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Liadrin knew she wasn’t alone before she even commanded the enchanted lamp to flood her bedroom with it’s warm yellow light. If her instincts weren’t enough to tell her, then the faint ebbing of fel magic would have given her guest away. Still, this wasn’t the first time that she’d come home to a room that wasn’t as empty as it should have been. It would not be the last.
So she wasn’t the least bit surprised when the light revealed a shape wrought in blood red cloth and an overabundance of golden hair, smirking proudly at her with pouty lips and piercingly green eyes. She was perched on the top of Liadrin’s dresser. There were many more comfortable places in the room where she could have sat and waited, but that just wasn’t what she did.
“Miss me?” Valeera asked.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Liadrin told her, acknowledging her only with a quick look before she went about setting her things down on her desk.
“Why not?” Valeera challenged.
“You’ll get caught eventually,” Liadrin warned. She began separating the reports that she’d need to deal with in the morning. Casualties from the last battle in Arathi. Resource requests for the defense of Dazar’alor. Important things. Militant things. Concrete things. Difficult things, yes, but still things that she could wrap her arms around. Things that made sense, as terrible as that sense was.
Things that were not Valeera.
“I haven’t yet,” Valeera said with a throaty chuckle. “And honestly, you should be a little upset about that. The guards of Silvermoon are so incompetent that they let a traitor sneak into your bedroom on the regular. Or perhaps it’s you that made it so there’s a good ten minute gap between the shifts that cover this street? Perhaps you want to make sure I can continue to find my way back to you?”
“Perhaps,” Liadrin replied as she separated the last sheet of paper, pushing it to the corner of the desk. “But you know why that is.”
“And you know that I don’t come here for the lectures,” Valeera reminded her.
Liadrin didn’t turn to face her yet. She could feel those green eyes searing into her, a stark reminder that she hadn’t managed to convince Valeera yet. She probably wouldn’t tonight. She might not ever. “I’m tired, Valeera,” she told her.
“So maybe you’ll skip the speeches this time? Wonderful,” Valeera quipped back.
Liadrin sighed. She reached up to unbuckle a cinch that held the heavy pauldrons to her shoulders. “Some of us have been out here fighting this war.”
“I still fail to understand why,” Valeera said.
“I’m not going to list the reasons for you,” Liadrin told her as she finally worked the last of the buckles free. She held the pauldrons on with one hand as she walked over to the armor stand in the corner of the room, closer to Valeera. She still didn’t look her way as she slipped the heavy metal off of herself and slid it into place on the mannequin.
“So annoyed with me today,” Valeera commented, even as Liadrin could hear her shift as she turned to try to capture her attention.
Liadrin didn’t offer her a reply. She let her body speak for itself. She stripped away the bulky metal that covered her piece by piece. She tugged off the gauntlets, unclipped her boots and belt, and shrugged out of her tabard, then draped it gently on a wall hook. Each bit of skin she revealed in the process showed a new bruise here, a bandaged wound there, or the shining pink of a new scar. She was tired. She was exhausted. She ached.
And sure, she could make it all go away, but sometimes she felt she needed the reminders of what she fought for, at least for a day or two. On the battlefield, there were usually others to heal besides herself. She would care for them first, ignoring her own hurts. No one ever seemed to worry much about that, and Liadrin was just fine with it. She could take care of herself. She always had.
She winced as she leaned over to unbuckle her chestplate. That strap was in such an odd place, one that was very difficult to reach when one was nursing bruised ribs. She’d have to talk to the armorer about that.
Before she could try to reach it again, a set of lithe fingers met her own, and made quick work of the offending fastener.
“Such a martyr,” Valeera breathed against her ear as she slipped the armor off. “Do they know how deeply you care? I wonder what Sylvanas thinks. Does she worry about you? Does your Horde lay awake at night, wondering if you’re dead or alive?”
“Do you?” Liadrin challenged. “Do you care what your people do, how they fight for what they believe in? How they are loyal to those that helped them when no one else would?”
Valeera scoffed as she moved the armor onto the stand, clipping it back into place there with skill that spoke of her having done this far too many times. “I thought you were tired.”
“I am,” Liadrin told her. “But I’m not going to let you poke and prod at me. You know my answers. You know how I feel. If you don’t want to hear it, then leave me be.”
“Come now,” Valeera said, turning toward her and away from the mannequin. She finally caught Liadrin’s eyes and grinned as she did. “We both know that this is all part of our dance. It’s part of why I like you so much. You never make it easy on me.”
“I still don’t understand why you always choose the hard way,” Liadrin told her. “I’ve told you before--we would accept you. You could come back any time. Lor’themar would pardon you. I know he would.”
Valeera shook her head, saying nothing as she moved back to Liadrin and snaked her hands around the paladin’s hips. Liadrin shuddered at the contact, even as Valeera just searched for the buckles that held her greaves to her thighs.
Valeera made her way through each of those straps slowly and methodically, savoring each shiver that followed the tips of her fingers, even as Liadrin looked away from her again. She let those pieces fall unceremoniously to the floor, revealing a stark black pair of leggings beneath them, which matched the high-collared padded black shirt she also wore.
“I like you in all black,” Valeera told her as she stood back up. She ran her hands along Liadrin’s shoulders, noting where the padding dropped off and where the hard muscle began. “Just not as much as I like you without clothes.”
Her hands began to search for the hemline of the shirt. Her touch was warm against Liadrin’s skin as she slid them up across her stomach.
Liadrin hissed even as she caught Valeera’s wrist in a firm grip, stopping her from going any further. “I told you. I’m tired. I have a lot on my mind. People’s lives are at stake now, Valeera. More so than they ever were, and in much greater numbers.”
“For some sparkly mineral,” Valeera sneered, twisting out of Liadrin’s grip, but only because she allowed for it.
“Far more than that, and you know it,” Liadrin growled in response. She slipped herself out of the padded shirt, revealing a tight sleeveless undershirt beneath it, made of simple, undyed linen.
Valeera’s hungry green eyes, as ever unsated as they marked her as being, took in the view. A tongue ran across her rouged lips.
Liadrin heaved a sigh again, still heavy, even without her armor to weigh it down. “You won’t leave until you’ve gotten what you came here for, will you?” she asked.
“It’s hardly romantic when you put it like that,” Valeera bounced back at her. “You’re making me feel bad for not bringing chocolates and flowers along.”
“Fruit, actually,” Liardin said.
“What?”
“You would bring fruit to someone you’re interested in, not flowers,” Liadrin told her. “Or did you forget?”
Valeera’s green eyes narrowed.
Ah, finally. It always felt petty and cheap, but Liadrin could only take so much without handing something back. She knew that Valeera hated to be reminded of how little she knew of her own culture. She was especially annoyed when Liadrin would complain about her Thalassian sounding off. So much so that she could tell that her pronunciation of certain words had improved since they had begun meeting.
“I like pomegranates,” Liadrin continued flatly. “In case you were wondering.”
“Is that what you want then, for me to court you properly? To sing you songs and write you poems and bring you fruit? To give you a little bauble I made for you to wear and advertise that you’re mine? Yes, I know what I’m supposed to do,” Valeera told her. “I thought the great Blood Knight Matriarch didn’t have time for such frivolous things.”
“You’re never going to do any of those things,” Liadrin said. “So what’s the point? Now, get back on that dresser.”
“Why?” Valeera questioned, even if it was clear from the return of her grin that she knew exactly why.
“Before I change my mind, please,” Liadrin growled again.
Light-footed as ever, Valeera didn’t make a sound as she walked back over to the dresser and hopped back up on it.
“Rid yourself of those ridiculous clothes too,” Liadrin ordered. She called upon the Light, willing the healing power of it across her own skin. It warmed her as it worked, but pleasantly so, like the gentle kiss of summer sunlight. It washed over her, melting the various aches and injuries that beguiled her into nothing more than memories. Just as it had when she dug into Valeera’s weakness, it felt cheap to her. A false, unearned relief. While she got to be whole again, others under her command had lost limbs and lives and so much more. It never seemed fair.
Liadrin didn’t let herself dwell on it this time. That was a thought for when she was truly alone, as rare as such moments were these days. In only a few moments, she was fully healed.
She then removed her leggings and undershirt, leaving herself in only a red bandeau and matching underwear. Utilitarian and practical--hardly what she would have worn if she’d planned for this meeting, but seeing Valeera was never something she could plan for.
She turned to find Valeera had followed her instructions. There wasn’t a single scrap of clothing left on her body, not that what she wore ever did much to hide it. It all lay in a neat pile of red, next to her on the dresser. Satisfied, Liadrin dimmed the lamp to only the softest of glows. She didn’t need to gawk. There were other ways that she preferred to appreciate that body.
“The drawer by your left knee, open it,” Liadrin said as she walked up, ghosting her hand over Valeera’s thigh.
There was just enough light for her to see one blonde eyebrow shoot up, but Valeera offered no resistance and opened the drawer.
Liadrin leaned in to reward her with a too-chaste kiss. “You’re much better this way.”
“What? Listening to your orders?” Valeera finally bit back.
“No, being kept quiet,” Liadrin said just before she captured her in a more heated kiss. She all but attacked, lips, teeth, and tongue--assaulting Valeera as she might a great fortress. That was always the hope, anyway. She would keep trying, keep chipping away at the other woman’s walls. She would peel them away, brick by brick, until she surrendered.
A moan against her lips told her that she was better at convincing her this way than she was with words.
“Reach into that drawer,” Liadrin again commanded against Valeera’s lips.
The gasp that hushed against her mouth told her that Valeera already knew what was in the drawer as soon as she placed a hand on it.
“Hold onto that for me for a moment,” Liadrin asked of her.
She trailed her fingers down Valeera’s arm, following it down to what she held in her hand. Giving those fingers just the briefest brush, Liadrin then moved to rid herself of her undergarments, with excessive care and lethargy, allowing Valeera to watch all she wanted, but stepping just far enough back so that she couldn’t touch her.
Liadrin came back to her, capturing her in another searing kiss before moving to Valeera’s ear to whisper, “Well, what are you waiting for? Put it on me.”
Valeera didn’t bother to try to choke out of comeback for that. She did as asked, with hands whose steadiness was only owed to years of combat and the discipline that came with it. It was really the only discipline that she knew, but Liadrin appreciated it all the same as those steady hands fastened the harness to her.
“So deft and so quick you are,” Liadrin purred against Valeera’s neck as she kissed her way down it, even as she adjusted her hips so that Valeera could reach them better. “It’s almost as if you want something.”
“You know I do,” Valeera breathed as she tugged at the last strap of the harness just a little too tightly.
“I can’t imagine what that is,” Liadrin said. “Let’s see if I can guess.”
Her hands were on Valeera’s thighs again, inching their way upwards. One went to the side, tracing up over a hip bone and back behind to scoot Valeera’s hips closer to the edge of the dresser. The other kept it’s touch soft, until only a single finger wandered over that warm skin until it found where warm became hot and incredibly wet.
“Oh I see,” Liadrin husked as she thrust that finger deeper in. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
A moan escaped Valeera’s lips. She ground her hips against Liadrin’s hand, craving more contact.
“Or is that not enough?” Liadrin asked, adding a second finger.
Valeera moaned again as she began working her fingers slowly in and out. Too slowly. “Just...just…”
“Just what?” Liadrin asked.
“Just fuck me,” Valeera said, finally regaining enough control to pull at the straps of Liadrin’s harness to emphasize her complaint.
“If that’s what you want then,” Liadrin said. She removed her hand and wiped it on the length of the strapon she wore in said harness.
“Please,” Valeera begged as she reached out with her other hand to grab hold of the other side of the harness.
“When did you learn manners all of the sudden?” Liadrin queried. She lined herself up, and gently pushed forward to give Valeera what she’d so kindly asked for.
The other woman let out a long, drawn out groan. She pulled tightly at the leather straps, encouraging Liadrin until their hips met. This time it was her that captured Liadrin’s lips. Valeera was always too much and just enough. Her teeth were always present, and made themselves known in each kiss just a little too much, but not enough to draw blood.
Liadrin began to move against her, slowly again, even as their mouths stayed connected. She loved to listen to Valeera’s sighs echo through her own mouth. She treasured each one. She kept her pace, breaking away to kiss Valeera’s neck and shoulders again as she let those gasps go free into the air of her bedchamber. Each shudder and moan was another mask uncovered, another wall dismantled. Every roll of her hips was a testament to the fact that there was a way they could speak to one another, to understand one another, without anything like politics or loyalties getting in the way.
Yes, she did want Valeera to bring her fruit and sing for her. She mostly wanted her here, safe in Silvermoon, loved and respected and surrounded by her fellow Blood Elves.
Maybe someday, Valeera would let that happen. But for now, Liadrin could only try to convince her that there was something worth staying for. That maybe it was her. Maybe it was this, how they danced in the dark, once they ran out of words to trade.
“Harder,” Valeera demanded shakily, grasping again at the straps and trying to pull Liadrin deeper into her.
Liadrin aimed to please. She thrust her hips faster against Valeera, noting how the other woman’s muscled thighs were starting to close in tightly around her. She was better this way, with her green eyes shut against the pleasure, her barbed tongue smoothed by Liadrin’s efforts. Liadrin lived for this Valeera, with her blonde hair loose and untamed--a wild thing that came to her to be tamed time and time again.
Valeera’s thighs relaxed their grip a little as she kept trying to pull Liadrin impossibly further in. That wouldn’t do.
She pushed those hands away. “If you can’t behave up here, then I’m going to have to move you.”
“I don’t want to behave,” Valeera threatened, trying to pull her in again.
“Fine,” Liadrin grunted, pushing her hands away again. She pulled out of her, then wrapped her arms around Valeera and easily lifted her off of the top of the dresser.
Valeera let out a little cry of both surprise and disappointment as she was placed on the floor. Her ears quirked upward in question, tips wobbling a bit at their peak as if to voice what she could not think to ask.
Liadrin answer by guiding her to the wall next to the dresser and turning her to face it. She placed Valeera’s hands against the cool plaster and said, “Keep these here.”
“But what if I want to touch you?” Valeera protested, half-turning to try to face Liadrin as much as she could while still keeping her hands on the wall.
“After,” Liadrin husked against the back of her neck. She gripped Valeera’s hips and entered her again, pressing her into the wall with a groan they both shared.
She kept at her pace, slow and fluid and unrelenting. Soon enough, the hands on Valeera’s hips were doing double duty, both holding her in place and holding her up where her shaking legs might have otherwise faltered. Liadrin relished it. She loved to watch as Valeera finally dropped all of her careful control and calculated smarm. Who else in the world got to see her this way, squirming and panting, giving into desire and nothing more?
This was hers. This, at least, belonged only to Liadrin.
She had enough strength to keep Valeera held up with one hand. The other had to make that claim ring true. Liadrin’s thrusts didn’t falter even as she reached around and stroked Valeera with her hand. The other woman’s breath was coming in spurts and hitched gasps now. Liadrin could feel her hips shaking every time they met her own.
“Come for me,” she ordered, lips hovering over the shell of Valeera’s long ear. “It’s what you came here for, isn’t it?”
As if on command, Valeera let out a deep languid moan, bucking her hips wildly as she fell apart. Liadrin held her up, and kept up her attentions until that moan turned to a warning grunt and Valeera tried to bat her away with still shaking hands. Only then did she withdraw.
Valeera turned to face Liadrin, pulling her into another kiss, though this one was without its usual bite. It was all lips and warm and wet, sloppy and wonderful. Thankful? Maybe. She could only hope.
Valeera kissed her until she regained full control over her own limbs. She kissed her softly and soulfully, enough that Liadrin was caught by surprise when the harness fell from her hips. She hadn’t even felt it being unbuckled.
She wasn’t surprised when Valeera guided her to step out of it, then pressed her back against the same wall she’d just been pressed against.
She was surprised when Valeera immediately sunk to her knees. “What are you--”
“Shh,” Valeera commanded this time. “I’m not letting you have all the fun tonight.”
She made her point quickly, spreading Liadrin’s thighs and sucking a mark into one of them. She kissed a scar on her hip, then grazed her teeth along the smooth lines of Liadrin’s pelvic muscles before following them down to her center. She placed the briefest of kisses there, then darted her tongue out experimentally. “You’re so wet,” Valeera noted. “You love fucking me, don’t you?”
Liadrin did. She truly did. She would have been content to go on all night, despite her fatigue, despite her stress, despite her regrets. All of that melted away when she could watch the threads of Valeera unravel at her touch.
Valeera let out a throaty laugh as she kissed again. “You do,” she said simply, then went back to work with her tongue.
Liadrin couldn’t be sure if it was from all the witty barbs and half-masked intrigue that that tongue wove, but whatever it was that made it as strong and skilled as it was didn’t matter. Valeera tasted her expertly. She didn’t waste time. She didn’t draw things out. She knew what to do and how to do it. She quickly coaxed Liadrin into a writhing mess, stripping her of her own control as easily as she stripped her of her armor.
It was all she could do just to hang on. Liadrin kept one hand on the wall, but the other found Valeera’s hair. She ran her hand through those wonderful strands of gold, even as she pushed gently at her, encouraging her.
Did Valeera feel as she did, when she watched her crumble? Did she enjoy the woman that was laid bare when everything else was taken away? Did she want more of her? Did she care?
Liadrin didn’t get time to ponder it. She came so quickly and so hard that now Valeera had to hold her up. The other woman laughed again, even as she kept teasing out Liadrin’s orgasm, relentlessly working her until she had nothing left.
When Liadrin could open her eyes again, they found green ones looking back up at her and Valeera leaned back and smiled.
Liadrin wished that she could say it was a loving smile. It might have been a fond one. Maybe. It was certainly a smug one. But she always wanted more from it, and never got that. She wanted those eyes to glow with a holy gold that matched her own. She wanted this to be every night, not just whenever Valeera wanted it do be.
She wanted. She craved. She understood, in a way.
Valeera stood and moved to kiss her again, her hands seeking Liadrin’s breasts to give them some much needed attention, but Liadrin didn’t let her. She held her back, shaking her head. “That’s enough. I told you, I’m tired. Why don’t you lay in bed with me, Valeera? You can stay as much or as little as you wish to, but I’d like if you laid with me for at least a little while.”
She’d never asked for such a thing before. She’d just given Valeera what she wanted until they were both too exhausted to continue. They’d fall asleep together, and Liadrin would wake up alone and groggy the next morning. Always. Every time.
Liadrin walked past Valeera, not giving her a chance to answer as she sought the comfort of her bed. She pulled aside the golden satin of the comforter and spilled herself into the crimson sheets.
And Valeera followed her. She actually followed her.
Liadrin tried to think of something profound to say. She couldn't. All she could do was admire the way that Valeera’s hair splayed perfectly across the crimson expanse of her pillows. How nice it looked. How wonderful it was that she was still smiling.
“You belong there,” was what she finally arrived at.
“Hmm, in your bed? With my hair a mess and the taste of you on my lips?” Valeera asked. “It’s definitely not the worst place I’ve ever been. But you know me, I don’t stay in one place for a long time.”
Liadrin couldn’t help herself. She had to run her hand through that hair again. She had to see it shine in every angle, every bit of light that the dim glow of her lamp still gave off. “Why not? You could belong here, with me. I would take care of you.”
“Ah yes, you would. You would dip me in your purified Sunwell and call me a success story,” Valeera said with a huff.
“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” Liadrin quickly responded before she could go on. “If you were to choose that path, I would be thrilled. But no, I meant strictly in a selfish way. You here with me. For me.”
“And you bringing me fruit and telling me of your victories,” Valeera added. “And me doing what exactly? Dropping everything for you?”
“I wouldn’t ask that of you either,” Liadrin told her.
“Not you, maybe. Lor’themar? Sylvanas? The rest? Probably. My freedom is the price I would pay to come back to my people, and to come to dwell under the banner of the Horde,” Valeera explained. She reached for the hand that Liadrin had tangled in her hair and captured it with her own, giving it a brief squeeze before she began to trace along each of Liadrin’s fingers.
“What could I do, to make it worth that price?” Liadrin asked.
For once, she watched as those green eyes stared upward, not at her. Valeera thought about it. She actually thought about it for a moment. She kept toying with Liadrin’s fingers as she did.
“Rest,” Valeera told her instead of giving an answer. “Sleep on it, and so will I.”
Liadrin reached out and drew Valeera into her. She held her tightly, smelling the sun on her skin and in her hair, even as night lay thick around them. Another connection, however faint and however small. Despite their allegiances, Valeera would always be a child of the sun, just as she was. Liadrin held her until she felt Valeera’s breaths even out, slowing against her chest. Liadrin’s soon joined hers.
It was so good not to sleep alone.
Which made it all the worse when she woke alone again in the morning. No note. No fruit or flowers. Only the faintest hint of the smell of sun-touched skin, and a single golden hair that was left behind on her pillow served as a evidence of the night before.