Hey hi people liked the smut so um. 👉🏻👈🏻 have more?
✨THIS IS A WHAT IF SCENARIO AND IS NOT/WILL NOT BE PART OF A WARDEN AND A CROW CANON. Completely self indulgent.✨
IDEA: Rook & Lucanis go to Treviso to meet Teia and plan Caterina’s funeral (so before he buys her the dress, but after feelings have been caught). They walk into an ambush — Illario panicked that in the process of planning Caterina’s funeral someone would figure out that she’s not really dead (he doesn’t even have ashes, how could he have not thiught this through????), and he didn’t have a good plan for getting out of it… so he blows everything up, figuratively. He occupies Teia elsewhere and has Lucaimy trapped and Lucanis injected with an aphrodisiac drug cocktail Crows usually dose marks with, thinking that will buy him some time to move Caterina and come up with a better plan.
Shoutout to @selennes for introducing me to the aphrodisiac trope, it ate my entire brain for like three days.
Big thanks to @fangirlsalad @ladygelfling and again to @selennes for being my beta readers for this because I was VERY WORRIED it was Not Good, but apparently I was wrong. Yay!
CW/TW: violence, threats of violence/death, nonconsensual drug usage, questionable/dubious consent, masturbation, vaginal sex, angst, strong language
-Lucanis & Naimy TECHNICALLY consent to everything, but there is the drug to consider, and that is why I have tagged questionable/dubious consent.-
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The catwalk was unusually dark and quiet as they stepped through the Eluvian. Naimeryn turned to her left, sensing something was off. Almost before he was even completely through, she felt Lucanis’s arm snaking around her waist, as though to pull her back. The blow Naimeryn took from out of the dark was so hard, it knocked her out of his grasp and sent her rolling towards the edge. Her head spun, pain blossoming along her left arm. Before she could react, someone was on top of her, their knees digging into the space between her shoulder blades and crushing the breath from her lungs.
She blinked rapidly, wrenching her head around to search for Lucanis.
“Make a sound and we’ll slit her throat,” she heard the one with the shield that had bashed her tell him. They were… Crows. The shield was fashioned in the shape of a great, black wing. The two grabbing Lucanis roughly by each arm wore the same elegant black-and-silver leather armor he favored for night missions. Why would Crows —?
The blood turned to ice in her veins. Lucanis had said his capture had to have been an inside job. Only Crows knew which ship he was on, when it would leave, what route it would take. As they gagged him, she struggled against the one pinning her down, earning a strike to the side of her face for her trouble. Her vision blurred and her whole head ached, the floor allowing no give for the blow. She was wrenched unceremoniously to her feet and allowed to teeter precariously over the casino below for a sickening moment before being dragged back towards Lucanis by her hair.
“Whatever your plan is, you won’t get away with it,” she snapped. The Crow in charge of her chuckled and, holding her wrists in a crushing grasp in one hand, cut her staff from her back with the other. It clattered to the floor.
“You think I need a staff to be dangerous?”
She hoped the challenge in her tone was at least a little intimidating, knowing she had absolutely no control without one. It would be too risky to try to cast.
The warrior shoved the edge of his shield under her chin and glared down into her eyes. “I’ve heard you’re not very dangerous even with it. Try anything funny, and you die.”
Naimeryn hated that her lower lip trembled. The Crow smirked triumphantly and removed his shield, using it to direct the others to take them away. They hadn’t threatened Lucanis. She supposed that made sense — Zara would want him back intact.
Maybe they should play along? But if these Crows brought them to her, and Naimy didn’t have her staff…
They hadn’t taken her mageknife, she realized belatedly. She’d just have to support Lucanis the best she could.
“Where are you taking us?” She snapped as they dragged her through the window and out onto the rooftops. She worried about Lucanis — or, more specifically, about Spite. Spite was not patient. The demon must be raging, and could easily dispatch their captors — would want to do so. She knew Lucanis wouldn’t let him. Just as she feared her magic hurting him, Lucanis was likely too principled to risk not being fast enough to prevent an attempt on her life.
What a time to be alone with stupid, useless, incompetent Naimeryn Thorne.
“Somewhere out of the way,” the Crow snapped at her. “If you both go nice and quiet, nobody has to get hurt — much.”
Naimeryn did not like the way that the group snickered at this remark.
“Who needs us out of the way?” She asked smoothly as they dragged her through another open window, one they closed behind them. Her question was met with another strike across her face, and she felt blood dribble down her upper lip.
“Just shut up,” the Crow holding her yanked her along so hard she almost came off her feet. “An outsider could never understand.”
“I’ve been told I’m a good listener,” she chided, feeling a bit delirious. Her head throbbed. “Why not try me?”
Her back met a wall, and in the corner of her eye she saw Lucanis lunge towards her, blocked by that damn shield. The Crow’s hand was wrapped around her throat.
“You’re just as insufferable as he said you’d be,” her assailant snarled at her. He…?
“Yeah, I’ve gotten that one before too,” she wheezed. The Crow growled in frustration and snapped at the warrior,
“Open the damn door.”
Once his companion had done so, he pulled her by her neck and threw her bodily into the room. Naimeryn tumbled through the air a short distance, her knees colliding unforgivingly with the floor before she did a half-roll into a large wooden barrel that the small of her back wrapped agonizingly around. She scrambled back up in time to see one of the other Crows stab a syringe into Lucanis’s neck before shoving him down to his knees and slamming the door. A key turned in the lock, followed by laughter and a muffled call of, “have fun, Demon!”
Panic lanced through her. She closed the distance between them in a scrabbling crawl, pulling the gag from Lucanis’s mouth with one hand and pressing the other against the injection site.
“Maker’s Blood, what did they —“
“Rook, you need to get away from me,” Lucanis’s tone was nearly as anxious as hers, his hands gripping her elbows too tight as he forced her back to arm’s length and held her there. “I suspect it’s something to make me lose control. Whoever is behind this clearly sees you as a threat. He must plan to use Spite to take care of — urgh!”
His face twisted into a grimace, and he jerked back, releasing her. His eyes were wide with shock, and his chest heaved as he threw himself to his feet, rapidly putting the entire distance of the room between them. Naimeryn clambered to her feet but didn’t follow. They were in a tiny windowless storage room. In the back corner a mirror hung on the wall, and Lucanis all but ran to it.
…
His reflection was Spite, as it always was, but it confirmed his fears. Sweat dotting his brow. A flush across his cheeks to accompany the quickening of his heartrate. Pupils blown wide. He had immediately felt the stir in his core. The difficulty to think straight would not be far behind.
Fuck. He had not anticipated this.
“Lucanis?” Rook’s call came at barely above a whisper, and his fogging mind became filled with thoughts of her lips. Black as night, and full. So very full… he forced those thoughts away. He had to control it. Could he control it? “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I —“ he cleared his throat and squeezed his eyes shut as the demon began to react to the drug. Had Illario — for he was painfully, agonizingly certain he was who was behind this, and… perhaps more? — even considered the demon when he’d put this in motion? “No. I was wrong. The plan is apparently not for Spite to kill you trying to get out.”
A soft snort that he felt in his groin crossed the air between them. He loved that derisive laugh of hers, even if it was usually self-deprecating. “No one ever thinks I can handle Spite.”
Spite bristled. Lucanis turned to look at her in concern. He hadn’t meant to imply he thought that. She was holding him in that gentle purple gaze, her brow furrowed slightly with annoyance. There was blood on her face and her eye was beginning to bruise and although he felt guilt — those injuries were on him — he overwhelmingly felt that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on. He sucked in a seething breath and quickly forced himself to look away from her. He swallowed thickly and said, “It is not Spite I am currently concerned with.”
“Why?” Rook asked cautiously.
“The drug will not give Spite control. It is an interrogation compound… the main component of which is an aphrodisiac.”
A beat of silence. Then, “Lucanis, I… don’t know what that means.”
He groaned internally. But why would she be familiar with drugs? “On its own, it is merely a… mood booster, shall we say? But mixed as it has been… unscrupulous Crows have been known to misuse it to overcome unwilling partners.”
The air was palpably still. He gripped the wall, his senses heightening, her perfume threatening to drown him. The very sound of her breath was tantalizing. Spite was practically vibrating — surely this was an entirely new experience for the demon. Could he remember the first time he had felt a nagging need like this? Had it been jarring? But no, he had known what it was, what to do. Did Spite have any idea what was happening to them?
“Did they give you that… by mistake?” Rook sounded genuinely confused, and Lucanis wished she’d stop talking. Why did her voice have to be so… soothing? Like it would envelope him in warmth, chase the pain away… he swallowed thickly again. He could curl up in her voice and die.
Stop.
“No,” he ground out, turning his body completely away from her and pressing his forehead to the wall, hoping the cold stone would lessen the effects. It did not.
“I don’t understand,” Rook whispered, her voice trembling. He heard her take a step forward, and he turned just enough to hold his hand up to her. She halted.
“Inhibited self control,” he began to list the drug’s effects. “Increased pliability. Have you ever seen an animal in heat? A person suffering the effects will do just about anything to achieve release.”
“Heat?” Her breath hitched. “So it… makes you want to…”
“It creates overwhelming desire, yes. Illario must see you as my strongest ally.“
“Illario?” her tone was sharp and angry. “You think Illario did this?”
Why was her voice even hotter when she was mad? All he could do was nod, his breath beginning to come in gasps. His pants were leather, unforgiving to his hardening manhood. Mierda, think about anything but her voice.
“Why didn’t they drug us both…?” she asked, almost to herself.
“Because,” he grunted, “the point is not for us to have fun, as the idiot who locked us in so crassly said. The point is for me to alienate you. Make it so you can’t trust me.“
He thinks he can make me hurt you. What if he was right? She was warm, and kind, and generous. Muscled arms, a bright smile. And those purple eyes..
Stop.
She didn’t retreat. “Can you resist it? Can Spite help?”
I DON’T. WANT TO HURT. ROOK! Spite yowled. GIVE ME! CONTROL!
He surged up, and Lucanis stumbled, clamping down hard. Rook took a quick step forward, and Lucanis growled out, “No!”
He did not trust himself, but he could not trust Spite. He may be inexperienced, but Spite had no idea what to do. Whether he wanted to or not, the likelihood that he would hurt Rook was much higher.
“Can…” Rook was biting her lower lip, though he only glanced at her to see it. “Can I help? With — with magic, I mean.”
Lucanis forced out a bitter laugh. “There is only one way you could help, and that would mean Illario’s plan would succeed. That he would come between us without having to touch you or say a word.”
Come between us. Why would he say it like that? They were nothing. He’d spent the few weeks since meeting her holding her at blade length. There was already an ocean’s worth of “between them.”
“I can’t —“ he started, shaking his head. “I do not know if I can fight both the drug and Spite.”
He admitted it quietly, hopelessly. He was always so helpless in front of Rook. How could he be her god killer if he couldn’t even do this? How could she trust him to protect her from them if he couldn’t even protect her from himself?
“Does it have to be, um…” Rook took another step towards him.
…
“Rook, please,” he snapped his head up, and his expression was agony. Naimeryn’s chest ached. Damn Illario — he couldn’t know she’d have no idea how to handle this, couldn’t know that she was even more clueless on this subject than she was on any other. But why did this have to be his plan? “Do not get too close to me. I do not want to hurt you.”
“Why would you say that?” she whispered, swallowing the tremor of fear that rose to her throat. “Why would you have to hurt me?”
“What do you mean?” He asked hoarsely.
“You just said someone who’s drugged needs, um, release. You don’t need to… hurt me for that, d-do you? Would it help if I, um…” she flushed scarlet, hardly able to believe what she was about to ask. “Would it be helpful for me to… t-touch..?”
He shook his head firmly and grimaced. “I can do that myself. Just… please. Stay away from me.”
“I’ll…” she looked around, wringing her hands. It was such a small space. “I guess I’ll just… go on the other side of the shelf? I can look for a way out?”
“I cannot leave until this wears off,” he told her solemnly, “but if you find one, Rook, promise me you will take it.”
“Okay,” she said tightly, knowing she wouldn’t leave him. It didn’t matter, anyway. There were no vents, no windows, no drainage grates. The only way in or out was that locked door. She might be able to burn it down.
Or she could suffocate them in the smoke.
Naimeryn sat hugging her knees to her chest and tried not to think. Tried not to listen. Even in a drug fueled haze, Lucanis was quiet, but there was only so quiet one could be — at least she assumed. And they were so close.
And even half-deaf, she was an elf.
His panting breath and the occasional muffled moan and the slide of skin on skin sent her heartbeat pounding between her thighs. She’d never had any kind of… education on the subject of sex, and what she knew was from overheard conversations and a few passages in Varric’s books. She knew the basics.
She knew people pleasured themselves. She’d even tried it for herself, but found it pointless. She didn’t know what to think about. Didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like. Was fairly certain she wasn’t supposed to be sore afterward, and had given up.
Naimeryn chewed her lip hard as she desperately but ultimately unsuccessfully tried not to overhear what was happening on the other side of that shelf. Tried not to imagine what Lucanis looked like as he stroked himself, tried not to wonder how big he was, tried not to think about what it felt like. Heat crept down her neck and up to her ears, and she could feel her small clothes growing wet. She squeezed her thighs together. She wondered if she were to try now, if she would be successful.
Not even Hamish had made her feel this way.
She was disgusting, she decided. Lucanis was struggling, for all intents and purposes in pain, and she was… turned on? What was wrong with her? She shouldn’t be picturing him lewdly, shouldn’t be imagining those hands on her instead. She swallowed thickly.
She’d touched his neck! She must have absorbed a small amount of the drug via his blood through the skin of her fingers. That was why her body was behaving this way. Could that happen?
Her heart leapt to her throat at a gutteral moan of “Rook,” from behind her. Naimeryn was on her feet and around the shelf in one smooth movement, much smoother than she’d have ever thought herself capable of managing.
“Lucanis?” She asked sharply, her voice too high. “Are you all right?!”
…
How could he have forgotten she was there? Lucanis’s heartbeat was deafening at his temples, his vision so hazy he almost didn’t trust she wasn’t an apparation. She was so concerned she forgot… everything, her hands reaching for him.
He fought the drug, but her scent was intoxicating. His own hands, one still sullied from his mess, slid around her waist, and she gave a surprised yelp as he pressed her between him and the wall. It was enough to remind him she was real, and he strained to pull away.
“Apologies,” he murmured in a husky voice. He knew he had scared her, and it made his chest ache. “My attempts appear to have been unsuccessful.”
DOES SMELL LIKE. FEAR. Spite leaned in over his shoulder, burying his face in the crook of Rook’s neck and breathing deeply through his nose. Oh, how Lucanis longed to do the same. To smell. To lick. To bite. BUT ALSO. WANT!
That didn’t make sense.
“Does it hurt?” She wanted to know. He realized belatedly her hands had not left his shoulders, even when he’d lunged for her, even though he now held her pinned compromisingly against a wall. Her thigh brushed his still exposed member, and it twitched. Her face was scarlet. Her eyes, however, were hooded. Was that just the drug? He didn’t remember it having any perception-altering effects, but Illario could have laced it with anything.
“It’s maddening,” he whispered, licking his lips. He immediately regretted it. He wanted her. He did not want her like this.
SHE IS RIGHT! HERE!
Lucanis gritted his teeth and braced himself against the wall, panting. He could not lose control of Spite. Spite just wanted it to stop. He’d never shown that kind of interest in Rook, but that didn’t mean it would stop him.
“I… I just want to stop the pain,” Rook said in the smallest voice he’d ever heard her use. One hand started to slide down his chest, sending lightning through his whole body without her having to call on magic, then hesitated. Like she was waiting for permission. “This… is obviously not ideal. A coffee date first would be nice.”
Her chuckle was nervous, strained, but he barely heard it over Spite.
SMELLS LIKE. SOMETHING ELSE. TOUCH! TOUCH ROOK!
“TOUCH ROOK!” Spite gained control momentarily and Lucanis hurled himself away from her, stumbling into the shelf and gripping it until his knuckles were white. Sweat dripped down his back and he shook with the effort of containing the demon.
“Please, Rook,” he wheezed, even as he sensed her coming towards him again. “Stay away. I do not want to hurt you.”
“It hurts me to see you like this,” he grabbed her wrists feebily as she tried to touch his face. “If you don’t want to hurt me, please. Stop making me watch you hurting.”
Spite and his need were at a fever pitch, and he pulled her in, pressing her once again between himself and the wall. He shouldn’t. He couldn’t. He released her wrists and gazed into her eyes.
“I need you to tell me ‘no,’” he whispered. Her brow scrunched and her eyes brimmed. She shook her head.
“Rook, you do not need to do this,” he insisted even as he felt himself pressing against her. Maker’s Breath but he did not know if he could come back from this. Her lower lip trembled.
“At the risk of ruining our working relationship going forward,” she whispered, “I want to. You’re not making me do anything, okay?”
She reached for his face, and he let her. Her frigid fingers sent a shock through his system.
“I want to,” she whispered again. But why did she sound as miserable as he felt?
He couldn’t get the answer, because his resolve snapped. She gasped as he leaned in. At the last moment, he thought better of it, kissing her neck instead. She deserved better than him kissing her lips, when she was only doing this because she needed to help and he couldn’t help himself. It didn’t mean anything. It may as well be business.
The thought nearly crushed him, and he covered the agonized gasp it pulled from his lips by setting to work on her belt. Rook’s hands traced anxious patterns over his shoulders, and he screamed silently at himself to stop, but it was no use. She arched into his touches, sighed beneath his attentions, and when he gave in to Spite’s screams for him to touch her there, she whimpered in his ear.
Lucanis hated every moment of what came next. She was warm, and perfect, and he felt as though he were tearing a priceless piece of art to shreds with sullied hands. He wanted to at least ensure she finished, but his head was spinning so violently he was unsure. The moment he had, he pulled himself from her. She was flushed, and gasping for breath, and giving him a look that was guilt and shame. Why could she possibly be feeling those things? He reached to touch her face, but his hand was sticky.
No.
How could he have done this?
He choked on his breath and fled around the shelf in an attempt to reclaim it and steady his heartbeat. How could he apologize? Were there any words in all of Antivan or trade sufficient for what he had just done? He heard her slide to the floor and he wanted to be sick. This was it, he thought through the returning haze of need. Illario had won.
…
Naimeryn had known this would not be a fairy tale first time. She had known Lucanis didn’t even want her, not really. She knew that everyone who she’d ever thought was going to kiss her had always thought better of it — because who wanted to kiss the ugly, clumsy, orphaned, incompetent, ex-slave mage?
She bit down on the sob before it could escape, determined not to make Lucanis feel any more guilty than he likely already did. she supposed she hadn’t expected to feel so hollow. She sat in their mess, and a shiver overtook her.
So now she’d had sex, and still she’d never been kissed. She swallowed the empty feeling, swallowed the tears. She didn’t want him to think he’d hurt her. There would be enough guilt to go around without her compounding it. Through the shelf, she heard him groan, his breath beginning to race again.
“Are you all right?” She called softly, on impulse. Would he need her again?
She shouldn’t even think that. She shouldn’t have enjoyed that. She shouldn’t be thinking about doing it again. He hadn’t wanted to. He was trapped in here with her, no choice, no options. Just her.
“I can’t,” he said it so weakly her chest ached. She wanted so badly to help him. How long did this damned drug last? “Please stay over there.”
“I will,” she whispered thickly, “but Lucanis…”
“Will you just… talk to me?”
Her eyes brimmed at how broken he sounded. Should she not have offered? Was she… was she just as bad as Illario? Was she taking advantage of a situation to her own benefit?
“I’m sorry,” she croaked, “I’m sure you wish I was Neve.”
Don’t cry, Naimeryn. Don’t cry.
There was a long pause, then he managed between huffing breaths, “why would I wish that?”
“I’m sure this whole situation would be better if I… if I weren’t here, and Neve was. I mean, it’s bad any way you look at it, but if you have to have sex with someone, I’m sure… it would be preferable…”
Naimeryn couldn’t finish her sentence. She tucked her lip between her teeth. Lucanis’s upper body leaned around the shelf, though he didn’t look directly at her.
“You think that I want to have sex with Neve… and not with you?”
“Under normal circumstances, yeah, it feels… obvious,” she picked at her nails and felt herself shiver again. “Lucanis, I know what I look like. You don’t have to be nice… or whatever. And I’ve never done this before so I don’t know what I’m doing, so that probably wasn’t even good for you, and she… she’d know how to…”
“That was your first…” Lucanis croaked.
“Yeah… I lied when I said it had been a while since I’d had a first kiss,” she told her trembling hands. “I’m sorry. I just… I wanted you to… like? Me?”
The tears threatened in earnest, and she clenched her fists tightly in her lap.
“Anyway… no one has ever wanted to kiss me. I thought someone did one time in particular but… I was wrong. And I wanted… but you didn’t kiss me, I assume because I’m… not her.”
Naimeryn took a shaky breath and delivered herself the fatal blow. “If you need to do it again, and if it’s easier for you you can… pretend I’m her, if you want. If that will help you get through this.”
“Rook…”
“You don’t have to look at me. And when you’re better and we can get out of here, we’ll never talk about it again. And —“
Naimeryn cut herself off as Lucanis’s warm hand closed over both of her shaking ones, pressing them into her bare thighs. His fingers were sticky, and her face flushed even before his other hand cupped her cheek and pulled her face towards him.
“Naimeryn,” he said her name like a prayer, and her heart thudded to a stop. “I am not pretending you are someone else. This is not because of the drug. This is not because I feel bad for you. This is not for any other reason than that I want to. I have wanted to do this since the first night I came to the Lighthouse.”
…
Lucanis could not stand anything that had happened since they’d left the Lighthouse this evening, but what he could stand the least was that Naimeryn Thorne did in fact have feelings for him, but thought he could not possibly reciprocate them purely because… he couldn’t even riddle out why. Her scars? She thought he’d find those unappealing?
That she’d felt the need to lie about her romantic experience for there to be any chance he might reciprocate those feelings.
No, what he could stand the least was that she had just given him herself, fully believing he did not want her. Because she would rather be hurt than bear witness to him hurting.
Perhaps if there were no influence of the drug, he could have articulated that, but as it was, he could see only one path forward. He pulled Rook roughly into his arms and crushed his lips over hers, the way he should have done in the first place.
At first he feared he had made everything worse. She was stiff with shock, her heartbeat pounding against his chest harder even than his within it. But then, she melted.
Rook sighed into his mouth, allowing access to hers for his tongue. Honey and lavender had been a poor descriptor. Naimeryn Thorne was raw sugar, almost achingly sweet. Her arms snaked around his neck and she held him close, her grip almost too tight, though he feared he might crush her in turn. Spite cheered, and Lucanis found he couldn’t help smiling against her mouth. She pulled back, just a little.
“Wh— “ she swallowed breathlessly, then tried again, “why…?”
“I do not wish you were Neve,” he told her firmly, shoving down the waves of need having her perched half-naked in his lap sent rolling over him. “If I did not already want you, it would be so much easier to resist. Do you remember I said it inhibits impulse control?”
“But why would you want me?” She squeaked. Lucanis was having trouble thinking straight again. He watched her lips move as she spoke, wishing they were on his again.
“How could I not?” He murmured absentmindedly. The gravity of her question was crushing, and all he could think about was being inside her again. Despicable.
“I —“ her face screwed up and she turned it away to hide that she looked like she was going to cry. Lucanis’s heart squeezed in his chest and he hated himself even more for everything that had happened since they’d been shoved into that room.
“I’m nothing,” she said it so quietly he almost didn’t hear, but the words broke Lucanis into a million tiny pieces.
“How can you say that?” He gaped at her. “You are everything.”
Her face snapped back to his, her eyes wide with shock and brimming with tears. Tentatively, he brushed the one that escaped off her cheek with his thumb.
Rook cupped his face with both hands, stirring ugly memories and fear, but then she was kissing him so passionately he could not possibly have thought about anything else. She popped up on her knees to straddle him, and he fought the desire to pull her back down onto him. Lucanis’s urge changed as she deepened their liplock, wanting nothing more than to roll onto her, but the floor beneath them was frigid, and she was already so cold. Her hands carded through his hair, nails grazing his scalp, and he sucked in a seething breath, panic gripping him.
ROOK! IS! ALLOWED! Spite snapped at him.
“Did I hurt you?” She asked quickly, pulling away. Lucanis decided he agreed with the demon and craned to recapture her lips, murmuring into them, “no.”
He was boiling under the effects of the drug, Spite’s urging returning to a fever pitch of crazed desire. Not again. He bit her lip, too hard — he tasted blood.
“I’m so sor—“ he started as she pulled back with a surprised “mmph!” But then his tongue became quite tied as she casually wiped one finger over her offended flesh, looked at the life fluid as though it were inconsequential, and then slid her tongue along the length of the wound to clean it.
He wanted that.
He pulled her back down and captured her tongue and sucked, a little harder than he’d meant to. She moaned into his mouth, her whole body trembling beneath his hands. He could feel her moisture running along his hard length where it pressed against her, and he thought he might go insane before he allowed himself to have her again.
But this would not be like the first time. He hoped she could someday forgive him for that, strike it from the record. His repentance was going to begin now, drug or no drug.
“You said,” he murmured, trailing kisses down to her neck. She arched her back, pressing the slick heat of her body more fully against him and he thought it was a miracle he didn’t just come right then. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You said you want to.”
“Mmhmm,” she whimpered as he pulled his hand around to her front, sliding it beneath her shirt. He hadn’t asked permission. He stilled. A shaky, “please don’t stop,” fell from her lips, and he obliged. Her breasts were small. Soft. Touching them made him ache to see them. Panting against her neck with the effort of keeping himself on task, he ran his tongue up her neck and to her earlobe. At the first gentle nibble there, her hips bucked against him and her hands fisted in his hair, pulling a sound like a growl from him. Wait.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Spite yowled.
“How long?” He whispered against her ear.
He felt her ear growing hot beneath his lips and he smiled triumphantly. He slid his hand out of her shirt, trailing his fingers over her tummy and down between them, relishing in the shudder that ran through her.
“N-not this specifically,” she whispered, gasping on the words as he ran his fingers through her drenched flesh. He fought the urge to plunge in even as Spite continued to scream. “B-but —“
She let out a needy mewl as he gently circled her clit, thanking his years of reading romance novels and the mandatory seduction course all Crows had to take for having any hope of doing any of this right. She clasped her hand over her mouth in surprise, which only made him want to do it again, but he stilled in hopes she would finish her thought. She was red from the tips of her ears to where her neck disappeared into her collar and he was in — no. He enjoyed this look very much.
“I’ve wanted to wake up in your arms just as long as you’ve wanted to kiss me,” she mumbled behind her hand, refusing to meet his eye.
“That is a significantly more innocent want than this, Rook,” he teased gently.
“You think it’s stupid,” she told their laps. He nuzzled her face with his until she giggled and looked at him again, and he shook his head vehemently.
“I think it is sweet,” he told her firmly. “I do not think anyone will be sleeping before we get out of here. If you want me to stop —“
“I don’t want you to stop,” she said quickly, breathlessly.
“Tell me what you do want,” he all but begged her.
“You, please.”
…
Naimeryn had expected him to plunge in again, for this time to be just as hard and fast and desperate as the first. She gasped as his fingers entered her first, as his lips came back to hers. That was where he focused his hunger and desperation, and she felt her whole body quiver.
How she had longed so long for a kiss, and never even known it could be like this.
His mouth was warm, just as she was always noticing the rest of him was. She thought she might burn up from his attentions now, all the while worshipping the flame. She tried not to think, only to feel. She didn’t know how to kiss well, and she let him lead, parting her lips with his, coaxing her tongue with his own. Figuring out how to breathe — and then remembering to actually do it — was a challenge, but Naimeryn was so lightheaded anyway she wasn’t sure it even mattered.
And his fingers. Of course they were deft. She heard herself panting, making sounds she’d never heard herself make before, and she fisted her hands in his hair as heat coiled like a live snake deep in her gut.
A string of Antivan was murmured against her lips, and then he whispered,
“You are sure?”
“Yes,” she was surprised by her own impatient tone, but the next moment his fingers withdrew and he gripped her hips, pulling her down over his cock. Naimeryn’s back arched and her head fell back and she fought the overwhelming urge to scream. This was better. So. Much. Better.
Lucanis’s fingers flexed on her hips. “Did I hur—“
“Again,” Naimeryn shook her head, leaning forward again and finding his lips herself, her own boldness foreign to her. Lucanis obliged, his fingers digging almost unforgivingly into her flesh as he guided her up along his length and back down. Something deep within her screamed with a pleasure she had not understood when reading it on a page, but could grasp with crystal clarity now. He hit that spot once, twice, again, and again, and she could not formulate any thought other than more. He continued to murmur to her in Antivan, none of which she understood, but his voice in those husky tones was enough to drive her insane.
Naimeryn’s whole being clenched right down to her soul, and she all but screamed his name as she came, his mouth at her throat as she did. He pulled her down roughly a final time, his hands surely leaving bruises on her quivering thighs as he held her there firmly, burying himself within her as far as he could go. Experimentally, Naimeryn tried to purposely flex her muscles, and he rewarded her with a groan and a little nip at her neck.
“Feeling better?” She asked after a moment, impulsively stroking his hair. She’d sensed he’d not liked it previously, but now he leaned into her touch as a cat does. He slid his hands along her sides as he wrapped his arms around her torso, holding her tightly to his chest. He pulled back just enough to look her in the eye.
He still looked a bit sheepish, she thought, but not nearly as guilt-riddled as before.
“I think it will be manageable now,” he admitted quietly. “I… I am so sorry.”
Naimeryn smiled softly, tentatively leaning in. When he made no move to stop her, she gently kissed his lips, butterflies returning to her stomach as he reciprocated the gesture. Knowing he meant “for you, that it happened like this” and not “for me, that it happened at all” was the most liberating thing Naimeryn had ever experienced. Lucanis Dellamorte, the Demon of Vyrantium, fabled magekiller of the Crows, and handsomest, kindest man she had ever met, wanted her. She pulled back to answer him, thought better of it, and kissed him again. He chuckled, causing a pleasant vibration in her lips and a gentle shake in her chest.
Now that she’d finally gotten to kiss him, and now that she knew it was better even than she’d daydreamed it would be, how was she ever going to stop?
But she had to, she knew. She sighed contentedly and finally pulled back, allowing him to help her extricate herself from him. Sheepishly, she peeked around the small storage room for something they might use to clean themselves. There did not seem to be anything useful on the shelf, and she couldn’t imagine anything in the barrel would serve their needs.
“I don’t want you to be… sorry,” she said finally, meeting his gaze to discover he’d been watching her closely. Anxiously. “Circumstances could have been better but…”
Naimeryn could suppress neither the smile nor the flush that came to her cheeks. “I can’t believe you actually like me.”
Lucanis blew out a snort of laughter and got to his feet, holding his pants up as he seemed to also check the room’s contents for something to help their hygiene. “Rook, I am an abomination.”
She winced.
“That you would have feelings for me seems the more unlikely of the two.”
“Being forced to share your body with Spite isn’t a character flaw,” she told him earnestly, shivering so hard it caught his attention. “You’re kind, and thoughtful, and principled, and competent…”
She shook her head and rubbed her arms, shuffling over to her discarded trousers and boots. “You’re an accomplished Crow with a fancy moniker. I… do you know I’d been a Grey Warden for almost ten years before I ever even faced my first Darkspawn? And then, that went so poorly I got myself all but thrown out of the order — and you saw what the First Warden thinks of me.”
She struggled into her pants and tried not to think about how unpleasant the sensation was. A thorough bath tonight, then.
“I’m inexperienced, a fraud as the ‘leader’ of this team, and I’m…” she gestured at herself vaguely.
…
“You think a Crow finds scars unattractive?” He asked cautiously.
“Well they don’t help,” she chuckled, wrestling her second boot on as she spoke. “Honestly I’m giving all the credit to my hair dye. You’re never allowed to see me with my natural hair color; you’ll change your mind.”
More jokes. Lucanis frowned, closing the distance between them and holding a hand down to her. She looked momentarily surprised, then smiled again and took it. A thought occurred to him, and he decided to meet her with humor as well.
“I have seen your natural hair color,” he chided. As he’d hoped, her face turned scarlet, and he chuckled, sliding his arms around her waist, pulling her in, and covering her mouth with his.
The drugs stirred in his system, and while part of him did not want to quiet their call, it was much easier to do so.
“I am sorry you have been made to feel that your looks are somehow… lacking,” he said carefully, pulling back only enough to speak. “But I can assure you, I promise you, drugs or no drugs, I do, in fact, like what I see when I look at you.”
Her little smile was not perhaps enough to convince him that she believed him, but he supposed they would have plenty of time going forward for him to change that.
MORE SEX? Spite grumbled apprehensively. It appeared the demon was satisfied to not feel the need any longer, but had not enjoyed himself. Nerves stirred in Lucanis’s stomach.
“But, Rook,” he hesitated.
“But?” Her voice trembled, and he realized he had likely just ensured she didn’t believe him. Mierda.
“I… this was also… a first for me,” he admitted.
She looked confused, then as realization dawned her expression was first shocked, then achingly soft.
“Really?” She breathed. Her hand cupped his face, and he laid his own hand over hers to keep it there. He nodded.
“It will… not always be like this,” he said uncertainly. But she was smiling, shaking her head, leaning in to gently press her forehead against his. For a moment, nothing existed outside of the space between them.
“Lucanis,” Rook whispered, his name on her tongue sending a tremor down his spine. “We will figure this out together, okay? If you’ll let me. I don’t need any more than you’re willing to give. Okay?”
Mierda, I might love you.
YOU DO. TELL HER!
Instead, he said, “shall we go see why Illario wished to keep us detained?”
