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Chapter Text

The setting sun cast an ethereal glow through the arched windows of Councilor Tevos' office, bathing the room in warm hues of gold and amber. She stood at the window, gazing out over the lush gardens and shimmering fountains that graced the palace grounds, her mind racing with the pheromones clouding the castle and the implications of the task before her.

She'd been charged with the impossible: penning a declaration to the realm that explained the unexpected and premature union between Princess Liara and Commander Shepard as an intention rather than an indiscretion. It was a delicate balance, to frame this break from tradition in a way that would appease the more conservative factions of the court while still honoring the undeniable bond between the newly mated pair.

It broke millennia of carefully guarded tradition, and Tevos, if anything, was staunchly pro-tradition. But the High Priestess herself had declared Shepard and Liara as fated mates, their union blessed by the Goddess herself. And for that, Tevos couldn't help but feel a flicker of happiness for Liara. The princess had been locked away for so long, an untouchable figure isolated in her ivory tower with only artifacts and ancient ruins for company. To see her finally at peace, radiating a quiet joy in Shepard's presence...it was a small balm to the unsettling nature of this swerve from established norms.

But to think that she, Tevos, would be the bearer of the news that fated mates could exist across species lines? That the Goddess would extend her hand to those beyond Thessia's borders, binding them to one of their own? It was perception-shattering. Culture altering in a way that made Tevos' head spin and her stomach clench with unease.

Tevos dreaded it.

She dreaded the ripples, the inevitable pushback and outcry that would follow such a revelation. The delicate threads of tradition that held their society together, stretching and fraying under the weight of this new paradigm.

At least the beauty beyond the window was a soothing sight. A respite from the frenzied chaos the unexpected mating cycle had drawn upon all who lived in the palace. She gazed upon the land stretching out before her, fingers gripping at the sill, pretending that she was beyond this shell of her body, unbound by the limitations of duty and expectation. She was part of the realm, floating. Ethereal. A moment in time, untouched by her duties. A ephemeral wisp unbothered by the cares and concerns that weighed so heavily upon her mortal form.

The illusion, fragile as it was, could only hold for so long. The serene beauty of the moment was abruptly shattered by the sudden, unexpected arrival of Aria T'Loak, the Queen's Second Guardmaster. She stalked into the room with purposeful steps, the very air seeming to crackle with the force of her uninvited presence.

Tevos stiffened, the brief peace she had found evaporating like mist beneath the scorching heat of Aria's aura. On some level, she had anticipated this; with such vying scents suffusing the air, it was only expected for Aria to make rounds, trying her hand in all the places she felt entitled to reach. The arrogance was as predictable as it was infuriating, a testament in Aria’s unwavering belief in her own irresistible allure.

Drawing in a fortifying breath, Tevos turned from the window, willing her features into a mask of composed authority. She had held this position for decades, navigating the treacherous waters of Thessian politics with a deft hand and an unflappable demeanor. She would not allow even Aria, with her overwhelming magnetism and barely leashed power, to crack her façade.

Still, Tevos felt the all-too-familiar flutter of unease in the pit of her stomach, the instinctive response of prey in the presence of an apex predator, upon seeing Aria right here in the flesh. She ruthlessly suppressed the reaction, keeping her expression coolly impassive even as a kaleidoscope of emotions played out beneath the surface. Disdain, cold and cutting. Fear, a primal flicker quickly locked away. And beneath it all, a flash of something deeper, darker...desire, hot and hungry, before the mask of perfect control slammed back into place.

"Aria," Tevos greeted, her voice smooth as honey over steel. "To what do I owe the...pleasure of your company?"

Aria's lips curled in a razor-edged smile, the look in her eyes that of a huntress scenting blood in the water. "Do I need a reason to seek you out, Councilor?" She stalked closer with a grace that was all lethal elegance. "Perhaps I simply enjoy your scintillating conversation."

"I’m sure," Tevos replied dryly, one elegantly tattooed brow arching in challenge. "In all the years I've known you, Aria, you've never come to me without an ulterior motive. An agenda to push, a favor to demand..."

The implication hung heavy in the air, thick with insinuation and unspoken history. Aria's scent flared as she leaned in, bracing her hands on the edge of Tevos' desk, the last remaining bulwark between them.

"Maybe I'm just an optimist," Aria offered, her voice a low, suggestive rasp that sent an involuntary shiver down Tevos' spine. "Always hoping that one day, you'll stop playing coy and give me what we both want."

Tevos scoffed, but there was a telltale hitch to her inhale, a darkening of her eyes that belied her affected disdain. She could feel the weight of Aria's gaze, the electric thrill of her nearness raising gooseflesh across her skin. Her hindbrain was screaming danger, while other, less intelligent parts of her demanded closer, closer.

"How like you, to assume you know my desires better than I know them myself," she said coolly, lifting her chin in a show of haughty defiance. "I am a creature of duty, Aria. My wants are immaterial in the face of my responsibilities to Thessia."

"Is that so?" Aria straightened, prowling around the desk with a languid, liquid grace that made Tevos' pulse jump in her throat. "And I suppose the ever-proper Councilor is completely unaffected by the tidal wave of pheromones a certain human has unleashed upon the castle?"

Tevos stiffened, a muscle in her jaw ticking with tension. "I don't know what you're implying, but I assure you—"

"Spare me the platitudes," Aria cut her off with a dismissive wave. "Shepard's rut has every unmated omega in the palace clawing at the walls. Her scent is everywhere, strong enough to kill a krogan. And you expect me to believe that you, with your centuries of perfect, perfunctory celibacy, are immune?"

Aria was close now, close enough for Tevos to feel the heat of her, the electric thrill of her nearness. Aria's pheromones crashed over Tevos in dizzying waves, dark and rich and shot through with the ozone sting of raw, barely leashed power. Shepard might be in a rut, but it was Aria who endlessly called to her.

It was intoxicating, a beacon that awakened the most primal depths of Tevos' being. But she was nothing if not a master of self-control, and she would not, could not, let Aria see how deeply her proximity affected her.

"I am not a slave to my baser instincts," she retorted sharply. "Unlike someone in this room, I do not let my hormones rule my head. Whatever...biological inconveniences a mating call may cause the rest of the populace, I have the decorum and the discipline to rise above them. To focus on my duties, as is proper."

Aria's smirk widened, turned razor-edged with mocking amusement. "Oh, I'm sure you'd love to rise above them," she purred, her voice dripping with innuendo. "Or is it beneath that you prefer, Councilor? It's so difficult to keep track when you play the role of untouchable ice queen so well.”

A dull, angry flush crawled up Tevos' throat, staining the elegant arch of her cheekbones. "How dare you—“

"Oh, I dare," Aria breathed, bending down until they were nose to nose, until Tevos was drowning in the fathomless blue of her eyes. "I dare to say all the things you won't admit even to yourself. Like how much you want to be bent over this desk and taken until you scream. How much you need to be mounted like a maiden in heat until you can't remember your own name."

Tevos shuddered, a choked gasp escaping her lips before she could bite it back. Warmth unfurled low in her stomach, a molten ache that pulsed in time with the frantic cadence of her heart. Aria's words painted a vivid picture, a forbidden fantasy that played out behind her eyelids in lurid detail. She could almost feel the phantom press of Aria's body against her own, the bruising grip of strong hands on her hips, the hot, wet slide of a skillful tongue parting her azure. The images came fast and fierce, sending the sweet zing of electricity coursing through her veins.

It was too much, too intense, too dangerously close to the dark, secret desires she had kept locked away for years. Tevos felt flayed open, exposed, as if Aria's words had stripped her bare for all to scrutinize.

"You go too far," she whispered, but it was weak, thready, lacking the diamond-hard authority that usually rang in her every word.

Aria breathed deep, a low, satisfied rumble vibrating through her chest as Tevos' tell-tale pheromones filled her lungs. "Do I?" she murmured, holding Tevos' gaze as she slowly, deliberately skimmed a hand up the councilor's side, fingertips tracing the taut, trembling line of her body. "Seems to me like I'm the only one with the knot to tell it like it is. To give voice to all the filthy things you won't let yourself want."

And Goddess help her, but there was a part of Tevos—a desperate, clawing part she'd locked away eons ago—that wanted to give in. To surrender to Aria's knowing hands and wicked promises, to let Aria's fierce possession erase the clinging remnants of her tattered control. The ache was a living thing, hot and insistent, and it took every shred of her formidable will to keep from pressing into Aria's touch, from baring her throat in sweet submission.

"No," she finally managed, the word escaping so quietly it was as if she wasn't sure she really wanted to say it. With a breath, she regained her constitution, drawing herself up to her full height. A challenge filled her gaze, sparking like lightning in the charged air between them. "But I'm sure there's a desperate enough handmaiden around here who's still willing to give you a scrap of attention. Why don't you go bother her instead?"

Aria, damn her, merely laughed, the sound rich and dark and sinful. "You insult me with the insinuation that I'd only find one." She leaned in closer, until Tevos could feel the warmth of her words ghosting across her cheek. "We both know I could have half the palace falling over themselves to warm my bed. But where's the fun in such easy conquests?"

"And you amuse me with the thought you'd find more," Tevos quipped, refusing to back down even as her pulse raced and her skin prickled with heightened awareness. Boldly, she did not step away. "You've scared off nearly everyone you've ever given your…particular brand of attention. It seems your charms are not as irresistible as you'd like to believe."

"Not my fault they're too fragile to handle my fire," Aria countered, her voice dropping to a low, intimate rasp that nearly brought Tevos to her knees. Her gaze raked over Tevos, hot and intent in its path down and up again. "But you...you're made of sterner stuff, aren't you Councilor? Strong enough to dance with the flames and not get burned."

"And is that why you're here? Because you think highly of me?" She let her lips curve in a smirk of her own, taunting and tempting in equal measure. "Or because you think highly of yourself?"

Something flickered in Aria's gaze, there and gone too quickly for Tevos to parse. A flash of heat, of hunger, of something almost resembling vulnerability. But then Aria was pulling away, putting a careful arm's length between them, and the air seemed to rush back into the room in her wake, cool and bracing after the suffocating intimacy of a moment before.

"Ever the stubborn one," Aria said with a rueful shake of her head. But there was something new in the quirk of her mouth, the glint in her eyes. Something almost like...respect. Like admiration for a worthy adversary. "Fine, have it your way. Keep lying to yourself, keep pretending. But we both know this isn't over, Tevos. Not by a long shot."

As she turned to go, Tevos couldn't quite stop the small, involuntary sound that escaped her. A whimper, soft and choked off, barely louder than a breath. Damning. But Aria heard, if the hitch in her steps was any indication. She glanced back over her shoulder, holding Tevos' gaze in a look that burned like a brand, searing her to the very core.

"My door's always open," Aria offered, a wealth of dark promise in every syllable. An offer and a dare, as enticing as it was dangerous. "For whenever you decide to feel just how hot a flame can burn."

As Aria's footsteps faded into the distance upon her retreat, Tevos sank back into her chair, a tremor running through her limbs as she fought to control her breathing, to leash the wild clamor of her heartbeat. She knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that Aria would not let this rest. Aria was relentless, a force of nature that couldn't be denied or contained. She would chip away at Tevos' defenses, day by day, moment by moment, until Tevos’ legendary control lay in ruins at her feet. It was inevitable, as sure as the rising of the twin moons and the turning of the stars.

But...would that be such a terrible thing? To let go, to surrender to the pull that had always simmered between them, just out of reach? There was a part of Tevos, deeply buried but never quite silenced, that yearned for the freedom, the release of giving in at last. To know the touch, the taste, the sheer overwhelming presence of Aria in all the ways she'd never allowed herself to imagine, even in the darkest hours of the night.

It was a dangerous thought, treacherous in its allure. Joining with Aria would be anything but simple, bringing complications and consequences Tevos couldn't begin to fathom. Aria was a wildfire, an untamable force that consumed everything in her path, while Tevos had spent centuries carefully cultivating a persona as cool and untouchable as the marble statues that graced the sacred gardens. To let Aria in, to give her even an inch...it would change everything, burn away the mask she'd so painstakingly constructed until nothing remained but the raw, wanting creature beneath.

And yet, there was an undeniable thrill in the prospect, a dark and delicious excitement that Tevos hadn't felt in longer than she cared to remember. Aria made her feel alive, stripped down to her basest elements. With Aria, there could be no artifice, no carefully maintained distance. She saw through every façade to the truth of what lay in Tevos' heart...and reveled in it, stoking the flames higher with every heated touch and suggestive word.

It was terrifying, exhilarating, a rush of adrenaline straight to the heart.

Tevos closed her eyes, a shuddering breath escaping her as she finally acknowledged the truth that had always lurked in the shadows of her mind. She wanted Aria. Goddess, she craved Aria, with an intensity that defied reason, that laughed in the face of logic and propriety. Aria called to something ancient and primal within her, a dark and ravenous thing that hungered for the sweet submission, the ecstasy of being claimed, owned, by one strong enough to master her.

But want, she knew, was a luxury she could ill afford. She had a duty, a responsibility to her people, to the delicate balance of power that held Thessia in its grasp. To give in to her desires, to let herself be swept away by the tide of Aria's passion only to be left drowning in the end...it was a risk she couldn't take. Not now, perhaps not ever. The stakes were too high, the potential for ruin too great.

Yet, even as the decision to stay away solidified in her mind, Tevos could feel the ghost of Aria's touch still searing through her dress, her skin, her very soul; she could feel a part of her—a desperate, reckless, growing part she'd long thought buried—that wanted nothing more than to surrender. To let Aria strip away the layers of duty and denial, to lay her bare in every sense of the word.

To finally, after centuries of living in shades of marbled gray, know what it meant to burn.

Chapter Text

Tevos rubbed her temples, trying to stave off the impending headache that had been building behind her eyes for hours. It had been an exhausting day, spent smoothing over the various diplomatic crises and domestic disputes that inevitably cropped up in a queendom as vast and diverse as Thessia. But even the most trying political maneuverings paled in comparison to the true source of her fatigue, the invisible weight that dragged at her limbs and clouded her thoughts like a miasma.

Pheromones. The air was thick with the mingled scents of both Shepard and Liara's shared mating cycle. It seeped into every corner, every crevice, until it was impossible to draw breath without tasting it on the back of the tongue, a heady cocktail of lust that set Tevos' teeth on edge and made her skin prickle with unwanted awareness.

It was maddening, the way the potent musk seemed to call to something deep and primal in her hindbrain, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. Her own body hummed like a plucked chord, restless and aching and shamefully slick, a gnawing emptiness that no amount of meditation or self-control could banish.

As if the biological imperative wasn't torment enough, there was also Aria. Bold, brash, infuriatingly confident Aria, who had swaggered into Tevos' office the night before with a smirk on her lips and a gleam in her eye, offering to ease her burdens with a frankness that bordered on crass.

Tevos had rebuffed her, of course. The refusal falling from her lips like shards of ice, each word carefully chosen to cut, to wound, to drive Aria back with the sheer force of her feigned disdain. But Goddess, how she'd regretted the dismissal as soon as Aria's scent had faded from the room. How she'd ached, in the secret depths of her soul, to throw propriety to the winds and let Aria take her, claim her, fill the clawing void of her need until she shattered into a thousand glittering pieces.

She couldn't succumb to that desire. Wouldn't. Tevos had learned long ago the dangers of taking Alpha lovers, the way even a temporary scent mark could be misconstrued, twisted into a weapon by those who sought to undermine her authority. Omegas, on the other hand...their couplings left no trace, no damning evidence of indiscretion. And so, on the rare occasions when the needs of the flesh grew too insistent to ignore, it was always to the soft touch and sweet scents of her fellow omegas that Tevos turned.

Yet even those indulgences were few and far between now, relics of a time before the weight of her duties had settled so heavily on her shoulders. It had been years since she'd last allowed herself the luxury of another's touch, the fleeting bliss of surrender in the arms of a skilled lover.

Now, with Aria's scent still lingering and the phantom heat of her touch seared into Tevos' memory, she found herself wanting with an intensity that felt like grasping a livewire—exhilarating, dangerous, and impossible to release. It wasn't merely physical craving, though the ache between her thighs pulsed with insistent need. No, it was Aria herself—her strength, her magnetism, the sheer indomitable force of her will. She was a challenge, a conquest, a mountain to be scaled. And Tevos, ever drawn to the unattainable, the forbidden... Goddess, how she wanted.

But duty, propriety, the centuries of discipline and self-denial that had forged her into an unshakable pillar held her back. The chains of her own making, born from the crucible of her past, kept her bound to the pedestal she'd clawed her way onto, even as her inner omega howled in frustrated longing. Tevos was no longer that dirt-smeared maiden, born to poverty. She had remade herself, ascended through tenacity and ruthless ambition, until the name Tevos commanded respect, deference, awe. She couldn't risk it all, not even for the promise of Aria's fire, the siren song of surrender.

So she had watched Aria go with icy indifference, a mask of disdain concealing the riot of need churning beneath her skin. But even as despair crashed over her in relentless waves, a small, secret part of Tevos whispered that it wasn't over. Aria was a huntress to her very marrow, and no huntress worth her salt ever let her prey escape for long. Not when she'd tasted the first tantalizing hints of weakness, caught the heady whiff of vulnerability.

Aria would return, drawn by the lure of the unattainable, the thrill of the chase, the promise of conquest. It was only a matter of time before she renewed her siege, battered at the walls of Tevos' resistance with all her formidable determination and implacable will. And when she did, Tevos feared her defenses might crumble, her resolve shattering like glass beneath the onslaught of Aria's desire.

It would be a war, a clash that would shake the very foundations of Tevos' world. An unstoppable force and an immovable object, hurtling towards an impact that would leave them forever altered. She would meet Aria's fire with ice, her every advance with cool disdain and biting rejection. Even as her soul cried out for Aria’s touch, she would not let Aria breach her defenses so easily. Would not bare her throat to the hunger without a fight.

Easier said, of course. Easier to pretend. In truth, Tevos didn't know if she had the strength to withstand the coming storm. Aria's pursuit would be relentless, a barrage on the fortress of Tevos' ruthless self-denial that had never known a breach. Already, Tevos could feel her tower quaking, fissures spreading through the once unassailable stone of her restraint.

Aria might be the one force in the realm capable of bringing the mighty Councilor Tevos to her knees. The thought filled Tevos with dread and the darkest thrill, the forbidden heat of long-denied need. She couldn't escape the sinking certainty that a reckoning loomed, that she would soon face the tempest Aria had unleashed within her.

Tevos could only pray that when the battle ended, when the dust of her resistance cleared, there would be something left of her to rebuild. Some core of self that could withstand the all-consuming blaze of Aria's relentless wanting, the conflagration of her pursuit.

Aria would either be her undoing or her apotheosis, and Tevos no longer knew which fate she feared or craved more.

Tevos shuddered, a ragged sigh tearing from her throat to shatter the tense silence of her chambers. Her head pounded, desire and dread and the aching weight of centuries waging war inside her skull. She needed to calm herself, to regain some measure of equilibrium before duty called her back to the treacherous dance of politics and scheming.

Though her position in Thessian government brought great stressors, it also wrought irreplaceable benefits. Chief among them, the opulent bathing chamber attached to her private quarters. As the door sealed shut behind her with a soft snick and the first tendrils of perfumed steam wrapped around her, Tevos felt something deep within her unclench. With unsteady hands, she undid the clasps of her gown, the silk slithering from her shoulders to pool at her feet in a whisper of sound.

Bare now, she still did not rush, savoring the anticipation building in her veins, the sweet torment of her own wanting. She poured herself a generous measure of honeyed wine at the sideboard, the rich amber liquid sloshing against the sides of the chalice as she brought it to her lips. She sipped slowly at first, letting the heady, sun-ripened sweetness linger on her tongue. But soon, the cup was drained, the delicate crystal bearing only the ghost of her mouth staining its rim.

The bath, when she sank into its steaming embrace, was just shy of scalding. She settled onto a submerged bench, the ancient stone worn satin-smooth by millennia of use, and let the water lap at her throat, her collarbones, swirling around her breasts in a phantom caress that drew a shuddering gasp from her lips. Tevos let her head fall back against the tiled edge of the bath, the cool ceramic a sharp contrast to the heat of the water and the fever burning beneath her skin. Heated mist curled around her in languid tendrils, carrying with it the subtle scent of the oils she'd added—jasmine and vanilla, a blend meant to calm and center. But beneath the floral notes, she only thought of the heady musk of Aria's scent, the beaconing call of her bold advances.

Despite her best efforts, Tevos felt her mind begin to wander, her hard-won control slipping beneath the combined onslaught of heat and exhaustion and the relentless pull of memory. Almost against her will, she found herself drawn back to a moment she'd long tried to suppress, a fleeting encounter that had haunted the darkest corners of her imagination for years.

It had been a night like any other, the palace grounds shrouded in shadow and silence beneath the watchful eyes of the moons. Sleep had proven elusive, Tevos' mind too full of council minutiae and the endless machinations of the court to allow her rest. Hoping to quiet her racing thoughts, she'd sought solace in the gardens, the one place where the weight of her duties and the restrictions of her station fell away, if only for a little while.

As she'd wandered the winding paths, letting the fragrant night air and the soft whisper of leaves soothe her fractious nerves, a sound had brought her up short. A moan, low and throaty and unmistakably female, echoing from the shadowed alcove of a nearby alcove.

Curiosity warred with propriety, the former winning out as Tevos found herself drawn closer, steps silent on the soft loam. As she neared the source of the sound, the scent hit her—Alpha musk, thick and heavy, shot through with the sweet, floral notes of omega arousal. It was a scent she knew all too well, a scent that haunted her darkest, most forbidden dreams.

Aria.

Aria...and another.

Tevos knew she should turn back, should flee before she was discovered. But some traitorous impulse kept her rooted to the spot, her heart pounding against her ribs as she peered around the edge of the stone wall.

There, limned in silver moonlight, was a sight that seared itself into Tevos' memory like a brand.

Aria and a maiden were there, half-hidden by the drooping fronds of a willow tree. The omega was pressed up against the rough wall, slack-jawed and eyes closed. Aria had one hand threaded in the folds of the maiden’s crest while the other worked between their bodies, setting a rhythm that had the omega keening high and breathless.

Tevos had frozen, shock and something far more visceral rooting her to the spot. She was transfixed by the flex of Aria's shoulders beneath the leather of her jacket, the wanton arch of the omega's spine as she ground herself against Aria’s thrusting fingers. The air was thick with the musk of their coupling, the wet sounds of flesh meeting flesh obscenely loud in the hush of the alcove.

Then, as if sensing her presence, Aria's head had snapped up, those fathomless black eyes locking with Tevos' own. Her lips had curved in a smirk, slow and knowing and infuriatingly smug. She held Tevos’ gaze boldly, unflinchingly, even as her fingers continued to pump relentlessly into the maiden writhing against her. There was a challenge in that stare, a provocation:This could be you, Tevos.

I could give you this, Aria’s gaze seemed to say as her fingers wrung another keening cry from the maiden’s throat. I could give you everything you've ever wanted. I could tear you apart.

Tevos had wrenched herself away, fleeing back to the safety of her chambers on shaking legs, never to mention the moment aloud again. But the memory, long buried, now bloomed vivid and unrelenting behind her tightly shut eyelids. Taunting her with what she couldn't have. Tempting her with unspoken promises...

Aria would not be gentle. Would not cherish her with soft touches and honeyed words. No, she would be a supernova, blazing and brilliant and searing in her intensity. She would take and take and take, until Tevos was thoroughly conquered. Utterly ruined.

Oh, what blissful ruination it would be!

Tevos let one hand drift below the water's surface, trailing over the taut slope of her stomach. Lower, lower. She circled the throbbing ridge of her clit once, twice, a gasp tearing from her throat at the electric surge of pleasure. It radiated out from her center in concentric waves, a stone thrown into the still waters of a pond, rippling and sparking along every nerve ending until she was wracked with it, undone before she'd even truly begun.

It had been so long, so many years since she'd last allowed herself this. When had she grown so cold, so perfectly compartmentalized? When had the mantle of duty, the yoke of service, leached all the color and warmth from her world until only shades of gray remained?

She couldn't pinpoint the precise moment she'd locked this part of herself away, excised it like a malignant growth for the perceived good of the realm. But she felt its loss now, an ache that thrummed behind her breastbone in time with the desperate throbbing of her azure. So immediate was the need for release that she could hardly fathom denying herself a second longer, but there was a decadent pleasure in drawing out her own torment, in savoring the precipice between agony and promised ecstasy. So she simply drifted, letting the heat and the stillness consume her, narrowing her world to the pulse thudding heavy and insistent at her fingertips.

She breathed and she waited and she waited until her resolve finally crumbled. With a sharp inhale, Tevos resumed her explorations, dragging the pads of her fingers through the evidence of her own arousal, so copious now it could not be mistaken for mere bathwater. She circled the sensitive ridge of her azure, a moan catching in her throat as she refamiliarized herself with the feeling so long denied.

The image came to her hot and shameful: Aria in the garden, the maiden, the hand working quick between them. Sharp inhale, a knowing gaze, a needy cry for more—

No.

Aria, in Tevos’ bed. Atop her, inside her. The stretch, the burn, the fullness. The shallow grunts, the goading words. Sharp spice scent and the crackle of biotics. Release, heavy and hot, filling her up…

Her head lolled to the side, steam licking at her parted lips. Behind the thin shield of her eyelids, it wasn't her own touch stoking the flames, but Aria's.

Aria's hands on her, in her, taking ruthless possession of all her untouched places. Aria's lips and teeth painting vivid trails across her skin, marking her. Aria's scent, her taste, her feral groans of pleasure filling Tevos' senses until the world narrowed to the slick slide of their joining.

With each desperate thrust of her fingers, each rough grind of her palm against the aching ridge of her clit, the fantasy grew more vivid, more consuming. Tevos could almost feel the hot, hard press of Aria's body covering her own, the intoxicating stretch and burn as Aria filled her again and again.

Aria—Oh, Goddess, Aria would take her hard and fast and relentless, unyielding as the tide, demanding her pleasure, her surrender, with each deep, purposeful stroke. Until she teetered on the very brink of shattering, every nerve alight and screaming for release. For the sweet annihilation of all logic, all reason, that only Aria could bring.

The very thought shoved Tevos over the edge, pleasure crashing over her in relentless waves, on and on and on. She shook and shuddered through the aftershocks, her fingers still moving in a tepid echo of what she truly needed, drawing out the bliss for a few trembling moments longer.

Yet as Tevos drifted back to herself, aftershocks still sparking along her skin...the satisfaction felt hollow. Empty. For all its short-lived intensity, it was a pale shadow against the visceral reality haunting her every waking thought. This stolen indulgence had only fanned the flames higher, transmuting banked embers to an inferno that threatened to reduce her to ash and cinder.

Inevitably, reality reasserted itself. The water cooled around her, the haze of her release dissipating like smoke on the wind. Rising from the bath on unsteady legs, Tevos stood naked before the full-length mirror, unflinching in her assessment. She was beautiful by all reasonable accounts. A vision, really. Timeless and tempting, all generous curves and sleek planes of cobalt, honed to perfection by centuries of discipline.

But the eyes that flashed back at her were haunted. Hungry. Alight with a craving she scarcely recognized, for all its terrifying familiarity.

She could not have Aria. Not yet, perhaps not ever. Her duty, her reputation, the years of tradition weighing heavy as iron shackles on her soul...they bound her as surely as gravity, as immutable as the eternal dance of the moons.

Though here, stripped bare before her own unflinching gaze, she could imagine. Could picture herself splayed across rumpled silk sheets, naked and writhing beneath Aria's expertly tormenting touch. Could lose herself in the dream of a passion too long denied, an all-consuming fire stoked to an inferno between her thighs.

It was a blissful thought. A heated one. But it wasn't enough. Would never be enough, would it?

The reasons why were a labyrinth of duty and obligation, a complex web of tradition and expectation that bound her as surely as any physical chains. Her position, her sacred charge to guide and counsel the queen, demanded a purity of focus, an unimpeachable objectivity. To give in to base desires, to allow herself to be distracted by something as insignificant as pleasure…it was unthinkable. A betrayal of everything she'd fought so hard to achieve, the life she'd clawed her way towards with bleeding fingers and gritted teeth.

She’d worked so hard to escape the chains of birth that had threatened to define her. The memories rose unbidden, snapshots of a childhood steeped in poverty and desperation. That gnawing ache of an empty stomach, the humiliation of government handouts that never quite stretched far enough. Her mother, bruised and bleeding from long hours in the fields, her father fighting back the hot wash of tears as she counted out their meager coins one by one by one. The gentle press of their hands against her crest as she wept, the other children's laughter floating in from the streets while she rigorously practiced her penmanship by flickering candlelight.

"Do this now," her father would murmur, voice rough with unshed tears, "so you don't have to do this forever."

And so she had. She'd risen from the ashes of her beginnings, fought and scraped and sacrificed. She'd built herself a pedestal, a tower of shining ivory, and in doing so, had left the scared, wanting girl far behind. One misstep, one moment of weakness, could send it all crumbling down, could cast her back into the muck and mire of her origins.

With careful, deliberate motions, she anointed her skin with scented oils, imagining how it would feel to have another's hands worship her so reverently, so thoroughly. To have Aria's calloused palms rasping over her breasts, her ribs, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. To be touched, possessed, undone by the one being in the galaxy whose will could match her own. Whose passion could consume her whole.

It was dangerous, this want. Deadly in its intensity. It went against everything Tevos had ever been taught, every code and creed she'd bound herself to when she'd accepted the heavy mantle of her position. The well-worn litany of denial and sacrifice rose to her lips, a prayer and a chastisement all in one.

For so long, denial had been her aegis and her anchor. The bulwark to which she clung against the relentless pull of her own yearning. But faced with the wild thing thrashing behind her eyes, the promise of ecstasy and damnation entwined... Tevos found her once unshakable control eroded to the thinnest veneer.

Found herself thinking, for the first time in centuries, about dancing along the knife's edge of her own destruction. To burn…and be reborn.

"Stop that," she whispered to herself, pressing cool palms to her heated cheeks. ”Stop it.”

The command was futile, a plea falling on an uncooperative body. She'd brought herself to this point, stoked the flames of her own desire into an inferno, and hated herself for it. For the weakness, the wanting, the sheer wanton need that pulsed through her like a second heartbeat.

She would simply have to do better, to resist harder. To shore up the crumbling ramparts of her control and pray that icy poise and cutting disdain could keep the tempest of her longing at bay. It was a war she'd waged within herself for centuries, an endless struggle between duty and desire, between the unshakable pillar she'd become and the wanting creature thrashing beneath her skin.

Yet, as Tevos cast one last, lingering look at her reflection, taking in flushed cheeks and darkened eyes, she couldn't escape the truth: change was coming. That one way or another, for good or ill, the war between her head and her heart, her duty and her desire, was fast approaching its denouement.

For the first time in all her long life, Tevos looked upon the battle ahead and didn't know if salvation would be found in her victory...or her defeat.

Chapter Text

Dawn broke over the palace like a held breath finally released, the first tentative rays of sunlight spilling across the once-shadowed contours of the great hall. In this liminal space between night and day, the vast chamber seemed almost to exist outside of time, suspended in a moment of hushed anticipation.

It was into this expectant stillness that Councilor Tevos emerged, a figure of poised grace and regal bearing as she took her customary place at Queen Benezia's right hand. Clad in sweeping robes of deepest indigo, accented with intricate silver embroidery that caught the light like captured starshine, she was the very picture of serene authority. Her face, an exquisite sculpture of cobalt planes and elegant curves, remained a mask of perfect attentiveness as the day's first petitioners began to file in, ready to lay their grievances and supplications at the feet of the throne.

Beneath this flawless veneer of composure, beneath the icy calm that had been her shield and her strength for centuries untold, a tempest raged unchecked.

Tevos' mind roiled, a maelstrom of conflicting emotions and desires that crashed against the confines of her skull with every measured breath. She was torn between her rigidly controlled façade and the white-hot hunger burning beneath, duty and passion locked in a seemingly endless battle.

The onslaught left her feeling unmoored, adrift in uncharted waters with no star to guide her way. The once unassailable bulwark of her carefully cultivated persona found itself beset on all sides by the relentless fire igniting her veins. She was caught between two irreconcilable extremes, the immovable object of her station grinding against the unstoppable force of her own treacherous wanting.

Even the simple act of stillness, of affecting the mien of the attentive councilor, was a herculean feat of will in the face of this internal siege. Every nerve ending screamed for action, for satiation; every sinew and tendon ached for the blissful release of surrender. It took every shred of her formidable discipline to maintain her mask of serenity, to keep from shattering into a million glittering shards under the pressure of her own long-suppressed needs.

A small mercy, then, that the cloying pheromones that had choked the very air of the palace these past days had finally begun to dissipate. Shepard and Liara's scents, once an intoxicating song luring all within range to distraction, had gentled in the night, transmuting from an urgent mating call to the contented declaration of a bond permanently marked and fulfilled. The change was subtle yet profound, a lifting of an invisible weight that allowed the other inhabitants of the palace to breathe a touch easier, to go about their duties with clearer heads and calmer hearts.

But for Tevos, caught in the eye of her own personal hurricane, the reprieve was a paltry comfort at best. The raging deluge of her inner landscape, the soul-deep schism between the unyielding dictates of her station and the desperation of her own yearning, could not be so easily soothed by any outward shift in circumstances. Hers was a war without end, an eternal struggle between the woman she had forged herself into and the wanton creature howling in the depths of her hindbrain.

Still, she clung to that small mercy like a lifeline, savoring the incremental easing of the tightness in her chest as she drew breath after breath of air no longer saturated with the miasma of a rutting call. It wasn't enough to quell the inferno raging under her skin, to leash the base impulses clawing at the underside of her careful control...but it was a respite nonetheless, however meager. A single drop of balm on the ravaged landscape of her psyche, precious in its paucity.

Yet even that fleeting relief paled in comparison to the far greater threat looming on the horizon of her awareness, the true catalyst of her current state of unraveling.

Aria.

She stood at her usual post beside the dais, a sleek, lethal figure in form-fitting leathers. To the casual observer, she might have appeared almost languorous, her posture one of indolent ease as she scanned the assembling crowd with hooded eyes. But Tevos knew better. She could read the coiled tension thrumming through every line of Aria's body, the predatory alertness that belied her languid façade. Aria was a livewire cloaked in black, a blade sheathed in shadow, ready to be drawn at the first whisper of a threat.

And right now, the entirety of that lethally focused attention was fixed on Tevos with unwavering intensity.

Oh, Aria's gaze roved over the gathering as protocol dictated, sharp and assessing as she watched for any hint of danger or dissent. But Tevos could feel the weight of her regard like a physical thing, a pressure between her shoulder blades that sent prickles of awareness skittering down her spine.

Every time the flow of petitions lulled, every time Benezia's focus was commanded by a particularly loquacious supplicant, Aria's eyes would find Tevos with unerring magnetism. In the scant handful of moments between breaths, between one word and the next, Tevos would find herself flayed open by that penetrating stare.

Stripped bare, exposed.

Devoured.

Under Aria's attention, Tevos saw the shape of her most secret desires reflected back at her a thousandfold. Every dark, unspeakable act that had ever flickered through her mind in the lonely reaches of the night, every forbidden fantasy and guilty craving...she could read them all in the way Aria looked at her. In the heat of her stare, the wicked curl of her lips.

It was torture of the most exquisite variety, a sweet, slow immolation of her very soul. A fire that burned away every last shred of her poise and restraint until nothing remained but scorched nerves and aching need. With every lurid promise written in the lines of Aria's body, with every subtle flare of her nostrils as she scented the rising tide of Tevos' helpless arousal, another fissure would splinter through the ice of Tevos' resolve.

By the time the morning session was drawing to a close, Tevos was a trembling wreck beneath her placid veneer. Her nerves were raw and blistered, screaming for relief, for release, for blessed oblivion. Every instinct urged her to flee, to seek the solace of her chambers where she could fall to frenzied pieces unobserved. Where she could quench the inferno raging inside her with the desperate ministrations of her own touch, could let her mind shatter into the fever dream of memoria and craving. It was a compulsion, a physical imperative, the only means of quieting the needy thing that had awoken inside her the moment Aria's eyes had first snared hers across a crowded room.

Though even that promise of momentary release, of a few snatched moments of self-induced bliss, was tainted by the insidious whispers swirling in the darkest corners of her mind.

How many others had Aria unmade so thoroughly with just a glance, a scent, a casual flex of power? How many maidens had she taken, had she ruined with those soft lips and ruthless hands? How often had she found her pleasure in the eager flesh of a hundred different bodies, losing herself in the slick heat of a thousand gasping mouths?

The images came unbidden, a twisted kaleidoscope of carnal delights: Aria's fingers shoved deep inside a writhing commando, her tongue painting filthy obscenities across a shuddering acolyte's azure. Aria with her teeth buried against the throat of a keening devotee, the air thick with the musk of their coupling. And worst of all, Aria with that nameless maiden pinned against the garden wall, her face contorted in feral bliss as she thrust into slick flesh.

Jealousy was an unfamiliar beast, a gnawing pit in Tevos' chest that had nothing to do with reason or logic. It coiled around her lungs like strangling vines, squeezed the breath from her throat until she thought she might choke on it.

If she gave in to this craving, if she let Aria have her way...would she be just another conquest? A momentary diversion to be used and discarded and forgotten once the novelty had worn thin? Was that to be her fate, after so many centuries of pious restraint? To be reduced to just another notch in Aria's bedpost, a trophy to be added to her no doubt extensive collection?

The very thought made bile rise in the back of Tevos' throat even as something hot and shameful clenched low in her stomach. Because beneath the revulsion, beneath the indignant scorn...a traitorous part of her thrilled at the idea. Longed to be taken, to be ravished so thoroughly that Aria's claim would be seared into her very bones.

Why did she crave it so desperately? What was this hold Aria had over her, this power to reduce her to a creature of base impulse and unrestrained need? Why, after so many centuries of iron control, did the mere thought of submitting to Aria's bruising hands and punishing mouth make Tevos want to fall to her knees and beg for mercy, for release, for the oblivion of total, utter ruin?

She had no answers. Only the certitude that she was walked on a razor’s edge, the yawning abyss of her own unmaking waiting hungrily below. And with every passing moment, every searing look and stolen breath heavy with unspoken intent, Tevos could feel her resistance crumbling, her resolve wavering in the face of an onslaught she had never been trained to withstand.

Oh, how she ached for it. For the blissful promise of total ruination, the ecstasy of being shattered.

For Aria.

Somehow, she managed to make it through the closing formalities. As soon as the last petition was heard and Benezia's final pronouncement given, Tevos was moving. Rising to her feet with a muted rustle of silk, she gathered up her datascrolls with fingers that shook minutely, the only outward sign of her inner turmoil. The polite words of farewell that passed her lips as she inclined her head to Benezia felt leaden on her tongue, wooden and distant.

All that mattered was escape. The safety of seclusion, the promise of release. She needed solitude, needed the sanctuary of her private chambers. Only there could she fall apart as messily, as completely, as her fracturing psyche demanded. Only there could she slake the need clawing beneath her skin, tend to the pulsing ache between her thighs with the frantic workings of her own touch.

It was as if opening the door to her most private imaginings, by letting herself indulge in even a single taste of the forbidden...she'd unleashed a ravenous beast that could never again be fully tamed.

Only momentarily sated, if she was lucky.

She was nearly running by the time she cleared the Great Hall, her steps hurried and graceless as she all but fled down the mercifully empty corridor that led to the private quarters—

A hand shot out of the darkness, strong fingers clamping around her wrist like a vice. In the space between one stumbling heartbeat and the next, Tevos found herself yanked backwards into a shadowed alcove, pulled off balance until she collided with a lean, unyielding body that radiated heat like a small sun.

A scent crashed over her, achingly familiar. Spice and ozone, musk and midnight. It filled her headspace until the world swam, her vision bleeding black at the edges.

"Leaving so soon, Councilor?" Aria's voice was a velvet caress, low and darkly amused, sliding over Tevos' senses like raw silk. "And here I thought we might have a little…chat.”

Tevos stiffened, frost crystallizing in her veins even as traitorous heat unfurled low in her abdomen. Straightening to her full height, she reached desperately for the unassailable poise, the impenetrable control that had always been her stalwart shield against the chaos of the world.

"I have no time for idle chatter," she bit out, the words emerging clipped and breathless despite her efforts to maintain her crumbling composure. "My duties are manifold and pressing. So if you'll excuse me—"

"Oh, I'll excuse you," Aria interrupted, silken menace threading through her tone. "I’ll excuse you for how quickly you dismissed me the other night. Tell me, Tevos...did you think of me when you fled back to your cold, empty bed?”

Tevos whirled to face Aria head-on, to meet that damning, knowing gaze. This close, she could see the myriad of colors trapped within the bottomless blue of her eyes—cerulean and indigo, cobalt and slate, a kaleidoscope of lust and challenge and raw, untempered power.

"You are completely out of line," she said, but to her dismay, the words lacked their usual diamond-hard authority.

Aria merely chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that Tevos felt in the aching, empty place between her thighs that clenched and fluttered in shameful recognition. In a single, fluid motion, Aria closed the distance between them, one hand coming to rest on the wall beside Tevos' head, effectively caging her in.

"Funny," Aria mused, her voice a throaty purr that vibrated against Tevos' skin, in the secret spaces beneath her pebbled flesh. She leaned in until her lips were a scant hairsbreadth from the delicate whorls of Tevos' crest, her exhale a heated gust that made her head swim. "You say one thing, but your scent...it betrays you.”

Tevos swallowed convulsively, a shudder rippling through her frame at the undisguised hunger in Aria's gaze, the dark sting of her words. Every instinct screamed at her to flee, to put as much distance between herself and this raw, magnetic pull as possible. Yet she remained rooted to the spot, pinned by the sheer force of Aria's presence, the scorching intensity of her focus.

She made a final, feeble attempt to rally her defenses, to summon the mantle of authority that had always been the aegis she used against her own desires. “I am your superior, Aria. An agent of the Council. You will address me with the respect I am owed."

But her voice cracked on the final word, the commanding alto wavering and splintering under the strain. And Aria, curse her, heard it. Her lips curved in a smile as sharp and cruel as a blade, triumph blazing in eyes gone black with want. Then, in a move as swift and devastating as a biotic flare, she had Tevos pressed flush against the wall, the unyielding contours of her body slotting perfectly against Tevos’ softer curves. It was as if they'd been shaped solely for this singular purpose, hewn from celestial fire and ancient stone to fit together like lock and key.

There was a sudden, charged stillness, a suspended instant where the very air seemed to tremble with the force of their connection, the irresistible pull of what lay between them. They were both acutely aware that a single flicker of genuine distress in Tevos' scent, the barest hint of true fear or revulsion, would have Aria retreating in an instant.

That for all her bluster and arrogance, Aria would never take what wasn't freely offered. That she would never force her will, her desire, on an unwilling partner.

They knew that just as they both knew Tevos possessed more than enough biotic strength to break this precarious hold, this tempting cage of Aria's arms. That she could fling Aria across the corridor with little more than a thought, assert her will and her station with ruthless efficiency.

And they both noticed how she didn't even try.

"You want to talk about what you're owed, Tevos?" Aria murmured, her breath a hot caress against the delicate skin of Tevos' cheek. "I'll tell you what you're owed."

Lush lips, soft as silk, brushed against the hinge of Tevos' jaw in a touch so fleeting, it might have been imagined. Aria's barely leashed power, the coiled strength and dominance radiating from her like a physical force, called to something deep and primal within Tevos. Something ancient and primal, a recognition that transcended thought or reason—the omega in her responding to the implacable command of Aria's Alpha.

It was a pull as old as the tides, as inexorable as the dual dance of the moons. It reached into the very marrow of her bones, plucking at her nerve endings like harp strings until her entire being resonated with a single, overwhelming imperative: submit, yield, surrender.

Inordinate in its intensity, it was a yawning abyss of need and longing that threatened to swallow her whole. Everything she had ever been taught, every code and creed she had bound herself with, screamed that this was wrong, a betrayal of all she held sacred.

But oh, how it felt inexplicably, viscerally right. As if every step, every choice she had ever made had been leading her to this moment, this singularity of purpose and desire. As if she had been born for this, shaped and molded by the centuries for the sole reason of being here, now, caught in the inexorable gravity well of Aria's want.

"You're owed whatever I feel like giving you," Aria continued, her voice a low, throaty rasp. Her fingers skimmed up the length of Tevos' arm in a touch that managed to be possessive and teasing all at once, leaving goosebumps rising in their wake, before coming to rest at the base of her throat. "The rest? You have to earn."

Tevos was shaking now, fine tremors chasing across her skin that she was mortifyingly powerless to conceal. Every inch of her felt flayed open, stripped bare by the searing heat of Aria's body, the blatant intent dripping from her every word. It was too much, an onslaught of sensation that threatened to overwhelm her, to shatter the fragile remnants of her control.

Yet even as her rational mind screamed out a warning, even as the last, stubborn vestiges of her iron control tried to reassert themselves...Tevos couldn't deny the swoop of excitement. The clench and ache of long-neglected flesh, the near-painful throbbing between her thighs as vivid, obscene images flashed through her mind's eye at Aria's casually uttered provocation.

This was the height of recklessness to even contemplate surrendering to this…this feral woman panting against her throat. The very height of reckless self-indulgence, a surrender of every principle and scruple she held dear. If anyone should catch them like this, should bear witness to the shameless, wanton display they made, tangled together in this shadowed alcove with Aria's scent painting her skin and her own need perfuming the air...

It would mean disaster. The end of everything. The utter annihilation of the careful persona she'd spent centuries sculpting, the unmaking of the untouchable pillar of dignity and restraint that was as much a part of her now as the violet blood flowing through her veins.

"You're thinking too much," Aria murmured, and there was a thread of something almost like affection woven through the amusement. "I can practically hear the gears turning in that pretty little head of yours. Always overthinking, always holding yourself back. Aren’t you tired of denying yourself?”

The barest hint of teeth, the ghost of an incisor pressed against the vulnerable juncture of Tevos' jaw and throat, there and gone again between one thundering heartbeat and the next, nearly buckled her knees. She swallowed hard, trying to summon some scrap of her usual poise even as her treacherous body yearned to press closer. "One of us has to consider the consequences of our actions. The fallout, should we be discovered in such a... compromising position."

Aria, however, seemed unimpressed by her show of noble sacrifice.

"Consequences?" Aria scoffed. "Is that really what you're worried about right now? The precious sensibilities of a bunch of doddering old windbags who wouldn't know true pleasure if it bit them on the azure?"

Aria pulled back slightly, just far enough for their gazes to meet and hold. To let Tevos see the undisguised hunger simmering on her face, the raw need and greedy possession. "Or are you more concerned with how much you want me to tear away this flimsy excuse for a dress and take you right here against this wall?"

A broken sound clawed its way out of Tevos' throat. She wanted to refute Aria's words, to spit defiance in the face of such bold presumption...but her scent betrayed her, thick and ripe with the musk of her arousal, damning in its blatancy.

She could feel herself unraveling, the ironclad leash of her self-control fraying with every perfectly aimed verbal barb, every deliberate brush of Aria's fingers over the sensitive folds of her neck. It was all she could do to keep from grinding against the muscular thigh that had somehow found its way between her own.

"I don’t—that isn’t," she managed, but the airy quaver in her voice, the tremor that shook each syllable like a leaf in a gale, made a mockery of the feeble protest. “You presume too much.”

Aria's lips curved in a blade of a smile, smug triumph flashing in her eyes as she breathed deep, scenting the unmistakable proof of Tevos' arousal on every inhale. Her fingers stroked higher, calloused tips rasping against the delicate underside of Tevos' chin.

"Do I?" she murmured, tilting Tevos' face up with firm, inexorable pressure. Baring the vulnerable line of her throat, the thunderous evidence of her heartbeat hammering just beneath the surface. "Am I really wrong, Tevos? Or are you just too much of a coward to admit how much you want to feel me inside you?”

Tevos shuddered, a broken keen lodging behind her teeth as Aria's grip tightened just a fraction, thumb pressing into Tevos' pulse, the fleeting pressure firing off sparks behind her tightly clenched eyes. She was drowning in sensation, in the deluge of images Aria's filthy promises conjured in her treacherous mind.

"Let go, Tevos," Aria said, and it was half command, half plea, threaded through with a desperation that made Tevos' heart clench. "Stop fighting this. Stop fighting me."

Goddess help her...but Tevos wanted. She wanted, with an intensity that terrified her, to simply let go. To yield to the dark seduction of Aria's touch, her scent, the wicked promise burning in her gaze. She was exhausted, wrung out from centuries of denial, of battling the howling emptiness inside her, the yawning chasm of her own ruthlessly suppressed desires. Of holding herself back from the one thing that promised to satisfy the heat that now lived in the marrow of her bones.

Aria was offering her everything. Every forbidden fruit she'd ever yearned to taste, every secret, sordid fantasy that haunted the lonely reaches of her dreams. Pleasure and oblivion, the sweet edge of pain and the lush glide of skin on skin. The chance to lose herself, to be unmade and reborn in the crucible of Aria's ruthless passion.

All she had to do was take it.

Tevos' resistance crumbled, the last of her defenses shattering like spun glass, like the thinnest sheets of ice over a raging river. She lifted her gaze to meet Aria's, blue on blue, holding. Holding nothing back, letting Aria see the desperate hunger, the aching need, the years of loneliness and quiet despair. Letting her see, at last, the truth of who Tevos was beneath the cool veneer of control, the iron armor of propriety.

And in that single, suspended moment, an entire unspoken conversation passed between them.

A question, an answer.

A decision decades in the making...and the inescapable rightness of its conclusion.

With a breathless sound that was half moan, half prayer, Tevos surged forward. She crashed her mouth to Aria's in a brutal collision, a messy tangle of lips and tongues and teeth that swallowed Aria's sharp gasp of surprise, the throaty sound of pure triumph that rumbled up from her chest.

A mantra, the only thing in her head: yes, finally, yes.

It was bruising, devouring, a clash of wills as Tevos poured every ounce of her desperation, her longing, her furious need into the eager pull of Aria's mouth. There was no tenderness—only a raw, primal hunger as Aria took and took and took, devouring Tevos whole and demanding her surrender in turn.

Goddess, it was everything Tevos had ever imagined and more. So much more. The reality of Aria, the taste and texture and sheer overwhelming power of her, eclipsed even the most vivid of her feverish fantasies. This was no shy, tentative exploration, but a full-scale assault on her senses, a conquering meant to shatter her defenses and leave her trembling. Aria kissed like she fought—without mercy or quarter, a relentless onslaught designed to overwhelm and subdue.

And Tevos, who had spent so long denying herself this very pleasure, this exact ecstasy, could only melt into the ferocious heat of it, a whimper building in the back of her throat as Aria's teeth sank into the swell of her lower lip. The sharp sting only stoked the flames higher, an erotic counterpoint to the lush glide of Aria’s lips on hers, the wicked thrust of her tongue against Tevos’ own.

A broken moan spilled from her lips, muffled against the demanding crush of Aria's mouth. The sound only seemed to ignite Aria further, a growl rumbling up from deep in her chest as she pressed impossibly closer. Her thigh slotted higher between Tevos', a shocking pressure against the aching throb of her azure, and Tevos nearly wept at the contact.

Distantly, she registered the scrape of her back sliding against the wall, the cool press of ancient stone a shocking contrast to the inferno raging under her skin. Aria was flush against her, a solid wall of muscle and barely leashed power pinning her in place as the kiss deepened, turned filthy and open-mouthed. Tevos couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the thunder of her own heartbeath, the desperate clench of her aching azure. She could only fist her hands in the supple leather of Aria's jacket and hold on for dear life, anchoring herself to Aria’s strength as her biotics flared in instinctive response.

Aria's hands were everywhere—grasping at her hips, skating up her sides, sliding through the folds of her crest. Proprietary and possessive, mapping every curve and hollow as if to stake her claim. It was too much and not enough, a maddening taste of the ecstasy she craved. Tevos found herself grinding down against Aria's thigh, wanton and wild, heedless of the shamelessness of the act. Chasing the blissful friction, the promise of rapture that hovered just out of reach.

She was being unmade, she realized. Shattered and reshaped, the very atoms of her being rearranged to accommodate this new, irrefutable truth—that she was Aria's, wildly and completely. That she had been from the moment they met, an irrevocable shift in time that could never be undone.

There were, Tevos thought dimly through the haze of her unraveling, far worse fates to endure.

Far colder dooms than this sweet, exquisite immolation, the pyre of her millennia-old control disintegrating to ashes in the forge of Aria's embrace.

So let her burn, then.

Aria's mouth trailed away from hers, blazing a hot, damp path along the line of her jaw. Tevos shuddered and gasped as teeth grazed the sensitive spot just below her aural cavity, pleasure sparking white-hot down her spine. Her head fell back against the wall with a dull thud, baring the long column of her throat in wordless offering.

Aria accepted the surrender with a hum of approval that vibrated through Tevos like a second heartbeat. Her lips closed over the hammering pulse point, sucking hard, and Tevos keened high and broken at the dueling sensations of pleasure and pain.

Lost as she was, it took a moment for the distant clatter of footsteps to penetrate the lust fogging her mind. But when it did, panic crashed over her like a bucket of ice water, chilling her ardor to sharp, jagged shards of dread. Tevos shoved at Aria's shoulders with a strength born of pure desperation, breaking the kiss with a gasp. Her chest heaved as she fought for breath, for equilibrium, the world still spinning madly around her.

Aria went willingly, a grin stretching her kiss-swollen lips even as she released her bruising grip on Tevos' hips. Yet she couldn’t resist darting in for one final nip to Tevos' lower lip, a stinging reminder of her claim.

For an endless, charged moment, they simply stared at one another, chests heaving for air. Aria's eyes were black, pupils blown wide with hunger, and Tevos knew her own gaze held an answering desperation. The air between them felt leaden, saturated with the mingled scents of their arousal and the unspoken weight of a thousand unfulfilled promises.

But the approaching voices grew louder, the clatter of armored footfalls echoing off the stone walls. Any moment now, they would round the corner and discover the two of them here, locked in an embrace that could never be mistaken for anything chaste. Only moments before the precarious house of cards that was her reputation, her entire life, would come crashing down around her.

With a bitten-off curse, Tevos wrenched herself out of Aria's hold, scrabbling to gather the datascrolls scattered at their feet. Her hands shook violently as she tried to smooth her rumpled skirts, to coax herself back into some semblance of order. But it was a futile effort—the evidence of their tryst was written in the indigo flush painting her cheeks, the lingering traces of Aria's teeth on her skin. Her azure still throbbed with the phantom weight of Aria's thigh wedged between her own, the ghost of Aria's touch still searing her through the thin silk of her dress.

Aria made a low sound, the hum dark with amusement. Infuriatingly, the corners of her lips were curled in a smirk of pure, unadulterated satisfaction, her eyes glinting with a wicked sort of delight. "Seems like the unflappable councilor can be flapped, after all."

Tevos fixed Aria with a withering look. How dare she make a mockery of this, of Tevos' hard-fought surrender. "What a lowly habit you have, cornering people in alcoves until they bend to your will," she said, tilting her head in a perfect picture of cool derision. "I shudder to think of the state of our defenses, if this is how their illustrious leader comports herself."

It was a calculated jab, designed to hit Aria where she knew it would hurt the most—her pride in her position, her relentless drive to be the best at everything she put her mind to. A petty trick, perhaps, but Tevos was long past caring. All that mattered was putting distance between them, erecting the familiar walls of protocol that Aria had so effortlessly shattered simply by existing. If cruelty was the only tool at her disposal, then she would wield it like a scalpel, flaying Aria to the bone even as her own soul bled.

Aria's eyes narrowed, a dangerous glint sparking in their midnight depths. She stalked forward, closing the distance between them until Tevos could feel the heat of her, the electric thrum of barely leashed power emanating from her imposing frame. "Let's get one thing straight, Tevos. You kissed me," she purred, her voice a velveteen threat. "But by all means, keep clinging to your pretty illusions of control while you can. We both know the truth—that for all your propriety and disdain, you'd spread your legs for me just like every other desperate omega begging for a taste of real power.”

The words hit their mark with unerring accuracy, shame and humiliation crashing over Tevos in a sickening wave. She felt flayed open by the knowing mockery in Aria's tone, the damning truth of her accusation. For a single, horrifying instant, she was lost to memory of the heat and hardness of Aria's body against her own, wanton sounds spilling from her lips as she sought her pleasure against Aria's muscled thigh like some needy maiden.

"No," she bit out, the lie tasting of ashes and defeat on her tongue. Desperation clawed at her throat, the need to regain some scrap of control, of equilibrium, driving her to dishonesty. "You have my attention only because I pity you, Aria. Always chasing what you can't have, grasping for more only to watch it slip through your fingers in the end. It must be so demoralizing, so exhausting, to be constantly found wanting."

Aria scoffed, a harsh sound that grated against Tevos' nerves. "Pity? From the high and mighty Councilor Tevos?" She shook her head, a mocking light in her eyes. "I'd sooner expect mercy from a rabid varren. No, I know exactly what this is—a feeble attempt to salvage your precious pride.”

She leaned in, her scent filling Tevos’ senses until she could barely think straight. "Save your lies for someone who might actually believe them, Tevos. We both know the only one found wanting here is you, and no amount of posturing will change that."

She wanted to deny it, to lash out with all the venom and vitriol she could muster...but the words stuck in her throat, choked off by the inescapable truth of Aria's assertion.

Aria stepped back, a final smirk playing about her lips as she drank in Tevos' stricken expression. "Run along now, Councilor. Go lick your wounds in peace. But remember—the next time you find yourself all hot and bothered with…pity, you know exactly where to find me."

Tevos stood rooted to the spot as Aria sauntered away, her heart thundering in her chest and her knees threatening to give out beneath her. She had tasted the forbidden fruit, had felt the searing brand of Aria's touch, her lips, her overwhelming presence. And now, no matter how desperately she tried to deny it, to lock the memory away in the darkest recesses of her mind, Tevos knew the truth.

She knew she would crave Aria, ache for her, every moment of every day, until she allowed herself another taste.

With shaking hands, she smoothed down her rumpled dress, trying in vain to restore some semblance of order to her appearance. But it was useless—the evidence of her shameful capitulation was written all over her, from the flush staining her cheeks to the lingering musk of her arousal still clinging to her skin.

Goddess, what had she done? What madness had seized her, to let Aria take such liberties, to defer so wantonly to the siren call of her own base desires? To kiss Aria like that, to surrender to her, so soon after declaring she’d do otherwise?

Even as the questions screamed through her mind, battering at the inside of her skull, Tevos knew the answer. It was there in the feverish heat still pulsing between her thighs, in the phantom pressure of Aria's hands gripping her hips, the taste of Aria’s mouth seared onto her tongue. There could be no more denial, no pretending that this shattering, world-altering thing between them could be contained, could be merely pushed aside and forgotten.

They had crossed a line, shattered a boundary that could never be rebuilt. And now Tevos had to find a way to live with the consequences, to reconcile the immovable object of her duty with the unstoppable force of her own longing.

But oh, how she wanted to push it from her mind, to bury the memories and the yearning until she could breathe again without tasting Aria on every inhale. She would throw herself into her work, into maintaining the façade of the unflappable Councilor with redoubled intensity. She would be colder, harder, more ruthlessly perfect than ever before. Anything to keep from crumbling completely.

It was a laughable plan. Foolish and unlikely. But oh, how she was going to try. She was going to push it from her mind. She was…

She was a Goddess-damned wreck.

It took every ounce of her reserved strength to reenter the council chamber later that afternoon. She sat ramrod straight in her chair at the long, polished table, the hard wood digging into her spine through the layers of her formal robes. The fabric felt suddenly constricting, the high collar and heavy drape of the skirts stifling in a way it never had before. She resisted the urge to tug at the neckline, to loosen the intricate knots of her sash and let the cool air of the chamber soothe her overheated skin.

Across the table, Aria lounged in her own seat, the picture of insolent ease. She had one booted foot propped up on the edge of the table, the supple leather encasing her muscular calf like a second skin. Her jacket hung open, revealing the tantalizing slice of skin above the low cut of her undershirt. The sight made Tevos' mouth go dry, her fingers itch with the urge to trace the defined lines of Aria's collarbone.

She could practically feel the heat radiating off the other woman, could almost taste the spice and ozone of Aria's scent. It made her head swim, made it almost impossible to suck in a full breath. Every shift of Aria's body, every flex of lean muscle beneath close-fitting leather, sent a fresh wave of want crashing through Tevos' veins, pooling heavy and aching in the cradle of her hips.

It was disorienting, this awareness. This knowledge that a mere handful of steps would bring her within touching distance of Aria. That she could, if she were reckless beyond all reason, simply reach across the table and trail her fingers along the line of Aria's jaw, feel the twitch of the tendons in her neck as Tevos' nails scraped over that smooth, sensitive skin.

The image bloomed vivid and visceral behind Tevos' eyes, sending a bolt of pure, undiluted desire straight to her azure. A thin trickle of sweat ran down her spine, the sour tang of adrenaline sharp on her tongue. Goddess, she was burning alive in her own skin, smoldering like a star about to go supernova beneath Aria's scorching gaze.

Almost against her will, Tevos' eyes flicked to meet Aria's over the gleaming expanse of the table, drawn like a magnet to the crackling heat of the other woman's presence. Aria's lips curled in a slow, wicked smirk, her eyes fathomless as the void as they raked over Tevos' face, her trembling hands, the heaving silk of her throat.

"Something on your mind, Councilor?" Aria drawled, the words dripping with mocking insinuation. Her voice was a low, intimate rasp, pitched for Tevos alone, and the sound of it made her clench her thighs together against the sudden, desperate ache between them.

Tevos gritted her teeth, willing her traitorous body to calm, her expression to remain neutral even as her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. She would not rise to Aria's bait, she told herself fiercely. She would not give Aria the satisfaction of seeing her composure crack any further.

No matter how badly she wanted to let the façade shatter. No matter how she ached to let Aria see the truth of her, the raw, hungry creature clawing beneath her skin.

"Nothing at all, Quartermaster," she replied coolly, pleased when her voice emerged steady despite the wild flare of her pulse. "Nothing that need concern you, at any rate."

A beat of silence, taut and charged, as Aria's eyes bored into her own. Then her smirk widened, a flash of white teeth that made Tevos' stomach swoop. "If you say so, Councilor," Aria said. "If you say so."

With that, she turned away, her attention seemingly caught by the droning speech of some minor noble at the far end of the table. But Tevos could still feel the weight of Aria's focus on her skin, could still taste the dark promise in the air between them.

A promise of surrender, of sweet, devastating ruin.

A promise Tevos knew, even as she brutally suppressed a shudder, that she was helpless to resist forever.

Drowning as she was in her own mind that she nearly missed Benezia calling on her to give an opinion on the rising disquiet in the Attican Traverse. It took Tevos a long, scrambling moment to collect her scattered thoughts, to force her mind away from the phantom press of firm muscle between her thighs. She could feel Aria's eyes boring into her, intent and dark amusement and something far more dangerous warring in Aria’s scent.

"That's it, Councilor?" Aria demanded when Tevos finally stammered out a half-formed plan, her usually precise diction wavering around the edges. "Just sit back on your pretty little ass and wait for the insurgents to make the first move? How typically passive of you."

"And what would you suggest?" Tevos retorted, a fresh surge of anger helping to clear the treacherous fog from her mind. "Charging in, biotics blazing, without a care for the consequences?"

"I'd meet strength with strength," Aria shot back, eyes flashing with fire. "But then, I've never been one to shy away from doing what needs to be done, no matter how messy. That's always been your problem, Tevos. So bound up in rules and regulations that you've forgotten what it means to act."

The implication in Aria's words, the sly innuendo threaded through each syllable, hit Tevos like a physical blow. Fury and humiliation warred within her, mingling with the ever-present ache of ardor until she thought she might combust from the sheer, unbearable intensity of it all.

"How shocking that you would prefer to take what you think you are owed without any concern for the devastation left in your wake,” she said, rage seeping into her tone. “Is your ego so vast, your entitlement so boundless, that you simply don’t care about the utter ruin you bring to everything you touch?”

Aria merely arched a tattooed brow, unperturbed by the blistering heat of Tevos' fury. "Careful, Councilor," she drawled, a mocking lilt to the title that made Tevos' blood boil in her veins. "One might think you were letting your personal feelings cloud your vaunted objectivity."

"Objectivity?" Tevos scoffed, a harsh, bitter sound that scraped like glass against her throat. "You want to lecture me about objectivity, Aria? You, who have never once in your life put anything or anyone above your own selfish whims?"

Aria's eyes narrowed, a muscle ticking in her jaw as she absorbed the venom in Tevos' words. For a moment, the air between them crackled with tension, the force of their locked gazes enough to set molecules to vibrating. Tevos braced herself for the inevitable explosion, the blistering retort that would flay the skin from her bones and leave her bleeding.

But it never came. Instead, a new voice cut through the charged atmosphere like a blade through vellum, cool and imperious: "That's quite enough."

Benezia's command was soft, almost gentle, but it carried the weight of a thousand years of absolute authority. Rising from her seat, her movements were fluid and graceful despite the weight of her formal robes. She fixed Aria and Tevos with a gaze that seemed to pierce through to the very soul, dark eyes swirling with a mix of disappointment and implacable authority.

"We cannot afford to be divided," Benezia continued, each word measured and precise, weighted with the wisdom of centuries. She crossed the chamber with measured steps, the train of her gown whispering against the polished floor. "Not now, with the official bonding ceremony nearly upon us and the eyes of the realm fixed on Thessia. We must be a united front, an unassailable bulwark against those who would see us weakened and diminished."

She came to a stop before Aria and Tevos, her presence seeming to fill the entire room. Up close, the force of her aura was almost tangible, a palpable pressure that made the air feel thick and heavy. Benezia let her gaze linger on each of them in turn, ancient eyes narrowed. "I will not have petty squabbles and personal vendettas jeopardizing the future of Thessia. Is that understood?"

Under the weight of that imperative stare, Tevos felt herself wither inside, shame and remorse burning through her like a biotic flare. To be chastised by the Queen herself, to have her own childish behavior laid bare before the entire council... it was a humiliation beyond reckoning. She could feel the eyes of the other councilors on her, could practically hear the whispers that would follow her out of the chamber and dog her steps for days to come.

It took every ounce of will Tevos possessed to keep her head high, to meet Benezia's gaze without flinching. "Of course, Your Majesty," she managed, the words emerging sharp and rough like gravel. She dipped her neck into a low, formal bow, the gesture one of profound respect and contrition. "Forgive my outburst. It was unworthy of me, and of this council."

From the corner of her eye, she saw Aria bend into a bow of her own, though the gesture was barely more than a twitch of her shoulders. But there was no contrition in the set of her jaw, no hint of apology in the glittering blue of her gaze. If anything, Aria looked grimly satisfied, as if she'd scored a point in a game Tevos couldn't begin to grasp.

Benezia regarded them both for a long, searching moment, her expression inscrutable. Then, with a minute nod, she turned and glided back to her throne, the rustle of her skirts the only sound in the otherwise silent chamber.

"See that it does not happen again," she said, the words ringing with finality. "Thessia's future depends on our unity. Our strength. We cannot falter, not even for a moment."

As Benezia settled back onto her throne and the council slowly, hesitantly resumed its business, Tevos fought the urge to crumple right there on the chamber floor. Her skin felt too tight, her chest burning with the effort of keeping her breathing steady, her expression neutral. She could still feel Aria's eyes on her, could practically taste the smug satisfaction on the air.

It made something hot and desperate twist behind Tevos' breastbone, a tangle of fear and longing and helpless anger. In that moment, she hated Aria more than she'd ever thought possible—hated her for reducing her to this quivering mass of thwarted desire and seething resentment, for forcing her to confront the endless well of her own stifled needs.

More than that, she hated herself. For being weak enough to let Aria send her entire world careening off its axis. For wanting, so fiercely that it terrified her, the one thing she could never allow herself to have.

Tevos swallowed hard, her throat clicking with the dryness of the desert sands, focus still fixed pointedly away from Aria's blazing gaze. She would endure this, she told herself fiercely. She would weather the storm of her own wanting, no matter how it battered at her defenses.

Because Benezia was right. Thessia needed her, needed all of them, to be stronger than their base instincts. She could not afford to indulge this madness, could not let herself be consumed by a flame that would surely burn her to cinders and leave only regret in its wake.

So Tevos straightened her spine, lifted her chin, and turned her attention back to the droning of diplomacy, the delicate dance of deal-making and double-speak. And tried, with all her not inconsiderable might, to forget the taste of a forbidden fruit too long denied.

No matter how it lingered on her tongue, sweet and tart and laced with the promise of destruction.