Reverse-Cowgirl Diplomacy

"So...." Alistair drawled as he lay on the bedroll in the tent they now shared, watching as Elissa begin to remove her armor. She gave him a cautiously amused look. Too many delightfully erotic conversations began when he opened with that word in that tone.

She shivered with the chill; they were well into the Frostback Mountains, just days away from Orzammar, and though it was nearly summer elsewhere, at this altitude the nights were still quite cold. She was looking forward to diving under the blankets and warming herself next to his body.

Not that she could dive anymore, necessarily. Her girth was increasing with each passing week, it seemed, with less than three months left in her pregnancy. Sleeping on the ground was becoming an agony, and her most pressing goal at present was to acquire a bed in an inn somewhere in Orzammar for the duration of their stay.

Her advancing pregnancy was also beginning to hinder her and Alistair's pleasure, or at least require them to seek more inventive positions, for Alistair could no longer lay on top of her and she was not as agile as she had once been.

"Yes?" she prompted, turning her thoughts back to whatever he was about to say.

"How in Andraste's name did Duncan get mixed up with your family?" Alistair asked, rolling to his side and propping himself up on an elbow. The blanket slid down, revealing the rippling expanse of his chest, and Elissa smiled as she eagerly welcomed the frisson of desire that never failed to run along her nerves at the sight of him.

"Move over," she demanded, and he made room and drew the blanket up over her as she snuggled down next to him.

"The answer should be obvious," she said simply as his arms encircled her and she began to feel warm again. "You told me yourself that Duncan was from Highever."

"As the reigning nobles, you know everyone from Highever, then?" Alistair asked, his tone dubious.

"Don't be sarcastic," she chided. "Of course not. But as I understand it, Duncan and my father did know each other when they were younger. I don't know the details. Perhaps they were boyhood friends, or maybe they were older. They may even have been lovers. I'm not sure."

Alistair froze. "Duncan... and your father?" he asked haltingly.

"Well, I can't say for certain, but it would explain a great deal."

"Duncan liked men, then?"

"He certainly liked my brother," Elissa answered with a lascivious grin, remembering Fergus's satisfied smile after the nights he'd spent with Duncan. "Whom, I will add, greatly favors my father as a young man."

"Maker's breath," Alistair breathed, rolling onto his back to stare up at the canvas of the tent. "That's... not what I was expecting to learn, though I don't know why I'm surprised at anything you tell me anymore. Duncan liked men."

Something about his tone seized Elissa's concern and she lay silently trying to identify what it might mean. Then her eyes widened, and she pushed herself up to turn and look at Alistair.

"Alistair...." she said, half in wonder and half in sorrow. "You might have had Duncan and you never even knew it. Oh, I'm so very sorry!"

"What? I... no! That's not...." Alistair stared at her, his eyes panicky as he sat up.

Elissa lifted her hand and let her fingers lay on his lips, stilling his protests. "Truth," she said softly, reminding him of the promise that she had wrested from him when they were still back in the Brecilian Forest, that he would always be honest about his desires with her, no matter how odd or perverse they might seem to be.

"I'm... not certain I would have wanted that," he said, drawing a deep, shuddering breath. "I... don't think I'm particularly interested in other men."

"Hm. Pity," she pouted, letting her eyes twinkle teasingly as she attempted to lighten the suddenly tense mood. "There goes my little fantasy of seeing you with another man."

"What?!" Alistair squeaked again.

He stared at her in disbelief, but Elissa merely offered him a shrug and an unabashed smile. “Can I help it if I think you’d look beautiful with your cock in another man’s mouth?”

He almost winced. "Boundaries?" he sighed.

"Very well," Elissa nodded, desisting. That had become something of a safety word for when she hovered on the edge of discussing something that made him too uncomfortable. "Back to our initial topic, then. We're not speaking of other men, we're speaking of Duncan."

"Yes, we were," Alistair said, his shoulders drooping. "I guess if I'm honest, the idea doesn't fill me with horror. Truthfully, some days I think I'd do just about anything to get to spend a few more minutes with Duncan, to let him know how much he meant to me. Even that."

"That's fair enough." She hugged him and after a moment the tension left his shoulders. He drew her into his lap, cradling her almost like a child as he tucked the blanket around them again.

"As to Duncan's relationship with my family," Elissa resumed her tale, "I'm not sure when he made his way back to Highever; after he became Grey Warden, I imagine. Perhaps he was even Warden-Commander by that time. By then, Father was already married to Mother and for whatever reason, Duncan was admitted into the very small and select circle of confidantes who knew Mother had once been a whore and that father often derived pleasure from watching her with other men. From there, whenever he was in Highever on his rare recruitment trips, he would stay with us for several days."

"So, tell me about you and Duncan." Alistair requested, his arms tightening around her possessively.

"Well, there isn't really all that much to tell," Elissa said thoughtfully. "Until he came on the trip where he recruited me, he hadn't been since I was... twelve or thirteen, I think? Far too young to entertain him, certainly. I knew that Fergus and Oriana entertained him on that visit, as mother was in Orlais. I remember being very jealous of their satisfied smirks over breakfast."

"And what about when he came back?" Alistair demanded, and his voice had dropped, gotten rougher. She felt his cock hardening beneath her and looked at him in amazement, speechless for a moment.

"You... Oh, you perfectly devious pervert!" she accused with an attitude of contrived outrage. "You take pleasure in hearing about me being with other men!"

Alistair gave a low growl near her ear. "The thought of you with other men drives me mad," he said, his hands suddenly hard on her arms.

"I know, and that's why you like hearing about it!" Elissa shot back triumphantly. "Your jealousy gives you the perfect license to unleash your more brutish desires, because you're still not comfortable being that aggressive without an excuse."

Alistair tumbled her off his lap and onto the bedroll, the blanket trapped beneath them, pinning her as best he could without being able to lay his body upon hers. "Are you going to tell me or not?" he insisted, nipping her neck with his teeth.

"Make me!" she dared him, glaring at him defiantly as his nostrils flared.

Alistair's teeth traveled to her shoulder and began to sink in, cautiously at first, then with more force until Elissa was gasping and mewling, struggling to get away.

"Tell me!" he insisted when he finally let go, leaving a perfect ring of bloodless imprints to redden on her flesh.

Elissa laughed. "Duncan pulled my hair when he wanted my obedience," she taunted, her heart thundering against her ribs so strongly she thought surely Alistair could see it, must be able to smell the copious arousal seeping from between her folds.

His cock was purple-red and furiously engorged as his fingers snaked into her hair and as she watched, a droplet of fluid trickled from the tip. Oh, yes, he was enjoying this new game.

Alistair jerked her head back with a vicious tug and as though a level had been pulled, Elissa felt the need to submit settle over her, peaceful and voracious all at once. She didn't struggle against the hand in her hair, except for a slight resistance of her neck muscles that made the tension harder and more painful. She licked her lips eagerly as the fingers of his other hand found her nipple and he pinched hard, as she had taught him to do. Harder, even, harder than ever before, until she writhed and whimpered and begged for him to cease, which he took his time about doing.

Alistair's mouth closed over hers in a demanding kiss, his tongue plunging into her mouth roughly. She was breathless by the time he broke the kiss, and he was sweating and shaking, but his hand jerked her by the hair again.

"Tell me!"

Elissa obeyed.


*****


The last few days before they reached Ostagar were the worst. They had been playing with fire, and they knew it. It came to a head when Elissa had desperately tried to impale herself upon him, pleading with him to fuck her. He'd been forced to wrestle her to the ground while she growled and sobbed with frustration. After that, Duncan stopped touching her at all, stopped the reckless game of everything but they had been playing, where each night they crept closer and closer to the line.

He not only stopped touching her, he stopped responding to her flirtations, and since flirting with him came as easily and naturally as breathing, that meant they barely spoke. He became this silent presence walking just head of her, at once hungry and forbidding, and in those days, Elissa found herself mourning for her family all over again, for there had never been a lack of touching or flirting with them.

She began to wonder if he even wanted her at all, or was this fatalistic certainty that they would fuck someday all one-sided? She'd wanted Duncan from the moment he’d come back to Highever. The last time she'd seen him, she hadn't been old enough, but she knew Fergus had greatly enjoyed his time with Duncan, and Oriana spoke highly of his prowess and stamina.

Knowing that, Elissa had figured that having Duncan was as inevitable as the tide. He was one of the few who knew absolutely everything about her family, one of the few with whom she would never have to pretend. That was very wise of her father, Elissa thought, to cultivate such a friendship, to give her family members a person with whom they need not play a part.

He'd been with everyone else, every other member of the Cousland family; of course Elissa would have him someday. But she hadn't imagined how dark and desperate those days on the road to Ostagar would be, how angry and frustrated they would both become, playing at sex but never actually having it.

Perhaps Duncan had decided the prize wasn't worth the wait. Or perhaps he was angry at her for forcing him to give his word that she would reach Ostagar a virgin. And why shouldn't he be angry? She was furious with herself for it, barely able to remember why her ambition had been so bloody important to begin with.

Until, that was, she remembered her father's dying words about foiling Howe by emerging from his betrayal with the Cousland name flying higher and covered with more glory than ever before.

By the time Duncan brusquely informed her they would reach Ostagar the next day, she felt terribly lonely, lost, unsure of anything anymore.

She was unable to sleep that night, tossing upon her bedroll with her mabari lying nearby while Duncan kept watch by the campfire. Finally she rose and went to him.

"I want you to take me," she announced somberly.

"Elissa...." Duncan started at her, and the stern, unapproachable demeanor he'd been wearing for days melted away. "No. I can't."

"I don't care about the king anymore," she said desperately, unable to still the trembling that took her as she spoke. "I don't care about any of that. Maybe I'll find a way to convince Cailan without proof of virginity. Maybe I won't, and I'll have to discard the whole scheme. It doesn't matter to me anymore. I want it to be you."

"As honored as I am by your request," Duncan said slowly, "I still can't. I gave my word, before your father, my friend. I won't betray that."

"Then why are you angry with me?" she cried out in despair, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I would give you anything you ask for, but Andraste's mercy, I can't bear this silence any longer! Not from you! Until I know Fergus is alive and well, you're all I have left! The only one who really knows me."

In an instant, Duncan had her in his arms, as she sobbed out her despair. "I'm not angry with you, Elissa," he whispered, pressing kisses her tear-streaked face, "I'm angry with myself. I'm angry for giving my word that night in the larder, knowing I would be alone with you for weeks. I thought perhaps your grief—and mine as well, for I cared for your family and mourn their loss—would make the desire less, but instead it's simply made us both desperate."

He sank down then and she went down, too, huddling miserably in his arms as he poured out his confession. "You're so very young," he said tenderly. "Too young for what you're being asked to do. In other circumstances, I would never have considered recruiting you at such an age, and I certainly wouldn't desire you the way I do. Perhaps your father's excesses and perversions have rubbed off on me too much, or perhaps it's simply the fact that I know I haven't long to live. I can't say more, not to you, but one way or the other, this Blight will claim my life and I know it.

"I'm angry with myself for wanting you, and more specifically for wanting to be the one who claims your virginity, the one thing I've sworn not to have. I'm angry that it matters to me, when I've intended all along to take your father's place as your panderer and use you as a whore for the benefit of the Grey Wardens. It's a despicable thing even to consider, but I will do it because I must."

Elissa's tears had subsided to soft hiccoughs by then, and she looked up at him, her eyes wild and pleading. "Then take it out on me," she begged him. "Punish me however you desire if it assuages your anger. Just... not with silence, please."

Duncan shuddered powerfully, his hands tightening unconsciously on Elissa's arms. "Do you know what you're asking?" he said, his voice carefully neutral.

Elissa drew a deep breath. "Of course," she answered. She did. Games of dominance and submission, of pain and punishment had all been part of her instruction.

He paused a long moment, and Elissa was afraid he would refuse, but instead he closed his dark brown eyes and nodded. "Then choose your word."

She swallowed hard, but her eyes were peaceful as she answered softly, "Eleanor." Duncan practically flinched at the choice.

Duncan rose and began unbuckling the belts that crossed his chest, the ones that held the scabbards for his swords. "What are you, then?" he asked after a moment.

The question confused her, and she ventured cautiously, "Your devoted servant, my lord?"

He was upon her in a single stride, one hand fisting brutally in her hair and jerking her head back with such force that the pain brought tears to her eyes again. "Wrong. I'm no one's lord. And you, Lady Cousland, are certainly no one's servant."

"Then I am whatever you wish me to be, ser," she said, feeling the peace of surrender slide over her like a silken cloak.

"I am the Warden-Commander," he said with exaggerated patience, as though she were unendurably stupid. "And you are a slut. A virgin slut, but a slut all the same."

Heat flooded her body at his words, arousal and humiliation mingling to make her smallclothes desperately wet and uncomfortable. She'd known it all along, of course, that a slut was exactly what her parents were bringing her up to be, but no one had ever called her that to her face.

"As you say, Warden-Commander," she murmured, dropping her eyes as her face flamed. "I am a slut."

"What sort of slut wears clothes?" Duncan asked scornfully. "Remove them and quit pretending to be more than you are."

Her eyes still downcast, Elissa rose and began stripping before him. He'd seen her naked a dozen times over their lust-fraught journey from Highever while they teased each other into a frustrated fury. But never before had she stripped so frankly while he stood there with his arms crossed, watching her critically. It left her feeling unbearably vulnerable and self-conscious as she removed her boots and woolen stockings, the tunic she wore under her leather cuirass and also slept in, and finally her smallclothes.

Finally she stood before him, naked and chilled, as he sat down on the ground at the foot on her bedroll. "Come here, slut, and lie down."

She did as he bade, lying upon the bedroll before him, and when she was on her back, he commanded, "Spread your legs."

With a shiver, she opened her legs, not widely, but enough to have obeyed. Duncan responded with a slap to her inner thigh.

"Don't be ridiculous!" he snapped. "How can I possibly see anything like that? Spread them."

"Yes, Warden-Commander," she whispered, her body tightening with another surge of arousal, the flooding warmth of her cunt at odds with the chilly autumn air against her folds as she parted her legs as far as they would go, laying exposed before him.

Duncan growled. "Are you intentionally trying my patience, slut?"

She shook her head, swallowing hard at the menace in his voice. “No, Warden-Commander,” she denied breathlessly.

“Then bend your knees, put your heels to your ass, and show me your cunt.”

She felt nearly nauseous with humiliation as he spoke to her as though she were a hopeless imbecile, but she obeyed, bracing her feet wide apart on the bedroll almost near her backside. The effect, of course, was that she was suddenly spread obscenely before him, her cunt open to his gaze in the light of the fire.

Duncan reached out with one finger and traced her wet folds almost delicately. He gathered her moisture upon his finger, until it glistened and reflected the flames. He studied it impassively and then casually sucked it clean. His fingertips returned and paused before her opening, directly outside it. He held there, his fingers rigid, not touching her but so close that with each breath either of them drew, she could feel the slightest brush, a whisper against the outside of her channel.

All it would take is the smallest movement, a firm push, and her maidenhead would be gone, and with it her dilemma.

“I could pierce you right now, before you could even muster a protest,” he said, a hint of dangerous fury in his deliberately calm voice.

“I wouldn’t protest,” she vowed. “I will surrender my virginity to you if you demand it of me, Warden-Commander.”

“Of course you would,” he sneered. “You’re a slut, after all.”

Another sickeningly strong surge of mortification made her shift and wriggle, and she felt the brush of his fingertips more firmly against her opening.

“I am,” she agreed.

“Fortunately for you, I am a man of my word,” he said coldly, withdrawing his hand. “This is intended for my king, and I will not interfere. Thus, it is useless to me.”

Without warning, he spat. The glob of his spittle hit directly upon her opening with startling force and Elissa cried out and bucked in her surprise. Arousal was pulsing so powerfully in her sex she thought she might come without even being touched, but he just glared at her cunt as his saliva began to cool and run down the crevice between her buttocks.

Soon, his finger was prodding her there, spreading his spittle around her rear entrance. “I could take you here, tonight, but there’s too much potential for an accident that could damage your maidenhead. So instead, I’m going to ask for your oath, here and now, slut. I will be the first to have you here. Do whatever you must to placate Cailan, but this you will save for me.”

“I swear it!” she gasped as his finger pushed inside the tight opening. Every muscle within her tensed at the unaccustomed pressure but it eased as he worked his finger in and out, slowly, carefully.

“If you intend to come tonight, slut, you’d best get to work,” Duncan said nonchalantly, glancing down at her dripping cunt again. “I have no intention of bothering myself with your pleasure.”

It only took a few strokes of her own hand, so powerful was her arousal, and then she was clenching around the single finger in her ass. Her climax crashed over her like a storm-driven wave in the Waking Sea and her cries rang out in the silence of the night-draped Hinterlands.

She was still shuddering with the aftershocks when he withdrew his finger and pushed himself to his feet. She lay there, nude and exposed on the bedroll as he stripped off the rest of his armor and clothes. He retrieved a vial from his packs and tossed it down beside her.

“Get up on your knees,” he commanded. When Elissa complied, he approached, his cock bobbing before him. Without thinking she reached for him, only to recoil when he slapped her sharply across the face.

Stunned, she stared at him as he barked, “Did I tell you to touch me, slut?”

“No, Warden-Commander,” she gasped, blinking back shocked tears. The blow itself hadn’t hurt nearly so much as the utter humiliation of being slapped like the lowliest, most disobedient servant.

“Now, what was that lecture your mother was delivering the day I came to Highever?” he asked mockingly. “Something about how sometimes a man who wants to dominate you will wish to fuck your mouth? If I let you pleasure me, you are in control, and that is not acceptable tonight. Nor, for that matter, are a whore’s deceptive little tricks that mask your struggle. If it pleases me to make you gag, slut, you will gag.”

He seized her by the hair then, dragging her mercilessly forward, and it hurt. She gasped and cried out and he took advantage of her open mouth to thrust his cock between her lips and all the way to her throat. She had no opportunity to prepare herself, much less use any of the ploys he’d cautioned her against. His cock slammed against the back of her mouth and immediately her throat rebelled, convulsing around his invading shaft and it plunged in and out of her mouth, hard and fast.

Tears immediately came to her eyes as she choked, unable to breathe, but he had no mercy for her plight. Flaring spots of light were sparking behind her eyes when he finally withdrew to let her catch her breath, coughing and spluttering. She shuddered as she fought back her gorge, and the moment she had recovered, he was jerking her to him again, forcing his cock into her mouth once more. She felt it pass into her throat, and then she was again struggling even to breathe.

She fought him; she had no choice. Every survival instinct within her told her to fight, to win her freedom, to gain a breath. But the more she resisted, the harsher he became, letting her go only long enough to catch her breath and then thrusting into her mouth once more. And though she was not inexperienced with this game, Duncan was better endowed than her father or Fergus, and soon her jaw was aching, her throat sore and bruised, her face ravaged by tears and effort, and still he fucked her mouth, unrelenting and pitiless.

She had decided she would attempt to gasp her mother's name the next time he released her when his cock swelled and grew impossibly hard in her mouth, and then he groaned and his salty seed surged across her tongue and down her abused throat. It was a relief to know he was done, but paradoxically, she mourned the loss of his brutality.

When he released her, she collapsed, gasping and sobbing and coughing into the bedroll. Duncan stood towering above her, and the only indication that he was moved at all was the slow unclenching of his fists at his sides as his breathing gradually calmed.

She knew she must look a frightful mess, her hair snarled and her face covered with dried tears, but for the first time since they had left Highever, she felt something akin to peace. Abasing herself before him calmed her rage and grief and fear.

Duncan, however, clearly was not yet at peace. Whatever demons were driving him, they had not yet been sated. She could tell by the tension that yet lingered in his posture, by his unyielding stance, by the fact that he had not yet found his way back to the kindness she normally knew from him.

She wanted that kindness, needed it. She needed him to be the comforting presence he'd been in those early days after they left Highever, before their frustrated desires had made him withdraw.

On her hands and knees, she crawled over to the pile of clothes and armor he had discarded and retrieved one of his belts. She folded it and bit down on the leather, its oily taste creeping across her tongue, and crawled back to him bearing it in her mouth. She dropped it at his feet and then knelt before him.

"Would it please you to beat me, Warden-Commander?" she asked softly.

"How easily do you bruise, slut?" he asked, taking up the belt and running it through his hands. "If I leave welts, will they linger and raise questions when the king takes you to his bed?"

"I’ll make up a story," she vowed recklessly. "We had an unfortunate battle with bandits who stumbled upon our campsite one morning before I had put on my armor, and one of them was armed with a scourge and landed several blows before you managed to dispatch him. My understanding is that Cailan doesn't think matters over very deeply; it shouldn't take much to make him believe."

"If you're thinking that clearly, slut, a beating is the least you deserve right now," Duncan growled and took up the belt.

And so he beat her, as she knelt before him. Fiery streaks of agony chased across the flesh of her back and ass and thighs, and she screamed and groveled and pleaded for him to cease. When she tried to crawl away, he dragged her back. When she tried to cringe low upon the bedroll and make less of a target of herself, he pulled her back up so that she was fully exposed to him again. He was merciless, and he mocked her cries and pleas. She could hear his ragged, growling breaths and knew that he fought some battle she was not privy to as he rained down his rage upon her.

She was immune to the appellation of "slut" by now, but when he cursed her for a cocktease, the injustice of the accusation shamed her and caused her to burst into great, wracking sobs of despair. She ceased her struggles, surrendering to the beating and letting it scour her of her guilt and frustration over the trap she had created for them both.

The lashes became something to be welcomed, ridding her of her own frustration and despair. She embraced them, and though her body still shrank from the blows and writhed when they landed, her mind reveled in them, rolled with them, took comfort from them.

Duncan's breathing was harsh when he tossed the belt aside and fell to his knees next to her. His rough, calloused hands stroked the welts he had left, igniting them to pain once more. Elissa sobbed and whimpered, her face pressed into the bedroll, but Duncan was not finished with her, and soon he had her on her back, pinned to the bedroll, looming above her.

"Has the fight gone out of you now, slut?"

By now she was weary, and yet whatever demon hovered between them had not yet been exorcised, and she shook her head. "Never."

His hand closed on her breast—not merely her nipple, but the flesh of her breast—in a crushingly brutal grip and Elissa cried out.

"Fight me," he demanded, and weakly she attempted to push him away, the pain in her breast agonizing and constant until he released her.

He grabbed her hair, then, near the scalp at the back of her head and pulled until her neck arched painfully. His other hand found the nipple of her other breast and pinched mercilessly. No teasing, sensual pain this, but utter torment, and Elissa wailed and thrashed until he let go.

"Fight me, slut!" he gritted, giving her head a jerk, and his fingers closed upon her nipple again.

She nearly managed to buck him off in her initial lunge, and suddenly she was a mad thing, a wounded animal caught in the jaws of a trap, clawing and hissing and biting and hitting at him as she struggled to win her freedom. She nearly succeeded, and he surged forward to lay his weight upon her and pin her down more firmly. Against her thigh, she should feel his cock rousing again.

He did not relent until she subsided, exhausted and whimpering. Her nipple had gone numb in his grip and pain flooded through it when he released his grasp upon it, drawing a pained moan from her lips. He switched hands, then, and turned his attention to her other nipple.

"Again! Fight me!"

She hadn't the endurance to put up any sort of useful struggle this time, but she attempted to all the same. It was sheer luck that allowed her to land a lucky blow to his face when she swung her fist out wildly. When his head snapped back to look at her, his brown eyes were hot and furious and his mouth came down upon hers, his tongue plundering as he renewed his grip on her nipple, clamping down even tighter.

She didn't need him to tell her to fight, but her struggles were weak and exhausted, and by the time he relented, all she could do was lie there, arching and mewling in her agony.

She was defeated, and they both knew it. Duncan pushed himself up and stroked his cock for a long moment, looking at her thoughtfully, and Elissa shuddered, thinking perhaps he had changed his mind and would fuck her anyway.

Instead, he took up the vial he'd retrieved earlier and poured a puddle of oil into his palm and began to smear it across the flesh of her breasts and in the valley between.

He straddled her torso and laid his cock along the hard plate of her breastbone. She stared at it as though she had never seen it before. Then he pressed her breasts together and began to pump into the oil-slicked sheath they created.

The sight of the head of his cock emerging from between her breasts was the most unimaginably erotic thing she'd ever seen, and all she could do was stare at it, her breath half-driven from her with each thrust. She looked up into Duncan's face, but his eyes were closed, his face contorted with rapturous concentration. She didn't know where he was; perhaps even back in Highever with her mother and father, but he was not with her in that moment.

She wanted to open her mouth and suck on the head each time it thrust forth, or at least lick it, but she remembered his harsh response to her attempt to take the initiative when she had reached for him earlier and didn't quite dare. She hadn't the strength to endure another round of punishment.

When she looked up again, his eyes were open and he was looking down at her and he was there with her, not elsewhere in memory or fantasy. But more importantly, his eyes were placid and kind. He'd made his peace with whatever ghosts were haunting him.

His seed jetted across her upper chest and the side of her face, and for the first time in days, she smiled at him when his shudders subsided. He pushed his weight off her before he crushed her and lay beside her instead.

After a long moment, he rose and retrieved a waterskin and a cloth, and he cleaned her gently. She lay peaceful and limp as a newborn babe beneath his ministrations as he washed the tears and sweat and seed from her face, the oil from her breasts, and even gently cleaned his dried spittle and her own lingering wetness off the folds of her cunt. She obediently rolled onto her stomach when he commanded and he massaged a healing salve onto her welts; she could feel the elfroot's magical properties begin to work instantly and knew a moment of regret that she would bear no marks from her ordeal.

Then he dressed her and donned his own tunic and breeches.

"Don't we need to keep watch?" she asked. They were the first words she had spoken since their session had ended.

"Neither of us has any energy for it tonight, I think," he said ruefully. "We will have to take our chances."

They had never slept together before, always retiring to separate bedrolls, for Duncan had said the temptation would be too strong. But that night he lay down beside her and took her into his arms and placed a tender kiss upon her brow as she drifted off. And her last thought before she entered the Fade was that whatever might transpire with Cailan once she reached Ostagar, no matter the disposition of her maidenhead, Duncan was truly the first man to claim her.


*****


"You cared for him," Alistair said wonderingly. The tale hadn't been long in the telling—though he'd made it much longer than it had needed to be with his insistence on acting out the juicier bits, at least those that weren't made impossible by her pregnancy or his own uncertainty about inflicting pain upon her—but he had forgotten the dominating role he'd assumed at first, and instead was staring at her raptly.

"Yes," Elissa said softly. "I was not in love with him, but yes, I cared. At first, only because he was in many ways a piece of home, but by the time we reached Ostagar, I cared for him on his own merits."

"And what happened after you left Cailan?"

Smiling, Elissa reached for her pack nearby and withdrew the vial of oil she kept. Initially she had used the same oil she kept for polishing her blades, but Zevran's decadent tastes had rubbed off on her and now she carried a vial of lighter, sandalwood scented oil for this purpose.

She offered it to Alistair, who looked at it cautiously. "Perhaps you'd like to act that out as well?"

"Maybe," he said, staring at it. "Tell me what happened."

"I could scarcely believe it when Cailan let me leave his tent without seeing to my needs," she said, lying down with her back to him. "I was sore, for Cailan had not been gentle, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that I was now free to have Duncan inside me the way I had wanted him all those weeks. I went directly to his tent."

Behind her, she heard the cork squeak as Alistair unstopped the vial and sniffed the oil.

"He was on his cot, and I went straight to him and mounted him and demanded he fuck me, and he did, and it was marvelous. But it occurred to both of us almost at the same moment that he couldn't truly have me that way, not to completion. Perhaps if he'd been fair and golden like Cailan, I would have risked it, but if I'd borne a child with his complexion, there could have been no explaining it away. And so there we were, both nearly undone by our need and frustration. All that remained to us was the fulfillment of my promise to him."

"How?" Alistair demanded.

"He used the oil, spread it upon his fingers, poured it along the crevice of my backside," she said, twitching as Alistair's hand caressed one of her buttocks hesitantly. She waited a moment before resuming her tale, and was gratified when his hand returned, this time stroking carefully along the cleft of her ass. With each pass, his fingers grew bolder, came closer to delving into the breach.

"As he had done before, he started with one finger, and it was slick and oiled and went inside me easily." She didn't need to look at him to know he'd come to his decision, for suddenly Alistair's movements were resolute. The scent of the oil filled the tent and his hand slid easily between the globes of her ass, smearing a generous quantity of the oil along the cleft.

His finger found her puckered opening and began to prod. "Gently," she hissed, pulling one knee up before her as best she could to open herself a little wider to him. "This can be one of the most incredibly intense sensations lovemaking has to offer, but if undertaken carelessly it can be sheer agony."

"Tell me about Duncan," he insisted, but the pressure of his finger eased, and he began to rub and tease her opening rather than simply poke at it.

"He worked his finger in and out, in and out, over and over," she sighed as Alistair's slicked finger slid home slowly and carefully and her body began to adjust to the intrusion. "He pressed against the sides of the opening, coaxing it to relax. When he withdrew his hand, he added more oil and then he worked two fingers inside."

Soon, Alistair was matching his actions to her words as her tale unfolded, working his fingers into her body and spreading her tight entrance ever wider, relaxing the muscle more. She didn't tell him Duncan had stopped with two fingers, that he had wanted her to suffer a little for denying him the freedom of her cunt, however unfair the sentiment may have been. Alistair was even larger than Duncan had been, larger than any man she had known save Sten and the soldier who had brutalized her in Lothering, and so when he added a third finger without instruction from her, she gladly yielded to it and let him spread her open her even more.

"He spread the oil generously on his cock, then, and when he was slick and ready, he began to press inside."

Alistair lay behind her on his side then, mirroring her posture, but Elissa drew her legs up and moved forward so that she was almost curled into a fetal ball with only her ass pressed to him. It opened her up more, made access easier, and Alistair guided his cock to her rear entrance and began to push with slow, gentle pressure.

She hissed at the burning sensation as the widest part of his head passed inside, but it was quickly gone and then there was only pleasure and pressure and fullness and "Oh, Maker...."

She wasn't sure if the groan was hers or his. It may have been both. Alistair's hand pressed against the small of her back as he kept pushing forward, sliding ever deeper into her ass until his hips brushed her backside.

"Sweet Andraste, I had no idea," he moaned behind her.

"I love this," she murmured, gasping softly. Now that he was seated, she uncurled slightly, and he spooned against her back. "In some ways, the sensation isn't as gratifying—I won't be able to come without some other stimulation—but never do I feel this full, any other way."

"It's so tight!" Alistair muttered, and she felt his hand shaking as it cupped her hip. "Maker's breath, I can hardly bear it...."

"You can move," Elissa said, rolling her head from side to side as though it would somehow relieve the excess of sensation. "Just start out slowly. Give me time to adjust."

"Is that what Duncan did?" he insisted, making her moan with just a small thrust.

"At first," she said with difficulty. It was getting increasingly harder to think about anything except the enormous pressure within her, filling her so completely she thought she might not be able to stand it. "But he was still frustrated, still punishing me for not truly being his. He quickly became demanding."

Her words proved prophetic as Alistair grew more confident, more reckless. Only the limitations of their side-lying position saved her from the same sort of reaming Duncan's possession of her had devolved into. Still, Alistair was soon thrusting into her with abandon and she moaned helplessly.

"Oh, Maker... please..." she sobbed. "Oh, Alistair... yes... I can’t... yes...."

Her cunt was dripping wet when her hand found her folds and she began to stroke. But Alistair's hand came around her hip and caught her wrist as his other hand fisted in her hair and jerked her head back.

"Who are you thinking of when you do that?" he demanded, growling in her ear as he thrust forcefully into her ass. "Me, or Duncan?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him a pride-saving lie, but she'd sworn to always be honest with him when she'd made him promise the same.

"Both," she confessed, humiliated. She sobbed with pleasure as he positively hammered into her. "You're both... here inside me... right now. In my dreams... sometimes I'm shared between the two of you."

"Oh, Andraste's mercy!" Alistair groaned, but incongruously, his movements slowed and he pulled her back against him, cuddling her. He was shaking with need, and his cock was still hard and throbbing within her stretched opening. He hadn't found his release yet.

"What are you doing?" Elissa asked desperately, needing him to move again.

"So often I want to drive the other men you've been with out of you," he panted, kissing her ear, her shoulder, the nape of her neck. "I would do it if I could."

"But...."

"I want Duncan to remain here with us,” he said solemnly. “I don't want to drive him out,"

"You won't," she promised. "You can't."

"Then do it," Alistair breathed. "Make yourself come with him on your mind and me inside you. Let me feel it."

Another shudder ran through her, and her hand found her aching clit and began to stroke. It didn't take long, as she remembered Duncan's kindness, his passion, his desperation as he walked bravely through what he knew would be his last days.

The tension was already mounting, gathering at the base of her spine and spreading outward in waves of tight heat. It burst upon her and she greeted it with a wordless cry, the muscles of her ass clenching on his cock.

With a moan, Alistair began to thrust again and when he did, another orgasm followed hard on the heels of the first. Alistair tumbled after her, his cock pulsing and throbbing as he shot his seed deep inside her.

They both lay as though stunned for a long moment afterward, and Elissa gave a small hiss at the sting when Alistair carefully withdrew and her muscles began to twitch and tighten again immediately. Without needing to be told, Alistair fetched a wet cloth and began to clean them both of the oil and traces of seed. And then he lay behind her again and drew her back against him.

Elissa wasn't certain what to say. The ghost of Duncan still hovered there in the tent with them, a nearly palpable presence. But was it a welcome one, once the sweat of passion cooled?

Alistair, however, seemed to be at peace as he held her drowsily, murmuring endearments in her hair. So tender and sweet, her bastard prince, with such a wealth of warped, dark, conflicting desires churning within him.

"I think I could have shared you with him," he said softly. "I think I could have done what your father did and watched you with him."

"I would have enjoyed that," she answered solemnly, kissing his arm that acted as her pillow more often than not these days.

There was more to say, but it didn't seem important, and suddenly she was too weary to remember why it had seemed important in the first place. They were still feeling their way along, after all. The rest would be answered in time.


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