The sky over Obsidian Wing had never been this shameless.
Midnight arrived wearing a necklace of comets, and the rooftop garden (once a dragon rookery) had been transformed into a floating island of black glass and moonlit roses.
Paper lanterns floated like drunken fireflies.
A single table, carved from a fallen star, waited beneath a canopy of living vines that dripped silver nectar.
Tonight was the Date.
The prize for winning the Auction of the Last Thunder: one uninterrupted night with Alexander Nicholas, storm incarnate, under a sky that had promised not to explode for twelve whole hours.
Arya stood at the threshold, barefoot, wings folded tight against her back.
Anthony Felix had spent an hour braiding her hair with threads of liquid starlight.
Gilgamesh had polished her storm-cloud armor until it reflected every constellation.
Even Nyxara had contributed: a single obsidian tail-ring that pulsed with her sister's heartbeat.
She was ready.
Then the dress arrived.
It slithered in through the balcony doors on a river of frost, carried by Liora Frostfang herself.
The gown was ice (living, breathing, jealous).
Spindles of diamond lace, corset of frozen waterfalls, skirt that chimed like a thousand tiny knives.
A note pinned to the collar in Liora's perfect script:
Wear me.
Or I'll wear you.
Arya arched one brow.
"Subtle."
Liora's smile was winter at its sharpest.
"Insurance," she said.
"Alexander chose all three of us.
Tonight the ice reminds him why."
Cassia Emberkin burst through the opposite door, riding a wave of living coal.
She carried a second gown (this one liquid fire, embers for sequins, hem that left scorch marks on the air).
Her note was burned into the fabric:
Burn me, and I burn everything you love.
Cassia's grin was wildfire.
"Counter-insurance."
Arya looked from ice to fire, then at the two women who had kissed her into wings only hours ago.
She laughed (low, delighted, dangerous).
"Children," she said, "you forget who taught the sky how to dress itself."
She stepped between the gowns.
The ice lunged.
The fire roared.
Arya kissed the air.
A single gold butterfly detached from her wing, split into two, and kissed both gowns at once.
The ice melted into a puddle of starlit water.
The fire cooled into molten ruby glass.
Water and glass swirled together, braided by the butterfly's wings, and rose into a third dress (neither ice nor fire, but storm).
Sleeves of liquid lightning, bodice of thunderclouds, skirt that flashed every time she breathed.
A slit ran from hem to hip, revealing the black rose scar that still tasted of Anthony's tongue.
The dress settled over her skin like a lover who already knew every secret.
Liora's jaw dropped.
Cassia's coals dimmed to embers.
Arya twirled.
The skirt flared, revealing thigh, hip, the soft curve where wing met back.
"Better," she said.
Alexander was waiting.
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The Rooftop
He stood at the table's edge, shirtless, storm-runes glowing soft cobalt.
His hair was wet from the nectar-vines; droplets slid down his chest like tiny comets.
One white rose (the same one from the coffin) lay tucked behind his ear.
He didn't speak.
He simply opened his arms.
Arya walked into them.
The storm-cloud dress responded to his touch (plates peeling away like petals, revealing skin, then reforming, then peeling again).
Every layer that vanished left a trail of warm rain on her shoulders.
He kissed her forehead.
Her eyelids.
The corner of her mouth.
Then he whispered, "The System promised censorship.
I bribed it with a thunderstorm."
Above them, the sky blushed.
A curtain of auroras (green, violet, rose) descended, cocooning the rooftop in privacy.
Inside the curtain, every star became a voyeur with stage fright.
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The First Course: Starlight Soup
The table served itself.
Bowls of liquid nebula, spoons carved from frozen lightning.
Alexander fed her the first spoonful.
It tasted like the moment before a first kiss (electric, sweet, impossible to swallow without moaning).
Arya licked a drop from his thumb.
The storm-cloud dress lost another layer.
SYSTEM (voice husky, inside their ears only):
"Public decency protocols: overridden.
Moan-to-level ratio: 1:1.
Current moan count: 7.
Keep it up."
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The Second Course: Thunder-Dancing
Music rose from the vines (Cogsworth's brass heart, recorded and remixed into a waltz in 6/8 time).
Alexander pulled Arya to the centre of the rooftop.
They danced.
Not gracefully.
Desperately.
Every spin sent storm-cloud plates flying.
Every dip bared a new inch of skin.
His hands learned the exact spot between her wings that made her knees buckle.
Her teeth learned the exact spot on his neck that made lightning arc from his runes to her tongue.
Halfway through the song, the dress gave up entirely.
It dissolved into a puddle of warm rain that soaked them both, plastering hair to faces, fabric to skin.
They kept dancing (naked, laughing, alive).
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The Third Course: Dessert on the Parapet
Alexander lifted her onto the table's edge.
The fallen-star surface was warm, pulsing like a second heart.
He knelt.
Arya's breath hitched.
He kissed a slow path from ankle to knee to thigh, pausing at the black rose scar.
"Still sensitive?" he asked.
"Find out," she dared.
He did.
His tongue traced the scar the way Anthony had that morning (slow circles, gentle pressure, the rhythm of a universe learning how to beat again).
Only this time the scar sang.
Gold lightning shot from the rose, wrapped around Alexander's spine, and pulled him up until they were eye-to-eye, hip-to-hip, heartbeat-to-heartbeat.
She wrapped her legs around his waist.
He entered her in one smooth, storm-ravaged thrust.
The aurora curtain exploded.
Every star witnessed what happened next, then politely looked away.
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The Censored Sky
Outside the curtain, the continent saw only silhouettes (two bodies, four wings, one storm becoming a supernova).
Inside, there was no censorship.
Only sound:
- The wet slap of skin on skin.
- The crack of lightning every time he bottomed out.
- Her moan that shattered three paper lanterns.
- His growl that tasted like ozone and vanilla.
They came together (hard, endless, world-ending).
The rooftop garden bloomed.
Roses exploded into gold fire.
Vines grew wings.
The fallen-star table cracked down the middle and resealed with their mingled release glowing inside like a trapped comet.
SYSTEM (voice glitching):
"Level spike detected.
Arya → 78.
Alexander → 75.
Side effect: rooftop now classified as Level-80 hazard zone.
Do not enter without tongue insurance."
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The Sabotage Aftermath
They lay tangled on the warm star-table, wings draped over each other like blankets.
Alexander traced lazy circles on her hip.
"Liora and Cassia are going to be insufferable tomorrow."
Arya laughed into his shoulder.
"Let them.
We just fucked the sky into submission."
From the shadows, two figures watched.
Liora's ice had melted into a puddle of embarrassed tears.
Cassia's coals had cooled into a blush that could power a city.
They looked at each other.
Then, silently, they linked hands and stepped into the aurora aftermath.
Liora knelt, pressed a cold kiss to Arya's ankle.
Cassia followed, a warm kiss to Alexander's wrist.
Four wings (gold, ice, fire, storm) folded together like petals closing for the night.
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Epilogue on the Edge of Dawn
Far below, Jonathan's third beast (a Tier-7 Dream Eater shaped like a child's nightmare) began to stir in the void.
But on the rooftop, the only dream was the one they were living.
Arya whispered into Alexander's storm-damp hair, "Round two of the contest starts at sunrise.
Think we broke the dress code permanently?"
He grinned against her throat.
"Good.
I vote we fight the next beast naked."
The sky (blushing, satisfied, theirs) agreed with a roll of gentle thunder.
Somewhere, the System logged the night under:
FILE: ROOFTOP STARLIGHT SEX – CLASSIFIED LEGENDARY.
ACCESS: KISS-ONLY.
And the war, for one perfect night, learned how to sleep.