Chapter Text
i.
“Elin.”
Maker, she relished the way he said her name. His common southern accent. The need that spiked it, made it rougher in the dark, like calloused palms across her hips. Bare hips. Soft hips. Hips that craved his touch.
A gasp escaped from her lips as he hooked her leg with his arm and gripped the sturdy headboard. With each thrust she felt complete and obscene and so perfect and so very, very wrong. Another cry filled the air of the room, lost in the midnight shadows. He hushed her with his own mouth, begging her silence.
Then Cullen and the darkness swallowed her whole.
—
He was a nice man, her husband. And handsome. He had money and station and a true home. While growing up in the Ostwick Circle School for Young Girls, Elin had wanted for nothing more.
As a young girl, she had withstood the coldness of her upbringing. Years in the the Circle’s cold stone halls with naught but the Head Master’s cane and her dreams of marriage to keep her company. Marriage meant freedom. A chance to feel the sun and the grass; or climb atop a horse and feel its power as she galloped far and away.
It was either marry or live in the Circle forever, first as a student, then as a teacher.
Marriage meant adventure.
She was pretty, she knew, with features that bore strong resemblance to her highly esteemed family. Cornflower blonde hair. Large, feminine eyes and an aristocratic nose. Her mother’s sensuous lips and her father’s strong jaw.
Yes, Elin would have made many Lords a lovely wife, if she had never manifested the magic buried deep in her noble bloodline.
ii.
It was at one of her husband’s lively parties that she had met Commander Cullen Stanton Rutherford.
She had moved through the party as a ghost. A gracious smile here, a quiet curtsy there. Status climbing ladies clambered for her attentions, but Elin had a hard time listening to their idle prattle.
Then she saw him, talking with her husband and his associates. A tall blond man with a tight lipped smile accented by a rakish scar, his hands clasped behind his back; medals adorned his chest like dragon scales. He looked every bit as uncomfortable as she felt. Slowly his amber eyes met her gaze and a blush thundered over her cheeks.
Elin looked away as if burned.
Her husband’s booming laugh invaded her ears and suddenly he was at her side, touching her elbow to lead her toward the man that would spell her ruin.
—
She smiled the day she had heard the news. A letter from her mother announcing that she had secured a marriage contract for her long forgotten daughter. Strings had been pulled by a distant Aunt and Elin was to be married within the fortnight to a man she’d never met.
Elin crushed the letter to her chest and, for the first time since she arrived at the Circle, she prayed to the Maker.
“Please,” she prayed. “Please, let him be the one.”
iii.
The crack of hooves against pavement startled her. She looked up from her work, the newly planted flower bed warm and inviting beneath her. It had provided a necessary distraction, but left her visage in quite a disarray.
Elin raised her hand to the sun to see the source. It was clear before the rider reached the house that it was the Commander. The straight back and determined ride of someone accustomed to military precision. Not to mention, the sun glinting golden off his hair. She stood to receive him, catching the bead of sweat dribbling down her cheek with the back of her hand.
She made a mental note to disparage her husband the next time she saw him for neglecting to mention the company.
He dismounted his horse swiftly and strode across the ground on long legs. His presence had become very nearly commonplace at the estate in the past few months. Elin’s heart began to hammer at her throat even though she knew how the encounter would transpire. Elin would smile her practiced sweet smile and the Commander would be respectful and polite to the point of coldness. Then she would spend all the hours until his next visit wondering what she did wrong and why it mattered so much to her.
When he stopped a good length farther than respectable distance from her, he bowed, but seemed unwilling to make eye contact. Perhaps it was a hangover from his years as a Templar, though he seemed chummy enough with other mages.
“Commander,” she greeted with a small curtsy. “As delighted as I am to receive your company, I am afraid my husband is not due to return home until sundown at the earliest.”
The Commander nodded, “My sincerest apologies, I will return –”
“Oh, nonsense,” Elin heard herself say. “By the time you get back to town, you will need to turn back around. For the sake of your sanity and your horse, I implore you to come and wait inside.”
He seemed to think about it, his eyes darting quickly to her face before steeling once again to the middle distance. “I…” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “I would hate to–”
“Please, you know my husband wouldn’t hear of me turning away the Commander of Ferelden’s armed forces. Wouldn’t you care for a cup of tea?”
Her welcoming words did nothing to sway him. His face was granite, impassive and uncaring. “I thank you for your kindness, my Lady, but no.” Elin then watched as he turned on his heel, mounted his horse, and left without so much as a backwards glance.
—
Her wedding night was nothing like she imagined it would be. All those nights of longing for someone’s touch, someone’s love had set her up for a nasty bout of disappointment.
Yes, her husband was kind. He left chaste kisses on her lips, caressed her face with elegant, tapered fingers. Lavished her with sweet words and compliments that made her blush. He had treated her with more kindness than most virgin brides are met with on their first bedding.
But there was no fire. No passion. No love.
He parted her knees quickly, spent himself between her legs, and retired before Elin had time to understand what her life would truly become.
iv.
She loved the way he always called her my Lady. It was the one concession she clung to when she feared his indifference. Only common born folk called noble women by that title and now that he was a Commander, he had every right to call her by her husband’s family name.
And he never did. My Lady. Always my Lady. A possessiveness she intended to pretend was there. She knew what her life was, so she expected the Maker to just grant her that small delusion.
It was those words that greeted her when she hid in the study during a particularly rambunctious ball. A Qunari and his band of mercenaries had been invited and, while they were nothing short of nice, they had drunk nearly a third of the wine cellar and it had begun to show.
The Commander sat in a dimly lit corner of the room, sprawled out in a wing-back chair next to the chess board. A bishop dangled precariously between his thumb and forefinger. Tailcoats left on the desk, cravat loosened; his words had been whiskey soft, she realized.
“Commander,” Elin fussed with the headband that she knew was still in place. “I did not think this room to be occupied. I’ll… You know, if you set that bishop there, you’ll have a check.”
“I didn’t know you played.”
“I am afraid you do not like me overmuch, Commander." She laughed nervously. "So you can hardly blame me for keeping such a secret.”
His lips quirked with an amused smirk. “You are correct about one thing, yet if I place the bishop here instead,” he set the piece down as illustration, “I’ll have a checkmate in three turns.”
“Quite. I will leave you to your game.”
“Care for a game with me?” His words were fast and unexpected to the both of them, if his raised brows were any indication.
“Oh, I-I…” Her heart yearned to be in his presence. He felt dangerous and it terrified her. “I need to check that Theon has been sent to bed. His father can’t be bothered to deal with such things, unfortunately.”
Elin turned to leave before she had finished her sentence, knowing that she needed to flee that room as soon as possible. But then she felt a large hand on her own, gripping her with thick, battle gnarled fingers. She was so close. She could have just reached out and touched his cheekbones.
“I am afraid I like you very, very much, my Lady.”
She felt that touch for months.
—
After their son’s birth, her husband all but ceased visiting her as a woman needs to be visited.
Theirs was not an unhappy marriage. He was a good father. They laughed over the dinner table. He gave Elin every freedom. Sought her advice on every matter. Even invited her to his political meetings.
It was true, she did love him. In a way. But not the way a person craves. Not in a way that gives the soul the nourishment it needs to survive.
vi.
Moonlight fell through the windows in silver shafts. It lit her way so sufficiently that she was able to navigate the labyrinth of hallways without carrying her own fire. She did, however, hold a small lick of flames in her hand, simply because it felt good to do so.
The light from her flame fell over the Commander’s body gradually, revealing him in increments. First it was the bare bicep cording under scar peppered skin. Then the broad plate of his chest, sweating and heaving with labored breath. And finally his face, widened eyes in a pained expression.
Her gasp was loud and sharp. It sliced down the hall. Her astonishment at his state of dress - no shirt, simple breeches and riding boots - was quickly replaced by the fear that something was wrong.
“My Lady,” he panted. “I apologize it’s just…” He shook his head as if to regain clarity. “My quarters were so hot, I–”
Elin had overheard of his effort to be free of lyrium addiction. She had no clue that it was so painful for him. Against her better judgement, she offered to cool down his room with a quick spell. And against her assumptions, he accepted.
And she should have known, should have felt, that she could not trust herself in such close vicinity to him. She should have known that she could not inhale his scent and not need to feel him. Need to feel his fingers burning on her again.
“Surely your husband is missing you in his bed,” he had said with a rueful smile.
“My husband and I haven’t slept in the same bed for five years,” she had replied, hunger clear in her eyes.
She never knew who made the first move. Maybe she laid a cool hand to his brow to give him some relief. Maybe he tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Either way, it ended with their lips crashing together. The dizzying feeling of completeness. Fingers gripping her, wanting her, needing her. Their clothes pooled on the floor as he lifted her up and fucked her thoroughly against the wall.
—
A woman can only live upon a shelf for so long. Eventually, she demands to come to down.
To feel.
To live.
To destroy.