That night she learned why Cullen really left her room every night.
Cassandra woke into full battle awareness at his cry of pain, reaching for the sword that wasn't there, but Cullen remained trapped in sleep. Trapped was the right word, as her quick glance at his face revealed a deep agony that could only come from the Fade.
She no longer remembered dreams, the Seeker power that blocked possession also blocking all memory of time spent beyond the Veil, but their emotions still lingered well enough even now for her to know what they were like. And Templars were more prone to deep dreams than most, the lyrium they took attracting demons to them as easily as to mages. She'd been trained almost from the beginning to never interrupt a dreaming Templar. A mage's only power came from their lyrium, which she could control if they woke lost. A Templar with full battle training, carrying a nightmare across the Veil, might kill whomever stood in front of them without question.
Cullen had been at Kinloch. He'd fought here, in this same building, against dozens of blood mages. What sort of horrors might he hold for the demons to twist?
His face gleamed in the moonlight, tracks of tears marching down his face as he trembled. He said her name, once, and it was no longer reverent but terrified.
She laid down, tense and wary, and waited for him to come back.
Cullen jerked awake with a shout, half-sitting up before she placed her hands on his sweat-drenched chest. He looked down at them in disbelief, his eyes wild and suspicious. "No," he said. "You're not real."
"I'm here," she said, trying to keep her voice soothing. "It's Cassandra."
He snarled. "You always say that. But it's not true, and I won't break."
Who had tried to break him? It didn't matter. Focus on the moment. "I don't want to break you. You're safe, Cullen."
"You always say that, too," he said, but his tone was more uncertain. He looked around him, still avoiding her face. His eyes hardened. "No. I don't sleep in her bed. I would never risk her that way. I've killed you before, demon, and I'll do it again if you don't leave me alone."
He punctuated the last word with a shove to her shoulder that she didn't see coming. She fell back and caught herself on her hands, gasping, and that snapped his attention on her. She was still naked, which she realized from the tightness of his jaw was a vast mistake, but it was too late to correct it now. Cullen looked like he wanted to tear her apart, and she wondered if she'd be able to fight him this way. She wondered if she could do it without hurting him.
"Why do you make yourself so perfect?" he said with a growl. "It's never convincing." His eyes roved over her hungrily, darkly, and she shivered with something that wasn't entirely fear. "She's more than you'll ever be, more than you ever made me dream, and I don't need this anymore."
Cassandra frowned in thought. He thought she was a desire demon, clearly, which was oddly flattering, and he seemed to be well aware of what an interaction with it should be. How could she convince him he'd been released from the Fade? She could try to shock him to awareness with pain, but that might send him to violence. She could use words, but demons were known for their persuasiveness. And sleeping with him obviously out of the question.
Then she saw. The one thing a demon would never do. "Then go," she said calmly. No rancor or emotion. "You're here because I asked you to be, because I was afraid, but you're free to go. This is no dream, and you're in control."
His eyes lifted to her face, startled, and he opened his mouth as though to speak before closing it in a thin line. He threw the covers off, and she did her best not to react to the suddenly unfettered view of his desire. Cullen backed away from her warily, fists clenched until he hit the door with a thump. He felt behind him for the knob, then pulled it open and spun around in a quick movement. Cassandra hoped fervently there was no servant on a late-night errand waiting in the hall to see him, but he blocked the door too well for her to know if one of his charges could see him.
Or even worse, Leliana.
But she heard no giggles or screams, and he turned back around with a strange expression on his face. "Cassandra?"
"Close the door," she said. "Leliana doesn't always sleep through the night."
He did as she said absently, already peering through the moonlight to study her face. "Did I… did I do anything?" He didn't say it, but the fear in his voice was enough for her to know what he meant. Had he hurt her in some way.
"You pushed me, just now," she said. "It did not hurt. Other than that, there was nothing."
"Thank the Maker," he said in a low voice. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have stayed here. I was ten times a fool."
He approached to find his clothes, trying to stay as far away from her as possible, so she rose and crossed the room to touch his arm. "Come back to bed," she said.
"I can't," he said, pulling away as though she was made of fire. "You have no idea how close I was."
She moved until she was in his eyesight. "To what?" He didn't answer, and she added, "I told you my troubles when you asked."
"Don't make me say it." His gaze dropped to her breasts, and he swallowed heavily. "I have to go."
Cassandra saw the fragility on his face, the raw pain still lurking, and she wasn't brave enough, or angry enough, to push any further. She covered herself with her hands as best she could and turned away. "Very well," she said. She crossed back to the bed and slipped under the sheets, carefully hiding herself from his gaze, then waited for the sound of the door opening and closing.
It didn't come. There was only a distance that stretched out underneath them like a carpet of silence.
"At Kinloch I was trapped inside a prison of magic, and the mages and demons tortured me there for days," he whispered. She stayed with her back towards him, granting him the space he needed to remember. He told her about the taunts of the mages and the strategies they'd employed against him. They'd soon learned that desire was his greatest temptation, and those possessed by desire demons came to him with whispered promises that made him ache. But he was strong, stronger than they'd realized for one his age, and it took them a little more time to understand that it was the desires of his heart that were the more deadly lure.
Before Aedan and Leliana had come to free him, the demons had found what he wanted most, and they'd given it to him in the worst possible way.
"What was it?" she asked quietly when he paused.
"It was you," he said, and his voice was thick with tears. "Not your face, of course. I'd never even seen you to know what you looked like, and demons can't see what doesn't exist. But I recognized your heart as soon as you landed. The woman in my dreams, the one spun out of all of my desires, and the one I've always been waiting for, without ever believing you were real."
They were echoes of her mother's words, and she was glad he couldn't see her face.
"I loved her, that woman they created in my mind. She was never as beautiful as you are, but she was strong and unyielding and absolutely unafraid. For years, it felt like, she was my partner, and we lived a beautiful life. She loved me, too, of course, because they'd made her to torture me," he said. "When they had me at their mercy, completely happy with the illusion, they changed the dream. First they hurt her and made me watch. Even though a part of me knew she wasn't real, somehow, it didn't matter, because all of me cherished her. They tired of that game, eventually, and then they made me hurt her. They tricked me, let the mask slip, showed me the demon wearing her spirit, and I did terrible things. I killed her a dozen times. I did worse than that. My nightmares never let me forget."
His voice cracked. "But they'd been fading, until you got here. When I met you I could barely breathe, and that she never looked like you is the only thing that's kept me whole. It wasn't really you. It couldn't have been. I tried to stay away, but how could I resist someone l wanted so much, especially when you smiled or laughed and showed me that beautiful heart? So now the dreams are back, and it's always your face, and I still hurt you. I… make you do things you don't want," he said, and he didn't elaborate. But he didn't have to.
"It's the Fade, Cullen. Not real," she said. He always asked. "And I do want you."
He didn't seem to hear her. "The worst part is that I like it. Not the crying or the pain but the control. I enjoy the power," he whispered."What if I'm a monster? What if they made me one? I've loved the promise of you for so long, and you're even more wonderful than my pitiful imaginings, but I can't ask you to risk staying with me. I'd given up on it all before you got here. I'd moved on from that desire. I can do it again. Sometimes I think I'm still at Kinloch and this is just the next game they're playing. You're playing. Letting me think it was gone, and then starting all over again."
"I'm real," she said firmly, but she was painfully aware of the inadequacy of the assurance. Again her mind whirled, searching for more things that a demon would never do. Looking for a way to assure him that he was no monster, that he was in fact the most beautiful man she'd ever known. An idea struck her, and she stopped breathing at its enormity. But she trusted him, and he deserved to be healed before she went, if she could.
She threw back the sheet and rose in a graceful movement. She heard him whimper, and he started to back away, but she was too fast for him. "Cullen," she said as she took his hand. "Look at me."
He did, brown eyes nearly black in the shadows. She pulled him forward until she was standing directly in the shaft of moonlight, and his breathing grew shallow as he stared. His cock had softened when he spoke his memories, but it was rising again, though his face twisted into terror. "Cassandra…"
"I want you," she said again, and his eyes flashed once. "I'm yours," she added, and this time it wasn't a flash but a sustained gleam of absolute need. "I trust you. You will not hurt me. Show me what you desire. You don't have to ask."
"Don't tempt me," he said, but he stepped closer. "You don't know."
I know I love you, she thought sadly. She hid that away deep inside of herself and only said, "I know."
Cassandra watched his self-imposed control break, and he swept her into his embrace in the space of a breath. His mouth demanded entrance, and she let him in. His hands demanded compliance, and she submitted. She went where he commanded, kissed where he pointed, and touched where he craved. The only order she gave herself was to speak, in the small spaces of hesitation, and reassure him that she wanted.
It wasn't a lie.
He hadn't been wrong about what he liked. He didn't want to hurt her or cause pain, just have her at his whim, and she'd played that role before. With the way he made her feel, she would play it with him as often as he wanted. This was his skillful display of the night before brought to even fuller realization, and the growling commands he gave were deliciously alluring. His voice deepened as his need increased, and she had to stop herself from begging more than once when he instructed her to pull away from the pleasure he gave. He hadn't told her to beg.
There was nothing he wanted that was strange, nothing he needed that wasn't natural, and by the end his fear had been replaced entirely with joy in her willingness to give herself over to him. When he threw her over her peak for the final time, he followed her with a shout, and she knew the nightmares wouldn't come back while she was here.
"You two make it very hard to sleep, you know," said a man's voice, and Cassandra blinked up into the morning sunlight. Aedan stood over the bed with an amused look in his eye, and she automatically clutched at the sheets covering her. "Sorry to disturb you so early, but you do happen to live in our usual breakfast haunt."
Cassandra glared at him, and he walked back to the table where Leliana was waiting. She opened her mouth to give them both a lecture on privacy when Cullen made a small noise in his throat, adorably, and rolled over to nuzzle her without opening his eyes. Leliana's delighted face grew even more delighted.
"Good morning," said Cullen sleepily. "I dreamed about you again. Nice dreams. I want to show you."
Aedan leaned forward as he munched on an apple, and Cassandra was torn between killing their observers and encouraging Cullen's hand roving underneath the sheets. Eventually she split the difference and pinched Cullen's very firm ass.
He yelped and opened his eyes. "What was that for?" She nodded towards the table, and he rolled over. Fortunately he was covered, but not well enough to hide the flush that spread from his chest to his face. "Oh. Ah, good morning to you as well."
"Thank you, Cullen," said Aedan with a diplomat's deliberate smile. "Please carry on."
"Yes, don't mind us at all," added Leliana as she buttered a roll. "I'm anxious to see what made Cassandra so vocal last night. She's usually as quiet as a mouse."
Cassandra rubbed her forehead as Cullen stammered out an apology. Leliana waved it away with her pastry, and Cassandra's brain finally turned over. "How did this food get in here?"
Cullen groaned. "Maker's breath, a servant saw me," he said. He looked down at himself. "At least I was covered."
"Actually, Leliana intercepted the lovely Mary in the hall and brought it in herself," said Aedan, kissing the smiling bard on the cheek. "She's very generous that way. Though she, quite unfairly, made me stay in the hall."
"That's because you would have been entirely too interested in Cassandra's assets," said Leliana with mock severity. "But don't worry, Commander, your modesty was preserved from your servants. Just not from me. You certainly were not covered." She wiped a crumb from the corner of her mouth. "Congratulations, by the way. To you both."
Aedan laughed behind his fist, and if Cullen got any redder, Cassandra was sure he would explode. She reached for her robe and pulled it on quickly, intending to give Leliana a stern talking to in the hall, but before she managed to start her speech, Aedan had stood to lead her to her chair.
"Come, Lady Seeker. I'm sure you must be famished. You as well, Cullen," he called over his shoulder. "Eat breakfast with us like a proper satisfied lover. Else I will finally move on my plan to extract a morning kiss from both of these charming ladies instead of only the fiery one."
Cassandra stared at him like he'd grown a second nose, but Aedan didn't seem to notice. He stopped her from sitting, waiting patiently as Cullen stood and tied a sheet around his hips. He motioned the man over to her chair, then settled him in it and her on top of his lap.
She glanced at Cullen to make sure he was comfortable. He looked sheepish but content as he wrapped his arms around her waist. Leliana passed her a plate and stared at Cassandra until she hesitantly picked up a piece of fruit and held it to Cullen's lips. He opened them and took the offering with far too much heat in his eyes, and she wondered how she was supposed to get through breakfast like this.
"Don't worry, we're almost done," said Leliana, giggling. When Cullen tried to kick her he had to grab at both his shifting sheet and the woman perched on his lap, and Leliana only laughed harder. Soon all four of them were collapsed in mirth, greeting the day with smiles that chased away any remaining darkness.
In the end it was Cullen who left first, citing the morning briefing he had to be newly dressed for, if not bathed and shaved, but he dragged her to the door for his usual melting kiss. She lingered over it far too long, tugging on his shirt to keep him close every time he leaned away, and he'd worked one hand around her head and another around her waist by the time Leliana coughed loudly enough to penetrate their haze.
"See you later," said Cullen quietly, giving her a lopsided half-smile that did nothing to increase her self-control.
She kissed him once more, then released him reluctantly. He turned to open the door, and she smiled at him like an idiot until he vanished around the corner of the hall. She wasn't sure how long she stood there, one hand on the door frame with the other pressed to her swollen lips, before Leliana spoke beside her in a hushed tones. "You have to tell him, Cassandra. It isn't fair."
Her stomach clenched against the breakfast she'd just devoured. They were leaving in six days, probably never to return. How could she tell him something like that and hope to have another night with him, like this? Her hand tightened on the wood. "Not yet," she said. She begged the Maker under her breath. "Not yet."