I guess it's hard not to make romance sound overdone, but hey, it's fantasy. And who needs reality intruding upon that?

xxxx

Chapter 10: Surrender

Hawke rose from the table and started walking slowly up to her room. Fenris quietly followed her. He had looked decidedly odd through their whole conversation. She had not thought he would be so accepting of Varric and Isabela's help, but he agreed to their plans easily enough and he did not interject once while Hawke was explaining his situation to them. She knew it was selfish of her, but she was relieved beyond measure to have part of her "family" again at her side. If Fenris was correct, and the Seekers were unable to infiltrate Minrathous, then she was not without hope that she could have something resembling a normal life again, and her friends would come to no harm.

She rounded the bend at the top of the stairs and just as she turned out of sight of the bar room below, Fenris abruptly grabbed her wrist. She caught her breath in surprise as he dragged her roughly along. He brought them into his room and slammed the door shut. There was no time for her to protest, because he spun her around in his grasp and dug his gauntleted fingers into her arms. He leaned down slightly to look her in the eyes and he was nearly shaking as he spoke to her in a strained voice, the brightness in his lyrium starting to rise.

"What magic did you use on me?" He pulled her closer, demanding an answer.

Disappointment and hurt welled up inside her. This is not okay, she thought. She had shown him every consideration and he was interrogating her again? "I thought we had moved passed mistrustful accusations, Fenris?" She spoke clearly and deliberately, not wanting him to mistake her kindness for weakness.

He suddenly let go of her and she stumbled. He stepped back but did not look away as he tore off his gauntlets and breastplate and pulled his tunic over his head.

Her eyes went wide. Maybe this is okay, she decided. He stepped towards her, closer this time. He grabbed her hand and held it against his bare chest. "Your magic…the spell…on my hand…do it again." It was a low rough whisper and she saw the pleading in his eyes that she had mistaken for anger.

"I…what…?" She couldn't find her words. He pressed her hand into the heat of his tanned skin and she tingled with need. She could feel the lyrium calling to the magic inside her, screaming to be joined. She couldn't pull her eyes away from the white brands spiraling his taut muscles. In a thousand days of sunsets and springtime, she did not think she would ever see anything as gloriously beautiful.

Speak, Hawke, you have to speak. "It..it was just a healing spell. I'm not even good at healing…" She was too addled to realize she had spoken to him in the common tongue, but he understood and replied to her in kind, his elegant northern accent doing nothing to help the weakness she was beginning to feel in her legs.

"Marian, I don't care what it was." As she was losing all control, he seemed to regain a bit of his own. "I just need to feel it again…please."

In that moment she could do nothing but comply. She closed her eyes and struggled for command over the ocean of her magic. He wanted to feel, not drown, so she had to master it despite his lyrium pulling like the moon pulls the tides. He was patiently silent but she could feel his heartbeat thump madly under her fingers. A dim white light appeared in her palm and she opened her eyes. The light spread out and mingled with the glowing lines of lyrium. She felt Fenris exhale and he lifted his head to the heavens; his mouth hung open as his hot breath escaped it. He turned his head back down to her and his eyes were feral pools of black. Hawke hesitated at the sight and the light of her spell dimmed. The corners of Fenris's mouth turned up just slightly into a semblance of a smile and he licked his lips, too closely resembling his namesake.

And then he was on her.

She felt everything all at once. Desperate hands clawed at her clothes. His smell of steel and leather surrounded her and she felt drunk on it. His lips, dear Maker, his lips tasted of lyrium. Then his breath burned on her ear and his intimate whisper pierced through the cry of the lyrium. "Tell me to stop..." he said even as his hands moved up the bare curve of her hip under her tunic and he bit along the angle of her jaw.

"Hnnn" was all she could whimper, eyes closed, head spinning.

Fenris stopped his frantic fingers and grabbed her head with both hands. He looked into her eyes. "This is your last chance, Marian." He spoke in an untamed growl. "Tell me to stop now or I swear it will be me who takes your freedom from you, not the Templars. You and your magic will belong to me."

The last strands of her control slipped through her fingers. She lifted her hands to his chest and she let loose her magic.

xxxx

Fenris felt the flare of her power pass into his brands. It felt...amazing. He heard a moan escape his own mouth and his hands closed around her silken black hair. He pulled her head back and suddenly his tongue needed to be on the pale skin of her throat, so it was. His teeth needed to bite the soft flesh of her shoulder, so they did. Her hands were still on his chest, her magic pushing against the ever present pain of his markings that pained him no longer.

He could feel her melt against him in surrender. He tore at each scrap of cloth that kept her skin from touching his and they fell to pieces on the floor. He stepped back to admire his reward. She was flushed and adorably shamed as his eyes caressed her despite her previous eager response to the caress of his lips and tongue. She tried to cover herself with her hands but he would not have it. He grabbed hold of her wrists. "No" he commanded. "Not yours any longer." He seized one breast in each hand, "Mine" he said, like a petulant child. She called out his name as he took one hardened tip in his mouth and fondled the other with his fingertips. Her hands clutched his hair and his scalp tingled at the touch. He needed more contact.

He lifted her off the floor and collapsed on top of her on the bed. He wanted every scarred line of lyrium etched into his body to make contact with her. He nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck and he smelled orchids again. She whispered out soft broken sentences, and incoherent moans. In her blissful delirium, she had long since reverted to speaking in her native tongue and it was beautiful in his ears, separating her from every other mage whose words he was forced to endure in the past.

He panted and kissed as he spoke to her. "Your magic is mine now, your body is mine, only for me, I need...unhh...Marian... I need..." Fenris did not know where these things he was saying were coming from. It vaguely sounded like his voice, if not spoken in his language. He felt he was going mad with need and breaking apart with desire. His thoughts and actions were spiraling out of control but he saw no reason to deny himself this reckless ecstasy. The last coherent thought that formed in his head was that any man can want, but a free man can take.

xxxx

Never, never before had she relinquished her control to another. If asked, she would have said she did not know how. But now as she felt her body betray her, she struggled to remember any time before the rapture of surrender to the man above her. The invisible presence of her magic stretched and flexed around their bodies fed by and feeding his lyrium. He was a thing possessed as he touched and tasted her, stopping just long enough to remove himself from the last of the clothing that prevented her from feeling him where she needed him most.

She sensed his deft fingers stroke up the length of her leg and up and up and in...and in and she bucked up against him, stuttering words of pleading and begging for more. But she needn't have entreated so desperately because he was all too eager to comply and with one dominant thrust they were finally joined and her magic swelled in satisfaction.

She clung to him as he took her; her legs wrapped around his narrow hips, her hands kneading the rough lines of lyrium in sculpted muscle. It was all happening too fast, she was coming too fast, she didn't want it to end but he drove relentlessly in and in. She tossed her head and arched her back and stretched wide her legs and she was falling, falling.

Strong hands grasped her head and pulled it back down to the now. Green eyes wide open met hers. White hair was damp with sweat and full lips were smiling at her with unvoiced laughter. She wanted to bring him into focus, but she didn't want to stop the fall. He saw her struggle and stilled inside her. He spoke through his smile "Look at me. Let me see..." and he started to move again. She twisted and writhed but his hands forced her eyes to meet his and he never stopped driving inside her. Her breath came to her ragged and rough, her body was full but her magic was draining to empty. The green eyes and sly smile spoke to her again and said "Let go" and she did and she fell in a sublime release that brazen green eyes forced her to show him. She contracted and convulsed her climax unable to hide from him but it was he who was unable to hold her gaze on the last thrust that caused his own fall and he closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to hers whispering her name.

In the quite dark stillness, two spent bodies clung to each other, the static of magic and lyrium still lingering in the air. Marian's mind slowed and as the weight of her lithe lover slowly collapsed atop her, she felt herself be pushed into the Fade.

xxxx

Marian Hawke sat on the banks of a wide river with black water looking up into a red sky. The air of the Fade was thick and the sound of lapping water muffled. She felt the presence of someone behind her and saw loose blond hair fall forward as he leaned in to whisper to her "Whether you believe it or not, I did love you."

She was expressionless as she continued to stare into the distant red sky. "You loved the idea of me. I was who you wanted to be. A free mage who answered to no one."

Anders laughed with the ease she remembered well. "A free mage who didn't use magic!"

She smiled at the thought of where her body lay sleeping. "I used plenty of magic tonight."

"For him"

"For him. For me. It never felt more..effortless. He asked for it. He wasn't afraid of it, and now, neither am I."

She looked at the broad shouldered man who once shared her bed, who had entered the Fade at the end of her blade. He looked back and shared an innocent smile with her. "So that elf taught you what I could not."

She simply nodded her head and looked out across the water.

Anders sighed and pointed down the riverbank at a tall elf walking towards them. "He's coming you know."

"Then you should go." Hawke saw his form disappear into the heavy air and heard his laughter fade on the hot breeze. She turned to Fenris, who sat down beside her. His tan skin was smooth and unscarred by the lyrium it carried in the real world and his hair was black like midnight, like hers. The same green eyes looked at her with many unspoken questions.

"You have black hair" She grinned and reached up to run it through her fingers.

"And no lyrium..." He replied as he held up his hands and stared at them in wonder. "Is this your dream?"

"It seems it's yours too."

"I don't have dreams like this." He looked puzzled, but asked for no further information.

"Neither do I usually."

"Who were you speaking with when I approached?"

"This is the Fade, love. It was just another demon..."

xxxx

Fenris opened his eyes. He had been staring at black water under a red sky. He took a deep breath and felt Marian stir where she lay on his chest. He tried to still her movement with his arms, not wanting her to separate from him. She complied and tilted her head up to look at him instead. He said nothing and just stared back at her. She furrowed her brow and broke the silence.

"How do you feel Fenris?" she asked.

A long bit of time passed as she waited for his answer. His mind was curiously blank and he almost could not think of what to say when it suddenly occurred to him. He started laughing. He laughed deep and loud and with a broad smile on his face he said "I feel free."