Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

Cailan Theirin was a good man in dire straits. Having been tutored on the signs of sexual frustration, Elissa knew it at a glance.

Small wonder. All gossip pegged Queen Anora as a cold, passionless woman. Her stock in trade was her competence as a queen, not her sensuality. And Cailan had now been away from court--and subsequently from both the queen and the ladies of Denerim--for many weeks now. There was inevitably a camp full of whores on the outskirts of the army encampment, to service the soldiers, but the last thing a king wanted was a case of the pox. Elissa was willing to wager Cailan hadn't been so long without feminine companionship since his transition to manhood.

His words were proper enough, light-hearted even, as he greeted Duncan and made all the necessary inquiries, but when his eyes landed on Elissa, she knew it for a mask. Something desperate and hungry flared in his eyes as they widened for only an instant, something that very few save Elissa would have recognized.

"You're Bryce's youngest, are you not? I...don't think we've ever actually met," he said courteously. But that glance had already told her everything she needed to know. Cailan recognized her all too well.

Once rumors of Anora's barren condition had started to spread, Elissa had conferred with her father and mother on how best to manage the matter to her advantage. They had decided that until she was old enough to make a full-on assault, she would remain elusively out of sight, visiting Denerim rarely, never attending the formal royal functions under the excuse that she was still too young to be presented to the king.

That had been three years ago, when she was just thirteen. And since then, the Couslands had doled out the briefest glimpses of their young daughter to the handsome king like a miser parts with coin. A brush in passing in the corridor when he visited the Cousland estate for a dinner in his honor--where she would be seated at the far end of the table from him--a careful stroll beneath the window of his study when she walked with the ladies of the court in the palace gardens.

Mere glances, nothing more. And yet, from that look, it was obvious Cailan had been paying very close attention, never understanding that the last three years had been a slow, careful seduction as Elissa had waited for maturity, waited for the time when political pressure over Anora's childless state would force him to consider seeking a new marriage.

"Yes, Your Majesty," Elissa allowed a nervous quaver to enter her throat. All the while, her mother's voice coached her.

Cailan is a good and kind-hearted man, but he's very young and impulsive. He sees no reason to restrain himself from taking advantage of the willingness of the young women at court to gossip about how they've bedded the king. If you offer yourself to him freely, he'll gladly have you and feel no obligation to you afterward. You must make him believe you're interested, but reluctant.

Elissa did not have to feign her distress as she revealed the news of the death of her parents and Howe's treachery, and she was gratified by his eager promise to see justice done. Artfully, she allowed her eyes to widen and flutter for just an instant as she thanked him, then quickly dropped her gaze, as though embarrassed or unwilling to let him see her interest. She could practically feel Duncan's amusement as he watched the display.

Duncan had been all too good at keeping his word as their days of travel had passed, weary days resolving into endless nights filled with nothing but empty, aching longing. Nights of his fingers carefully skirting the edges of her cunt on their way to probe her ass, nights of his cock gliding between her lips and down her throat, nights of him straddling her torso, pressing her breasts together and fucking the gully between them until his discharge splashed across her chest and face, nights he'd had to wrestle her to panting submission when she would have impaled herself upon him without a care for the consequences, nights of his lips and tongue devouring her clit, bringing her to a screaming climax while she begged for him to just fuck her, fuck her, for the love of the Maker just ram his cock into her and fuck her!

Elissa bit back a frustrated growl. She'd had enough of these games. She wanted to drag Duncan or Cailan--preferably both--into the nearest tent and fuck them blind.

Instead, she affected a modest mien and awaited her moment.

Thankfully, Duncan had consented to give her one night here in camp to advance her gambit against Cailan before they got down to the matter of the Joining. If she had her way, tonight her long years of saving herself would be at an end.

"Our scouts say the darkspawn horde is still two to three days from here," Cailan was telling Duncan. "Come and dine in my tent tonight and we will discuss Loghain's latest strategies and you may tell me all the details of the events at Highever."

"I thank you for the offer, Your Majesty," Duncan said with a slight bow, "but I'm afraid I really must attend to other matters with my Wardens here tonight. However, you really should know the full story of all that passed at Highever. I believe I can spare Lady Cousland for the evening if she doesn't find relating the details too painful...?"

"That will be fine. I will gladly sup with His Majesty." Elissa played the word "sup" subtly, drew it out ever so slightly, made it more sibilant, placed a breathless emphasis around it that hinted at much filthier things. She allowed just a spark of eagerness to light her eyes before they skittered demurely away from his again. It took Cailan a long, slow moment to remember to respond, and when he did, his voice had deepened, grown rougher.

"Yes, perfect! I shall see you at sundown, then, Lady Cousland," the king said in a rush, and walked away.


Drive him mad with desire, make him desperate to have you, bring him to the brink of crisis and then protest. Make him believe he's raped you. If he thinks he's had what you did not wish to give him, his remorse will give you a handle on him, a way to prevent him from dismissing you afterward like all the other women he beds.


Promptly at sundown, Elissa stood at the flap of the king's sumptuous pavilion. For once, her mabari was not at her side; she'd deliberately left him behind with Duncan in case he should decide to intervene. His guard rapped on a post near the opening and Cailan's groom appeared, opening the flap for Elissa and bowing. "His Majesty is expecting you, my lady."

Elissa nodded, wetting the lips she had stained subtly with rouge pigment purchased from one of the camp whores. She had dressed herself painstakingly in the simple silk gown she'd barely been able to afford with the coin she had salvaged from the treasury the night she fled Highever, knowing that once the game was joined, she would need some garb other than her armor. Smoothing her hand down her waist, she ducked inside the pavilion and found herself surrounded by candle-lit luxury. A soft bed covered in silks and furs occupied a good deal of the space, and much of the rest was taken up with a table set with a mouth-watering repast. Carefully rolled maps and parchments stored at the far end of the tent gave an indication of the table's normal purpose.

"Welcome, Lady Cousland," Cailan advanced confidently, eagerly. He had shed his armor and wore the silken garments of a nobleman instead, and everything about the setting and his manner said he intended to make a seduction out of this opportunity. Without taking his eyes from her, he dismissed his servant.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Elissa replied, finding it unnecessary to affect a nervous tremble as she curtsied. Her heart hammered in her chest. Now that the moment was at hand, she found herself anxious. She made no effort to suppress her nerves. No, she would use them to lend authenticity to her performance of the reluctant maid.

"Actually, I suppose I should be calling you Teyrna Cousland now, shouldn't I?" the young king mused. "Or did your father intend your brother to inherit the teyrnir? Either way, please forgive me if I don't use your title. I dislike titles, honestly, and I'd much rather you simply give me leave to call you Elissa."

Elissa bowed her head. "As it pleases Your Majesty."

"Oh, no, none of that! You must call me Cailan. Loghain and I don't stand on formality, and your rank is equal to his."

Elissa bestowed upon him a charmingly impish smile, as though warming to him enough to forget her innate modesty. He couldn't have left her a better opening to advance her cause. "You'll forgive me for pointing out, Your--Cailan--that you and Teyrn Loghain share a much closer relationship than you and I presently enjoy."

"And that is exactly the matter I hope to rectify!" Cailan practically pounced on the bait she trawled before him. He grasped both her hands in his, squeezing them warmly. "Your father was a dear friend and I valued his council greatly. I see no reason you and I should not further that association."

"I shall be honored to be taken into your...confidence. Cailan."

Cailan pressed a kiss to the knuckles of one of her hands, and then the other, apparently loathe to release her. "And when this is all over, when the darkspawn have been defeated and Highever is once again under the rightful control of the Cousland family, you must come to Denerim and stay at court for a time. It puzzles me that I've seen so little of you there."

"My...mother and father thought it best, Y--Cailan, to keep me apart from the court. They were afraid the decadent habits of so many there would prove a harmful influence." A wave of grief washed over her, and she used it, let her eyes fill with gleaming tears, let her voice choke. "They were...very protective, you see. They took good care of me."

"Ah, Elissa!" Cailan drew her forward, pulling her into his arms. His tone was almost sincere enough she might have thought the maneuver impulsive, had he not been looking for that very opening. "I'm so very sorry for your loss, dear heart."

She resisted, ever so slightly, requiring him to use rather more force than he had meant to pull her body against his. Once she was embraced by him, she stood stiffly for a long moment, and finally relaxed with a sigh.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," she whispered, with a nervous shiver.

"Cailan!" he insisted. She drew back to look at him with wide, innocent eyes, her face only a breath away from his, and his mouth closed urgently over hers.

Elissa pushed at his shoulders, refusing to yield to the kiss, until his tongue swept across her lips. She made a surprised noise in her throat, but her lips parted, and her hands began to caress his shoulders, sliding about his neck with carefully timed hesitation. His long hair was astonishingly soft beneath her fingers, and she found herself caressing it.

Then his tongue thrust into her mouth, and Elissa wrenched away with a startled cry, "Please! Your Majesty, I cannot do this!"

Cailan refused to release her despite her renewed struggles. "Of course you can, dear Elissa..." he murmured, his open mouth sliding down her neck even as he held her upper arms in a bruising grasp. "I know you feel some attraction for me, I've seen it in your eyes."

"Yes! I mean, no! I mean--I do. But please, Your Majesty, you must understand," she allowed her struggles to ease, allowed herself to begin feeling the warm rush of pleasure that his lips at her throat awoke within her, and her voice grew less resolved. "With my family dead, I must make a good marriage. I'm young, and fertile," she explained, as though ignorant of the importance of those concepts to a man in need of an heir. "I must begin rebuilding the Cousland line...."

"I do not gossip. No one shall ever know from my lips."

"But I have never--"

"I'll be gentle with you, dear heart," he vowed, his hand coming up to cup her breast, his thumb stirring the nipple to a peak beneath the silk of her gown. Elissa swayed in his arms with a soft moan, as though ready to swoon. His mouth crushed down upon hers, his tongue pushing insistently within, and Elissa yielded, accepting and then beginning to hesitantly return the kiss. Gradually she let her body soften, grow pliant in his arms, pressing her breast into his palm and making pleased sounds in her throat as he caressed her hardened nipple. With careful naivete she let her thigh slip between his, taking his own leg between hers.

Until his hand began tugging at the buttons of her bodice.

"No!" she gasped, jerking away from him so that the button he'd been trying to slip through its hole came off in his fingers, baring almost her whole breast as the fabric ripped. Elissa raised an arm over her shoulder as though reaching for her sword, only to realize with a panicked look that she was not armed.

Seeing the move, Cailan's nostrils flared and his eyes hardened with arrogant outrage. Whatever his title, whatever his cheerful nature, he was still a warrior. Even the hint that she would draw arms on him awoke his instinctive battle lust, pushed him over that last edge where he would not accept her refusal, for she was now not only a woman he was seducing, she was a potentially dangerous enemy who must be subdued. Smaller than he, and unarmed, she was now his prey.

He advanced on her with a hungry look as she stumbled away from him toward the bed, seeking to cover herself with her hand. "Your Majesty! I beg you, you must not do this!"

As if by accident, her feet tangled in the plush rug and she fell upon the bed. Cailan was upon her in an instant, covering her mouth with his, covering her bare breast with his large palm, covering her struggling body with his weight. She arched as though trying to push him off, which only pressed her more firmly against the solid bulge in his breeches, drawing from him an urgent growl. He ground into her, forcing her breath from her as he pressed her down onto the bed. He caught her hand where she tried to push him away and brought it down to his groin, compelling her to cup his heavy erection.

"Feel what you do to me, sweet Elissa" he rasped in her ear, nibbling the lobe. Her body began to relax beneath his, pleasure moving through her in waves as she drew out the game of protestation and yielding.

She made him fight for each advance he made, thrashing in panic as he pushed her skirt up and ripped away her smallclothes, attempting to wriggle out from beneath him and make her escape when he pulled back to open his breeches. Seeking to rid him of any last thought of gentleness, she lunged, reaching for the sheathed sword on a weapons rack beside the bed. With a growl, he caught her by the shoulders and flung her hard back upon the bed, where she lay as though stunned, the breath driven from her. When he crawled over her again, his cock stood proudly at attention, thrusting out from his body, seeping drops of clear fluid upon her bare thigh as he pried her legs apart with merciless hands.

"Please, Your Majesty!" she cried as he knelt between her thighs. Without any preparation, all the wetness collecting on her cunt was still trapped behind her dry outer labia where they stuck together, so that when the head of his cock probed, her flesh resisted, making penetration impossible until he parted her folds with his fingers. Triumph blazed in his eyes when his fingers came away slick with her moisture.

"Cailan!" he demanded, his voice hard.

He positioned his cock and began to push. "No!" Elissa screamed, swinging wildly, striking him across the face. Incensed, Cailan shoved her roughly back down upon the bed and pierced her to the core, sundering her carefully preserved maidenhead with a single vicious thrust.

Elissa squeezed her eyes shut, careful only to let him see the tears that escaped between her lids and not her exultation. She shook violently, thrashing her head, the pain of that sudden penetration more immense than she would have imagined. She'd been taught to accommodate pain, relish it even, but this was nothing like the sting of a whip or the bite of clamps on her nipples. For this moment of triumph, wherein her virginity was rent upon the king's pallet, it had been too critical that her anguish be genuine, and thus no attempt to prepare her had ever been made; not even a finger had ever been allowed to penetrate or stretch her virgin cunt.

And so she tore, welcoming the agony, embracing it, burning, stretching, pulsing, struggling to expel the cock filling her. Pleasure, she knew, would come later. For now, let him see her pain and know he hurt her.

Fully under the power of his lust, Cailan pulled back and surged into her again, and still it hurt, Maker it hurt! Again, and again, he filled her. Gradually, her tightness began to loosen, and her slick juices eased his passage, leaving her with only a dull ache instead of the intense pain of those first few brutal thrusts.

She forced herself to lie there as though defeated while he fucked her, filling her so deeply his cock rammed against the very end of her passage, pounding against the entrance to her womb, over and over! She greeted the pleasure that began to come with his thrusts with a show of reluctance, suppressing her moans until she had no choice but to give them voice, beginning to move her hips with inexpert awkwardness.

Still the pleasure came, building in waves, tension mounting in her cunt and even deeper in her belly until she felt her body was drawn tight as a bowstring. It filled her as surely as his cock, and she knew if he began to touch her clit, she would shatter into a million glorious, scintillating slivers. But she'd played her part too well, and he was not thinking of her pleasure, only of conquering her. He sat back on his heels, and gripped her hips in a bruising grasp, pulling her ass onto his thighs until she lay on an incline with her shoulders beneath the level of her hips. With unyielding jerks, he pulled her hard into his thrusts as he slammed into her again and again.

He threw his head back and groaned, shuddering, pulsing deep inside her as his seed filled her quivering cunt. Clenching the bedclothes in her fists, Elissa gave a frustrated sob as her climax slipped elusively away.

Her choked sob seemed to bring Cailan back to himself, and he looked at her in horror. "Oh, dear heart, I'm sorry!" he breathed, carefully withdrawing. "It was never my intention to take you like that."

The ache of emptiness was more unendurable than the pain of stretching around his thick cock had been, and she could only hope he interpreted her bereft moan as something else entirely.

"Do you know what you've done?!" she cried, forcing herself to remember her role even though all she wanted to do was demand he help her find completion. She tried to push her gown down over her hips, to cover herself. "I'm ruined!"

Cailan stared at her cunt, transfixed. He reached for her and when he pulled his hand back, it was smeared with blood and semen. "I've hurt you," he said wonderingly. His cock began to stir again. "Let me make it better."

"There's nothing you can do," she whimpered as his hand began to stroke her, fanning the embers of pleasure where they still smoldered deep within her.

"I shall give you pleasure," he swore, sliding away from her to lay with his head between her legs. He pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. "More pleasure than you ever dreamed possible. I'm a skilled lover, dear heart. You'll never be left wanting. Only let me love you."

"But you've ruined my future," she persisted, shivering when she felt his breath cooling the seed that seeped from her cunt. "Shall I merely be the king's whore?" she spat. "Better to have died spit upon Howe's sword than endure such shame!"

"I will see justice done for your family and heap gifts and honors and accolades upon you!" He gave her throbbing clit a long, slow lick, and when he looked up again, his eyes shining with adoration, his stubbled chin was coated with her blood and their mingled fluids. "No one shall ever dare question the honor of the Cousland name."

"And what if I'm with child?"

Cailan closed his eyes, as though warring with himself. Reluctantly he wiped his face and sat up, and drew her up as well. He turned to face her, his eyes solemn.

"Many nobles, including my uncle, the Arl of Redcliffe, have begun to question whether or not I'll be able to produce an heir with Anora. It's been years now, and I've been dutiful and rigorous in my attempts to impregnate her, but she's nearing thirty and has still not conceived, and her cold bed and eyes hold no appeal for me," he sighed. "So far, I've resisted all suggestions that I repudiate her and search for a new wife, out of loyalty to Loghain and the services the Mac Tir family has done for the crown. I cannot risk destabilizing the realm with a war for the succession, but the battle over which noble family shall provide my next wife would prove nearly as vicious. Unless I prevent it by finding my own bride before they have a chance to begin lining up their daughters for that position."

"What are you saying?" Elissa asked innocently, trying to keep the triumph from her voice. Surely he could not be offering her her objective so readily and easily.

"There are many who questioned my marriage to Anora because she is of common blood, despite her father's elevation to the nobility. To marry a Cousland, one of the oldest noble families in Ferelden, none could question that. The people love Anora, but once the realm learns of how heroically you survived Arl Howe's treachery, you'll be the one bards compose ballads about. You're young and beautiful and brave. You'll be the sweetheart of the entire kingdom!"

"Are you honestly asking me--?" she let her eyes widen with feigned astonishment.

"Dear heart...Darling Elissa...How would you like to be a queen?"


*****

She dined with Cailan, then, and left his tent wearing his heavy cloak to cover her ruined gown. She also, however, left his tent with her need still frustratingly, achingly unfulfilled. Cailan decided it was best to preserve her reputation until they wed, and not give a camp full of gossiping soldiers any ammunition to tarnish her name. She made her way back to the Warden encampment, but instead of going to her own tent, she ascertained that no one was around to see and ducked into Duncan's instead.

"It's done," she stated flatly as he sat up in his cot to watch her, his chest bare and rippling with muscle. "I'm to be queen."

"Congratulations," Duncan replied sedately. "That will be most useful for the Grey Wardens."

"Yes." She shrugged off the cloak, revealing her breast where it hung from her torn gown. She strode to his cot, hitching up her skirt and mounting him. "Now fuck me."

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