The Eccentric Entomologist is Now a Queen's Consort

"Um… are you… okay?"

Thalatha pulled a careful breath. The silk dome above them sighed. Threads along the hard-light sling purred against her breastplate. Her voice came up, slow and measured like she was talking a green recruit through a hallway. "I—"

The sling tightened a hair. It pulled his chest to her pauldron, her hip to his thigh. Something rigid eased against the soft inside of her leg. It wasn't a weapon. It wasn't armor. It was just there—warm through layers, uninvited, real.

Her words tangled. Heat ran up her throat before she could stop it. She felt stupid for feeling it.

"Can you… move… a little?"

He tried to angle away. Honest. Gentle. The webbing creaked. The dome shifted. Rodion did whatever Rodion did, and the lattice found a new balance by pulling them a finger closer.

<Micro-adjustment complete. Adhesion remains optimal at sixty-one percent. Recommend minimal motion.>

The hard length pressed again at the seam of her thighs. Not painful. Just… present. Her breath hiccuped. "Mmh—"

Not her voice. Too light. Too small. She swallowed and tried again. "With less… wriggling…?"

She bit her lower lip once and forced her shoulders to stay level. Every instinct begged her to shove him off, to cut the sling, to be anywhere else. The soldier part of her said: stupid. Falling room. Save air. Save feet. Save count.

"Warn me before you shift," she managed, aiming for dry and getting something too quiet.

"Copy," he said. His voice dropped to that soft tone he used when knots were tight. "Minimal wriggle. Legendary restraint. I'll add it to my résumé."

He looked at her because there was nowhere else to put his eyes. She could feel it, that attentive way he had, like he was cataloguing details for later. Dust traced a pale line along her hairline. One strand had escaped her braid and painted a dark curve across her temple. She wanted to tuck it back; both hands were busy gripping silk.

He shouldn't look at me like that, she thought, and then got angry at herself for giving the look a name.

He was too close. Close enough she could see the tiny scar across his left brow. Close enough to count the darker flecks inside his irises. People called him fool, flirt, insect-collector. Up close, the jokes didn't quite fit. The jaw was sharper than she remembered. The mouth was set like a man who could be unkind and chose not to be. The heat of him bled through leather, through the sling, and back into her armor. It pushed a bloom into her cheeks she wished to drown.

Stop it.

Her hands lifted an inch, intent on shoving him. The sling fought her wrists. Her palms found his arm instead. Muscle under leather. Warm. Steady. She gave a small push; he didn't move. It wasn't that he resisted. The sling simply held. Her fingers stayed, traitorously, as if weighing the line of his triceps like a piece of kit you couldn't decide to keep or trade.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "That's mostly Rodion, not me."

<Correction. It is entirely me. You merely inhabit the harness I am saving from gravity.>

Her mouth wanted to smile and didn't. "Rodion is very efficient."

"Infuriatingly." He timed his breath so his ribs wouldn't jolt hers. "I promise to be decorative and light."

Her eyes cut to his, sharp as a knife checking its own edge. He held the gaze without flinching. Dust had settled in his lashes. He should have looked ridiculous like that. He didn't. Dangerous, then. She filed the thought away in the dark where useful warnings lived.

The sling flexed again as the dome took another breath. Their foreheads brushed, just a touch. Her body stilled on instinct. He did the same. If they stayed still, nothing else would slide. Good. That was good.

She could smell him. Leather. Oil. A thin thread of bitter—tincture for aches. And under it, something warmer that didn't belong to gear.

Not now.

Above them, a length of broken rib rolled and knocked a heel of stone loose. The chunk fell past their panel with a stupid authority. He ducked just before she did, shoulder twisting to take the hit if it came. The sling corrected. The stone clipped another web, two spans away, and ripped a ragged sound from the room. Dust came down like tired rain.

He leaned into her to shield. She shoved back on reflex. The two motions met in the same small place. The panel bounced once. When it steadied, his chest was pressed to her breastplate, the sling's bright lattice banded across them both like a bandit's sash.

Her breath caught. His did too.

Her mind kept two counts. One for the room. One for the line of heat at the seam of her thighs. That second count made her angry at her own blood.

She reached again to push him away and her fingers slid higher over his shoulder, found his collarbone, the slope of muscle toward his neck. Her grip tightened without permission. She could feel the controlled strength under the worn leather. It wasn't show muscle. It was the kind that lifts quietly and sets people down without dropping them.

He is not just jokes, she thought, and hated that she'd needed proximity to learn it.

He looked at her like he was seeing a painting up close and finding brushstrokes he didn't expect. Not hungry. Not lordly. Curious and a little afraid of his own curiosity. His mouth opened to say something light and it didn't come out.

Her heart beat wrong. Not fast. Just… wrong. Off the room's count by half a breath. She could fix that, she told herself. Just breathe with the strip. Only—Rodion's line wasn't under her feet. There was only silk, and his ribs, and the thin hum of the sling.

She had been called a general and sometimes a princess—lower branch, elder line, all duty and no crown. Banners loved her angles. Camps loved her silence. Men saluted her and then tried very hard not to be seen around her. It had been a long time since anyone looked right at her and didn't seem to be performing.

Stop thinking. Move him.

She gathered herself to shove. Her palm slid to his chest instead. The leather there was warmer than his sleeve. He didn't flinch. He didn't lean in either. He just stayed. The sling joined their shapes and decided it liked this math.

Her hand stayed against his chest. It was a stupid place to put a hand while the world moved. She didn't move it.

He said her name like a man checking whether a bridge would hold. "Thalatha."

"Do not," she said, but it came out soft. Useless.

What are you doing. The thought was sharp. It didn't cut anything.

He lowered his head a fraction, the bare minimum it took to touch her forehead again. That should not have felt like anything. It did. A tap without sound. An answer without a word. Something inside her unclenched and sent heat down her spine.

His eyes flicked to her mouth and back up. That was rude. That was fair. She knew his mouth already—measured, tilted, too ready to make a joke. From here it looked like it had been made for serious words and had been trained against its will.

Don't you dare.

She could have turned her face away. She didn't.

Their mouths met like they both had a question they disliked and the same simple way to ask it.

It wasn't a rush. It wasn't a claim. At first it was cautious, testing—two soldiers approaching a door without a map. The sling would not allow wide gestures or grand plans; it made their world small. So they used small things: the angle of a lip; the patience of a pause; the thin measure of breath shared and returned.

His lips were warm. Dust made the first brush taste like stone. Beneath that there was salt and the clean bitter trace of tincture. She had expected carelessness—something quick he would laugh about later. It wasn't careless. He touched and stopped a fraction, enough to ask permission without the indignity of a spoken request. She gave it with the softest movement of her mouth. He followed that, not leading, not lagging either, just there with her, exact as a count.

You could end this. The thought arrived with a hard edge, the kind she trusted. Step away, order him back, cut the moment off clean. Her training put a hand on the lever. Her body did not touch it.

The nearness of him pressed through leather and webbing, an insistent reality she could not file or ignore. Heat gathered low, climbed her abdomen in a quiet tide. Her cheeks warmed; the edges of her ears hummed the way they did after a hard run.

Stupid, she told herself. Tired and stupid. She did not move.

Her lips parted because air asked for a path, and because curiosity becomes a problem when fear and fatigue have stripped out other cleverness. The second kiss was slower. A press, a breath, a return. His breath warmed her upper lip; she tasted the ghost of something mint, faint as a memory of a good morning. One of his easy jokes came to the gate of his mouth and—she could feel it—chose to fall on its sword instead of coming out. Ridiculous that gratitude could exist for a joke's restraint, and yet she felt it all the same.

His tongue touched hers, careful as a scout tapping a bridge. The silk around them hummed in the same instant, a thread-sound that seemed to approve of measured tests. He didn't take; he invited. A gentle, unhurried rhythm asked her to choose again and again, each time without pressure. She did, a fraction more each breath, and the kiss deepened by slow degrees—no show, no performance, only the quiet skill of someone who knew how to keep contact without turning it into a siege.

This is foolish, she thought. This is fine. This is dangerous, and I can manage danger.

Her hand found the center of his chest and pressed. Maybe that was to stop him. Maybe to keep him from floating away if the sling decided to lie. The leather under her palm was warm, and the steady thrum below it betrayed a pulse running faster than his calm voice ever admitted. The knowledge put a small, treacherous satisfaction in her mouth. He was not unaffected. Good. Unfair if she was the only one failing her own standards.

The sling flexed a fraction as the dome exhaled, shifting their balance. The pressure of his body against hers found a new angle, a little truer, a little more immediate. A sound slipped out of her throat before she could trap it—soft, honest, unhelpful. She chased it with a breath to drown it.

He stopped at once, breaking the kiss enough to search her face. His eyes looked wrong for his reputation—too present, too careful. "Do you want me to—"

"No," she said—too sharp, then softer to match the room, "Don't… wriggle."