soul in a familiarity. My skin tingled, my heart rate rose, and I felt an ache between my thighs worse than I'd ever had. I bit into my tongue, blood filling my mouth, to avoid acting on the lust that roiled in and around me. 

"I'll make something to eat then," I whispered, and turned my face towards the kitchen. With eye contact broken, it was marginally easier to restrain myself, but my desire suffocated the space around me and I found it hard to breathe. 

"I dont want food." 

I didn't move. I couldn't. He was a contract target, and Lark and I had strict rules about investing in contracts outside the bounds of our duties. I had to keep him alive, deliver him to the Winter King, but nothing more. 

Nothing more. 

Dusk grabbed my jaw and turned my head, smashing his mouth into mine without restraint. His teeth cut my bottom lip as he pulled at it, and when my mouth opened for him, his tongue found it's way in. He growled as he tasted the remnants of blood in my mouth, and the hand at my jaw slid lower to squeeze my throat. 

I bit his tongue, drawing blood and another, different, growl from Dusk. He squeezed my throat harder and I gasped as the ache in my body tightened. Without warning, he broke the kiss and flung me sideways onto the floor. My chest hit painfully, but before I could do more than prop myself up, he was on top of me, biting into the side of my neck and pushing my leather leggings down around my knees. 

I arched my back into him as his teeth found a pressure point and gasped. He fumbled with his clothes for a moment, and then he slid into my body and I exploded in stars as pleasure hurricaned through me, loud and thunderous in my ears, destructive and dangerous in my body. I screamed over and over as he repositioned, arm on my back to keep me pinned to the floor, and pushed himself as far into me as my body would allow. Fluid gushed down my legs with every thrust, but he seemed not to notice as he built himself up. 

"Please, Dusk, I-" 

"Aevy," he groaned as he reached his peak. My name rolled off his tongue like the sweetest, most deadly poison, and my body shuddered soul-deep as he sang to it in the truest language it knew. "Ohh, fuck, Aevy."

I lost my breath again, and like it had when I'd met him earlier, the world ceased to exist except for Dusk. I became aware of exactly where his body was, the rhythm at which it beat, the heaviness of his breathing. I felt him as if I lived for him, within him, and nothing else existed at all. 

I began to shake violently, as if my soul was trying to escape my body by force and find a home in his. My breath started up again, panicked and irregular, and I cried, though tears of what I don't know. Dusk fell to my side, and the loss of him filling me hit my psyche like a crater into the moon. I curled into his warmth, sobbing silently for no known reason, and closed my eyes.  

What the fuck just happened.