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Paran is used to being used.
And the Adjunct Lorn is his user. She plucked him out of that bloodied place. She made him her man. She molded and pushed and painstakingly invoked his trust in her word. In her hand, her sword, her mind. Paran is Adjunct Lorn's man. In whatever way she wants. Even now. Even this.
Paran watches her undress. Meticulously, like everything else she does, she peels off layers. Armor clanks on the hard stone floor. Paran watches her hair fall around her shoulders, her own personal fire. She's his fire too. There is so much trust between them now and Paran cannot help but heave a sigh. Because he knows it won't last. Something in him tells him he can't have the Adjunct forever. No. He doesn't have her anyways. She has always had him. Sometimes Paran can feel the cracks forming between them. Sometimes he can hear his own fear pounding behind his chest where his heart once resided.
The Adjunct Lorn keeps it now.
Her hands grip at his shoulders and push, firm but gentle, down. Paran sinks down, reaching one hand out to tangle in her hair. She let's him while she moves forward. Her lips touch his and Paran grips harder. Hand in her hair. Hand on her hip. And she moves him with her strict kisses and the thump of her heart- Paran thinks he might burst right then and there because this beating of her heart is his only proof he ever has anymore that she's alive. That she feels anything at all. This is all Paran has of Lorn. This is all he will ever have.
When she moves to straighten, to caress her own neck with her thighs on either side of his, Paran moves too. He wants to be the one touching her. He wants to do everything. But when he tries to rise too, her eyes snap open and for a moment she is the Adjunct to the Empress again. For a moment she is not Lorn. Her hands reach out and shove him down. No gentleness this time.
For a moment he thinks she might speak. She usually never does. But the moment passes and as she moves their bodies in a smooth rhythm, Paran feels his eyes roll back into his head. Lorn is very good at this. Lorn is very good at everything.
Hours later he awakes to the sounds of armor being buckled into place. To the sound of a sword being checked. Paran waits until she is gone to open his eyes. He always does but he never knows why. Paran is used to being used.
In the dimness of early morning the Adjunct places Lorn away on a shelf in the very far reaches of her mind.