She wasn't sure how it happened, but suddenly there was a Loghain shaped presence in her life.

They never actually made love that night after the beach, Adrian just barely managing to get the still half drunk and suddenly sleepy Loghain back to her rooms in the tower. That morning she didn't wake up alone, but instead tangled into a knot of limbs and blankets.

And then, despite their best intentions, being together simply became normal.

They would work and then at sunset find one another as if it was just expected. After a while, Adrian became so used to him; at her table, as her sounding board, in her bed that when he was absent, that was when things felt strange.

How did that happen?

Loghain moved into her life as if he'd always belonged there. A month passed and then two. Eventually she began to hope the Grey Warden messenger had been eaten by a darkspawn and never returned. As much as it maybe wasn't what she'd expected from her time here, it was certainly a comfortable and understanding sort of companionship that she'd never experienced before and it was one she wasn't in a hurry to give up.

Summer blossomed and faded, the daylight shrinking just as the war continued to magnify. It was still safe in Montsimmard, but only just. Scouts, wounded from both conflicts; nobility and mages and seekers trickled in. Only a few thankfully, but most so broken even magic couldn't save them.

Adrian rethought her desire to fight when she watched her first soldier die as the best trained healers failed to save him.

She tried to learn a healing spell, but she just couldn't manage it. It was as in the mana funneled through her was incapable of anything but destruction. Even the attempt at turning the elemental force into something else made cold sweat pool at the base of her spine. She tried not to think about it.

The one real solace at the end of the day was the stolidly unchanging arrival of Loghain.

This night, after another failed attempt at healing magic and a long shuffle through a mound of dire reports from the war, Adrian climbed into bed early. The sun was still going down when she traded her robes for a nightgown and curled up in her bed under the covers with the fire chasing off the threatening chill in the air. A cool, damp draft spun a paper off the desk on to the floor, but she just let it flutter down, with a book open but ignored on her lap. Her eyes took in the blue grey of the sliver of sky between the curtains, but she just drifted. There was too much to do, too much to think about to do anything at all.

She rubbed her eyes. The least she could try to do is read the damn book, but the words were all running together. It wasn't even really a book, but just a bound copy of the manifesto written by that Fereldan Grey Warden mage, Anders. It was important. Many mages held him up as an example, but others blamed him just as fiercely. There were also dark rumors that swirled around him, but Adrian tried to focus on what facts she had. She held most of them in her hand, yet she still struggled to concentrate on the words.

Andraste suffered at the hand of the Magisters, thus she feared the influence of magic. But if the Maker blamed magic for the actions in the Black City, why would he still gift us with it? The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker.

Maybe or maybe not, but how did that help her now? She didn't know how to reconcile this obsession with religion as the basis of his argument. What did it matter what the Chantry or the Maker thought? Even if it was true (and she had no proof the Maker even existed) the Maker has turned away from Thedas. Who cared what he thought? He was like her own father; throwing her away when she didn't live up to his expectations. What sort of loving parent did that?

The door swung open slowly and Adrian looked up. The door let in surprisingly less noise than usual as well as a weary looking Loghain, who glanced back over his shoulder.

"It's quiet," he said perfunctorily as he closed the door.

Adrian felt her brow furrow. "That's odd. It's still daylight, isn't it?"

Loghain nodded. "Indeed, which begs the question of why you're already in bed?"

"Trying to read," she said, pointing at the open book but then flopping back against the pillow and dramatically draping her arm across her eyes. "It's not working."

She felt Loghain sit down on the bed beside her, the faint scent of the leather breeches and jerkin he wore to train touching her like gentle fingers. Adrian peeked at him underneath her forearm and saw him pick up the book.

"The oppression of mages stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker," he read in his rich, careful voice. "And it is only the actions of men they fear, not magic. Any man, any elf, can kill or destroy. The weapon used does not matter."

She saw Loghain raise an eyebrow at that.

"Go on," Adrian encouraged. "It sounds better when you read it than it does in my head."

He chuckled and cleared his throat.

"It is the nature of men and elves that the Chantry fears. This is the legacy of the Maker we carry with us, this nature, these innate urges and desires. But above all, we all desire only to survive and to be free. There are those among all living things that are broken, that are beyond redemption, but we do not destroy all the Mabari because of the bite of one."

Loghain rolled his eyes at that. "A bit melodramatic, don't you think?" he asked.

Adrian shrugged. "I supposed, but we mages due tend to err on the side of too much." She snorted. "That's probably the worst thing to fear about mages. Purple prose and histrionic manifestos."

Loghain looked amused. "So true," he said. "But I suppose whoever wrote this bit of ostentation does have a point under his metaphors and I find myself agreeing with him."

He picked up the book and continued a bit further.

"Mages, then, are no different from other men. We deserve the chance to survive and to be free. We will no longer allow ourselves to be punished for crimes we have not committed."

"You read eloquently," Adrian said, sitting up and leaning against Loghain's shoulders. The leather scent was strong and mixed with clean sweat. It was a potent perfume. "Next time I'll have you read The Rose of Orlais."

"I keep hearing about this damnable book," he said, shaking his head. "Never taken the time to read it, but I have to assume it's quite the tale."

Adrian snickered. "I've never read it either. Not sure I'd enjoy reading about other people making love. I think it would make me jealous."

Loghain conveniently dropped the book over the edge of the bed, where it flipped closed and slid out of reach. He put a finger under Adrian's chin turning her to face him.

It was such a small gesture, but it made butterflies take flight behind her ribs. Adrian wondered how he could make her feel so comfortable, yet so bewildered at the same time.

He looked down at her, his pale blue eyes shining with mischief. The hint of a smile played on his lips.

It was these moments Adrian breathed in like air. Rhys hadn't ever look at her like this, even in the most brilliant heat of his feelings for her. He laughed at everything, even at her desire for him. It used to make her feel small.

Without speaking again, Loghain leaned in and kissed her gently; once and then again.

"Jealousy is a very bitter taste," he said, kissing her again, lips slightly moist and tasting faintly of salt.

Adrian looked at him through her eyelashes. "Does that mean you're going to stop?"

"No," he said quickly. "I doubt any book could compare to you. I don't believe there's any need for jealousy." Loghain raised up her chin as he nuzzled underneath, the coarse stubble on his face scratching against the tender flesh of her throat.

Adrian shivered; he knew it tickled her and aroused her all at once when he did that. He'd even taken to shaving less frequently or at least it seemed. Not that she found it a problem, at that.

His breath was damp in the hollow of her neck as he drew his cheek along her collar bone. He kissed the peak of her shoulder reverently. Adrian sighed and tangled her fingers in his hair. Loghain stilled for a moment. If he was a cat, he might have purred at the gentle kneading of her fingertips against his scalp.

She'd learned what he liked and it was the most liberating thing to let herself just give him what he wanted, knowing he'd be fighting to do the same in return. This was like nothing she'd known before. Not that there hadn't been frantic couplings and moments of just passion and little thinking, but more often it was closer to alchemy than the sex she'd experienced before.

Two parts fingertips.

One part lips.

And then ingredients she'd only read about before him.

She lied. She'd read The Rose of Orlais. Twice.

Maybe it was her - she was so inside herself, so locked down under all that loud bravado that she'd never let anyone close enough to know what she liked. It was a competition in the Spire, and one she knew she'd lose. She hated to lose, so she rarely played the game.

But she played Loghain like a master bard at a harp.

Playfully, she pushed him back against the bed, his long legs still draped over the edge. She swung a leg over him and carefully straddled him, intentionally just grazing against him with just the lightest feathered touch.

He opened his eyes, only enough to see her through his eyelashes, a languid smirk on his face.

Adrian shook her hair over her shoulder as she leaned on her palms, one carefully on either side of his head. She bent down close enough to kiss him, but instead ran her lips along his cheek, so as she spoke he could feel her lips move.

"Do you have any idea how much you arouse me when you speak? I could have you read the most boring text to me and I would be unable to contain myself," she admitted. With an embarrassed titter, she lifted her head to look at him. "Had you been one of the Senior Enchanters, I would have been rapt listening to my lessons, for all those long years of study." She laughed in earnest then. "I wouldn't have learned anything, but I would have been paying very careful attention."

He replied only with a raised eyebrow and a quirk of his lips.

"I imagine I would have become quiet adept at touching myself under the table however, which is a very special and important skill to learn, don't you think?" she continued.

Loghain took a sharp breath, squeezing his eyes shut and grabbing at her waist. He pulled her down against him. The thick ridge of his erection pressed up against her as she rolled her hips slightly.

"Apparently, it is not just the words you speak that are powerful, no?"

"You are a witch," he replied. "You cast a spell on me."

"Only if your hair is on fire," she snorted. She wriggled her bottom. "You DO feel a bit warm."

Abruptly, he grabbed her and rolled her over, simultaneously shifting her up on the bed and flipping the hem of her nightgown up to her waist. He made a show of inspecting her, running his thumb along the inside of her thigh, then pressing it against the heart of her growing arousal.

"You seem a bit feverish yourself," he quipped, pushing with a bit more pressure, before moving his thumb in the slow circle.

It took all her restraint to not buck up off the bed. Loghain looked pleased with himself.

"You enjoy making me lose control, don't you?" she panted at him breathlessly.

"More than you realize," he said quickly, a shadow flicking in his eyes for a moment. He seemed to push that particular shadow away quickly, before seeing to the laces on his breeches. Adrian reached up and tugged at the hem of his jerkin.

"This too," she said. "As much as I like the idea of leather, I like the touch of your skin more."

He gracefully unlatched the buckles wrapping it closed at his side, shrugging off the offending garment. "As my lady commands," he said, swiftly finishing with the laces and shimmying the tight leather over his hips and managing to wiggle out a single leg. He hooked his hands behind her knees, pulling her body up to meet him. He slid inside her, just as practiced as he was with her landscape.

For a moment, it was new. It always was. He was so much bigger than she was, despite his slim hips and taut body and hers soft and round. She felt his pulse in his cock, and she clenched tightly, holding him.

"Maker, Adrian," he muttered, "I just, I..." He drifted off, not finishing his sentence as he buried his face in her neck again. His hips began a languorous but steady rhythm against her.

She surrendered against him and to him, wrapping her arms around his broad back, utterly enveloped by him.

Loghain was everywhere; she couldn't deny him anything. He was as fragile and sensitive as any person she'd ever known under his hard, cold veneer but once he'd opened up to her, his presence was overwhelming as the scent of incense in the temple. Yet it was not at all the suffocating experience she expected. It was like being wrapped in a fur, secure and completely embraced by warmth and utter contentment.

No, it couldn't be.

"Oh Maker," he said again, his rhythm faltering and then speeding. Their voices and breath intermingled into the particular song all who heard it would understand.

She felt him tense and slow. Loghain took a deep breath and blew it out between his teeth. He was trying to hold back; to please her, to take the time to make her feel whatever he could wrench from her.

Not this time her body immediately insisted. It knew what it wanted, her hips pushing up against him, moving when he did not.

"If you don't stop...I...," he managed.

"Yes," she panted. "Please."

He didn't move but let her work him, raised up just enough that she could maneuver herself against him, around him.

Adrian felt it happen, the first sparks of his spine unraveling, finally pressing down hard inside her, pulsing and throbbing until he shouted and shuddered against her.

She didn't let him go, instead guided him down against her, his head buried in her hair and the still frantic thudding of his heart in his chest comfortingly pressed against hers. She reveled in that particular sticky feeling of his sweat damp flesh. She ran her fingers along the now familiar scars on his back tracing the lines of each one. She'd asked him what battle they were from and the names rattled through her brain like a litany. West Hill, River Dane, Denerim.

She knew them all by heart.

She knew Loghain by heart too, even though she's tried like the Black City not to.

"Maker's breath," he whispered for a third time. "I can't believe how much I love you."

And Adrian already knew, but her heart broke a little bit when he said it. She wanted to say the same; she wanted to, but the words just wouldn't come. She couldn't.

Instead, she just heard herself whimper and clung to him even more fiercely.

"I know," he replied to her wordless admission. "I know."