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The Iron Bull stood suddenly, slamming his fists against the table, and truly something was to be said about the china shop saying as the Orlesian teacups, freshly imported by gift of a duchess, rattled. His gaze swept the table, over the suddenly silent Orlesian guests, and then locked onto Adaar’s. His scowl was almost black and her heart dropped to her stomach.
Josephine cleared her throat, and Bull took a step back, then another, then stormed entirely from the room. All were silent until he disappeared, then Dorian coughed.
“I think The Iron Bull needs a little air,” Josephine supplied.
Adaar nodded, willing a pleasant expression back to herself, and picked at her meat as the chatter started again. Frustration, maybe anger, bubbled in her stomach. He’d caused a scene, in front of the idiot Orlesians who’d only just stopped calling her oxman to her face. The topic of conversation, carried on as if the head of the inquisition wasn’t seated feet away, turned from her to him, and she wasn’t grateful. A smile still tickled Dorian’s lips and she felt his eyes dart to hers every few minutes, otherwise deeply focused on the vegetables on his plate. Josephine and Cullen had settled back into conversation with the true dignitaries of the evening, all involved acting as if nothing had happened, surely analyzing the reactions of all involved, playing their Game at a level that would always escape Adaar. A level leagues above the chattering players at the other end of the table, the ones who’d called Adaar things that had made Bull storm from the room. She waited fifteen minutes to excuse herself with a gracious nod that swept the table, and Cullen wished her a good night. She was unsurprised to find Bull waiting for her in the hall, and only a little surprised when his immediate reaction was to yank her wrists above her head and slam them into the wall.
“What was it?” she spat at him, fury taking a sudden hold. “Couldn’t take them calling me a giant? Commenting on my table manners like we couldn’t all hear them? Calling me a pretender? We both know I am, Bull. You thought you’d make things better by causing a scene?”
“They played with the idea of your life, Adaar. You should have called them on it. ‘I wonder what things would have been like if she’d never have tumbled out of the rift at all? Wonder how long before something happens? You know she’s been killing dragons.’” He raised his voice mockingly, and she struggled against his grasp.
“They’re playing the Game, and like drunken Cole at Wicked Grace. They’re showing their hand, Bull, and we have to take it to our advantage.”
“Advantage,” he growled. “Disrespect. They talk about you like you’re a thing. An animal. Like you can’t even hear. How do you hold their respect when you don’t fight back?”
“I have their interest. Maybe that’s better.”
He growled, and she knew they were done talking. She stalked to her quarters, paces ahead so he couldn’t drag her, heeled boots clicking against the floor. Something switched over as he slammed the door, something animal, and he was on her in a second snarling into the back of her neck as she pushed his hands from her hips in vain. He shoved her towards the bed.
“Down,” he ordered, nearly throwing her against it, and she barely caught herself in time to stop her face from slamming into the mattress. She tried to straighten and he pushed her down with a heavy hand.
“No. Stay.” His voice was deadly and Adaar huffed but stilled. She was itching to move, to do something, to feel something, and she gritted her teeth as he ripped her dress pants down her legs, splitting her thighs apart with a still clothed knee, leaving her bound by her pants around her ankles, undignified. He kept a hand firmly on her lower back, and she pushed against it a little as she heard him yanking his own trousers open. He slammed into her without further word or preparation and she hissed, unable to move, to either squirm away or impale herself further on his cock. His hand moved from her back, to use both hands to spread her apart so he could push in more smoothly, and in that moment his growing thunderstorm transferred through lightning strike to hers, and she growled and slammed her hips back against him, loving the splitting pain as much as his growl. He twisted her hair into his fist, yanking her head back towards him just enough that she could breathe but it was a question. His hips bucked into hers, bottoming out, and he slowly withdrew as she twisted in his grasp then set a punishing pace. She snarled as he fucked her, used her really, pushing herself off the bed with a hand and reaching back to cover his with another, claws biting into his wrist until she felt it give beneath her nails. He was swearing, either in Qunlat or some nothing tongue, and she spat out, “Fuck you,” using what leverage she had to push arhythmically back against him. He growled, the kind of growl that left his lips mid-battle, not mid-sex, as the bones of her ass hit his pelvis, and withdrew suddenly.
“Turn, adaar,” and she truly thought he meant it as ‘weapon’ and not her name. He gave her no choice as he grabbed her hips and tugged. Flat on her back she struggled, scrabbling further up the bed as he leaned over to pin her with his body. For a moment they were still, their loud pants the the only sound in the room, the eye of the hurricane, and then his horns stabbed into the bed, dangerously close to her shoulders, and his arms lifted her ankles, folding her in half and tilting her pelvis upward. He yanked her boots from her feet and threw them to the floor. For a moment she thought he’d push into her exposed ass, but his cock slid back into her cunt, the angle wrong and painful and he hissed, dropping her hips back to the bed, nails digging into her ankles. He bottomed out and her hands flew to his horns, gripping more than fighting. She couldn’t arch her back, couldn’t thrust against him, couldn’t get away in this position. Not that she truly wanted to.
He held her legs in place and fucked her. Obscene noises echoed through the room, the clap of their bodies smacking together, wet noises, for she was dripping now, and the groans and pants that belonged to both and neither of them. He ignored her pained grunts when he thrust too hard or hit too deep, chasing his release seemingly without regard to hers, and her clit throbbed between her legs. She didn’t dare reach down, didn’t risk his ire or to catch in their mutual violence. She pushed her head back into the mattress instead, glad her horns didn’t curl in a way to puncture the sheets. He stopped suddenly, giving her purchase to prop herself up on her elbows and meet his gaze, still stormy, between her legs. He held the stare, and her eyes narrowed. Then he crossed her ankles, bringing them together and pressing back with one hand, and the muscles in her thighs burned. He started again, but the thumb of his free hand found her now pinned clit, and she was surprised to find herself barreling towards the edge. She tossed her head back silently as she came, but roared when his rough touch didn’t even slow as she spasmed around his cock, over sensitized, nerves on fire.
“Right there,” he grunted, and she didn’t know if he was talking to her or himself. He came with a true roar, one that echoed through the corners of her chambers, one that mirrored the sounds he made when he stabbed a wyvern through the heart, skin dripping in invigorating poison. His hips stilled but his thumb did not, and she found herself coming around his softening cock, teeth digging into her lip until she tasted blood, and only then did he drop her ankles, pulling out and back. He loomed over her, rough breathing slowly steadying, and she felt herself coming down beneath him. The sharpness eventually melted from his face, and he collapsed beside her.
“Fuck.” She spoke first. The aches were slowly creeping in—her thighs burned and ankles stung, cunt dripping and abused. She felt exhausted, and so, so alive.
“Mmph,” he agreed. A moment of silence, then, “That was hot.”
Adaar laughed, clipped, and found the will to sit up even as her body protested.
“ You need to clean all this up. I can’t walk and I doubt that situation will have improved by morning.”
His chuckle reverberated through her as he placed his palm against her chest before rising. She leaned back and closed her eyes, processing, until she felt a cold cloth brush against her lower legs. It stung and her attention was quickly brought to the blood that darkened that scratches there. He paid careful attention to the marks he’d left, brushing the alcohol over them all, caring with a touch of sadism, and Adaar found herself laughing at the thought of explaining the shallow gauges on her calves. He smiled as he placed her legs gently to the bed, retreating back to the table to pour alcohol over his own nail bitten wrists. She closed her eyes as he rubbed a towel between her legs, wiping away the signs of their mutual pleasure, and rolled over as he tossed a blanket over the worst of the bed.
“Kadan,” he murmured gently as he sank into the bed beside her, and she knew they were done fighting. He breathed deeply, then slid an arm behind the small of her back, cupping her side.
“I needed that,” she told him. He shook his head.
“All those fucking Orlesian assholes.”
“Don’t get worked up again.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
“Uh—“ he hesitated, for a moment, uncharacteristically tripping over words. “Thank you, Kadan,” he finally settled. Then he seemed to piece together the words he’d been looking for, or maybe the power to say them. “I meant it when I said that what we do in here won’t affect what we do out there,” he blurted. “That wasn’t that. This is the fury I feel when people talk about Krem. When Vints slaughtered indiscriminately in the streets of Seheron, even. Difference is that I can’t protect you. You’d hit me if I interfered, and not in the fake way that Krem does.”
“I know,” said Adaar. “That’s never been what I worry about.”
“Other difference is that I get to pin you down and fuck you about it. Might have been a little rougher than I should have been.”
“Not saying you should ever fuck a little elf like that, but I can more than take it.”
“Not fucking anyone but you,” he mumbled, finally seeming to relax, and she smiled.
“We’d better hope we’re not woken by alarm bells in the morning. I’m in no fighting shape.” The joke was only funny for a moment before reality crept in and she shivered in the sudden silence.
“Don’t,” he told her simply, and turned to bury his face in her chest. “You’re safe tonight, boss. Safe with me.”
And she believed him enough to drift into sleep, fingers stroking the base of his horns, his head on her chest a comforting weight, and they slept sticky skin to sticky skin and woke up the next morning long after the sun had risen, long after the Orlesians had departed.