The Warlord gave Ignita the freedom of space she had so clearly sought. He left Larimar watching over her subtly and hidden, and went off to perform his patrols. With the size the pack had grown to, it was no small task these days. Ensuring there were no unfamiliar scents at the borders, or evidence of trouble took a lot of concentrating. He broke it down into sections, and once he had completed a section he made his to where he had stashed Ignita’s birthday present.

A book tilted ‘approximate knowledge of all things’ that he knew she would get a kick out of. A little golden bookmark made of delicate metal, with a tiny songbird pendant that clung to the metal and hung free out of the book. He had debated leaving it for her to find, but in the end he knew he couldn’t avoid her. So he went looking for his little songbird once more.


"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

Speech // thought

Her eyes were red and puffy by the time an hour or more had passed. She was grateful for the peace actually, though she should check on the children. She had no energy to get up from her crumpled place in the bed. She didn't know if she wanted to get up again. Her husband was going to lay with another woman smaller than even her and deny her any further chance of raising her own children.

How far would he take it? How far would she? Would she ever be pregnant again? A terrible thought entered her head but she shook it. No, she was above such things. Another terrible thought entered her head and it made her pause a little longer before she shook her head. That was a worse answer. This was not a problem she could fucking fix. Her bastard husband was practicing his monstrous side and the only one surprised about it was her.

She had not left the den. She lay in the bed facing the doorway.
When he came in she shifted her face away from him. Less a blazing bonfire of anger and more a puddle of grief. She hadn't the wherewithal to pick up after herself. The den was a shameful tornado of a mess from the absolute bombshell she had wrought upon the place.

Basilisk followed one of his companions back to their den, they had kept an eye on her which made it easy to find her now. He took a step inside… and then stopped. He looked about the den, which looked as if a tornado had swept through. It looked… like their earlier den had when he had discovered her use of birthing control teas. Well then.

He stepped carefully through the mess and made his way to where Ignita lay, turned away from him. He carefully placed the book and bookmark down beside her, and then stepped away again. Giving her a little space. But he didn’t go far. He stood there a moment, watching her and waiting to see what she would do.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

Speech // thought

How could he do this to her?

She didn’t want to look at him.

She heard him move about, place something within her reach then back off like she was some wild feral animal. She was a wild feral animal. She stole a glance at it.

A book. With an amusing title. She pulled it in with a shaking sigh and opened it to a fragile and beautiful bookmark. A little songbird. She closed the book with a snap and lifted her gaze to the wall. Refusing to look in his direction.

"Did you give gifts to Hazel when she was cross with you?" She asked with a chill bite in her typically warm voice.

Her words brought a small ache to his face, and he lifted a paw to touch the small scar across his blue marked eye. “No.” he said simply. He hadn’t thought of Hazel for some time now. They had been young. Teenagers. When they had been unhappy they had taken a bottle of something they had swiped from Halos den, and found somewhere under the stars where they could drink it.

He watched her as she took the book into her grasp, and then turned away from her. He started to move around the den. Picking up the things she had tossed haphazardly around the place. He moved a few broken items to the side to be thrown out and replaced. He simply… worked, in silence.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

He replied. He hadn’t. She closed her eyes. She honestly didn’t know what to do, what to feel. All she knew was that it hurt. It felt like he was discarding her. In the same breath, he would tell her he loved her and that she wouldn’t carry any more of his children. She couldn’t figure out why it hurt so much. Was it jealousy? Did he really believe this was the only way? In another breath, he would tell her that he also wouldn’t be denied her body if he chose to.

She heard him shuffling about. Picking things up. She felt the cover of the book in her paws. She hated this feeling—this feeling of… betrayal.

She thought back to those days when she was taking the tea to defy him. To control when she could get pregnant herself. He saw it as a betrayal. She saw it as a means to take hold of herself. A playful banter between them. Was this the same? She thought of their children. Three of them she could already see reach those dire heights. Citadel, larger than life no doubt would come close to his father's height. Selene... A precious runt of the litter. What if her littlest fell in love with someone as large as her father? Then this sort of arrangement would save the girl's life.

There. She found it, a tether to hold herself on, a way to explain it, a way to get comfortable with it. She could be a model for her littlest daughter. To be flexible.

She sighed audibly and sank into the furs.

"Bas?" She called him softly, a tone that denoted she was ready to chat, she had done her thinking, and she was ready to come back to the table. It felt odd to call him by name, instead of Love.

As he would come closer she would reach out to his face. She would hold his large head between her paws and gaze into his deep azure eyes.

"Why did you let me fall in love with you?" She asked softly, whether it was rhetorical or now was not clear.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

Her words were a hammer that shattered something inside of him. It showed in his eyes. The surprise and shock of what those ten simple words did to him. For all his need to possess and control her. For his bastardly nature, he loved her. She held his head on her paws, and he pushed forward gently, resting his head against her. Relising in that moment something he could not possess through force. Could not control, and did not dare lose. Her love for him.


He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of her fur, breathed in the scent of her. “Because there's nothing else in the world that matters more to me. Not this pack, nor it's future.’ which is what he considered his plan with Tee to be. “Don't leave me, my love.” He whispered more softly. “Don't stop loving me.”

Something broke in his eyes at her words. Something he didn't know he had, something that dawned on him. She had a feeling what it was, and he confirmed it when he rested his head against her and whispered to her.

"Don't leave me, my love, don't stop loving me." He whispered. It was a desperate plea. She came to realize, it was the first plea he had ever begged of her.

Her gaze was soft, and her paws gently stroked his head. She certainly wasn't planning on falling out of love with him, and certainly not planning on leaving him either. But this business with Teegra had strained her. Her isolation was weighing on her. She was a social creature and she felt she was reaching a breaking point when everyone was upset with her and she had no one else to turn to.

She didn't respond right away, just held him and felt him close to her. Until she finally whispered, "I don't plan to." She stroked his fur and gave him a soft kiss on his great brow.

"I will endure this business with Teegra," She began more strongly, "or whoever you decide to be our surrogate. We will teach our children to be mindful of whom they decide to have children with. But promise me..." She held his face up to hers, eye to eye, but suddenly the promise died on her tongue. She sighed. She didn't know what other promise to hold him to, that he could conceivably hold. He had made his vows as her husband, and she couldn't ask for more of him outside of his nature.

"No... You've already made your vows, my love, just hold to them. Love me as I love you." She kissed the tender spot between his eyes.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

He showed her his greatest vulnerability in that moment. A part of him -that suspicious part that had bloomed at kyanites betrayal, and Crux and Stratum turning their back to him - wondered If she would use it against him. If she would lay conditions on her love in that moment to get her way. He felt her paw through his fur and he clung to that sensation. Knowing it meant she was here, that she was with him.


She nudged him back enough for their eyes to meet, and her words held no conditions. None he couldn't meet, or wouldn't have anyway. His eyes were liquid. Not tears, but perhaps close to it. “I love you with a strength that frightens me sometimes. If you ever left me… I don't know what I would do. But I do not believe I or this pack would survive it.” and there were not many things that frightened The Warlord. But here, in the quiet privacy of their room. In the centre of the whirlwind Ignita had left, he gave her the truths that sat in his heart.

Here, her great beast was laid bare before her. His heart flayed open and placed at her feet. She would show him that she would care for it with the tenderness she craved, with the fountain of love he had for him.

He admitted the strength he held for their love frightened him, and the thoughts that she might leave him would break him and the pack asunder. His eyes were glassy, one might even mistake it for misty, as she felt the gaze of her husband. Her pad stroked the fur of his cheek as she held his face.

"I think... I'm beginning to believe you." She whispered hoarsely. Her own eyes softly became misty as well as she pulled his face toward hers. To clasp her lips tenderly to his, a flush entering her cheeks. Her paws gently dragged through his fur down his neck. Inviting him to bring them together, like they never had before.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

He let out a heady growl as heat suddenly flooded him, and he pressed his lips to hers, the growl still vibrating in his throat. He pulled her onto him, holding her tenderly in his paws as he continued to kiss her. Drowning her in affection as he pulled their bodies together.


Parting only to breathe, and to growl a few words to her. “I vow to never love a other like I love you. You are my consort, my queen.” His voice breathed at her through groans “love me, Ignita, love me with all of you.” Was it a plea or a command? It was hard to tell in his breathless voice.

The heat roared to life between them. His heady growl vibrated against her lips, it ran deeply down into her core. His fierceness echoed the strength he spoke of, how it scared him how much he loved her. She felt his paws around her as their kiss deepened and grew, fueling the fire. A gentle moan escaped her lungs as he entered her. Ignita groaned as she tilted her hips for him and grew breathless. She gasped and pulled herself onto him, bracing and moving with the rhythm. Her noises began to escalate as he growled his vow. He declared her his consort, his queen and she could only reply gasping a yes, yes! into his fur.

She ached for him, his scent drew her to throw her head back and moan for him.
"I love you..." She proclaimed breathlessly. Arching her back into him, cascading her paws deep into his fur to run her dulled claws down his skin. "You have me, I am yours. I love you, Basilisk with all that I am. With all that I have." Her claws twisted into his fur as if she could pull him even closer. Her legs wrapped around his hips to lock them into their fervid dance.


"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

The heat of being inside of her and the feel of her movements and sounds of pleasure was pure euphoria after that brief moment of terror when he realised his grip over her heart might be more fragile than he had expected. He moved with her, increasing their tempo and groaning in her ear. One claw clung to her back, digging in. The other dug into the bedding beneath them. All he could scent was her, all he could see and feel and taste. She took over every aspect of his sensors and he was not quiet as his teeth dug into her shoulder

Until he reached his climax and shuddered into her. He clung to her even then, panting and wild eyes as his body tingled with pleasure. “I burn for you” he whispered as his teeth grazed against her fur.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

Words words words. Words were nothing more than breaths in the face of their desire. Their desire to stay together, to yearn together, to love hungrily at the altars of each other. She gasped and moaned as she felt his claws in her skin, pinpricks of painful pleasure radiating from her back and allowing herself to lose it all to him. He had everything of her, he had her body, mind, and soul. Their melding of fire and ice was a song as she clung to him and lost herself in every sensation of him.

She was surrounded by his breath and the sounds clung to her fur as she felt his teeth dig into her shoulder as he dug deeper within her. She writhed and trembled beneath him, panting as he panted and she swears she saw the stars collide over them as he reached the pinnacle of their coupling. As if the stars had peeled back the roof to watch them.

Her eyes met his, soft and ever so full of warmth and tenderness. Her skin prickled pleasantly in every place their fur met. She sighed as he whispered how he burned for her. A burning between them that could never be quelled, quenched, or doused.

She wanted him to devour her soul, to crave her most above all things. "You are so entangled in my soul... that I don't know where you end... and I begin." She breathed to him, "Never grow tired of me my love. That's all I ask." She nuzzled into the crook of his neck. Enjoying every silent sensation.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

He wrapped his arms around her as she lay on his chest. Content for the moment to simply be near her. It gave him a chance to recover as well, from his frantic claiming of her. The need that burned first and foremost in him. To have her, in every way possible. His breathing slowly eased out, and he sighed softly, still a sound of contentment. He kissed her forehead. “I never will.” He promised her softly, knowing he meant it with all of his being.

“So we need to talk about any of this?” He asked her softly, and he really did mean to talk. Not just… growl, growl, you’ll do what I say. Of course, there was no promises it would delve back to that in the end.


"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

Her eyes fluttered into his soft kiss on her forehead. Her head rose and fell as she rested on his chest with his every breath.
Encouragingly he brought back the topic that had caused them to nearly break.

She ran her paw through the fur on his chest as she was silent for a moment, contemplating. She said she would endure the business, and she wouldn't go back on that promise, but perhaps she could hope for a gentler way than forcing someone to carry their progeny.

"Can I hope our surrogate will get a chance to choose?" She asked carefully, playing with a wavy black curl under her paw. Her voice said she was unsure if this was something he could promise.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

He ran his paw through her fur, feeling the softness, and the familiar shape of her body beneath the pad. He enjoyed her close proximity, the scent of her on and all around him. Her own paw absently played with his fur as she spoke, but Basilisk didn’t reply immediately. He ran the back of his paw lightly down between her ears and spine. She was so small in his grasp, so easy to reach any part of her.

“I have no desire to force someone.” He said at last. It wasn’t an answer, not exactly. But perhaps it was the closest she would get.


"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

He didn't immediately answer and it caused her to pause. Slowly she lifted her head to ask the question more urgently with her eyes, the hope showing through her open expression. She felt how his paw ran from the top of her down all the way down her spine. It made her body shiver reflexively at the gentle touch.

He finally answered, and a subtle shift in her expression provided him a key to how she felt about his hesitance and answer. He may not have the desire now but she knew how changeable and obstinate he could be. This was the answer she was going to get, at least it was at least as honest as he could be now. If she pushed to have him change it he would outright give her an empty promise.

She glanced away and pinned her ears in thought. Fiddling with another curl of fur in her paw.
"Fair enough. But... My love?" Hope springs ever eternal for this one as she turned back to him earnestly, "Will you give me no more empty promises? Only tell me when you cannot promise me instead?" It was a plea, something to keep them returning to each other. If he will be honest with her in this... Then the trust could be rebuilt between them. But it would take effort and time. She was willing to accept this side of him if only he would be honest with her.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

They had been having a moment. Coiled perhaps with the heat of the aftermath of their coupling. But a moment. A nice one. He didn’t even begrudge her the topic of Tee, which he himself had brought up. But she ruined it with her next question. He scowled at her, exasperated and annoyed. He tightened his grip in her fur subtly, looking into her golden eyes with his frowning expression.

“When have I lied to you, Ignita?” He demanded, voice almost dangerously soft. Had he not always sought his best to keep his promises to her? He had given her so much. Everything, really. And she sought to hurt him with her words.


"Basilisk" | "Ignita"

His grip tightened into her fur and her breath caught up in her chest as she felt his changeable mood shift again. His frown had her eyes run away from his face, panic fluttered against her ribs. She had asked too much. She knew that now. Would there ever be an obvious line she could toe instead of crossing it by accident every time? He demanded when he had ever lied to her and for the life of her suddenly she couldn't remember a single instance. He had always been truthful hadn't he? Kept his promises, treated her well? Protected her? Fed her? Held her well?

"I..." She tried, trying to grasp at the threads of instances she was sure he had promised and went back on... Something about... Something... about... It was there! She wouldn't have brought it up if it hadn't happened! Right? Or was she just hoping to have more conversation and talking just to talk? To linger in that pleasant moment longer?

"Oh... I... guess..." She blinked realizing how foolish she was being, "I thought there was a time. But now that I'm thinking maybe there wasn't." She shook her head, "Was it something my mother said maybe? Sorry, my Love." She was suddenly very tired, "I didn't mean to distress you." She ran her paw swiftly and tenderly over the arm that had clenched her fur tightly, hoping he would let go. There were a few strands he was pulling that were beginning to grow somewhat painful.

"Basilisk" | "Ignita"