Anders

His stomach dropped when Ashe pushed him away, depriving him of the softness of her lips. He took a deep breath and focused his energy, that had up until now coursed freely throughout the room, sending everything into a swirling mess. Books and trinkets dropped to the floor around them as his magic stilled, but he barely noticed, his eyes entirely focused on Ashe. She held her hand over her mouth and refused to look at him, staring at the floor instead.

Maker, how he wanted to take her doubts away, smother them until there was nothing left of them. He would smother the whole damned world if it meant she would believe him.

"Ashe..." he said and took a step towards her, but she held out her hand to stop him and he stilled. She turned her back to him and stared out the barred window.

"Please don't, Anders. I... I need some time to process this, I need to breathe."

He nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see him.

Of course, of course that was what she needed. He left the room quietly, closing the door softly behind him.

She can take all the time she need, he thought while he whispered a spell and put a ward on the door.

She's not going anywhere.

Ashe

Shit.

Maybe she had overdone it?

She swore to herself again as she began pacing around the room, picking up things that had fallen to the floor, just to occupy her hands.

She shouldn't have told him that she missed him, she shouldn't have cried. That implied too much emotion, that there was a real possibility that she could fall in love with him. She shouldn't have spurred him on like that.

She should have seduced him instead. She should have filled her eyes with lust, licked her lips with desire and she would have had him on his knees, begging her. Then she would have been in control.

Men who wanted sex were predictable, easy to control. Men who fell in love... they were not.

She snorted in self-disgust when she thought about what a weak, sniveling mess she must have looked like.

But on the other hand, perhaps it was for the best that he thought she was docile. Then he wouldn't expect her to try to escape from him.

She sat down in front of the fire and stared into it.

What if he's telling the truth?

If he was, he'd saved her. Even though she would never forgive him for taking her against her will, at least it meant that he hadn't betrayed what they'd once shared. But there were so many things that didn't add up.

Ashe sighed and rubbed her temples. She really hadn't lied to him when saying that she needed to process all of this. Until she could figure something out, she would continue to pull him closer. If he was lying, she would use him and escape and then he would pay for what he'd done. If he was telling the truth, then what difference did it make? Maybe he'd have a broken heart by the end of it, but she could live with that.

Still, it stung to think about being the one to inflict pain on him if he was really just trying to save her. Even if it had been a lie, the time they'd spent together was not easily forgotten. All the times he'd made her laugh, supported her when her cold and selfish family had pestered her...

Maybe it wasn't too late to change her tactics into something a little more aggressive, something more... carnal. She could play off her previous display as confusion and fatigue, and having her confidence back now wouldn't seem so strange, after she'd had her 'time to think'.

He seemed to go all puppy eyes on her when she was a sobbing mess, so maybe he wouldn't be as receptive if she showed him the woman she'd become. She had no doubt that she could wrap him around her little finger in this way too, but maybe it would spare him the utter heartbreak later.

Yes. That would have to do.

Some time later...

There was a knock on the door and Ashe took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror one last time. With a soft voice, she called for her visitor to come in.

The door opened and she looked over her shoulder to see Anders enter. She smiled when she saw how his eyes widened at the sight of her. She gathered the long, black satin on the bottom of her dress in her hands and turned around. She didn't miss how his eyes flickered to her exposed cleavage, the corset-like top of the dress working its magic, before he looked at her face. His lips parted slightly when she came closer to him, no doubt taken in by the effect the red lipstick and the black kohl around her eyes had. Still, she didn't close the distance between them just yet. No, that wouldn't do at all. She had a feeling Anders wasn't as straight-forward as her other boys. Hawke, Alistair and Cullen for instance, they knew what they wanted. But she could see the conflict behind his eyes. It wasn't that she doubted his self confidence, she bet he'd been quite the ladies man once, judging by his looks. The problem was what he'd told her himself earlier. He'd been there when she was - what he thought at least - a child. Making him forget all about that would take some coaxing, even though he'd shown her with that first kiss that he was already on his way to breaking.

"If I didn't know any better," he said, "I'd think there was some sort of ball or other grand occasion that I've missed the invitation to. You look like a queen, Ashe."

Oh, dear, look at him.

Composed now, with his hands clasped behind his back, standing straight as a knight, a soft smile on his face.

And she didn't look like a queen. She looked like a very, very expensive courtesan, and they both knew it.

"Well, if I'm going to stay here and you leave me with nothing better to do but to play dress up..." She spun around, her dress flowing around her since it had two deep slits on either side, going all the way up to her hips. "Or do you mean to tell me you didn't leave these dresses in my closet for me to wear?"

Anders cleared his throat a little. "I didn't exactly... I acquired this place from the previous owner with everything still in it. They were desperate for money and left in a hurry."

Ashe stopped twirling and cocked her head to the side and looked at him, a small smile playing at her lips. "Oh, really? Well, you don't mind, do you?"

"No, no, of course not. Everything is yours."

"I rather like this one," she said and let her leg slip out through the slit. "But if you think it's too much, I can..."

"No, no, keep it on, kitten. Whatever makes you happy."

Yeah, sure that's why.

She smiled at him and sat down in front of the fire, picking up an empty cup from the table beside her and holding it out towards him.

"Didn't you bring any wine? If we are to talk, perhaps we both need it," she said.

He swallowed visibly and slipped out the door. He was back not two minutes later with two bottles of Antivan red.

Ashe put on a delighted expression. "My favorite! You remembered."

Anders smiled warmly and poured them both a generous amount. "How could I forget, you made me smuggle countless of these from the kitchen to your room." He sat down opposite to her and sighed. "Ashe, about before..."

"If you're going to apologize, I won't hear of it, Anders. I was just tired and confused, you sprung a lot on me. But I've had some time to let it sink in now. And I am very gratetful to you, even though I'm not exactly happy over the fact that you drugged me or bound me with some spell or whatever the Fade you did back in Denerim, to get me here. But I know that you just want to protect me."

He looked at her so intently, it almost made her squirm a bit in her chair. "Always," he said, voice filled with emotion.

"Can we have tonight to just not... talk about any of it? It's been so crazy lately... I just want to enjoy your company and have some fun."

His eyes glinted and he gave her a charming smile. "I would love that."

Damn, he was handsome. She wondered how many women he'd managed to get into bed with that smile.

"Maker, it's so hot in here," she said and fanned herself with her hand. It really was, even though she was barely clothed.

Anders laughed. "Yes, it tends to be warm when you're sitting that close to a fire. Come here, sit a little further from it and you'll be alright. Wouldn't want you fainting on me." He patted the seat next to him on the sofa he was sitting on.

"Why does everyone assume I'm going to faint about every little thing?" she asked while getting up and sitting next to him, her wine in hand. She smiled and he returned it, and they both drank deeply from their cups to avoid having to say anything. She drank a little too fast and spilled some of the red liquid on her bare leg.

"Shit." She stared at the wine trickling slowly over her skin, and she wasn't the only one staring.

She pretended she didn't notice him looking.

"So, who was the owner, before you I mean?" she asked, as if nothing had happened.

"It's, uhm... It was some Lady or Lordling or whatever. Are you not going to, uhm, clean that up?"

"It doesn't really matter, I'm dirty anyway. Hadn't had a proper bath since Denerim."

"Maker, I'm sorry kitten, hadn't thought about that. I'll conjure up a bath for you whenever you like, just say the word."

"Well, now would be nice," she said sweetly.

"Now? But I thought you said you wanted my company."

"Yes, I do. Fix me a bath, sit and talk with me while I clean myself up and then we'll have some dinner, what do you say?"

His look said it all.

Ten minutes later, she slipped out of her dress while his back was turned and sank down into the hot water. It was heaven.

Now work this, she told herself.

"You can look now, water's up to my chin," she said. She closed her eyes so that he could look at her as much as he wanted without worrying about her seeing. She could hear him settle in a chair next to the tub.

"This is divine," she purred. He said nothing. She reached up and rubbed her neck, lifting herself so that her breasts almost broke the surface of the water. Anders was still quiet.

She opened her eyes slowly and smiled at him. He was looking at her face, no doubt having adjusted his view half a second before. She sank down again and pulled her leg up and rubbed the other leg with her foot, seemingly to scratch an itch but it was all a show for him, of course.

"Did you swallow your tongue, Anders? You're being very quiet."

"And you are very beautiful. And I don't exactly have a wide range of topics prepared for things to speak about when watching beautiful women bathe."

"Oh, so you think I'm 'very beautiful', do you?" she smiled.

Anders rolled his eyes. "You know I do, kitten. And I happen to know that you think I'm the most handsome man in all the Free Marches," he said and couldn't keep a grin from his face.

"Do not!" she laughed and splashed water on him.

"Hey!" he protested.

"Besides, we're not even in the Marches now, are we?" she asked, trying to slip the question in casually.

His smile vanished and he looked towards the window and didn't respond.

Shit.

She held her hand out to him to distract him. "Help me out of the bath?"

He returned his eyes to her. "Uhm..."

"Oh, relax, you stiff. Just give me your hand and look away then if I make you uncomfortable."

He did as she asked and pulled her out while looking to the side, but she had no doubt he could see the contour of her naked body in the corner of his eye. She slipped into a sheer, black robe, not even bothering to dry herself first. She took a large sip of wine and then turned towards him.

"You can look now."

He turned around to face her and almost fell backwards in doing so when he looked at her.

She was dripping wet and the water soaked through the already sheer fabric of the robe in several places.

"Maker's breath Ashe, are you trying to kill me?" he exclaimed, his voice strained.

"What? Drink some more wine Anders, and relax a little."

He emptied his cup in one, big gulp and poured himself some more. While his back was turned to her, she crept up behind him and put her hand down into the tub and proceeded to splash him with a handfull of water.

"Hey!" he yelled again. "You're going to pay for that!"

She laughed at his semi-soaked appearance and laughed even harder when he grabbed her wrists and pushed her against the tub, holding her hands down to her sides.

She stopped laughing when she felt his body press against hers and her robe slid open.

Anders

She was wet and practically naked against him.

If there had been any resistance left in him before, it shattered when she leaned up and kissed him and he gave into the sin. Her skin was hot against his hands, which had now released her wrists and found their way to her naked hips. She moaned into his mouth when his thumb stroked her hipbone and the sound made him dizzy with want, and he slipped his tongue into her willing mouth. He felt her hands snake around his back and tug at the buttons of his robes, and he was so hard already. The need for her consumed him, he desperately needed to be inside her, to claim her, this beautiful, little kitten.

He pushed her wet robe off her completely, tearing it in his excitement, and stared down at her body, wanting to worship every inch of her. She was so fucking sexy, and she was his now. It was enough to almost make him laugh out loud, the absurdity and the joy of it all.

He carefully lifted her up to sit on the edge of the tub just as her fingers expertly undid the last button that locked his body away from hers, and soon he was as naked as she was. He threw his head back and groaned when he felt her hand caress his stomach and creep lower until she wrapped it around his painfully hard cock. Waves of pleasure surged through him when she moved her hand – up and down, deliciously up and down. He barely noticed when she slid down from the edge of the tub to kneel on the floor, until he looked down and watched with bated breath how she reached for the head of him with her tongue and licked him like the little kitten she was.

No, he shouldn't think like that... His sweet, little girl, she shouldn't be on her knees like this...

He lost the train of thought as she engulfed him in her warm, wet mouth and swirled her tongue around him expertly. Far too expertly.

"Fuck," he whispered when she took him all the way down into her throat.

No, no, no, she was his sweetness, she shouldn't be sitting there like some whore who -

He tried to push her away, weakly, and she looked up at him and licked her lips.

"Let me take care of you, Anders," she murmured. "I know what I'm doing."

Images of her doing this to the Maker knew how many men before him lodged itself into his mind and he couldn't fucking get rid of them. It wasn't supposed to be like that. No matter what she'd done, he'd always thought of her as his little sister, his little kitten. But he couldn't, now that he saw with his own eyes what she could do. Why did she know how to seduce him like this?

"No, get off me!" he roared and pushed her away so forcefully that he sent her flying into the side of the tub. His vision blackened and he could feel lightning crackle at the edge of his fingertips. When he heard her scream, he shook his head and his vision became clearer.

He put his hand over his mouth in horror when he saw what he had done.

Ashe sat on the floor against the tub, her legs up in front of her and her hands against her face. She was bleeding from so many places. He must have struck her with the lightning as well as the impact from hitting her head against the tub.

He reached out his hand to her but forgot about the residue of lightning in his fingertips and he sent a bolt flying, cutting across her collarbone. Hearing her gasp in pain was more than he could take. He couldn't watch this, couldn't watch what he'd done.

So he turned around and fled, like the fucking coward he was, just like Hawke had told him before he let him go from Kirkwall.

Cullen

He stood outside the massive house with the tower, in the middle of some Maker forsaken forest, with Hawke and Alistair. They'd arrived here yesterday, hot on the trail of the magical surge that Hawke had felt. This was definitely where it was coming from, but unfortunately they couldn't for the life of them get through the magic surrounding the place. So now, they just stood here and watched, trying to figure out what to do. Hawke had his eyes closed and was muttering incantations or spells or some other gibberish, while Alistair eyed the building itself. Cullen searched desperately for signs of Ashe through the windows, but no lights had shown the entire time they'd been outside.

As far as Hawke could tell, there were two active and massive barriers surrounding the house. The first about fifty yards from the house itself, and then another etched into the walls of the house. Hawke was putting all his strength into disabling the outer one, hoping that perhaps Anders wouldn't notice that one, and then he could rest and start working on the second barrier.

Cullen was going mad with worry, and it was beyond frustrating to know that she was in there and he was right outside, unable to do shit about it.

Maker, if Ashe got out of there alive, he swore that he would never yell at her again, never be angry. He just wanted her to be safe.

After hours of standing beside Hawke, who was working on the barrier without ever stopping, Cullen couldn't take it anymore.

"Maker knows what that lunatic is doing to her right now. If he's the one who left all those notes in the palace, about how he would find her and... Andraste, what if he's doing something to her against her will? Fuck, if he's touched her or hurt her in anyway..."

Alistair came up beside him. "Keep your voice down and let Hawke work in peace. And don't think like that. You'll drive yourself mad. And if he has touched her against her will..." Alistair put his hand on Cullen's shoulder. "If he's done anything to her, we'll take turns tearing him apart piece by fucking piece."

Surprising himself, Cullen didn't immediately shake Alistair off, but instead tried to find comfort in knowing that with him and Hawke working with him, Anders would never get away with what he'd done. Say what he would about them, but the men beside him had never made Ashe do anything she didn't want to.

An hour or two later, Hawke collapsed to the ground. Alistair and Cullen leaped forward to catch him and hold him up.

"It's done," Hawke said, his voice rough with the strain of over twenty-four hours work. "The outer barrier is down. One of you have to stay here and watch over me, I'm afraid, because I might actually fucking die if you don't help me drink, piss and sleep now. But one of you should approach the house and see if you can discover anything about where he's keeping Ashe. It's safe to touch the walls but you won't be able to get in."

Cullen stood up and Alistair nodded to him while still holding Hawke's head up. Cullen then moved as quietly as he could towards the house. When he was about ten yards away, he swore quietly when the light of a candle appeared in the window closest to him on the bottom floor, and he was sure that he'd been discovered. But when nothing happened, he dared to venture closer. It was dark outside so if the person inside didn't know he was out there, he probably wouldn't be seen, the light inside would be too bright.

As he got closer, Cullen could see that the window was actually open, but there were bars on it. He heard clattering noises from inside as he flattened himself against the wall next to the window. He took a deep breath and then peered over the edge.

Maker's breath, someone was moving in there. Someone on the floor, dressed only in a torn up robe. There was so much blood on her face...

"Ashe?" he whispered, hoping yet not hoping it was her.

The woman startled and clutched her bleeding hand to her robe, abandoning the bandages that she'd been trying to apply to herself.

"Who's there?" she whispered.

Please, please, don't be as bad as it looks.

"Ashe, it's me, Cullen. Maker, love, what did he do?"

Fuck, look at her! I'll fucking kill him, slowly, I'll rip his fucking head off!

"C-Cullen? Is it really you?" Ashe stood up on unsteady legs and stumbled towards the window. Tears fell down her face, barely streaking the dried up blood covering it. She put her hand up against the bars and he tried to touch her but the force of the barrier made it impossible. "Please, tell me that you can get me out of here," she whispered and it killed him, killed him to see her like this. And worse, he couldn't tell her what she wanted to hear.

"We're doing everything in our power to get you out, love. Hawke and Alistair are with me, and Hawke just managed to break one of the barriers, but there's one still surrounding the house. It's going to take some time. Now you tell me, what the fuck did he do to you?"

"He... I don't know, he just snapped and sent me flying and then he attacked me with his magic. I was defenseless, that's why it looks so bad... And he just ran out after that, and I've no way of healing myself. Haven't found one, lousy potion in this entire damn place, either."

He looked down at her torn clothing and let out a quiet growl. She must have seen the look on his face because the next moment, she tried to reassure him. "I-It's not as bad as it looks, Cullen, I'll manage, I promise. You have no idea how good it is to see you."

She put up her hand against the bars again and he met it with his own, even though they couldn't really touch. He felt a few tears press themselves out of his eyes when he saw again what a mess she was. Cut, still bleedning in several places. The near naked state of her – he couldn't even think about the reasons for that right now.

"I will kill him for you, and then I'll fucking bring him back to life and kill him again, and again, and again," he said, his jaw tight with anger.

"I know you will," she said softly, and the way she looked at him, like she knew she could depend on him – he would not let her down. "Did... did you see Mahariel?" she asked.

"What?" Anders must have smacked her harder in the head then she let on.

"Uhm, never mind. Just get me out of here, please?"

"I swear to you that we will, soon."

Ashe snapped her head around, clearly hearing something from inside.

"You need to go, now!" she hissed at Cullen, and he ducked to the side of the window. As much as it killed him, he had to move away from the house, towards the others. He couldn't risk Anders looking out and spotting him.

But when he got his hands on Anders, that abomination would wish he'd never been born.