The pale wrists, the still air, the softest skin under velour, arousal that seems to spill out her eyes and down the occupied throat. Horselord is incriminated by the hammer in his chest. White skies, cut to blind, had but laid on noble lips the golden gleam of spring. He pours over her with pleasure, a new one in each fondle.

“Let that be my worry.”

Her kiss is to soothe. But if he relishes the gust of honesty that binds them tighter each time they speak in ways free of caste, it is also because he enjoys rekindling the darker embers of corruption. It casts a glow on the part of him which prefers shadow.

Yué will not endanger him. Batu offers no comparable promise, pushing her down into the grass now. He stands over her, jaw split, eyes meeting imperial lilac. At length, they rest here. Then they slip down the pointed pink nose to balance on the end of wet lips, stroking through her chest, and gazing over each row of sweetened peaks, dropping last to the velveted warmth guarded by sinuous joining of inner thigh.

“Order me.”

To stay. To go.

---

The Empress was reduced to nothing more than her sensations. She kept record of it all in her head, so that she might be able to call upon it later; details that, if her awareness had not passed over it, might have gone unknown for another lifetime.

For example, his voice, and how it sounded speaking her language, the gruffness of his tongue caressing the syllables in a direct reflection of how he now laid it against her. The gentle pressure that his aura exerted on hers, like two atoms bumping into each other's orbit, which made her shift backwards to accommodate. The grass and how it felt intertwined with her quicksilver fur, his stomach as he positioned above her,

and Yue pressed in-between, burning alive.

The perspective was new, and Yue took a moment to acknowledge it. At first, she could not understand it: she had not looked up at someone in this way since she was in the cradle — who was this man who gazed at her, who was not her husband? Where was this land, that was not the Tianlong she had known, yet had claimed her as easily as Wei Jun claimed her now?

Empress steadied a deep breath, half expecting this to be a most vivid dream. Her mind was prone to imaginings, after all.

Was the silent gasp that escaped her pale lips because she realized the one who hovered so close truly was Batu, meaning that she was safe – or because the reality of Batu had become so suddenly clear, meaning that she was not safe? She lay on the cusp of all the things that had felt so impossible just a moment before, and it had taken nothing more than the want of it and the Mongolian's evocative pressuring.

Truly, it took nothing more than that. What were laws, in the face of sheer desire?

It would be easy to say yes to him, to pursue the belief that his wanting of her was unique. It was, however, more than unique – it was natural. It was so natural that even the snails that hung off leaves did it. Shenlei could do it with Kexin. Batu could enliven her nerve endings, just as was the pleasure-drive of all things that lived.

Lying there, the two were just like anyone else. However –

Any other man would have never approached her. Never would have asked so forwardly for the position of her protector. They would have halted when they had seen her so upset, and carefully selected their words instead of becoming her devil’s advocate. They would have sought to assuage, instead of conflagrate. Any other man would have taken her two prior requests as decree.

Batu did none of these things.

Not even Shenlei would behave with such brazen behavior, without first providing her with the most lavish succor. It was respectful. It was the way Yue was familiar with. It was according to their culture to be noble. However, the comparison gave Yue sight into how the Emperor allowed his desire of her to be secondary to his many, many other pursuits.

There were reasons – years of diplomatic responsibility and heartbreaking losses – that might make him prefer so. The Empress would never question how the Son of Heaven chose to shoulder his incredible responsibility.

She did not feel secondary to Batu.

Nor did she feel this was the place where she needed to force orders in order for her will to be heeded.

Force was not an ability she yielded often, nor was it expected of her when she had Generals and Soldiers to exert force for her. In lieu of force, she clung to belief. The entirety of Tianlong clung to belief; it was the Dynasty’s main structure. They believed that rules were laws written into their soul. The composure of hierarchy had been a gift of the gods.

To subvert it, would be to crumble the foundations of society itself.

Yue began to realize that this was a moment upon which everything hung. Within this moment, she would learn what type of man Batu was – this man, who had been brought to his knees, so willing to lose all that he had for a mere taste of her. This man, who placed himself above her when no other had even thought to. Had he pledged himself to her in truth, and able to honor such vows when held to the fire?

It was not within her capabilities to act with force, not then, not with his eyes raking upon her intimate curves. With a most mechanical gathering of breath, she managed to utter words on her trembling exhale.

Please, came her plea, unhand me.

Then Teng Yue closed her eyes, breath knotted in her throat. The Empress did not need to command to be heeded. If the man abided, they could pretend to be incensed over Shenlei’s treachery and continue as they once were.

If he denied her word thrice, then Yue would have the hard-fought knowledge that Batu could not truly be governed.

---

༻❁༺

It is not nomad's attention she truly desires— she would rather have had the emperor’s love— the one she must continue to believe in, that had followed her through into parallel worlds, so she would not be alone.

And the empress must have realized that the creature above her is full of wild ruin, with seeking, dark eyes and jagged teeth. That if she runs in among the trees or treads too close, he would come to tear her. Horselord imagines it. He is not better than this.

She should call to have him taken away. If she denies this, Batu would have the knowledge that she must sense something— sense he is still worth keeping close, even in understanding what is risked.

“Forgive me, Heaven’s mercy.” Emptied air pours where flames had rent before, nomad retreating steps away, returning to man beneath deel— but not a han. A mongolian.

---

All at once, there was a rush of cold air between them, and the awareness of how alive his presence had been next to her, above her, was all that was left in its wake.

Yue found that she could not move for a long while, though it had really only been seconds. She lay there, spine laid out flat upon a mat of jungle dew, and found that she now had the proximity to think.

Batu's face was gratefully out of her peripheral vision. His existence was no longer pressing into her space. It was everything she had needed to happen, to pull her back from the brink of ruin, but still she mourned for it. Her nose pointed at the sky, and she thought about the likelihood that his apology contained an ounce of veracity.

He wasn’t sorry, and neither was she.

Very methodically, the Empress rolled to one side and pressed herself up on an elbow. She was below and looking up, a dichotomy that Yue seldom experienced, but she found it now paled in comparison to how he had held her moments earlier.

I would sooner thank you, the orchid attempted casually, bracing her feet below her and lifting to stand. A brief shake was all she gave, re-threaded a sprig of wisteria through her decolletage, and nodded her head succinctly. Her chest burned where he had laid his kisses.

You have refocused my attention and reframed my perspective entirely, she smiled, unsure what other expression was appropriate to wear. How talented you are, Wei Jun, the woman said not dishonestly, now hungrily curious to know what would become of their relation now that such boundaries had been crossed, and actions impossible to refute.

So terrible was he at rule-following, but so wonderful at being the only creature to see what medicine she required, and held the bravery to administer it.

---

༻❁༺

Flush into lea, empress is nearly more mare than han, speaking a tone breathy and with bright authority, though horselord is half-dristracted. Yué’s fur is mussed and clinging like sealskin. She looks like something else: an apparition, a goddess, the glassy scale from a trout. Like a moth’s wing mimicking something else, it is hard to tell quite what he sees.

A moment ago she had sheathed herself with intent to deflect. He does not know how much she enjoys being looked at by slough-eyes.

And the sky is overbright, his mouth raw for wanting. A strangeness clothes them, tension in the walls of green around.

Nomad balances many senses, mostly, the sequence of movement required to feel Yué’s mouth as she speaks.

She demeans him. Uses him. Is he not hers to command? A piece on a board to be moved by queen’s paw? Wèi jūn, he had asked for this, and empress has graciously granted it, above even the merit of her own people.

But he is not han, and in looking at her the fire of a steppe stirs, sore and satisfying. The tender pulp of a fresh-pulled fang. The sense of something better off removed.

It feels good, if not right. Desirous, if not honored.

Moving around grass, Batu teases the ache; grateful, irritable, adoring her easily.

He strides forward, pushes her back, sweeping at lavender fur where it curls down the length of her throat. He kisses her lips. “Careful, empress Yué.”

And moves off, away, a stallion’s tread in heady thought.