WARNING: This is 110% a mature chapter. It's a little smutty. Consider yourself warned.  As a general note, there's definitely going to be more romance/ sex at the end of part three and throughout part four than there is in parts one or two. Just don't want anyone to be taken by surprise. 

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"This is a fucking massacre," Irei says, whistling low as he looks out across the wooden board between us strewn with marble pieces. He makes a show of reaching over and ever so slowly raking my tokens into his already massive pile, winking at me roguishly. I roll my eyes as hard as I possibly can.

"Keep on bragging, Rei," I reply gamely. "You're only beating me because I've never played Jakla before. In a week or two, all of your tokens will be my tokens, and you'll have to come up with another obscure pastime to challenge my unparalleled strategic brilliance."

"Just play, man," he says gruffly, but he's smiling. I pause for a moment and look at him when I should be looking at the game pieces in front of me. I can't help it. He's fucking gorgeous when he's relaxed, unbuttoned, and boasting. His eyes are coals that smoke and smolder with a warmth that makes my body burn. His thick wrists, braceleted with ceremonial scars that are brutal and beautiful all at once, shine in the low light. The lantern casts dusky shadows on his face and his eyes are smiling.

"Staring at me won't reveal my brilliant strategy, h'yonmi." He's taken to calling me that, only in private, of course, and only when he's feeling especially warm. Tyro told me the letters at the end of the word act as a possessive, making it my little one instead of little one. Every time those syllables fall from his lips I feel a spear of pride, and a swell of gratitude.

Needless to say, I don't tell him I was admiring him instead of trying to figure out his master plan in my precious last moments, half-sunk and almost broke while Irei sits like a king before his gilded hoard.

If he wasn't being such an ass about it, if I wasn't loathe to lose even once, perhaps I would have fixed my tunic when it slid from my shoulder. As it is, I pull it a little lower, and watch his eyes follow my fingers across my gradually exposed skin. He regards me hungrily, shakes his head, and curses.

"Foul."

"What? You can't call a foul. This game doesn't even have fouls."

"You're cheating, Shira."

"How? I haven't touched a piece on that board. You've been watching it the entire time!"

"I was referring to your gradual disrobing. Very unsportsmanlike of you."

"Oh, come on! My tunic slid from my shoulder, Irei. You know Kamai clothes are always big on me. It was an innocent mistake."

"Innocent," he chuckles darkly. "Right. Sure."

"It's not cheating to show your left shoulder, or for that matter, your right," I huff. "Does this little bit of skin really throw you that far off your game?"

"Yes," he replies with an honesty that makes me blush. "Now fix it, or we'll be playing a very different game indeed."

"And what game is that?"

"Oh, it's the most fun one of all," he laughs. "You think you're crying over your inevitable defeat? Well, soon I'll have you crying for an entirely different reason."

"Irei!"

"What?" He asks.

"Well, maybe I could win at that one."

He snorts. "Winning? Is that what you think about when you-"

"Irei."

"We're alone, you bastion of Shikkan modesty! And you don't seem to have many complaints when you're using your-"

"Irei, by the goddess," I snap, trying and failing not to laugh. "You're a shattered fool, you know that?"

"Maybe, but I don't feel shattered," he confesses. "I feel whole, maybe moreso than ever before."

Irei does this all the time, adorning casual conversation with heartbreakingly tender confessions. He tacks them on at the end of sentences without changing his gaze or his tone, like it's the most natural thing in the world. Maybe, for him, it is. I wonder if he knows how these little sentiments melt me to a puddle on the floor.

"Me too," I sigh, exhaling. My tunic slips further down my shoulder, gaping lewdly along the curve of my collarbone, but I don't move to fix it. Irei's eyes flicker there, then back to my face. "I feel so guilty sometimes" I tell him, matching honesty with honesty, "that I feel this happy. Loss has such a great gravity; it seems to demand that I dress only in dark colors and force all of my smiles. But you pull joy from me so naturally, and I feel like maybe that's disrespectful or selfish. I wonder if my family judges me; I know I judge myself."

"I'm the one who should feel guilty," Irei says, smiling sadly. "I only found you because you lost everything first. If you still had your title, your country, or reasonable hope of regaining either, we couldn't be together in this way. Indescribable pain and an old debt brought you to my door, and I regret that, Shira, but not nearly as much as I should. How can I, when it brought me you?"

"You monster," I murmur, leaning forward so my hair pools on the table. Several game pieces are knocked out of place; I hear them fall instead of seeing them, because I'm only looking at Irei's dark eyes. So brown they're nearly black, as if his pupil swallowed his iris. Eyes like an eclipse.

"Rei," I breathe so softly I can barely hear myself speak. I tug the collar of my tunic until it falls softly from my other shoulder. "You said something about a different sort of game?"

"You just don't want to lose, h'yonmi," he says, laughing, but there's hunger in his eyes. It makes me feel powerful knowing that I put it there. That when his eyes trace the curves and contours of my face, my neck, my torso, his breath catches in his chest and his center aches and his hands move without any urging forward, seeking my warmth. He reaches forward now, tracing the curve of my jaw with his fingertips, and I roll my cheek into his hand. My mouth opens and I bite the tip of his thumb. He pulls his hand away as if he's been burned and colors in a way that has nothing to do with the Y'chora we've been drinking.

"Don't worry," I whisper, leaning into him, letting my lips graze his just so. "I won't. I never lose, do I, Irei? I never blink first."

"Forgive me," he mutters. "For trying to be a decent man to you, Amshira."

"Only if you make appropriate reparations."

He shakes his head and chuckles. "Bastion of Shikkan modesty, indeed. My innocent little Amshira. For someone who's only ever been with one man," he murmurs, rubbing his thumb across my bottom lip "you're kind of a slut." This time, when I bite it, he doesn't pull away. His skin tastes like sweat and spice and the digit is warm in my mouth.

"Don't act like you don't benefit," I reply, rolling my eyes. "Don't act like you don't absolutely adore it when I act this way."

"I adore you, Amshira," he tells me, smiling a crooked smile before drawing my face steadily, yet relentlessly, towards his own. "Fuck Jakla. We can finish the game later."

"Who's Jakla?" I breathe. "And why are you fucking her instead of me?"

"Because you keep on goddamn talking!" he says, and then his tongue is in my mouth and there's nothing left to say. My mind fuzzes over as the warm haze of desire falls over us like a blanket, just him and I, and our hands, and our mouths, and the way he tastes, and the little groaning sounds he pulls from me despite my attempts to bite my lip and stay silent. He doesn't let me keep quiet. I pretend I mind sometimes. I tell him that Tyro must think we're uncivilized perverts, and then he says, no, Tyro thinks we're very civilized perverts indeed.

I shudder when his hand slips beneath my shirt, his palm pressed against the taut muscles of my stomach. I open my mouth to say something, then shut it, drowning in the sensation of his fingertips dipping lower and lower. By now, my breeches and shirt are both halfway off. I take his hand and drag it lower still, my eyes begging him for what I still can't bring myself to ask for aloud. But he knows, thank the goddess. He always knows.

He's right- I am acting like a slut. But when I'm with him like this, I forget I'm Shikkan. I forget I'm a prince schooled in etiquette. I forget he's one of the highest ranking members of the Kamai government; all of it just melts away like hot wax. When he's touching me, I'm not Shira. I'm just his. And I feel a sort of peace that evades me every other waking moment, a certainty that I'm safe and wanted. It's a feeling that I can't help but chase.

Immodest, yes, desperate even, the way I cling to him as he strokes me with his calloused hands until I'm biting his neck to keep from screaming. He kisses me and swallows every sound he wrings from my trembling lips, every moan and cry and animalistic whimper. Near the end of it I'm just whispering his name over and over again, like a prayer, almost. Please, Irei, please...

"Please what?" He growls, smiling down at me wickedly. Somehow we ended up on the couch, his body covering mine, my own hands fisted in his hair as he works me over. Breaks me apart and puts me back together again in the same breath. "Tell me what you want, Shira. Tell me and I might just give it to you."

"Don't make me say it," I mutter, blushing scarlet as his eyes rove across my face in a way that causes my breath to catch in my throat and my hands to tremble slightly. "Please, Irei. Don't make me beg."

"Would you beg?" He whispers in my ear, taking the lobe into his mouth and sucking gently. "If I asked you to, little one, would you beg me to touch you? Do you need me to help you lose yourself that badly?

"I'd beg you to find me," I pant into his hot neck, my unravelling increasing in speed as his hand does the same. Everything is warm and hazy and I feel like laughing and crying in the same moment, the same breath. It was never like this with Arisha. It's never been like this with anyone...

"Find you, h'yonmi? Are you lost?"

"Yes," I moan as I arch into him, the sharpness of my hips rising almost involuntarily to meet his touch. "I'm lost every fucking moment you aren't touching me and I- I need-"

"What?" He urges. "What do you need?" A whimper escapes my trembling lips. "Say it."

"I don't need you to help me lose myself," I confess. "I've been lost enough, Irei. I've been lost for most of my life and I- now, I need you to- to find me-"

"I know," he murmurs soothingly as I melt into his touch, my breath coming in shallow pants as he increases his pressure and rhythm. "I know exactly what you need, Amshira, and I won't deny you. Not when you're so far gone already. Just hold onto me, okay? Hold onto me."

So I do, digging my hands into the muscle of his forearms hard enough to leave bruises, and a second later I'm falling from someplace high. Or maybe I'm rising just as fast, I don't know, I can't tell where my body is in space. Hell, I barely know my own name as I cry out his over and over again. He puts his hand over my mouth to muffle the sound and I bite down so hard I taste the irony tang of his blood. I'm floating somewhere beyond the pale when I'm speared by a pleasure so bright it's almost painful. A tingling warmth stronger than any liquor I've ever known floods my veins. His hands are rapidly becoming my drug of choice, exorcising my demons, pushing the cold away, making me forget all that doesn't matter and remember myself instead.

I look up at him. He brings his wet hand to my lips, slipping two fingers inside my mouth so I taste what's happened between us. I dutifully lick them clean, my eyes half lidded and my body limp in the aftermath of a powerful release. Those dark eyes watching me as his fingers slide in and out of my mouth have an almost hypnotic effect.

"Bastion of Shikkan modesty," he says, grinning, his fingers slipping from my mouth with a pop. "You had the audacity to be offended when I brought you to Belkau house, and you practically threw a fit when Mirsi wanted to employ you, but all this time... all this time, you've been just as tawdry and shameless as her whores. What's become of you, my prince?" He asks, grabbing my hair and pulling down so that my eyes jerk up to meet his. "What's become of the shy little thing that bowed to me, so concerned with the dignity of ceremony? What's happened to you, Shira; you're acting like-"

I cut him off with a kiss. "I'm not acting, Irei," I say, pulling back. I still sound breathless and the sheen of sweat makes my skin glisten in the low light. The same moisture causes whisps of my hair to curl, forming a loose halo around my flushed face. "For the first time in my goddess-damned life, I'm not acting, and you have no idea how freeing that is. No one cares about my manners, or my name, or how many languages I speak, or whether or not I can steer a kingdom without wrecking it on reefs of jagged rock. For once, I'm just me, and this," I say, gesturing to my crumpled tunic and undone breeches, to my unkempt hair, my muscles trebling ever so slightly with the aftershocks of intense pleasure, "is me. At least, this is the me I choose to be. I never thought I'd have a choice."

"I can't imagine," he says softly, "what it must've been like, hiding so much of yourself for all of those years."

"Yes, you can," I say with a gentle smile. "You've been running from yourself just as much as I have, Irei. You've worn just as many masks. And I hope that one day, you'll tell me why."

"I've been running, have I?" He asks, and for a moment I'm worried I've offended him. Then he laughs, throwing his head back against the softness of the couch and covering his eyes with his hand. "You're right. I never thought you'd be the one to call me out for it, though. Have you really been in Kama so long that you've lost your taste for pleasantries and circumlocutions?"

"I've gained a taste for you, if that's any consolation."

"Oh, it certainly softens the sting a little," he mutters, shaking his head, still chuckling lightly. "If you want to know, I'll tell you. It's no grand secret." He sits up fully, but as I move to do the same, he stops me. Instead he lifts my head gently into his lap and begins playing with my long hair, twining it around and around his fingers as he speaks.

"My name wasn't supposed to be Irei'kionaxi Nara," he begins. "We inherit our clan names from our mothers, and my mother had no clan. They cast her out. I grew up knowing exactly how lucky I was that Rhyda Nara had both the grace to take me in and the power to demand my clan legitimize me. Being a bastard son in Kama is not a particularly dark stain," he says, "but all the water in the ocean couldn't wash away the shame of being the child of a xanharxin."

"I've never heard that word before."

"That doesn't surprise me," he replies. "It's an old concept, and it's not one we like to talk about much, especially not with foreigners." He pauses before saying, "some give the translation as 'without light,' some as 'without god.' It's what happens when a Kamai fails to safeguard the shard of divinity they're entrusted with from birth. You can degrade yourself to the point where that holy light flickers out and never comes back on. As suicide is to the body, so xanharxi is to the soul."

"That's dark."

Irei nods. "The clans say that they don't cast out the xanharxin; rather, the xanharxin casts themselves out by destroying the god within themselves. My mother, Markiri, was xanharxin."

"She had a child with her husband's brother," I say, remembering Irei's earlier account of the sordid family drama. "That's bad, certainly, but irredeemably so?"

He looks down at me with sad eyes. "It was political. The husband she betrayed was a respected Grand Councilor, and she was damned flagrant about it, too. Kiri and Lyris ran around Kama, spending Rhyda's money, crashing parties they weren't welcome at before retiring to brothels and gambling dens. Then, eventually, Lyrium slums. During her time with Lyris, she developed a habit. He cast her aside when he realized she was pregnant, of course, and she returned to Rhyda worn thin by her year of dissipation. The Kionaxi wanted nothing to do with her, but Rhyda tried to help. I think the fact that he wouldn't blame her made everyone else blame her all the more."

"Fucking hell, Irei," I murmur, taking the hand that's carding through my hair and squeezing it. "I shouldn't have asked. I didn't mean to open up old wounds."

"No," he says. "I want to tell you. I want you to know everything about me, even the bad things."

"Tell me, then," I say, pressing my lips against his calloused palm before releasing it.

He smiles, but there's pain hiding in his eyes. "The old ways say that I was born without a soul," he murmurs. "A child inherits their divinity from their mother. Mine had none. She had no clan, she had no husband, she had no shame. If my stepfather hadn't intervened, my life would've been very different. I wouldn't have had one at all."

"It's a very Shikkan thing," I muse, "Punishing a child for his mother's sins."

"It's a nasty thing, and thankfully it's rare nowadays," Irei says. "Rhyda called it a cruel anachronism. Even when I was younger, very few Kamai truly believed that that children of xanharxin are godless. There's still a stigma attached to it, though, one that even modern sensibility hasn't been able to completely erase. There were legal reforms that ended legitimate discrimination against the clanless or their children, but that didn't stop me from growing up feeling like I was a world apart from my siblings." He pauses, a rueful smile adorning his proud face. "You know, Rhyda told me once that anyone who questioned the god in me had already lost the god within themselves. He also told me not to blame my mother for the way some people treated me, but I didn't listen. I hated her for each whisper and sidelong glance, for choosing Lirium over me, for dying and leaving me alone, for hurting my stepfather. He's still the best man I've ever met; the only one who ever came close was his son Sohma. Rhyda tried so hard to treat me the same as his other children, but there was always something slightly off. A tightness that came into his eyes when he saw me, a tension that spoke of pain. I knew from a very young age that I was a living reminder of things people wanted desperately to forget. I ran from Kiri and the shadows cast by her near-mythic fall, and to this day part of me feels an unwanted kinship with the clan that cast her out. Like I abandoned her, too, even if it was just her memory that I pushed away.

"I'm so sorry," I say softly, reaching up and trailing my fingertips along the curve of his strong jaw. I want to comfort him, to push that sad half-smile from his face. Erase that slight wince pulling at the corner of his eyes. "I never would have mentioned it, if I'd known- I didn't mean to hurt you- please forgive me."

"I know," he says, smiling down at me. "You almost cried last week when an athenrosa plant died after you transplanted it. You'd never hurt anyone intentionally. As for forgiving you," he says with a toothy grin, "I'll think about it, but only if you make appropriate reparations."

"Something tells me these reparations involve pants being removed," I reply dubiously.

"Oh, they don't need to come off," he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Just pull them down to my knees and have at it."

"Have. At. It," I repeat, staccato, before I break down laughing. "Did the head ambassador of Kama really just tell me to 'have at it' when referring to his cock? Are you serious?"

"When we're talking about my cock? Deadly so," he replies, "and I don't know why you say head ambassador like it should preclude me from making such statements."

"I suppose I imagined you'd have more dignity," I muse.

"I have seen bureaucrats bent over desks receiving foreign dignitaries in the most intimate of ways. I have seen Macchonese orgies where they smoke a rare root that makes men last for hours. And don't get me started on the fragranced courtesans the grand duke of Sylovi sent to greet me. The government," he tells me, "is kinky."

"Then this must be terribly tame compared to what you're used to. An office rendezvous certainly doesn't have the erotics or drama of Macchonese orgies where the men are hard enough to joust with their members. You must be so bored, Ambassador."

He leans in and breathes into my ear "well, they wouldn't have lasted hours if you'd been there, magic root or no. You've a face finer than any courtesan I've ever seen, and your body, well, have at it."

I laugh unexpectedly and snort at the same time, making a truly ridiculous sound.

"Come here, ayadaxami," he murmurs, lifting my chin with his fingertips and pulling forward. Soon I'm sitting in his lap and his hands are playing across my chest. I sigh into his touch and he removes my tunic completely, tossing it towards a torasanthi bush I potted and brought into his office last week. I spend a second worrying that the weight of the fabric, a utilitarian Kamai linen, will break its tender leaves, but then Irei kisses my neck and all other thoughts evaporate in the heat of the fire quickly kindled between us.

"I want you," he murmurs.

"You have me," I return, nipping at his earlobe as my arms snake between us, quickly undoing the buttons of his breeches. "Isn't that perfectly obvious by now, Irei Nara? You have me."

His stubble tickles my neck as he whispers softly "say it again, but look at me this time, Okay?"

"Okay," I breathe, lifting my eyes to meet his own. They're immeasurably dark and deep, a void I can't help but fall into. Eyes that can swallow you whole, the shadows inside of them shifting subtly like dark water pulled by a lunar tide. His lips are rosy and just-bitten, his dark skin flushed almost feverishly. The lantern light glints golden off of the minuscule beads of sweat crowning his brow.

"You have me, Irei Nara," I exhale, one hand on his shoulder, the other cupping his cheek. "You have me, alright?"

"Alright," he sighs, smiling back at me like I've said something extraordinary. And I suppose I have; there's both beauty and absurdity in the image of an exiled Shikkan prince, shirtless, straddling Kama's head ambassador on an old couch. In these moments I feel safe. The world isn't burning, nor I with it. Nothing hurts save for the ache of unslaked lust; the pull to touch him for one moment longer, to trail my fingertips over one more inch of his smooth skin.

I know it would be smarter to take it slowly. To kiss him and then stop, to go on dates and make small talk and build up to this crescendo. But I've spent my entire fucking life being careful and controlled and I can't stand it a second longer. I don't want to be safe. I want to be reckless. I want to throw myself into the dark waters of his eyes and trust that I won't drown. Or that if I do, he'll be right there to bring me back to life. He already has once already.

"You know," he murmurs playfully, "the old ways say that I have no soul. But why don't you try to suck it out of me, just in case?"

His suggestion makes me blush and burn in equal measure. "You're shameless, Ambassador Nara," I return, wishing the pink of my cheeks didn't give me away so completely.

"Oh, I'm absolutely filled with shame right now, and it's all your fault."

"My fault?"

"'You've been running from yourself just as much as I have, Irei. You've worn just as many masks. And I hope that one day, you'll tell me why,'" he parrots, one eyebrow raised defiantly. "You can't fathom the trauma your questions brought up. Oh," he says with a plaintive sigh, flinging his hand over his eyes dramatically, "the damage! The suffering! The injustice of it all, all made new again by your heartless inquiries!"

"You're an ass."

"That's not very diplomatic."

"I wasn't trying to be diplomatic."

He smiles. "Everything is diplomacy, Shira. This right here, this is a negotiation of reparations. You've wounded me, and amends must be made to prevent the breakdown of diplomatic relations between our two nations." He pauses, then adds "a 'word of mouth' apology should work quite nicely."

"Shameless," I repeat, laughing in spite of myself. "But I suppose an international incident should be avoided at all costs." I slide softly from his lap and pool on the floor before him like expensive silk. The plush carpet cushions my knees as I rest my chin on his thigh, staring up at him and smiling wickedly. "Now let me demonstrate for you my overwhelming remorse..."

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In my heart, this chapter will always be titled The Government is Kinky