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Cullen looked up from his desk when she came in the door, his sweet smile softening the hard lines around his mouth. “Can you take a break?” Lin asked, locking the door behind her. Cullen stood so fast that the chair dragged on the stones, making a loud noise. He blushed, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Bashful and boyish, she thought as he made his way to her, kissing her hello. It’s almost a shame.
“Are you sure they can spare you?” Cullen asked with his fingers already tangled in her hair. She laughed as he pressed kisses to the underside of her jaw.
“If they can’t, I suppose they’ll just come and break down the door. That’s the downside of having three of the damn things.”
“Right,” he said, breaking away to lock one of the remaining doors while she got the other. Lin tugged her long tunic over her head and threw it somewhere. Cullen stared for a long moment, eyes moving from her bare clavicle to her breast band to where her fingers were hooked under the tie of her trousers.
“You’re still dressed,” she chided. “I can’t take that ridiculous thing off of you so you’ll have to. Why are there so many buckles and catches?”
Cullen chuckled. “It’s designed to be hard to get off.”
“I’m not,” she teased with a flutter of her lashes as she shoved her trousers down her hips. She refused to wear boots in her own castle and so was left in just her breast band and smalls. Cullen’s hands stilled on his armor for a moment before he tore at them with renewed effort. She left him to it, climbing the ladder up to where his bed lay. Glancing up, she saw blue clouds still visible in some places through the wood. “Cullen, why haven’t you fixed that yet?” she called down.
“Is it odd to say I enjoy it?” he said right behind her and she startled, having not heard him on the ladder. “I spent most of my life in mage towers. Sunlight and fresh air weren’t exactly part of the daily regimen for any of us, templars or mages.” His words sparked a flash of anger that she struggled to grit her teeth and ignore. She didn’t like to be reminded that she was letting an ex-templar touch her or what her mother would have said about it.
Lin gave him as sweet a smile as she was able. “How did you not freeze over the winter?”
Cullen glanced up at the roof or lack thereof, breaking eye contact. “I slept in the armory mostly. It was quiet when there was no one about and it was always warm from the forge.” He looked vaguely embarrassed about it and she was annoyed with herself that she hadn’t known about it. It was her job to know what happened in Tarasyl’an Tel’as.
That wasn’t why she was here. She was letting herself get distracted by his chatter. Lin pulled him into a deep kiss, letting him tip her backwards with his wide hands splayed over the bare skin of her back. With one hand, she pulled at that ridiculous golden hair and the other twisted in the fabric of the thin shirt he wore under his armor. She tugged at his shirt, silently telling him to remove it. He only kissed her again, moving her back towards the bed.
He wasn’t listening; that was annoying. She’d have to make herself more clear. Cullen gave her a wounded look when she pushed him away but it shifted when she removed her breast band and smalls, leaving her bare before him. He rushed to follow suit, losing the last of his clothes in a moment. When he caught her in his arms again, they wore nothing and she let him bear her backwards onto the bed. For all his protestations that someone might need them, he seemed content to take his time with her, licking into her with her knee draped over his shoulder. Lin knew he did best with vocal encouragement and let him hear her every gasp and sigh. If anyone outside heard her too, that wasn’t her problem. Part of the reason she was here was so that everyone would know that she’d taken up with the commander just days after their return from the Arbor Wilds.
Cullen sucked on her clit and she moaned, heel digging into his back as he did it again. “Enough,” Lin commanded breathlessly. He nodded, pressing on last kiss to her inner thigh, before kneeling up and shifting forward. Gently, as if she was a delicate glass ornament, he pulled her hips closer and pressed inside. Lin exhaled slowly, scratching lightly at his scalp as she pulled him down into a kiss.
He moved slowly at first, a steady rocking motion as he buried himself in her. Once she had taken him to the hilt, he pulled back and slid back in. So sweet. So gentle. She found herself resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Lin tugged lightly on the hair between her fingers as he kissed her neck, one hand pulling her knee over his hip to change the angle. She gasped and tugged harder until he grunted.
“Harder,” she demanded and he did his best, holding her hips tight against him as he barely pulled out before thrusting back in. It was good but it wasn’t enough. She repeated it and Cullen obliged, the headboard nudging against the wall rhythmically with his every move.
“I wish I could take my time with you,” Cullen murmured into the skin of her neck. “I wish that we weren’t limited to these stolen moments and that I could take you slowly and show you properly what you mean to me.” Lin tipped her head back so Cullen wouldn’t see her roll her eyes. She didn’t come to him for sweet gentleness, she came to him because he’d do as she asked. And she certainly didn’t come to him for what she meant to him.
The last time a man showed her what she meant to him, she had been left to watch him walk away.
She dragged her thoughts away from Solas, knowing that comparing the two was just going to make things worse. Lin let Cullen kiss her, hoping that he couldn’t tell she was distracted. She shuddered when Cullen reached between them to play with her clit until she came with her fingernails dug into his back. It was hard to let him go when Cullen pulled out of her and took his cock in his own hand. It was an unspoken rule that he didn’t finish inside her and it didn’t take more than a few strokes before he came into his hand, a few drop escaping to his blankets below.
Lin watched him as he went to his washbasin and cleaned his hands. He returned with a damp towel to wipe at her with, her own wetness and their mingled sweat lying sticky on her thighs. She stretched luxuriantly before she sat up. “That was wonderful,” she said. It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t his fault it wasn’t what she wanted.
“But you have to go now,” Cullen finished for her. She gave him a regretful half-shrug.
“I think this place might actually burn down without me,” she joked. “I don’t know how you manage when I’m in the field.”
“We miss you the entire time,” he assured her, affection clear in his eyes. Lin’s breath caught and she tried not show any of discomfort she felt at the look on his face. She wondered for a moment what it would be like to be the sort of woman who could return his love but discarded it immediately. It was like wondering what it would be like to be taller or to be human; it was a life out of her reach so what was the point in wondering?
“Unfortunately, the glowing hand means that places with rifts miss me more,” she said lightly as she got to her feet and grabbed her smalls. The rest of her clothes were downstairs and she descended the ladder easily. Cullen followed in a clean pair of trousers he’d pulled up his legs. “I suppose I’ll see you later?”
“Of course,” he said and ducked to kiss her again. Lin turned her head at the last moment so that he pressed his lips to her cheek. She laughed like it had been an accident but dressed quickly and went to the door with little more than a wave of her fingers. She stopped when he called out, “Dinner? Tonight?”
“I promised Varric a few games of cards,” she said with a regretful smile she almost meant. “You’re welcome to come, of course.” Cullen made a face.
“I think we both learned our lesson last time,” he said. “No, you have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She hummed noncommittally and closed the door behind her.
Stepping into the sunlight, Lin stretched her arms above her head with her fingers locked together. The tension in her shoulders released. Alone on the bridge between Cullen’s office and the Great Hall, Lin looked upon her people. It was gratifying, if incredibly odd, how many humans had flocked to her banner. The marks she had worn on her face marked her as one of Andruil’s people, not Andraste’s, but now her skin was bare and she was beholden only to herself.
She didn’t bother to tug her clothes straight or run her fingers through her tangled hair. Breathing in the mountain air centered her and she crossed the bridge with her head high.
Lin didn’t hesitate at the door. It opened quietly, its hinges oiled well, but Solas still looked up when sunlight poured across his desk. She saw his eyes rake over her, noting every bit that was out of place. He knew exactly what she’d been up to, she could see it in the amused twitch of his lips. Kitten, the young deepstalker she had rescued, poked her head out of the little cubby by Solas’s desk. Lin patted her leg in summons but the little thing only retreated again.
“Solas,” she greeted lightly, never slowing her pace as she walked past his desk. His eyes never left her.
“Inquisitor,” he replied with the slightest of respectful nods. He was the very picture of polite, though his neutral mask no longer fooled her. That name on his lips still rankled but she didn’t react. She felt his eyes on her back until she reached the stairs and climbed out of his view.
She was aware of the way people glanced at her and made sure they saw no trace of doubt or insecurity as she made her way to Dorian’s alcove. Throwing herself into the chair opposite his at his little table, Lin waited for him to look up. She didn’t have to wait long. Dorian put his book down after a moment and looked her up and down. The sideways smirk on his face was undeniably handsome and always spelled her kind of mischief.
“Hello,” he purred. “Should I guess what you’ve been up to? Or who?”
“If you need to guess, then I should probably go back.”
Dorian let out a bark of laughter that had others on the second floor shooting him annoyed glances. He ignored them in favor of putting his forearm on the table and leaning forward. “We haven’t talked about him yet. Is he any good? He’s always seemed… malleable.”
“Dorian Pavus, do you expect a lady to kiss and tell?” she said with feigned affront.
“My love, if you’re a lady then I’m the Black Divine.” Lin laughed loud enough to invoke a second round of disgruntled glances. She pressed her fist to her lips. “You just strolled right past him, didn’t you?” Dorian asked. “For all Solas’s faults, he’s not a stupid man. He had to know.”
“I didn’t think about it,” she said loftily.
“Liar,” he accused with a grin. “Are you trying to make him jealous?”
“Honestly? I’ve stopped worrying about what anyone thinks,” Lin told him. “I’m going to save all of Thedas; what they think of me in the end is irrelevant. They certainly don’t get a say in my personal life. I was tired of not getting a say in my personal life. I’m taking what I want and Cullen hasn’t complained yet.”
“That man thinks you hung the moon. I think you could probably try to kill him and he’d say it was his own fault.” Something in Lin’s chest gave a guilty little twist but her smile never faltered. “I’m glad you haven’t cut yourself off from the world after what happened with Solas.”
Lin shrugged. “Wallowing in self-pity has never been my style. Besides, if I die taking down Corypheus, I have no interest in depriving myself in my last days.” Dorian frowned at her like he always did when she talked about her own mortality and steered the conversation in another direction, telling her instead about the research he’d been doing into the enchanting of objects.
The aftereffects of the Arbor Wild could still be felt even outside of her personal life. Half of her army was bogged down outside Silbois with spring floods turning the roads to mud. Even if she returned to the Wilds to find the alter she needed, she could be there and return to Skyhold before the army had even reached Montvert. Lin was usually less concerned about the what and where of her forces, leaving that to Cullen’s capable hands, but Corypheus was desperate and if she went into the field, there would be no one to defend Skyhold.
“King Alistair has offered some of his own forces to defend Skyhold while ours are away,” Josephine told her when she found Lin in the courtyard, letter still in hand. She had interrupted an increasingly heated conversation between Cassandra and Solas over the wisdom of sending scholars back to the Temple of Mythal once it was safe. Morrigan watched them with feigned disinterest, the shrewdness in her gaze having only grown more intense since she drank from the well. It wasn’t like Josie to be so rude and they all stared at her. “We cannot afford to be defenseless and he is a steadfast ally.”
“You want me to let a foreign power inside my gates?” Lin asked, frowning. Josephine frowned back.
“Technically, you are the foreign power. This is still Ferelden land, as much as everyone seems to have ignoring our presence before now.” Lin’s mouth twisted unpleasantly at the words but didn’t argue. “I know that it isn’t ideal. You are understandably protective of Skyhold. But King Alistair wants to prevent another Haven at all costs and he’s right to do so.” Lin glanced at Solas and Cassandra, both stone-faced. Banked irritation had a muscle in Solas’s tight jaw jumping. Cassandra worked the pommel of her sword between her thumb and forefinger, a nervous habit.
“What if he doesn’t want to leave?” Lin protested. “What if this is just a foothold to weaken us? It’s no secret that the men who helped raise him are hardly friendly towards the Inquisition.”
“Arl Eamon and Bann Teagan are not making these decisions. Leliana has been willing to vouch for Alistair, if that assuages any worries.”
“It doesn’t,” Lin muttered. She trusted Leliana the most out of any of the humans here but it was stretching belief to think that she could leverage her friendship with the king into giving up a foothold he had claimed. It was rumored that most of the kingdom’s decisions were made by his queen and the Hero of River Dane’s daughter would never flinch.
“I’m afraid it is unavoidable. I don’t foresee any other way to preserve life in the case of a direct assault,” Cassandra told her, looking decidedly unhappy about it herself.
“Didn’t you tell me Skyhold was unlikely to face a direct assault?” Lin asked. She glared at Solas. “What about you? You told me Skyhold could weather almost anything.”
“Skyhold can,” he replied with the air of endless patience that just inflamed her annoyance. “Her population may not be so lucky.” Lin sighed in irritation, the heel of her foot thumping down. It wasn’t a spoiled child’s stomp but it was a near thing.
Solas scoffed quietly, more an exhale than a laugh. “That must be a game you learned in his bed for you certainly never learned it in mine,” he said under his breath in Elvhen. Lin blinked at him, shocked out of her temper. He closed his eyes with a short shake of his head, regret clear on his face. Lin, in contrast, was delighted.
“Ir abel--”
“Maybe I would have acted up if I thought you could put me down,” she replied sweetly in Elvhen. The look in his eyes changed from regret to challenge in a moment. If he wanted to take the gloves off, she could play that game just as well.
Their attention was caught by a soft cough just behind Cassandra. Morrigan had her fist curled before her lips but if she meant it to hide her smile, she failed. Solas and Lin glanced at each other and then away, though she didn’t think she was imagining the color high on his cheeks.
"Fine," Lin said to the assembled group, fighting down her own blush. "Do what needs doing. But I want a faction of mages on the move tomorrow morning to see if they can't help get our people home faster." She felt several pairs of eyes on her back as she beat an expeditious retreat.
It was late afternoon when she began to walk the ramparts. Tarasyl’an Tel’as was hers, she felt it in her soul, and something about reminding herself of that always centered her. She’d never had a stationary home before and hadn’t expected to find one within squat Ferelden walls. She slowed when she turned the corner behind the Herald’s Rest and saw a familiar form overlooking the garden from the base of the mage tower.
Lin approached him easily. This was her fortress, after all. He was standing with his wrists crossed as they rested on his lower back, his shoulders as square as any soldier’s. His posture was painfully correct and he surveyed Skyhold’s garden and courtyard like a general examining a battlefield. “See anything interesting?” Lin asked.
His lips twitched as he looked at her, his posture never shifting. “Always,” Solas said, voice heavy with meaning. Annoyance at his gall and delight at his praise warred within her. His gaze turned back to Skyhold. “This is a dedicated army you have acquired. Are you proud of it?”
Lin perched delicately on the wall at Solas’s side, her back to the courtyard as she faced the blinding white of the snowy mountaintop. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure it’s me they’re loyal to. They love their Herald of Andraste, whoever she is. They do love their commander, though.”
“Ah,” Solas said, an unspoken laugh in his voice. “Their commander is generally adored, I find.”
“Meaning?” she asked, fighting off irritation.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard; much of Skyhold is delighted by your new choice of partner. The Orlesians find it bland as neither of you come from noble birth but the servants are abuzz and dreaming of wedding bells. They believe that it will come quickly on the heels of Corypheus’s defeat.” She didn’t know what to say to that, frowning out at the snow. She didn’t want to care what they thought. The two were silent for long moments, the wind whistling through the arrow slits below and buffeting their clothes as they stood above. “How do you see this ending?” he asked eventually. “This thing of yours with Cullen?”
“Ending?” she echoed, pulled out of her thoughts.
“I presume it will. Unless you’re actually considering marriage?”
Lin laughed, a sharp thing that hurt her throat as it left her. “Marry a shem? A templar? You of all people know me better than that. You think I’ll give him human children?” She could never be that honest with anyone but him. She had seen enough shocked and disapproving looks to know that. Solas didn’t so much as twitch. “This isn’t serious. It’s just a bit of fun. I know you’re allergic to that.”
Solas lowered his gaze. “I am—”
“Don’t you fucking dare apologize to me,” she snapped. “You don’t mean it. You’d do it again, we both know it, so I don’t want to hear it.” Silence fell again until she offered blithely, “He is actually good in bed. Better than I expected. He’s generous and sweet.”
Solas’s sideways glance was knowing. “And you just want him to pull your hair and fuck you until you’re too hoarse to scream.” She suppressed a shiver at the word leaving his mouth. He rarely swore in Common but she had beautifully filthy memories of the few times she’d heard that word on his lips.
“He’d try if I asked,” Lin said, knowing she was practically pouting, “but his heart wouldn’t be in it. I should have gone to Bull but I thought Dorian might object.”
“You could still ask,” Solas suggested, as if they were discussing a daytime stroll. “It’s not as if it’s unheard of for a couple to take a third to bed.”
“Well, I can’t now,” she argued. “It would hurt Cullen’s feelings.”
He turned his head to give her a curious look. Lin kept her gaze on the snow but could see him in her periphery. “Why do you care? ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’”
“I can’t have my commander distracted or stepping down. There’s no one to replace him with.” It sounded so callous coming out of her mouth but it was the truth. Cullen loved her and she mostly found it inconvenient and pathetic by turns. She sighed heavily, finally meeting his eye. “We’re poison, aren’t we, you and I? Everything around us just… withers. The only people immune to us is each other.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that after I so thoroughly poisoned what we had.”
“If you did, would I be standing here? You’re still the only one here who’s never looked at me like I’m some half-feral monster, like a demon impersonating their beloved Inquisitor.”
“Then I suppose the question is, are you poison or are they? I would not have you be less than you are for anyone, even me.”
“If I hadn’t been Inquisitor, would you still have left me?” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, certainly not with such a plaintive tone, and the pang of rejection hit her again when he gave a sharp shake of his head.
“I cannot have this conversation with you.”
She caught his arm as he started to move away. He stilled, even as she put herself into his space. They weren’t touching aside from her hand at her elbow but their chests were less than an inch apart, their mouths equally close.
“Lindiranae,” he warned in that tone that always made her shiver.
“I know you still love me. I know you still want me. Why won’t you let yourself have me?”
“You have given yourself to another. If you wish to be unfaithful, that is your own affair.”
Lin reached up with her left hand to run shaky fingers along his clenched jaw. “The only one I’ve been unfaithful to is you. You still have my heart.”
Solas shook his head jerkily and then he was on her, pressing her back against the ramparts and kissing her for all he was worth. She kissed him back immediately, wrapping her arms around his neck to keep him close even as he urged her closer with a hand on her lower back. It was by this hold that she managed to stay kissing him even as he lifted her around his hips, one hand on each thigh, and carried her into the shadow of the mage tower. He murmured apologies when her head hit the stone wall and she caught his jaw in her hand. “Don’t you fucking apologize to me.”
Solas surged out of her grip to kiss her hard again, her hand falling down against his back. She dug her nails in but if he felt it through his clothes, he gave no sign. She felt him harden against her, knew that he could take her like this if he wished to. It was daylight still; there were dozens of people in the tower just behind and the watch, loyal to her but also to Cullen, walked the walls regularly. Still, she was tempted to beg for it. How this brilliant, infuriating, heartbreaking man could still make her lose her head like this was beyond her.
He, at least, had more sense. Tearing himself away from her, he took several steps back. “You know better. I know better.”
“Maybe I need a reminder. Maybe I need to be taught a lesson.” She had meant for it to come out playfully; instead, she heard the edge of desperation in it in her own ears. He was going to walk away again and she knew it.
Solas stared at her for long seconds, both of them hearing the approaching footsteps that would round the corner of the mage tower in moments. Solas turned from her sharply, stalking down the ramparts and down the garden stairs. The watchman seemed startled to turn the corner and see her standing there, clothes just barely put to rights. “Worship,” he greeted politely before continuing on his way.
She had never been good at accepting a no. It was probably her worst failing. Lin gave it three days, had gone to bed with Cullen (so gentle, so sweet, so adoring) twice, before she went looking for Solas in his narrow room sometime after the watch called midnight.
There was a magical lock on the door, one he had taught her to set and disable over a year ago now. It lifted silently and she slipped inside. Lin had barely made it two steps before his eyes opened. Even in the dim light, she could make out his scowl as he sat up. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“No, I shouldn’t.”
Lin straddled his lap before he could move to avoid her, cupping his face in her hands as she kissed him. It was sweeter than what they’d shared before and she wasn’t here for sweet. She tilted his head up to deepen the kiss, to make it filthy, to make it clear why she was here. His hands fisted in the back of her sleep shift as hers moved from his face to his bare shoulders, fingers catching on the leather strap of his necklace. “Did you come here in just this?” he asked, voice a sleep-rough growl. “Walking through all of Skyhold half-bare?”
“Tarasyl’an Tel’as is mine. I can do as I wish.”
“And you wish to haunt its corridors at night to come to me. What if you were seen?”
“I wasn’t.”
“What if it was someone more loyal to Cullen than you, someone who reported what they’d seen?”
“I’d lie.”
He kissed her like he couldn’t help himself, like she was his only lifeline. It was a feeling she knew well. It was the primary reason she was there. It wasn’t about the sex and never had been. He was the last tether she had. He was the only reason she hadn’t already spun out into the Void with no one to catch her.
Lin went up on her knees to pull her sleep shift over her head, Solas’s hands sliding to her bare waist. “You are perfect,” he murmured against her skin, pressing kisses to her collarbone and lower to her breasts. She ran light fingers back and forth over his neck, feeling the muscles move under them.
“You don’t think I’m a bad person?” she asked, half afraid to hear his answer. Solas pulled away from her skin to look her in the eye in the dim light.
“I am the last person to have any right to judge you. But you are fierce and powerful and committed to the People. You are going to save this world, not because you owe them anything, but because you know it is right. What you do in your personal life pales in significance to who you are.”
“Ar lath ma,” Lin said, guiding his lips back to hers. She repeated it between kisses until his hands slipped from her waist to her bare ass. He snarled against her lips.
“It is bad enough that you came to me in just that scrap of fabric but to forgo even smallclothes.”
“I wanted you in me,” she said with a pointed roll of her hips. “I still do.” Solas kissed her again, nipping her bottom lip until she gasped at the sharp pain-pleasure of it. He maneuvered her back onto her knees over him and slipped his fingers over her ass and between her legs. Lin whimpered, her legs held wide by his hips. She held onto his shoulders as she leaned down slightly to kiss him again. Two fingers slipped inside her easily and she moaned against his mouth. When he spread them slightly, she broke of the kiss with a whimper, dropping her forehead to his shoulder
“You are dripping, my heart,” he whispered into her ear, his heated breath tickling her neck. “Is it for me?”
“Always.”
“Not always,” he corrected curtly. “I know what you have found in the bed of another.”
“I spend most of my time with him wishing it was you,” she admitted with more than a twinge of guilt. “He’s a good man but the way you make me feel...”
“I should not want to hear that and yet I do.”
“Possessive,” she accused weakly and he moved his fingers deeper inside her.
“I know I’ve no right to it but the thought of him touching you, kissing you, fucking you makes me want to kill him. You are mine.”
“Body and soul,” she told him. Her knees shook as he curled his fingers inside her, rubbing firmly at her walls.
“Show me then. Touch yourself.”
Her fingers moved to her clit in an instant, biting her lip to keep from moaning when he pulled his fingers from her. It was in jerky, aborted movements that he pulled his clothes down enough to bare his cock. With one hand on it and the other on her hip, he guided her down until it slipped inside of her. Lin shook at the feeling of it, hand leaving her clit to balance herself on his shoulder.
“Did I tell you to stop?”
“No.”
He caught her wrist when she went to touch herself again. Moving it behind her back as she settled fully on his cock, he snagged the other one and brought them together. With a casualness that had her toes curling, Solas summoned ice to bind her wrists together. “You will tell me if it begins to hurt,” he commanded and she nodded. How she had missed this.
Lin attempted to move, to ride him, but without her hands, the movement was slow and disjointed. It was enough to send her desire spiraling higher but it would never be enough to get her off. For his part, Solas seemed to be enjoying watching her struggle. “You might have come already if you had done what I asked.”
“Please,” slipped from her mouth before she could stop it. Begging was beneath her; he usually had to work much harder to get it out of her.
“No,” he snapped. Her thighs quivered. “You will come on my cock or not at all.” A shudder ran through her whole body and she had to bite her lip to keep her pleas unspoken. He was not without pity, though. He shifted his hips, sinking further inside her. Then he began to help her move by his grip on her hips. As her thighs flexed, he held her steady, pulling her down hard onto him. His cock moved in her in short hard thrusts, like he was using her body to get himself off.
She was distantly aware of the sounds she was making, the soft pants and whines as he used her. When he gave a particularly hard thrust, she gasped. She watched his face with unfocused eyes, wishing that she could balance herself on his chest, that he would throw her on her back, something that would get him deep enough with enough pressure on her clit to actually get her off. It was torture and she never wanted to be anywhere else.
“You said that you never played the brat for me because you didn’t think I could put you down,” Solas reminded her, sounding barely out of breath. “Have you reconsidered? Or did you just not want to admit that you knew my punishment would be just that?”
“I wanted to be good for you,” she gasped out, too loud in the quiet room. “I wanted you to hurt me but I didn’t want you to be upset with me, even in play. Everyone else spends so much time mad at me, for who I am, for who I’m not. I couldn’t take that from you.”
Lin almost sobbed when Solas pulled her down hard on him and held her there. “Please, please,” she mumbled. He shushed her and she felt water trickle down over her palms and drip off her fingers. Her wrists were free but she didn’t move them.
Solas helped her off of him, ignoring her quiet protests as he laid her down on her back. Hooking her knee over his elbow, he moved into place on his knees and shoved inside in one clean move. Lin bit her fist to keep from screaming. This was what she had been after, she thought as he fucked her hard. This is what she had been missing.
“My love,” he murmured. “My sweet girl.” Tears formed in her eyes and she blinked them back. “My heart.”
After so long on the edge, it didn’t take much to send her over the edge. Solas’s right hand skated over the flat plane of her belly, tickling and teasing. It was barely more than a brush of his thumb over her clit that had her clenching down around him, her body shaking as she came. She pressed his thin blanket to her mouth to muffle the loud moan that tore itself from her throat as he continued to move inside her.
It was just approaching the edge of too much when he stilled and came inside her. Solas rested his head on her collarbone for a few long moments before he pulled out, ignoring her whimper as he did. Her hands were still above her head, fingers interlocked. He hadn’t put them there but she had wanted to be good. He smiled down at her, a soft thing that always made her feel like she was the center of his world. Pressing a kiss to both hands, he pulled them down so they rested on her stomach before he stood. Solas shushed her when she protested, scooping her up in his arms like she weighed nothing before placing her back down facing the right way with her head where his pillow would be. They had knocked it to the ground in their exertions.
“Head up,” he ordered and slid the pillow underneath her head when she obeyed. “Good girl.” When he laid back on the bed with her, she threw her arm around him and buried her face in his neck.
“Thank you,” she whispered, so very aware of his spend drying tacky on her thighs. He held her close and didn’t reply. “Thank you for never looking at me like I’m some broken thing.” The muscles in his arms flexed as he pulled her further onto his chest, cradling her body like he’d done so many times.
Dawn came far too quickly, even when its only light was seeping through a window that was more arrow slit than anything else. Lin woke early from years of habit, her hair stuck to her face with their sweat. She needed a bath more than she had since she returned from the Fallow Mire but it was worth it to wake to that face.
Solas slept for a while more before blinking awake. He inhaled deeply, slowly, before looking down at her. “Hello,” he said, a hint of amusement in his eyes.
“Hi,” she said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Skyhold is awake now,” he pointed out. She was about to ask why that mattered when he said, “I imagine you will not go about your day in what you wore here.” Her eyes widened when she remembered and she buried her face in his chest again. “I can retrieve something for you. There is still the risk of you being seen leaving my room but it is better than you walking out wearing something of mine.”
“This was stupid,” Lin muttered. “I didn’t think...”
“Yes,” Solas agreed easily.
She sat up suddenly, the sheet falling down to her hips as she looked down at him. “We shouldn’t have to sneak around. I love you. Everyone knows I love you. If you had never called it off, I wouldn’t have gone to him.”
“I did not make you--”
“Why don’t you trust me?”
All the fight in him fled, the annoyance on his face fading away in an instant. He reached up to touch her face, her hair, and she leaned into it. “I do trust you, my heart. I don’t trust myself. If last night taught me anything, it’s that I will always accidentally hurt you.”
“That’s bullshit,” she snapped. “That’s an excuse. Whatever burden you carry is mine too, whether you like it or not.”
“I will tell you,” he vowed. “One day, I will tell you everything. There will be no secrets between us. But until that day, you belong to the Inquisition.” Solas sat up and kissed her. It was a sweet and soft thing that for once didn’t make her want to run. “You are theirs for a while longer yet. They love you. Your commander loves you. When this is over, you can cut those ties as you choose. But know I will love you until my last breath.”
She said nothing, only watching as he dressed silently and slipped out of the door without a backwards glance.
Lin knew before her eyes even opened that something was wrong.
Skyhold had only grown quieter in the months since Corypheus’s defeat. The Inquisition still stood but much of its army had disbanded. Those who remained had largely moved to the village down-mountain. When she was awakened that night by the jarring wrongness in her room, she could hear nothing from the outside. Not the watch, not the call of owls, not any sign of life. Kitten’s rumbling vocalizations broke the silence and Lin moved to sit up.
When she felt a body press in close behind her and a hand clamp down tight over her mouth in the darkness, she fought back on instinct. The presence at her back pulled her back against him, one hand still stopping her from screaming. Lin struggled to turn around and summoned her fire, willing to set both of them alight to get free. She froze when she saw familiar blue eyes by that light, going lax under his hands. When the fight left her, he released her. Dismissing her fire with a flick of her fingers, she threw herself to her feet.
“What the fuck are you doing here?!” she demanded to know. “You’ve been gone for months and this is how you come to me?!”
“Ir abelas,” Solas said, voice rough with exertion like he’d ran a marathon to get to her. “I could not let you scream and we have little time.”
“We?” she repeated, glaring. “You left me.”
“Yes,” he said, weathering her anger. “And I am deeply sorry for it. I had little choice. I am here now to right that wrong. Will you come with me?”
“Where?”
It was hard to read his face in the dim light, the moon casting long shadows behind him. Solas stood and took her hand. His thumb brushed over her knuckles and she tried to still their shaking. “I know that you have very good reason not to trust me. I have hurt you. But if you come with me now, I will tell you everything. I will tell you of my past and of our future.”
His touch still made her shiver and she longed to be in his arms. She kept her distance, swallowing thickly. “Why does that sound like I’m never coming back here?”
“You would not, not for a long while. Perhaps not ever again,” Solas said regretfully.
“And if I say no, I’ll never see you again, will I?”
“I doubt it. This was my only chance to see you. I would not be here otherwise.”
Lin’s mind raced. Leave everything behind in the middle of the night? Just disappear? Could she do that to her people? She looked at Solas, waiting patiently for a response. But the Inquisition had never been her people, had they? She had been their symbol and their savior but what had they given back? A devotion she never asked for and a responsibility she should never have been forced to shoulder. She took a step back and after a moment, he stepped forward.
“Come, my heart,” he said quietly, drawing her gently after him with her fingers still in his. Kitten croaked softly and rose from her bed. The three of them traveled like ghosts through the silent halls, the doors echoing loudly in the empty spaces. She thought she heard a voice when Solas opened the door to the garden but found it empty. Adrenaline still sent shivers through her, her heart pounding loudly in her ears. She wasn’t sure why she was so terrified they’d be caught.
They avoided the light though she still didn’t see a watchman on the walls. Lin realized with a jolt that she knew where they were heading.
The door to the Eluvian had been locked tight and enchanted. Even from a distance, she could feel the jagged remains of the spell. It hadn’t been lifted so much as punched through. The magic buzzed on her skin as they got closer, reaching still to do its work as it faded.
“Lin?"
She turned sharply, her hand slipping from Solas’s. Cullen stood at the door to the garden. It had been his voice she’d heard before. He looked at her wide-eyed, fear on his face. She glanced behind her and saw that Solas had activated the Eluvian, the light of it glinting off armor she had only felt against her back but not seen. The kaleidoscope of colors swirled and danced over the silverite, the fineness of the fur at his shoulder clear in its light. He looked… different. He looked like the coiled power she had always felt in him but never witnessed. He wasn’t the Solas she had known, he was the one she had been denied until then.
Kitten darted through the Eluvian, her opinion clear. Lin looked back to Cullen, who had overcome his shock and was crossing the garden quickly. Clear as day, she heard her mother’s voice in her ear. “If you see a templar, da’vhenan, you run. You don’t look back.” She hesitated for a moment but just one.
She ran to Solas, his hand outstretched for her with one foot already across the threshold. Grabbing onto his hand like a lifeline, she let herself be pulled through.