Lyrium Dammed
It was the muscle spasms that woke him. They shook through his body with a frightening force that bowed his spine and caused the chords in his neck to stand out as he gritted his teeth against the agony. His fingers clawed and tears seeped from behind tightly closed lids. He tried to burrow back into the refuge of sleep but fresh agony ripped its way through muscle and bone and clawed up his throat in an uncontrollable scream. His eyes opened and he rolled to his stomach burying his face in the pillow hands gripping the coverlets until his knuckles bled white.
The Spasms slowly dissipated leaving behind a trembling ache throughout his body, the cloud of pain withdrawing from his mind. Sweat ran between his shoulder blades to cool at the small of his back while he waited to see if another muscle spasm would come. When it didn't he sat up on the bed, the heels of his shaking hands scrubbing the spent tears of pain from his eyes blurring his vision temporarily. He looked down at those hands, trembling with the force of his need and closed them into tight fists willing this weakness to leave him.
It was pointless, the lyrium withdrawal would continue to wrack his body and mind until he became a twisted and pathetic creature, fit only to be a mercy kill for whoever found him. He glanced around the room, or more appropriately his cell. There were no bars and soft furnishings decorated it, but the heavy door that was bolted from the outside lent no illusion, he was a prisoner in here until she saw fit to free him or kill him.
He pushed the covers off his lap and swung his feet over the edge of the bed. A fresh spasm trilled its way up his spine throwing him forward, his hands slapping the stone floor. He barked a strangled sob as he shook with the force of his twitching spine, knowing he could do nothing but ride out the pain.
She chose this moment to enter the room, almost as if she were waiting for him to be at his weakest, which considering he had tried to kill her was probably very close to the truth. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, quelling the desire to pull the covers from his bed and cover his nakedness. He heard the door close and the soft pad of her feet on the floor. A wave of her scent, flowers and the sharp smell of the lightening she wielded touched on that part of him in his heart that he hated. The same part that had caused him to desire her when all sensibilities and his duty had demanded he shouldn't.
"It hurts doesn't it?"
He shook his head, not wanting to hear that soft throaty voice, wanting her to just leave him here in his misery. A slow death was preferable to being tortured with her presence. He wanted and loathed this mage in equal measure, and after the blood mage attack upon the circle both emotions had grown to such a measure that he had begun to lose his grip on reality. The desire demon had chosen her form to torment him, had reached into his mind with all the ease and care of a greedy child to pluck his obsession away and flaunt it before him with sweet words and shuddering pleas that scalded his soul and pushed him to the very limits of his resolve. He had done the only thing he could, he had taken that desire and remoulded it into a deep seated hate for the woman, pouring all his fear and pain into the space his heart had so treacherously reserved for her.
Her scent drew closer and his muscles tensed, this caused another bolt of pain and he couldn't help but whimper giving the mage her answer. Her hand slid under her chin and tilted his head up.
"Look at me, Cullen"
He shook his head violently, wrenching it from her grasp.
"Kill me now or let me go but I will not play your games mage" His voice is vehement but there is a touch of desperation in it.
She laughs softly and the sound is both maddening and alluring, it slips behind his defences causing his core of hate to crack, the desire for her bleeding back into his heart like an exquisite poison. His head seems to move of its own accord and his eyes open despite all sense dictating he shouldn't.
He chokes back a gasp as he looks at her standing bold as brass and naked as the day she was born, light brown curls framing her creamy skin, cold storm grey eyes looking down on him like some fallen goddess. To him she was temptation incarnate, something that would both quench his every thirst and burn him up from the inside like Andraste's fire itself.
"H...Have you no sense of decency left in you," He croaked, his voice cracked and hoarse, unable to take his eyes away from her body.
She laughed and the sound made his hands twitch in response, "But I am here to offer you redemption Cullen, you are no longer a Templar, you have reduced to yourself to being a murderer and a fugitive from your own order"
For the moment anger overtook him "If I am any of those things it is nothing to what you have become , a tool to those that seek purchase in this world through lies and deceit, I did my duty as I saw fit, you would never understand."
The mage shook her head sadly and the cold look in her eyes was replaced with pity, "Oh Cullen, your mind and your duty has turned you against your own heart and it has festered like an open wound. You try so hard to fight your own needs and it has consumed you, can you honestly say the deaths you have caused were justified?"
"They were mages, they had been corrupted, what I did was an act of mercy "
"No Cullen, they were innocents, untouched by the taint that so cruelly took the circle, what you did was slaughter them"
He was shaking again now, the muscles in his arms flexed and sweat licked at his skin. He moved forward and rose to his knees, his hands grasping her hips, fingers bruising skin that felt like silk and temptation.
" The demons are cunning and deceitful, I saw the taint dancing behind their eyes, I saw what happened to my brothers , those mages had to die , to risk letting them live was"…he faltered his own words suddenly tasting false and bitter, he screwed up his eyes and mentally spat out the moment of doubt with a horse cry
"I did my duty damn you!"
He pushed her away from him, hard and she stumbles back, giving a soft sigh of pain as her back hits a table behind her.
"Very well Cullen, if you will not help yourself then I will be forced to do it for you, your heart fights with your mind and I WILL not let it destroy you"
She strides purposefully over to a cabinet, and places her hands upon the wood, eyes closing and lips muttering something he does not understand. There is a click and the cabinet swings open. She reaches inside and his eye is immediately caught by the shimmer caught inside the bottle she withdraws. His body gives another earth shattering lurch as pain responds to the twin desires before him.
"Know that I do this for your own good" she whispers, uncorking the Lyrium, her eyes watching his. She lifts the bottle to her chest, tilting it against her collarbone. The blue viscous liquid seeps lazily from its confines to fall upon her tempting skin. Cullen cannot look away, cannot stop his tongue from touching his lips as he watches it trickle between the valley of her perfect breasts.
She watches his breath grow as intense as his gaze as the liquid graces her smooth stomach. She leans against the table, tilting her head back, eyes half lidded.
"Come to me my love" She whispers, and oh maker he can feel his whole world crumble around him in this one trembling moment. The Lyrium makes its way languidly down her body to pool in the hollow where hip meets thigh and he is moving before he can even think to stop himself.
Hands find her hips again and his lips press to the sweet damnation of her skin, he hears her sigh and feels her arms wrap around his head as his tongue draws her flesh into his mouth. He drinks her down, tasting the familiar flavour of the Lyrium , feeling it slide down his throat. The hunger in him roars to life again snatching up his heart and breaking through the hate and pain to spill his desire in a scalding wave.
He climbs her body in a frenzy of tongue and teeth, drinking down the lyrium, drinking down her scent and taste, his strength returning to his body in a rush of magic and lust. He traps her mouth with his and her kiss is every bit as sweet wicked as he had imagined it to be , her lips and soft sighs serving to undo him even further and he feels himself stiffen against her belly while he allows himself to drown in her.
His hands grip her thighs and he lifts her to the table with a short growl while her mouth finds his throat in a series of bites and soul weakening kisses. The need to grip something caused his hands to plunge into the forest of her hair, fingers curling and pulling, his hips crushing against hers with an urgency and need that he had only been able to imagine until now.
His head falls forward and he whimpers into her hair , his body trembling, almost painful with the yearning that had plagued him from the moment he had seen her.
This was torture, this was sin, this was every dream and secret stolen moment exposed and made raw before his eyes.
"Please" he whispers, against the sweet floral scent of her hair, trembling when her head dips and her teeth bite down on one sensitive nipple. Her hand slips down his abdomen leaving quivering skin in its wake and encircles his erection causing his hands to contract in her hair, his back to arch and breath to escape in a series of whimpers.
Never had he imagined this. He had bent to the desire of self pleasure before, where sin dictated he turn his face into the cool confines of his bed as his clumsy hands did the bidding of his need, but her touch was something else. If this was sin he would lay his soul upon the steps of the black city itself and bury his heart in the blackest of dreams if only she would continue to touch him like that.
She lifts her hips and guides him to her with a tenderness that is maddening and sweetly euphoric. He pushes against soft folds of flesh with her encouragement and enters her with a strangled gasp that sounds inhuman even to his ears as his hips drove forward.
Maker's breath he was lost, sliding into her felt like sliding into some exquisite oil and no amount of practice on his part could have prepared him for so sweet an embrace.
This could not be sin, could not be wrong , could not be forsaken and he suddenly knew why his vows had drove him to resist this pleasure, for it was as strong as the cruellest force of nature and as blissful as the holiest of revelations.
She moves against him, encouraging him, wanting him and he begins to move with her, his body hesitant at first, uncertain without her storm filled eyes to urge him on into a rhythm that brought his breath to his lips in a gasp. Habit bids him to turn his eyes away but her hands catch his face and she draws his gaze to hers, thrusting her hips up sharply causing his blood to simmer and his hands to twist in her hair frantically.
He swallows hard and tries to regain some control over his own body. His hands slipping from her hair to her thighs, parting them further and drawing them around his waist. He pushes her gently backwards, laying her upper body on the table. Leaning over her and driving his hips forward while his hands grasp hers for the need to hold something, pressing them against the table.
His movements gain some confidence, spurred on by her heavy lidded eyes and her soft but urgent sighs. His head bends to take her lips and swallow those sweet sounds in a kiss as his body quickens its thrusts, her fingers curling between his, the table rocking with the force of their lust.
He can feel himself falling away from control and he wants to say stop and never stop, because this feeling is both frightening and devastatingly beautiful. She has broken the kiss and is whispering his name over and over again and he is all but lost in pleasure and need.
His body begins to stutter and shake as he reaches some peak he never thought possible. He feels as though he is about to slip out of his own skin to fall away in some sweet darkness that will overwhelm him and dash him against the rocks of this all too sweet a sin.
His release spills forth causing every muscle in his body to tighten at once. His lips part and his breath forms an animal sound that is guttural and intense. He shakes, poised above her, eyes wide, arms straining against this power that threatens to claw his sanity to shreds.
The feeling fades in a series of shuddering gasps and he cannot hold himself up any longer. He collapses panting heavily, his head upon her chest and she draws her arms around him again, holding him to her heart.
He does not know if he has been dammed or saved this night for surely the Maker could not imbue such power in an act like this and make it so inevitably easy to want and need and desire.
She will draw him into her embrace again this night and he knows he will follow with complete abandon because to refuse such beauty is unthinkable.
He is alive again.
He is hers.
He is lyrium Damned.