Denerim, Blight

This time, Slim assured them, the information was good. "You'll steal the tears of Andraste", he had told them in hushed reverent tones, "from the grandson of the man who stole them from the Chantry."

Personally, Delia didn't understand why the secretions of a long, dead woman were so worthwhile, but embarrassing the Bann sounded like a fine thing to do. She and Zevran talked it over and decided to do it. Zevran felt much the same as her, an opinion he expressed openly when they got the woman's ashes months earlier.

"If we keep this up, we'll be able to reassemble her," Zevran said.

Delia had laughed at his comment. "Good, I'd like to ask her a few questions."

This time their burglary went down without a hitch. Not a drop of blood was shed. They easily avoided the traps, they knocked out guards and slipped through shadows to make their escape. It was almost anti-climatic...until Zevran had a perverse notion.

They were back at Arl Eamon's estate and had slipped back into their room, unnoticed by their companions. Even though the heist had been easy there was still a little adrenaline racing through her body. Zevran must have been feeling the same post-job exhilaration because as she was starting to take off her armor, getting ready for bed, he lifted her up and dumped her on the bed.

"Wouldn't it be easier if I undressed first?" she said, giggling.

He jumped onto the bed and straddled her hips. "I want to unwrap my present myself," he smiled at her, his hands going to the fasteners on her leather chest piece and snapping them open one at a time, with deliberation and a wicked grin on his face. He pulled it off, leaving her in the thin cotton shirt she wore underneath while he worked on her leggings and boots. When he had her down to just the under clothes he discarded his own leather. He rubbed his erection against her. She groaned with the contact.

"Maker, you're a tease, Zevran," she complained. She moved her hands to the top of his cotton trousers, trying to reach the drawstring, but he pushed her hands away.

"No, thief, not yet," his eyes gleamed with some particular mischievousness she hadn't ever seen before and his hand rubbed against her cotton enclosed sex. She swore and ground herself against his hand. He laughed and untied her trousers and pulled them off, her smalls coming away with them. She saw something flash in his hand but was distracted when he spread her legs apart and hoisted her knees over her shoulders.

"Sweet Andraste!", Delia moaned, sinking her hands into his scalp. His tongue teased around her entrance, gradually working towards the tender bit of hooded flesh in the center.

Zevran laughed again. Some impish mood had seized him tonight. Whatever it was, it didn't distract him from the task at hand. His tongue plunged into her, sending her writhing against his face, while his fingers worked at her pearl. Zevran knew well all the right buttons to push. It wasn't long before she was growling with her impending release. Then suddenly the tongue and fingers were gone. She moaned in disappointment while Zevran shifted momentarily then he was back in place and Delia sighed happily, knowing that sweet release was moments away. His tongue danced around her teasing her again, but not enough... Delia's hands pulled at his hair.

"Ow!" he complained, batting her hands away. "Greedy minx, behave yourself."

"I want...", she tried to say.

"Shush! You get what you get, when I give it to you. Capito?"

"Si," she replied with one of the few Antivan words she knew. She wound her hands in the blankets of the bed to keep them from misbehaving again.

Zevran made her wait then, to punish her, she thought. Then he started again, she was determined to come before he could tease her more. She gripped the blankets hard, the tendons in her arms standing out with the tension in body. Just as she was teetering again on the edge of release, he surprised her. A cold, smooth, hard presence pressed at her entrance. She looked down in surprise.

"Fucking Andraste!" she said. "What are you doing?"

"Indeed you are!" he laughed again as he slid the vial holding the tears of Andraste inside her. His mouth went back to sucking on her nub while his hand worked the vial in, angling up towards her stomach to hit that spot he knew well. His lips closed around her now in earnest. No more teasing. She knew she shouldn't be enjoying this but, Maker help her, it was amazing. Something about having the most holy relic in the land buried inside her tweaked something within her. She rocked with an intense orgasm, nearly ripping holes in the blankets with her fingernails.

Zevran pulled the vial out of her and held it before her face. It shimmered with her fluids.

"Now that is a holy relic," he said with mocking reverence. He got up and placed the vial carefully somewhere to dry. "Do not even think of wiping that off, mi amore, I want to know when it goes to the Chantry tomorrow it has your sweet essence upon it."

Delia laughed at him, thinking she'd never be able to see another chantry without thinking about this. "Come here, Zev, there's another holy relic I'm interested in having inside me."

It was a pleasant ending to a relatively carefree time. The assassin and the thief had only the faintest inkling that things would be different from then on.

Denerim, post-blight

The archdemon was dead, Delia was lauded as a hero, Alistair was King, and Zevran was bored. He had been trying to change her mind all week with mind-blowing sex. It nearly worked. When he got on the ship bound for Antiva, her face was shimmering with tears as she watched him leave. He expected her to show up in Antiva not long afterward. He paid someone to watch for her. Weeks went by and she didn't come after him. He threw himself into his work and weeks became months. He became Master Arainai and he moved on, moving the memory of her to the pile of treasured things he had lost, like the Dalish gloves.