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Al-Haitham wakes to tangled sheets; to the whispers of the forest and receding dreams.
The scent of dewdrops on silver moss lingers in the morning air. There’s a heavy weight of an arm—long-limbed and muscular, fingers tipped with curved claws, and a wide palm with velvet pads… Kaveh’s arm—slung over his bare chest. Kaveh’s face is pressed close to his neck, the slow inhale and exhale of his breath warm, comforting against Al-Haitham’s bruised skin, chasing away the frosty chill from his bones.
By early dawn, the curse etched within Kaveh has subsided, calmed momentarily by Al-Haitham’s offering of blood and their fervent copulation through the night. Kaveh sighs, his eyelids still heavy with sleep as he clings to Al-Haitham. Apart from the large, feline ears twitching beneath strands of golden hair and tufts of bronze fur framing his jawline, and the long, striped tail twisted possessively around Al-Haitham’s left thigh, he’s mostly reverted to human form.
It’s almost ritualistic at this point. One they find themselves returning to many times over at the height of each full moon, bodies entwined and entangled, connected at the seams through the entirety of Kaveh’s transformation. Moonlight would cast a gleaming sheen over the burnt orange fur rippling over his muscles, his body quivering, flesh and skin shifting, remoulding into the massive form of a fearsome feline beast; his eyes burning a wild crimson-gold, his teeth glinting vicious silver.
Rivulets of blood would run scarlet when Kaveh lays claim to Al-Haitham’s bare flesh, too-sharp fangs raking down from the column of his neck to his collarbones. When long, twisted claws pin Al-Haitham forcefully down, gripping marks and welts into his slender waist and thighs, before Kaveh thrusts his swollen barbed cock, thick and throbbing, into Al-Haitham, pistoning into the tight, engulfing heat of Al-Haitham’s slicked folds with each desperate roll of his hips.
Al-Haitham releases a soft breath at the memory, leaning back into Kaveh’s embrace when he finally blinks awake and presses a kiss to Al-Haitham's nape.
“Sorry Al-Haitham, I got carried away last night…” Kaveh murmurs, voice contrite as he brushes more kisses over the contusions on Al-Haitham’s skin, the velvet pads of his palm caressing the fast-fading scars slashed across Al-Haitham’s chest.
Al-Haitham only hums at this unnecessary show of concern. “To think you had once refused to touch me at all,” he says, mouth twitching up into a curve. He feels the length of Kaveh’s cock gradually thickening against the back of his thighs, at the curve of his ass. “And yet here you are now—Greedy, insatiable, and barely able to restrain yourself.”
Indeed, it had taken nearly a year before Kaveh finally acquiesced to lie with Al-Haitham, to allow himself to partake in Al-Haitham’s offering of blood and flesh in order to quell the compulsions born of this wretched curse.
He had first discovered Kaveh huddled in pain, wild-eyed and overwrought, between the gnarled roots of a large cedar tree beside the stream. The curse had already taken root by then, enmeshed too deeply within his soul, and Kaveh had been barely lucid, his transformation into a were-beast almost far too gone.
Al-Haitham’s magick was able to calm the beast’s agitation, his voice low and placid as he recited incantations in the Old Tongue of the forest; a balm that gradually soothed the turmoil and despair within Kaveh’s heart until he could grasp enough of his wits and senses again and shift back into human form. Still, as it is with the Old Laws and the cycle of seasons, the mark of the curse cannot be fully erased—only subdued for a time, like the ebb and flow of the tides, before Kaveh is once again beset by a ravening hunger; an aching, voracious lust for human blood and flesh.
To Al-Haitham, this current agreement between them is simply the most viable solution for Kaveh’s predicament. For while he does not bear the mark of a curse like Kaveh, he too is a child of two worlds who treads between the borders of M’an and Fae, of being and un-being. A descendant of the union between a young Akademiya scholar and the forest guardian, the bull-goddess Haravatat; a lonesome half-spirit who shapeshifts at will, and can easily heal and regenerate his human guise, even when torn apart by dark, monstrous jaws.
So, what is it to Al-Haitham then, if he lets Kaveh—this poor, measly human cursed now to forever subsist on the living—to devour his body, his heart, piece by piece? To savour the warmth of Al-Haitham’s human flesh, blood, and heartstrings, so that Kaveh can gorge his fill once a month at the height of the full moon?
Kaveh scowls at Al-Haitham’s wry remark, cheeks dusted with colour.
“Stop teasing,” he huffs, even though there isn’t any real heat to his voice. “You know I was afraid I’d lose too much control, that I’d hurt you then.” He laves a moist tongue over the shell of Al-Haitham’s left ear, grinding his hips and now-erect cock against the cleft of Al-Haitham’s ass again, sending a trail of gooseflesh prickling up his nape.
Al-Haitham glances over his shoulder, a touch of mischief in his bright eyes. The heat of arousal is coiling within his belly, and he allows himself another alluring smile as he regards the desire and hunger in Kaveh’s gaze. “It’s fine. Fae are naturally heartless, after all. That’s what humans tell their younglings to keep them safe and obedient for their own self-serving whims, is it not? So, it doesn’t matter if you use me or devour me—A-Ah!”
There’s a jolt of movement when Kaveh abruptly shifts, muscles growing larger and rippling under bright fur as monstrous paws shove Al-Haitham down roughly into the sheets. A growl sounds from Kaveh’s chest, the rumbling of a ferocious beast, before elongated canines rip at flesh and a large, bristled tongue laps sloppily at the blood that drips from the sides of Al-Haitham’s neck.
Straddling over him, Kaveh nudges at Al-Haitham’s thighs with his hind paws, spreading him wider. Al-Haitham can only inhale sharply, body convulsing when Kaveh plunges himself in again, his barbed cock sliding in deep and hot, the come and slick from their intense joining in the previous night dribbling out past the rim with an obscene squelch.
“But I understand now.” Kaveh’s voice is tinged with amusement, his heavier weight keeping Al-Haitham pinned beneath him. He begins thrusting hard, setting a vicious pace that forces the air out from Al-Haitham’s lungs, wrenching a debased moan from his throat.
“I know you enjoy it much more like this,” Kaveh purrs, nipping at Al-Haitham's ears with just a hint of teeth. "When I’m rough with you, and make you hurt and bleed."
“If you mean I prefer it when you’re honest with your needs—then, yes.” Al-Haitham manages to gasp out even as he feigns resistance and struggles against the weight holding him down, at the curved claws locked around his wrists.
“You and your deflections.” Another scoff, and a deep laugh rumbles from Kaveh’s chest. Still, he plays along with Al-Haitham’s mock defiance; he tightens his grip, grinding hard at an angle that soon has Al-Haitham writhing beneath him with a desperate, aching need. Kaveh growls again, a low rumble of excitement, sinking his fangs further into Al-Haitham’s neck and shoulder in a ravenous delight as he quickens his pace.
Caught between the damp sheets and Kaveh’s massive form, Al-Haitham can only respond with more harsh gasps of effort, body trembling and stretched taut to accommodate every forceful thrust and drag of Kaveh’s cock within him, the barbs keeping them enmeshed, jolts of pleasure-pain lancing up his spine. The exhilaration is addictive, near-dizzying as it grows, surging like a wave. Kaveh suddenly releases his jaws to nuzzle at Al-Haitham’s face, his tongue curling, sucking at the crescent horns crowned upon Al-Haitham’s head.
Al-Haitham shivers at the intimacy of the touch, another thrill of pleasure rising within him—he’s close, so close, balanced precariously over the edge with a heart-pounding equilibrium, his pulse thundering vividly beneath bruised skin and lacerations, his own cock dripping with precome, when Kaveh suddenly pulls out, leaving Al-Haitham to squirm in perplexed frustration at the loss of friction and heat.
But before he can speak, Kaveh turns Al-Haitham over his back, pushing, bending his thighs even further before he pounds right back into him. Kaveh lowers his drooling jaws again, ripping, gnashing through the skin of Al-Haitham’s heaving chest as he works his way through flesh, muscle, bone, before those sharp, sharp fangs close over the frantic thrumming of his heart.
All coherent thoughts quickly fade into a hazy mist and Al-Haitham arches up with a cry, the pleasure-pain reaching fever pitch as Kaveh, lost momentarily to the lust and hunger, continues to gorge, devouring slivers of Al-Haitham’s still-throbbing heart and drinking his fill of the blood that’s spilling down Al-Haitham’s ravaged chest.
Al-Haitham clenches hard around Kaveh’s engorged cock, the barbs knotting deep, deep, deeper, as Kaveh ruts fiercely, relentlessly into him—until Al-Haitham finally tenses, breaks, jerking involuntarily around Kaveh when he finally climaxes in a rush of excruciating pain and pleasure, with Kaveh bellowing a loud, guttural roar as he follows soon thereafter with his own release.
By the time their exhausted pants slowly even out in the lull, flesh and bone are already reknitting, remoulding over Al-Haitham’s chest, lacerations and scars fading like motes of dust from his unmarred skin. A veil of silver moss and celadon lichen are entwined in his radiant horns, glinting in the golden sunlight trickling into the den.
Kaveh, sated and fully human once more, releases a languorous sigh. He pulls Al-Haitham gently into his arms, embracing him close.
Yes, Al-Haitham thinks, almost distantly, as Kaveh brushes apologetic kisses over his chest, his face, his lips, his horns. This offering and exchange of favours is the most viable for Kaveh, but it also allows Al-Haitham to further process these raw, and at times, unfathomable sensations—this unending well of human emotions.
Pain, grief, suffering, fear, exhilaration, contentment… love? Things he had only observed (lost) and witnessed cautiously from a distance through the long centuries, but have never quite understood in the truest, most visceral sense beyond the cyclic reasoning and destructive chaos of the Old Laws; beyond the placidity and rationality of nature and the seasons, of Fae.
“You’re wrong, Haitham,” Kaveh says at length, fingers tracing now over the jewelled piercing in Al-Haitham’s chest, above his heart. “Fae are not always heartless—not you, at least. How could you be, for all that you’ve done for me? And I could always taste and feel all of it, you know. Your affections and yearning, in every sliver of flesh, bone, and blood… In every piece of your heart that I’ve ingested.”
Al-Haitham meets Kaveh’s tender look with an impassive gaze of his own. He hums then, soft and contemplating, before he glances away, the barest curve of a smile on his lips.
“I see… Perhaps you’re not always incongruous, after all. I guess I’ll have to hold you in much higher regard.”
“Wha—? You…!” Kaveh flushes, face growing warm at the teasing. But his vexation doesn’t last. Not when they’re still entangled together like this, basking in the sun; and not when Al-Haitham’s teal eyes brighten with mirth and fondness once more as he reaches for Kaveh with a kiss, pressing their foreheads close.
—End—