She considers the question carefully.

"I wouldn't have chosen to come here, but if you offered to let me walk away no-consequences and I believed you I wouldn't do it," she says after a moment. Her voice carries a note of uncertainty, but she's sincere.

(Her fear reaction and arousal reaction both go up a small but noticeable tick.)

"Why not?" he says, confused and frustrated.

"I'm...really not a risk-averse person. And you're really hot. And the fire thing is fantastic."

He almost says, I want to make you regret that choice.

But - he doesn't, not entirely. He wants...

...he wants to do the opposite of that. He wants to make her scream with pleasure. He wants to see her smile in dazed exhaustion. He wants to hold her down and fuck her and he wants her to like it.

And he can have whatever he wants, can't he?

Yes...

He pins her to the bed with a hand around her neck and reaches between her legs to stroke her with flame-wrapped fingers.

What was that first thing he wanted? He can have that. He can so have that. She's only pinned at the neck; her hips have a relatively free range of movement to buck up into his touch.

It's beautiful, she's beautiful. He wants her -

- so he takes her, burning with red flame, and again as the flames fade -

It's nothing like with Tanaikon; this is more of a surprise than it probably should be.

But he's cheating very, very hard.

He can have all of the things he wants. He can have a lot of them.

For hours. Until her voice gives out. Until she can barely move.

Without healing water or access to her own magic, her voice and mobility do go. But oh, what a way to go. It's so good it's so good and she comes until she can barely tell whether she's actually having an orgasm or not anymore.

And then they are interrupted.

He ignores the knock on the door for a few minutes, but then leaves Siva on the bed with red flames licking at her skin and goes to answer it.

"What do you want?"

"The girl, of course."

Siva glances over

...The exhausted pleasure vanishes from her face as soon as she sees Nahira, replaced immediately by a bone-deep terror more intense than anything Seofar was able to elicit by several orders of magnitude.

"I think she's heard of me!" she says brightly.

"You can't have her." He tries to close the door.

The door refuses to close. Nahira raises her eyebrows. "Can't I?"

"No." He pulls harder on the door, then gives her a disgusted look. "Don't fuck with me, Rysher."

"But I want her, my prince."

He snarls.

...He's not just handing her over. That's. Good. And presumably her soul won't prevent her from setting Nahira on extreme amounts of fire, if it comes down to it.

"...I assumed you were just thinking with your cock as usual, but now I'm beginning to wonder if she hasn't bewitched you somehow," says Nahira. "Look at you, all protective."

He glares. "I like her how she is. If I let you touch her, you'll ruin her."

"She's obviously responsible for the disappearance of the Kazaryne boy."

"Did you imagine that wasn't the first thing I checked?"

"I don't trust your methods."