"There is a saying that no man has tasted the full flavor of life until he has known poverty, love, and war."
- O. Henry
-x-
"Into the belly of the beast wait no feast." He winked at her and then looked over at her with his classic smirk. Jaxon was in a mood to mess with her mind a little bit if only he could mess with her body as well but he was taking what he could get out of the situation. She was built differently than Calla in so many ways that he wouldn't even begin to describe them while her body was small statured beside him it wasn't built sensual and determined it was full of fire and stubborn will like the trees she so valued. Even as she stood with him she didn't shrink away or try to hide from his side. Nora walked as if she never touched the ground beneath her feet; her hips rolled with thick and enticing movements every step was a call to focus attention on her.
As he waited for them to be called into the room his eyes drifted down toward her and his jaw that was cut from the granite and ice itself moved back and forth as if he was chewing on words before letting them grace his tongue.
"Nora...if you thought you had to act a certain way in front of my council then you have no idea what you are walking into here. The things you'll see that you haven't ever witnessed before are exotic to you. My people don't care about sensibilities or anything; they indulge in each other right before your eyes; everything is a show for the King's attention." As the doors opened he leaned down and put his thumb under her lip parting them for his light kiss that had him breathing in rainforest jasmine when he caught her breath.
"Better make sure your show is worth it so I don't forget what I am working for with our people."
The doors opened and everything was crimson and gold; the skylight took the entire room and it was gilded with every so many tiles strategically hanging down with ice chandeliers that had orbs of light that never melted the sconces that they rested in. His throne with the smaller accompanying seat full with comfort and treats at the feet rested in the middle of one of the walls farthest from the door he would have to walk through the masses to get to it. His father had told him it was built that way so that a King would be humbled walking with his people as one even for a short time.
All the tables had lush cushions beneath them; it was easier for the ecstasy of eat and drink to be accomplished that way. Jax admitted that most of the furniture had been broken during drunken escapades.
"Shall we?"
The entire scene of the ice people, of Prims, was a walking abomination to her people. The horrors, the frozen nature of their hearts let alone their actions. How could they wish to follow one man? To allude to the idea that his own choices ruled all? What if he decided he wanted all the women to birth his children? Would they really make that a law on the bass of his lowered voice?
She looked over at that same King, her own crown of thorns prickling at her scalp as she let her eyes drift up to his atop his skull. Built in excess as was the rest of his castle and his people. Her lips parted in a rush of air as the crown glinted against the poor light of the castle walls. Everything, everything was… ice.
She shivered slightly, feeling her vines wrap harsher around her ankles, as if they too were recoiling before she moved to hold her head high, her jaw tight with the urge to speak but finding it in herself to silence it for the time being. She was aware this was neither the time or place to snap at him, but it didn't mean her tongue was any less sharp and ready to if she were pushed.
His comment about her keeping his attention on the reason they had traded made her sneer, his lips had brushed hers somewhere between her stomping down her rage and she felt her lungs sting with the air that rushed in so sharply. Looking away from him as the doors opened she focused her eyes on the people - not the items.
Their faces were sunken with starvation, the ones that were plump and more full of life were very obviously the wealthier and luckier souls. Souls, perhaps, was the wrong word but she had been taught from a young age that everything that could walk the Earth had a soul. The Prim's challenged that belief staring at them now. As they walked and people stared she stared right back. Her caramel colored eyes and skin looked so exotic beside theirs and she couldn't help but think how Jax had said it would be them that seemed exotic to her, a smirk placating itself onto her features at the idea that the ideal could be reversed.
When her eyes finally moved towards the "thrones" she let out a sound of strangled distortion leave her throat as they approached, out of the range of his people and their senses, her eyes the only thing moving to him as she spoke.
"What? Calla was no more than a dog to you?" She looked at the smaller cushion with treats. The point was to show she was beneath him, that his woman was to kiss his feet for his kindness and mercy that she even got the small cushion she did have. Wrinkling her nose she let her arm fall from his as she stepped towards it, looking over at him.
"My fox would barely fit on this, let alone my own body." She shook her head but kept her chin turned upwards as she threw the tail of her dress out and then sat on the poor excuse of a Queen's throne.
Jax wondered if she had noticed yet there were no children. Children were rare and they produced less each generation. But it was the thought that stayed with him that rumors were that they ate their young. Jax had changed policies on making the younger ones watch these events to 'grow steel' on their backs as his father had called it in favor of sending them into his side of the castle to protect him. Jax had seen too many things at a young age that had ill favored his mental side as an adult.
The violence he knew and craved? Degradation that Nora had just fallen upon with her words? All things he had known from birth didn't make him a better ruler, it made him a ruthless one. That was what made uprisings, it was what lopped heads from King's shoulders. Barely reacting he waited until she sat upon her throne with a flourish and then leaned over her his lips brushing the curl of her ear and his voice was raspy and thick.
"First and foremost Calla never had your assets. She is smaller and most times sat draped over my lap drinking from my throat like the greedy woman she was. But no she hadn't earned a throne yet my people saw her as a hmm something I was burdened with therefore until marriage me putting her on a throne went against what they thought is normal going against the tide is useless when the rocks you keep hitting won't fucking move." He nipped at her earlobe and had to groan deep as he stood there waiting a few moments before his body would let him move again.
Sitting arrogantly in his throne half lounged back with one leg draped over the other he looked down at her and shook his head as his lips curled with satisfaction.
Attention on her for a few moments eventually the real entertainment started and he began watching the woman clad in silky scarves over their top halves and strips of fabric around their hips began to dance like flurries in a snowstorm; hypnotic and erotic. The word was used so much in his world but it was the only thing that fit, people gave pleasure where and when they wanted it. Drank and ate themselves into excess often passing out where they fell.
All of them were the women that not so many days ago had wanted Calla to fall so that he would crown one of them. His thumb that had brushed Nora's now was between his teeth as he watched them. Calla hadn't fallen but she was gone nonetheless and the woman beside him was an unknown therefore not a threat. They saw her as a pet that he had made a deal for. No telling what the situation was or what Nora would claim when she sunk her little fox teeth into him.
Parting his legs and moving forward so that he was on his elbows as one of the women came forth on her hands and knees towards him Jax knew he should look at Nora but the lulling song of the dance and this woman had him enraptured on what he knew. What he craved besides blood.
Lust.
Nora didn't look at him when he leaned down into her ear, his demeanor was that of a man backed into a corner so often that she wondered if he really felt that way. He made himself bigger than was necessary, attempting to strike fear down a bear's throat. Widening his stance, keeping his broad shoulders back so that the muscles were always taught.
Turning her head when he nipped at her ear she just tightened every muscle to her core and took calming breaths before he sat down and she was otherwise given room to breathe. Her kind was known for their bare natures, for not needing anything other than modest covering and even then it was only for the sake of saplings and keeping their conjoining to minimums until they were closer to age. As the saplings crossed her mind she felt homesick, looking over the crowd of people to see none at an age that would require care, no children. Not a single untouched soul in the room. Her eyes filled with sorrow and her hand in her lap turned over her other in a form of comfort and she rubbed at the lines on her palm.
She craved her bark in times when she felt most vulnerable. When she had first found her human husband all those years ago she had been so easily blushed at his every movement. His humanity made her heart thud inside her hollow chest and she had turned into her true form more than she cared to admit from the overflow of vulnerable emotion.
But she couldn't here, not in this place. Her bark froze, as she had shown the council and the ice had formed so quickly to her antlers.
Turning her head towards Jax in need of distraction from her own mind she saw his gaze had changed directions and she followed his line of sight towards the women dancing. They were dressed more like her own kind, bare strips of silk covering their more sensitive pieces of flesh just barely, but she could feel the tension between the one that approached him so closely, the act of her crawling like a feline towards him had him engrossed. She wondered what this world was like when it came to such acts, and she could only picture violence. A thought crossed her mind that perhaps it was all they knew and she swore she heard Derek in her mind reminding her to show compassion to those who know none.
Her hand reached out to brush the underside of Jaxon's chin, barely tapping the other side with her nail to catch his attention and waiting until his gaze turned to look at her own, the caramel of her irises flooded with blues and greens of the Earth as she parted her lips. It was as if the ice melted away, as if she could see his humanity bubbling the surface and she could almost feel warmth beneath his skin, somewhere deep in his center. In a place where the Prim's had once been beings of soft powdered snow and not iced over warriors. One where they had blanketed her kind in gentle pieces of intricately woven flakes instead of sheets of painful ice atop their roots.
Her hand dropped from his chin gingerly and down to his forearm so that the contact wasn't broken, eyes never looking anywhere but his.
"You are an entire ocean, Jaxon. They may be boulders that never move from cliff sides but they will never know how it is to swell with passion. You crash against them with ferocity and they will wear down eventually. You only see them because they are unmoving, jutting and sharp. You fail to see all the storms you hold within yourself in the depths of your waters."
Jaxon was rolling his head and neck as he went to go forward and touch the woman when he felt a hand curl under his jaw but it wasn't anything substantial until he felt the sharp tap and pinch against his jawline. Slowly he looked over at Nora and rose a brow up at her. Her eyes had gone from warm earth to something he had only seen once as a boy; a shooting star splashing across the night sky lighting it up from neverending darkness. Feeling his brows knit together in surprise and shock he turned his body toward her presenting the shoulder towards the woman who had once so captured his attention for that fleeting moment. Parting his lips and showing her a toothy smile wasn't a threatening motion. It was one of surprise and rapture. As her hand dropped he swore he felt something plummet into his throat but when she touched his forearm he looked down at it slightly and then back up to her eyes. Everyone had sharper plains to their faces, angles and cut quality. But Nora was full and rounded, like if he cupped her cheeks she would be covering the whole surface. It made him swallow something as he leaned forward to her gathering the words like drops of blood and he did. Biting his thumb between a fang in his mouth the blood just kept him pinpointed to her face.
Savoring her words with a blood act.
"I think they swell with passion just fine, oh an eyeroll how Queenly Nora." He chuckled and then his face dropped into seriousness he could feel how he went from a smile to his natural state of being. Formidable and unrelenting there was no other way to describe himself so when she had stated the fact that he was the ocean and storm instead of another rock it paused his thinking for a brief moment but it seemed to span eternity. Had any of his lines been anything other than accepting of the knowledge that they were rocks instead of powerful elements?
As he went to go speak her name and thank her for her words the woman Alice had began to make sounds that knew were two things presented in one; disgust and a threat both towards Nora. It was a sound like yipping animals, derogatory to her as he knew the word amongst the castle was that she could shift shapes.
"How sweet of you Jax to take on another
charity case like Calla. At least this one isn't a rebel whore who spreads her legs for men to get what her rebels want. What does this animal do for her ways to be fulfilled?"
The hiss that followed was wind breaking and everyone in the feast was now watching. The council were watching from their crone nest in the corner and he was beginning to rise and with unforgiving speed her dainty palm rested in the middle of his massive chest as she rose before him due to the shock of her touching him so boldly.
As he leaned back down into his arrogant stance on the throne his hand tugged her a little to the side of him so that he could place his hand on the swell of one of her hips and gave her a little tap just like she had done him and nodded.
Nora Brüshlaya had the floor.
When he had gone to stand her hand had instinctively placed itself in the center of his chest, allowing it to shock him long enough that she could come to a stand and stare at the woman. She was tall and thin like the rest of the women of the kingdom, pale and ghostly looking. Nora was short, curved, her skin was tan and her eyes swirled with Earth and tones of lava. They were so entirely different and yet still they were females. Their goals were different but their ultimate hearts worked the same, even despite the different sides of the line.
"I sacrificed myself to your king so that your /queen/ could walk freely and know of the earth beneath her feet. So that I could learn your ways and she ours, so that diversity could be accomplished amongst our kind for the first time in eons. I understand your emotions, though I myself have never felt them. You are beautiful, exotic to me, someone I would enjoy speaking with in a different plane than the world we have grown to know. It saddens me that your only response to another female's presence is hostility, and while we are not violent by nature… Do not underestimate me. I am here for one soul purpose and should you or any others stand in my way I will not hesitate to put you back in your place. So while I am acting half of your King, you can find your seat back in the hall with the others, and keep yourself off the steps that lead to him."
She stepped towards the woman, watching as her feet naturally reeled backwards and down a few steps as she did so, still feeling the weighted palm of Jax on her hip before she nodded and smiled at the woman who continued her way down the stairs before Nora stepped backwards as the party and the noise continued on, and her mind wandered temporarily to Calla. How many times had she had to deal with these women? Did she even care if they did take her place with the way Jax had treated her previously?
She frowned and as the party thrived again she noticed out of the corner of her eye one of the more wealthy and healthier men was dragging a frail and much less taken care of woman by her hair and out of the hall, already tearing at her clothes before they were even out of sight. Her screams echoed and Nora noticed no one even bothered to glance in the direction of the screams, her jaw tightening as she turned to look at Jaxon.
"I'm rather tired. I'd like to turn in for the evening if possible."
Hearing her words he just raised a brow and then nodded after her standing up and seeing where her eyes had been. Was that what was bothering her? Calling out with a booming voice to everyone and stopping what they had been doing instantly he struck out his hand and formed ice vines around the seat she had been sitting at; it rose it to just below the height of his and created arms, legs and a back that mirrored his own but instead of the gilded luxury his illustrated hers was ice and nature with foxes wrapping around the legs.
"Nora in one second, just did what Calla never fully did. She acted like a Queen and demanded your respect. I don't have to step in for her to speak for her or anything so if you find yourselves making me step in it's your hearts and throats she will be stepping over next time. This is your only warning." Snarling at them he walked behind Nora taking a hand to her lower back and pushing her through the parting crowds until the doors shut behind their backs leaving the silence of how alone they were known.
Had he done something that she hadn't authorized? Nothing in his mind alerted him to being wrong, not that he thought anything he ever did was wrong, might equalled right in his book and there were none that fit that bill in either of his worlds. They stepped until he couldn't take the silence anymore, hauling her in front of him his hand spanned her throat and his thumb brushed what it could in soft circles.
"You demand respect then you leave like you are turning tail and no that is not a cute double edged word choice to get you to smile and coo at me like those bitches in there try to do. I don't protect a Queen because they have to worship her and be frightened of her if she wants to keep her head on her neck. Too many royals around here trust snakes when they should be stomping on them. This isn't the woman who keeps showing me her spine and teeth. Are you suddenly tired?"
Pushing her against a wall he wrapped his other hand around her wrist bringing it up near her head and his teeth hovered over the pulse point under her skin. What would it be like to savor her blood? Would it burn him like the sun? Would he never be able to ravish her in that way amongst others? The thought made his eyes shift to hers, the caramel color strikingly beautiful but what would it take to make her look at him that way again with shooting stars looming there?
"Or are you acting like a sullen brat who-" His face became suddenly thoughtful as he rewound everything once more. Something had upset her about the scene before her. The man taking the woman and her screams, the woman wasn't used to being wanted as she had just blossomed into a woman not a season before hand. Men had the power unless women became just as deadly with their ice bites in his world, Calla learned to kill before she learned to seduce. His own mother had been a warrior and had fought for a valiant moment with her life and Jax's word had been so he couldn't grasp why on Earth Nora was so distraught.
"What you witnessed. Is normal in my world. Me being bloodthirsty and cruel is how I act." He purred proudly as the thought of actually scaring her started to settle in his mind. Maybe the fear he felt under his fingertips had caused her to run like the prey that he wanted her to be. Needed her to be, that was something that he understood. That was something he craved; as much as Calla gave her body to him in ecstasy filled moments with screaming, blood pouring from his back and biting every ending was filled with the fear that it would be her last pleasurable moment. That she would die and never again draw breath or anything into her body.
They were right Calla dealt in sex and favors so he wondered absently how the woman was faring in a world full of Nora's. No he corrected mentally. Derek's.
As he inhaled deeply still purring he bent down and feathered his lips up her arm until he hit the crook of her elbow.
"Why are you running with your tail between your legs little lamb?"
Nora stepped with Jax after he made his declaration and she allowed the silence to stretch. She was tired, she was unable to root for energy, she was unable to wrap her mind around the darkness that plagued every corner of Jax's world. She had been lost in her thoughts when he had grabbed at her throat and she tilted her chin upwards, staring at him as he willed it.
His words reverberated every bit of her being, like an Earthquake beneath the surface could trimble and snap even the thickest of roots in its soil. His thumb moved over the hollow exposed base of her throat and she felt like she had fire building beneath her lungs and into her esophagus, causing her to gasp for air. She had yet to speak, even as his second hand grabbed her wrist and pinned it by her head, a natural curved arch to her back as she was pressed further into the wall by his towering nature, having to move her body to see him well enough in their height difference.
She wished in that moment that she could tower them all, but alas - she was stuck in her flesh.
"Running? No. Tired and hungry? Yes." She said simply and moved her neck in a slight show of discomfort, her eyes narrowing as she stared up at him. When his fang brushed so close to her wrist she wondered if they could drink from her kind. If they could survive on it, or if it perhaps could perish them. Glancing over at the walls and seeing the pieces of jagged ice and then finding his gaze again. It was so oddly comforting amongst all the shivering daggers of the others. Despite the cold and vile needs of his people there was something beneath that surface.
"Plus you said if I wished to sleep in my chambers I was always welcome to, so truly it's under your grace that I am allowed to rest. Is it not?" She flipped the tables. Make it his idea. Make it his want. His need to comfort her. To allow her to replenish.
There was a seed of irony planted within his mind that she could find a position where she liked what he was doing. His mouth parted open as she repeated his words to her and he tilted his head in his dark curls brushing the nape of his neck as he did so. What did Durvos' eat? She hadn't eaten a single thing that they fed to the animals...something hit his tongue like ashes and he had to taste it for a long moment trying to figure out what the emotion was. Like he felt bad about giving her food of animals while his logic argued that she was part of an animal.
He'd have to send someone to find out and gather the nourishment that she required. He doubted her sulking moose of a brother would like it if she starved to death under his watch.
Parting his lips and putting that unknown feeling aside Jax leaned backward letting her go to open the door for her and then stretched his arms so that the corded muscle bulged outward slightly on either side of the frame as she stepped inside her room with the coolness of her nature. Smirking at her and going to unleash his hold on the door so that he could follow that hip rolling, pleasure-inducing smile into her room he swore she was beckoning him to lean down for a true kiss.
Just as the gold-covered wood shut in his face.