Chapter Text
Ellana went to the library by way of the rotunda, pausing to watch Solas brush paint onto the wall. Though she knew little of painting, she knew enough to see that he was a master of his craft. “You’re quite skilled,” she called up to him, and then cursed herself for how moronically insipid those words sounded. If only it was as easy to flirt with him as it was to flirt with Dorian.
Of course, Dorian was actually receptive. Dorian didn’t look like he’d swallowed rashvine when she said something outlandish.
Solas paused, his brush hovering over the wall, and turned toward her. There was a look of surprise on his face, as though no one had ever complimented him before. “Thank you, Inquisitor.”
Creators, talking to him was awkward. They lapsed into a silence that could have been filled with a thousand different words, but Ellana didn’t know where to start. She could have asked him to teach her more of rift magic or inquired about the Fade, but she didn’t think he enjoyed talking to her that much. Whenever she came by, he seemed prickly. On edge. Uncertain, maybe. Whatever it was, it was obvious that he didn’t care for her company. She suspected she was too Dalish for him, which made her prickly.
“Are you on your way to see Dorian?” he asked, finally, after the silence had stretched beyond awkward into painful.
She seized on the topic eagerly. “Yes, hahren,” she said, taking a slight step forward. “We think we’ve finally discovered how to replicate what Alexius did.” And it was wonderful because it meant that, maybe, she could save her clan from Wycome.
Solas’s brow creased. She recognized the look as one of disapproval. “Playing with time is a dangerous thing, da’len. It is best to let the past sleep.”
Her eyes narrowed. He had deliberately forsaken whatever clan had birthed him. He had no idea the pain that kept her awake at night, the horror over her own actions. She’d chosen wrong, had sent the wrong advisor, and her clan had died. Every last one of them was dead and he dared. “Which is why you spend so much time in the Fade, sleeping in ruins?” she snapped.
“I observe,” he said gently, “and cannot interfere.”
Fury burned through her, but she choked it back and wondered why she’d bothered to tell him at all. Of course he would have a reprimand ready for her and an excuse for himself. “We—” She broke off. The fight wasn’t worth it, and would only lower his perilously low approval of her.
It was shameful how much she wanted his approval. That night he came to her in her dreams and showed her Haven, the night he spoke to her of watching over her in the aftermath of the explosion at the Conclave, she’d wanted so much to reach out to him. To touch him. To kiss him. For a moment, she almost had. But he was constantly building barriers between them. He had no interest in her. He was old enough to be her father by any measure, and she was fairly certain the only feelings he had for her were the paternal type.
Shaking her head, she turned away. “I’ll come by when you’ve finished,” she said.
“If you’d like,” he replied with that casual indifference she hated so much.
Briefly, she entertained the thought of climbing his scaffolding. She’d join him on that platform, take him by the shoulders, shove him against the wall, and kiss him. Hard. She was good at kissing, had done plenty of it. Maybe if she kissed him, he’d kiss back. Then she could wrap her arms around his neck and drag his mouth to hers. Her fingers would dance over his ears, her body would press flush to his, and he would moan her name softly into her mouth. Then she would go to her knees before him, unlacing his breeches as she stroked him through the thin cloth, and finally, finally the indifference would fall away. He’d snap, his control fracturing, and he’d beg her to suck him, to taste him, to let him taste her. All the indifference would go up in smoke, and it would be magnificent.
Instead of doing any of that, she made her way silently to the staircase, trying to decide whether she was furious or aroused.
“You’re stewing,” Dorian said when she reached him. “You realize that any interested man with a heartbeat would throw himself at you if you gave him any indication you were interested.”
She gave him a vicious scowl. “I have, though! I’ve…” She sighed. “I’ve done everything a Dalish woman would do.” And they all knew Solas had little respect for the Dalish and their customs. Fumbling children, he called them, and she wondered if that was how he saw her, too.
“Perhaps you should flirt with him as boldly as you do me.” She recoiled physically at his words and he laughed, not at all offended. “I know, I know,” he said, waving her off before she could say a word. “Flirting with me is safe.” For a minute, there was a hollow, hunted look on his face She recognized the fleeting expression. He’d been prey once. “Now. Let’s have a look at what you found at Redcliffe.”
She hopped onto the arm of his chair and perched there, on the balls of her feet, her balance perfect. He scooted to one side in the chair, taking the book and setting it in his lap. Reaching out, he dragged a small table closer, and he took his quill in one hand, ready to take notes. “I think they’re Alexius’s notes. I didn’t expect them to come back with us.”
“But they did.”
She nodded. “And they might…” Her throat closed with emotion.
Dorian lifted his gaze to hers, quiet, waiting. She liked that about him. He was always ready with a clever quip, but he understood the pain of loss and he understood her loss in a way that Solas never would.
“Let’s see what we can find,” she finally said.
They spent the next few days pouring over Alexius’s notes, learning how he constructed the amulet that had thrown them through time. It was surprisingly simple – Dorian posited that they were simply that clever – and a week later, they had one of their own.
“Where do we do this?” Ellana asked, practically vibrating with anticipation. She held the amulet in careful, reverent hands, enraptured by its simplistic beauty. They’d made it from ironwood bark, of all things, and it hummed with magic. She felt it crackling across her skin, kissing her cheeks and licking her fingers.
“The courtyard, I imagine,” Dorian said, his musing tone almost lost by the crashing of the waterfall. “We’d do the least amount of damage there, don’t you think?”
“We’re not going to do any damage,” she breathed, clutching the amulet in greedy fingers. “Two months. We’re going to go back two months, to Haven, and we’re going to fix… we’re going to make this right.”
He gave her a brisk nod. “Perhaps tonight?” he suggested. “There’s no need to prance about naked under a full moon, but fewer people around to watch.”
Worrying her lip with her teeth, she considered. Precisely when they used the amulet didn’t actually matter, but she wanted to use it at a time when Solas wasn’t there to disapprove, because he did. Heavily. Every time she’d passed him on the way to the library, she’d felt the weight of his judgment heavy on her shoulders. She’d taken to going to longer way, passing Vivienne to avoid him entirely.
“Now,” she said, looking at Dorian. “We’re doing it now.”
For the first time, he looked discomfited. “Inquisitor, are you sure that’s wise? In the middle of the day, with people all around… If something went wrong, could you—”
“I don’t care about them,” she snapped, jerking away from the crafting table, ignoring Harritt and Dagna’s curious looks. “I don’t care about any of them, Dorian, if this gets me my clan back, if this can save them… I don’t care.”
He looked like he wanted to say something. Instead, he closed his eyes and inclined his head. “Then we shall try it now.”
A huge smile broke her face. “Yes,” she breathed, and then she was running from the undercroft, rushing through Skyhold with Dorian close behind her. Hope swelled within her, making her heart feel so full it might burst. She twisted through the people gathered in the great hall, moving nimbly between them while Dorian, less sure-footed than she, stumbled after. She blew by Varric and Solas, and laughed with delight as she hurried down the stone steps that led to the courtyard.
She didn’t mean what she said, of course. If she sent the Inquisition’s people scattering through time, she would be depriving them of their families. She would be leaving their families to grieve. Having felt the unbearable loss of everyone she’d ever cared for, she didn’t wish that on anyone.
“Clear the area!” she cried, shooing the soldiers.
“Yes, do,” Dorian said from behind her. “Important magery is afoot. Great feats of magic.”
As she rushed about the courtyard in front of the tavern, urging people out of the way, she hazarded a glance at the stairs. Solas stood there, with Varric, and though the distance was great enough that she couldn’t see the finer details of his expression, she knew his brows were drawn with displeasure. Unhappiness lined his entire body. His posture screamed his umbrage.
“I think that’s quite enough,” Dorian said, and she nodded, breathless with excitement.
“We’re going to do it,” she said softly, holding out her left hand. The amulet lay in her palm, beautifully plain, perfect in every way.
With a deep breath, she reached out. She strummed the fabric of the Veil with her mind, plucking it into a sweet harmony. Magic coalesced around her in rippling waves of light, electrifying her skin and making her blood burn. Power flowed through the amulet, and she felt the moment the Veil tore and the Fade rushed into the open space. She heard the sweet music of it, the rising crescendo of raw energy braided around a full-bodied symphony of sound.
The portal opened like a massive, yawning mouth. She took a step toward it, ready to throw herself through it. But it warped savagely, and the sweet music turned to a howl. The portal distorted as it twisted around itself, and then it fizzled out entirely.
It was gone.
And in its place was a man. An elvhen man.
The amulet hit the ground at his feet, and he reached for it with an elegant, long-fingered hand as Ellana stared in shocked disbelief. “No,” she whispered. The portal was for her, and he… he had…
She threw herself to her knees, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “My clan!” she cried, fighting mounting horror. Oh, Creators, her clan. Some distant, reasonable part of her mind insisted they could try again, but then she looked at his palm and saw the amulet was broken. Shattered. We can make another, she told herself, but what if this happened again? What if some strange elvhen man tumbled from the portal meant for her again? “Who are you? Why did you come out of the portal? Why are you here? Why did you ruin everything?” she demanded, shaking him again.
Finally, he lifted his head. The wolf bone resting on his forehead like a crown rattled. Piercing, grey-blue eyes met hers.
Something like terror shot straight through her.
He didn’t look at her the way one person looked at another. He looked at her the way a hunter looked at its prey. The way a wolf looked at a rabbit. Fierce hunger and awful power burned in his eyes.
Creators. “Fenedhis,” she breathed, dread growing inside her.
He cocked his head to the side, and her stomach heaved with sudden nausea. He turned his head the same way a wolf did. His eyes swept over her face, following the intricate lines of her vallaslin, lingering on her lips, and she licked them nervously. Distress sank icy claws into her spine, making her shudder.
“Who…” Her words trailed off, her voice a shaking, breathless whisper.
The expression on his face became feral, and though his lips pulled back from his teeth she would never say he was smiling. He spoke, then, his words a tumble of lyrical elvish that she couldn’t understand.
Oh, Creators, no, she thought, painfully aware of the irony. “Who are you?” she asked.
His feral grin faded, his brows contracting slightly. Lifting his hand, he made a gesture she interpreted as more or keep going.
Trembling with anxiety, her stomach twisting viciously, she glanced at Dorian. He stared back at her. “Don’t look at me,” he said, but he held his staff in his hands, and magic crackled along the length of it.
Her eyes flickered over the rest of the gathered soldiers of Inquisition. Darted toward the stairs leading the great hall. Varric still stood on the landing, but Solas was gone.
When she looked back at him, he was watching Dorian with an almost amused expression. As if the threat of magic was nothing to him.
She released his shoulders, yanking her hands back, but he caught them. Laced their fingers together. Heat arched through her, an otherworldly roll of fire and something darker, something much more dangerous. He spoke again, leaning toward her.
She leaned back, shaking her head. “No,” she told him. “No, no, no, whatever you’re thinking, no.”
He caught her wrists in one of his beautiful, elegant hands and yanked her forward. His mouth crashed against hers, and her eyes went wide as his drifted shut. She was so stunned that she gasped, and his tongue invaded her mouth as if invited. It twined around hers, stroking, caressing, and the arc of heat became a firestorm of need inside her. The tip of his tongue flicked against hers. Pain stabbed through her, and she reeled away, acutely aware of the fact that he was allowing her to go.
She fell on her ass in the dirt, still staring at him. Stunned, she lifted her fingers to her lips. In spite of the pain, she didn’t taste the coppery tang of blood.
“I am much obliged, child,” he said, “for the gift of your language.” He rose in a fluid motion, the thick ropes of his dark hair falling over his shoulder. Sparkling gemstones and bands of gold clipped his locks at odd intervals. He was magnificent, his skin sun-kissed and bronzed. His clothes, of a completely foreign cut to her, were rich. Sumptuous. They glittered with what had to be diamonds and emeralds at the hem and around his neck. Thick pieces of gold banded his upper arms, and glittering bracelets encircled his wrists. His breeches were fitted, almost skin tight, and made of some kind of scale she had never seen before. At the very least, his feet were bare, but that was a poor consolation prize for familiarity.
Familiarity. There was something very familiar about the straight line of his nose, the high cast of his cheekbones, the dimple in his chin. But the more she studied his face, the more the crackling aura of magic all around him seemed to distort his appearance.
She tried to speak again. “Who… who are…”
He swept an imperious gaze over the Inquisition, turning to take in the rise of Skyhold behind him. When he turned back to her, his teeth were bared in that same, feral smile, and she knew. Oh, Creators, she knew in her soul who he was before he even spoke.
“Fen’Harel.”
Ellana didn’t pass out and the Inquisition didn’t attack him. Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf. He Who Hunts Alone. As if listing all his titles would somehow make him less real.
Dorian stepped in front of her and offered her his hand. “Do we attack him, Inquisitor?” he asked softly.
She stared at him as she gained her feet. “Are you insane? Do you realize what he could do to us?”
“If he’s even telling the truth.”
She cast her eyes toward the Dread Wolf, taking in the arrogance of his posture, and wondered what she was supposed to do with him. All her life, she’d been trained to protect her people from this very creature, and now he stood before her. Resplendent. Magnificent. Power bent the very air around him. When he caught her looking, his lips curled and his brows lifted in what was an explicit invitation.
Feeling heat climb her face, she turned back to Dorian. “You really think he’s lying? The way the Veil curls around him? You think he’s just some random elvhen mage who tumbled out of a portal?”
Dorian hesitated.
“Just… don’t attack him. In fact, don’t do… anything. Just… just stand here. I need to… it’s my job…” She scrubbed her face with her hands. “Let me deal with this.” Clearing her throat, she surveyed her forces. “Sheath your blades and stow your weapons,” she commanded, her voice ringing with the authority of the Keeper she had to be. “This man is my guest.”
Her forces obeyed without question, lowering their weapons. She gave them a tense smile. “Be about your business,” she added, and, slowly, haltingly, they went.
The Dread Wolf was studying her fixedly when she glanced at him. “Odd,” he said, “that one in the service of Andruil should command such respect.”
Ellana frowned at him but said nothing. Because Dorian still held his staff in his hand and wore a look of distrust. At least the staff wasn’t crackling with magic. She turned her back on the Dread Wolf, which, all things considered, was arguably one of the stupidest things she’d ever done. “Please, Dorian,” she murmured.
“I know the stories,” he said softly, watching the Dread Wolf from the corners of his eyes. “I am aware of exactly what he is.”
“Which is why I have to deal with him.”
Dorian bent his face toward her, expression serious. “Your clan…”
“Not right now,” she said sternly, not sure she could bear up under the pain of it, and she drew away from him, approaching the Dread Wolf. “Andaran atish’an,” she said, wondering if she ought to give him any form of obeisance. No, she decided. Healthy respect, yes, but she wouldn’t bow to him.
His brows lifted and Elvish words poured like honey from his lips. They wrapped around her, sweet and heavy, and felt like physical caresses against her skin. As he spoke, he moved closer, until the space between their bodies was so minimal she could feel the heat of him.
She blinked but didn’t take a step back. She would not be cowed. “I’m afraid we’ve lost much of our language over the years.” She paused, wondering what she should call him. Tentatively, she added, “Hahren.”
Something wicked sparkled in his eyes for the barest of seconds, but confusion replaced the… was it lust? Desire? Revulsion warred with interest inside her. He was beautiful, like he’d been sculpted by a master from the most priceless of marbles, but he was still the Dread Wolf, anathema to her people.
Canting his head to one side, he said, “You have much to explain to me.” He held out his hand, and she, not knowing when else to do, put her hand in his.
Power like she’d never felt raced up her arm, leaving her numb and tingling.
“Begin by telling me how Tarasyl’an Te’las came to be in such a sorry state.” His gaze flicked over Dorian, and something like contempt curled his lips. “And why you feel the need to justify yourself to one of the shemlen.” As he spoke, he led her away from Dorian. He moved with purpose. Ease. Clearly, he’d been to Skyhold before.
Thousands of years ago. The very idea was staggering.
“It… has been some years,” she said, her voice a bit strangled as they passed Cassandra. Cassandra, who stood with Bull and Sera, watched them with narrowed eyes. Ellana made a shooing motion, trying to assure them everything was fine when it wasn’t.
“Yes,” the Dread Wolf agreed. Creators, his voice was lovely. Low and rich. Sonorous. Mellifluous. For some reason, she couldn’t help imagining him whispering lurid promises in her ear as he pinned her to a wall and pressed his hips against hers. “I can feel it.” He inhaled sharply, and she turned her head to watch him. His eyes drifted shut for just a moment, his lips parted as he breathed. “I can taste it, the difference between… now and then.” He opened his eyes and regarded her with an inscrutable expression. “Magic that distorts time is dangerous, especially for one as limited as you.”
She choked back indignation. Her? Limited? She was a superlative mage. “With all due respect—”
“Respect, yes, that’s an interesting thing.” He stopped walking and, as though he had every right, he touched his index finger to her face, tracing a line across her forehead. She knew instinctively that he was following the marks of her vallaslin. “You bear the vallaslin, and yet these creatures obey you.”
She bristled, not entirely sure why. “They honor the gods. Surely you of all people would know that, Dread Wolf,” she spat. Before he could reply – and he obviously had a witty rejoinder at the ready – she continued, “And these creatures are the Inquisition, my Inquisition, and we’ve claimed Skyhold as our own.” Belatedly, she realized how defensive she sounded. And how idiotic it was to spit at a god.
Instead of being offended, he threw back his head and laughed, and the sound made magic flicker and snap in the air around them. It was incredible. Breathtaking. She stared at the glittering motes of light and realized they were wisps, drawn through the Veil by him, by his very existence.
When his laughter subsided, he wiped his thumb against his eyes and murmured something in Elvish. Suspecting it was a pejorative of some kind, she scowled at him.
“You are a fierce thing,” he said, laughter still warming his voice. His fingers stroked over her valllaslin again, and he shifted closer to her. She went still, like a startled deer. “But perhaps Ghilan’nain’s markings would be more appropriate for you.”
“Why?” she asked, hating how breathless she was.
His warm hand cupped her jaw, tipping her face back. Creators, his eyes were intense. And so familiar. Again, the more she tried to place his features, the more magic obscured them.
He drank her in like she was something precious and rare. “No,” he murmured. “You are not so flighty as she. Andruil suits you, huntress.” His eyes made slow progress over her face, as though he were committing her every feature to memory. “Has there ever been one of the People so lovely?”
She took a very large step away from him. Her arm, still caught by his, stretched between them, and she tried to fix him with a disapproving stare. But she couldn’t. His words were unraveling a wicked heat in her, and she suspected he knew. He watched her with satisfaction curling his lips. “You are out of time, Dread Wolf,” she said, her words awkward and abrupt.
“Yes, I’d thought as much.” He moved back to her side and began walking once more, forcing her to keep up as he approached the stairs to the parapets.
A sigh of exasperation burst from her. “Of course you did.”
He chuckled, and more of his magic swirled around them as they ascended the steps. “But how long? Tell me, when did Arlathan fall?”
She jerked against his hold, and he placed his hand on her arm where he held her. “How did you know?”
He shrugged. “Arlathan’s fall…” He paused as they gained the parapets and came to a stop. His gaze traveled over the icy mountain peaks all around them, glittering like diamonds. “This tongue lacks the right verb tenses. Arlathan’s fall both was and is, concurrently, inevitable. The People do not live in a way that will sustain them.” Disdain laced his voice. “But that is no matter. Arlathan’s fall has always been a constant, and so I am unsurprised.”
“Oh,” she said simply, stupidly, not knowing what else to say because he wasn’t at all what she expected. Then again, there was still plenty of time for him to destroy them all. For all she knew, he’d leave a weaving of magic that would destroy Skyhold in five days.
“More interesting is the fact that you managed to rip open a portal through time.” He lifted his hand from hers, spreading his hand, palm up. She was momentarily arrested by the sight of his fingers, long and lithe, and she swallowed hard.
It was not difficult to imagine those fingers cupping her breasts, gliding over her belly, parting her thighs, slipping between her legs and—
Creators, what was she thinking?
His fingers flexed. “There, too, is something interesting,” he murmured, bending his head toward her.
She looked at him with what she was sure was a wild-eyed expression.
“Your face, so full of restrained desire, just from the sight of my hands.” His lips brushed over the shell of her ear and a shudder wracked her body. “Imagine how much ecstasy we could find in unchaining your desire, huntress.” His tongue touched the tip of her ear, and she let out a quiet cry. But then he drew away, and her amulet appeared in his palm. “Such a crude piece of magic. Unrefined to the point of barbarism. And yet you managed to tear a hole in the very essence of time, though that simplifies everything far too much. Rather, you twisted time on itself with this little piece of wood, and you found me.” He gave her another of those feral smiles. “Why were you bending time, huntress? Such a thing is folly.”
She turned away from him, trying to find the snowy mountains half as fascinating as him. You’re supposed to protect people from him, she reminded herself. The Dread Wolf finally appears, and you’re practically panting after him. “You hunt alone,” she replied stiffly. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“It was not always so. But I do prefer it that way.”
“Hunting alone or your ignorance?”
Again, he laughed, and magic and spirits danced in the air around them. “Have the People forgotten all their reverence since the days of Arlathan?” he asked.
“Only most of it,” she muttered.
“Good for them,” he said. “You dodge my questions artfully, da’len, but I would know what madness drove you to this.” He dangled the amulet in front of her face, and she snatched it from his hands.
Stuffing it into one of the pouches on her hip, she turned to him with a flat expression. “We live in clans, now,” she said, “and I killed mine.”
One of his brows rose, but he said nothing. Offered no judgment.
The story came spilling out of her: how she’d contacted her clan, how they’d told her of bandits, how she’d asked Josephine to speak to the Duke of Wycome, as if humans would ever do anything to help the elves. By the end, she was crying and cursing the shems, furiously wiping the tears from her eyes. “This is how it always is,” she said around her sobs, “and I don’t know why I thought it would be different. But I’m the Inquisitor, now, and I have to play by their rules, so I tried playing by their rules, and… and…” A great sob wracked her body.
To her immense surprise, he drew her into his arms. The embrace was gentle and kind, comforting. Her fingers curled into fists at her side – she wouldn’t allow herself to return the embrace of the Dread Wolf.
He murmured strange words to her in Elvish, and they, too, were comforting. His cadence was soft and reassuring, and he continued speaking until her sobs subsided and her tears dried. When he drew back, there was death in his eyes. “You called the human Wycome?”
She nodded, wiping her tears from her face. “But—” She let out a cry of surprise as the Veil itself tore.
“What a bizarre thing this is,” he said with a frown.
“The Veil?” she asked.
“Who did this? Who would cut off—” He stopped speaking, his expression somehow wry and amused and furious all at once. “Yes,” he murmured, “I see how that was the only solution.”
The Veil tore more, and she cried out in alarm. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Stop, you’re—is that a demon?”
“A spirit of vengeance. Elgar’nan would be so pleased,” he said mildly as the creature reared up from the ground, all white hot flame and fury. The Dread Wolf smoothed his hand over the demon’s head. “Find this Wycome and destroy him. Slowly. Make sure he sees his death coming for years. Let the knowledge of it fester.” He lifted his hand from the spirit’s head, and the spirit streaked off.
She stared at him. “You can’t do that.”
Amused, he said, “But of course I can. I just did. Now you will swear an oath to me in return for this gift.”
“I didn’t ask for it!”
“And yet I gave it. You will swear an oath,” he said, catching her chin in his thumb and forefinger, “that you will never again attempt to bend time.”
She stopped herself from saying something idiotic, like may the Dread Wolf take you. Because she saw something like concern in his eyes, and she remembered the story of the slow arrow. “I swear it,” she said slowly, carefully, her gaze fixed on his.
“I think not. Speak these words.” He gave her a phrase in Elvish, one punctuated by his name, and, after a second’s hesitation, she repeated it. Something in his eyes shifted. “Again,” he murmured.
She began to repeat the oath.
“No,” he said, touching his fingers to her lips. Fire lanced through her and settled lazily in her belly. “Just my name, huntress.”
She tried to draw away from his touch, alarmed by the heat he stoked in her, but his fingers curled around the back of her neck to hold her in place. She swallowed. “Fen’Harel,” she breathed, since she had no recourse.
“What a lovely sound.” His words were no more than a whisper. And then he kissed her.
She expected a kiss like he’d given her in the courtyard, something hard and demanding. Instead, he plied her lips with his own, his touch measured and gentle and far too light. Her hands curled into fists in his tunic, and she shifted closer, wanting and needing more. More pressure. More heat. It had been too long since anyone had kissed her, and the Creators knew Solas wasn’t going to any time in the near future.
That didn’t excuse her for parting her lips and letting the Dread Wolf’s tongue slip into her mouth. That didn’t excuse her for pressing her body against his and throwing her arms around his neck. That didn’t excuse her for moaning with abandon when he growled into her mouth and settled one hand on the small of her back. He urged her closer still, and she felt the hard press of his cock against her belly.
This was demented. Deranged. Completely insane. Her whole life she’d devoted herself to the study of magic to protect her clan from him. Clan Lavellan might be gone, but the Inquisition was its own kind of clan. And what was she doing? She was accepting gifts from the Dread Wolf and letting him sweep her mouth with drugging kisses.
“You taste divine, huntress,” he murmured against her lips.
“You would know, being divine yourself,” she said without thinking.
He chuckled, the sound dark and full of lust. “I will take that as a compliment, I think.” And then he kissed her again, his fingers driving into her hair. Pins clinked softly against the stone as he unraveled her tight braid, her hair spilling down her back as he brushed his lips over hers. As he stole her breath. As he devoured her and filled her with a burning desperation to feel his body naked against her own.
She drowned in him, sank into the sweet wanting of him. Her cunt clenched and rippled, and she felt empty, so empty, like she would die if he didn’t press her to the ground and fill her with his cock.
Drawing back, he gave her a lazy, arrogant smile. “I like you much better with your hair down,” he said, “twisted and mussed from my fingers.” His lips brushed against hers as he continued, “I wonder what it would look like wrapped around my fist as you crawled, hot and eager, over my body. But then, it might look even lovelier against a white pillow as your head thrashed and your back arched as I tasted you.”
She gasped, her fingers curling in the hair at the base of his neck, and he purred, arching into that touch.
“You would be amenable to that, wouldn’t you be, huntress?”
Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. She hadn’t ever considered herself a sexual creature until she met Solas. He’d awakened every manner of fantasy in her, but he never responded to any of her offers for intimacy. And that had left her bruised. The first time she’d offered herself to anyone and she’d been rebuffed. Dismissed.
His lips trailed over the column of her neck, a light and fleeting caress. “I wonder, do you wear your vallaslin over more than just your face?”
Now she had the Dread Wolf’s lips on her body, and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t once fantasized about just this thing.
The hand on the small brushed over her hips. “Will I find Andruil’s bows here?” His fingers ghosted over her belly. “Here?”
How many times had she imagined him coming to her, trying to seduce her with promises of pleasure and power? Too many to count.
His fingers trailed lower, and she gasped, her hips arching against the touch that feathered over her pubic bone and then lower. “Certainly here.”
And yet in those fantasies, she’d always turned him away. The Keeper victorious.
His fingers withdrew, and she whimpered for wanting their heat.
“Imagine, huntress,” he crooned as his teeth grazed the fragile skin of her throat, “the pleasure to be had at my tongue following the bends and curves of all those marks.” He licked her, and her knees almost buckled.
Creators, she was the worst. The absolute worst. She had always triumphed in her fantasies because she’d never considered how sexually potent the Blighted Dread Wolf would actually be. Because she hadn’t understood sexual power until this moment, experiencing it for the first time.
“Wouldn’t you like a tour of Skyhold?” she gasped out. “And I can tell you… I can tell you… all about…” She shivered as he bit lightly against her neck. “About things. And—and—”
“Will that tour end in your bed, huntress? Will we tumble into it and then each other? Will you sing for me in moans and sighs as I conquer your trembling body?”
She was failing to stand strong against him. Her resolve was crumbling, and she needed an escape before she forgot all sense of reason and begged him to make good on promises she had only dreamed of a lover making. Virgin she may be, but she wasn’t ignorant of sex. She’d overheard enough whispered conversations and knew the mechanics of it from animals well enough.
But this. This mind-scrambling, thought-altering heat that his every word cultivated in her was beyond anything she’d ever considered.
With a cry, she shoved hard at his chest, and the Anchor flickered in her hand, filling the space between them with eerie green light.
He jerked back and caught her wrist in his hand, turning her palm toward him. The lust was gone from his eyes – how, she wondered, did he do that, because she knew desire still fogged her gaze – replaced by intent. “Now this,” he murmured, “is utterly fascinating. I need no tour of Tarasyl’an Te’las. I’d much rather hear the story of how you came by this.”
Because it put space between him and her, she let the words tumble out of her mouth.
A strange smile curved his lips.
“Tell me more of your Solas,” he commanded when she’d finished regaling him with the story of Corypheus and the Inquisition. He threaded her arm through his and led her across the parapets, a hungry expression on his face.
“I tell you about the darkspawn and the Blights and a corrupted Tevinter magister, and you want to know about Solas?” she asked, baffled.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “And once you’re done telling me everything about your… was apostate the word you used? Yes. Once you’ve told me everything about him, I should like something to eat.” His wolfish smile suggested he wasn’t talking about food.
She swallowed and hoped there was a way to send Fen’Harel home. Soon.