Chapter Text
The star liquified on her tongue and slid down her throat more easily than she thought it would.
Rey let out a shuddering breath as she felt the light and heat trickle down her esophagus, settling at the base of her stomach before spreading slowly all throughout her body.
The pool where they stood was still silver, still glittering, still glowing with that silken starlight. It hadn’t faded like it did when Ren held the star concealed within his fist. Instead, it only flared brighter before calming back down to its original glimmering, mirror-like perfection.
Ren was watching her closely now.
He seemed to be waiting for something.
“Is…is that it?”
Ren pulled Rey into his arms when she asked the question, folding her into his dark robes against his chest and tucking her under his chin. He only hummed contentedly in answer while they stood together for a moment, waiting, the soft, low tenor of his voice vibrating in his chest soothingly against her ear.
“You’re free now, Rey,” he murmured into her hair. “No one can hold sway over you anymore. You’re mine, I’m yours, and you’re free. Together, we both are, I think.”
Free.
She…was free. Really and truly, for the first time in her life. He was right: she felt it. No indenture contract could touch her now. She was pledged to one person, but he was pledged to her in return.
Though she didn’t feel any different, not really. Nothing aside from the growing warmth simmering at her core and the increasing relief at the thought of finally being able to stay with Ren—at the thought of being able to stay with him here. Whatever this place was, it was quiet and calm. Relaxing, just like his presence.
It felt like home.
But maybe that was because he did.
Rey swayed tiredly on her feet, and she wondered how long Ren might let her sleep in that enormous, perfect bed of his. Her eyes felt heavy. She was exhausted, bone-tired, wholly certain she could sleep for at least a month undisturbed if he’d let her. And she knew he would. He would tuck her in and curl up with her and let her sleep, just like he always had.
The joy and relief of that thought were overwhelming, and she nearly crumpled in his arms.
She was finally safe.
She was finally free.
Rey hadn’t fully realized it until now.
“You’re free with me.” Ren was running his hand through her tresses, combing his fingers through her waves, smoothing out any tangles as he found them. “Or you will be soon.”
She closed her eyes and leaned into him, still waiting to feel different, still wondering what eternity was supposed to be. The idea of something so large was incomprehensible. But when another minute passed and nothing else happened, she looked up at him questioningly, uncertain of what she was supposed to feel.
Then all of a sudden, she shivered, despite how warm she was.
Whenever Ren shifted, wherever his robes brushed against her bare skin, electric tingles danced. It was as if her nerves were suddenly aware of every single one of his movements, of even the most minute of his touches. She shivered again, and then stilled.
“Did it work? Can I stay here now?”
The Night Lord Ren pulled back and tilted his head, studying her with narrowed eyes before a knowing expression gradually dawned on his face. He nodded once. “I can sense it working—can you?”
His touch only made the heat simmering in her core more intense.
“I’m—” Her stomach churned, turning over on itself, and she closed her eyes and grunted. The pool beneath them rippled, the tiniest vibrations shivering across the liquid starlight beneath their feet. “I’m—I’m not sure? But that felt weird.”
He slid a hand down to rest at her waist, his fingers curling into the fabric of her dress and pressing towards her flesh. “Give it a moment. We are removing time, after all. It may take some.”
Her stomach seemed to have settled again. Now she felt fine. “What are we waiting for, exactly?”
“You’ll feel it when it happens. You’ll know. Do you trust me?”
"Yes." There was no question.
"Good." Ren folded his sweeping robes over her bare arms with a soft smile, enveloping her protectively in shadow again. “And no, that’s not it. We need to do one more thing. One more thing for me to share my immortality with you once your ties with time are burned away.” He glanced over at the immense bed in the distance, its bright scarlet sheets hovering in the middle of the void like a rose suspended in midair, before meeting her eyes again.
Oh.
His gaze darkened, the shadows in his face sharpening into stark relief. “I did swear to give all of myself to you as your husband, didn’t I?” He brushed a strand of her hair away from her face. “And I meant it.”
“Oh. Well, yes, you did, didn’t you?” Rey’s cheeks burned, and she noticed Ren’s own growing warmer as he looked at her. “I meant it too. I…” She drew in a deep breath. “Truthfully, I’ve wanted you for a long time.” Her entire face was scorching now. “In case you couldn’t tell.”
“I might have gleaned that.” He rolled his lips together and tried to hide another smile while he began to run his hands more thoroughly along her waist, exploring her curves in a way he hadn’t gotten to in this form yet. “And I might have tried to hide how much I wanted you too—and how deeply in love I was with you. But I don’t think I did it very well.” It was as if he was aching to run his hands along her bare skin hidden beneath the layers of fabric, and she could hardly blame him.
She wanted him to touch her too.
“No.” Her smile broke through and calmed the rising inferno in her cheeks. “I might have gathered that much in the cave. And I’m glad.”
A part of her still couldn’t believe the day she’d just had. Just this morning she was supposed to marry Hux—but she’d kissed Ren in front of an altar instead. He’d rescued her, and they’d made a sacred agreement per the fundamental laws of the universe, of Fate. They’d said vows and pledged themselves to one another when she’d thought she’d never see him again, much less like this. He’d called her his wife—which meant he really was her husband.
Husband.
She hadn’t dreamed it, and neither had he.
She was married to a god by his own divine decree, and his bed was about to become their marriage bed.
They still had to consummate it for their agreement to be unbreakable.
But in the meantime…
In the meantime, there was something else she wanted.
Rey drew her thumb across his lips. “Will you smile for me again?” she murmured. “I want to see it.”
At her words, his face softened. One corner of his mouth dragged upwards, wry, crooked, coy, and a single crescent dimple came out to play. “Oh?” he purred, his voice low and syrupy like warm honey. “You just want to see it again?”
She nodded, catching on to the game they were playing. “Mhm. I just want to see.” She traced the sweeping, plush curves of it. “It is a rather beautiful mouth, after all. I like your smile.” When she lowered her hand and ran it along his throat, stopping to rest her palm over the prominent column of his neck, he shifted even closer to her, rolling his hips slightly so he could press his body tightly against hers. The way he moved was sharp, predatory, catlike. As if he were about to pounce. “And you have a beautiful voice, too.”
“You think so?” She could feel the pleasure rumbling in his voice beneath her fingers, the slight tinge of a growl. His eyes were warmer now too, more amber and whiskey than moss, and his skin heated beneath her touch. “I should hope so,” he whispered. “Because you gave them to me—made them for me.” He rested a hand in her hair and lowered his lips just to graze against her own as he spoke. “They’re all for you. All of what I am is yours. I always have been.”
It shouldn’t have surprised her when he kissed her again. But what did was how different it felt now that the warmth inside her had spread. Rey could sense every ridge of his lips, every line, every curve of them slotting so perfectly against her own, vibrating with feeling and power, all of it, all of what they were together, concentrated down into that single touch.
It was electric.
It was terrifying.
It was exhilarating.
When he broke away, he kept his eyes closed and his forehead pressed to hers. “Did you really always know when I was there?” he murmured, swaying on his feet with her in his arms.
She nodded and swayed with him, gliding smoothly atop the pool of starlight nestled in the heart of the infinite cosmic void. It was a dance of a sort, and she felt like she was floating in his arms. “Of course I did, silly. Did you think you were hiding, with the light of the stars twinkling in your eyes like it was?”
“Well…yes.” He huffed a laugh. “But I thought I was dreaming. I suppose that was only sort of true.”
“You were asleep the entire time?” He nodded. “My whole life?” He nodded again.
“Your whole life, and much longer than that, besides. When I closed my eyes, I never intended to wake up.”
She frowned. “Then how did you—”
“It was you. You brought me back to life—and into the light.”
“I—“
She jolted.
Her stomach had dropped again.
She couldn't ignore it anymore.
The heat inside her shifted from a slow simmer to a growing boil, and something tugged urgently between her legs. It was only worsened, intensified by the way Ren had opened his eyes and was looking at her, the way his voice had dropped low and deep, how his hands were softly running along her bare skin beneath his robes, his fingertips skating down her neck and chasing the lines of her collarbones. Her cheeks burned red-hot at his touch, and her heart began to race as sweat dripped down her brow.
Rey coughed and tried to clear her throat once more. Breathing was suddenly more difficult than it had been before; it was like something was sitting on her chest, or lodged in her windpipe. Or both.
She glanced up and met her new husband’s dark gaze. His eyes looked just as molten as her own felt, and his pupils widened rapidly, growing blacker by the second until they broke past his multicolored, heterochromatic irises and swallowed the whites completely. Rey blinked, and in that split second, the human form he wore was gone.
Ren stood before her, no longer a man, but the void itself.
His eyes were the deepest black, their color matched only by the darkness of the scar slashing across his face, his neck, disappearing down into the robes of shining, swirling night he wore now. Silver and white threads wove throughout his skin, glittering in shimmering, whorling patterns that looked more and more like sweeping stars dancing through a spinning cosmos the longer she looked at them, only they moved and faded and folded with his movements instead of appearing to remain static in the sky. It was as if the night sky itself was shifting on its feet, tilting on its axis, dancing and rocking and swaying with the rhythm of life.
She gasped.
Whereas Ren had always looked like a shadow before, the idea of a person, an indistinct outline, now she could see every detail of him. Stars lit up his irises, silver banded the edges of his overlarge ears, white light flashed across the slope of his nose and highlighted the curves of his mouth when he tilted his face. He was outlined in negative against the blackness of his void, the limits of him leaking bright, white power, curling away and fizzling into the darkness like steam over a hot cup of tea.
“Rey.”
When he opened his mouth to speak her name, there were galaxies nestled at the base of his throat. The light from them poured between his lips and spilled out through his pores, sweeping out into the world like starlight leaking through cracks in a stone wall. She couldn’t tell where he ended and his power began.
Ren was limitless in this form.
The more she looked, the larger, wider, more expansive, more infinite he became, the edges of him trickling away and dissolving out into the vast nothingness of the universe until he encompassed her completely, encircled her in darkness, swept along her skin and enveloped her in void. She felt him wrapping around her, warm and welcome, hugging her close and pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, and she knew she’d never again have to walk alone in the dark.
He was the void, but the void loved her.
The void was kind.
He was gentle.
He was hers.
“Rey?”
She blinked.
He was a young man again, pretty and pale-skinned and dark-haired, flesh and blood instead of void and shadow and starlight, and he stood before her, bending down and staring into her eyes with concern etched deep between his brows.
“What?” she whispered. Her voice sounded far away to her own ears. It rang in them, distant and odd, sonorous and tenebrous. She turned her head and tried to follow the sound, but it was impossible to find it.
It echoed all around her.
“Are you alright, sweetheart? I’ve been saying your name.”
Why was his voice making the earth tremble beneath her feet? It wasn’t that deep a moment ago. There wasn’t even earth here, so what exactly was trembling? The darkness? The very sky itself? That didn’t make sense.
Or maybe it did.
She blinked, and Ren’s eyes shifted to pure black again.
Or…wait.
No, they hadn’t.
They were the same as they were before.
It was everything else that was somehow getting darker—and lighter—all at once.
Her stomach jolted again—harder this time than before. She folded in half at the force of it and fell to her hands and knees in the pool of starlight at her feet.
It was rippling, but still a perfect, glowing silver, warm and silken between her curling fingers, flowing and licking along her skin like liquid mercury. When it stilled, she caught sight of her face in its reflection, pale and drawn, but…shimmering. The edges of her were beginning to lighten and blur, the outline glowing thicker and more luminescent like Ren’s had. She dipped a hand in the pool, cupping the molten silver in her palm and bringing it up to examine it.
She didn’t see any of the light around her hand in front of her face, but it was still there in the reflection of the pool.
“That’s strange. Why can I—”
Before she could finish that thought, the starlight she held cupped in her palm disappeared—
—and soaked directly into her skin.
“What the hell?!” Rey cried, falling backwards and landing fully in the pool at Ren’s feet, drenching herself in it. It splashed over his boots but quickly rolled off—not because whatever leather they’d been made out of had been waterproofed, but because all of it was racing towards her.
Her body was sucking all the starlight directly into it.
She could feel it flooding into her skin at her palms, surging up through her bare feet, leaching into her arms, every bit of her bare flesh that touched the silver mercury suddenly absorbing the light that had dripped from Ren’s ancient star he’d gifted her. It flowed through her veins, warm and light and pulsing, mixing with the heat already building inside her. The more she absorbed, the faster it flowed, the pool gradually flaring brighter and brighter in intensity while it rapidly shrunk beneath her palms.
“Wait,” she gasped, panic flooding across her. “What’s happening?” It was too much, too fast. She was already almost full to bursting.
She couldn’t contain it all.
And yet, there was still so much more.
Still it flowed into her.
Her skin burned and itched, expanding and stretching at the seams.
She cried out and tried to scramble to her feet, her heart racing while she panted so hard, she was certain she would pass out—but still the light chased her. Tendrils of glittering white and glowing silver shot up from the pool, encircling her legs and soaking into her being, as if the starlight was desperate to return to whence it came, desperate to be inside of her with its swallowed source.
“REN!”
He held out a hand. “It’s alright. Don't panic. You’re alright.” His face and voice were so much calmer than she felt.
The enormous pool that had been there before was almost gone, almost drained completely dry by the flight it was making into her soul through her body. It shifted beneath her feet, slanted, swirled, contracted and condensed. By the time Ren’s hands slid beneath her shoulders, the last of the starlight was trickling into her through her toes. And when she soaked up the very last glimmering, silver drop, the world around them went silent.
There was a dark spot in the sky where the star had been.
And then—
The void around them twisted and trembled.
Rey swayed where she stood, stumbling hard enough that she almost fell again, but Ren’s strength held steady and he caught her before she could.
“Rey!” Ren scooped her up in his arms and held her against his chest. “It’s working, sweetheart,” he breathed, pressing his nose into her cheek. “This is it. It’s what I was waiting for. You’ll be alright, I promise. I—”
The world went white.
Heat.
Searing.
Burning.
BOOM.
Rey screamed, loud and long.
Searing pain wracked across her body, and she wailed in anguish, gasping for air while she turned and dug her nails into Ren’s strong back through his dark, shadowy robes.
Because the star she’d swallowed had exploded inside of her.
Her mouth had gone completely dry.
She was dying of thirst.
She was so full of light that she herself was about to burst. Everything hurt, everything burned, all of the edges of her, all the way down to the tips of her nails and the ends of her hair. She could feel every strand growing out of her scalp, her nails lengthening, the marrow within her bones birthing new blood, the cells of her skin dying and being reborn, replaced over and over again along every surface of her body.
All of it, every bit of it, she could suddenly feel.
It was as if time no longer had meaning. That which was fast was now slow, and slow was now far, far too fast.
She managed to open her eyes. The sight of the glowing starlight pools stretching into the distance was blinding now, all of them flaring bright like infinite suns, their prisms of light scattering myriad colors all around her into a boundless haze.
The only thing she could see with any clarity was the soothing darkness of Ren’s eyes hovering in front of her.
The rest of it was excruciating.
She cried out again, screaming until the light around her was suddenly doused in black, calming void. Ren had covered her face with his robes, and she could feel them moving now. He was running with her in his arms.
”This—this is it?” she moaned, wrenching her nails deeper into the strange fabric covering him. It had looked thick and heavy like velvet, but now it felt as light and smooth as silk. The inferno inside her spread out from her stomach, liquifying again and flowing to her fingertips, her toes, surging back and forth, sweeping and searing through her bones before receding again. Every inch of her skin tingled. Every bit of her insides twisted and burned. “I—I feel—”
“I know.” Ren's voice thundered through her core. He was holding her close against his chest so that she wouldn’t jostle. “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”
Her own chest felt so very heavy, and suddenly the temperature in the void was sweltering, the heat of her skin outside matching the fire within. Ren’s robes were ripped away from her face, replaced with the sight of his own as he crouched over her on his bed, both arms bracing his massive body above hers. Sweat beaded and rolled down her brow as the colors of Ren’s palace shifted and grew, expanded and shrank, all the monochrome tones of black and white and silver blurring and swirling and melding with the vivid scarlet of his sheets surrounding her, pouring off the edges of his bed in rivulets like tumbling waterfalls of blood.
The dress she wore was stifling. It was far too constraining, its stays digging deeply into her sides. It had fit her like a glove before, but now? Now it couldn’t contain her anymore. She’d grown far too much to be trapped by it any longer. She arched her back and tore at the laces, gasping for breath. It hurt.
She hated it.
“Get it off,” she rasped, convulsing atop the bed in her desperation. “Take it off! I want it gone!”
“Hold on, Rey. I’ll fix it.”
Fear gripped her. It was uncontrollable now. She hadn’t expected to feel like this. “It hurts already. Is it—is it going to hurt more?” Tears streamed down her face and she sobbed at the way her skin felt: like it was trying to peel itself away from the bones melting and liquifying inside her body. Lava tore through her veins now, fire licked at her skin, all of it emanating from where the star she’d swallowed had landed and nestled straight into her core, burrowed right into the depths of her very soul before it burst.
“No, sweetheart. I’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
Ren gripped the bodice of her dress and wrenched it sharply between his hands. It ripped in half straight down the center, and he tore again through the skirts, his immense strength and massive hands shredding through the layers of expensive mortal fabric in one fell swoop like a hot knife through butter.
She’d thought the cool air of his palace would alleviate her volcanic skin.
It didn’t.
Another sob tore through her chest.
“I’m scared, Ren. I’ve never done this before. I—”
“I haven’t either. But I know what to do.” He ran a loving hand along her cheek, down her throat, and across her chest before cupping one of her exposed breasts in his wide palm. He chased his hand with his mouth, pressing soft kisses everywhere his fingers swept.
His cool, soothing touch was the only thing that alleviated the burn.
She moaned long and loud at the relief.
“Lovers worship each other in the night. Love is part of my domain, whether any mortal knows that or not.” Ren surged forward and took her lips between his, drawing a kiss from her, drinking her in, long and slow. Her body arched off the bed and canted towards his, already trying to meld with him. She was desperate to have him on her now, desperate to have him inside her, frantic for his skin, his touch, his taste. When he drew away, he blew out a breath and sent cool air swirling across her lips and neck and breasts, coaxing her skin to prickle into gooseflesh and her rosy nipples to harden into tight peaks. “Let me honor you. Let me worship you now.”
“Yes,” she gasped, tearing at his robes. “Please. I want you. I need you.”
“I’ll make you feel better. I’ll make you feel good.”
He reached up with one hand behind his back and ripped his robes over his head, stripping himself bare in one go, his eyes locked with hers while he tossed them into the void. They disappeared somewhere, melting back into the shadows from whence they came, and she finally got a good look at him in his totality.
He was the most magnificent man she’d ever seen.
His body was thick and wide, his limbs long and strong, rippling with muscles that looked as if they’d been hewn from the side of a mountain, cut directly from the stone that formed the earth—the very ones she’d felt a hint of back in the cave. The scar running down his face and neck continued further down, the old, healed wound slashing a faded white against the chiseled plains of his chest. More moles, the same as the ones dotting his face, shone dark like the unborn stars he contained across his pale skin, and the urge to press her lips to them, to honor and cherish each and every one, was nearly irresistible.
He was vast, all of him large, the very definition of the word—including the enormous co*ck jutting up between his legs now, long and hard and heavy.
He was truly a god in every sense, in every way imaginable.
She imagined him inside of her, and despite how much she wanted him—how much she needed him— she whimpered.
How could she contain him?
He was the entire Night.
But he didn’t enter her yet. Instead, Ren leaned forward and laid his naked body atop hers, sliding his hands underneath her to tug her flush against him and encircling her in his arms. He was just as heavy as he looked, but the weight of him soothed her.
“Shhh,” he whispered, pressing another kiss to her cheek while his fingers curled softly in the damp hair at the base of her neck. “Relax, my love. I need you to relax. It’ll be alright.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ll make sure of it. Because I’ll take care of you—like I always have. Haven’t I?”
He’d always been there for her, as much as he could be, whenever she needed him the most.
“You have.”
Rey closed her eyes and melted into him, spreading her legs wide to accommodate his bulk and hold him steady, getting used to the idea of him there despite the trepidation lingering at the back of her mind. The longer he held her, the more that worry receded.
Because no one had ever held her this way before.
No one but him.
She had no idea it was what she needed until he did.
He may have been the Night, but to her, he’d always just been her Shadow.
Nothing had truly changed.
Relief rippled across her body everywhere their skin met, rolling over her in cresting waves. He held her while she caught her breath for a moment, panting quietly into his shoulder through the relief of it, but the pain and heat from the swallowed star didn’t fully dissipate. They only stalled for a few minutes.
“Ren.” She needed him inside her. That, she knew with perfect clarity. “Ren, please.”
Almost as soon as she said his name, his mouth was on hers again, his hands at her head, tilting her neck back to settle her against the lush pillows and silken sheets of their bed. His length pressed firmly against her stomach and she ground her hips up into him, searching for everything, anything that felt like it might offer succor.
When he pulled sharply away from her mouth, one of his hands dropped to her waist and held her still, pressing her down into the mattress to stop her movements.
“Not yet, Rey,” he murmured, his dark eyes still staring at her lips, now red and swollen from his ministrations.
“But I want you,” she sobbed. “I feel like I’m dying. If I don’t—”
“You are. You are dying. That was the price of this, sweetheart. A price you accepted.” He brushed some of her sweat-soaked hair away from her brow. “We’ll have to let that part take its course. And I can’t rush the rest. I promised I wouldn’t hurt you and I won’t break that vow.”
“I’m dying?” A tear escaped, squeezed from between her eyelashes. It was boiling hot against her skin. “I didn’t think it would feel this way. I didn’t think it would hurt like this—burn like this.”
“It won’t hurt anymore soon.”
He shifted downward, sweeping tiny, soothing kisses beneath her jaw, along her neck, between her breasts. He paused and wrapped his lips around one of her nipples, laving at it lazily before drawing it into his mouth.
And then he sucked.
Rey dug her nails into his hair and moaned at the feeling of it. His mouth was so wide, he could fit nearly her entire breast inside. Pleasure shot through her body, and she bucked beneath him while she pulled his face further into her chest. He suckled at her slowly, his tongue working expertly at the hard, raised bud, and she suddenly wanted him to draw her, the entirety of her, into that wide, warm mouth. She wanted him to consume all of her, all of her essence, drink her down to the dregs until there was nothing of her left outside of him.
Instead, he only released her nipple with a slight pop before moving on to its twin, lavishing it with the same attention.
“How does that feel?” he murmured between almost-drunken pulls of her breast, his eyes heavy and hot.
“So good,” she breathed. “So—ah!” Her next words were stifled by another wave of intense, roiling pleasure rippling across her body. Ren’s hands chased it, tracked it, smoothed along her skin after it, almost as though he could feel it himself.
“Good.”
He pressed another kiss between her breasts before lowering and sweeping his lips along the rise of her stomach.
Every flutter of them sent flames licking across her skin.
He paused between her legs and inhaled the scent of the patch of dark curls there with apparent relish, his eyes closed in intoxicated bliss. He seemed completely gone himself, already drunk on the taste of her, lost in her own growing pleasure—though it was quickly mixing with rising pain again in the absence of his mouth.
“I’m going to enjoy you, Rey.” His voice rumbled deep and low in his chest with the solemnity of that promise. “You have no idea how starving I am. I’ve never eaten before, you know. I want to know what it’s like. I’ve saved that particular pleasure for you.”
The burning shifted more intensely towards pain. “Hurry,” she gasped. “Please.”
He shook his head before kissing the soft skin on her inner thighs once, twice, three times. “No, sweetheart,” he muttered, his fingers pressing deep into her flesh while his arms curled around her legs and spread her wide before him. “We’re about to spend boundless eternity together. Let me take my time. We have it now.” He closed his eyes again and lightly nipped her soft, tender skin. It sent lightning jolting up to her core. “I want to devour you. Let me savor the last dregs of your limits. Let me taste the urgence of your mortality on my tongue. I want to delight in the intensity of it, the immediacy of it, the essence of it, of time—of you.”
Those pretty, plush lips of his split in half—
And the second the blade of his tongue licked along her slit, the fire within her surged.
But it was met with cool, blessed relief, spreading from the movements of Ren’s mouth and tingling up through her core. Rey gasped and bucked at the sensation, writhing on the bed, rocking her hips in time with his rhythm. The more she moved, the better she felt—until the heat and pressure began to build again, but differently than before.
It was lower.
Tighter.
She hummed with it.
Ren was drawing her whole body as taut as a bowstring, bit by bit, lick by languorous lick, and Rey gripped the silken red sheets in one hand and his beautiful night-dark hair in the other to hold her steady, her fingers twisting tightly in his soft, loose waves.
Exquisite.
He was exquisite.
And he was devouring her like she was too.
When she jolted again under another lightning strike of sensation, she pulled his hair hard and he moaned, long and deep between her legs. The sound that escaped from between his lips alone nearly sent her over the edge.
“I’ve been waiting so long to have a mouth,” he growled against her c*nt, his words vibrating inside of her. “I’ve been waiting so long to speak to you with it, to kiss you with it, to taste you with it.”
He dragged his tongue more decadently across her slit.
"You're so wet for me."
She felt every word he spoke deep within her core.
“I want to make you scream with my lips. I want to drink you down. I want to tear at you with my teeth, lick you with my tongue, consume you, ravish you, all of you, every part of you.”
When he closed his lips over that small, elusive bundle of nerves between her legs and sucked slowly, forcefully, drawing her in deep while easing a single thick finger inside, his dark eyes glazed over, their usual sadness lost to the void while he watched her with heavy, heated lids. And when he curled that finger deep and slow, rocking it inside her and beckoning her to come to him like he had done with her hips once in his dreams before adding a second finger, gently rocking and pulling, scissoring and stretching her wide, wider, more and more to ready her for him, filling her so much more fully than she’d ever been before, Rey clenched.
She shattered.
And then she screamed.
She screamed so hard, the air scorched her lungs.
The world went white, disappeared in a flash, lightning skittering across her skin and crashing through her core. She rode Ren’s face and hand as she came, equally drunk on the bright light, lost tumbling through the dark, her mind blank and empty, wiped clean save for the waves of intolerable, unyielding sensation ripping and tearing through her now.
And then a heaviness descended upon her.
A welcome one.
The soothing feeling of his skin was against hers again, his comforting weight pressing into her, melding into her, his body almost completely one with hers—save for one final piece.
“Yes,” Ren murmured in her ear, his voice rippling into her, thrumming deeply with power. Rey was blind, but somehow she could see every detail of him, his white, glowing outline slashing through the darkness beneath her lids. The moles and freckles speckled across his body stood out, glittering brightly in stark, monochromatic tones, shades of silver and white swirling like the constellations of stars scattered into the divine infinite of the night sky.
“Yes. I want to hear you, Rey.”
Her hips still rolled beneath him, her eyes still closed, her mind still lost to wave upon wave of residual org*smic bliss crashing into her, rippling and receding along her body like the tides tumbling over the shore.
“I’ve waited eons to be able to hear. I’ve waited eons for you.”
His hips joined hers, pushing and grinding now while his hands dove beneath her neck, his arms wrapping around her as he pulled her body up and pressed it into his, her heart beating in time with his own.
“Give me your whimpers, your cries, your words, I want them all. I want to know what it sounds like, what it feels like to love you. I want to hear you. All of you.”
He notched himself at her entrance.
“I want to hear you echoing in my soul the way your name echoed through my hands and into my heart that night in the cave. I want to hear every thought that crosses your mind, listen to every word that escapes your lips, know every feeling that rises in your chest. Give them to me. Tell them all to me. Cry them for me.”
And then he slowly slid inside, just enough to stretch her even wider than his fingers had.
The knife's edge cut sharply between pain and pleasure.
“I want to hear them now.”
He slid slightly deeper, slowly, gently.
And with a gasp, Rey opened her eyes.
The bed was gone.
There were no pools of silver starlight, no scarlet bedsheets, no floating table of food and other culinary delights. Her shredded wedding dress was gone. Instead, there was nothing but black, nothing but void.
Nothing but the darkness.
Nothing but him.
He was made of blindingly bright light—and infinite darkness.
What she’d seen behind her eyes had been the truth.
The Night pushed himself deeper, sliding further and further inside her, impossibly long, impossibly large, impossibly vast, timeless and eternal. Rey spread her legs wider, wrapped them around his waist, dug her nails into his back—
And keened.
“Look at how well you take me, Rey.” Ren’s words echoed through space, through time, vibrated through whatever was left of her, the last remaining shreds of her consciousness. “You’re stronger than you know.”
Somehow, he pushed himself deeper before slowly pulling back—and thrusting again.
“You're so beautiful.”
He hadn’t even fully seated himself inside her yet.
“I always knew you were mine. My match. My equal.”
He went deeper still on the next thrust.
“You contain multitudes. You always have. I could see it from the start.”
Over and over, he pushed himself inside of her, pulled out, dove in deep again. Every time she hovered on the edge of feeling too full, every time he was almost too much, every time the pleasure she felt began to border on pain, somehow she stretched. Somehow, she widened.
Somehow, her depth grew.
She deepened.
For him.
“Say my name, Rey,” he whispered into her ear before chasing the words with his lips, the heat of them shooting across her being while he dragged them along her skin. “I want to hear you cry it now. Cry out for me while I worship you.”
She could barely think. But the one word she could remember rose to the forefront of her mind at his bidding.
“Ren,” she gasped. It was all she could manage, her breath a whisper on the cosmic wind.
He shifted, and the universe tilted on his axis with him as he moved, pulling her upright with him, higher and higher into the heavens until what remained of her was seated atop him, her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck.
She clung to him for dear life.
“Again, Rey," he breathed. "Let me hear my name on your lips.”
“Ren!” It was a ragged cry this time as his length dragged slowly along her insides in places she never knew she contained, filling her so fully, she was certain she might tear in two. She was on the verge of breaking.
But not from pain.
From pleasure.
He was already deeper than she’d ever thought possible.
And still, he wasn’t fully inside.
His mouth found hers once more, and he rose up on his knees, taking her hips between his hands and lifting her along his length—before he pulled her down to meet him.
Down—
Down—
Down—
Longer—
Deeper—
Fuller —
Infinite and eternal, deeper and deeper still, until—
Until he’d finally sheathed himself fully inside of her.
Stars burst behind her eyes at the feeling of their melding, and Rey moaned. She moaned at the way he’d found a place inside her she’d never known existed, a depth she’d never fathomed. She moaned at the way he whispered sweet devotions to her, his own venerations twisting around her, curling into her ears, penetrating through her skin, sinking down into the core of her being. Her soul melted into his words.
She couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.
“Rey.”
Her name on his lips felt like a prayer, and she chased the feeling of it with her hips, rocking with his as he thrust upwards into her, riding him back and forth with the motions of his mouth as he kissed her, drank her, consumed her just as much as she consumed him.
The more they moved together, the more the impossible feeling of her love within her grew and twisted, the more the impossible depth of him grew within her, stretched her to her limits, pushed beyond them into eternity, into the infinite, into something new, something she’d never been or felt or imagined before. His hand caressed her throat reverently as she keened again, his fingers chasing the vibrations of her voice on her lips as it thrummed around them this time, echoed into the cosmos, shook all the way through the universe and rattled the stars before finally dissolving into the void.
And when the sound of her dissolved, so did she.
He was impossibly deep now, so far inside her as if to penetrate her very soul. He filled her, more and more and more, and she felt herself expand for him.
She’d never felt so complete.
She’d never felt so infinite.
She’d never felt so divine.
Rey lost herself.
They rolled their hips together in perfect time, perfect harmony, tumbling through space, through time, through each other.
When she came again, she cried out his name.
“REN!”
Her mind fractured.
Her breath left her body. Her heart stopped. The edges of her ego blurred, elongated, expanded, twisted. She melted from the burning, searing, scorching inferno inside, liquifying and stretching and spilling, now weightless and formless and unending until the last vestiges of her found the edges of him. And even then, his own limits melted at the blinding heat of her touch, her embrace, until they too fell away and felt nothing but harmony, but joining, but infinite, eternal pleasure and ecstasy limned with pure and utter bliss.
“REY!”
He came right after she did, the power of his cry exploding out into the universe in shockwaves of light and color. He spilled his essence into her while they tumbled through the void, their hips locked in orbit with one another, their mouths consuming one another, their bodies still drawn inexorably, infinitely together, their souls perfectly merged and indistinguishable in their love.
Two, as one.
Two bodies, one soul, now perfectly and divinely entwined.
The walls of her fluttered around him, drawing him in and sealing their bond. The white outlines of him leached and drained away, coalescing at his core and flooding into her with his spend, wave after wave after blessed wave. She took everything he gave her, everything he poured inside, all of him, every last drop of him, swirls of color and light and power forming and bursting behind her eyes and projecting out into the cosmos like the last gasps of a dying star as they came together, rode together, fell into infinity and eternity together, the innumerable stars of the universe swirling around them and their light melding into bright streaks against the void of space, growing brighter and brighter until they exploded in a flash of endless, timeless white.
Then there was silence.
Silence.
Stillness.
Nothing.
And everything.
The end, and the beginning.
Rey gasped.
And opened her eyes.
Heavy.
She blinked.
Her chest was heavy, but that was because Ren was slumped over her, panting and gasping for breath as if his eternal life depended on it.
They were back in the bed, limbs tangled and twisted together on top of the scarlet silk sheets, his eyes closed and his arms clutching her to him tightly while they both sucked deeply for air, their chests rising in time and their hearts beating together as one.
It was as if they’d never left.
As if they’d been there the entire time.
The heat and pain inside her were gone without a trace, and the only thing left behind in their wake was the residual, pleasurable glow of tiny, twitching aftershocks. Rey’s heart slowed, and she wrapped her arms around Ren’s wide back, closing her eyes and burying her face in his neck. She breathed in deep, and his comforting scent washed over her now, far stronger and more concentrated than it had ever been before.
He smelled like a cool summer night’s breeze after a rainstorm. Like the wind whipping through blades of fresh grass covered in dew. Like petrichor and ozone and the wet forest floor shifting under the paws of a predator.
He smelled wild.
He smelled eternal.
He smelled divine.
“Mmm.” Ren shifted on top of her, humming deep in his throat as he came out of his own daze, blinking blearily as if their palace was still hazy for him too. He pressed himself up to look at her, the weight on her chest lifting and allowing cooler air to swirl mercifully across her skin. When he glanced down at where they'd joined, a crooked grin dawned across his wide mouth once he realized he was still inside her, and Rey’s heart quickened at the sight of those crescent-shaped dimples folding deep into his cheeks.
Ancient, eternal, and infinite—but boyish.
And apparently quite pleased with himself.
“Well,” he purred while running a massive hand through her sweat-soaked hair, gazing down at her with heavy lids and flushed, rosy cheeks. His own hair was soaked too, and his dark, shadowy curls licked deliciously at his jawline. It was sinful, how he looked—and how he looked at her. “Tell me, Rey: was that good for you?”
Her eyebrows shot up at the question, and the corner of his mouth twitched licentiously, dark mischief lighting up his eyes when she didn’t respond.
So he spoke again, seeming to relish finally having words of his own.
“I won’t lie, I think that was pretty good for my first time. I’ll get better, though, I promise.”
Rey had the feeling he’d never stop talking now.
She finally managed to draw in a deep breath. Her head was still spinning over what had just happened, and she could barely fathom how he could be so nonchalant. “Where did we go just now? We left, didn’t we?” She couldn’t keep the confusion out of her voice as she looked around at the enormous, luxurious bed surrounding them. “I could have sworn we...”
That definitely hadn’t been there a second ago.
Ren propped himself up on his elbows and lifted a wry eyebrow. “Of course we left. We went to the depths of each other. I told you that you could contain me.” He curled over her and nuzzled her cheek once more with his eyes closed. “I was right.” Another soft, crooked smile bloomed against her skin. “You were made for me. And I waited for you.”
He hummed again and dipped back down to mouth lazily at her neck, contentedly pressing warm, needy kisses there, sloppy and gentle and deliciously sated. “I hope you’re not too disappointed in your new husband,” he murmured, “especially since you’re paired with me for all time now. We’ll have an eternity together.”
Eternity.
What an unfathomable concept.
But she was still stuck on something he’d just said.
“You—you hope I’m not disappointed? Did you not hear me just now?!”
“Oh, I most certainly did.”
He smiled so wide and his dimples deepened so much, Rey was fairly certain his face might actually split clean in half. She never thought she’d see her Shadow look at her quite like this.
He was wicked.
Beautiful.
And trying desperately to suppress a chuckle.
“I did ask you to scream for me—and it was spectacular. The best wedding present I could have asked for. Thank you.” When he laced their fingers together and gave her hand a fond squeeze atop the pillows, her cheeks burned at the familiarity of it. She knew that pressure. She knew his hands. She knew them so well, she could trace the shape of them in her sleep, and yet—
And yet this was all still so new.
And also…
“Are you joking? Are you—are you poking fun at me?” Rey, suddenly feeling rather indignant, scrambled to shove him aside and sit up, which was fairly difficult given the size of the god she’d just married. Gods, he was heavy. Huge.
And entirely too amused.
“I would never, sweetheart.” He snorted at her efforts and refused to budge, though he did finally shift his hips and pull out of her carefully with a groan while she sputtered. “I’m the Night. Dark, mysterious, and always deathly serious. No space for mirth in the void at all. Never. I’d hate to play with you.”
He was also a liar.
Wonder of wonders.
Her Shadow did have a sense of humor.
And a dry one at that.
Rey shoved at him again. “You’re teasing! You’re teasing me! And at a time like this? Did your boon even work? I don’t—ah!” She squeaked when he grabbed her in one long arm and yanked her back into his chest, flipping them both over in one smooth motion and settling against the headboard while he pulled the silken sheets up to cover them.
“Speaking of, it didn’t hurt too much, did it?” He pressed his forehead to hers and drew in a deep, slow breath. His hand automatically snaked up her neck to bury itself in her hair, and he began to stroke it gently. He seemed to have something of a fascination with it, but she couldn’t deny how nice it felt. How his gentle touch sent shivers dancing across her skin.
She’d always wanted someone to touch her like this, to hold her like this.
And now she had him.
Forever, in fact.
“What didn’t hurt?”
“Dying, of course. I told you I wouldn’t let it.”
“Dying?” She held his face between both hands and frowned at him. He had stubble sprouting there now—oddly mortal, really, as it hadn’t been there like that before—and she ran her thumbs over the dark shadows of his jaw, savoring the feeling of it prickling beneath the pads. Would he have to shave, or was it all an elaborate illusion? She still had so many questions, so much to get to know about him. “But I’m right here. I’m living and breathing. My heart’s beating and you’re in my arms. I didn’t die after all.”
“Yes, you did, Rey.” His expression grew serious. “I watched you. I felt it happen. Didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel different. I—”
“Are you sure?” One of his dark brows quirked up with intrigue. “How do you feel now? Think about it.”
Rey paused, and she did think about it.
Truthfully, she felt incredible. Stronger and healthier and lighter than she had in ages.
And there was something else now. Something inside her that hadn’t been there before, pulsing in her veins.
But she couldn’t quite name it.
Ren took one of her hands in his and lifted it to his lips, planting a soft kiss across her knuckles. “And just look at how beautiful you are. You were before, of course, but you’re different now. Look at how light you are. How luminous.”
She was about to argue with him when she truly looked at the hand he held—and stilled.
Ren was right: she glowed now, the bright, silvery white light of the star she’d swallowed leaking through her skin and spilling onto the sheets around them, shifting across the red, silken fabric and mirroring her movements. She met Ren’s gaze and found that same light reflected back at her in the colored rings of his uncanny hazel eyes.
“What did you do, exactly?”
“I gave you my light. And I gave you all of it.” He gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“All…all of it?!”
“Yes, of course. Every last drop of it. You took it so well, too. Like Fate had expressly sculpted you for it. For me.” Ren closed his eyes and swept his nose slowly across hers before tilting her chin up with a single crooked finger. He took her mouth in his—and he took his time with her before he spoke again.
“I wanted you to have it: my light,” he whispered against her lips. “You were the only one who ever saw it in me anyway.” Another kiss, deeper this time. Slower. More. “And look at you now, my love. Look at me with the eyes of a goddess and see for yourself.”
She blinked, and the Void shifted.
She could see him now, view him in perfect clarity as he was without his mortal trappings. Without the mask he’d donned.
And again, he was right. All the light Ren had held within him, those bright silver threads streaking and shifting beneath his skin like shooting comets and twinkling constellations, those stars in his eyes, the galaxies in his throat, all of it was gone and replaced with nothing but the velvet darkness of shadow and void, formed into the shifting, snaking outline of an enormous man with wide shoulders and long legs, a mop of wild, dark hair, and the notion of a large, straight nose nestled between spots of even blacker black.
He was pure darkness now.
The Void chuckled, his voice low and deep and amused, the sound of it as smooth as silk. A darker slash of black grew into a crooked grin where his mouth was, his crescent dimples folding like shadows as they framed it.
“You see?” he rumbled, his words laced with the power of a god. “We’re a matched pair. I poured everything into you, Rey. Everything. Because the idea of eternity without you was unbearable.” His fingers tightened between her own—which looked to be made of pure, white light to her newly-divine eyes.
She glowed brighter than a thousand suns.
“I gave you all my love. I gave you every star in the sky, every light in the dark, everything I am, all I could give, so that I could keep you. So that you could keep me. Just like you asked.”
The Void leaned forward and Rey felt his soft, plush lips meld against hers, his shadowed body radiating gentle coolness against her own pulsing warmth. He cupped her cheek with an enormous palm and hummed contentedly while he kissed her, long and slow and heavy with love.
Love as vast and timeless as the universe itself.
“Boundless time, and neither of us alone for it. Both of us together, the Night shared.”
She knew him best in this form.
The dark to her light.
Her Shadow.
He’d given her everything, and he was still her Shadow.
“I love you.”
And still Ren gave her more: another kiss, then another.
“You’re my light now.”
They would be infinite.
“My wife.”
They would have an eternity of them.
“My Moon.”
