Ithyris makes a sound against his mouth. A sound that is not a word and not a groan and not a sob but something that exists in the space where all three meet, a sound of breaking open, and his hands find Bryn's body and pull him in until there is no air between them, chest against chest and hips against hips and his arms around Bryn so tight that breathing is irrelevant because Bryn has the prince and the prince has him and the breathing can wait.
Bryn pulls him down.
Not inside. Not to the bed. Down. Here. On the balcony, on the warm stone, under the open sky. Ithyris follows without resistance, sinking to his knees as Bryn sinks to his, and they are face to face on the balcony floor with the stars above them and the kingdom below.
Bryn pulls the prince's shirt over his head. His hands find the scales on Ithyris's chest, the hard planes of his stomach, the V of violet that disappears beneath his waistband, and he traces it with his fingers and the muscle beneath tightens and the prince's breath catches. Ithyris's hands are on Bryn's shirt, careful of the bruises, pulling the fabric up and over his head with a tenderness that breaks against the urgency of the kiss.
Skin to skin. The cool air and the warm stone and the heat of the prince's body and the night sky above them, vast and open, and Bryn pushes Ithyris back and the prince goes, down onto the stone, and Bryn is over him, straddling his hips, his hands on the prince's chest. The position is new. He has not been on top. He has been against walls and beneath the prince and on his knees and Ithyris has held him and lifted him and carried him and Bryn has let him because the trust was the gift. But tonight the gift is different. Tonight Bryn is the one who takes.
"Bryn." The prince's hands are on his thighs, gripping, and his eyes are dark and wet and blazing. "Your injuries. You should be..."
"I should be exactly where I am." He leans down and presses his mouth to the prince's throat. Ithyris's pulse hammers against his lips. "I should be here. With you. On this balcony. Under this sky. I should be showing my husband that I am alive and I am his and I am not broken."
The prince's hands tighten on his thighs. His breath shudders out and the bond between them is blazing, wide open, and what flows through it is not just want. It is need. The desperate, post-crisis need to confirm with bodies what the mind already knows: that they are here, that they survived, that the almost-losing did not become the losing.
Bryn works the prince's laces. His hands are steady. The bandages on his wrists are white in the starlight and Ithyris's eyes fix on them and his jaw clenches and Bryn takes the prince's face in his hands and turns it back to him.
"Look at me," he says. "Not at the bandages. At me."
The prince looks at him. His eyes are bottomless.
Bryn frees him from his trousers. Ithyris is hard, has been since the kiss, and Bryn wraps his hand around him and strokes once and the prince's hips lift off the stone and his head falls back and the sound he makes is raw and open and grateful. Brynstrokes him slowly, watching his face, the way the starlight plays across his features and the way the scales shimmer on his throat and the way his mouth parts and his hands grip Bryn's thighs with a strength that will leave marks. Bryn wants the marks. He wants every mark the prince leaves on him because the prince's marks are not violence. They are worship.
He strips his own trousers. The stone is warm beneath his knees and the air is cool on his skin and he is naked on the balcony of the Drekian palace under the open sky and he has never felt less exposed. He rises up on his knees. The prince understands. Ithyris's hand finds him, fingers pressing, the quiet click of retracted claws, and Bryn is sore from the cell and the cold and the hours of tension and the prince's touch is gentle, working him open with a patience that is at odds with the desperation in his eyes.
"I'm ready," Bryn tells him. "I need you."
Ithyris positions himself. Bryn lowers onto him.
The stretch is slow and aching and perfect. He takes the prince in by inches, his hands braced on Ithyris's chest, his thighs trembling, and the sensation of the prince filling him from this angle is different, deeper, gravity pulling Ithyris into him with a completeness that makes his eyes close and his breath stutter and his body clench. The prince grips his hips and his fingers are shaking and his jaw is locked and he is holding back, holding still, letting Bryn set the pace, letting him take what he needs.
Bryn takes all of him.
He sinks down until the prince is buried to the hilt and their bodies are flush and the bond between them detonates. Not the slow build of previous encounters. A detonation. The prince's pleasure and Bryn's pleasure colliding in the connection with a force that blanks his vision and he feels everything, Ithyris's body inside his and his body around the prince's and the electric,overwhelming rightness of being connected to this man in every way a person can be connected.
He moves.
Slowly at first. Rising and sinking with long, rolling movements that drag the prince against that spot inside him on every stroke and the pleasure builds in deep, resonant waves. Ithyris's hands are on his hips, guiding, steadying, and his eyes are locked on Bryn's face and Bryn is the one in control. He is the one setting the rhythm. He is the one taking the prince apart and the power of it is intoxicating and intimate and nothing he has experienced before.
"You came for me," he says, and his voice is rough and broken and the words are punctuated by the rhythm of his body rising and falling. "You burned a kingdom and punched through a wall and flew three hours slow because I was sleeping on your back."
The prince's hands tighten on his hips. "I would do it again."
"I know." He leans forward, changing the angle, and the shift drives Ithyris deeper and they both groan and his hands are on the prince's chest and the prince's heartbeat is hammering beneath his palms. "I know you would. That's why I love you. Not because you're a dragon. Because you're a man who would tear apart the world and then fly home slowly."
Ithyris's eyes fill. His hips thrust up, hard, involuntary, and the force lifts Bryn off his knees and drives the prince into the center of him and Bryn cries out, sharp and bright, the sound ringing off the stone walls and carrying into the night, and he doesn't care who hears. Let the mountain hear. Let the kingdom hear. Let every star in the sky hear the sound of him loving his husband.
The pace builds. He is riding the prince now, the slow tenderness giving way to urgency. Ithyris's hips meet his on every downstroke and the sound of their bodies connecting is wet and rhythmic and the prince's hands slide from his hips tohis waist to his ribs, pulling him down harder, and his touch is everywhere, hot and claiming and reverent.
"Mine," the prince says. Torn from him. "Mine. My husband. My mate. My... Bryn..."
"Yours." Bryn is shaking. The pleasure is cresting. The bond is screaming between them, the feedback loop spiraling. "Yours. Always. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. You don't have to be afraid. I'm yours."
Ithyris sits up. The motion drives him impossibly deeper and his arms wrap around Bryn and they are chest to chest, Bryn's legs locked around the prince's waist, and Ithyris is holding him the way he held him in the cell, completely, desperately, and he buries his face in Bryn's neck and thrusts up into him with a rhythm that is losing its shape, becoming ragged.
Bryn comes with the prince's arms around him and the prince's cock inside him and the prince's breath hot against his neck and the stars above them and the word yours still on his lips. The orgasm hits with the force of a held breath finally released, his body clenching around Ithyris in waves, his cock pulsing between them untouched, and through the bond he feels the moment his pleasure shatters the prince's last restraint. Ithyris follows with a broken sound, his hips driving deep, his arms crushing Bryn against him, and Bryn feels the prince come inside him in hot, flooding pulses and Ithyris's whole body shakes and his mouth is open against Bryn's throat and he is saying Bryn's name, just his name, the way he says it when there are no other words left.
They stay.
