WARNING: Language and sexual content. Children, avert your eyes lest ye be corrupted!

The door opens just a crack, the chain still attached in case we try to shove our way in. It's a woman I've never seen before. She's exquisite. Small hands, lips a dusty rose, skin rich and dark. Her eyes, unexpectedly, are a pale blue. She's swathed in gauzy silk that covers most of her body but clings to her curves, revealing the stiff peaks of her nipples through the fabric, the fullness of her breasts, the subtle dip of her hips.

"Kathta ka, danara ym," she murmurs silkily, then her eyes drift to mine and she smiles a little brighter. "Y'xa? Ilox ni unam osu Madan, y'el ta xoranan markina ki, osu namír, sa."

"She asks which House of Breath you come from. She'd remember if you came from hers."

I raise my eyebrows. "And what is a House of Breath?"

He looks at me and starts breathing faster, chest heaving, eyes dilating with desire as he mimics the breathy throes of lovemaking. "A particularly delicious Yi'ili euphemism, isn't it? Oh, and she also wants to know how much I paid for your company."

"Paid?"

"Well, we are at a brothel, after all," Irei murmurs against my ear. "If it helps, she also said you've a face that could make men come with just a look. I'm going to tell her I agree."

"He sold me his very soul," I reply in common, smiling wickedly at the beautiful courtesan in the doorway. "He emptied his treasury and sold his manor and laid all of the profit at my feet and I still left him wanting. He couldn't fucking afford me."

She laughs. "I'm Korra. I like you, Shikkan. I assume you two need a room?"

"I suppose so. I sold my manor for him, after all," Irei deadpans.

Korra smirks, opening the door wide and ushering us in before barring it again. "I take it this is a matter of some discretion?"

"Of course. I can't have everyone knowing that I sold all of my worldly wealth to buy this harlot."

"This harlot," I seethe, "owns your ass, Irei Nara, not the other way around."

Korra makes us take off our shoes, then leads us down a long hallway decorated in shades of slate and blue. There are gold threads woven through the carpet that glitter as our feat compress its pile. And for the second time in my life, I'm walking through Belkau house. For the first time, I'm here for a room.

"What did they want, Korra?" A woman with flaming hair and plump red lips asks, pausing when she sees Irei.

"I'll go get Mirsi," she tells us, spinning on her heels.

"No, you won't, Lidiya," Korra trills. "The Ambassador is here for a room."

Her eyebrows raise almost imperceptibly. "Is that so?"

"You better be worth it, darling," Irei breathes low in my ear. "Esato was bad enough. Now Mirsi and her sirens are going to give me hell."

"Then I'll give you a taste of heaven first," I counter, biting my lip as I watch the shadows dancing in his dark eyes.

"Amshira," he says so quietly I'm the only one to hear, "can't you see that you already have?"

"All I see is you," I admit, looking away and blushing at the startled look that steals across his face. When I look back at him, he's smiling to blot out the sun.

"Expensive little harlot," he purrs, hand on my lower back, guiding me into the room Korra opens for us. "You were right. I'd sell my soul for you. You're exquisite. You're mine."

I shiver at his words, his gaze clinging to me like the gauzy fabric draped across Korra's lovely skin. I try to look unaffected by his praise, his claiming. "You've had me in your bed but a night, presumptuous man."

"But you've been on my mind and in my heart so much longer," he returns candidly, and I feel heat spreading across my face and down my neck. He reaches forward and runs his fingertips along my blushing skin, expression half smirking condescension, half breathless craving. I find I want both. The wickedness and the wanting, the reverence and the ruin.

"Now, Moonbeam," he says quietly, tracing the curve of my jaw while we stand in the middle of a room I'm too distracted to notice, "I told you the secrets of this city, so you owe me one of your own."

"Let me think..."

"No, no, darling," he grins with a dark gleam in his eye. "I get to choose, remember? That was the bargain."

I roll my eyes.

"When you first met me, what did you think of me?" he asks finally.

"Really? That's what you want to know?"

He nods.

"Well, let's see. I thought you had rather a lot of hair and very few wrinkles for a head ambassador. I thought your eyes were arresting, and cold, and I hated the hardness of your mouth. It seemed... uncompromising."

"Until you compromised me, that is."

"And then we spoke, and I thought you were an insufferable bastard. Bitter and harsh and condescending."

"Now tell me when you first wanted me."

I shake my head. "Nope. The deal was one secret. You're not getting anything else from me."

"If you tell me, I'll tell you what I thought of you that first day," he murmurs, voice dipping lower, making me shiver as he leads me to the bed.

"You thought I was an empty-headed fool. All pleasantries and no substance. A spoiled princeling," I say. "That's no secret, Irei."

"But what I thought of you that night is."

"You thought of me that night?"

He smiles magnanimously. "Tell me when you wanted me, Shira, and I'll tell you everything."

I look away, his gaze suddenly too intense, too searching, too bright.

"After the council meeting," I admit. "I ran off into the woods like a fool and you followed me."

His eyebrows raise. "Really? I was sure it was Imiko's. I was... a bit cruel that night. Angry and exasperated. It made my tongue sharper than it should have been. But perhaps you mean later on that night, when I helped you home..."

I shake my head, blush deepening. "No, Rei. It was when you folded your hands over your chest and called me 'an empty-headed fool.' You pushed me about O'otani, and I pushed you right back. Shoved you. I was so angry..." I sigh. Why am I telling him this? Why aren't I just kissing him, stopping those lips with my own, stripping off his tunic and running my hands across his well-muscled stomach until he can't breathe, let alone speak? But now I'm curious. What did he think of me that first night? I assumed he barely thought of me at all.

"Part of that was anger at your words. Part of it was just an excuse to touch you. The rest of it was anger that I wanted to touch you when you were being such a damned prick. I hated you then. I hated how much I liked your cruelty. How beautiful rage was on you. In Shikkah, we hide our emotions. Among the dimaraste, we pretend we don't have any. That was the first time in my life anyone spoke to me that harshly. It was... arresting. Bracing, like cold wind on my face. It prickled along my skin, but I wasn't cold. You were burning, and I was drawn to your light. And to your darkness, too. It mirrored my own, and you didn't try to hide it, so I thought maybe I didn't have to either, at least around you..."

"You don't, Moonbeam," he assures me. "I swear you don't."

"I know," I tell him, sliding my fingers down his chest, letting them catch on the buttons of his tunic and undo them one by one. "Now tell me what you thought about me that first night."

"I thought you were an empty-headed fool. All pleasantries and no substance. A spoiled princeling," he tells me, repeating my exact words.

"I knew that, idiot," I chuff.

"Do you know that you made me hard?"

I blink up at him. "I- what?"

"When you left, I poured myself a drink. I kept hearing this little voice murmuring 'I apologize sincerely for any inconvenience I've caused, if I've led you to act in accordance with your conscience.'" He smirks. "So polite, yet so cutting. That challenge, and your perfect face, and the way your body rippled with tension as you bowed to me so deeply... fuck, I got hard. Happened again the next morning when I went into your room to invite you to drink with me. I resented the hell out of that."

"And now?" I ask.

He smiles at me. "Oh, I still resent the hell out of you, Amshira. I sold my entire manor and you still left me wanting, remember? And now I'm at a brothel in the middle of the day because I couldn't wait until we got home to be inside of you."

"Yet we're still talking," I murmur, reaching out and tracing the vermillion border of his full lips with a featherlight touch. He groans and leans into me, muttering about being bewitched by a dark-eyed Shikkan boy with soft hands and softer lips.

I jump when there's a loud knock at the door.

"Fuck, not again," Irei groans. "Whatever it is, we're not opening it."

"Don't bother coming out, love," Mirsi's thickly accented voice trills. "I just wanted to let you know I'm charging you double. This is my best room."

Irei groans, eyes narrowing. "That's entrapment!"
"Oh, it's blatant manipulation," she agrees, "but good business. Besides, I know you can afford it. Unless you really are paying dearest Shira for his company, and to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised. You're a handsome man, Irei, but you're getting old. There's silver in your hair now, isn't there?"
"Maybe," he replies, so softly only I can hear him. "It's a good thing that silver complements gold, then, isn't it?"

"Dirty old man," I reply with a wink and a mischievous laugh as he rolls his eyes to the heavens. "Old enough to be my father, aren't you?"

"If I got your mother pregnant when I was seventeen. And a little grey hair is dignified!"

"Irei, Esato Lyu paid for our room at the Kaldanza, and an hour later, you almost fucked me against the side of a building in the market district. Nothing about this is dignified."

"Such a mouth on you," he returns. "Put it on me instead."

"Shut up," I tell him, "and maybe I will."

"You won't," he promises me, voice heated. "I won't let you stay quiet, not when I'm paying double for this damned room. Every person in this building is going to hear exactly how good I make you feel."

"You're just using sex as a way to feel young again, aren't you, grandfather?" I mock. I scream a second later as he tackles me to the bed, then laugh as he presses kisses along my collarbone, down my shoulders, along my arms, to the tips of my fingers.

"You got me," he admits. "Maybe this time if you're good enough, I'll pay you for our time together."

"Maybe I'll screw you into an early grave and take all of your money for myself."

"Taís did swear you'd be the death of me one day," he replies with a lazy grin. "At least I'd die happy." He kisses me again, eyes gleaming with irreverence and trouble. "Tell me, Moonbeam, would you miss me? Mourn me? Dress all in white and keen your sorrow to the sea?"

I pretend to consider it. "Perhaps, perhaps not."

He chuckles. "Is that so?"

"Perhaps I'd pay a visit to Brekka and rekindle my romance with the Premier. Do you think he'd kick his pretty wife out of bed for me? Perhaps he'd even let me wear her jewels while he-"

Irei's hand covers my mouth, shutting me up. I notice some errant sugar on his thumb from the rochi cakes we ate and lick it off, watching his eyes as I do so, letting him know that even without my teasing words, I could unmake him. Because I don't have a clue how to deal with the fact that he's remaking me, bringing those dead and hidden parts of myself back to life. That gives him power over me, and it's both heady and terrifying.

"Wicked thing," he says, smiling down at me. His eyes are locked on mine like looking away would cut off his air supply. "My prince of poisoned words and dark deeds. How many marriages might you ruin with the face of an angel and a body made for sin?"

"Let me tell you another secret free of charge. I haven't even begun to show you wicked yet, Ambassador," I retort, giving in to my mood, to my games, to the heated glint in his eyes.

"Do I have a prince in my bed, or a courtesan? The first time you darkened Mirsi's door you were disgusted by the, what did you call it, house of ill repute? An uptight little Shikkan boy wringing his hands and blushing. Now you're under me in the very same whorehouse's most expensive room. How this island has changed you. Corrupted you."

"You helped," I murmur, grabbing the collar of his unbuttoned shirt and drawing him closer to me. "It's your goddess damned fault, really, all of it. You're the adult here. I'm a gullible young ingenue you're taking rakish advantage of, hmm?"

"I don't think I'm the one taking advantage," he returns. "I think you took that advantage for yourself the first time I really looked into those dark brown eyes and saw through to the man underneath the platitudes and pleasantries. And now I'm just trying to catch up."

"You won't," I promise him, "remember how good I am at games, Irei. I've beaten you in every one you've taught me. You're no match for me."

"Then why do our bodies fit together so well?" he asks, voice dipping lower, his previous teasing tone stripped away as his hand runs down my bare side. He presses down into me, molding his body around mine, showing me exactly how true his words are. "You fit against me so beautifully it could drive me mad."

"I think I'd like your madness," I say softly, pulling his face closer to mine so I can whisper directly into his ear. My tongue lingers, tracing the lobe; I can't help myself. Or maybe I'm already helping myself. This is healing some of the broken pieces inside of me, and I have no problem gorging myself on his affection or his body. "The world is madness already, Irei. A breathtaking mess, beauty that could make you cry and pleasure so bright it burns. I need your madness to face it, and to give myself the strength to believe in the craziest thing of all, that I might be okay again one day."

"You are my madness, Amshira," he says softly, brushing a strand of silvery hair behind my ear so tenderly I want to cry. "You are the death of my reason and good sense. And it doesn't even matter, because I've never wanted anything like I want you. I would fall headfirst into insanity if I knew you were there waiting for me."

"No more waiting," I growl back. "My whole life has been waiting. Waiting to be king, waiting to be married, waiting for my mother to return and take me away. Waiting for all I lost to come back to me, for it to stop hurting. I feel like I've spent my entire life holding my breath, but you- you helped me breathe again."

"And here I was hoping I'd take your breath away," he says with a feral grin.

"You take my pain away," I confess, looking away as a blush tints my cheeks. "I think it's going to swallow me whole until you touch me, until your laughing eyes meet mine, until your tongue darts from your mouth and tastes me. Then it's you who's going to swallow me whole, not the pain or the memories or the promises we couldn't keep. You leave me breathless and wanting. You make me feel so alive..."

"Oh, darling, you really shouldn't have said that," he purrs.

"Why not?"

"Because," he tells me, smiling wider, all gleaming white teeth, "now I'm going to swallow you whole."

At his words, a delicious shiver runs down my spine. "Do you promise?"

"I swear on the god-shard inside of me," he assures me, looking every bit the devil himself. "And, little one, I am a man who keeps his promises."

"Thank the goddess herself for that," I grin, grabbing the collar of his tunic and pulling his body closer to mine, until his heat covers every inch of me. "Now stop teasing, Ambassador Nara, and touch me."

He groans softly at the command, his tongue sweeping out of his mouth and into mine with all the force of a rising tide. His hands run over my skin as I'm pushed and pulled by the dark ocean of his eyes. They're stormy, full of heat and lightning, the kind of night when even hardened sailors won't leave port. The kind of weather that sinks ships, or rips them apart on shallow reefs.

"Irei..." I breathe, soft as a whisper.

All he says is "hush" as his hands fist in my hair, clumsily undoing the leather strip holding it back until it spills into his waiting hands like moonlight. He pulls me deeper into the kiss, dragging me closer to him, using his punishing grip on my tresses as a bridle. He tastes like candied ginger and cloves from the Yxala we drank this afternoon. His touch races through my blood like strong liquor, pure wild lightning burning me from the inside out.

I pull his shirt from his shoulders. My hands linger, tracing the defined muscles of his arms, the curve of his collarbone and shoulder blades, my tongue breaking away from his lips to taste the hollow at the base of his throat. As he groans, grinding his body against mine, I kiss up the strong column of his throat before finally returning to his mouth. The way he kisses me takes my breath away, takes everything away but him. Vicious and demanding, a complete contrast to his hands, which trace over my body almost reverentially.

Then he's reaching between us and cursing as he clumsily unbuttons his breeches. He doesn't even get mine completely off before he slams into me, pushing them down my hips and surging forward as his mouth clamps over mine like a vice. I scream, and I know he meant for me to. He just chuckles against my lips as he kisses me, but I know he's just as affected as I am.

His mouth is tight, his pupils blown wide by lust, his heartbeat as hard and fast as his thrusts. Ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum, ba-da-dum. It melds with the music of my moans and his low, throaty growls until we're both addicted to the peculiar harmony. I should be mortified at how loud I'm being, anyone could hear us, but all I can think is that the whorehouse has heard stranger songs.

"Not bad for an old man," I grin up at him. He chuffs a laugh, rolling his eyes as my grin turns into a smirk. "But why don't you let me be on top? Your old bones must be exhausted."

"There's only one bone, Shira, and I promise you it's neither old nor exhausted."

"As ancient as you are, I'm surprised you can even get hard. I wonder, when you come, is it just dust? Is your heart even healthy enough for sex? Do you-"

I scream as Irei rolls us without any warning. Now his back is on the bed and I'm straddling him, his thick hands on my thighs to help hold me up. "That's quite enough talking, don't you think, little one?"

I smirk.

"What?"

"If we're done talking," I say, desperately trying, and failing, to keep a straight face, "wouldn't that make those your last words?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he groans, and not in pleasure, either. "I guess I need to shut you up, don't I?"

"You can try," I egg him on with a willful, wicked smile. "But your aged muscles must be weak, your joints arthritic, your bones brittle, while I'm filled with youthful vigor."

"You're filled with me," he murmurs, bucking his hips up hard to emphasize his words. I gasp, then groan as his fingers dig into my thighs. His thrusts set a punishing pace and I have to hang on for dear life as his hips rise to meet mine, each fluid movement full of power and grace. For all my teasing, Irei is potently male, all hard edges, flinty eyes, and prickling stubble.

"Not so flippant anymore, hmm?" he asks silkily, smiling a self-satisfied smile. "Where are your pretty words and clever retorts now, my lovely? Do you even know, or are you too lost in sensation to do anything but hold on for dear life?"

"Not lost," I pant back, my eyes rolling back into my head as every nerve in my body lights up with pleasure as pure and sweet as spring rain. "I found you, and you helped me find myself. I'm not holding on, either, not to the past or the pain or my fears. I'm letting go, letting that bullshit fall away until I'm just- just the man who loves you. And I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."

The words spill from me unbidden, pushing past my lips in a rush of feeling. I'm saying too much, admitting too much, but I can't seem to stop myself. I've been silent my entire fucking life, smiling and pretending I didn't hear the word bastard whispered behind my back, that I wanted to be the deme, that I could unite my family and my country once again before both fell apart in my hands.

And it was exhausting, putting on those masks each day, letting them cover my true face until even I began to forget what it looked like. Becoming who they needed me to be. Somitu's heir, strategic, haughty, and ruthless. It was a part I played in an absurd pantomime I had the misfortune of being born into. That's why I loved O'otani so much. It had nothing to do with the priestesses nicking our necks in the holy river while we wailed, too young by far to understand what it all meant. She saw the man beneath the mask, and she loved him. She never asked me to be anyone but myself, and she defended me with all the vehemence and loyalty of a rabid dog.

Until she betrayed me.

Until the whole damn world fell apart...

"Eyes on me," Irei growls, rolling us so I'm once again pinned by his weight and the sharp jut of his hips. "When I fuck you, Amshira, you look at me. You think about me, nothing else. I saw you going somewhere deep inside your own mind, pulling away from me, and I won't allow it."

"Allow?" I scoff, trying to ignore the delicious shiver that runs down my back at the gruff command in his voice. Arisha whispered love poems in my ear and held my hands as he clumsily made love to me. Irei, though, Irei owns me. His body covers mine, his movements dictating the pace and rhythm of this wild dance between us. But I'm not going to tell him how that tone of his causes the muscles low in my stomach to clench and my heart to race.

I love that he doesn't treat me like I'm fragile. He lets the full weight of his sizeable body rest on me, he slams into me with punishing intensity, he bites my neck until it bleeds copper into his open mouth. Not a pretty Shikkan doll, not the future deme always cool and in control. Just a man coming apart under his lover's stern, tender touch.

"Yes, Moonbeam, allow," he grins back, looking decidedly roguish. "You're mine, darling. Don't you know that by now?"

"Cocky bastard," I grumble, the sound breaking off into a gasp as he grips my nipple in his practiced hands and twists, a cruel smile spreading over his rough yet elegant face. No polished diplomat with honeyed words and a vocabulary entirely populated by half-truths, euphemisms, and blandishments. He's earnest and unyielding as the craggy rocks making up the Kamai shoreline. The same shoreline I once found harsh and bare, but now like to walk along, the cold surf lapping at my feet while I pass between cliffs of dark stone. I've gained an appreciation for the island's solid heart I never could have anticipated.

The same island where a fickle, willful man full of secrets took my own heart from me.

"I think you mean 'your cock is in me, you bastard,'" he tells me with a laugh.

I roll my eyes, half from annoyance, half from the exquisite pleasure of his touch. "Insufferable bureaucrat."

He gasps in mock anger, pushing into me so fast that a little squeak escapes my trembling lips. A tiny, mousy, completely undignified squeak that makes his lips turn up at the corners as his eyes soften with affection. "I'm not a bureaucrat! I'm the head ambassador, and don't you forget it, you Shikkan minx!"

"Or what?" I challenge, mischief gleaming in my dark eyes. His are equal parts amusement and heat, burning and melting.

"Perhaps I'll take away all of your pretty tunics and make you wear practical Kamai clothes instead. No more orchid or pale green or blackest violet. Just browns and blues, all sturdy material, of course."

"Fucking psychopath," I mutter grimly as he winks.

"Perhaps I'll make you collate that report on Kamai-Racleni relations, or better yet, hand-copy it word for word on fancier paper."

"I knew when I first met you that you were a vicious bastard."

"Oh, darling," he says, surging forward at an angle that has my back arching off the bed, "you haven't the slightest idea." He traces his fingertips down my chest, lightly at first, then his nails dig in. The loving touch turns into one that makes me wince, even as I arch into him, wanting more. He sees my reaction and grins, something wicked sparkling in his dark eyes.

"Oh, my prince," he muses, "the things I could do to you..." I shiver as his lips twist up in a feral grin. "Perhaps," he tells me, leaning forward so he's right in my ear, "I'll fuck you like I don't love you, and make you love every minute of it."

I grin right back at him, not scared in the least. Just wild, a shiver of anticipation rocking my body against his, my eyes burning with impish light. "I fucking dare you."

"Amshira..." he says, using the tone an adult uses with a misbehaving child. Why does that make me hard?

"Irei..." I repeat in the same tone, lifting my brows.

"Careful, little one, before you get in over your head," he warns.

"Do whatever you like to me," I tell him. "Love me, hurt me, use me. I'll take it all. Because when I'm with you is the only time I'm not in over my head. The only time I'm not fucking drowning."

He looks shocked, then warmth leaks into those flinty eyes. I could cut myself on those eyes if I'm not careful. I could start a fire...

And I don't intend to be careful.

"I've been careful my entire life. Lived a lie because they couldn't stomach my truth. Don't ask me to be careful. Hell, don't ask me at all. Tell me," I say with a smirk, running my fingers in a slow line down my chest to where we're entertwined. "Fucking show me. All of you, all of myself, all we can be together," I beg, reaching up towards him and running my fingers through his adorably mussed hair. "You want me to be yours? Well, make me. No more pretty words, no more diplomacy, Irei. I want to lose myself and find myself in you, with you. Help me forget everything but your name and your hands on me, help me remember who I am."

His face is caught in a harsh dichotomy, half feral, hungry for me, predatory as his grip on my hips turns bruising. Half flushed, full of love at my honest words. I smile as I watch his face change, that adoring look gaining the upper hand until I grind against him and his desire crests above me like a wave. Drown me, I think, biting my lip mischievously, then in pleasure as his body undulates against mine, caught in a current neither of us is able to resist or refuse.

And he does his fucking worst. Holds my neck in one hand effortlessly, squeezing as he fucks me. Hard. All of that softness I love is gone, replaced by something as dark and rocky as the Kamai shoreline. I will be bruised, maybe even bloody by the time he's done with me.

But fuck, I hope he's never done with me.