Disclaimer: Bioware owns all, except what I most humbly imagine. While, at times, I will take verbatim from the game, I mostly use the events of the Dragon Age games, expansions and universe as a loose structure around which to construct my re-imagined tale. If you are looking for a strict canon piece, I have no desire to offend, and so I warn you upfront!

When reading this tale, I hope you can easily imagine it being told by the very best of storytellers in Varric Tethras (from DA:2). In my version of events, Varric meets "The Hero" (Elissa Cousland) in Kirkwall during the time period of DA:2. I mention this only so that readers can understand his connection along the way, and so I don't have to mention and rehash it again and again as I make my way through the tale.

A/N: WARNING! NSFW material contained within. That probably means most of you know what's coming :P

Muse Music: Temptation by The Tea Party and Running Up That Hill by Placebo.

Thanks to my readers, followers and reviewers - and to my beautiful betas artemiskat and Snarkoleptic.

Happy Reading!

-Frayed One

Chapter Thirty-Three: Temptation

When Nathaniel came staggering into Anders' quarters that afternoon, he looked as though he'd only barely managed to come out on the winning side of a bar brawl. If the archer had smelled the least bit like alcohol or shown any of the other signs that would have marked him as hungover, the mage certainly would have believed it true. As it was, aside from slightly favoring his left side, the man seemed mostly unaffected by his condition – and his eyes were clear and completely focused.

"What happened to you?" Anders asked, inspecting his injuries and healing what turned out to be several cracked ribs.

"Elissa—"

"Elissa did this?" Anders pulled back to meet Nathaniel's eyes, uncertain whether he should be reassured or unsettled by the answers he saw there.

"She came to me early this morning. She was… not herself." Nathaniel flinched when Anders hit a large bruise near his jaw line. "I found a note she'd written out at some point before she made the decision to completely come off the tonics—"

"Completely off?" Anders' brow knitted in confusion. "She said she'd adjusted the dosage because she couldn't dream or… I should have known. Elissa does nothing in moderation."

"No. She does not." The archer flinched again as the mage finished his evaluation and stood up straight again.

"Where is she now?"

"She's sleeping, under heavy sedation, in my quarters." Nathaniel answered, watching the subtle hitch in the other man's shoulders at the knowledge that Elissa lay sleeping in his bed, regardless of the circumstances that led her there.

"Take me to her." Anders gathered up some of his things and waited for the archer to move back to the door. "If you've been injured, I should take a look at her as well."

"I took the worst of it, believe me." Nathaniel tried not to react when a short burst of laughter from the man behind him showed disbelief, and simply continued to lead the way back to his room. "The only damage she took came when I was forced to tighten her restraints after she got… loose… on several occasions."

Anders shoved past him as soon as they reached the doorway, settling down to the bed beside Elissa and gently brushing her hair back from her forehead.

"Can you take these off?" He tossed a halfhearted gesture toward her wrists before turning his attention back scanning for injuries.

"I'm not sure if—"

"You said she was sedated. If you're as good with those types of concoctions as you think you are, I don't see why removing the restraints at this point should be a problem." Anders leveled a glare in the archer's direction, hoping to prod the man into doing as he'd asked, and trying not to think too hard about the sort of person who would carry around restraints on a regular basis.

"Sedated, yes. But she's still free of the serum Avernus concocted, and I thought rather than have her taking herself off again in the future – you might want to take a shot at adjusting the balance to a workable level. I have enough of the ingredients I need to keep her unconscious for the remainder of the day, if necessary." Nathaniel didn't move. He was right, and the mage knew it.

A few moments later Anders snatched up the half empty vials of tonic Nathaniel had left out on his bedside table and disappeared to seek out the assassin. There were questions to which he needed answers if he had any hope of lulling the beast to its slumber once more.

The conversation with Zevran had made it clear to Anders that he would need access to his own personal lab if he were to make any progress with reformulating the tonic, so the two of them were forced to work with Nathaniel to get Elissa's condition back to a manageable level until they could return to the Keep.

Elissa had not been happy to regain consciousness once again lacking access to her Warden abilities. It was only with repeated reassurances that the formula would be reevaluated as soon as Anders had the capability to do so that they were able to convince her to continue taking it throughout the journey back to Amaranthine.

She gave Anders no time to settle in once they'd returned, rushing him straight from the stables off to his lab to begin working on a solution to her problem.

"You pacing around back there isn't going to make this go any faster." Anders said, shrugging his shoulders. It was hard enough to communicate with Elissa when her anger was focused on something in particular, but now... She seemed to be furious at the world in general, which meant she was unlikely to see reason no matter how delicate the phrasing.

"I'm sorry, Anders. I'm not trying to pressure you. It's just… this has to work. You have to find the right balance." Elissa was frantic, running her fingers through the mess of curls on her head in frustration. "The Mother is building an army, and I can't hear them to know where they'll strike. Lives will be lost if we—"

"Lives will be lost if you give yourself over to that beast again. And as those lives are more likely to be the other Wardens capable of aiding you in the battle against The Mother, you need to keep up with the current formula and trust that I am doing what I can as fast as I can." He was being abrasive, and he knew it, but the drama of the Orzammar trip had worn heavy on his patience and even Anders had his limits.

"You're right." Elissa pushed a long breath out and closed her eyes. "I'll leave you to your work."

Anders didn't try to stop her when she turned to take her leave.

It took nearly a week of trial and error for Anders to reach a balance in the tonic with which both he and Elissa were comfortable. She was dreaming again, and able to sense both Wardens and darkspawn. The return of her more mercurial temperament was a sacrifice she was willing to make, regardless of the evident discomfort it brought to the man who shared her bed at night.

"I'm telling you, Anders. The balance is fine." It was an internal battle for Elissa to keep from rolling her eyes as she went through the rotations of this argument for the third time since they'd left Anders' quarters that morning. "As long as I take time to let a little of the pressure out in the sparring ring, I don't find myself fighting down the urge to kill the first person to cross me for the day."

"That isn't funny." Anders folded his arms over his chest, and did his best to look serious without being overly critical. "You didn't spend this much time in the sparring ring before."

"I couldn't sense the darkspawn or access my other abilities before either. If spending several hours a day training is the tradeoff for that, I'll take it." Elissa stood up from behind her desk having gotten her boots back on and reached for her swords. "Besides, there is no such thing as over-prepared when it comes to being a soldier. I could spend all day down there and it should seem perfectly normal."

"You aren't down there training, Elissa. You're down there beating the tar out of training dummies and anyone foolish enough to stumble across you because it feels good." Anders shivered subconsciously at those words, and Elissa pretended not to notice it. "Nothing about that is normal."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe it isn't normal." Elissa conceded, easing herself down on the arm of the chair that Anders had settled in to offer what reassurances she could manage. "But shouldn't you at least be able to take comfort in the fact that I'm attempting to manage it, rather than ignoring it while it builds to the point where I do someone harm simply because I can't control it anymore?"

He couldn't argue with her on that point, and she knew it. She'd used his own logic to back him into a corner he couldn't reason his way out of. As much as Anders might have hated the changes in her on the adjusted serum, he couldn't deny that this time she was actively working to prevent any complete loss of control.

"Go. Vent. Stab things with pointy objects." Anders sighed, relishing the smell of her lilac soaps as she leaned in to kiss him goodbye. "I'll see you at dinner."

"And here I was wondering why you were out here sparring alone, instead of with a partner…"

Elissa spun around at the sound of Nathaniel's voice, watching as he caught the recently detached head of her training dummy with the toe of his boot. "The straw men do their jobs well. Though I suspect Varel will be unhappy for having to replace yet another one today."

"This is not your first dismemberment of the day?" Nathaniel chuckled.

"I may have damaged one or perhaps two other dummies beyond the ability to be repaired." Elissa admitted, offering him a half smile.

"Then, in the interest of straw men everywhere, may I offer up my services as an adversary?" Nathaniel was pulling loose his daggers and strolling into the ring before Elissa could even offer a response.

"Are you certain you want to tangle with me?" Elissa twirled her swords and edged back out of his range. "It would appear I collect heads."

"I suspect if you were after my head, you would have taken it some time ago, along with the other pieces of me to which you have already laid claim." He watched something flash behind her eyes with his words, and dodged to the side when she swiped forward with her blades.

"I have laid claim to nothing." Elissa insisted, the clang of steel crisp in the air as he blocked three successive blows from her longswords. "You are your own man, Nathaniel. You do not belong to me."

It fell silent as they focused themselves on blocking and dodging, on landing blows and ducking out of range. Neither seemed able to gain an advantage, though both utilized tricks from their arsenals to which the other had not been offered previous exposure.

Nathaniel felt the edge of his blade graze the corner of her elbow, and listened to the quick intake of breath as she folded in to look at it. Relaxing his guard, he took a couple of steps forward – concerned that he might have accidentally caused injury – and was blindsided when Elissa flipped back on him, darting forward with an elbow to his ribcage that forced one blade free from his hand.

"You dirty cheat!" He coughed out, attempting to retrieve his blade before Elissa cut off the path to it and kicked it out of the ring. "I thought you were injured."

"Aw. Don't be sore, Nathaniel. I saw weakness, and I exploited it. It's what any good soldier would do." Her smile was unapologetic.

"Have you no sense of honor?"

"Of course I do! But not in battle." Elissa snorted, edging around him as she spoke and looking for another opportunity. "A misplaced sense of honor can get you killed, especially when your opponent is unlikely to have one at all. In battle you take any advantage you are given."

"Is that so?" Nathaniel's words were cryptic, but the look on his face was pure challenge.

A moment later Elissa was struggling to keep her feet when he flooded their conduit with the lust that had built up in him since she'd come barreling into his room back in Orzammar. "Y-you're a bastard, Nathaniel Howe."

"I am merely taking the advantage I have been given." He replied, smiling as he dipped forward to drop a blow against her elbow that rattled one of her blades loose.

He retrieved it and advanced, knowing she was still struggling to close herself off from him, which left her vulnerable to anything he might attempt. It didn't take him long to have her relieved of her other blade and pressed back against the wall at the rear of the ring.

"Do you concede?" Nathaniel held her at the end of her own blade, and her jaw twitched furiously in response.

"Never." Her mind was working overtime; frantically searching for a way out of this corner he'd shoved her into.

"Elissa, you're held at the end of your own sword. You have no other weapons. You have lost. Concede." Nathaniel's smile was smug, which only goaded her more.

"Nathaniel…" Elissa used the only weapon she had left.

She released everything she'd been holding back, every ounce of attraction she'd felt toward the man in front of her from the moment he'd walked back into her life, everything she had felt but denied, everything shoved down and ignored though it continued to compound and grow and expand.

She watched it hit him, the quick dilation of his pupils and the tremor that passed the length of his body making it obvious she was turning the odds in her favor. She leaned slightly forward, careful not to break her skin against the edge of her sword as she brushed the tip of her nose against his and let her breath warm his mouth.

"I can't do this anymore." Elissa watched his eyes close as he dropped his dagger and released the hold on her sword enough that she could move it from where he held her and out of his grasp entirely.

"Can't do what?" Nathaniel's voice was horse, barely more than a whisper.

"Pretend I don't want you. Pretend my body doesn't yearn for yours all the way into my bones." She listened to the low rumble of his voice vibrate against her as he muttered some half-hearted prayer to the Maker against her throat before pressing his mouth against it.

He tugged her body against his, working his way up from her collarbone to her earlobe. Enjoying every soft curve of her body pressing against him through the well-worn linen of her clothing.

He waited for her little sounds of contentment to begin, but they didn't come, instead he heard the building sound of her laughter. When Nathaniel pulled back to meet her eyes again, the arrogant smile on her face gave everything away. It was only then he noticed the sword she now held pressed into his side.

"Concede."

"Never." He growled, leaning forward and claiming her mouth regardless of what she might do in response to it.

He heard the weight of her sword clatter to the ground. He felt it when her hands slipped into his hair, tugging him harder against her. He smiled against her lips when she started kissing him in earnest.

"Fallen victim to your own game?" He chuckled.

"Shut up!" Elissa hissed, working his lips apart with her tongue and moaning into his mouth when he reached his hands around to grab her ass. And then she was pulling away. "I can't do this…"

"What!" Nathaniel was near belligerent. To be purposely worked to this state only to be cut off from having any release once again was more than he could take. "You can't keep doing this, Elissa. You can't just work me into a frenzy and leave me with nothing."

She held his eyes for a moment, a mix of guilt and lust swirling there in the emerald of her irises, and then she was off and running. Nathaniel punched the wall hard, muttering round after round of curses to the stone as he tried to calm his body to a point where it would be comfortable to go in search of her.

Elissa wasn't in her study, or any other part of the main suite. Nathaniel could sense enough through the still open conduit to know she hadn't made her way to the ramparts, which left only a handful of rooms to which she could have gone.

He couldn't see her going to the assassin in such a state, nor to the dwarf, which narrowed it down further. The thought that she had gone back to the mage after she'd used him in this manner boiled his blood, and it took all the self control he could manage to turn his steps back to his own quarters rather than charging into the room at the far end of the hall to make her answer for what she'd done.

Nathaniel wasn't prepared to open the door to his room and find her standing there. He was even less prepared to find she'd already removed her boots and was in the process of sliding her pants down to the floor as he shut the door behind him.

"Lock it."

It was an order that left no room for argument. And this time Nathaniel found he had no urge to argue or to disobey. He flipped the latch as she closed the space between them, and barely managed to get his arm out of the way before she slammed him against the door.

A few nimble movements and her legs wrapped around his waist as he reversed their positions and pressed her back against the space where she had just been. "Are you certain—"

"I'm pressed against your door with no pants, Nathaniel. Are you honestly asking me for clarification?" Elissa pushed his head back long enough to meet his eyes. "You told me you wouldn't cross the bounds of our friendship again unless I asked for it. I am asking for it now. I am asking you to take me. Now stop talking, and just do it."

Nathaniel's response was nothing more than the rasp of a growl as he took her mouth again, working a hand between them to discover just how ready he would find her. He didn't need to make it beyond her smallclothes to tell how worked up she was, and the sensation of damp fabric against his fingers was nearly his undoing.

He pulled back, intending to shift them to his bed, but her hands dipped into the space he'd left vacant and worked open the front of his trousers, pressing against him through the thin cloth of his smallclothes. He groaned into her mouth when she squeezed against him, knowing that she wasn't as prepared as she obviously thought she was, but unable to resist any longer.

He shoved his tongue into her mouth, bracing her hard against the door and pushing the cloth of his pants and smallclothes down far enough to release himself from inside them. Another quick movement had her underthings shifted aside so that he could press himself against her, intending to ease further inside. But Elissa was impatient, and dug her heels into his back to push him harder, bringing him fully inside her much faster than he'd intended.

Elissa had heard the rumors, and had contemplated the idea of him, but none of that had prepared her for the actual size of the man. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, stifling the cry that tried to rip itself free from her throat as her body adjusted. Nathaniel did nothing to silence himself as he reacted to the sensation of having been bitten.

They could hear the stuttering steps of curious guards now reacting to the sounds coming from inside Nathaniel's quarters as they went about their patrols.

For a moment, Elissa was certain he would withdraw, and the thought of that sent her into a panic. "I swear, Nathaniel. If you stop I will kill you."

"We should at least move." Nathaniel insisted, groaning again when she tightened her legs against his back. "Half the Keep is going to hear us."

"I don't bloody care who hears us!" Elissa hissed, pausing to kiss him again. "I want this. I need this. It's far too late to stop now."

She used the leverage of the door to pull herself up off him slightly, only to release her hold and settle him right back in again. It brought a moan from them both, and severed any hold on logic Nathaniel might have had left. She wanted this, wanted him, she'd been clear on that. He could feel the truth of her unadulterated desire pulsing into him through the conduit, overriding all the rationale and reservations that had held his own passions in check for so long. He silenced the last of those notions with the press of a frantic kiss against her lips and took her, just as she wanted, pounding her hard against the door, rattling the sounds of their coupling up and down the halls and no longer caring if anyone heard them.

Nathaniel wanted to take his time. He had promised himself that when Elissa finally gave herself over to him, he would savor every moment of it, but he was lost now to something far more basic and far stronger than any scenario his logical mind could ever have constructed. He was given over to a primal need to consume and be consumed, to take and be taken, to merge himself with this woman on every possible level once and for all.

He could feel himself peaking, and though he fought against it, he knew it was useless. This release had been denied for far too long to be held at bay by even the strongest of willpower, so when the tension beneath his base built to a point where he could no longer contain it, Nathaniel simply gave in and rode out the wave of his orgasm.

Elissa kissed him once more before the pressure of her limbs against him got across the message she wished for him to withdraw. There was no look of accusation on her face as she settled her feet to the floor and walked over to retrieve her scattered clothing, merely acceptance.

"You didn't—"

"I got to share yours. Not the same, but I'll take it." Elissa bent over to pick up her boots, hearing a low groan out of Nathaniel when her shirt rose up to give him a good glimpse of her behind.

"Take off your smallclothes." Nathaniel wasn't sure what was going on as he pushed his pants and underthings down and kicked them aside with his boots. In the past when he'd been done, he'd certainly been done – but this time it appeared that he wasn't, and whatever the reasons behind it he wasn't going to question them now.

"It's fine, Nathaniel. Really. You don't have to—"

"Take them off or I'll tear them off. It really doesn't matter to me either way, but choose quickly of I'll make the decision for you." He watched her stop dressing and turn slowly in his direction, something in his voice making her hesitant to ignore him.

"You can't be… you've just…" Elissa's eyes went wide when he flipped his shirt off, leaving himself completely bare before her. "Oh, Maker…"

"Well?" He watched her hesitate, but only for a moment. Then she was tucking her fingers into the sides of her smallclothes and shoving them down far enough that she could kick them over to the pile of her clothes already building on his floor.

The motion was half confusion and half seduction, but it drew Nathaniel in just the same. He closed the space between them, pressing her back against his bed and seeking entry once again. She cried out when he thrust fully inside her, moaning and muttering things that would make an Antivan whore blush as he set a new pace.

"You are driving me mad, woman." Nathaniel growled into her neck, the sudden realization that she was still half dressed only further fueling his desire.

He reached up and ripped her shirt open, feeling the brief surge of anger as it was swallowed by an overwhelming wave of desire, all of it flooding through the conduit and mingling with his own. There was nowhere left to hide.

As he neared his peak again, Nathaniel reached down to her apex to push Elissa forward into the crest of her own. She writhed beneath him, nails digging into his back, tongue fighting against his for dominance. When she came, she pulled him along with her – the echoes of her physical reaction resonating through the Fade bond as he felt the tightening around his length he had waited so long to experience.

She cried out his name, not once but three times, in and amongst the various expletives that had slowly taken over her vocabulary. The sound of it was an admission. A truth that could no longer be hidden, and Nathaniel found himself answering with a cry of his own. A repetition of a name he'd called out in another bed, only this time there was no need to expect the retribution to come from such a mistake. This time she was here; Elissa, his Elissa, and the connection between them was undeniable.