After Adamant
"You don't understand!" Cullen shouted, picking up a vase and flinging it at the wall.
It shattered, the ceramic fragments showering down, and the person who had been its intended target rose from their crouched position. Cassandra glowered down at him, normally a glance that could wither a smaller hearted man, but Cullen would not be cowered. He would not be dictated to. And he would not hear reason.
"I do understand, Cullen." Cassandra argued, her voice with its mythic tones heated and fierce. "I was there. I saw everything!"
"If Enara hadn't emerged from the Fade we'd all be dead!" Cullen shouted. "Our men were almost vanquished! That is my fault, Cassandra!" he pounded his breast, hammering his guilt into his chest. "I have failed in their training! I have failed myself!"
"Cullen, that is not…"
"I wasn't strong enough!" Cullen roared, and if there had been another vase to fling, it, too, would have met an unfortunate demise against the stone walls of Skyhold. "It's not working! I need the lyrium again! I need to be able to lead from the front! To show them that we are strong!"
"And you would throw away all that you have done these past months?" Cassandra spoke, her tone even and cool, condescending, causing the fire that burned in him to blaze all the hotter. "You would throw away the strength you have gathered for the demon you remember and loved?"
Cullen wiped the sweat from his brow. He could see his philter sitting on the shelf, the shelf guarded by Cassandra Pentaghast. He had kept his temptation close, close enough to touch and taste, to save him should he fall. Should he fail himself. But he had not failed just himself at Adamant. He had watched his men, soldiers that he had trained himself, be cut down. He had trained those who were now dead. He had failed them. He had failed himself. He was not the man he was.
The man that I was would never have let them fall. The man that I was would have schooled them religiously. But no. I have grown comfortable in our stronghold. They were not prepared for the foes that we faced and we almost retreated…we were nearly routed by the dragon. We barely held our ground. This is my fault, no matter what Cassandra says.
"Don't we have to accept our demons, Cassandra!?" Cullen yelled, taking her to task, flinging up her words from a past conversation. "That spirit of faith that touched you during your vigil? Could that not be a demon that hounds you and drives you to believe when all around have lost their fucking faith!?"
"My faith is not in question!" Cassandra raised her voice at last. "Your weakness is! You lack faith in yourself and will not believe what I and countless others have attempted to tell you." Cassandra stepped away from the shelf. "There." she stated, her lip curling in a sneer, a disgusted noise following from the depths of her chest. "There lies your relief. You can either break your vow and break your own spirit, or you can fall to your knees and pray for a new addiction."
"And what god would answer?" Cullen hissed. "The Maker who let Meredith go insane! The Maker who let a good woman and mage like Enara Trevelyan be tormented by that bloody mark on her hand! The Maker who would keep a woman as strong and passionate as you from finding a lover to aid you in the dark times!?"
"You cannot break my faith, Cullen." Cassandra admitted. "But you might break my heart with words such as those. Go. Take your philter in hand, or…" Cassandra walked to the wall, where two longswords had been placed as decoration. She pulled them down and gripped one in her hand, the other she took by the blade and extended the hilt to him. "…or take up a blade and spar with me until your mind is clear."
Cullen staggered to the shelf, leaning against it. His hair was plastered with sweat, his shirt soaked through and clinging to his skin from the rain that had pelted them on their way back from Adamant. He felt as he had when he first abandoned the lyrium. Weak and wrung out, hungering for the remembered bliss, relief, and power that the substance offered him. He reached for the shelf and took the box in his hands, staring at its contents, at the silver/blue/white swirling liquid that would be his demise and his blessing and all he ever wanted.
…you can fall to your knees and pray for a new addiction…Cassandra's words rang in his ears, burning his heart and his flesh. He looked up from the philter and its promise, to the woman who extended a blade to him. She was fire and devotion, strength incarnate, and yet he had seen her body laid bare. He had seen that cinnamon skin peeled apart by an opponent's blade.
He knew her vulnerability, but he also knew her strength. Strength that she offered him now. Strength to turn away from what had dominated his nights and his days. She offered a strength that could quench his parched throat.
A wild growl ripped out of Cullen's throat as he tossed the philter aside, letting the vial shatter and splash on the ground. He wrenched the sword out of Cassandra's grasp and had barely made himself ready when she struck. Cullen blocked the overhead strike, relishing the spark of their blades, the confidence of his bare feet on the stone floor, the weightlessness he felt without the armor weighing him down.
He flung his blade at Cassandra's side, admiring the grace of her body as she danced away. He followed with a lunge and she batted his blade away with a simple flick of her wrist. He continued pressing a battery of attacks until they were both following an old sword dance training pattern. He knew it as a templar. She knew it as a Seeker.
The rhythm was familiar. The clash of steel on steel rang throughout the room. Cullen could breathe in time with the symphony of their strikes. His arm burned, his chest heaved and he felt the weight lifting from it. He did not watch Cassandra's sword, but her eyes. They were burning with a fire that had nothing to do with the heat of their argument, and everything to do with the way in which they stood, their swords standing for more than simple weapons…
The swords were their emotions, their thoughts, their words colliding over and over again through the months they had known each other. Their focus on each other's eyes was the trust they placed in each other. Even holding live steel, they knew that they would not harm each other, and trusted the other not to harm them. This was not a sparring match, it was a dance, and it would end as all other dances did…with them parting ways, casting a glance over their shoulder and feeling that something had been left undone.
It felt so very akin to old rage burning in his chest, but Cullen knew that he had lost all of his rage. Rage could not be this white hot fire scorching him from the inside out. Rage could not have powered the artful move that flung Cassandra's blade to the opposite end of the room. Rage had no focus, no dexterity, no skill. Rage could not have powered his bare feet forward. Rage would not have surrendered his weapon, letting the steel clatter to stone in the sound of a retreat.
Cassandra pulled her hand back for a strike, expecting their sparring match to segue into hand-to-hand. Cullen caught her smaller fist in his own and pulled her to him. Her rain-soaked clothes pressed against his and he could feel the heat of her body. It burned with the same fire as his own. Her chest rose and fell with her breathing, her breasts rising and falling against his chest, tormenting him.
At last, he pressed the final attack and closed his mouth over Cassandra's, groaning as he tasted her lips. They scorched like an unholy fire, tasting like bright burning light itself. In her kiss he tasted lyrium and knew that he had found his new addiction. With a growl he pulled her tighter, folding her arms in his own, greater strength, feeling her muscles ripple beneath her shirt as her biceps bulged against his grasp.
He thought of other muscles gripping him in more intimate ways and a surge of blood pounded between his legs. Cassandra was kissing him back, accepting his touch, her tongue jousting against his between their opened mouths, a duel he would be all too happy to fight. His hands moved from her arms and those strong arms wrapped around his neck, holding his mouth prisoner against her own.
His hands moved down to the firm musculature of her ass. He kneaded the supple flesh in both hands, pulling her to him, groaning as her pelvis rubbed against the throb of his erection. Keeping one hand firmly on her ass, pressing her against him, he reached between her legs with the other, squeezing her sex, feeling the heat emanating from her center, driving another surge of heated blood through him.
Cassandra's mouth left his and she threw her head back, a low, guttural groan fluttering off her lips and striking him deep in his loins. Driven now beyond rational thought, Cullen pushed her towards his desk, backing her against it, imprisoning her hips with his own, using his hands to swipe at his desk, sending the rolls of parchment fluttering to the floor in a glorious chaos that would dismay him, come morning. But now, he did not care.
He grasped Cassandra's neck and pulled her neck to his lips, savaging her throat with his lips, feeling the vibrations of her sighs and her cries and her whispers for more. His hand trailed down the curves of her body, squeezing, prodding, driving her wild with a rough caress. He cupped her again, pulsing his hand, pressing the seam of her leathers against her sex, causing her hips to buck in his hand, for her lips to cry out.
His hand kept up its motion, his lips and teeth bit her at the juncture of shoulder and neck, sending shockwaves down through her back.
"Cullen," his name was a breathy whimper, a plea, a wondrous sound in her voice that he would spend eternity dragging from her lips if he could. He pulled back, brown eyes meeting amber and cinnamon, flame meeting flame and kindling higher. "Take me." she ordered him. "Now."
Wasting no time, he reached for the laces of her leathers, undoing them with fumbling motions until they were loose. He pulled them down off of her hips and legs, licking at the scars that striped her flesh as he removed her clothing. He rose to his feet once more, needing her mouth, needing that lyrium kiss infusing him with power and emotion and drive.
Their lips met in an untender battle as he forced Cassandra's smallclothes off of her hips and down her legs. She kicked them off and, bracing herself with her arms, pulled herself onto his desk. Cullen reached for the laces of his breeches, pulling them down just enough, letting them puddle at his feet. He tore off his smallclothes and took himself in hand, pressing one hand, hard and heavy, on Cassandra's shoulder, holding her in place as he guided himself to her entrance.
He groaned as the heat of her reached out and called to him, and, not wishing to waste anymore time, he thrust himself into her. Cassandra's head fell back and that cry shuddered out of her lips again, driving Cullen wild. He had thought of this so many times, and dreamed of it more. Every sparring session, every talk late into the night…every time they had come closer to each other, his body had surged with heat and need. He had wanted to make love to her, slow and gentle, but now he could not.
He was inside of her, she held him fast, and he gave into his primal instinct. To take her as she had asked him to do. He reached up with both hands, taking the cloth of her shirt and ripping it downwards. Anger filled him as he saw the breastband obfuscating his conquest and in his displeasure he pulled himself out of her and thrust in, vicious, aching, the height of pleasure tormenting him and driving him forward.
Cassandra cried out at the assault, her hands clawed into his back as her hips met his thrusts as much as she was able, drawing him deeper, pulling him into her, craving this as much as he was. He lowered his head, grasping the linen of her breastband between his teeth and tearing it apart. The material broke beneath his assault and Cullen used his hands to tear it off the rest of the way, admiring Cassandra's shapely, firm breasts, striped with small, faded scars from old injuries.
Passion and aggression washed over him again as her mouth panted in small sighs, as she pulsed around him, pulling him further into her. His mouth latched onto a nipple and Cassandra all but screamed as thunder cracked and lightning flashed outside. Cullen wrapped his arms around her waist and plunged himself into her in a wild, harried rhythm. He did not care that she would bruise, that he would bruise. He did not care that her breasts would be sore for days afterward with the memory of the assault of his teeth and tongue.
He continued his assault, thrusting into her, the rhythmic strokes losing their rhythm as he drew nearer and nearer release. His mouth left her nipple with a 'pop' and he pushed her further onto the desk until she was laying down. He grabbed her legs at the bend of her knees and pulled her towards him, crying out as he forced himself even deeper into her, his entire body shuddering as he continued to plunge himself into her body, his own cries drowning hers, his own prayers and pleas as he drew nearer…nearer…nearer…
Abruptly he stopped, that rippling spasm doubling him over as he spilled himself into her. Cullen clung tightly to her legs as he fell forward onto her waist, emptying all of his tension into her body. His head lay beneath her breasts and he pressed frantic kisses to her twitching muscles. The blinding pleasure washed out of him, wave after gentle wave, and he at last found the strength to stand and pull himself from her, rejoicing in the pleading whimper that left her lips as he withdrew.
Cassandra pulled herself further onto the desk, her legs hanging over it, her hips still slightly pulsing upward, seeking something. Cullen's brow furrowed and he cupped her cheek with his hand, drawing her eyes to his once more, half-answering his question when he saw their need and desperation.
"You did not fall with me?" he asked, and she shook her head, biting her lip.
Without even thinking about it, needing her to be as fulfilled as he in this moment, Cullen reached down, replacing himself with two fingers. He pushed inside of Cassandra, almost grateful that she had not come with him so that he could see the pleasure spreading across her face as he curled his fingers inside her and began thrusting in soft, gentle pulses.
Cassandra thrust her head back, her lower lip still caught between her teeth, her eyes closed as strangled sounds broke from her closed lips. Cullen could have watched her forever, but he could feel her need in the pulsating of her inner walls against his fingers. He could feel her need to fall over that sacred, blissful edge, and she had…she had given him so much.
She had given him time, she had given him answers and faith when he had none. She had shared dark nights with him, wiped the sweat from his brow as he shivered from lyrium withdrawal. She had saved him in so many ways, and here she was, prisoner of her own needs after sharing her body with him…he would give back. He would respect and honor a woman of such strength, passion, and conviction.
His head followed the direction of his hand and he buried himself in the dark hair that covered her sex. His hand kept its insistent rhythm, calling her, begging her to follow where he had gone. His tongue reached out, tracing her folds up to the twitching bundle of nerves that would send her over the edge. Her taste was salt and fire and passion, more like lyrium than her lips. Cullen knew now that he had found his new addiction and it was with that knowledge, with that bliss and pleasure, that he closed his lips over that delightful bundle of nerves.
It twitched between his lips and he laved it with his tongue, his heart quickening as he heard Cassandra's wail. Her hips lifted off of the desk and a long list of epithets flew from her lips as Cullen sucked her in deep while mercilessly tormenting her with the motion of his fingers until he pulled her over the edge. Cassandra's cry of release and relief echoed in the room. Cullen lifted his head to meet her hungry kisses, keeping his fingers inside of her so that he could feel her spasms of joy and relief, the flood of heat and desire spilling into his palm, the sheer bliss of being connected with this indomitable spirit who had become his lifeline, his strength, his truth, and his faith.
"I could love you, Cassandra." he murmured against her hair as she tucked her head against his chest. "If you let me, I will love you."
He felt her sweat matted hair brush against his skin in a nod of affirmation. "Yes." she answered with one word.
For a man who had been tormented by his past, driven mad with his own insecurities, and flogged by his own addictions, he knew he had been healed when one, simple word was all he needed to look forward to the sunrise.