Note: This is a story about terrible people doing terrible things to each other. This story contains violence, non-consent, and general heinous fuckery. If that is likely to upset you, read with care.
I came up with this scenario while writing another piece, but I just couldn't find a place for it. Someone requested some Samson smut and I wanted to try my hand at writing a twisted and complicated protagonist for once, so here we go.
The air in the ruined temple was always stale and dry, dusty with history that had long since passed out of memory. Samson had grown used to it. The fearsome statues and carvings that decorated the mouldering structure leered, but none were more interesting to him than the face of the woman he looked down at now. The Inquisitor. Quite the prize.
It was the first time that he had gotten a good look at her and Samson paused to appreciate the view. Hair so red it looked like she'd bleed if you cut it. Pretty face with full lips. Fair skin that showed none of the wear and hardship of a commoner's life, despite the cuts and bruises of battle.
His scouts had struck gold on the day that they had spotted her bathing alone a little ways from her camp there in the Emerald Graves. Vala Trevelyan was a terror on the battlefield - a woman-shaped dreadnaught that breathed death and ate the fear of her enemies. Samson had seen it with his own eyes at Haven. Catching her vulnerable - out of her heavy plate and without her companions to back her up - had been a coup. Even then, unarmored, with only her sword in hand, Trevelyan had faced him down with a challenge. She had stood there, half-naked like some bare-breasted barbarian shieldmaiden with her eyes burning rage, and dared him to face her as an equal. Samson wasn't that stupid. But he had to give her credit for the sheer balls of the challenge.
Trevelyan hadn't gone down without a fight. There was still dried blood matted into her hair and on her face and clothes, though he had poured a potion into her to keep the breath in her body once she was down. She was still unconscious, propped against the wall of the chamber he had claimed as his personal war room and quarters. Her wrists were shackled and the chain threaded securely through a sturdy ring in the stone wall that had once been used to tether the sacrifices offered to Dumat in some by-gone age. Fitting, Samson thought to himself without humor, since she was now awaiting slaughter herself. The Elder One would surely make her death painful and long for all the trouble she'd caused him.
Still, much as it would be a mercy to let her expire there on the floor, Samson had to keep her alive in the meantime. He fingered the flask of water in his hand and moved towards the prone woman, hunkering down next to her as he grasped her jaw to tilt her head back enough that the water wouldn't choke her.
The touch seemed to provoke some instinctual reflex of self preservation. Trevelyan roused. Her jaws clamped shut, her body twisted with a startled snarl of fright. Blue eyes snapped open wide, the pupils dilating with enraged recognition as they lit on his face. She lashed out with her chained fists. Samson caught the blow easily and slammed her back against the wall hard, her head bouncing off of the stones with enough force to stun her as he grasped her by the throat.
Her fingers pried at his grip as he pressed in slowly, choking her, but as strong as she was the red lyrium had made him far stronger. He glared into her eyes until he saw her expression turn from rage to choking panic. He squeezed tighter for just a moment before relaxing his grip enough to let her draw a breath at last. The sound that burst from Trevelyan's lungs as she sucked in the stale air was painful.
"Just so we understand each other," he told her curtly, satisfied as he felt her go still except for her heaving breaths.
"Bastard," she spat, gasping. If she had been a mage, the outrage in her glare could have burned him alive. Samson grinned at her, nastily. He held up the flask of water, shaking it so she could hear the liquid inside.
"Water. Not what a noble lady is used to, I know, but it'll get the taste of blood out of your mouth. You can drink it yourself or I can pour it down your neck by force. Either way is fine by me."
For a moment, Samson thought that she would start to struggle again. Still breathing heavily, Trevelyan pressed her lips together - and what lovely lips they were, he thought to himself with a momentary spark of desire - before relaxing the taut resistance in her limbs.
"Good girl," he told her, holding the bottle up for her, waiting until she had grasped it before removing the hand from her throat. He leaned back as she uncorked it and raised it to her lips.
Trevelyan's legs were under her in an instant. Her fist caught Samson on the chin hard, but he reacted just as quickly as the second thudded against his chest. He rolled with the blow, taking the power out of it, and used her own momentum to tumble her onto the stone floor. She was groggy still, her reflexes slow, her limbs restricted by the heavy chains. It was all the leverage he needed to pin her, kneeling astride her back as his full weight crushed the air from her lungs, her arms twisted up painfully behind her as she continued to fight, legs thrashing. Blood dripped from a cut on his lip, his jaw smarted, but Samson hardly noticed it. His heart pounded with vengeful anger as he cinched the pressure on her arms tighter, feeling her shoulders and elbows strain and the joints crack, until at last her furious curses turned to a prolonged howl of pain. He snatched her hair, bowing her neck and body back cruelly as he snarled low and cold next to her ear.
"Keep that up, bitch, and you'll be screaming for death by the time the Elder One comes to deal with you."
He released her, standing back as he watched Trevelyan heave and shudder, slowly picking herself up onto her hands and knees. Her long, tangled hair curtained her face from his view, but he could feel the hate radiating off of her. Good. The leather bottle lay a few feet away. Samson wiped his bloody lips and then picked it up, felt that it was still about half full, and then set it down next to her hand again as she struggled to regain her breath.
"Drink."
He prepared himself to have to hold her down and strangle her until he could pour the water into her himself. But, at last, Samson saw Trevelyan's hand grip the bottle. She was still on her hands and knees and he watched cautiously as she settled back onto her heels and tilted her head back, draining the vessel. Satisfied, he grinned.
"See? Nothing hard about that."
The leather bottle was flung at him with a good amount of force. It bounced harmlessly off of Samson's breastplate and he kicked Trevelyan in the gut, his boot finding the soft spot between her sternum and her belly hard enough to drive the breath out of her and flip her painfully onto her back. The woman groaned, her body curling onto her side reflexively to protect her from further abuse as her stubborn anger was overcome at last. He pushed her onto her back again with the tip of his boot and stepped on her chest, leaning his weight onto her sternum between her breasts with a firm and relentless pressure. She cursed him weakly, but she no longer had the strength in her limbs to stop him. Her eyes began to glaze as they stared back up at him.
"This isn't Skyhold. You're in my place now. And, while you're here, you're mine, too," he told her, pressing down harder for emphasis and seeing her teeth grit with pain and her limbs writhe as her ribs constricted cruelly. "Throw spite at me, girl, and you'll get it back worse than you ever imagined possible. Think about that."
With that, he turned and left her there, striding out into the main sanctuary of the temple. The ghost of a smile spread onto Samson's lips as he started his rounds, checking that everything was in order. The Inquisitor's reputation was well earned. For all the trouble it would cause him, he admired her defiance. Nothing like a woman with vinegar and fight in her. It was a shame what Corypheus would do to her when he arrived. But, Samson thought as he wiped the last smears of blood from the corner of his mouth, he might enjoy this more in the meantime than he had thought.
~~0~~
By the time Samson returned to his chamber, it was dark outside. His quartermaster had lit the candles before his arrival, and the shadows flickered and shivered along the high vaulted ceiling and across the walls like the ghosts of the demons who had haunted this place before he had arrived. A simple rationed meal of hard bread and cheese and a little watered wine had been left for him. There was a clink of metal chain and a slow movement to his left - Trevelyan standing and glowering at him from where she had been sitting against the stone wall.
Out of her armor, in her arming tunic and breeches alone, she was still an imposing woman. She was tall and well-muscled from fighting. Despite being chained, she held herself with the confident grace of a swordswoman. Still, there was a shape to her that betrayed the existence of womanish curves under her clothes. Samson noted the generous swell of hips and breasts - remembering the shape of them from when he had caught her unclothed on the river bank. Trevelyan scowled fiercely at him as he paused to peruse her, making no secret of it.
"Spare me your lechery, dog," she scoffed at him.
"Just taking a look at what's going to waste once Corypheus gets his claws on you. Shame," Samson replied, casually, letting her see exactly how little her anger affected him. He sat down at the battered table that he had dragged into the chamber to serve as a work space and grinned at her. "You're not the first pretty noblewoman to call me 'dog'. Makes me homesick for Kirkwall."
"No doubt you were just as much a repulsive coward there as you are here," Trevelyan goaded him, aggressively. Trying to provoke him into a fight, Samson knew. He laughed at her.
"I'll tell you one thing, girl. I'd rather be a dog than a noble. A dog is loyal. A dog will never turn on you, unless you mistreat it. A nobleman will smile in his best friend's face and stab him in the back and never think twice about it."
"I retract the accusation, then," Trevelyan retorted, icily. Her expression was cold now, disdainful. "As being unfair to dogs. Even a dog has the courage to face an enemy tooth to tooth. You are less even than that."
Samson's smile diminished slightly as he felt a spike of hot anger deep in his gut, but he knew she wanted him to lash out at her. He tore off a piece of bread from the wooden plate before him idly instead.
"There's the bluster I expect from your kind. Insult me all you want, but you're the one who's going to end her life chained to a wall, not me. How did that work out for you?" He chewed the hard bread for a moment and then broke off a larger part of the dry loaf, holding it up. "Hungry?"
"I would rather starve than break bread with you."
He tossed the crust onto the floor in front of Trevelyan anyway. She regarded it as if it were crawling with maggots before turning her stony contempt back up to him. Magnificently poised, this girl, whatever else she was. As he bit into the remaining part of the loaf with a crunch, Samson assessed her. While he liked her spirit, she did have a mouth on her. Listening to her spit bile at him would get tiresome after a while. And he knew one way to humble her that he very much liked the thought of.
He finished his meal and stood. Trevelyan had taken to pacing slowly along the short space that the chain allowed her like a caged lioness. She paused as he approached her, watching him suspiciously.
"Maybe you can settle a question for me," he told her, amiably, keeping his tone lazy and his posture neutral. "When I was in Kirkwall, I always heard that the noble girls up in Hightown had the tightest cunts. To hear it told, they all tasted like honey and rosewater. Never had the chance to fuck one myself, though. What about you, Inquisitor? Does it ring true?"
She scowled at him, but Samson could see her back away a fraction, her body tensing. He grinned at her discomfort, taking another step towards her.
"No need to be shy. You might be a fighter - a damned good one, I'll admit - but you're still a woman behind that title and underneath all that armor and pomp. The hardest on the outside are always the softest inside when you have them spread and moaning underneath you. We could find out."
"Touch me and you'll die," she snarled at him, but Samson saw her back up another step towards the wall.
"Tough words, but that's a fight you'll lose, girl, and we both know it."
The ploy had worked. Trevelyan retreated from him, backing down to a more defensive stance. It wasn't fear, exactly, that Samson saw in her eyes - but she wasn't flinging curses or barbs at him anymore either. In truth, he wouldn't have pressed it much further. Though he was confident that he could overpower her, take her there against the wall and leave her bloody and fucked on the floor, it would be more trouble than it was worth. His point was made. Still, he thought as he cast another appraising look over her body, he might change his mind before this was over.
"Another night, maybe," he told her, turning his back on her. "I've work to do."
He returned to his desk and finished off the wine gradually in the light of the candles as he read through his reports. Trevelyan had settled down against the wall, watching him. He didn't look at her. So long as she was behaving herself, he could let her stew. Finally, he sat back from his work and sighed, stretching. There was a slight ache in his temples, a tightness in his chest that told him his next dose of lyrium was due. Time to do something about that.
He felt his prisoner's eyes watching him as he crossed to the chest that contained his supply and his philter and unlocked it, carrying the paraphernalia of his addiction back to his seat. The ritual of preparing the lyrium and consuming the philter was one he normally preferred to carry out in private. Tonight, however, Samson wanted Trevelyan to see it. She knew what the red lyrium did. She had seen his templars. He wanted to look her in the eye as he drank the bitter red, showing her how little of a threat she was to him in comparison to what he was willing to do to himself.
The rush was sweeter for it, as he settled back against his chair with a sigh. Red light suffused his body, calming him, lifting him up. The ache in his head drifted away, and he savored the sense of peace. When he opened his eyes again, Trevelyan was staring at him. There was an oddness in her expression - something that was between disgust and fascination. Too focused. Strange, that.
"There's nothing like it," he told her with a smile, rising from his chair and feeling the weight of the day drift off of him along with his anger.
He removed his armor, unlaced his boots. He was aware that Trevelyan's eyes scanned him briefly as he stripped away his arming coat and stood bare chested before her. She looked away quickly when he glanced in her direction and so he turned, as if showing off his scarred torso for her benefit.
"Look all you want. It's only fair. I've already had an eyeful of what's underneath your tunic."
Her gaze remained averted as he pissed into the chamberpot and then went to snuff the candles.
"It'll be a cold hard night on those stones. I'd invite you to my bed, but something tells me you'd be chilly company yourself."
Trevelyan offered no reply, though he could see her jaw working, biting off a scathing retort. Her eyes glittered with barely restrained violence in the dim light of the last remaining candle and Samson returned her glare with an equally malicious grin.
"Sleep well, Inquisitor."
He left her there in the dark and retired to his cot, stretching out and letting the residual glory of the lyrium settle him. If Trevelyan ever did get free, Samson knew that he was stoking the fire for his own murder. There was something dark buried just underneath those blue eyes and all that holy, righteous propaganda. At first, he had only wanted her docile enough to wait out the fortnight before the Elder One would arrive. Now, however, he was curious. And the thought of how far he could push her - the idea of seeing all that famous ferocity crumble at his feet - was more than a little appealing.
There had been something there when she had watched him take the lyrium. Samson was certain of it. It wasn't just revulsion. Tomorrow, he would push it further - and he would see what demons scattered when he finally broke through into what was inside that pretty head.
~~0~~
Trevelyan was kneeling, her hands propped on her thighs, her eyes closed as if in meditation when Samson approached her the following day. His prisoner was fairing none too well. She had managed to comb the worst of the knots from her hair with her fingers, but it hung down her back in spiralling, dirty locks. Her face flowered with the bruises he had given her. The skin around them was pale - not the creamy whiteness so beloved in well-bred maidens, but sickly pale. There was sweat on her brow despite the temperate air.
He sat a bottle down in front of her. Her eyes opened, glaring, but she did not move a single muscle otherwise.
"Drink."
He half-expected to have to thrash her again, but was pleasantly surprised to see her reach for the bottle without comment. Thirst was the best tamer of beasts. There was a slight tremor in her hand and arm that caught his attention. It was not fear, he thought, assessing her, but there was something deeply familiar about the involuntary shiver at the same time. Samson watched as Trevelyan drained the bottle and sat it back down on the floor. He rewarded her with a smile. Her expression remained serrated, her gaze never leaving his own. Though he could feel the hostility emanating from her like a palpable presence in the room, something was different today. Like a wrong note in a bar of music.
"Giving up the fight already?" he teased her. It was his turn to goad her now. Trevelyan's lip curled contemptuously, but she was otherwise still. Watching him. Waiting.
Her silence was no doubt another ploy to get a reaction from him. Samson wouldn't play that game. He took the bottle and set it aside. He picked up from his desk the wooden bowl and the rag he had brought with him and returned to stand in front of her, setting it down. There was a finger or two of water in the small basin, and she glanced at it - calculating - before turning her gaze back up to him. Her thirst had evidently increased considerably over the course of the night.
"Clean yourself," Samson told her. "It'll be some days yet before the Elder One comes for you and you look and smell like you were dragged in fresh from a battlefield."
Without waiting for a response, he turned back to his desk and sat down to begin his own work, though he watched her from the corner of his eye. For several long moments, Trevelyan was still. Then he saw her reach for the rag.
"Must be hard for you," he commented as she washed her face and her limbs, reached under her tunic to wash breasts and torso, and squeezed water tinged rusty brown from old blood back into the bowl, "being used to finer things."
He hadn't really expected her to answer. Trevelyan's voice was cold and calm when she did. She did not pause in her toilette.
"You know nothing of me. Do not flatter yourself by imagining that you do."
Even her accent was poised - not the flowery flourish of a girl that spent her time flitting between parlors and ballrooms, but the erudite and precise diction of a woman who understood power and how to use it as both a shield and a sword. Samson raised an eyebrow, showing her amusement rather than anger.
"I know that all this Herald nonsense is rubbish. And I know that you know it, too. How long were you planning to fool them?"
"How long were you planning to conceal the truth from your men?"
The raven quill bent, nearly snapping, in Samson's grip, but he caught himself. Trevelyan's smile was venomous when he glanced at her. She knew she had drawn blood. He finished his message and rolled up the strip of parchment.
"I know that you're not as pure and holy as you act. No one kills like you do without enjoying it."
"Do you not enjoy seeing your enemies die?"
There was an actual question in her voice, a note of interest alongside the contempt. Samson stood, regarding his prisoner. The dirt, grime, and dried blood were gone from her face and arms. Her hair was wet where she had tried to scrub the gore from it. Her smile lingered - malignant and lovely at the same time - as she took his measure in return. He wanted to wipe that smile from her face, watch it turn to a rictus of rage or pain beneath his hands. It was time to put the theory that he had been building to the test.
He crossed the room to his chest and retrieved his philter. Trevelyan watched as he returned, setting his kit down in full view of her.
"I do, at that," Samson answered her evenly as he pulled the vial of pure lyrium - shimmering blue-white within the glass - from his belt pouch and saw her go still.
He went through the preparations slowly. By the time he was done, Trevelyan's smile had vanished, replaced by a fixed, hungry expression. Samson rose, holding the philter casually as he approached her. He smiled as he saw her eyes follow it.
"I know that you want this even more than you want to kill me."
The chamber was silent. Samson could hear the wind whistling through the spires of the temple as Trevelyan's face darkened. The hatred in her eyes when she tore them away from the philter to look up into his face was so bitter that it felt like something no longer even human. Her fists were clenched at her sides. Samson could see her nails digging into her own flesh.
"You were never a templar. How did it happen?" he prompted her, curious. If he was foolish enough to walk within arms length of her, there was no question in his mind that she would attack him. Her jaw clenched for a moment, before she spoke.
"I trained outside of the Order. The skill and the lyrium without the vows."
"Maker's balls, girl," Samson scowled at her, appalled. "I know templars that would give their sword arm to be free of the stuff. At least the Order has the decency to teach you how to bear it. Why would you do that to yourself?"
His remonstrance brought the claws out at last. Trevelyan was at the end of her chains in flash, snarling at him. Her fist swiped a hair's breath away from his face as he ducked quickly out of her reach.
"You have no right to criticize my choices. I had demons to fight. I was waging a war against Grey Wardens that were summoning the blasted things by the regiment. I took the risks only upon myself. You poisoned every soldier under your command and dragged them down with you. Do not dare to ask me why."
Her face was flushed with rage as she strained against her bonds, her teeth bared like a fighting animal. Her words stung like arrows slamming into Samson's chest, but they were just that - words. Samson rolled the philter in his palm, watching as the heat of her anger slowly cooled and hardened again. It was true that women were lovelier when they were angry, he thought to himself. He considered.
A fortnight without lyrium wouldn't kill Trevelyan, but Samson knew all too well how it would make her wish she was dead. He knew first hand how it would gnaw away at her inside and how that feeling would be magnified by the fact that she also wasn't eating and barely drinking or sleeping. He knew how that could warp and crack the foundation of even the most dedicated Templars, much less someone who was only half trained. There would be vengeance in watching the noble-born bitch that had dogged his every move for the last few months brought down low by the all-consuming hunger - just as he had been on the streets of Kirkwall for so many, many years.
But there was even richer vengeance to be had by feeding it.
"You're in a fix then, sweetling," he told her, teasingly. "How many days has it been for you now? Three? Four? You're only getting your first taste of what's coming. That void inside you is just going to get worse hour by hour, day by day, until you'd gladly take even the red to fill it."
He held up the philter, looking past its glow into Trevelyan's livid gaze, and he grinned at her brutally.
"I might be willing to take that from you for a little while - at a price. I always did want to find out if the rumors about noble girls were true."
No lyrium rush had ever been sweeter than the look of impotent fury on Trevelyan's face in that moment. Samson chuckled as he saw her struggle with herself, her throat closing to choke off the roar of abuse that was surely threatening to burst from her like dragon-fire.
"Never," she ground out, barely achieving a whisper.
He shrugged, turning and walking away from her, hearing her chains rattle and clang in frustration behind him. He set the glowing philter down on the table within full view of her and smirked.
"Think on it."
Samson left her there staring at the vial that was out of her reach, and more than one of his Red Templars noticed that their commander seemed to be in especially good humor that afternoon.
~~0~~
Two days came and went. Trevelyan was visibly weakening. She still refused food, though her stomach growled so savagely that it sounded as if her body was trying to devour itself. Her thirst was too great for her to ignore, but the water that she drank seemed to do her little good. Her hands quaked. Samson heard her voice in the darkness at night as the nightmares that withdrawal always spawned assaulted her - snatches of orders growled out with fear - a name, one that Samson recognized, sighed out with weary sadness.
On the third day, when Samson sat Trevelyan's evening water ration down in front of her, he paused to take in the damage. She sat with her back against the wall, her head leaned against the stones and her eyes closed. Her cheeks seemed hollowed slightly, still pale. The bruises on her face were beginning to yellow and fade. Her expression was not peaceful, but neither was it angry. She looked, if anything, exhausted - a woman of flesh and blood and no longer the all-powerful Inquisitor.
Her blue eyes opened as she heard him approach, however, and they snapped onto Samson with no less disdain than ever. He watched her drink - moving slowly onto her knees to reach the bottle instead of standing now - and then moved over to his desk, beginning to prepare his philter for the evening. Her eyes followed him, balefully.
It had become a game, of sorts. He had left the vial of pure lyrium on the corner of the table for her to see as both temptation and torture. She would watch him as he consumed his own philter twice daily. He would grin at her and repeat his offer. Then, she would insult him or she would turn away silently. Tonight, however, he could see her face tense with frustration, her brow beaded with sweat, her mouth opening a fraction with her own need as he drank the red and let its power sweep through him.
"I'd ask if you'd changed your mind, but I know you're bent on being bloody right up until the end," he told her, his voice languid so soon after imbibing.
Trevelyan said nothing. She exhaled, a breath that she had been holding. Her head bowed, her eyes squeezed shut - Samson could see her forcing herself to inhale again slowly.
"What is it that you want," she asked, her voice precise as if she were forcing the words out against her will, "exactly?"
The silence that followed would have stopped an arrow in mid flight. Samson was quick enough to catch and carefully arrange his expression before it could show his surprise. He could see that Trevelyan was serious, however. This was not a ruse - or at least it was a very well acted one. He turned in his chair to face her, leaning forward on his knees, studying her face. She did not open her eyes. She waited for his reply as a criminal awaited the creak and plunge of the gallows trap door.
"You know what I want, girl," he told her, roughly. He would not soften the blow for her. He wanted to see her understand and choose it - he wanted to see her break.
For an instant, he was certain that she would balk, that he would see the fight flash back up in her eyes and she would curse him, retreating. But Trevelyan's shoulders rose and fell. Her lips curled into an expression of revulsion that Samson could tell was directed mostly inward at herself. And she nodded.
"Very well."
"Don't think you can trick me. I'm not foolish enough to keep the key to your bonds anywhere near me. If you fight, you'll lose your only chance for relief and I'll fuck you all the same."
"And if you do not keep your word," she shot back, her voice hardening into a blood-chilling oath, "there is no chain in this world that will prevent me from ripping your heart out of your chest with my bare hands."
Samson smiled, grimly. "I'd expect no less."
Trevelyan pulled herself to her feet as he stood and approached her. She did not look at him, closing her eyes to shut him out as he came near. Her face became a wall, her body a fortress. That, Samson thought, would not do. When he was close enough, he reached out to run his long fingers along the elegant arch of her cheek. When she flinched away he grasped her jaw firmly - not enough to hurt her, just to hold her still. He could practically feel the pulse in her neck pounding fury at him. Her teeth clenched beneath her shapely lips. He let his thumb trace a gentle circle on her cheek as he slid his other hand along the firm line of her waist.
"It's not an execution, Inquisitor. Not yet anyway," he teased her, warming to the exercise. He gathered the hem of her stained tunic, sliding his hand across the bare flesh of her belly, feeling the muscles contract beneath her skin. "I know a thing or two about pleasing a woman. Relax."
Trevelyan did not relax. If anything, he felt her tense further. Samson eased her tunic up a few more inches, traversing the plain of her stomach up to her ribs. Her body was scarred, just as his was. He followed the line of a broad, livid slash up to her chest. The rise of her breast grazed his fingers. A few heartbeats passed, his hand splayed on her sternum, before he slid his palm over to cover the firm mound, squeezing, testing it for weight and balance. Trevelyan's breath caught soundlessly. Samson grinned at her.
"It's been awhile since a man has touched you like this, hasn't it?" he asked her, caressing her jaw and throat.
She did not respond, but she didn't have to for him to see the truth of it. Her brow creased, her chest rose unevenly as she breathed.
She was struggling to contain herself - to suppress the urge to beat him to a bloody pulp for daring this. Samson didn't want her contained. He didn't want her silent and cold acquiescence. Her body alone would be a treat, but it would so much better, a proper victory, if he could break through that self-restraint and take her wholly - mind as well as body. He wanted her struggling, angry, and present - her attention focused on him and what he was doing to her. And, remembering the name he had heard her speak in the night, Samson had a good idea of what would do it.
"I knew that commander of yours didn't have the balls for it."
Her eyes flashed open, aflame once more, but Samson was expecting it. Before she could lash out at him, he yanked her tunic up, tangling her arms and obscuring her vision, as he threw his weight against her hard. He pinned her against the wall quickly as she roared in indignation and surprise. She kicked, but he was too close for her to land a damaging blow. The cloth of the arming tunic strained as she thrashed, but it was heavy and quilted to withstand the rigors of heavy armor and it held. Samson laughed in exultation as he twisted the fabric tighter to trap her arms up above her shoulders.
Her face was obscured. She was bare from the waist up. He took a moment to lean against her, pressing his body fully against hers as she writhed. The feel of her there underneath him, fighting, hating him, was more arousing all on its own than any Darktown whore he had ever fucked. His cod nudged against the front of Trevelyan's breeches, the scalding appetite beneath it beginning to wake. There would be a corresponding heat there between her legs, he thought hungrily. But that could wait a little longer.
"That's it, girl," he crooned at her, huskily, his tone belaying the violence of the moment as his free hand explored her, reinforcing his control. "That's what I like. I've got your attention now."
She cursed him and Samson grinned as he pressed his mouth to her right breast, inhaling the scent of her skin. She smelled of woman and sweat and the faint, lightning-strike, lingering scent of lyrium. His erection surged to life with a vengeance and Samson groaned, pressing himself harder against her, crushing her against the stone wall. He pulled the cloth that kept her bound up enough to kiss her neck, sucking hard at the flesh above her raging pulse as the stubble of his cheek scraped against her skin. He devoured the smell as she gasped and swore at him. More gasping than swearing now, he realized, growling triumphantly against her flushed skin.
Samson leaned back and freed her head from the neck of the tunic in a smooth movement. There was murder in Trevelyan's ice-colored eyes, but the flush had spread from her breasts up her neck and into her face. Her lips, covering teeth that would have gladly torn his flesh, were as red now as his lyrium.
"Why isn't he fucking you, Inquisitor?" Samson asked her throatily, resuming the taunt as he began to unlace her breeches with his free hand. "A woman like you - most men would kill for the chance."
He slipped his hand through the loosened laces and felt the softer fabric of her smallclothes. There was a dampness there at his fingers. He felt the rise of her mound beneath the cloth, stroking it. Trevelyan squirmed, but he could tell her body was betraying her. Her nipples stood out as hard as rubies against her white flesh. Samson leaned in and took one in his mouth, teasing her with his tongue, hearing the sharp intake of breath as he slid his fingers further under her small clothes to the soft friction of hair spiraling down into the ravine of her sex.
"My gain, though," he murmured as he traced her wetness, hearing her heart thunder against her ribs. Her limbs were taut, but Trevelyan had grown otherwise very still. He palmed her, spreading her legs a little further, grasping her possessively and pushing the heel of his hand against the sensitive place at the top of her slit as he felt her begin to shiver. "If he's not man enough, then I'm happy to oblige."
Her eyes closed, she sucked in a breath. Her body went rigid. He rocked his hand against her slowly, seeing the way that she tried to prevent her hips from moving with him, denying her body the response it wanted to give. Samson moved to her other breast, taking the nipple between his teeth and biting gently. A growling groan erupted from her throat, and he pushed her arms firmer against the wall as she struggled briefly. Her cunt burned hot against his palm. As she writhed, he parted the now slick folds of that heat and pressed his thumb against the hardening button beneath it, sliding a finger deep into her core.
"Sweet Andraste, you're tight," he grunted, feeling Trevelyan's flesh quiver and clench. She bared her teeth, but her chin tilted up, the column of her throat long and pink before him. Samson kissed the "v" where her collarbones met, trailing his lips up to her jaw, dragging another groan from her as he began to gently stroke inside of her, applying pressure to the soft, ridged place on the upper side of her core as he pressed down against the sensitive nerve bundle on the outside.
The sound that burst from the woman underneath him at last was almost feral in its urgency. Samson laughed as he kissed her neck harder, sucking, biting her under the jaw, feeling her fists clench and her shoulders buck. The blood was surging hot through his own veins now. He could hear it thrumming through his ears. His cock strained against its confines, demanding freedom, but it was not time for that yet. He slipped a second finger into her, driving them deep into her folds as he felt her hips press down, rocking instinctively to take him deeper, to rub the cloven place more firmly against his thumb as greater shards of pleasure shot up through her spine.
He kept her there, her breath panting and her body twisting for a different kind of release now, until with a final growl he let go of her arms, grasped her jaw and neck, and stroked her harder and faster until he saw her mouth open and her body seize. The muscles inside of her clamped and shuddered on his fingers as she crashed into ecstasy with a strangled wail that mingled with Samson's own crow of victory.
He kissed her, covering her mouth with his own as he pressed her hard against the wall, feeling only feeble resistance as his tongue met hers. He grasped her hair, holding her head where he wanted it as he hovered at her cheek, feeling her breath against his neck, waiting for her to come back to herself. When her eyes opened, finding his, he grinned.
Carefully, he stepped back, allowing her to finally disentangle herself. Trevelyan's face was flushed, sweaty. He could still see the edge of rage in her eyes, but dull now, uncertain. She readjusted her tunic, watching him warily as she caught her breath. Samson smiled at her. He smelled his fingers, enjoying the coppery female scent that made the back of his brain heat and sizzle, and he tasted her, sucking the nectar of lust from his fingertips.
"They were right," he teased her. "Sweet honey and the tightest cunt I've ever had. Rutherford doesn't know what he's missing."
Before she could respond he returned to his desk, retrieving the vial of pure lyrium. For an instant, he toyed with the idea of denying her. But seeing her there, the belligerence gone from her face and her body, her expression clawed through with an all too familiar need, Samson decided against it. He held the vial out to her.
"I keep my word. Take it."
Distrustfully, Trevelyan approached him. Her hand grazed his palm as she accepted the vial from him, and he saw the relief in her face as her fingers closed around it. He considered making a joke at her expense, telling her that he always paid his whores, but even as he thought it he realized that there would be no pleasure in it. He had already won. She knew it. He could afford to be merciful in conquest.
"That'll keep the horrors off of you for tonight," he told her, his rough voice sounding surprisingly gentle to his own ears. "Make the most of it. Sleep."
He left her to take the philter privately, retreating to his cot and preparing to sleep himself. He remembered the taste of her skin, the warmth of her body against him, and conjured that into the darkness. He reached down, grasping his cock as he imagined the pressure he had felt inside of her sliding onto him, Trevelyan's legs wrapping around his waist as he dragged those noises of pleasure from her again and again.
There would be time for that before the Elder One arrived. And Samson would savour every damned moment of it.