Killeen went from sleep to wakefulness instantly at the sound of footsteps. Adrenaline shot through her veins and kicked heart and senses into overdrive. Ten feet away …Inquisitor's room, that's top of the stairs … Cullen still sleeping, on my right … Maker, neither of us has so much as a belt-knife!

She lay still, listening hard. Two of them … women or elves … no armour …

The footsteps tiptoed closer and Killeen considered and rejected the lamp on the bedside table as too far away. Pillow might buy me a second's surprise …

"Don't they look sweet?" Josephine Montilyet whispered, and Killeen relaxed and stopped trying to remember everything in arm's reach that could possibly be used as a weapon. "Like two little children."

"Everyone looks like a child when they sleep," the Inquisitor answered, and Killeen tensed again, although not for the same reason. In her bed, with her man … Cullen, wake up! "Do you remember where my green boots are?"

"I burned them," Josephine said matter-of-factly. "They were appalling."

"If I thought that was true, I'd turn you into a toad."

I'll just lie still, Killeen thought, as if I'm still asleep, she'll find her shoes and leave.

"I considered burning them. Here." A pause. "You do not look like a child when you sleep. You look like yourself, with your eyes closed."

The Inquisitor laughed softly. "You do. Sometimes you even suck your thumb."

"I do no such thing!"

"I think it's sweet. The composed and dignified Josephine Montilyet, sucking her thumb, clutching her stuffed animal."

"I do not have a stuffed animal!" The ambassador's voice was outraged, and the Inquisitor laughed.

"I'm your stuffed animal," she said, low and husky.

A pause, a soft wordless murmur.

Killeen cracked an eyelid, saw two slim figures locked together in front of the window, the early morning sunlight gilding the long, fair hair of one and drawing sparks from the golden ruffles of the other's blouse.

Without conscious thought she rolled out of bed, took three long strides forward and punched Her Blessed Worship, Herald of Andraste and Grand Inquisitor of Thedas, in the face.

Josephine shrieked as the Inquisitor reeled backward, and fled, calling "Guards! Guards!"

I have about half a minute, Killeen judged, before they're here and they either arrest me or fill me full of arrows on the spot.

Sparks began to crawl around the Inquisitor's fingers as she recovered her balance but Killeen had fought mages before and she snatched the blankets from the bed, catching one brief glimpse of Cullen's startled, sleepy face, and flung them, tangling the Inquisitor's hands just long enough to get her arms around the other woman and bear her to the ground.

"He's a good man," she said, in the seconds she had left before arrows or lightning ended her life. "You have no right to hurt him. He's not some Orlesian who won't care what you do!"

Then hands seized her and lifted her bodily off the mage, arms wrapped around her, pinning her. Cullen's voice, breathless by her ear. "Kill, what —"

She struggled against his grip as the Inquisitor freed herself from the blankets and rose. "She's not what you think! You don't know what she — "

Cullen thrust her behind him hard enough to send her sprawling against the bed, and spun to face the Inquisitor, weight on the balls of his feet, empty hands spread ready. "What are you?" he asked, cold and flat. Pounding footsteps on the stairs presaged an influx of guards, swords drawn. The foremost of them looked from their Inquisitor to their Commander, hesitated as Cullen held up a warning hand.

The Inquisitor cupped a hand over her bleeding nose. "I'm your fucking Inquisitor," she said, muffled. "And I think your fucking Lieutenant just broke my nose!"

"Prove it," Cullen said, gaze unwavering. "Kill, a sword, if you can find me one."

Killeen looked from him to the guards. "I don't think —" she started to say.

The Inquisitor interrupted her. "Cullen, I'm me!"

"So all abominations say, at the beginning," Cullen said evenly. A ripple of unease ran through the guards at the word. "What did you see, Kill, that made you suspect?"

"Um," Killeen said, "that's not what I meant. I didn't see anything abomination-ey."

Still, Cullen didn't look away from the Inquisitor. "Then what?"

"I'd rather not say," Killeen mumbled, with a glance at the guards.

"She saw me kissing Josie and then she broke my nose," the Inquisitor said.

"Oh, Fereldens," a smooth, amused voice said from behind the guards. "No need to kneel, my good man, just step aside. Thank you." The ranks of guards parted to reveal Vivienne — Divine Victoria, Killeen reminded herself — surveying the room with her inscrutable smile. She cast a glance at Killeen. "I see that demon remains as trustworthy as ever. Normally I'd be annoyed to have travelled day and night after an unbidden visit from a denizen of the Fade only to find the patient I expected to be a death's door up and involved in a fist fight, but this is too delicious to have missed." She flicked her fingers at the guards. "You can go. And do have some tea sent to my old quarters on your way. The kitchen knows how I like it."

Striding across the room, she pushed Cullen a step backwards with a palm on his chest. "Relax, Commander. She's not possessed." As Cullen lowered his hands, Vivienne turned to the Inquisitor and touched her nose with one glowing finger. "And your nose is fine. Now run along. I imagine by now dear Josephine has called a general alarm. Better go and show you haven't been murdered in your bed."

"Oh, Andraste's girdle," the Inquisitor said, and went in haste, not without a dark look at Killeen which promised a later conversation.

Vivienne turned her gaze on Killeen. "Wasted journey though it may have been, I'm glad you've decided not to die, if only because Transfigurations is such a dreary verse. What was the problem?"

"The Inquisitor—" Killeen's voice caught on the word. "Said it was part of a dragon scale." She put a hand to her side. "Here."

"Indeed?" Vivienne said, raising her eyebrows. "Lift up your shirt. Come now, quickly, or the tea will be over-brewed." She studied Killeen's side, laid a hand on it, long dark fingers a sharp contrast to Killeen's own pale skin. Light pulsed beneath her palm, blue rather than the green of healing, and Killeen gasped with the shock of it. "Nothing there now."

"Are you sure?" Cullen asked, watching closely.

"My dear man, of course I'm sure. I've been testing those scales for months. I'd give you the technical details, but I doubt either of you are capable of understanding them." She smiled. "Do relax. Your Lieutenant will live to break the Inquisitor's nose another day."

At the reminder, Cullen gave Killeen a quizzical glance, and she felt her cheeks colour.

Vivienne regarded them both with amusement. "I will positively insist on hearing the whole story," she said, "but later. Changing the weather patterns all the way from Val Royeaux to here does leave one positively parched."

She swept out, ignoring Killeen's stammered thanks.

Cullen sat down on the edge of the bed. "I'm rather curious about the whole story myself," he said mildly. "I've had … more peaceful mornings."

"I really didn't think she was possessed," Killeen said hurriedly, pleating the bottom of her shirt between her fingers. "That's not what I meant when — it's not what I meant."

"Was it a dream?" Cullen asked gently, and for a moment Killeen was tempted to say yes, yes it was. It was an explanation he would understand and immediately believe, one that would require no elaboration, one that would close the subject as if the whole thing had never happened.

But I have to tell him. He has to know that she …

"Not a dream," she said, and sat down beside him. "It — Cullen, I'm sorry. But the Inquisitor and Josephine — they're … more than friends. Very much more than friends."

A small upright line quirked into existence between his brows. "And?"

"I mean, she's — they're — together." Killeen couldn't look at the pain she knew would be in his face. "Together together. Cullen, I —"

"They've been together together for months," Cullen said calmly, and Killeen's head snapped up.

"You … knew? About them?" she asked incredulously.

"Most of Skyhold knows," Cullen said. He gave a small smile. "If you hadn't been sulking in the healer's rooms secretly bleeding to death all summer you'd have known, too."

"Oh," Killeen said. "I'm sorry, Cullen, I'm so sorry."

He looked at her blankly. "Why?"

She had to rearrange everything she thought she knew about him. "You're … all right with it?"

"I'm not that close-minded," Cullen said.

"I — ah," Killeen stammered. "Far from it, it seems. Certainly more open-minded than I could be."

He frowned. "She saved the world, Kill. Don't you think she deserves some happiness?"

"Not at your expense," Killeen shot back, and closed her eyes. "Sorry. That was out of line. It's your business, not mine."

"How is it at my expense?" Cullen asked a bit blankly.

"Because you — Cole told me. He didn't know he shouldn't, you know what he's like." Killeen felt the prickle of threatening tears, blinked hard.

Cullen shook his head slightly, like a man trying to clear his head after one drink too many. "Cole told you what?"

"How you never knew what love was like until you saw her running for the trebuchets in Haven, how much you longed for her, how much you wish she loved you the way you love her." Killeen paused. Despite her best efforts, the tears overflowed. "I didn't understand, but now I see — you don't deserve to be treated like that, Cullen, no matter how much you love her."

The corner of Cullen's mouth quirked up. "If Cole told you I love the Inquisitor, he's losing his touch, for which we all ought to be profoundly grateful."

Killeen gaped at him. "But you do love her. I've seen you looking at her. I saw your face when you carried her into the camp after Haven, watching her here in Skyhold, it's clear as day how you feel!"

"You …" He paused, and said slowly: "I've been in love with the Inquisitor all this time?"

Humiliatingly, Killeen found the tears falling faster. "I'm sorry," she said, voice cracking. "I'm sorry! But I c-can't stand it to watch you l-love her and watch her t-treat you like this. You deserve better!" She pressed her hands over her mouth, trying to stop the sobs, but they, and the words she had sworn she'd never embarrass them both by saying, spilled past her fingers, uncontrollable as a river at spring's first thaw. "I know it was j-just a — n-nothing, that night, that it d-didn't m-mean, that you ch-chose her and I know how uncomfortable it m-must be to y-you, but I can't h-help it and I c-can't stop it, I can't, I c-cant! I love you, Cullen, I love you, I always have, I'm s-sorry, I'm sorry, I'll g-go away somewhere, I'm sorry, but I l-love you, I love you, I d-do, oh, I do, I do, I do!"

"Kill." Cullen touched her shoulder, and then put his arm around her and drew her firmly to his chest. Even humiliated as she was, there was such sheer physical comfort in the strength of his grip, in the hand rubbing her back, that Killeen couldn't help clinging to him and she wept and wept, wept all the tears unshed as she'd seen them together, as she'd longed for him Crestwood and the Western Approach, as she'd held him in the dark of the night and feared for his soul, wept tears of lonely misery and tears of silent terror as, for what must surely be the last time, Cullen held her in his arms.

"How long do you think you're going to cry?" he asked after a while.

"As l-long as I w-want!" Killeen said, face buried in his shirt.

"It's just, I want to say something," Cullen said. "And I want to make sure you can hear me." He paused. "So do you think you could try to stop, just for a few moments?"

Killeen heaved a hard breath, another, held the third until her lungs burned. Again. The convulsive sobs slowed, eased to hiccoughs. "All right."

Cullen put his hands on her shoulders and set her upright. "Kill, Killeen. Look at me." She raised her head, and he smiled at her, beautiful as the sunrise. "All those times you talked about … did you really never know I was looking at you?"

There had been moments, in the past, when Killeen had allowed herself to imagine Cullen declaring his love for her: what he would say, how she would answer. In her fantasies, she was sometimes witty, sometimes poetic, sometimes shy and sweet.

She had never imagined that what would actually come out of her mouth would be: "You what?"

Nor had she ever imagined Cullen laughing at her, not the chuckle or the half-breath of humour that she worked so hard to win from him when the darkness before them and the weight he carried chilled his eyes and bowed his shoulders, but warm, whole-hearted, open laughter as if there was nothing and no-one to fear in the world.

"Kill, Kill, Killeen," he said, still laughing, "I thought that I was making you so uncomfortable you ran away to Crestwood…"

"Me?" Killeen said. "You told me my unwanted attentions were unpleasant!"

"I was talking about myself, you dolt," Cullen said, leaning his forehead against hers. "There you were talking about secret affairs when you'd never given me any sign you'd want …"

"With the Inquisitor!" Killeen protested. "You were pining after her like —"

"After you," Cullen said. "Ever since Haven, after you, always, Kill, I saw you run out to face those monsters without even needing an order, because it needed to be done, and I realised that if you never came back that would be the end of my life, even if I lived another fifty years."

Killeen closed her eyes. "Cole told me," she said. "But I thought —"

"He was talking about the Inquisitor," Cullen said. "Andraste's tits, how much time we've wasted."

"Cullen," Killeen said, to hear his name in her mouth, to say it for the first time the way she had always longed to say it. She took his beautiful face between her hands, and then, because it was, after all, exactly who she had always been to him, she looked him straight in the eye and said in her best shocked tone: "Language!"

And so, when their lips met for the first time, it was in a kiss crooked with smiles and interrupted by laughter, and it was that, more than anything he'd said, which convinced Killeen it was real: no dream or fantasy of hers would have had both of them shaking with mirth; would have had her nose slightly blocked and her ribs sore from sobbing; would have had Cullen muttering that he'd show her a private liaison as he pulled her down onto the bed.

His hand slid beneath her shirt and she gasped at the warmth of it, heat spreading from his fingers to run through her veins.

Cullen stopped at her sharp breath. "Does that hurt?" he asked, and quickly hiked her shirt to study her side. "Should I get Vivianne?"

"Doesn't hurt," Killeen assured him breathlessly.

"Oh." He smiled down at her, eyes dark, fingers gently stroking the scar on her side, and she suddenly felt naked and exposed. Don't be stupid, she chided herself, he's seen your body before, more than once. But this was different, and she found herself folding her arms across her chest.

Cullen drew back a little. "Kill," he said gently. "Nothing you don't want."

"This would be easier in the dark," she said, joke falling flat with the trembling of her voice.

He smiled. "I'll close my eyes."

And so he learned her body as a blind man would, with hands and lips and tongue, tracing the scars that striped her face and ran down her neck, finding the raised reminder of an arrow wound, the place on her back where a Carta dagger had damaged something deeper than muscle and left a handspan of flesh permanently numb.

Then he found places where she was not numb but very sensitive indeed, places that made her gasp and moan and writhe beneath his touch, feeling her whole body centred on the point of heat within her, building and building until suddenly the wave of her release had her shaking and trembling in his arms.

"Are you all right?" he asked against her neck, and the feel of his lips and his voice against her skin made her heart begin to race again.

"Oh, yes," she assured him, and reached down between them. "Cullen — please, I want —"

She found the ample evidence that he wanted, too, felt him shiver and gasp at her touch. "Sure?" he whispered.

"Maker, yes, I'm sure," she told him and so they were laughing again as they became one, laughter that caught into gasps and sighs and whispered pleas as she arched beneath him, wanting more, wanting all of him, and he obliged, eyes still closed in obedience to her wishes.

"Cullen," she said, reached up to cup his cheek. "Look at me, Cullen."

His eyes opened, and the expression of joy and wonder in them almost took her over the edge again. "Maker," he breathed. "What you have created, no-one can tear asunder."

And then he was moving again and she was moving with him, a new rhythm as easy and natural as when they fought side-by-side or back-to-back, each utterly attuned to the other's body, so completely in harmony that as her body tightened and her fingers clutched his back Killeen could hardly tell if the spiralling heat within was hers or his, if the voice crying yes, please, now, oh, now came from Cullen's lips or her own, which of them embraced and which was embraced, only that they were, they were, they were —

Light flooded through her, a golden wave that seemed to have no shore, and then Cullen groaned her name and the wave broke over them with a force that had her seeing stars as he shuddered against her, a long slow fall together until they both were still.

"Maker," Cullen said dazedly after a moment. He raised himself on his elbows but Killeen wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him back down. "I'm heavy," he protested.

"I'm strong," Killeen pointed out, refusing to let him go, and he relaxed again, face against hers, lips against her cheek. Her scarred cheek, Killeen realised, and realised too she didn't care.

"You know we could have done that months ago if not for that damn messenger," Cullen whispered.

"Definitely a candidate for a tour of the Hissing Wastes," Killeen agreed, and smiled to feel as well as hear him chuckle.

"I can't do that," he said. "Man's a newly-wed. And I'm feeling charitable toward all the world right now."

"Wait," Killeen said. "Did he — was that the wedding I missed?"

Cullen raised himself a little and looked down at her. "You thought I'd married her? Without saying anything to you?"

"It made sense at the time," Killeen muttered defensively.

He kissed her. "You are an idiot," he said gently. "And I am an idiot. And I love you."

"So glad I didn't miss that," Dorian said from the stairs. "Sweet enough to make my teeth ache."

"Dorian!" Cullen snatched the sheets and blankets up, flushing beet red. "Knock, man!"

Killeen looked over Cullen's shoulder to see the mage lounging against the balustrade, head tilted to one side.

He winked at her, and then smiled, and said, with flawless mimicry:

"I'm … so. Sorry."

.

.

.

...fin...

If you enjoyed this story, you may also like the work of Alison Adare.

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