#solvelyan

Her hair had been left loose, a shimmering veil of mahogany that fell to the small of her back. Rubies in gold settings, pinned in the locks of her hair, caught the candlelight like glittering flames. Instead of the short military jacket he and the others wore, she was dressed in a red tunic that fell to her thighs. It split to accommodate her full skirts, and where it split, pearlescent red and gold fabric fluttered. She still wore the sash, but beneath it her tunic was unbuttoned, revealing the swells of her breasts, and she wore rubies like fire around her neck. Epaulets to denote her rank capped her shoulders, studded with little chips of ruby.

And her mask.

Her mask was unlike anything he’d seen so far this evening. It reminded him of something out of a fantasy, something that might have come from Arlathan once oh so very long ago. It was a stylized combination of both phoenix and dragon, resplendent with red and gold feathers and scaled with more chips of rubies. Fangs of white opal dripped from the bottom of the mask, making what might have first appeared delicate and simply pretty into something vicious. Dangerous. A mask worthy of the leader of the Inquisition.

He moved carefully through the crowds of awed onlookers, approaching her from the side, wondering what she would do if he yanked her into the shadows and kissed her. Ah, but a kiss wouldn’t be enough. Not for him, and never for her. Inquisitor Trevelyan would never be satisfied with a kiss.

Smothering a groan, he fell into place at her side, giving her an elegant, elaborate bow. Too elaborate, he realized belatedly, for an elven apostate who knew nothing of court and grace.

“Solas,” she murmured in that warm, throaty tone he’d never heard her use for anyone else. Sometimes, he wondered if it was an invitation. Tonight, no matter what she meant by it, he’d take it that way. He could do nothing less.

She sucked all the air out of the room just by being in it. He wanted to suck all the air out of her lungs with his kisses, leave red welts all along her skin from his fingers and teeth, and then scour her insides with a fiery passion that left her weak. Limp. Dazed. But her eyes. Her eyes would make his sin worth it, for her eyes would be glazed with adoration that bordered on worship. She would be his creature as surely as he was hers.

“Inquisitor,” he said without betraying a hint of what dark desire roiled beneath his skin. “You are a vision.”

A wicked smile spread across her lips, one that was at once playful and self-assured, and he wondered if she would wear that smile on her knees before him. Would she wear it when he wrapped his hands in the endless length of her hair and pressed his cock between her lips? Would she wear it when he let her ride him, her hips moving in slow, sinuous rolls against his?

He was rock hard for her, desperate for her, and he was already calculating precisely how much effort it would take to get into her skirts. He was out of practice, but for her… Oh, for her he would practice the darkest arts. If she came to him wanting blood magic done, he might consider it. For her, anything. For her, the world.

For her, his soul and the very essence of his being.

“It’s all Vivienne and Dorian. I can’t dress my way out of a burlap sack.”

You would still steal my breath in a burlap sack. He could imagine her wearing one, to his surprise. Less to his surprise, he could imagine peeling her out of it, sliding rough fabric against soft skin, revealing the supple lines of her body, and she would whimper and moan and beg him to go faster as she writhed beneath him. Or perhaps she would be caught between him and a wall.

There were plenty of walls in Halamshiral that he could press her against. More than enough shadowed alcoves where he could wring her dry of pleasure while the nobility guessed and wondered but never truly knew.

“But you must carry it,” he said. “And so you do. Remarkably well.”

The compliment took her off-guard. He could see it in her eyes – the momentary flash of surprise and a bit of confusion. Then she grinned that wicked grin once more. “You’re too kind.” The grin faded. “I wish you didn’t have to be my manservant.” She spat the word as she whispered the statement, and his expression turned neutral.

Shaking his head just the slightest bit, he said, “It is no concern. The court expects it, and as long as I meet their expectations—” Already, he didn’t, and they didn’t know what to make of him. “—I can go as I please unmolested.”

“Would that I could be you,” she sighed, lifting her hand. He caught her wrist before her fingers could thread through her hair, turning her hand palm up. She watched him with curious eyes as he bent over her hand, a smile curling her lips.

“Mind your hair, Inquisitor. It would be a tragedy to ruin something so lovely,” he said, his voice low, pitched only for her. And then he pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand, as he would have in Arlathan. His tongue flicked against her skin.

He felt the change in the air. Static crackled along his skin, and she was its source. Lighting flashed in her eyes, a smell like fresh rain rising around them. Beneath it all was her scent, warm and lush, so very human, and so very aroused.

Walk away, he told himself. But he couldn’t. It was impossible. He was trapped in the pull of her gravity. She was the sun to his earth, and he turned about her in inescapable revolutions.

Releasing her hand, he leaned toward her ear. Harsh breaths, heavy and hard, fell past her lips. Each pant lifted her breasts until they strained, full and ripe, against the neckline of her tunic. “After the introductions, find me, Inquisitor.”

“To what purpose?” she asked, her voice strained. Taut.

He hazarded a glance at her face. She was looking ahead, her expression mostly concealed by her mask. “Come to me, Inquisitor, and you’ll see.” His fingers brushed her waist as he slipped behind her.

Lust coursed through him, raw and wild, demanding an outlet. His cock, painfully hard, strained against the unfortunate confines of his trousers, but he didn’t give a damn who noticed. Like the wolf hunting, his attentions were fixed primarily on his prey. Oh, he noticed the nobles whispering, he saw their eyes sweep over him, paused, and then jump to his ears. Any predator had to be aware of his surroundings. But the bulk of his focus was on her, on the quick, clever rabbit that could, at any minute, bolt into a burrow and be lost to him forever.

He doubted she would bolt.

Indeed, after the tedious introductions – he hadn’t realized Cassandra’s name was so ridiculously long, nor Cullen’s titles so impressive – he settled himself in a corner and waited for her to come to him.

She did not disappoint.

“I’ve found you, but you didn’t make it hard,” she said, brushing her fingers along her cheeks, following the line of her mask.

“I was not meant to be hard to find.” Peeling himself away from the marble, he offered her a hand. “Come with me.”

She placed her hand in his, and whispers buzzed all around them as he led her down the vestibule, past the tittering nobles. So much time had passed and yet nothing had changed. They were the same as they always were, the gossips, the liars, the schemers, the lovers. Only the dressings were different, sumptuous Orlesian silks and velvets compared to the sheer linens of Arlathan.

He tortured himself by imagining her in the garments of his people, wrapped in red cloth that covered her but hid nothing. Every step would reveal the full curve of her hips, the rounded swell of her ass, the high peaks of her breasts. Her nipples would be visible beneath the translucent garments, tempting men into the deepest, basest sins.

They rounded a corner and he yanked her into his arms and into the shadows, pressing her against the wall. She gasped, her fingers flying to his chest to brace against him, but he was not deterred.

Kisses were things meant for lovers, which they certainly were not. Kisses were overtures of heat, of passion, of tenderness. Their mouths met and it was a claiming. A dominating. He took her mouth with his with unreserved lust, devouring her startled cry as he swept his tongue past her lips. She tasted of expensive wine and heat.

It didn’t surprise him when he thought he could get drunk off her. Off the heat of her, the sweetness of her.

She pulled away from him with a quiet gasp, and flames flickered along her fingertips, a poignant threat. “What,” she hissed, “do you think you’re doing?”

He considered his answer carefully. He could lie to her, spinning his words into pretty promises meant to seduce her and cloud her judgment. He could whisper obscene things to her and wrap her in a mist of need and want and unfulfilled lust. Or he could tell her the truth. “Fucking your mouth, Inquisitor,” he said, needing her title to remind him of who she was, of the distance and space between them.

Then he swept his thumb over her lips, just a touch too thin to be considered fashionable by Orlesian standards, and the distance and space evaporated. It didn’t matter to him that she was the human leader of a political movement that would shake the very foundations of the world and that he was one of the remnants of a race choking on its dying breaths. All that mattered was that she was a woman and he was a man and he wanted her.

Craved her.

Burned for her.

Sometimes, he thought he would die if he didn’t have her. And Orlais offered so many opportunities to have her.

“Would you prefer I not?”

It was her only chance at escape, and he saw the realization flicker in her eyes. He watched her carefully, reading every nuance. Her body accepted his offer before her mind; he felt her soften, her hips shifting against his so that her belly brushed the hard line of his cock. She gasped quietly, her eyes widening.

“Is my desire such a revelation to you?” he asked, pressing closer, caging her in the shadows as a pair of giggling noblewomen passed by them.

“You don’t…” She swallowed. “I didn’t think you cared for human women.”

He pressed closer to her, pushing into the fullness of her skirts so that she couldn’t mistake his desire. His lust. His secret shame. Canting his head to the side, he leaned over her – she wasn’t a tall woman – his lips hovering a breath away from hers. “I do not.”

Her eyes were just a bit glassy, just a touch confused, and more than a little filled with want. His hands fell on her hip and the small of her back, and she arched at the touch. She looked like an offering, as though she meant to present her body to him without words.

“But I desire you.” He whispered the words against her lips and then captured her mouth with his. Her hands pressed lightly against his chest and then curled around his shoulders, her fingers digging into the fabric of his uniform. She gave in, sinking against him, whimpering softly into his mouth as he licked and nibbled and sucked at her lips, as he fucked her mouth with his tongue and laid claim to her.

He backed her further into the corner, until there was so space between her and the wall. Until there was no space between her lithe body and his. Her skirts were too much in the way, and they barely had any time to accomplish anything; she would need to be about her business soon.

But he could madden her and leave her as aching and desperate as he. He wanted her arousal dripping down her thighs, wanted her legs slick with it. Every step she took would be a fiery reminder of lust unfulfilled as she searched for gossip and blackmail, as she played the Game Orlais so loved.

Fingers slid up her side, his knuckles brushing over the swell of one breast. She gasped against his mouth, and he took the opportunity to adjust the way their mouths met, taking her deeper. Harder. His tongue tangled around hers, drawing hers into his mouth and then forcing it back as he traced one finger in smaller and smaller concentric circles around her nipple. She tensed against him, each stroke stringing her tighter. He felt the coiled tension of her body in the small of her back, in the way her lips stiffened slightly under his.

He dropped his fingers, swallowing her moan of upset.

When she tried to pull back, he chased her, caged her. He consumed her and laid claim to her, branding her body with the desire of his. Magic curled in the air around them, a subtle weaving that only the most talented would notice. Vivienne and Dorian, surely, and likely the Empress’s pet apostate. They would feel the lingering traces of the magic and know a mage had wanted to burn away their Inquisitor’s clothing.

They wouldn’t know that he wanted to fuck her senseless, that he’d have her in the middle of the ballroom floor if that was what it took. He’d done more debauched things in his long life than take a woman in broad view of everyone attending a party.

But he wouldn’t. Not her. Not this woman. He didn’t want to share her. She was his deepest, darkest secret. His lust for her was a private thing, keeping him up long into the night, forcing his hand to his cock. He’d come to fantasies of her more times than he could count, but none of them ever included sharing her. He wouldn’t. Not ever. She was his and his alone, and he would own every inch of her body and her soul.

She would give those things to him. Willingly. He would ensure it.

So he drew his magic tight about her, pressing it against her skin until she cried out softly. He swallowed the cry and forced another from her, his magic licking along her skin like gentle tongues of flame. She shuddered in his arms, her fingers curling around the back of his neck, holding him close, clinging to him.

Drawing back, he licked her lower lip, and his hand lifted, hovering over her breast. “I believe you have things to be about, Inquisitor.”

Panting, she stared at him. “I do,” she murmured.

He expected her to push against him, to force him away. Instead, she stunned him and knocked him off balance by stroking the length of his ear, lightning crackling along her fingertip. Heat speared him, made his cock twitch with need as pleasure sank like a fist into his lower back. He was, for a moment, overcome by the overwhelming need to yank her skirts around her hips, tear open his trousers, and thrust into her. To take her. To have her. To brand her body with his until she forgot herself and screamed her pleasure to the whole ball.

She had him against the wall a second later, her finger still stroking slowly, lazily, a steady back and forth. He felt that touch all over his body – across his lips, his chest, his cock. He groaned, unable to keep his eyes open. He wanted to sink into the pleasure of her touch, to cherish it while he could.

Half of him expected her to avoid him for the remainder of the evening.

“I’ll find you again later,” she said, and she drew away from him, leaving him trembling in the darkened corner.

He felt like a callow youth again, like a boy unsure of what to do with a woman. When, he wondered, had she turned from prey to predator?

He couldn’t help the feral grin that split his face. Didn’t try to hide it when he slipped from the shadows. A passing servant caught sight of him and nearly dropped her tray of hors d’oeuvres as she whispered a prayer to Mythal for protection.

Ignoring her, he returned to the place the Inquisitor had found him. It would be an interesting party after all. Two predators hunting each other always made for a much more engaging game.

And how she hunted.

He caught sight of Leliana at one point, looking awed by the way the Inquisitor handled them. “I need you to slip into the servant’s quarters,” she told him and Cassandra and Cole, “whilst I fend off a duc. I will join you.”

She fought in her gown, and she was resplendent, like the mages of old. Power whipped her hair through the air, lighting her face that her beauty became terrifying. Cole whispered softly of Solas’s thoughts – Eyes flashing, so much power, radiant, lambent, incandescent, she tastes of fire and storms and the Fade – and Solas did not care.

“Thank you,” she said softly to him as she fished an elven amulet from a drawer in a storeroom, “for freezing that last archer. It wouldn’t do for me to return to the ball with an arrow sticking out of my chest.”

He turned so that neither Cole nor Cassandra could see them and ran his finger along the neckline of her tunic, dipping the tip between her breasts. “Marring perfection is unacceptable.”

She bumped her hip against his, her skirt hiding her hand as she feathered her fingers over the hard line of his cock. “Wouldn’t Bull love to know you find this arousing.”

“You,” he murmured. “You, untouched in that dress, slaying your enemies like a goddess. That arouses me.”

She wasn’t wearing her mask, and so her face, painted gold and red with feral makeup, betrayed her emotions. Interest. Curiosity. Excitement. A touch of fear that flavored all the others. Sharpening them, he imagined.

Bending his head toward her, he touched the amulet in her hand. “This is elven,” he said, loud enough for the others to hear, so they wouldn’t wonder. Quieter, he asked, in Elvish, “Are you wet for me? Does your cunt burn and clench with your need?”

Her lips parted, her tongue darting out to wet them. “What did you say?”

He gave her a languid, sensual smile and turned away, letting her wonder. Letting the question fester. She hated unanswered questions, his Inquisitor, and leaving it that way would ensure she returned to him.

Briala almost ruined it by catching her with new questions. He watched, strained, thinking how easy it would be for the Inquisitor to dismiss him out of hand, to pretend like none of this had happened as Briala offered her new mysteries to unravel.

“Your elven manservant?” Briala asked with a wry arch of her brow just as the Inquisitor turned to go.

She canted her head to one side. “I beg your pardon.” It was a statement, not a question, a subtle threat that Briala would be wise to heed.

“The courtiers wonder who caught your eye. They saw you vanish into a shadowed corner, but they don’t know who with. I do.” Briala’s grin was almost manic, edged with the knowledge of their wickedness. “An elven apostate and one of the world’s most powerful women? Watch yourself, Inquisitor. That’s a dangerous combination.”

She returned to him anyway.

He took her into the gardens, into another dark and shadowed corner. “How quiet can you be?” he asked, his fingers fisting in her skirts.

“Solas,” she breathed, eyes wide. “Solas, you can’t.”

“There is little I—” He almost said there was little he couldn’t do, but realized that betrayed too much. “—wouldn’t do for you.” The pause was so slight he was sure it would go unnoticed, especially because she was a woman primed for sex. Her body begged for it in the way she turned toward him, leaned into him, sank against him.

“Not a word. Not a sound,” he said, and he pressed himself into the corner and pulled her against him, yanking her skirts up in the front so he could slip his hand between her legs.

Instead of simple linen smalls, he encountered silk. It slid under his fingers like water, soaked from her desire, and she bit her lip.

“Are they red?” he asked, dragging his hand up her thigh, curious to see if they were in the Orlesian fashion.

She shook her head. “Black.”

They were so very Orlesian it nearly destroyed him. A single thread arched over her hips. It met another and slipped between the full globes of her ass, leaving her skin bare. More than anything, he wanted to rip off her skirts, turn her around, and see the full glory of her body in such salacious under things. He’d take her with them on, the fabric pushed the side, her body pressed against a wall or bent over one of those chaise lounges that littered the palace. He’d take her in those and her delicate slippers, her bodice gaping so her breasts spilled out, and—

He dragged his mind from fantasy to reality, appalled he could get caught up in dreams when she was in his arms, wet and hot and wanting.

“Remember,” he murmured, curling her hand around her neck and drawing her close. “Not a sound.”

His fingers slipped into her smalls and he cupped the scalding heat of her. Soft curls brushed against his palm. He’d always found body hair, of which elves had little, to be revolting, but her curls were slick with her want, and the obvious evidence of her arousal aroused him.

She gasped, and he crushed her mouth to his to muffle the quiet moans she seemed incapable of suppressing. Not that he minded. Every noise she made caused heat to coil in his body, stringing tight muscles barely used.

She shivered and trembled as he parted her slick folds with two fingers. She keened when his nails flicked lightly over her clit. He circled the little nub until one of her hands curled in his tunic and the other clutched at the back of his head, her nails scraping against his scalp.

His tongue swept into his mouth as he traced her entrance, swallowing her cry of delight. Her hips rocked against his, and satisfaction shot through him like an arrow. Having her in his arms, pleasuring her like this, was almost as good as being inside her. Almost as pleasing. Almost.

One finger slipped into her, pressing deep, and her hips jerked against his. “I will have you,” he murmured to her in Elvish, his lips never leaving hers. Her cunt tightened around him, and he laughed softly. Darkly. She clenched around him again. “You like the sound of my voice,” he said in her own tongue.

“Whatever you’re saying, don’t stop,” she whispered, and so he continued. He whispered the most obscene things into her mouth as he slipped a second finger into her, as he stroked the soft walls of her cunt until she trembled and sagged against his chest. Her nails dug into the back of his head, but the pain was nothing compared to the heat of her. She burned him, sent fire roaring through him, made it hard to think.

“Molten fire,” he crooned in Elvish, curling his fingers inside her as his thumb brushed over her clit, tracing Elvish letters into her flesh. Each of the long forgotten glyphs of his people’s alphabet was its own spell, and she gasped with each sensation that rippled through her. A pleased smile curled his lips as he drew her closer and closer to the edge. “So tight and wet. I will have you, and you will be mine.”

She keened against his mouth, her tongue touching his lip. He kissed her, sucking her tongue into his mouth, and as his teeth nipped at her, she came undone in his arms. Her hips rocked into his hand in jerky, erratic motions, her cunt bearing down on his fingers as if to pull him deep and keep him there.

Just the thought of her cunt squeezing his cock like that was nearly enough to undo him.

When she stilled, he pulled his fingers from her, wiping them almost dry on her thighs. “So you remember,” he said in her tongue. Then he brought his fingers to his mouth, licking them clean as she stared. Her taste was exquisite. Heavier, headier, richer than an elvhen woman’s, alien and strange but no less delightful.

“You,” she breathed, the hand curled in his tunic releasing fabric to trail down his chest. Her fingers brushed over his cock, cupping him. “I want to—”

“Have you seen the Inquisitor?” an Orlesian man said somewhere behind them. He wasn’t close. Over the Inquisitor’s shoulder, Solas saw him speaking with a gaggle of women, all giggling.

“Like moths to flame,” he said, removing her hand from him though it pained him.

“Let them find us,” she said, twisting free and rubbing her palm down his length.

He hissed, letting his eyes fall shut, wondering how, again, she’d managed to best him. He knew she wasn’t inexperienced, but there was no possible way her experience outstripped his. Yet again she was mastering him, defeating him, cajoling him to dance to the tune she sang. How he wanted to.

“No,” he insisted. He shifted away from her, her wrinkled skirts falling around her ankles, hiding her strong legs and ridiculous slippers. “Go.”

She went.

He watched her, taken entirely by the sway of her hips as she walked. The Orlesians were smart enough to know the stride of a woman pleased. He wondered what they would make of it. Let them see. Let them wonder who the Inquisitor desired enough to tryst with under their very noses.

Not much later, he drifted into the ballroom to find her dancing with Florianne. She danced, he realized, the way she would have sex. Her every motion was soft and sure, alluring and intriguing. Her hips swung in blatant invitation, her fingers lingering, her eyes hot behind her mask. Florianne licked her lips far too many times during their dance; she was not unaffected. Around him, he heard the nobles whisper.

“She was in the gardens with a lover.”

“Imagine those hips in bed.”

“Such power and grace in her form. Such elegance.”

“Who could possibly intrigue her enough for a dalliance?”

Visceral satisfaction made his lips curl.

When they made their way through the royal wing, she was still in her gown, and he was on her heels the entire time. His fingers brushed over her back, her hips, her arms at every opportunity. He deliberately touched his fingers to his mouth when she looked at him, delighting in the way her pupils dilated and her breath hitched.

But she was not passive. She flicked magic at him, pressed her will against his own like a full-bodied caress. When he crouched to loot a body, her fingers drifted over his ears casually, as if the touch was accidental. She gave him wicked, promising smiles, and it was all he could do not to drag her into a closet and fuck her. Half of him wondered if that was her game, if she was trying to get him to snap. She would be disappointed. His self-control, frayed as it was, was still monumental in comparison to hers.

And then they discovered a man bound naked to Celene’s bed. Cassandra was disgusted, Cole confused, but the Inquisitor. Her reaction sent heat licking through his veins. Her eyes widened with surprise and then narrowed – with interest.

Solas slipped behind her, whispering, “Would you let me bind you thus?”

“No,” she breathed.

“No? Would you prefer me bound?”

She glanced at him through thick lashes. “Perhaps.”

He would let her, he realized. He would let her bind her, would be content to be her plaything. The thought of it made him ache. “I think,” he said slowly, softly, “you wouldn’t mind being bound, helpless, unable to do anything but take what I give you.” She inhaled sharply. “We could agree to take turns.”

“You mean this to go beyond tonight?”

He didn’t answer her. Not right away. They ensured the man’s willing testimony and proceeded to the courtyard where, to no one’s surprise, Florianne attempted to kill them. The Inquisitor fought magnificently, a vengeful warrior goddess in her flaming dress and flashing rubies, and when the fight was ended, he paused by her side to murmur, “I mean to have you until you cannot think of sex without thinking of me as well, Inquisitor.”

She moaned. Clapped her hand to her mouth.

Just outside the door to the ballroom, he paused, pretending to study a book left on the ground. “A moment, Inquisitor,” he said, glancing at Cassandra as she hovered in the doorway. “A question of magic, Seeker. We will be mere moments.”

Cassandra’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, rightly so, but she left them.

He was on her in a second, pressing her to the wall, curling his fingers around her neck and her chin to tip back her head for a demanding kiss that was all teeth and tongue. Her hands went unerringly to his trousers, tugging at the placard until it fell free. She pulled his cock from his pants, stroking the length of it with fingertips callused by years of working with a staff and quill, and he snarled softly into her mouth.

“I have to have you,” she whispered, turning her face to pepper kisses along his jaw to his ear. “You’ve teased me too much. I can’t bear it.” Her voice sounded weak. It wavered when she spoke.

Good. He wanted her wavering, whimpering, needy and desperate. He wanted her to be blind to anything except desire, to the point where she would give him whatever he asked for whenever he asked for it. He was a man obsessed, and nothing would ease his obsession except for her. He was also a liar, and he knew that to be a lie. He would want her for the rest of his life, long after her human years took her to her grave.

“I should make you wait,” he said as she stroked him, as her fingers slipped around the head of his cock and teased a drop of precum from his tip.

“Don’t.” There was a steely warning in her voice, and he remembered all those times, millennia ago, that women had made demands of him and he’d denied them. Not just to be contrary, no, though there was pleasure in that, but to ratchet their lust higher. To make them burn brighter.

He rocked himself into her hand, a wordless murmur of pleasure escaping him as he slid against her soft palm. “You have to deal with Florianne. She could make her move as I fucked you, Inquisitor. She could slay Celene while I was buried inside you and you screamed for me.”

She was panting, her eyes wild. “I don’t care.”

“You do.”

Her fingers tightened around him, dragging up his length before dropping down to cup his balls. He bit back an Elvish curse, dropping his forehead against hers. “I do,” she agreed finally, at last, and her fingers withdrew from his cock. “Are you as hard for me as I am wet for you?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Then I shall make this quick.”

His lips curled. “I intend to savor you, Inquisitor.”

Her fingers left his cock. Touched his lips. “My name,” she murmured, and she whispered it to him like it was a precious secret. He returned it, giving it an Elvish accent, and she shivered in his arms. “I have to go.”

“Then go,” he said, making no move to stop her.

She hesitated again before slipping from his arms.

A few minutes later, after righting his trousers, he passed through the door as well, catching the tail end of her confrontation with Florianne. He prowled the edges of the ballroom as she went onto a balcony with Gaspard, Celene, and Briala. Only Celene and Briala returned. He wondered why. Wondered if she saw parallels between the Empress and her lover and her with him. A needless, unnecessary, foolish parallel. Celene and Briala had a chance for a happy ending. She and he had only the moments they stole. There would be no happy ending for them.

They made their pretty speeches, and then she drifted away, moving easily around the ballroom toward him. Cullen intercepted her.

Solas watched the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces lean toward her, watched his fingers curl at his sides, watched the way his shoulders tightened with tension. He was half in love with her, Solas realized, and he felt a moment’s sadness for all three of them. For himself for craving that which had destroyed his people, for her for wanting a creature that she could never tame, and for Cullen for desiring a woman who would be ruined for other lovers by morning. It was unfair in every way.

The dark, twisted parts of him howled with remorseless glee.

Briala slipped up to his side. “It will not end well for you,” she said softly. “She will never acknowledge you. You will never be more to her than a pleasant diversion she hides from everyone else.”

Solas lifted both brows, lacing his fingers behind his back. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Every wall has many eyes,” Briala said. “We saw you with her.”

“Ah.”

Briala’s eyes flashed behind her mask. He wondered if she was seeking to draw some sort of reaction from him, some kind of inflammatory response to her goading. She would not succeed. Compared to him, she was a child at games of manipulation. “And if she does acknowledge you, which would be foolish, all her enemies will become yours, too.”

A quiet sound of amusement escaped him. “You misunderstand,” he said, being deliberately oblique.

“Then it wasn’t you with your hand up her skirts in the gardens? It wasn’t you who she was fondling before she swept in here with her opinions on how Orlais should manage itself?” Briala all but spat the words, but the venom did not surprise him.

With an easy shrug, he turned away from her. “If it was, it’s none of your business.”

“She will destroy you.”

At that, Solas actually laughed, and the sound was laced with malice and bitterness and several millennia of loathing. Momentarily stunned by the sound, Briala shifted a step back. “You are mistaken,” he told her, and when he looked at her, he allowed her to see just slightly past the banal mask he wore.

He was diminished, yes. Much of his power had withered during his sleep, an atrophied muscle that needed to be slowly and carefully restored. But the core of who he was, the wild and capricious god who bestowed poisoned favors on the worthy, that was not changed. And that was what he allowed her to see.

“You see much but understand little,” he said. “There is a vast chasm between knowledge and wisdom. They are not interchangeable.” He ended the conversation there, stepping away from her and making his way from the ballroom. As he went, he caught the Inquisitor’s gaze.

Her eyes glittered behind her mask.

She found him not five minutes later on a secluded balcony overlooking one of the many gardens. “Solas.”

“Do you hear the music?” he asked, catching her about the waist and spinning her into an old, elvhen dance that fit the beat of the human music. She stumbled, but he compensated, sweeping her into a slow glide. “Dancing,” he said, bending his head toward hers. She stared at him from behind that fierce, dangerous mask of hers. “Dancing is so much like sex.”

His leg slipped between her thighs, and his cock strained against his pants for her. The moment she’d stepped onto the balcony, he’d been hard for her. He knew how this would end.

Had they been in Arlathan, dancing at one of Sylaise’s fetes, his thigh would have pressed against her cunt, and his hand on the small of her back would have held her in place. As it was, her skirts got in the way, a thick cushion between them. But her lips parted on a gasp anyway, her pupils dilating with desire.

“Sleek,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “Sensual.” He turned her slowly, lacing their fingers together. His thumb brushed over her palm and she shivered. The hand on the small of her back drew her closer, and he fitted their hips together as closely as he could with her full skirts. Not even her skirts could disguise his arching arousal.

“No one dances like this,” she protested softly, but she shifted against him. Rubbed over him.

He swayed with her in time to the music, moving her until her back was to the balustrade, and then he pinned her there. “I’ve seen dances like this in the Fade.” Not untrue. “Let me share with you a secret.”

Her fingers, curled around his, tightened. Her hand on his shoulder shifted so that her fingers could stroke the back of his neck.

“If you want to bed someone, you don’t take them to bed.” He brushed his mouth against hers with each word, drinking in the sight of her lust.

“You take them to a balcony?” she asked, and she flicked her tongue over his lower lip.

He laughed, low and dark, releasing her hand to settle both of his on her waist. He trapped her between his body and the balustrade, holding her there with his hips. “You take them dancing. You seduce them in the dance. Slowly, carefully. You pour sensual carnality into your every movement. Your touches linger. You let your eyes burn. And then, at the end of the evening, when they are breathless and drunk on their desire for you, you take them.”

“To bed?”

“Wherever they’ll let you have them.” He lifted his hands to her face, carefully removing her mask. Setting it aside, he kept his eyes fixed on hers. Her makeup was still intact, and she looked like a goddess incarnate. Gold and red framed her eyes like wings, making the striking color of her irises vibrant. He smiled. It was not a kind smile. “You, for instance, will let me take you here. On this balcony.”

A protest rose on her lips and he smothered it with a kiss. That protest became a moan, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself full against him.

His fingers went to her tunic, making quick work of the buttons as his tongue toyed with hers, tantalizing and teasing until she was rocking against him in jerky, needy motions. Her breasts spilled from her tunic, heavy and full, and he cupped them in greedy hands. She was so much more lush than any elvhen woman, so much more richly proportioned. It should have nauseated him. Instead, her body was an obscene torment, one that haunted his every moment, waking or sleeping.

She arched into his touch, pressing her breasts into his palms, and he laughed into the kiss, exultant. Triumphant.

Drawing back, brushing his thumbs over her nipples, he looked down at her. At her flushed cheeks, at the freckles splattered like paint over her skin. He glanced briefly at the garden below them. Pockets of people were there, listening to a minstrel sing.

“Turn around,” he commanded her, dropping his hands to her waist.

For a moment, she stared at him. Then she shook her head slightly. “Solas—”

“Turn around,” he said again, and he lifted one hand from her hip, the one that blocked her exit. She could do up her buttons and leave if she wanted. It was her last escape. If she didn’t go now, he wouldn’t be able to let her go.

She turned.

A growl reverberated in his chest, low and dark and full of need, and he lifted her skirts, bearing her ass as she leaned her hands against the balustrade. “Perfect,” he said, his voice thick and raspy as he ran his hands over the lush swell of her ass. “You are perfect.”

She pressed back, rubbing herself against the hard line of his cock through his trousers, and a little moan escaped her.

“Not a sound,” he reminded her gently as he slipped his fingers between her legs, past wet curls, delving two into her cunt without preamble. He clapped the other hand over her mouth just in time to cover her reedy wail, and he pressed his lips to her neck to smother his laughter. “Wet. So wet.” He couldn’t believe how wet she was and how her slick arousal strung him tighter, made him hotter. He practically burned for her. Could feel flames licking through his veins, smoldering at the tips of his fingers.

He held his fingers inside her, held her, and soaked in the feel of her. The heat of her. Against him, she whimpered and keened, her hips rocking and twisting as she sought some kind of solace from his touch. He denied her, moving with her. It was like an old dance, one he hadn’t expected to remember.

But he did remember it, and he remembered it well. “You have unraveled me,” he murmured against her skin, speaking the words in Elvish because he couldn’t stand the thought of her knowing how well she owned him. “You have broken me.” His teeth caught her earlobe as he curled his fingers inside her, as he brushed his thumb over her clit.

She sobbed against his hand, and he laughed again, unable to stop the sound from slipping past his lips.

“You are a delight.” The words were lyrical, beautiful, all soft consonants and rounded vowels, and though she could not know what they meant, her body rippled and clenched around him as if she did. As if she understood on a fundamental level that he whispered her praises like a priest at worship.

He twisted his fingers inside her as his tongue traced the rounded shell of her ear. He thought it might curb his passion, to remind himself that she was human. Instead, it shredded what remained of his control. The things that made her human were precisely the things he craved, like an addict craved a hit of his next drug even though he knew that next hit could be the one that ended him.

He stroked and petted, caressed and teased until she was writhing beneath him. He delighted in the familiar steps of their dance, drawing her in a spiral closer and closer to the edge of mind-shattering pleasure. “Will you come for me?” he asked in her human tongue. Her tongue flicked against his palm and he hissed, pressing his cock against her ass and hating the fabric that separated them. “Will you shatter for me?”

She was close, teetering on the edge, and he pushed her just a little more. A tremor ran through her, her cunt tightening around his fingers.

“Not yet,” he said, and he dragged his fingers from her body. She gasped, moaned, shook her head against his hand. When he withdrew his hand from her mouth, she started to say something. He pressed the fingers slick with her arousal between her lips instead. “Suck,” he commanded.

She obeyed, and her tongue on him nearly ended him. Later, he promised himself, he’d have her on her knees. He would strip her of everything except her necklace and the rubies in her hair, and he’d have her suck his cock before the fire so that the rubies caught the flames and burned. She was quick and clever with her tongue. Obscene.

Unable to bear being outside her, he tore at his trousers with his free hand, pulling fabric aside until he could guide his cock into her. He pushed her smalls out of his way and slid into her as he pulled his fingers from her mouth.

Her cunt squeezed him, hot and tight and so slick there was no resistance. He slid into her easily, pressing all the way inside her, and she gasped his name, her head thrown back and her silky hair spilling over her back like a waterfall.

He couldn’t stop himself from twining her hair around his fist. With his other hand, he cupped one of her breasts. “Brace yourself,” he told her, “and don’t make a sound.” His tongue flicked over her ear. “Imagine what the court would say if they actually saw you with your manservant.”

He thrust hard into her and she choked on a cry, swallowing it as she arched her back and pressed back into him. Holding her hair and her breast, he had little leverage. She had to do most of the work, and he exulted in watching her fuck him. Watching her take him. She was eager and greedy, pressing her ass to his belly and then grinding herself on his cock. Then she would take him in short, quick strokes followed by longer, deeper ones. Those he liked those the best.

The sight of his cock slick with her juices was heady, drawing fire through his veins to pool in his groin in a molten blaze.

Yanking on her hair, he bowed her back, arched her neck. His lips touched her forehead as she gasped, as she whimpered, as she moaned and keened his name. “They’ll hear,” he reminded her, and she bit her lip but she didn’t stop making those incredible sounds.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d bedded a woman so earnestly vocal. Every one of those sounds went straight through him, and he throbbed inside of her as she clenched around him, her muscles trembling.

“You’re close, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes shut, her lips parted. She ground herself against him, lifting one hand from the rail.

He caught her in an instant, slapping her hand back down. “No.”

She moaned, and the sound was loud enough that a pair of nobles below them both jumped, looking around in surprise. “Please, Solas. Please, I need—”

“To come?” He nuzzled against the back of her ear. “They heard you.” Her body squeezed him at the words, and he snarled softly. “You like that they heard. Do you want them to catch us?”

A reedy wail broke from her, and scandalized gasps rose from the garden below them as people began lifting their heads.

She might want to be found, but he did not. He didn’t want to share her. Pulling out of her, he spun her, all but slamming her against the wall and into the shadows. Without hesitation, she yanked her skirts out of the way, wrapping a leg around his hips and rubbing herself against him.

“Inside me,” she whimpered, “I need you back inside me.” His cock slid against her entrance, and he hissed, needing to be back inside her almost as badly as she wanted him there.

“Impatient.” He reached between them, guiding himself back into her.

There was nothing easy about how he took her then. He was brutal, demanding, and he was sure her hips and ass would be bruised in the morning. He didn’t care. One hand grasped her waist, the other urged her other leg to wrap around him, too. He was stronger than he looked. Supporting her wouldn’t be difficult, not when she was so slight.

He thrust into her without mercy or even much grace. The dance didn’t call for either. They were past the point of elegant overtures. Now it was just passion and need that built like a storm of fire and lightning inside him, that made the air around them crackle. He could smell rain – her magic – and heavy spice – his own.

She grasped at his shoulders, arching her back to take him deeper, and he took her harder, answering her unspoken pleas as senseless whimpers and murmurs spilled from her mouth.

Another time, he would have played with her. Kept her like this for as long as his body could hold out against the pleasure. He would have made her come until she lost her sense of self, until he had to piece her mind back together, rebuilding her from shattering pleasure.

Instead, he dipped his fingers to her clit, stroking her, petting her, tracing ancient Elvish words across her flesh. Words of ownership. Words of desire. “Come for me,” he murmured, pressing his mouth to hers. He swallowed her moaned reply, flicked his fingers over her clit.

Her cunt clenched around him, but she wasn’t there yet.

He pulled his mouth from hers, pressing his lips to her ear, and whispered, “Scream your pleasure. Let them hear you.”

He traced a glyph for fire over her clit, and she did scream. Her cry of pleasure was loud and wordless, piercing the air with such clarity that no one in the gardens would doubt someone was fucking her with exceptional skill. He was exceptional. So was she.

She came for him, her body rippling and undulating, a siren call of pleasure he couldn’t ignore. Another time, he promised himself as he lost the rhythm, as ecstasy stole the last, shredded remains of his control. He thrust into her again, then a second, more harried time. On the third, he shuddered and came, too, his body breaking under the pleasure of hers.

Heat burned through him, pouring from him into her in the form of his seed, filling her. It delighted him to think she’d spend the rest of her evening with his come dripping down her thighs, drying on her legs, reminding her of what she’d done. And the burn of release was a sweet relief. He’d spent most of the evening uncomfortably hard for her. At last, with passion realized, the tension of it left him.

But not entirely. Now he would be consumed with the thoughts of his seed on her thighs. He wanted to drag her to her suite, throw her to the floor or onto her bed, tear off her skirts, and press his mouth between her legs to taste himself on her.

Instead, he pulled out of her slowly, carefully, and her legs lowered to the ground. “I don’t know that I can walk,” she admitted with a laugh.

“You’ll have to.” He stepped away from her, tucking his soft cock back into his pants. He looked up, watching her as she worked the buttons on her tunic. “Wait,” he said softly.

She froze.

He leaned toward her, bracing one hand on the wall over her shoulder. He knocked her hands away from her buttons, letting the fabric of her tunic fall away from her skin, and he fastened his mouth to the swell of one breast. He sucked her skin until she moaned, until her fingers ghosted over his ears and his skull. His teeth bit into her soft flesh, marking her, bruising her, and then he drew back, satisfied with his work.

When she refastened the buttons, the edge of the love bite was still visible, red and swollen against the milky color of her skin.

“Did you have to?” she asked, brushing a finger over it.

Satisfaction curled within him. “Yes,” he said, catching her chin in two fingers. “You have more dancing to do?”

Her lips twisted in a grimace. “Unfortunately.”

“You enjoy dancing,” he purred, stepping close enough to her to tease. “Do you not?”

She licked her lips and said nothing. Her face gave her away.