Chapter Text
They both knew they were playing with fire.
They pretended it was all so surprising. Pretended they hadn’t explored the deepest recesses of their own minds. Pretended they hadn’t spent years mapping fear into cold seas and anger into scorching deserts. That they hadn’t expertly cataloged every nook and cranny. Swept every cobweb clean.
They saw their pain with crystal cut clarity and discarded the map the moment it became apparent they could get away with it.
Elin felt the hesitation. Counted the seconds he used to hold himself back.
“I know this isn’t what you need,” she whispered as Cullen pulled her into him. It was loving, sure, but practiced. Not too little, not too much. Just enough.
“You are exactly what I need.”
“No,” she flinched away. While Cullen searched for words, she nervously eased off the bed and sought out the darkest corner of his ramshackle quarters. Only moonlight shone between them by the time Elin turned around. His eyes almost looked sad, but there was guilt knitted between his brows.
“Elin, I-”
“Please, don’t. Please don’t patronize me.” Her blue eyes shone wet under the stars. “I can feel it. How you hold back. Like… Like I’m some fragile bird.”
Cullen scrubbed his hands over his face from his spot on the bed, not daring to close the space between them. Knowing she was right. Not trusting himself to admit it. Images of this woman, the woman that he loved, marching into Haven were seared into his mind. Of her newly hardened muscles flecked with blood. Of the unsure smile and downcast eyes, the only response to her admirers, to her faithful.
To him.
She wasn’t fragile, no, but she was precious.
“I know you need more,” she continued. She took a long inhale into her already full lungs and took another step forward. The moon was now able to directly set her hair aglow. “Teach me.”
The room began to buzz. He felt like she had sucked every ounce of oxygen from the world. “What?” He asked, each letter of the word burning in his mouth.
“Teach me. Teach me how to fuck you.”
That night, he looked up and into the swell of midnight she had just occupied, hands still folded between his knees. A deep breath. A cough to clear his throat. Then he trained his gaze upon her, the cool amber of his eyes on fire.
That night, he commanded her to kneel.
That night, she complied.
How many times had she been forced to say it?
Magic exists to serve man, never to rule over him.
How many times do you have to say something until you have to believe it?
Routine. The morning sun, with its cornflower rays and dust speckled radiance, was for tenderness. Fluttery kisses and languid lovemaking. Her smiles against his chest and his nose buried into her slender neck.
Elin’s stifled laughter as he tripped out of bed while making a beeline for his trousers, stumbling down the ladder to intercept Josephine before she sees too much.
But the night. Oh, the night. The night was for a silver moon and pinprick stars illuminating the taught muscles of his shoulders as he pinned Elin against the wall. Or his fingers around the nape of that slender neck, pressing her pretty face into the floor as he pounded her cunt however he saw fit.
Cullen’s triumphant smirk when she came for him, on cue. Like a good girl should.
The world was ending. The Templar’s had ruined the name of the order for which he gave decades of his life. Even his own body was beyond control, breaking into sweats and aching while he did nothing but sit at his desk. All in an attempt to be better.
He had been better. The Inquisition made him better. Made him into the man he had always wanted to be. She made him into that man.
An escaped Circle mage with a naïve smile made him into that man.
He understood the Maker’s irony, the Templar in him just didn’t appreciate it all that much.
Someone had taught her how to suck cock. Cullen could tell, the first night they made love, her expertise in sucking him off made ever more apparent by the time it took to synch her confused hips with his when he finally entered her atop his desk.
The thought killed him more than he’d like to admit.
The tongue-work was intricate and swirling and it made his head float, but just thought of her kneeling before him - Elin, his Elin - her only goal to follow his every order, made his head float. Her twirling tongue wasn’t his preference. Not his style. It was someone else’s fingerprint.
With a swift motion, he grabbed her chin and watched with hooded eyes as his glistening cock slid from her mouth, her eyes flicking up to meet his stare. Maker, they were so big. So blue. So perfect. And she knew exactly how to use them, looking innocently up at him while she sat on her heels, dutifully awaiting his command.
“Open,” he said, barely hidden jealousy curling his lip. She obeyed, displaying a wet, innocent mouth for his defiling. Cullen’s throat stiffened in arousal. He pressed a thumb into her tongue and satisfaction curled inside of him as it flattened to his will. “Keep it flat.”
She flushed at his correction, barely prepared for when he framed her face with broad palms and thrust into her open mouth. But she listened. She obeyed. Let her tongue lay completely prone as he abused her mouth. Got drunk off the groan he let out as his cock hit the back of her throat over and over and over and over and over again.
Elin hadn’t been to the Chantry in months. She still took the Maker’s name in vain like any other red-blooded Andrastian, but she never attended service. Never spoke the Chant of Light.
The Maker hated abominations. She didn’t have to listen to self-righteous Sisters to know that. It was plain as day, written all over her stolen childhood. And what else was she, other than an abomination? The Herald of Andraste?
She walked by with heavy feet and a heavier conscious, the bruises of yesterday’s Venatori raid webbed spectacularly across her right cheek.
She didn’t have to repeat the Chant to know she deserved this.
Yes, they were singing the Chant, but all Elin heard was a single disgusted voice seeping into her heart and hissing one word:
mage.
If only her noble, Chantry-bound family could see her now. See the scourge of the Trevelyan bloodline being stripped in the high guest chambers of Halamshiral, her expensive Orleasian bodice and dragon bone corset being ripped to shreds by a pair of calloused Ferelden hands. The absolute scandal it would cause.
“Josephine is going to murder me-.” The sentence broke into a throaty moan that echoed loudly off the walls around them.
“Quiet, love,” Cullen teased as the carcass of the dress finally fell to the floor. “It’s nothing compared to what I’m about to do to you.”
Her stomach flopped, heady in weightlessness when his arms closed around her. It was a haphazard thing, her body tossed over his shoulder, his hand firmly on her ass, completely unceremonious while he carried her to the overly elaborate bed. Small work was made of her underthings. They were mere scraps by the time he had pulled them off.
And yet he stood completely clothed and stately in front of her, with his fine dress doublet and sash. Elegant boots and a leather belt. His haughty stance never failed to ignite a flame within her, he was so poised. So tall. So perfect. A blush thundered across Elin’s cheeks as he pulled her knees apart, the fresh air hitting her over heated skin. His only reply was a smug smile.
“Did you think I didn’t see you?” He growled, fingers curling protectively around her ankles. “Everyone saw you.”
Immediately, Elin thought of a thousand Orlesian eyes upon her as she crashed through the door into the Ballroom of the Winter Palace. The sizzle of the staff in her hand and the collective flinch that rippled through the crowd.
Before she could answer, Cullen leaned forward and left a blistering kiss against her lips. One hand gripped the back of her neck while the other cupped her sex with an infuriating stillness. “Dancing the night away with every noble you could get your hands on. Were you trying to make me jealous?”
Now it was her turn to smile, with abandon of course, open mouthed and scintillating. Elin had danced with exactly two other nobles, for as little time as she could muster while being polite. The rest of the night she was all Cullen's, any jealous he may have felt was amplified for this exact purpose: Their own pleasure. She breathed what she supposed was relief, but it was cut short by a sharp slap to her cunt. A moan ripped through her mouth to rival any whore he had heard at Kirkwall’s Blooming Rose. Cullen chuckled and paused to taste the juices his naked lover left on his palm.
“Look at you,” he hummed, easily sinking two fingers insider of her and slowly drawing them out. “If only they knew how you moan for me and only me." Pulled her even closer. She could smell metal and oil even though he wore no armor, the scent tattooed to his skin. The sheer intensity of his gaze, the heat of their closeness made her heart flutter. Maker, she loved how he claimed her.
"My name had better be the only thing on your lips for the rest of the night.”
Cullen quickly unlaced his breeches, only willing wait long enough to get as undressed as necessary. He entered her and, in one smooth motion, buried himself to the hilt inside of her. His hands moved to her breasts, taking one pert nipple in each hand to pull while his hips pounded against her and she cried out his name like it was the only word she knew.
“A little too loud, girl,” he warned, a sardonic lilt to his voice. His right hand shot to her throat, caressing it for a moment before applying an expert amount of pressure. At this point, there was no use denying the peak tightening in her core.
She began to spiral, the climax too close, dangling right in front of her. His name continued to fall from her lips, turning into a curse, the syllables becoming a mash of letters and gasps until she whimpered something he had never wanted to hear again:
“Knight-Commander.”
His hips never stopped moving, didn't miss a thrust. The change in his face was nearly imperceptible, just a narrowing of the eyes; a set to his jaw. Elin nearly apologized until his left hand folded over her mouth.
Her orgasm was near simultaneous.
He couldn’t help it. It was like tonguing a busted lip.
It just felt too good to stop.