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Lan Wangji threw open the door to his husband’s study. The heavy wood banged against the wall, and he struggled to contain his emotions and the agitated gusts of wind that circled his palms. 

With a squeak, A’Yuan dropped his woven grass toys and fled behind the safety of his guardian’s dark robes. 

Lan Wangji felt a lance of guilt interrupt his rage. He had not realized the child would be here this morning. 

When no threat became imminent, the toddler peeked out from behind Wei Wuxian’s dark robes. 

The mistral magic faded, as did the glowing clouds across his skin. The papers on Wei Wuxian’s desk settled; Lan Wangji’s ire did not abate alongside his magic.

His husband stroked the A’Yuan’s head gently, murmuring little, soothing words. 

He was only ever gentle with children. 

Without looking up from his mess of scrolls, Wei Wuxian drawled, “Something you wish to say to me, Hanguang-Jun?”

His eyes went to the little boy, and Lan Wangji took a steadying breath, biting back his anger. “A’Yuan, could you please go find Popo or Ning-Gege? I must speak with your Xian-Gege.”

A’Yuan eyed the two of them for a moment, but when Wei Wuxian gave him a small smile, the little boy beamed back, scooped up his toys, and scampered off in search of one of his other caretakers with a quick, “Bye-bye, Zhan-Gege!”

When his little feet had carried him back to the main compound, Lan Wangji shut the door and rounded on his husband. 

The moment their eyes met, the softness faded from Wei Wuxian’s face. 

“You must be furious, Hannguang-Jun,” he said, slowly cleaning and hanging his brush. “The dragon blood of yours is truly impressive. Such a strong glow.” He smirked, but Lan Wangji was far more human than his husband. 

Though Lan Wangji had been all but gifted to Wei Wuxian by Jin Guangshan, a prize for the hero who saved them all in the Sunshot Campaign, everyone knew Lan Wangji was really here to keep the terrifying Yiling Laozu in check. 

Their marriage was suitably frigid to reflect their roles— the monster and his kept keeper. 

By chance and by liquor, Wei Wuxian had sworn brotherhood with Jiang Wanyin and Nie Huaisang almost a decade ago during the Guest Lectures hosted by Lan Wangj’s own sect. 

Those inebriated bonds had only strengthened when Wei Wuxian freed the sect heirs from Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu. He had personally escorted the captured Nie Huaisang home to Qinghe. 

Nie Mingjue may be hotheaded and he may have bad blood with the Wen, but he never forgot a debt, especially not one Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian were quick to remind him of. When the time came, his support had stayed with the man who saved his brother and ended the war. 

Maybe once, Lan Wangji had fancied the boy this man used to be. But that was before Wei Wuxian had bastardized the magic the Lan Sect carefully taught and studied. That was before the war had shown him just how far Wei Wuxian would go. 

Though the Yiling Wei Sect was young, it was strong. 

Their strange little sect was built by the misfits—the misplaced families and disabled cultivators left behind in the wake of the Sunshot Campaign, the children poisoned by magic after the war, and anyone else desperate enough to run towards the Burial Mounds and the founder of the Chaos Arts. 

“I saw the plans,” Lan Wangji said, glaring. 

Wei Wuxian gestured broadly to his mess of notes and talismans. “You’re going to need to be more specific, husband dear.”

Lan Wangji bristled at the title. Wei Wuxian only ever called him husband in mocking. Every time but one.

That first day, when Jin Guangshan had offered Lan Wangji as a bride to appease the ravenous Yiling Laozu, Lan Wangji thought his peace-loving brother had been on the verge of committing murder right there. What a fitting place it would have been—in the throne room where Jin Guangshan placed himself atop Wen Ruohan’s vacant seat. 

“You have no right,” Lan Xichen had snapped, the deep blue, scrolling clouds blazing bright on his cheek. Though Lan Xichen commanded frost and not wind like their ancestor, his eyes had still blazed bright and deadly, reminding the once-jovial hall just which beast had birthed their clan. 

Though Jin Guangyao tried to placate his sworn brother, Jin Guangshan did not back down. 

They all knew that Jin Guangshan would never view Lan Wangji as anything but the daughter of Qingheng-Jun. To that man, it mattered not that Lan Wangji had lived as a boy since before his mother’s death. 

Lan Wangji was neither a woman nor was he the Jin’s to give. 

But in that moment, in the shocked silence of the hall, Lan Wangji also knew that if Wei Wuxian continued to level accusations at Jin Guangshan the way he had throughout the banquet, only disaster would come. 

Even if Wei Wuxian never viewed him with anything but scorn, Lan Wangji could do more to stop another war from Wei Wuxian’s side than he could in the hills of the Cloud Recesses.  

“I accept,” he had announced to the banquet hall, “if, that is, the Yiling Laozu will have me.”

Wei Wuxian had watched him with narrowed, steely eyes over the edge of his wine. Lan Wangji had held his gaze, unflinching. Some adolescent sliver of his heart still quickened under the full weight that appraisal.

“Very well,” Wei Wuxian had announced. “If Lan-Zongzhu permits it and Hanguang-Jun insists, I will take Lan Wangji as my husband.”

He had bowed to Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji and then walked out of the banquet with Wen Qing and Wen Ning at either shoulder, pointedly snubbing Jin Guangshan. 

Lan Wangji knew, then, that Wei Wuxian would never forget that he was the second son of the Lan. Nobody’s daughter. 

“Wangji, I forbid this marriage!” his brother had said, pacing their chambers that night. “You are not a token—not a prize to give!”

“Xiongzhang, I am choosing this.”

His brother had rounded on him. “I know you once cared for him—“

“Unrelated,” he interjected, knowing he was being rude, but unwilling to hear the end of that sentence. “This humble one begs his brother’s trust. I know what I am asking.”

“You cannot,” his brother said, the clouds finally beginning to fade from his skin as his eyes went from deep blue back to their natural brown. “Wangji, your magic will be tainted.  Even if you are not worried about Wei Wuxian, think of your Mistral Arts. Where will you get fresh air in the Burial Mounds?”

“A solution will be found.”

“That’s not good enough. The resentment will kill you,” Lan Xichen had said. “As your sect leader I cannot allow this union.”

“Xiongzhang.” He had lowered himself to his knees, bending into a kowtow. “I beg for your permission. It is the rules and morals of our people that compel me to ask this of you.”

“Wangji…” His brother knelt, too, pulling him from the floor. “Are you sure about this?”

“I am.”

…

Now, that surety had not changed, but each day remained a cold stalemate. Each step forward was accompanied by another step back. 

Though their marriage bed was not cold, Lan Wangji had long-abandoned his adolescent heart when it came to this husband of his.

“I speak of the plan to use the corpses of the Burial Mounds to fortify the borders,” he bit out, a few paces away from the dark wood desk.

“Ah,” Wei Wuxian began with a little smirk. A curl of hearth magic spun from his blackened fingertips and danced across Lan Wangji’s skin, healing the day-old fang bite on his wrist. “Those plans.”

He glared at his husband. “What you did during the war was unconscionable. To repeat such actions in peace time, and with the corpses of slain cultivators from dozens of sects…” He could not even finish the thought, his hands shaking. 

Wei Wuxian stood and circled the desk, trapping Lan Wangji between it and his black-clad body. “And what, in the mind of the great Hanguang-Jun, will the Jin do if our borders are left undefended?”

Invade. 

It did not even need to be said. 

As long as the Yin Hufu existed and allowed an inhuman creature like Wei Wuxian to wield witch magic, Jin Guangshan would not stop. 

The Jin were not as populous as the Wen had been, but they badly outnumbered the fledgling Wei Sect. Wei Wuxian only had a handful of disciples who were more like stray teenagers than warriors. 

They were a village of exiles given the title of a great martial sect thanks to their founder, but everyone knew that Wei Wuxian was the both the target and the safeguard. 

No one dared to outright cross the Yiling Laozu. It would be foolish to antagonize the man who had ripped Wen Ruohan apart and presented his head to Nie Mingjue as a trophy.

But that did not mean they were safe. 

Though Wei Wuxian continued to construct new barriers, the Jin continued to creep closer to their borders. 

Not even Jin-Shao-Furen and Jin-Gongzi could sway their ravenous sect leader. 

“He will send mere foot soldiers first,” Lan Wangji said. “Outer disciples who hoped to learn from a great sect.”

“Then that is their mistake,” Wei Wuxian growled, but Lan Wangji could see the way this gave his husband pause. 

Though Wei Wuxian’s kindness was reserved for children, he was far from the ruthless, reckless monster the Jin gossip tried to paint him as. 

It was only due to his fierce protection of the Dafan Wen that there was any Yiling Wei Sect at all. 

Lan Wangji waited, watching Wei Wuxian worry his lips with one fang as his mind turned this plan over like a puzzling night hunt. 

“In the Melodie Arts, there are songs of madness,” Wei Wuxian began.

Lan Wangji frowned. “Those songs are in the forbidden library.”

Wei Wuxian was smart enough to hear the accusation. “You forget who offered aid to your brother when he fled. Lianfang-Zun has a perfect memory and he did not hesitate to use every tool he could to survive.”

Lan Wangji would need to write to his brother. “Those songs are forbidden for a reason. Mere minutes of exposure may cause years of madness.”

“But that is better than death, is it not?” Wei Wuxian returned. 

“Is it?” Lan Wangji snapped.

Wei Wuxian’s eyes flashed red for a moment, his face twisting into something furious and feral, but Lan Wangji had known Wei Wuxian for too long to fear him. 

When the red faded, they fell into silence. 

Wei Wuxian’s return from the Burial Mounds had been a wretched time. Four months of starving, slowly, unable to die but wishing for it all the same. Wei Wuxian knew madness. He had clawed his way back from it with the help of the Wen siblings and the need to protect the precious little boy who now played with grass toys at his feet.

Lan Wangji let his shoulders fall from their defensive posture. “I apologize,” he said, feeling the weight of his words now in the tense, frozen air. One might almost think Lan Xichen were here and wielding his famed Frost Art spells.

Wei Wuxian let out a long, sharp breath from his nose. “Your point has been made. If not madness, are there milder magics that would dissuade an army?”

“No.”

“No?” Wei Wuxian glanced sidelong at him, mouth a hard line but eyes glimmering. “No there aren’t milder songs, or no you won’t give them to me?”

Lan Wangji stayed silent, and they both knew the answer.

Wei Wuxian scoffed, rising from his desk and stalking around it. 

Lan Wangji turned, his back to the wood and his front to the predator before him. 

“Typical,” Wei Wuxian said scornfully. “Always a word of complaint. Never a solution. I should have known,” he whispered, looking down and away with such clear hurt that Lan Wangji stepped forward, one hand starting to reach for him. 

When Wei Wuxian raised his head, the expression was gone, replaced by the sharp, sardonic smile he wore most. “Even during the war you hated me. Why should that change now?”

Lan Wangji’s chest squeezed tight. “That isn’t—“

“Isn’t what? True?” Wei Wuxian laughed. “I have corrupted you enough already, Lan Wangji. Do not start lying now.”

He growled, stepping closer. “I do not hate you. I will not see innocents suffer.”

“And yet you won’t help me.” Wei Wuxian leaned into his space, and Lan Wangji’s back brushed the hard wood of the desk. 

“I will not see my clan’s spells used for harm.”

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian purred, “what a mighty stance to take for the man who perfected the Assassination Chord Technique.”

“That was war.”

“And if the Jin get close enough to encounter these spells, this will be, too.”

Though Wei Wuxian was hailed as the hero of the war and the demon of the Jianghu, few people knew what it had cost him. 

Few people had seen him, paler than death and unmoving for almost a month. 

A fortnight after the final battle and the banquet, Wen Qing had called him to Wei Wuxian’s chambers. 

Lan Wangji had played until his fingers were stripped raw, blood soaking into the laquer and staining his qin. 

It was a sight he never wished to see again. 

“Do not use such wicked tricks,” he begged. Too many people needed Wei Wuxian. Too many people would be hurt should he collapse again.

Wei Wuxian planted a hand on the desk behind Lan Wangji and leaned into his space. “Wicked tricks. Ha! What a good little Lan you are,” he crooned. Everything in his posture and tone was meant to rile, and Lan Wangji tried to resist the bait. 

“Wei Wuxian,” he hissed, pressing a palm to the other man’s chest. He knew from experience that he would find only the faintest pulse there. The barely-beating human heart his husband had inherited from Wei Changze was a secret kept by a scarce few. 

Through all these layers, Lan Wangji felt nothing at all. 

Fangs grazed his ear, and Lan Wangji shivered. 

“If we combine our melodic magics, I believe we can create a non-lethal deterrent.” It was not the warning his husband wished to send, but he hoped it would be enough. 

“Is that right?”

A kiss to his neck.

“Yes,” he said as fangs grazed his throat. 

“Our magics,” Wei Wuxian mused, lips lingering as Lan Wangji’s fingers tightened around the edge of the desk behind him. “And what will you offer me if not the Collection of Turmoil?”

“I can compose,” he said.

Wei Wuxian drew back from the column of his throat, his eyes twinkling with interest. “Is that so?”

He swallowed hard. There was a score he had played for Wei Wuxian before. Only once, when he thought that deathlike sleep would never end. “It is. Give me time.”

Wei Wuxian laughed. “Oh noble Hanguang-Jun, time is not something we have much of.”

A chill crept down his spine along with the tips of Wei Wuxian’s blackened fingers. He clutched Wei Wuxian’s shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“Xue Yang and Xuanyu spotted Jin scouts along the northern border last night.”

“I will write to my brother at once,” he said, trying to pull away. 

Wei Wuxian caught his waist. “I’ve already sent word to Chifeng-Zun and Jiang Cheng. If anything happens, they’ll know who started this.”

Lan Wangji frowned. His husband was far too calm for the situation. 

The Jin excelled in the metallokinectic arts. Their metal weapons struck true and their opponents lost control of their own blades.

If the Jin were truly at their borders already, then… “What have you done?”

Wei Wuxian grinned, and Lan Wangji realized now that he had not seen his husband at all the day before.

“Laid traps, of course.”

“Wei Wuxian! 

“Small ones. Deadly only to fools. I know how you disdain blood.”

Lan Wangji released the desk and pushed forward, knocking Wei Wuxian back a step. “Unacceptable! How can you—“

He cut off, his lips captured in a kiss.

Yanking back, he snarled, “Do not silence me!”

Wei Wuxian smirked, his arms still encircling Lan Wangji’s waist. “But you’re so cute when you’re angry.”

His ears burned, but he glared. “Undo the traps. Allow me to guard our borders.”

“Allow you? The precious Second Jade of Lan? I could never,” Wei Wuxian told him, not even humoring the idea. “Your brother would freeze the whole settlement if anything befell you.”

It was not an impossibility, but Lan Wangji persisted. “This is my sect. Allow me to protect it.”

Wei Wuxian narrowed his eyes. “Is it? Because even now, you abide by every rule as though this is the Cloud Recesses. Rest at Hai Shi. Rise at Mao Shi. Your robes are still mourning whites stitched with clouds. And each time you lay with me you punish yourself.” A chill goes down his spine, his eyes darting up to meet then hurt and anger on his husband’s face. “So tell me, Lan Wangji, which sect do you belong to?”

This time, Lan Wangji clawed up into a kiss, silencing the venomous words.

He bit at Wei Wuxian’s lips and was bitten in return. The kiss turned hungry, messy. Their frustration felt in too-hard touches and restless, groping hands.

The anger and the hurt that had been swirling in his heart like a cyclone spilled from his lips and fingers in vicious bites and scratches. 

Wei Wuxian weathered the storm. He absorbed every emotion that Lan Wangji gave only to him. All the anger and the hurt and the slow-simmering burning. 

Claws tangled in his hair, and his eyes flew open. 

“Don’t,” he gasped, but it was too late. 

His ribbon fell to the floor as Wei Wuxian tipped him back, fangs at his throat.

Sharp nails sparked little flashes of bright pleasure-pain across his back, and he stared unseeingly at the ceiling, waiting for the moment those glimmering canines would sink into his skin. 

After a moment, Wei Wuxian chuckled, licking a stripe up his neck that made him shiver. “You haven’t earned it yet,” he whispered into Lan Wangji’s blushing ear. 

Growling, he grabbed Wei Wuxian by the collars of his robes and dragged him into another kiss. 

Wei Wuxian swept an arm across the desk, and stacks of books and paper crashed to the floor as he pinned Lan Wangji to its surface, forcing his way between his thighs.

His heart caught in his throat, and he yanked away from the kiss. “Stop,” he said, hands pushing against Wei Wuxian’s chest. “We shouldn’t—“

“We should,” his husband countered, catching his chin with one claw and tipping his head up until their eyes met. 

Gazes locked, Wei Wuxian rolled his hips against Lan Wangji’s, making him feel the insistent hardness hidden beneath layers of cloth. 

Lan Wangji could not hide the way his breath hitched, his own hips arching in answer, a shameful arousal soaking his trousers.

Still, he refused to look away as Wei Wuxian ripped the robes from his body. “Stop this.”

“Or what?” Wei Wuxian asked, his head so close to the burning heat between Lan Wangji’s thighs now. Only one layer remained between them, and Lan Wangji’s breath caught when Wei Wuxian stripped him of that, too. 

“Oh,” Wei Wuxian began, a taunting delight heady in his voice. “You’re wet.” He punctuated this statement by running a finger between Lan Wangji’s folds, holding up the glistening digit. 

Lan Wangji turned away, huffing. 

Wei Wuxian buried his face between Lan Wangji’s legs, and he jolted at the first brush of tongue against that too-sensitive bundle of nerves. “Mnh!”

He felt a smirk against his center as Wei Wuxian lapped at his cunt like a cat with cream. 

“Well, Lan Wangji, aren’t you going to run away?”

The idea sent a shiver down his spine, and Wei Wuxian’s grin sharpened, watching his cunt clench around nothing. 

“Oh. Oh, isn’t that cute?”

“Shut up,” he hissed. 

His knees hooked over Wei Wuxian’s shoulders, and he bit back each pleasured cry as Wei Wuxian wrought them from his body. A lick. The flick of a too-long tongue. The edge of a fang. 

It was too much, as it always was.

Lan Wangji’s breaths shortened, his spine arching.

The papers on the floor beneath them swirled, gusts of mistral magic spiraling around them as Lan Wangji’s control slipped. The breeze tugged at their hair and stiffened Lan Wangji’s nipples, leaving him shivering and breathless with each flick of his husband’s skilled tongue.

“No,” he gasped, his skin glowing with pale blue clouds, the light growing brighter and brighter with each touch. “I cannot— I do not—“

But Wei Wuxian and the winds were unrelenting. 

It may have been moments, it may have been a shichen, but far too soon, Lan Wangji’s abs tightened, his body coiling tight, arching higher and higher until Wei Wuxian pulled the orgasm from his body.

The pleasure crashed over him like a wave, and though Lan Wangji knew how to swim, he nearly drowned in it regardless. 

Still shaking through the aftershocks, he felt Wei Wuxian kissing his way up his sternum, pausing to tease first one nipple and then its pair on his way to Lan Wangji’s mouth. 

He was like ice against Lan Wangji’s burning flesh. Cold and shocking. Inhuman and alien, and yet the only thing he knew. 

Lan Wangji bit his lip and glanced down the length of the bodies to where Wei Wuxian was guiding his cock toward his cunt. 

He pressed one hand to his husband's bare chest. Beneath the pale skin, he could feel the whisper of a heartbeat—as rabbit-quick as his own. 

Like this, he watched the moment his husband sank into his body. He moaned, stretched wide around the intrusion. He tipped his head back against the wooden desk, the sudden fullness too much.

“Such a needy thing, aren’t you?” Wei Wuxian taunted, the ruby glimmer back in his eye. “All those noble words and you go silent the moment I split you on my cock.”

Lan Wangji glared, which did nothing but amuse.

“Such malice in those glowing eyes,” Wei Wuxian said, his hand squeezing Lan Wangji’s jaw hard enough to make it creak. “But your cunt speaks for itself. Wet and needy. Just like you.”

Lan Wangji shuddered at the first thrust, the force of it slamming him into the unforgiving wood beneath him. 

“Pull out,” he ordered.

“Make me,” Wei Wuxian replied. He could; they both knew it.

He did nothing, and Wei Wuxian took that as answer enough, his pace quickening.  

Each thrust scraped against something inside of Lan Wangji that was too good, and he found his fingers tangling in Wei Wuxian’s robes and hair, clinging tighter to him.

“Look at how pretty and obedient you are. What a good Lan disciple. So deferential to your elders.”

Lan Wangji growled and pushed himself up into a kiss, silencing Wei Wuxian’s tirade. He bit his way into that laughing mouth, dragging his tongue along his husband’s fangs and meeting every thrust with his own.

Wei Wuxian pinned him back to the table, that inhuman strength apparent now as he watched Lan Wangji with hungry eyes. 

“Such a pretty little cocksleeve,” he murmured, each thrust hard enough to break a normal human. “You could have had anyone, couldn’t you? But instead you wrapped yourself in a neat little bow and gave yourself to the dreaded Yiling Laozu.”

Lan Wangji struggled against the hand pinning him down, but Wei Wuxian merely toyed with him, teasing his nipples and stealing little moans from his lips. 

Though his chest had never developed the way he feared, there was more than just his pectorals for Wei Wuxian to squeeze as he fucked into Lan Wangji with abandon.

This was not their first time, and loath as he was to admit it, even in the privacy of his thoughts, Wei Wuxian knew his body and he played it the same way his skilled fingers played the ghost flute. 

The burning pleasure in his core built again, growing brighter and brighter, like a waxing moon or a blazing sun. The markings on his skin glowed with his pleasure.

“If you squeeze me this tight,” Wei Wuxian began, voice strained, “I may not be able to pull out.”

To Lan Wangji’s horror, his cunt clenched hard at those words, and Wei Wuxian looked down at him in shock. 

Wei Wuxian had not finished inside of him since their wedding night. 

“You could get pregnant,” Wei Wuxian said, slowly, as if testing the waters. 

Lan Wangji looked away, his ears painfully warm when his body betrayed him yet again. 

“Oh.” The cock inside of him twitched. Wei Wuxian paused, a hand sliding down from his chest to his muscled abdomen, pressing down on the womb beneath it. “I see.”

“Do not tease,” he ground out, rolling his hips against Wei Wuxian’s motionless ones. 

With a fang-baring smile, Wei Wuxian grabbed his hips and rolled his own slowly, deliberately. “Does my little cocksleeve want my seed? Shall I fill you up until it takes root?”

Lan Wangji sucked in a breath, his eyes squeezing shut as Wei Wuxian flicked that sensitive spot with his nail. 

“What will the Jianghu think of you then? Hanguang-Jun, the war prize. Swollen with a monster’s child.”

“Your child,” he corrected. 

“Our child,” Wei Wuxian decided, one thumb pressing down hard on his womb as the other continued to torment his most-sensitive spot. 

Each touch sent him closer and closer to the edge. He could feel that Wei Wuxian was not far behind. He tightened his thighs around his husband’s waist, nails dragging down the branded skin of Wei Wuxian’s chest. 

His husband leaned over him, mouthing at his throat. Lan Wangji eagerly bared it. 

Just as his pleasure crested, Wei Wuxian sank his fangs into Lan Wangji’s neck, and Lan Wangji cried out, his cunt milking the cock still fucking into him in deep, powerful thrusts. 

Each wave of pleasure overwhelmed his senses. He burned too bright. The fangs at his throat, the cock inside of him. He was too full. 

As Wei Wuxian drank deeply from him, his body went limp in an overwhelming haze of pleasure, his mind drifting back to the first time those fangs had pierced his flesh. 

…

He had been young and foolish, stepping between a hungry vampire and its prey. 

They had both been so young that first night when he had caught Wei Wuxian hunting  in the forest just outside the walls of the Cloud Recesses. 

Lan Wangji had saved the rabbit Wei Wuxian caught, but he had not understood that the wild look in Wei Wuxian’s eye was not hunger, but thirst until Bichen had been knocked from his hand, Suibian never even drawn as Wei Wuxian had pinned him down, much like this. 

The moment those fangs had sunk into his neck, Lan Wangji had truly understood his own mortality. 

But Wei Wuxian did not kill him. 

Instead, in a blood-drunk haze, he had kissed Lan Wangji’s neck and whispered, “Good boy.”

The next day, Wei Wuxian remembered nothing. 

Lan Wangji told no one. 

Not even Wei Wuxian. 

…

He woke in Wei Wuxian’s bed, his body aching, but warm as the familiar caress of his husband’s Hearth magic knit back together the scratches on his skin and erased the bruises. 

“Leave them,” he grumbled, still-half asleep. There was a heavy arm around his waist, drawing lazy circles over his stomach. 

“And risk scarring my beautiful husband? No.” Wei Wuxian dragged his claws carefully over Lan Wangji’s flushed skin. “You really are too good for me,” he whispered, more to himself than to Lan Wangji. “I should send you home. After all this time, the Cloud Recesses must be missing their precious Er-Gongzi.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes snapped open, the warmth in his stomach turning cold before boiling in a flash. 

Rolling over, he pinned his husband to the bed. His hair created a curtain, narrowing the world to just their faces, angled toward each other. 

Wei Wuxian looked up at him, his eyes wide and almost vulnerable. 

“That is not your choice to make,” he growled. 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes slid to the side. With a wry smile, he said, “I suppose we are far too late for an annulment.” 

“Annul—“ he cut himself off, the word too awful to consider. “How dare you! This is my home, Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian blinked up at him, his eyes looking strangely glassy for a moment until he closed them and grinned. 

“Such a scary one you are, eh, Lan Zhan?” 

And then he understood. 

They had not called each other so familiarly since they were boys. 

“Very well,” Wei Wuxian continued, his hands settling possessively onto Lan Wangji’s hips. “I’ll keep you here all to myself. My precious husband.”

“Mn.”

Wei Wuxian laughed, and Lan Wangji allowed himself to be dragged down into an apologetic kiss. 

When their lips parted, Lan Wangji said, “This is my sect now. It has been my sect since the day we wed. I will protect it.”

Wei Wuxian snorted. “Still on about that? Forget it. Wen Ning and I will figure it out. We always do.”

“It is too dangerous, Wei Ying.”

“It’s the same amount of danger as always, Lan Zhan,” he retorted, playing with the ends of his hair. 

Lan Wangji sat back on Wei Wuxian’s hips. “I require one week.”

His husband regarded him for a long moment. “One week,” he agreed, “but until then, not a word of complaint about the traps.”

“Show them to me.”

Wei Wuxian shook his head. “It wouldn’t be safe.”

Lan Wangji frowned. “What if A’Yuan were to wander too far?”

Wei Wuxian stroked Lan Wangji’s thigh. “I sewed the counter-spells into his robes myself. Of us all, he is the safest.”

The anger cooled, and something warm tightened in his chest.

Wei Wuxian was a good parent. Lan Wangji knew this, and he could not help wondering what he would look like with a babe in his arms.

As if reading his thoughts, Wei Wuxian shifted their hips, his hardening cock finding the place where Lan Wangji still leaked spend.

“Shameless,” he hissed, his nails sinking into his husband’s chest.

“Just like you,” Wei Wuxian replied, filling him once more.

…

Five months later, Lan Wangji stood on a rocky outcropping with Wei Wuxian at his side and Wen Ning guarding their backs. 

Wordlessly, they drew their instruments as the Jin cultivators crept closer to their home. 

Jin Zixuan had sent word of the attack last night.

Chenqing and Wangji sang in harmony as their fingers played the notes. They were each masters of the Melodie Arts, but together, their song was even stronger. 

The wind whipped up, surrounding the golden harmony and carrying it across the forest.

Lan Wangji’s part split, delving low across the chords and building. Note by note, the wards strengthened, rising from every talisman-marked tree and stone, forming a shatterproof dome.

Simultaneously, Wei Wuxian’s notes trilled high and sharp, forming a great glowing tiger whose fangs were as sharp as its creator’s.

The beast roared, and the approaching cultivators froze, weapons raised. In the lead was Jin Zixun, the odious man who had made the mistake of whipping Wen-Popo and Wen Ning. 

It seemed losing his sword arm to Wei Wuxian had not sent him into retirement. He had a crossbow braced against his chest, pointed right at Wei Wuxian.

“Leave this place,” Lan Wangji said, stepping forward. “You are not welcome on Yiling Wei territory.”

He heard the gasps and the whispers as their eyes fell to midsection, but he felt no shame in carrying his husband’s child. 

“So even Hanguang-Jun can be corrupted by this beast!” Jin Zixun crowed. “We have our orders! Attack the Yiling Laozu!”

The tiger snarled, and pounced, its translucent form sending the lesser disciples scattering. 

In the midst of the chase, none of the men seemed to realize that the tiger never once touched them. They were wise not to test such boundaries, though. 

In the chaos, many of the cultivators fled.

But not all.

Lan Wangji heard the crossbow a split-second too late.

In an instant, Wei Wuxian was in front of him, the bolt caught in his slow-bleeding hand. 

He did not need to see his husband’s eyes to know they were a sharp crimson. 

With a wordless rage, he looked at the bolt in his grasp and threw it back at Jin Zixun, piercing his heart. 

He took a step forward, but Lan Wangji caught his hand. 

Wei Wuxian stilled, his breath jagged in his throat. Lan Wangji could feel the killing intent radiating off of his husband, but no more blood needed to be spilled today. 

“Wei Ying,” he whispered.

He growled but did not tear himself free. 

When the last dying gurgles fell silent in Jin Zixun’s throat, Wei Wuxian said “Tell your master what his nephew attempted.” His voice was so cold it could have frozen the sun. “Make no mistake the Great Sects will hear of your attempt on the life of my husband and child.”

The two trembling men left behind quickly gathered the body and fled. 

“Wen Ning.”

At Wei Wuxian’s order, the man leapt down from the rocks and began to sweep the area, ensuring the Jin were gone and no threat still lurked at their border. 

Wei Wuxian turned back to him and assessed him for any injuries. “Are you hurt? I told you it was too dangerous.”

“I am well,” he said, stepping closer and taking Wei Ying’s bleeding hand between both of his. “My Wei Ying protected me.”

Wei Wuxian’s shoulders slumped, and he buried his face in Lan Wangji’s hair. “Lan Zhan,” he murmured, his other hand caressing the place where their child grew. He did not seem to find words to say anything more.

That was fine. Lan Wangji understood him now. 

Lan Wangji understood.