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The Sun Palace is beautiful, large, gilded halls, fire lit at every turn. Lavishly decorated, tasteful, though, unlike the Jins. Decadence oozing from every red draping. The rear palace was, of course, no exception. More beautiful, even. Perhaps for the beauties that filled it, their loveliness seeping into the walls.
Even the lonely little pavillion at the very back of the palace, the furthest from the Emperor. The smallest of all, and, still, lined with trinkets and far flung treasures. After all, it housed the Emperor's greatest treasure, lotus-sweet and fox-eyed. The Emperor's favourite.
The incense Wei Ying lit today, Lan Wangji noted, is heavy on his tongue. Sandalwood. Curling ever so pleasingly with Wei Ying's own scent of jasmine and cinnamon. If there was gentian, Lan Wangji mused, it would be as if they had lied together merely hours ago, instead of the days it had been.
The Emperor's favourite, or, the Huli Jing, as the people liked to call him, was lying on his bed, a picture of easy decadence. Robe a flimsy thing of red, sheer, highlighting the severe dip of his waist and slight jut of his hips. His legs, long and bare, peeked out. Marks littered his pale chest, the robe loose there and showing off his sharp collarbones.
Like this, it was really very easy to imagine the omega son of a servant, the war prize, the vixen, who had earned the Emperor's attention and kept it. And then his eyes found Lan Wangji's and he smiled like the sun, like he couldn't quite help it.
"Ah, Noble Consort Lan," he drawled, as if he were still that haguhty, spoiled concubine that Lan Wangji had thought he was, that very first day. "You must forgive this concubine for such an inappropriate greeting - Noble Consort Lan's arrival wasn't announced."
Lan Wangji's attendants knew better than that. "Wei Ying,"
"Concubine Wei apologizes to Noble Consort Lan for such uncourtesy," his eyes, smudged with remnants of kohl, curved up into crescents. Clearly, he still wanted to play his game.
"Wei Ying,"
"Noble Consort Lan can choose any punishment he deems fit, for this concubine."
"Wei Ying." Lan Wangji felt heat flash through him. The teasing was truly too much - always too much, too far. Made Lan Wangji want to do stupid, impossible things. Like stalk across the distance between him and Wei Ying, and devour that red-lipped smile.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying giggled into his mouth, drawing out the a. He gasped when Lan Wangji nipped the corner of his mouth. "Lan Zhan you - you dog, don't bite, ow, ow - you didn't. Didn't play with me!"
Lan Wangji moved to that long, bare neck. Nibbled at the mating gland, unbitten and unmarked, until Wei Ying cried out, tightend his legs around Lan Zhan's waist.
It was very easy for Wei Ying to rile Lan Wangji up. It was extremely easy for Lan Wangji to turn Wei Ying into a blubbering mess.
Distantly, he wondered if Wei Ying was like this for the Emperor. The past few days the Emperor had kept him. If he moaned and panted and whined and cried and called him good boy. Or if he kept up that veneer of seduction. The flirty, suave Huli Jing of the Sun Palace, that was charming and enthralling and enchanting. That was cunning and vicious and sharp, to survive the Rear Palace and displeasure of most everyone.
(That helped the attendants and servants. That taught the younger concubines with a steady, kind hand. That so gently held and stroked the heads of the infants born to the other omegas of the harem. When no one was looking, of course.)
(Lan Wangji was always looking)
He bit down at Wei Ying's chest, just under his nipple, pretty and brown. Just under a mark that had already been left there. A primal, wild side of him delighted in the blood that he drew.
"Mn," he said. "I am punishing you."
"Ah?" Wei Ying had that dazed look in his eyes, moonlit black blurred with tears.
"Mn," Lan Wangji trailed down, covering olde bruises and bitemarks with his own.
The tie holding Wei Ying's robe together was quick work - it came undone beautifully, bearing a sliver of Wei Ying's middle from head to toe to Lan Wangji's eyes.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying whined, whipping his head to the side in a rather spoilt manner. The mess of loose hair couldn't quite hide the pretty blush covering his face. "Lan Zhan, stop looking!"
The scent of jasmine bloomed between them, answered by gentian.
Lan Wangji sighed against Wei Ying's waist. He was unbearably adorable, sometimes, his Wei Ying, ridiculously bashful. As if Lan Wangji hadn't seen much more.
"Am I not allowed to see my lover?" Lan Wangji murmurred.
Wei Ying whimpered, trying to close his legs, barred by Lan Wangji already being between them. His cute cock curved up against the flat of his belly, already flushed and leaking. His cunt was worse - Lan Wangji could smell the slick that clung to the pretty pink of it.
His nose caught at the dip of Wei Ying's belly button. Even here, he smelt sweet and wanting. Irresistible.
"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying whined, and then clamped a hand over his mouth as Lan Wangji took him into his mouth. A perfect mouthful.
Lan Wangji looked up through his lashes as he suckled. Wei Ying made a picture, arching and panting, flushed to his chest. Already, sweat made his hair stick in waves to his forehead. He could see white pinpricks at he points of Wei Ying's red nails that digged into his cheeks from where his hands were clamped over his mouth. Far away from the Emperor and others as they were, there was always still someone to hear.
"Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, ah," Wei Ying choked as Lan Zhan brought up a hand to tease along the seam of his cunt. "Don't - don't you think it's unfair. That I'm naked, and you're still wearing all your clothes?"
Lan Wangji hummed around Wei Ying, considering. Went off with a pop, and moved himself so he was face to face with Wei Ying, again, this time straddling his thighs. After years of multiple heavy layers of Gusu silk, the fine consort robes he wore were child's play. He dumped them to the side, clad only in his pants, wetness already leaking through.
"Aiyah, Gusu omegas are truly beyond reproach," Wei Ying's hands were on Lan Wangji in an instant, a feverish intensity. He drew him out with no less wonder than the first time. "Truly, Lan Wangji is a god among men, let alone omegas, to be gifted in all areas of life."
Lan Wangji gritted his teeth. How quickly had Wei Ying gained the upper hand?
Wei Ying yelped as he was flipped. He yipped louder as Lan Wangji unceremoniously drew him up on his hands and knees, and bunched his robe roughly up until it settled on the curve of his spine, over the span of his ass.
"Lan Wangji, do you have no manners?" Wei Ying hissed over his shoulder. "Are you a beast? Do you just take without- ah!"
Lan Wangji sunk his middle and ring fingers into the velvety softness of Wei Ying. Curled up, until they met the spot that made Wei Ying cry out.
"Stop, stop, you beast, what are you-" Wei Ying grinded back desperately on his fingers as he added a third in. "No, no courtesy, no righteousness, this beast has. Has no regard for my. Virtue."
Lan Wangji leaned forward and spread his fingers. He spat into Wei Ying.
Wei Ying was very easy for Lan Wangji. He shook a part, just like that, dropping to his elbows, proud head bowed. His shoulders, just so visible through his hair, shook uncontrollably.
"What are you doing?" Wei Ying whined as Lan Wangji tooks his fingers out. "I need it, please, just a little bit more. Er-gege, please."
He quieted his babble when Lan Wangji ran a comforting hand down his side. He was silent, body tense in anticipation, when Lan Wangji lined himself up, and pushed in.
.
Wei Ying laid curled into Lan Wangji's side. He looked small, like this, fragile. Asleep, without the brightness that lit his every move. He was too skinny, too pale. A shade of the omega ward of the Jiang, too smart and too talented and too charming for an omega, let alone the son of a servant. A shade of the Huli Jing of the Sun Palace, too beautiful and too quick-witted and too silver-tongued for what he was, the trinket from the Emperor's first victory.
It was inconvievable that this was the man that struck fear and disdain into the hearts of others. That he disgusted Nie Mingjue, he worried Xiongzhang. Jiang Wanyin did not trust him. After all, Meng Yao had said that Wen Xu had secured the throne after Wen Ruohan's surprising, untimely, suspicious death like this; Wen Zhuliu at his right, Wen Chao at his feet, and Wei Wuxian at his left.
But Lan Wangji had seen Wei Ying. Had seen him whispering to Wen Qing, to Wen Ning. Had seen him hold a young boy, close to his chest, with something like resignation and grief and hope in his eyes.
When Lan Wangji had come to the palace, the first person he had greeted from the Harem, a part from the Empress was Wei Ying. Who had not been the cruel seductress expected, the puppet master. Cunning, yes, intelligent and charming in spade fulls. Above all else, though, kind. In the way he told Lan Wangji he was handsome. In the way he told Lan Wangji to protect himself.
And Lan Wangji had seen him look at Wen Xu. There was no love there, of a dutiful wife who had paved a path for him at the expense of himself. No wile, a way to move up in the world, no matter how dangerous. Simply duty - a means to an end.
("What sort of omega would destroy one empire for another empire, only to burn that very same one?")
Lan Wangji had done his due diligence. He has passed on information no one else had access to through Meng Yao. Through more secure channels. He has done his duty. He owes no more; He has given up his body and virtue. His soul and mind, maybe, if it weren't for Wei Ying.
He pressed on Wei Ying's mating gland. Wei Ying huffed, and wiggled closer to Lan Wangji. It was good, to see him covered up fully in Lan Wangji's marks, Lan Wangji's bites, Lan Wangji's scent. He was Lan Wangji's, after all. Not Wen Xu's.
Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng and Meng Yao could argue to the bitter end. Xiongzhang would not discourage him in this, after all that had been done. He had always allowed Lan Wangji his indulgences.
Lan Wangji sighed. It was far past afternoon. No summons had come, and no one would enter into Wei Ying's pavillion. The Emperor always called him to serve in his own rooms. He never called on Lan Wangji.
(Wei Ying's doing, he is sure.)
For now, Wei Ying laid curled in Lan Wangji's arms.