A/N: This is written for the December writing prompt/gift exchange at Aria's Afterlife. My prompt was:

"A fic about Morinth, just prior to her decision to disobey her mother and avoid exile with her two sisters." This had been thought up by Impyrium.

Keep in mind that I haven't played or read ME for a while now and I've been really busy with holidays and two weeks (TWO) of finals, so this won't be my best work and won't be in the theme of my serious fics that I plan for this channel. I hope I do this justice!

Disclaimer: The title of this short is taken from Dragon Age: Inquisition, so the credit of the phrase goes to Bioware. Although, I was thinking that since it's from the same people, it's ceepily appropriate.

Also, this might be a bit AU cause I forgot some of what actually happened with when Morinth left her family.

And in Your Heart Shall Burn

Hot, moist lips brushed her skin. Teeth grazed her neck with hot, lustful breath trailing behind. She growled deep in her throat. No, she remained in control. No one took control away from her. One swift motion and she straddled the asari's lap. Once again taking charge. To the chorus of pleasured moans, she rolled her hips against hers. Small pleas for more trickled from the woman's lips.

"Mira?"

Never had the blue been scared off her skin as it did the instant a taloned hand brushed her shoulder. Her head collided with something hard. A yelp made her sound twenty years younger. Her skin felt too tight, like she'd burst at the seams if someone touched her the right way.

A low rumble from the body that she leaned against reminded her of reality. "Whatever you dreamed of, it's gotta be good to make you zone out like that." Anturus' subvocals vibrated in the air between them. Silver mandibles flared in a wicked grin. "Would you care to share with the rest of the class? Or do I ply you with endless questions until you give up and tell me anyway?"

Scraping together the last shreds of her dignity, Mirala dug her elbow into the small area in the turian's side that didn't have plates. A pained grunt brought a smile to her face even though her cheeks still burned. Why had she let herself get that distracted – that … aroused – in public? Mother would kill her if she knew how much sex and the need to completely take over another's thoughts occupied her time.

"Well?"

Mirala made a face and shrugged. A slight panic sped her heart until it roared in her ears. By the Goddess, Anturus smelled delicious. "A girl has to keep her secrets, 'Rus," she let a coy smile curl its way onto her face. A foot brushed one of the spurs on his legs, perhaps by accident, perhaps not. The flutter of his mandibles rewarded her effort, however. "I'm sure you haven't told me everything about yourself just yet."

In the dark, pulse-pounding air of the club, the turian's full reaction remained hidden. The space between them narrowed as he leaned closer. A talon, sharpened for mercenary work, traced the line of her jaw. Not so hard as to break the skin yet enough to prick at both her desire and pain tolerance. "Hmm. Maybe I have and you weren't listening. How long have we known each other?"

Unable to turn away from those hunter eyes of jet black, Mirala dared to take a deep breath before saying anything. "Twenty years?" The answer emerged more as a question. Her memory about the last four decades of her life phased in and out as if she lived in a perpetual fog. Twenty felt right, though.

"Exactly," Anturus purred, talon following the curve of her neck to her collarbone. "You're so good at getting under people's plates but you can't remember anything they tell you? I think you'll have to work on that memory of yours if you're going to live the next nine-hundred years or so."

Her whole soul vibrated to the layers of tones in his voice. The predator that gleamed in his eyes stirred something dark and primal from deep inside her. Forget what her mother thought appropriate for a forty-two-year-old to do or say. She knew what she wanted more so than ever before. With sultry, whistful tendrils, her mind reached out to his. Her biotics coated her skin in a liquid fire as she brushed the end of a mandible with a thumb.

"That is quite enough, Mirala!" As loud and damning as an executioner, her mother's words split the air into a million, billion pieces. A hand latched onto her arm in a grip that would be impossible to break. "Shame on you! We are going home right now … and you will not come within a star system of my daughter ever again, do you understand, turian?"

Humiliation left Mirala gaping as she felt herself dragged out of the booth. How could her mother do this? In front of everyone and Anturus! She clenched her jaw, trying to scramble up a backbone. "Stop it! We weren't doing anything! I'm over forty years old …."

"And still naïve enough to let yourself be seen with the likes of him." Samara shook her head, the disappointment radiating from her eyes almost drawing out an apology. That disappointment snapped shut behind the no-nonsense look that Mirala had only seen a couple of times before. "We need to talk."

With her skin on fire for a totally different reason, Mirala managed a stiff nod. How could she ever face Anturus again? He'd only see a child after this humiliation!

Said turian cleared his throat when neither woman turned to face him. "I … I guess I'll be leaving then. Nice seeing you again, Mira." From the rapid beat of his footsteps, he all but ran the other direction.

Samara wasted no time and hauled Mirala out a different entrance regardless of who gaped at them. Mirala tried to jerk her arm free. Even insisted that she'd follow if she could only walk like an adult, but her mother either didn't hear her or didn't care. Resentment sparked from its well where it had been simmering for many years as they climbed into the family car. Falere and Rila liked being towed around like that; they liked it. She had always been the mature one. How dare she be called naïve!

Instead of driving off, however, Samara just sat there. Her hands folded in her lap as she stared into the distance.

Mirala sighed with all the annoyance she could muster. "It's bad enough that you have to embarrass me like that when nothing was happening. Now we aren't going anywhere? Mother, you can't just barge in and …."

"The tests came back for you and your sisters." Samara's voice had shrunk into such a tiny thing that even the near-vaccum of the car seemed to swallow it.

A queasy twist entered her gut. "What tests?"

A flick of deep blue eyes silenced her. "You know which one, Mirala."

Of course she did. She couldn't go a day without hearing about it at least once from her sisters or even her mother. It had been one of the main reasons she had been driven to spending more time with Anturus to begin with. Most of her irritation bled away. She shifted in her seat, the car feeling smaller by the second. "So I take it that we all passed with flying colors?" Her voice trailed off and died in misery by the time she finished, the weight of her heart suffocating it. Not even her mother would have hauled her around like an infant in public if it had been all good news. "So … which one of us is it?"

Samara shuddered and the flash of sunlight from a passing car illuminated twin rivers carving their way down her cheeks. "It's not just one of you, Mira, it's …. All three of you were positive. The results came in this morning. I have … I have been trying to find you all day. Your sisters already know."

The novelty of her mother crying became swept away by a torrent of … certainty? Relief? Whatever she felt, it didn't include the soul-crushing grief she seemed to be expected to feel. Her mind flashed to the dreams and needs that had been assaulting her every waking and sleeping moment for years. The need to dominate, to control, to take everything that made a person what they were for her own pleasure. Everything coalesced into one inescapable fact: she'd been born an Ardat-Yakshi.

"Falere and Rila are already packing for the journey to the temple. You will have to hurry, but we should be able to …. Mira!"

Her body had launched her out of the car and back onto the sidewalk before she could fully think her actions through. She couldn't go to that temple for the rest of her life. To be trapped like an animal or a pet everyone didn't want to talk about because it proved too embarrassing. To be told every day that what she'd been born as should be scorned and rejected.

Mirala ran and ran, ducking through alleys and side-streets she knew by heart. She couldn't hear her mother behind her at all. Had she slipped away?

Ardat-Yakshi.

All three of them.

How? How could the Godess let that happen? Why did her sisters have to suffer? They always enjoyed life, they didn't deserve to be shut away like that!

In a deserted alley, she stumbled to a stop, thudding against the walls with a dried-up sob. A killer. All the stories she'd ever read all screamed the same fate. She would succumb to her urges and become a murderer of anyone she came across. She would never be able to see or speak to the people she knew ever again.

But I can control it!

The thought filled her mind with a certainty she hadn't thought she'd feel. With her hands quivering from the force of the emotions rampaging inside her, Mirala forced herself to think. To be smart and keep her options open. Just like her mother had taught her. Perhaps … perhaps she could keep herself in check. She'd been fighting those feelings for years with no ill effects.

Maybe the Matriarchs were wrong.

She only knew one way to test it ….

Cars and shuttles droned on overhead as Mirala almost danced in place. Why did it have to take so long for a simple communication to get through? Wouldn't they want to know where she ended up?

UNABLE TO REACH DESIRED CONTACT.

Vile words she'd never thought she'd consciously use flew from her lips. Memory hunted her, circled around her. Threatened to drive her past desperation if she didn't talk to her sisters.

Thank you, Anturus.

Taking a deep, cleansing breath in and out, Mirala forced herself to calm down. At least enough so that anyone who walked by her didn't suspect a thing. Now that she'd tried to contact her family, the police and whoever her mother had summoned to hunt her would be on their way. She had perhaps less than a few minutes.

Let's just get this over with and be gone.

Clearing her throat, she set the terminal to record and send the message to any of her sisters' contact numbers. If they deleted it without seeing … no, she didn't even want to think about that. It hurt too much.

"Hi Rila, Falere," okay, that sounded like the worst introduction ever. Too late to change that. "I know you'll be headed to the Temple soon and that they restrict whoever you get your mail from. They'll probably delete this before you even know I sent it. That's okay. I can't let myself be shut up for the rest of my life. This … this is a gift." There, she'd admitted it. "I think … I know I can control this, but I can't do it at that prison. What I'm trying to say … I think … is goodbye. You won't be hearing from me again."

Before she could ever begin to regret her decision, Mirala … no, she realized as she stalked through the crowds towards her ride into the stars. Mirala didn't fit her anymore. That name belonged to a young girl who didn't know what she'd been doing.

Morinth. The name had come to her when she first considered the possibility. A smile curved her lips as she tasted the name in a whisper. "Morinth."

Now that was a name she could live by.