Chapter 3

Night had fallen, the moons had risen and Cullen remained right where Dorian had left him. He sat there like a statue all afternoon just staring at the game pieces in front of him, evidence of his ignoble defeat. Another kind of defeat was etched into the lines creasing his brow and the frown on his lips.

A few soldiers passed him, two of Leliana's agents came to find him, but none actually came within speaking distance, all very wisely deciding whatever business they had wasn't urgent enough to risk him turning the scowl he was wearing upon them.

He almost wished someone would have approached him. Nothing good ever came from being left too long alone with his thoughts. And he had been sitting here entirely too long. As the sun sank deeper into the horizon his mind had started to take a dark turn matching the darkening sky.

It hadn't started that way, it never did. At first he had simply sat thinking about what Dorian had said; thinking about Evelyn. But innocent thoughts of her smile and her eyes eventually gave way to deeper thoughts of what she tasted like and how she felt in his arms.

And with those thoughts came the emotions inevitably tied to them. Affection, at first, obviously, but he knew all too well how quickly that path followed onto others. What would it be like to be her first? She would be his in a way no other ever would. He could take her for his own. Untouched. Uncorrupted. She wanted him and he could have her so easily. He wanted to have her... He wanted to be the only one to touch her. He wanted to take her... Show her... Corrupt her...

Desire. Hunger. Primal needs and dangerous urges that could so easily turn violent. A violence he didn't dare admit he had inside him, except in quiet moments like these when the memories of past torments were able to push to the front of an idle mind. He had been shown things, things about himself, about what he was capable of. There were demons who had been all too happy to show him how easy it would be to lose control, to lose faith, to give in. He had seen others succumb to what they thought were innocent wants only to have those wants tainted and ultimately consume them.

He had been shown things. In the Fade, in dreams, he had seen himself lose his grip, falling to a place where hungers and desires turned so readily to rage and despair. He had seen his own face twisted in depravity and his own hands as they wrought destruction. And it was too real, too close to the surface to dismiss as meaningless apparitions. To this day, if he thought too much on it, he couldn't honestly tell himself that he was sure he resisted the temptation and that the images that still haunted him were only images, nothing more.

He squeezed his eyes shut in a futile attempt to block out the ghosts that were creeping into the edges of his vision. They always seemed closer now since he had given up the lyrium. The night he attacked Evelyn, waking from a nightmare, they were all he saw. He hadn't seen her, and he couldn't trust himself to keep it from happening again. She was too dangerously close to being everything he had always wanted, everything he could ever want.

He wanted her far too much for her to be safe.

xxxx

"How long have you been up here?" Dorian sidled up to Evelyn, speaking softly. She was standing in the shadows on a balcony overlooking where Cullen sat in the garden.

"An hour at most." She said absently, not taking her eyes away from the man below.

Dorian leaned out into the moonlight, "Has he been down there since this afternoon?" She pulled him back into the darkness and shushed him, not wanting Cullen to notice them.

"He has." She answered.

"What do you suppose he's been doing all this time?" Dorian asked curiously.

"I don't know. Thinking, it seems."

"Well, I certainly gave him a lot to think on, so I'll take that as a good thing."

"He looks troubled." She furrowed her brow and bit at her bottom lip.

"He is troubled. You're troubled. I'm troubled. Everyone here is troubled. I daresay it's why we all get along so marvelously." He folded his arms. "And you'll recall that before you started this venture, I warned you that if you were looking for something uncomplicated you should probably look elsewhere. But the good Commander appeared to be the only thing you wanted despite the risks."

"He still is. I just wish I knew what he was thinking."

"You could ask him instead of slinking about up here spying on the man." Dorian drawled.

"Sometimes there's more to be learned by silent observation than asking questions you're bound to get false answers to. Or no answers at all." She wouldn't call it 'spying' necessarily. More like concerned attentiveness. "He's shared quite a bit of his past with me, but none of us lay bare every dark corner of ourselves, do we?"

"Indeed we don't." Dorian sighed. "I'll never know why women like the tormented ones. Give me a beautiful, uncomplicated man, any day over this...drama." He gestured towards Cullen.

Evelyn laughed softly. "You liar. I've seen dozens of beautiful ,very simple, men making eyes at you since the moment you joined us and who do you end up with? A former Qunari spy? If that doesn't scream 'I have daddy issues', I don't know what does."

Dorian laughed back darkly. "As I said, we're all troubled. And I'll have you know there are at least hundreds of beautiful simple men who've made eyes at me. 'Dozens' indeed! There's no need to be insulting!"

They stood in silence for another few moments before he gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "Promise me you won't stay out here all night?"

"I go where he goes, Dorian. Even if I have to slink about in the shadows to do it." They exchanged smiles as he walked away.

Evelyn brought her full attention back to Cullen. She was just in time to see him squeeze his eyes shut. He slowly hung his head and brought up the palms of his hands to rub them against his forehead. She leaned forward, continuing to watch him. Eventually he rose. The sound of his chair screeched against the flagstones as it was pushed back and it echoed around them. He just stood for a moment, then he turned and strode with heavy steps across the garden, his armor clinking softly.

Wanting to keep him in her sights, she opted to climb and jump her way down into the garden from her elevated position. There was no time to walk all the way back through the keep to get to him normally. After a brief display of acrobatics, she landed softly on the balls of her feet in the grass. She held her breath and remained still, crouching in a shadow. He had just pulled open the large doors of the Chantry and stepped inside, not bothering to shut them.

Evelyn was grateful it was late enough that no one was about. She would have a hard time explaining why she was creeping around in the dark like a criminal. She wasn't sure she could sacrifice enough dignity to admit to spying on her would-be lover, even if the gossip about the two of them had been circulating for quite some time already.

She walked softly over to the open doors and hovered silently just outside. A few stray moonbeams trickled their light onto the imposing statue of Andraste. Evelyn's deep and even breaths puffed out before her, pale and fleeting. Inside, Cullen was down on one knee, back turned to her, murmuring to himself. She held her breath and listened.

"Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter. Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just."

Evelyn was loathe to interrupt his prayer, but even in a soft whisper she could hear the tension in his voice. Her need to go to him and do what she could to ease that tension overruled her previous desire to remain out of sight. She shifted her feet and took a breath. Subtle, but just enough for him to take notice.

He lifted his head and turned it just barely towards her, his eyes still focused on the stone of the floor. "Were you following me?" He asked her, seeming too tired to sound truly accusatory.

She wouldn't lie to him. "I was. Does that upset you?" She couldn't bring herself to apologize for worrying about him. She loved him. It couldn't be helped.

He turned back to face Andraste. "It should, but it doesn't. I don't know if it's more or less troubling that I've grown to find comfort in being stalked by you."

She offered a self-deprecating smile. "If you asked me to stop, I would."

Cullen rose, his fists clenched at his sides, and let out a pained and frustrated sound. He whirled around to face Evelyn.

"I should. I should ask that of you. I should ask you to stay far away and not trouble with me any longer, lest you find trouble for yourself."

Faster than she thought a large man could move, he crossed the room and was upon her where she still hovered in the open doorway. He cupped her face in his hands, his golden eyes looking down at her, dark and smoldering. His fingers creeped up to her hair and they clenched into fists gathering her locks into them. She felt the sharp tug of it on her scalp, wanting to say it hurt but enjoying the feeling of it far too much to be considered modest.

He closed his eyes and leaned down to touch their foreheads together. His whole body seemed wound up tight, hitched breath, straining muscles hidden under leather and metal. He seemed barely in control and she barely cared. Was this what he meant? Was it possible he could cause her harm, whether intentional or not?

A dark kernel of desire inside her stirred, and even buried as it was under tender affection, it screamed eagerly nonetheless, wanting to find out. She knew she wouldn't have to do much. Were these the feminine wiles Dorian spoke of? An instinct for seduction? One small movement on her part and she felt he might snap. For a man who detested games, it was he who had now drawn her into one, daring her to play.

She moved. It was nothing but a nearly imperceptible tilt of her chin up towards him but it was enough. The hands in her hair nearly pulled her back to brace her against the doorframe, his mouth attacked her, first her lips then her jaw then her neck and...oh!...her collarbone where he pulled her tunic aside. Neither of them even tried to speak as his assault continued, hands everywhere, lips trying to find any exposed skin. The only sound was the snap of torches and the gasps of their stolen breaths in the shadows.

Where he was all feral action and working muscles, she had wilted into a boneless compliance that would have been frightening if it wasn't Cullen she was with. Her lust addled mind briefly wondered if that was how she knew she had made the right decision giving herself to him, the fact that she was willing to give up her control.

Suddenly she sensed they were moving. The doorframe digging into her spine had changed to stone and the stone beneath her feet had changed to grass. She felt herself being half carried, half dragged across the garden and then back inside the keep. He was wearing her almost as close as he wore his armor, his lips never parting from her for long, his arms never leaving her.

She found strength enough to open her eyes when they made it to the main hall. She had enough sense to thank the Maker the place was deserted, or at least what she could see of it through the flutter of her eye lashes as her eyes shut again when he bit the shell of her ear and...holy Maker!...chasing the nip with a languid lick of his tongue.

"Mmmmmm..." The sound that escaped her came from somewhere deep in her gut where a fire had started. The flames were growing, assaulting her insides and she was suddenly so hot. Just as she thought that, she felt and arm move underneath her bottom and hoist her up, the plane of her stomach dragging along the hard length of him as she instinctively brought her legs up to wrap around his waist. She heard him grunt and then heard a door being pulled open and then slamming back against a wall. Then they were outside again and a cold wind whipped against them, giving a small measure of relief against the heat melting her from within.

There was another door, slammed opened and slammed closed and...fuck!...he was sucking at the pulse in her neck like he was drawing poison from a wound and as if the spot was somehow connected to her limbs, she felt her legs tighten around him trying to press them closer together.

She felt like she couldn't breathe, her mouth reluctant to welcome air, when it could instead welcome him, and her chest unable to expand when she was dumped harshly onto what she knew was Cullen's desk, trapped between the wood and his body.

He let out another low and frustrated cry as one of his arms left her and swept outward knocking everything covering his workspace to the floor. Papers fluttered away, books thudded down, but the shrill shattering of glass against stone is what shattered the fog of passion that carried them here.

Cullen jerked back at the sound, holding painfully still and just staring down at her with intense gold eyes blown nearly to black. He had that faraway look, as if he wasn't sure what he was seeing, his mind torn between reality and...something else.

Every part of her screamed to pull him back down, draw him closer, hold him tighter, but he kept her at arm's length, panting, obviously trying to calm his own fire as it licked at his resolve. He reached back and pulled her legs down from around him and he stumbled backwards, hands outstretched before him as if he was defending himself from their mutual desire.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. It was a gesture she had seen him make many times and she wondered what phantoms he was trying to shake away. "Maker's breath...I'm sorry, we can't, not here, not like this, not for your first..."

Evelyn sucked in a deep but unsteady breath. Cullen's office was dark and blurry and she tried to blink away the heat of lust so she could focus on him. "Dorian told you? So you know?" She croaked out, throat dry, voice weak. She stood on wobbly legs and stepped towards him. Like a magnet he mirrored her movements and she instantly felt better, more stable the closer he was to her. Even those few paces apart hurt, ached, as if it took entirely too much effort to keep their bodies from touching.

Not without what seemed like great effort, she saw control creep back into Cullen's movements. He extended his arm and caught her face with his hand again, daring to touch but trying to stop it at just that. "Know?" He laughed bitterly. "It's all I've been able to think about all day. It's...it's...maddening." He growled out and then he parted from her again, hands dropped to his side, clenching into fists. Through bared teeth he bit out, "Evelyn, a man only has but so much control and I warn you, I have less than that. But even so, I can't...I won't allow," he stuttered, paused, then continued, "I won't take you like an animal on top of a desk, for Maker's sake!"

He let out a long sigh. "I don't want to start it like this...us..." He looked at her pointedly, his voice a heart wrenching mixture of commanding and begging, "Don't let me start us like this..."

Whatever demons were still clouding his way forward, the fact that he was able to stop himself from the temptation of following through with a quick and rough tumble meant he could at least push some of them away. It appeared the rest were up to her.

She slowly moved close to him, arms wrapping behind his neck, lips brushing lightly against his. Slow and measured. "Then let me start. And you can finish."