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Jace needed to stop coming back.
If Emmara ever found out and asked, he would promise her that that was the last time. Having promised Emmara, he might actually stop.
But he could not get this anywhere else. The Rakdos club is terrifying; it is blood and death and mayhem, but Jace does not have to worry about dying. He's the Living Guildpact, and he's been able to get something like retroactive diplomatic immunity for the six cultist's deaths, and...to be honest, that was difficult. Not forgiveness from the cultists, who didn't dare insult Exava and also felt like the people who went after Jace knew what they were getting into, but forgiveness from Exava.
Perhaps--Jace doesn't like to think about this--forgiveness from Rakdos.
They were her people. Her people were not allowed to die, not involuntarily. Blood sacrifices took volunteers. The Cult of Rakdos had people who would volunteer for such things, and that was horrifying to any outsider, but to a cult member, it was simply how the world worked.
Six deaths had mattered. He had expected bluster, perhaps a demand, but he had not expected Exava to turn to him, glare, and then pause as if forcing herself to rein in her temper. Letting the crime go had been the necessary thing, and Exava recognized that more easily than the Azorius had, but it had been harder for her to do.
"Meet with me, once, alone," had been her phrasing at the time. It had not been her performance voice, and Jace had wondered at the time whether the clipped tones were her standard or indicating some emotion.
Jace had taken a moment to gauge the room. Quite a few guild representatives had thought that it was a terrible idea to meet "a Rakdos freak" alone, but they didn't really know Exava. Anyone who used Exava's name when they were thinking about her thought it was probably fine.
"Acceptable."
...It hadn't been once.
The first time had been her bare hands on his throat, and for a moment Jace thought she might actually kill him. She had him on the ground; she was straddling him, she had her fingers around his throat, and for a reason Jace refused to admit at the time, he couldn't get the focus for any of his spells.
He gasped and coughed hard enough to arch under her when she let him breathe. "High collars," she murmured, her lips brushing his ear. He tried to pretend the shudder as another cough. Exava said, condescendingly, "Since you'll want to hide the bruises."
"Exava, what--" Which was the moment she bit his ear, and the moment he gave up on pretending to not know what this was.
She had barely touched him that time. Well, she had choked him until his vision had gone black and straddled his hips, but except for her lips brushing his ear when she had spoken, nine words, nothing should have felt good. She had not moved her hips even a hair, had not kissed him, had not done anything he had thought about asking for from Emmara, anything he had asked for from Liliana.
He came back.
He found her at the Rough Crowd instead of somewhere he could at least pretend was private. When the bouncer had asked, "Pleasure or pain?" Jace had very nearly said, 'Exava.'
"Pain," he said, because it was a Rakdos club, and he knew that would get you in.
Exava brought him to a room with a curtain, not soundproof but private enough in a club that loud. She said he should get his clothes off, so he did. She took out a whip and used it until he could feel the warm blood down his back even through the pain.
He kept his hands on the wall the way she told him, and by the time she stopped he was half-expecting to come every time she hit him. He wasn't sure when each hit started jerking a, "Please, " out of him, and he wasn't even sure he knew what he was asking for.
"Not bad," she said, running an open hand down his back. He shuddered.
"Can I--would you--"
"No."
And Jace understood the curtain. Because this was Rakdos. It looked like everything was nonconsensual, torn out of you, but that was only if you tried to force yourself in on your own terms. If you came in on theirs...it was a club. They were revelers, not rioters, as proved from the fact the club was still standing.
Exava dug her nails into a gash in his back, then let go. Jace collapsed to the floor.
"Come back any time," she said, this time in her performance voice, and Jace was glad he was on the floor and didn't have anywhere farther to fall.
It hadn't gotten to the point where he would ask her to make it public. She was perfect, and he could do enough with memory and his own hands. It wasn't an addiction, quite, except for the part where Emmara would say it was.
The very fine distinction didn't help when Exava looked him over and offered, in the matter-of-fact tone he was almost used to by now, "Shall I invite someone else in?"
He had keened, because yes, because no, because this was not what guild neutrality looked like, because never stop.
"That's not an answer," she'd sighed before wrapping a hand around his cock and setting up a not-quite-steady rhythm that had Jace choking on air and jerking to where he expected her, where she kept not being.
Jace swore and didn't come.
"Do try and answer next time," and Jace wasn't sure whether it was better or worse that that wasn't her performance voice. "You have the room." She went out past the curtain and Jace got himself off, and he could smell his Blood Witch when he did.
Jace managed to stay away for almost two weeks, that time. He even almost talked to someone about it. Lavinia, or Emmara, or someone else who might have some idea how to help him out of--this.
Jace was in his official office, rubbing his temples, trying to think of anyone who wasn't Exava, when Ral Zarek burst in the room. It was a testament to something, though Jace wasn't sure what, that his first reaction to a crackling Guildmage Zarek was relief.
"Are you kidding me?" Zarek said, though it took Jace a moment to figure that out since Zarek hadn't waited for the door to finish slamming before he spoke.
Jace blinked when he did put the words together. "Uh..." Had he forgotten an Izzet meeting he was meant to attend? No, Lavinia would have gotten here before Zarek, if that had been it... "I'm afraid I don't recall--"
"Exava?"
Jace went completely still. He felt his heartbeat in his eardrums, and he watched the lightning on Guildmage Zarek singe the carpet, all of it seeming like it was happening on the other side of something thick and muffling.
Jace said, "I don't know what you're talking about," and knew it wasn't convincing.
"Unless you are in the habit of wiping your mind regularly, I doubt that." Jace flinched and Ral continued, "Did you expect no one to notice? You visit, she drops off stage for an hour or more, and as soon as you leave she's back. You are not subtle, Guildpact."
Zarek spat the last word and Jace clenched his jaw, eyes on his desk.
Jace wouldn't have been able to figure out what Guildmage Zarek was saying if he hadn't had the same thought--This is not what guild neutrality looks like. By and large, with the Guildpact back in effect, he didn't need to operate much at the guildmaster level, but how long was that going to last? Jace was not supposed to bring himself into guild matters, not really. He was meant to do exactly what he had done the first time, act as a conduit, look at the angles and let everyone work themselves out. Not argue a side. And if it came down to it, if Exava said, "Fix this or you'll never see me again," then...
"What I do in my personal time is not your concern," Jace said, silently thanking Lavinia for the books on etiquette and diplomacy she had made sure he'd read. "Do you have any other business here?"
If Jace hadn't been fighting his worse impulses for longer than he'd liked, or if Exava hadn't gotten him so well in the first place, or if Zarek hadn't burst in and hit Jace with every shame he'd been trying to ignore, Jace probably would have had better reflexes. As it was, Zarek pinned him to the wall by the throat before Jace noticed he'd moved.
Part of Jace noted that Guildmage Zarek was taller than usual and was quite possibly angry enough to actually be levitating without thinking about it. Part of Jace realized what was happening, so he got his fingers up to his own throat to try to pry Zarek's off, and tried and failed to get into Zarek's head. Most of Jace, however, was devoted to the sensation of hands on his throat and the stray shocks that came from being this close to Ral Zarek when he got this upset.
Zarek was his normal height again when he said, "Really?" and loosened his grip just enough that Jace could gasp.
Jace jerked his head to the side but couldn't move enough to hide. "Shut up."
Ral rolled his eyes. "No, not really like you're-so-pathetic. Really like," Ral shifted a thigh between Jace's legs and Jace jerked before he could stop himself. "Data."
Jace opened his mouth to say something insulting and Zarek pressed his hands back in, cutting off oxygen for three heartbeats, not enough to bruise or even be particularly dangerous, but enough to count. Somewhere in there Jace's hands had ended up clawing into Ral's shoulders. Jace jerked his hips unintentionally when he bumped into the lightning machine on Ral's back, the shocks bursting up his arm.
"Please."
The word ripped out of Jace fast enough that he had trouble recognizing it came from him. It was the thing he hadn't given Exava, the asking. And he had asked, of course, that's what going to the club was, that's what the keening had been, but he'd never actually--
"If you ask so nicely." And Ral moved his thigh and sparked intentionally, around Jace's throat, up and down his spine, and what finally finally got him over the edge was when Zarek pushed his thigh between Jace's legs and shot a jolt through his cock.
Ral got Jace into his chair instead of letting him settle on the floor as he got through the prickling, ringing aftereffects. Jace covered his face and squeezed his eyes shut.
That had not been a beating that he'd liked too much. It had, undeniably, been sex, and that was harder to compartmentalize. Not that he'd been doing the best job.
"That would be one way to get a guild-neutral Guildpact."
"Guildmage Zarek--"
"No, really, it's entirely straightforward. Just get at least one representative--"
Jace groaned, but he took some solace in the fact that it was a Zarek-stop-talking groan and not a please-don't-stop groan.
"--from each of the guilds who finds you attractive, and we can work out a schedule." Jace made himself look up and saw Zarek looking falsely thoughtful. "Of course, you would probably not want to make any decisions between guild if it had been a month since you'd had one of their representatives over and five minutes since you'd had the other."
"Stop. Talking."
"I suppose you could work out a threesome before any truly important business--"
"Please stop talking," Jace said, throwing his hands down and sitting up. "Lavinia does occasionally come up here."
Ral Zarek smiled like he hadn't heard all the rules to the game yet but already knew he'd won. "If you ask so nicely," he said, in the same tone as before.
Jace rubbed the back of his neck with both hands. He was actually less tense than he'd been since his first time with Exava, but he didn't particularly want to think about what had gotten him tense or what had gotten him to relax. "Don't--don't tell anyone. About," Jace waved his hands, "either, whatever. The Living Guildpact says so." That didn't feel like an order Jace could actually give in the Guildpact way, but hey, worth a shot.
"Of course not."
Jace looked up at a smirking Ral Zarek. "...What?"
"Of course not," Zarek said, enunciating more slowly. He stood. Jace stood up on reflex, and only needed to catch himself on the desk once. He didn't really want to be sitting in a room where Zarek was standing with that look on his face, and getting the door for a guest was a perfectly reasonable excuse for that.
When Jace had his hand on the doorknob Ral shocked the inside of his wrist, the sensation jumping up to the inside of his elbow. Jace's breath stuttered. Ral said, "If I tell anyone then I'll end up sharing." He raised an eyebrow. "Do learn some subtlety. You'll give planeswalkers a bad name."
Jace got halfway through swearing before Ral kissed him. "Ask Lavinia for tips on how to say no when you're negotiating," Zarek said, "especially if you're going to see Exava again."
"Out."
Ral Zarek grinned. "Rather blunt, but not half bad on basic technique." He blew a kiss and sauntered out the door.