#dreadomen

Raven watched the magic pulse from her fingertips in awe, feeling no resistance or strain as it flowed. “This is incredible,” she murmured to her mirror image. 

“You are no longer commanding the Fade, but enticing it,” Solas explained, adjusting her arms from where he stood behind her. “It is a living extension of magic itself, and it responds well to encouragement—similarly to others I know.” He cocked an amused eyebrow at her in the mirror and she laughed, attempting to conceal the blush rising to her cheeks. She failed. Solas’s heart thrummed with a giddy kind of affection at the sight. It took him by surprise yet again—ages built by self-inflicted tragedy had all but eliminated the memory of feelings as kind as these. Raven had resurrected them in a feat he thought wholly impossible. 

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Solas,” she tittered, a sweet defiance ever-present in her gleaming blue eyes. 

“Mm,” he hummed, ghosting his fingertips along her arms. Her shiver would have been imperceptible to the untrained eye, but his observation of her in their time spent together was extensive, and he was certain that he would be able to recognize even an oncoming upset stomach in her before she did. A smirk tugged at the corners of his lips as an idea took form. 

“Since you are having relative success with this new technique—” he leaned in close, his lips brushing the shell of her ear, “—let us test your concentration.” Her blush deepened significantly and he chuckled, the fondness he felt for her gnawing at his chest, a hungry beast, never to be fully sated. She was far easier to tease than she had ever been to intimidate. 

“It…may need some work,” she giggled, tilting her head to give him access to her neck, which he seized greedily, pulling a gasp from her lips as he nipped the skin there. 

“Humility does not suit you, vhenan,” he murmured into the crook of her neck as his arms enfolded her. 

“Humility suits everyone,” she chided gently. Her voice was delectably breathy and he glanced up at her reflection to find her lidded eyes already on him. 

He grinned against her skin. “Pull on your magic again, ean’sulahn.”

“Solas,” she warned, but in the absence of malice, it sounded more like a pout. 

He huffed a laugh into the crook of her neck and trailed a line of open-mouthed kisses there, drinking in the scent of her—the taste of her. Honeyed spice and lavender. She shook her head, the ghost of a chuckle rumbling through her, but humored him anyway and threaded her magic through her fingers, forming an orb of necrotic energy above her head. 

Solas purred his approval onto the nape of her neck and rewarded her with another line of kisses, worrying the skin at her shoulder blade between his teeth as he passed. Her quiet gasp only spurred him on, his fingers trailing the hem of her skirt with the kind of restraint he had only his millenia-long life of patience to thank for. His lips found her spine and she shuddered, much to his delight. “Shall I test you?” Her breath heaved beneath his touch and he grinned, already knowing the answer but needing desperately to hear her agreement. 

Raven lifted her skirt above his fingers playfully. “Do your worst.” He laughed as he sank to his knees behind her, glancing around her hips to meet her eyes in the mirror. 

“Oh, da'ean, my worst may unmake you.”

She smirked at him and spun the orb around her hand. “Then may the Dread Wolf unmake me.” 

Not one to waste an invitation, he rose, rounding her like prey, then kneeled before her with all the reverence she had earned—not taken—earned. Not a moment after, he found himself rocking her skirt up around her hips and tracing the waistline of her small-clothes with his fingers until they met the ties at the front. He drew closer, nudging the ties with his nose. “Thread the light again,” he murmured, his eyes falling closed as the scent of her arousal met his eager exploration. 

Raven complied, weaving strands of light into tendrils that circled them both, flowing seamlessly from the Fade to the physical. “Very good,” Solas breathed against her and Raven shifted above him, her legs squeezing together. “Still unaware of what I speak of, da'ean?” He grinned, taking great pleasure in her squirming. 

She shot him a withering glare and he laughed, holding her gaze as he took the end of that pretty little bow, the only thing left separating him from her, between his teeth. When she realized what he had in mind, all irritation in her face melted into a scalding heat that sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine. He tugged the tie free, relishing in the way her lips parted as he moved. Above them, the strands of her magic flickered. 

“Concentrate, vhenan,” he hummed, the sound morphing into a low groan when his nose found her curls. 

“This hardly simulates my usual state during battle, Solas.” Raven gasped when his fingers found her slit, a broken sound following as he dipped one between her folds to sample her arousal. 

“You must be prepared for any kind of distraction.” His voice was hoarse and so laden with desire that it surprised him. He tugged her small-clothes the rest of the way down, finding his patience beginning to wear thin. He was aching for her, his trousers already becoming uncomfortably tight in the wake of his fervor. 

She smirked down at him and he let out a groan, the twinkle in her eyes enticing and concerning in equal measure. He could not hope to escape her retaliation now, for his heart had seen his desire. And when her hips canted ever so slightly, bringing her core that much closer to his tingling lips, he began to wonder who the predator truly was. 

“You are meant to be practicing your magic, da'ean,” he chided, fingers tapping against her slit. She jumped, then moaned, her fingers coming to rest on his head as she wobbled. 

“And you are meant to be testing my concentration, my love, not my constitution.” She giggled, halfway between lust-addled and ludicrously fond, and the very foundations of Solas’s being shook in response. 

“Vhenan,” he murmured, unmoored by her gentle love for him. 

“Solas, please,” she breathed, the pad of her thumb brushing over his scalp in tenuous, restrained lines. “My love, please.” 

When he pressed his nose to her clit and allowed his tongue to gather a taste of her, she shuddered, deep and long, and her fingers found purchase on his shoulders. Her magic fizzled into nothing as his tongue traced slow circles around her opening, his nose nudging her swollen bud with each pass. He groaned into her wet heat, the heavy blend of salt and musk sending his greater sensibilities reeling as he drank her in. 

“Yes, yes,” she canted above him, hand lurching out to steady herself on the mirror's edge. 

Using more self-discipline than he had believed he still possessed, he paused, and she whined, bucking her hips in search of the friction. But he pulled back and gazed up at her, a wicked gleam in his eye. He would remind her who the predator was. “Wield your magic, da'ean.” 

“Solas,” she huffed, arching a disapproving eyebrow at him. 

“Would you like for me to continue?”

“Quite obviously.”

“Then thread the light, and concentrate.”

She glared down at him for several moments longer, but when she found no trace of relenting in his eyes, she acquiesced him and drew in the cords of light once more from the Fade. In defiance, she wrapped them around him, the threads pulling taut against his trousers where the evidence of his arousal jumped in response to the pressure. A moan ripped free from him before he managed to temper it and he pressed his thumb down on her clit in retaliation. 

She nearly crumpled, crying out as he circled the bud with maddening precision. “You should observe your progress, ean'sulahn,” he chuckled, tapping the glass behind him with his free hand. 

“Solas,” she whimpered, fingers trembling as they held tight to her magic. The threads began to crumple under the pressure and his fingers came to a halt, prompting another pitiful cry from above him. 

“Do it the right way,” he reminded her. “You are fighting the natural flow again.” 

“Urgh,” she grunted, flexing her hand. The strands began to smooth again and he nodded in approval. 

“Better.” 

His tongue rejoined his fingers and he pushed into her tightening hole, the heat of her nearly sending him over the edge untouched. Her hips snapped forward and he hummed, sending vibrations up through her as his tongue plundered her in a punishing rhythm. Each mewl and cry of his name was more beautiful to him than the last; his little songbird, singing his praises. 

But it was not enough—having enough of her was an ideal too lofty to consider conceivable—he wished to see her, to watch her come apart for him the way she had done before. His eyes required proof of her heart's surrender. When he pulled away from her, she whined—a sound so pitiable that his chest tightened. He shushed her gently, rising to capture her lips with his own, sharing with her the gift that was her own arousal. 

She moaned into his mouth—acceptance; appreciation. He tasted it on her tongue and groaned his thanks.

He busied his fingers with unlacing the bindings of her lace-bound blouse, eager to feel the rest of her skin against his own once more—a blessing he did not deserve, but she deemed fit to bestow on him nonetheless. ‘It matters not what we deserve, Solas,’ she had said, time and time again. ‘It is a gift, one given freely, without the expectation of anything in return.’ He would not leave her wanting. He would give her everything.

In turn, her hands found his waistband and pulled his tunic free of it, pushing it up until he had to part from her—a tragedy he would not readily repeat—to wrench it free. The last turn of her blouse's string was pulled loose and he wasted little time pushing it off of her shoulders to be discarded somewhere behind her. She panted into his mouth as he palmed her breasts, heavy and pliable in his hands, and he drank in every breath, for if perhaps he took in enough of her air, she would be bound to him forever. 

He felt the strings of his slacks loosen and come apart before dropping away. Her fingers tugged impatiently on the laces of his small-clothes and brushed against his hardened bulge as she fumbled. He sucked in a sharp breath and she giggled against his lips. He did not believe in a Maker, but for her, he might begin. 

When at last, nothing separated them, he held her against him and buried his nose in the crook of her shoulder, relishing in the way her arms looped around his neck and pulled him closer with no hesitation. “Vhenan,” he mumbled against her skin. She tightened her hold.

“My sweet love,” she murmured, shivering gloriously when he raked his fingernails gently down her spine. Slowly, he pulled back, gazing down into her blue eyes with an ache so deep that he nearly felt whole again. She smiled up at him, her eyes full of light and trust, and in that moment, he needed her to see it too. 

He turned her by the hips until she faced the mirror before them. She looked away. Solas frowned. Did she not take pleasure in her own image? Was she still incapable of seeing herself the way he saw her? Tenderly, he cupped the point of her chin and turned her gaze back to herself. “Ma vhenan, ma dirth-na ina'lan'ehn? Do you see not your own beauty?” 

Raven smiled shyly at him from the mirror. “I see yours.” 

“Then you see your own,” he insisted. “For I am only beautiful because of you. Satha,” he implored, fingers digging into her hips. “Allow me to show you.” Her eyes spoke of long-learned hesitancy, but she nodded, blessing him once more with her trust, and he lifted the underside of her knee into one of his palms, pulling her apart for him. She gasped at the new sensation and hooked an arm up and back around his neck to steady herself. Her folds were parted, revealing her swollen nub to him once more, and he sought it out determinedly, his thumb moving to circle it as he plunged his fingers back into her heat. 

She cried out at the sudden intrusion and her head fell back against his shoulder. Her hips bucked as his fingers made small circles within her walls. “Vhenan,” he hummed against her skin, and she raised her head, her eyes locking on the mirror as his digits stretched her wider. “Sa’ath? Ma venas.” 

“Solas,” she moaned, grasping the nape of his neck like a lifeline. “Please, I need you. I need—ungh.” Her words tapered into needy whines, but he understood nonetheless, relinquishing his hold on her only to turn her to face him and lift her into his arms. She yelped, then laughed, littering kisses across his face as he pressed her back to the mirror. He grinned into the attention, accepting her love with all the sanity of a madman, and canted his hips, letting his length drag along her slit as he adjusted his hold on her. 

She choked on a sigh, letting her forehead drop against his. His gaze met her own, adoration in full relief on his face; gratefully, hers mirrored it with a yearning that stole his breath. As he aligned himself with her entrance, her lips parted, and he took them like an invitation, leading a dance with his tongue that she followed as though they had been practicing for centuries. The feeling of her walls welcoming him nearly sent him reeling—a molten heat that he was not certain he would ever get to feel again. 

He bit down on her plush bottom lip to steady himself as he lowered her inch by inch. They groaned into each other's mouths once she was seated to the hilt, a blooming need settling over them both—a need they had not indulged in too long. She nuzzled his nose with her own and a breathy laugh escaped him. “Ma vhenan, ma ane garas iluvan.” 

She giggled and pressed closer, her amusement blending with a throaty hum when the movement adjusted his length inside of her. “I still don't know elven,” she whispered, a blinding grin on her lips. 

“I will teach you,” he groaned, nipping those teasing lips. 

“Perhaps not right now,” she chuckled. 

“No, perhaps not.” 

Raven kissed him, then; soft and tender, enough to bring a tear to his eye as he lifted her up, only to let her sink back down onto him. Pleasure exploded behind his eyes and he grunted, moving to bite her shoulder. “Yes, Solas,” she panted, her fingernails raking down his back as he found a rhythm. “So good.” 

They moved together as one, clinging to one another as though what they shared was the last lifeline remaining of this world—and was it not? She arched into him, mewling as he snapped his hips up to meet hers time and again, her moans doing little to drown out the slap of skin against skin and the wetness squelching between them. 

He was lost to her, vision darkening, pride dampened—silenced, if only for tonight, in favor of her song; their song. The crumbling world outside the Lighthouse mattered little to him now, the machinations of Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain seeming small by comparison. He would regain his sense come morning, he was certain. But as she shuddered in his arms and found her peak on his cock, sending him spiraling into his own love-drunk release, he saw no reason to concern himself with anything else. Let them rule. Raven belonged to him.

~

"Vhenan." His grip tightened around her; his heart, his world, his wife and soulmate-bonded for far more years than a mortal should ever have been allowed. But what was he meant to do? Gracefully let her slip away? After the anguish and hardship they had suffered to live peacefully? No, he had clung to her, harder each day—kisses lingering until the taste of her carried on his tongue for hours, imprints of his fingerprints in the wrinkled slack of her aging skin, and glowing smiles amidst the strain of a body far too old, yet still so young within.

She was ready. He was not.

Would he ever be? 'No,' he thought, pulling the blanket tighter around them both as the world eased into violets and blues—a perfect compliment to his eyes, she always said. 'To be ready to lose her is a feat greater than any man could bear, let alone one as selfish as I.' And yet, he knew the inevitable. He had seen it at work in the ages that had stretched before his ancient eyes. It was a snake, slithering in the high grass; known yet unseen until the moment it struck, and then—

"I can feel your mind racing, ma lath," she huffed, a rasping chuckle following the sound.

"I know not what you mean, ean'sulahn," he murmured, not ready yet to voice his fears, his lips gracing the silk of her silvery hair; committing the texture once more to memory, as if it were not so wholly ingrained in his being that it accompanied his every word and whisper.

"Solas." His name came with a gentle warning; an expectation of honesty from a woman who'd long since deserved much more. "I know you are afraid." Void, how could this woman always so easily cut to the heart of him? And how was he meant to live without her? To return to the agony of solitude after so long in blissful co-partnership? What spirit in the Fade would not warp and twist into Despair at his mere presence without her by his side? How cruel this fate!

She turned in his arms, brittle bones creaking and paper-thin skin tugging in his grasp, and pressed a shaking kiss to the underside of his jaw. And all at once, his composure was lost, like the wind whisking a leaf from the safety of its branch and tossing it into the abyss. His body shuddered deeply and jerked as sobs poured from his mouth like cries for help, his wails dispelling the wildlife that lingered around their shared home. The weak press of her body against his strengthened, just enough to remind him that she had not gone yet, and he turned his head down to capture her chapped lips with his own, anchoring himself to her and whatever time she had left. Tears slicked the skin between them and it was only then that he realized she was crying too.

“Ma vhenan, ma venemah’na in ga sulahn et bartuasha. Banal’halam, ma lath. Na’ma bell’anar’is.” The words were pressed against her skin, as so many had been before them. All promises. All kept. All to carry forward.

She nuzzled close, her breath more staggered than he had ever heard it before as he clutched her to his chest. “Ma bell’anar’is eal’na. Ma vhenan eal’na. Ma sal’shiral eal’mar. Bell’ana. Ar lath ma.”

In the dimming light of dusk, his love’s spirit journeyed to the Fade in his absence for the first time in nearly two centuries, and he curled around the cooling warmth she’d left behind, weeping into the silken strands of her soft, silvery hair.

~

fin

Elvhen Translations:

- Ma vhenan, ma venemah’na in ga sulahn et bartuasha. Banal’halam, ma lath. Na’ma bell’anar’is = My heart, I will find you in every song and bud/new growth. Your soul, essence, and memory will live in me, my love. You are my eternity.

“Solas,” she moaned softly, her own fingers following the path he preferred to take with his tongue. She had time; hours til the dawn. Her exhaustion weighed heavy on her, but she wore it with familiarity by now. It was nothing she could not handle. 

She knew what came next: the end. 

All that remained was what she could no longer control. It was up to them; her companions, her enemies, and her lover. She had laid the foundation as well as she could, still burning from the failures she escaped in the prison. Mere hours ago, she was still trapped there, reasoning with her own consciousness and the well of regret that came with being a prisoner of the Dread Wolf's machinations. 

She had escaped, but she missed him. She knew where he was. She knew how to find him once the sun rose. But the morrow would bring a finality that even she could not guarantee. Would she ever rest in Solas’s arms again? She did not know. She could not know. 

So, in a last, desperate bid to remind herself of what they shared, she imagined him there with her, his mouth weaving poetry into her wet heat as his fingers dug so deeply into the thick of her thighs that there would be ten little bruises that she would hide with leather and cloth when she arose to the world around her. 

“I need… I need—please!” she murmured, shaking as she slipped her fingers inside, circling her clit with her thumb—just like he taught her. Pleasure had not been a foreign concept to her, but despite her background as a musician, she had little musicality with her own body. But Solas. Solas strummed the strings of her figure as though he had been studying to play her for years. 

Perhaps he had.

She knew it was a possibility—a likelihood, even—that his love had been a calculated undoing. It was her weakness. He knew that. She had handed it to him with eyes that knew better than to trust what she saw. Knowledge that could cleave the world in half and still, she rested her heart in his capable hands and let him close his fingers around it. Perhaps he never loved her at all. The thought came, unbidden, and she choked on a sob, fingers still buried knuckle deep in her pulsing cunt. 

“Ean’sulahn?” 

The voice startled her; so real, so corporeal. Their blood connection was broken, she knew. She no longer had a cord within her mind that led to wherever he stood. It had severed the moment she said goodbye to Varric. So that is why, when the voice comes again, she is more suspicious than relieved. 

“Vhenan? Is it you that I feel?”

It sounded like Solas, and Maker if that didn’t fray the edges of her nerves with desperation. She wanted to touch him, to hold him. A tear streaked down her face and she wiped it away angrily. How weak she was, here at the very end. She had remained steadfast through all that needed to be done, but here she lay, breaking apart at the seams from the simple sound of his voice in the night. She tried to fight it, tried to rationalize that a desire demon had followed her Fade-drenched scent to her room in the Lighthouse. But the voice came once more; soft, achingly gentle, and searching.

“Nadia?” 

It broke her. Only he would know that name. She plunged her mind deeper into the Fade, searching him out. “Solas?” she cried, her heart not satisfied with the million goodbyes they had already shared. Only silence answered as she searched and she cracked around the edges, calling his name in the Fade, again and again. She crumpled quietly, chest aching. She should have known. Her mind began to retract, to pull back into the physical world, when,

“Vhenan.” It was said on a breath, an admission of relief, and she whipped around. 

“Solas.”

He was beside her before her lips could form around any more words, gathering her into his arms. She clutched the back of the tunic he wore, burrowing her nose into the crook of his neck to let the sobs wrack her body.  “Ir abelas, vhenan,” he murmured, again and again into her hair. But she only shook her head, pulling him closer, sobbing harder when his hand found the back of her head and cradled it close—the way a lover would. He loved her.

~

fin

Winter had befallen the Fade. The temporal dissonance of the Blighted crossroads leaked its way through the wards of the Vi'Revas, leeching the comfort of ambience from the Lighthouse inhabitants the way a despair demon sapped hope from the air. It was only one night, was what Raven had told herself. A single night in the cold and then her team would handle the recent Blight insurgence the next day. But a “single night” had become two. Then three, as the waves of pungent rot refused to let up beneath blade or spell. The Lighthouse was frigid, bearable only in the immediate vicinity of a fireplace. The Caretaker was doing its best, but its primary objective at the moment was keeping the Blight from invading the Vi’Revas. It was the only thing that allowed them to sleep at night, and no one complained to it.

That said, they did not refrain from complaining to one another; Lucanis, being one of the most prominent grumblers. Raven found him in the kitchen, his scarred palms mere inches from a boiling pot of cioccolata calda, mumbling in Ital— ‘Antivan’, she reminded herself, unsure that she’d ever get used to the distinction. “Is the second degree burn helping, or…?” she teased, easing up beside him. He flattened her with a look and she stepped back, laughing.

“I will not stab you,” he monotoned. “No matter how much you may tempt me.”

“Aww, why not?” She shifted from foot to foot, eager to stay in motion since she had moved away from the only heat in the room.

“Because if I have to suffer, so do you.” He cocked and eyebrow at her and she grinned.

“How very medieval.”

“Med- what?”

“Nevermind.”

She rejoined him at the pot, letting the rich, sweet scent wash over her. “God, it’s so cold that I couldn’t even smell it from over there.”

“Do not get me started. The vegetables have frosted!” Lucanis threw his hands up, then immediately pressed them back down into the pot, a wince on his face.

Raven cocked her head to the side, side-eyeing the pantry door. “On the upside, I’m sure everything will keep twice as long.”

He growled at her. “Is my soon-to-be dead body included in the estimate?”

“Let’s not get morbid just yet, Emmrich isn’t even upstairs. So, is that hot chocolate done yet, or did you just make it for your hands?” Raven pulled a mug from the cabinet, swearing softly when her fingers came into contact with the ice-cold ceramic.

“Here.” Lucanis sighed in exasperation, gently prying the mug from her, and held it over the pot, coating it in the warm steam before handing it back.

“I uhm…” she trailed off, pulling out another mug. God, this was still too hard. “I’ll need two.”

Lucanis’s expression scrunched, first in confusion, then in distaste, sending Raven’s unease crawling to the pit of her stomach as freshly renewed guilt. “Of course,” he replied, voice now clipped. He didn’t look at her as he filled the mugs, only giving her a forced smile when he handed them over. “I hope you enjoy yours, Raven. I hope he has a coughing fit.”

“Lucanis!” she gasped through her giggles and the dimples on either side of his grin re-appeared.

“If he does not keep you warm, you know where to find me.”

~

Her hearth already burned when she pushed the door open with her hip, and the flames curled gently in her direction once she stepped inside—a quiet greeting from its current occupant, no doubt. She stepped further into the room and nudged the door shut before moving to set the mugs down on the coffee table near the fireplace.

Solas was perched serenely in the high-back, cushioned chair that had long since molded to his shape, when their connection began allowing him to appear to her like this—a living spectre in the Lighthouse halls. His legs were crossed, shoulders relaxed; the picture of ease as he immersed himself in one of his books. Raven's lips tugged upwards, affection stirring circles in her chest, and she tried to peek at the cover, but it rested too firmly against his leg.

“Among a Forest of Aching Trees,” he offered, not looking up, but not bothering to hide his amused grin, either. “It is about a pilgrimage of spirits through dangerous parts of the Fade. A fellow Wisdom spirit aided a man in writing it. He very kindly dedicated the book to her.”

“That’s really sweet. I’m glad he gave her the credit she deserved.” A fond, unguarded smile lit up his face—the kind that appeared only in the quiet peace of their time alone—and wrapped her heart in serenity. Raven settled into the chair opposite him and stuck her hand out towards the fire, absorbing its warmth into her still-chilled skin. “Thank you for this.” She gestured vaguely to the flames, and his eyes met hers, a softness lingering within them.

“You have fires lit in every room in the Lighthouse, I hardly think—”

“Don’t try to brush it off.” She pinned him with a smirk. “Magically enhanced flames. Nowhere else is this warm, despite the fireplaces.” He bit back a pleased grin and inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“And I thank you for this,” he said, reaching forward to procure the drink from the table between them, with all the grace of a stretching cat, and brought it to his mouth. Raven tracked the movement without even thinking about it, her attention fixing on the way his lips wrapped over the edge of the mug; she remembered the way those lips had felt last night on her— ‘Snap out of it!’ But it was too late. The crook of his mouth had curved upwards and mischief had clouded his darkening gaze. He had seen. Her cheeks flushed with heat and she grinned, shaking her head. ‘How does he continue to make me feel like a foolish teenager with my first crush?’

“Perhaps I am simply the first who has valued you the way you deserve.” He answered her thought over the rim of his mug and her skin practically flamed.

“I’m still not quite used to you being able to hear my thoughts.”

“Only some of them,” he corrected. “And only when we are together; usually the strongest of emotions bleed through to me. Oftentimes, it is the thoughts you have about me.” Oh, now that grin was wicked, and Raven let out a giggle.

“If only I could hear your thoughts about me,” she needled, simpering over her own mug.

“Were you capable of that feat, you would no longer need the hearth.” Heat pooled in his gaze and electricity ran down her spine. God, why did he have to say things like that? “I could refrain, in the future,” he taunted, knowing her answer already. She smirked anyway.

“Don’t you dare. I’ll have to start sending some salacious thoughts your way if you deprive me.”

“That would be unwise,” he mused, taking another sip of his drink.

Raven mimicked the motion puckishly, daring him to rise to her challenge. “And why is that?”

His cup clanked gently against the table before him—his book following it—and he rose, closing the distance between them and easing Raven up so that he could seat himself beneath her, pressing the plush of her thighs into his knees until she squirmed. He plucked her drink from her hands, much to her protest, and tugged her into his lap until her back pressed flush against his chest. His heat pooled into her and she let out a ragged breath as he snaked his arms around her front, one hand straying up to squeeze a clothed breast. “You need to retain the capability to walk each day.”

She gasped back a moan when he tweaked the hardening nipple beneath her breast band and let herself relax against him, turning to nuzzle the crook of his neck with her nose. “You are such a cocky tease,” she chittered, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his neck.

His grip tightened on her, his fingers trailing beneath her waistband. “Is it truly a tease when I intend to fulfill it as a promise?”

She whined when his fingers brushed through the downy hair covering her slit and stretched her open, dipping a digit in to find her clit. His precision was maddening and her focus scattered as he rubbed tight circles into the nub, holding her steady even as she squirmed. “On ir ma, vhenan,” he groaned softly, hoisting her higher in his lap as he quickened his pace, pinching the cartilage of her rounded ear between his teeth as he worked her closer to the edge. She sought purchase wherever she could find it—a hand bracing the armrest, so tightly her knuckles were white; an arm around Solas’s neck, clinging to him like a lifeboat in a raging storm. She shuddered deeply and arched upwards when Solas’s fingers found her hole, stretching her around him as he plunged them deep and crooked them—

“S-So good, Solas!” she sobbed, rocking her hips to take him deeper; deeper.

“N’ama ma ir son, ean’sulahn,” he rasped into her ear, fingers pumping into her at a steady, punishing pace that had her seeing stars behind her eyes. Then the heel of his palm pressed into her clit and she toppled over the precipice, shaking as her hips rutted erratically to meet his thrusts. He carried her through her pleasure—not letting up as she spasmed around his fingers—until she began to loosen in his hold. When she had all but melted against him, he slowly retracted his hand, leaving her a mess in his wake, and brought his fingers to his lips. A thrill of shocked arousal throbbed through her, watching him suckle on her juices, humming around his digits. “Venirast,” he moaned, eyes rolling back in his head. Her walls clenched around nothing and she whimpered at the sensitive throbs, satisfaction and heat roiling through her in tandem.

“Come, vhenan,” Solas murmured, gathering her in his arms and locking an arm under her knees until she was curled comfortably in his lap. A blanket whooshed into existence in his grasp and he stretched it across the both of them, cocooning them in shared warmth.

“Mmm, you were right,” Raven mumbled, her head tucked beneath Solas’s chin.

“Care to say that again?” he poked and she elbowed him. He chuckled sheepishly and relented. “About what, vhenan?”

“I don’t need the hearth anymore. But it’s nice anyway.”

A tender kiss warmed the top of her head. “It is indeed.”

~

fin

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