Summary: Kenna reassures Diavolos after he has a nightmare.
This is set after Always and Undeniable.
Kenna is bleeding so much that Diavolos doesn’t know how he’ll get her back to the castle. When he goes to lift her, moving his hand from the jagged wound in her chest, it starts bleeding heavily again. Even with his hand pressed tightly against it, blood seeps through his fingers. Her cheek is cold and pale under his hand, her eyelids fluttering as he pleads with her to stay with him. She’s not wincing anymore as he presses his blood-stained hand against her wound, and it makes him frantic. Diavolos shakes her, a little harder than he means to, but she just takes a rattling breath, staring past him at nothing he can see.
“It’s okay,” she says, so softly that he has to bend down to hear her.
Her mouth brushes against his as she turns her head, her lips lacking their usual warmth, and she sucks in a painful breath.
“Stay with me,” he says again.
“It’s okay, Diavolos,” she mumbles as her eyes drift closed.
She can’t leave him, not now, not like this.
He feels her fingers lightly touch the back of his hand. “It’s okay,” she says again, smiling faintly, her eyes still closed.
“Diavolos?” she breathes.
“Yes, my love?”
Kenna doesn’t answer, and he shakes her again, harder, can feel tears start falling. His lips press against hers desperately, as if kissing her can heal her. Diavolos feels her lips move against his, just barely, and then nothing. He feels like he just kissed her goodbye.
When he opens his mouth, to scream, to call for help that will be too late, nothing comes out. His head drops forward, staring down at Kenna’s still form. He brings a shaking hand up to cup her cheek again, confused when she suddenly opens her eyes, staring at him, the color flooding back to her face.
“It’s okay, Diavolos,” she says soothingly.
“It’s okay.”
Except it’s not okay, he goes to tell her, but she keeps saying “It’s okay”, and then she starts shaking him for some reason, and then she’s saying, “Wake up”, and that’s all he wants, to wake up from this nightmare.
~~~~~~~~~~
Kenna wakes to Diavolos saying her name, but he’s still asleep when she turns her head and scoots closer to him.
“Diavolos,” she murmurs, and a frown crosses his face in his sleep as his hands clench the sheets.
“It’s okay,” she says soothingly, running her fingers through his damp hair and resting her weight against his side. “It’s okay.”
He’s had these nightmares since they were attacked, nightmares where she doesn’t make it. Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night to him burrowing against her, holding her so tightly that she can barely move. Sometimes she finds him just watching her, as if making sure she’s really there. But most nights, he starts moving restlessly and saying her name in that broken, desperate tone while he’s still sleeping, and she wakes him with reassuring words and gentle fingers.
He finally opens his eyes when she tells him to wake up, looking up at her in confusion for a second before he pulls her down against him, burying his hand in her hair, his lips pressed to her forehead.
“It’s okay,” she whispers again, tilting her chin up and finding his lips with hers, those slow, deep kisses that always seem to reassure him.
“I’m sorry I woke you, my love,” he murmurs.
His hands glide over her back, the fabric of her nightgown bunching slightly under his fingers as they kiss. Kenna slides her leg over his, sitting upright. Diavolos groans quietly as their hips collide, staring up at her in the dark. She knows there’s nothing she can say that will make him feel better, that sometimes a physical reassurance is more soothing than the most heartfelt words.
“Let me make you feel better,” Kenna whispers, rocking against him.
The friction makes her pupils dilate, her lips parting slightly as she feels him respond to her. Diavolos pulls her nightgown over her head, roving his fingers over her thighs and belly and up over her breasts. His fingers brush over the scar on her chest, next to her left shoulder, his brow furrowing until she takes his hand and kisses his fingers.
Kenna loves that he sleeps naked, likes feeling his skin pressed against hers when they sleep, and especially loves it when they’re both still sleepy like this and they don’t have to fumble with extra clothing. Leaning down across his chest, Kenna presses reassuring kisses to his lips, threading her fingers through his hair.
“I love you,” he says in a low voice, cupping the back of her head.
“I love you,” she whispers.
Diavolos slips both hands around her waist as she kneels over him, running her hand over his length before sliding on to him. She moans as he fills and stretches her, Diavolos groaning quietly. His hands are everywhere as she rolls her hips against his, light and gentle, a physical reminder that she’s here, and okay. They rock together slowly, setting an unhurried pace.
Kenna braces her hands on his broad chest, fingers digging into his shoulders as she feels that familiar heat rush through her. She can feel Diavolos getting close too, the slight hitch in his breath, the way he presses more insistently up into her.
“Oh,” she whimpers, exhaling softly as he pulls her down across him.
“Gods, Kenna,” he says in a low tone, and the way he says it makes her shiver.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever get over how she can make this man open up and be vulnerable, or the way he loves her. Kenna sucks in a breath as Diavolos tilts his hips up, hitting that spot that always makes her come undone. Her fingers clench in his hair as he starts moving faster, her breath coming in short, ragged pants against his neck as she moves with him.
He pushes into her hard, her orgasm washing over her as she moans his name. Kenna’s eyes close as her muscles tighten around him, her teeth sinking into his shoulder. Diavolos keeps moving against her, his fingers digging into her hips, until she gently nips at his neck and he grunts out her name as he comes. Kenna melts into him, sated and warm and not wanting to move. His fingers run soothingly through her hair, nearly lulling her to sleep.
After a few minutes, Diavolos rolls them easily, settling her against his chest, his heart thumping steadily under her ear. It’s still dark as they settle back in for the night. When she wakes again, the sun is just beginning to come up. They’ve shifted in the night, Diavolos wrapped around her, and it makes her smile. No matter how they fall asleep, they always seems to end up like this.
Kenna turns over in his arms, nuzzling against his neck until he opens his eyes.
“Good morning,” she says, smiling at the sleepy way he kisses her.
“Good morning, my love,” he replies, voice still gravelly with sleep.
Kenna stretches against him, yawning. “We don’t have any meetings today,” she muses. “What do you want to do?”
“Make love to you,” Diavolos answers easily, and Kenna smirks at the grin on his face when she tilts her head up.
“Really?” she teases him. “All day?”
“For the rest of my life,” he vows, and Kenna sighs as he rolls her underneath him, his lips warm against hers.