Chapter Text
It is fitting, the way their story ends. One driven mad by grief, the other shaped into a weapon by its cruel hand. Today, the weapon she resembles is an executioner’s sword.
He should have stayed in the Free Marches.
As she pretends to deliberate, Nathaniel’s heady gaze surprises Elissa. Hate glimmers in the grey. The heat in his stare summons a shift within her, causing Elissa’s words to hitch as she tries to declare his punishment. He expects her to end him — this madman would savor the verdict even as the blade strikes down, vindicated in his hatred for the wardens. For one warden in particular. They are as baseless as he deems. She is as wretched as he believes.
If only he knew her well, the smarmy grin would be gone.
“I know what to do, Varel,” she says to the seneschal. A smirk crosses her lips as Nathaniel’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “I’ve decided to conscript the prisoner to the Grey Wardens.”
After Nathaniel survives the joining, Elissa sleeps with her door wide open to the hall. Welcoming him into her bed with the little knife he keeps in his boot. Because she wants him to try it, to just attempt slitting her throat, he does not show.
He jabs at her in different ways. A remark about Grey Wardens slides between her ribs. The sharp tip of a joke aims between her brows like an arrow. Elissa takes it in stride for as many days as possible. Even Anders and Oghren, flippant as they are, exchange glances, expecting a reaction.
Despite her best efforts, Elissa loses face within a week. While the two are in the city of Amaranthine alone, looking for a lead, Nathaniel spouts off a comment about how weak her father’s defenses must have been. She says nothing at first, though fire rages in her belly. Elissa turns into an abandoned alley with Nathaniel at her heels. As he comes up behind her, she turns and slams him against a wall with a gauntleted fist. His eyes narrow while her knee wedges between his thighs, but his chin raises in defiance.
“Don’t you dare,” she growls. “I am your commanding officer and that’s the last time you’ll speak of my father.”
“Or what? What’ll you do to me that’s worse than being a pariah, cast out with nothing, not even my name?”
Nathaniel is older and taller, and broader than Elissa, but she knows she could take him in a fair fight. She pushes her gauntlet even harder into the soft joint of his armor and crowds further into his space. It is supposed to make him uncomfortable, but the air between them sizzles and her body fills with arousal.
Of all people to make her feel this way, she thinks darkly.
Elissa studies his tight jaw, the crease between his brows and how stiffly he holds himself. He hates her. Like a moth drawn to flame, Elissa cannot resist goading him on, even if she gets singed. As she steps in, their chests nearly touching, Nathaniel twists his head to this side to grant himself space. Elissa doesn’t allow it, grasping his chin with her other hand. His nostrils flare while his chest heaves. The desire pooled in her belly and the wetness between her legs proves difficult to ignore
“Do you understand me?”
“I understand you're a brute of a woman,” he bites back.
Elissa licks her lips and his grey eyes draw to the spot, pupils dilating. “You have no idea,” she says, pulling his face toward hers forcefully.
Their lips meet in a clash of wills. The kiss is not soft, nor sensual, but sharp and angry like the tension between them. Elissa pushes against him fully, her armor biting into his own, and the need inside her flares hot and dangerous. He doesn’t pull away. Instead, he grabs her hand on his chin and forces it down, between the press of their bodies. He’s hard, which makes her grin. What started as a show of control has escalated.
Then, everything shifts. He breaks their kiss and twists out from underneath with his roguish reflexes, slamming Elissa back against the stone wall. In a complete reversal of roles, his thick thigh thrusts between her legs. She squirms against the pressure, looking to free herself, but the movements send a bolt of pleasure rippling through her. Elissa gasps out loud and rocks against him again. Head fuzzy with want, all other coherent thoughts fade to the background while desire and shame twist together. She chases the sensation just eluding her.
Nathaniel grins wickedly. As quick as he flipped them, he backs away, leaving Elissa gasping in alarm. The rogue stands back a few feet as she frowns, hot and wanting.
"How easy the tables turned," he gloats.
Maker take him! She wants to punch the satisfied expression off his stupid face. She wants to wring his neck. Most of all, she still wants to grind against his thigh.
Frustrated, she can’t think of anything clever.
“Fuck you, Howe.”
Elissa pushes off the wall and leaves with as much dignity as she can muster. Miserable and still aroused, she stalks through the city with a scowl.
He isn't sure which is better: the pleasure in her eyes as she tried to rub shamelessly against him, or the satisfaction of knowing he gained the upper hand. Elissa Cousland is a renowned beauty. Her body is tightly honed. Long legs run up to meet a perfectly round ass he wants to leave handprints all over. Her mouth is full and soft and entirely too sensual for a warrior, but having tasted her lips and felt the bite of her armor, there's no denying the woman is potent.
Before arriving at the keep, he'd had a hazy picture in his mind of the girl he'd once known. Blonde braids and long dresses caked with mud at the hem. When she stared him down on the other side of the cell, he realized the error in picturing a girl at all. Elissa was fully grown and clearly enjoyed punishing him at all costs. Even if it meant tormenting herself.
Maker, he wants to fuck her. And not lovingly, but drive into her so hard she cries out his name. Now that he's seen her desire, he wants to toy with her again. Make her cave and crumble, begging him for more. It's the least that she deserves for conscripting him. For killing his father and ruining his family name.
He's not surprised to find her door shut for once. Still, it's unlocked, a concession that she wants him despite herself. Nathaniel grins as he flings the door wide to reveal Elissa sitting cross-legged on her bed. Her sword rests on a towel in her naked lap as she cleans it, legs bare to his gaze. He swallows hard, feeling the temperature rise in the room as he glowers. Dressed in just a white linen shift with breasts straining against the fabric, Elissa glances at him and leans away to rest her sword between the wall and her bed. Wordlessly, she scoots to the edge of the bed, legs uncrossed and wide open for his view. His eyes fix on the spot, need throbbing through his veins.
Satisfied with his attention, Elissa leans back on her elbows, and places her heels on the frame. The shift falls down further, her creamy thighs exposed as well as everything else. His cock throbs, trapped inside his trousers.
What was he here for? To tease her?
His mouth waters and his heart thrums in his chest. Helpless to resist, Nathaniel darts forward, faster than she expects. Elissa scoots back instinctively, but he's too quick to let her go far. While she attempts to clamp her legs shut and twist them aside, he catches her knee. Her breath hitches as he draws that hand down her leg, inching closer to the soft center of her.
Nathaniel places one knee on the bed and braces himself with the other hand, putting plenty of distance between their bodies. As his fingers slide through soft curls to discover her wet heat, Elissa gasps.
He intends to bring her close and leave her on the edge. Let that be a lesson in their struggle for dominance.
With no preamble, Nathaniel thrusts two fingers inside her entrance. Their anger is their foreplay.
Maker, she's silky smooth and intoxicating. His nostrils fill with the scent of her, maddeningly sweet and earthy, fresh and vibrant like the hyacinth garden at Highever. How can one so hard be so yieldingly soft? He wishes it was his cock filling her, but knows he wouldn't be able to stop himself from finishing. Instead, he fucks her with his hand, relishing as she relaxes into the bed, her eyelids fluttering shut.
"Look at me," he demands. Obeying, her rich brown eyes latch onto his, revealing a depth of wanting he thinks she ought not reveal.
Keeping himself at a relative distance is harder than he imagined. His gut burns with need and his baser self demands more. Elissa's arousal soaks his entire hand, which doesn't help matters. There hasn't been anyone in recent memory who's made him this fervent with want.
Elissa does her best to keep her heavily lidded gaze on him as directed. Then her muscles tighten around his fingers and her eyes threaten to close. He's in danger of making her come quickly. He intends to pull away, slowing the pace and withdrawing his touch. Warm, callused fingers circle his wrist before it can go far.
"Don't," Elissa begs. "Please, please."
The jolt of arousal he gets from her helpless pleas nearly makes him come like a young buck. Damn it all to the void. He wants to get her there.
Nathaniel leans forward and lowers over her, his body nearly pressed against hers, arm braced above Elissa's head. The lewd squelch of her wetness as he works harder makes his cock ache. Nathaniel dips his head to suck on her neck and all the way up to her ear. He lowers his voice and whispers vulgarly. "Look at you, so desperate to fuck you let your enemy between your legs."
She whimpers, hands clenching the bedcovers while her muscles clench his fingers. These little noises stir up deep longing and Nathaniel falters for a moment, forgetting how much he hates her. How much he wants her to suffer for making his life miserable. He sweeps his thumb over her swollen clit and Elissa arches her back, breasts pressing against his chest through her nightgown. The siren attempts to pull his chin toward her mouth, but it's a hard line he can't cross again. Nathaniel resists, dropping his forehead against her shoulder blade as she cries out in pleasure.
Deep down, he yearns at the moment of her release.
As her muscles relax, Nathaniel withdraws his fingers only far enough to stroke her absently. Silence weighs heavy, but not uncomfortable. Just punctuated by the intensity of the shared moment. Eventually, Elissa quakes from too much sensation and simulation, legs trembling beyond control. She squirms away from his touch and scrambles to sit on her knees at the head of the bed where the shift falls to hide everything again.
Despite his own obvious unsettled need, Nathaniel feels somewhat satisfied and lulled into a stupor. He lets himself relax on his side, long legs halfway off the narrow bed. He’s surprised she chose such a small room for her quarters when any of the master suites were available. Watching her pull herself together after falling so beautifully apart, he realizes how innocent and vulnerable the warden commander appears. She's only twenty, and more accomplished than most at eighty. A soft pink flush splashes across her cheeks and creeps up her slender neck. Long strands of her blond hair fall from her loose braid and her eyes remain downcast. Where’s the strong, demanding commander that pushed him into a filthy alley?
"Y-you can go," she says, looking at her fingers as she fumbles with her hem.
Nathaniel can’t help but feel she’s thoroughly tricked him, luring him into her bed with boldness and shutting him out the instant he relaxes. Even though he was the one who’d planned on leaving her unsatisfied, he grows irrationally annoyed.
"You are something else." He doesn't hide the disgust in his tone.
She looks up at that, a crinkle between her brows as she scrunches her nose. "I'm not the one so desperate for connection that I fuck someone I hate just so I can feel something."
There is the woman he’s come to know. Distaste clear in her words and her expression, Nathaniel mirrors her frown and gets to his feet. He's not the desperate one. He's not lacking in feeling. She is.
Bickering seems beneath him at this point. She got what she wanted and there's no point in trying to one up her with words. Nathaniel leaves the room without a spare glance. He swears it's the last time he falls for her opening.