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Her chest feels tight, breath coming shallow as he pins her to the ground, one knee on either side of her hips, his hand around her throat, not pressing, just holding. Solas bends, inhaling against her hair, but she had caught a glimpse of the eclypses in his eyes.
"Are you going to eat me, Dread Wolf?"
His smile is feral when he draws back, and then he bites.
Helena has never considered Solas' other forms. In the Inquisition, she'd not been aware he'd had any, and in the years of their... break up? Hiatus? No. In the years in between, her mind had been too preoccupied with finding him to entertain the notion. Oh, half remembered dreams of being hunted by a wolf clung to her at times, salt rubbed on her wounds, but she'd been under a lot of stress, and chalked it off as nothing but a conduit for that.
She'd seen him in battle, of course - maw open, poised to clamp around blight, to render bone, but only a glimpse, and then she'd had better things to think about than that.
So it is a surprise to wander into the music room and find a wolf asleep next to the piano.
Instantly, she knows the wolf to be Solas. It can't be anyone else, obviously, not in their sanctuary, but there is something in the way he lays that tugs at her heart. He has taken to sleeping curled around her just like this, his nose pressed to her collarbone, legs tucked against her side; the love that grips her heart has no teeth, but still it chews.
One eye opens to regard her, and really, she can't help herself: she coos.
"Hi, pretty boy..." if it's the same voice she uses with all soft furred creatures, the only sign of his displeasure is a disgruntled sound, but he suffers her affection with dignity, especially when her fingers find the fur behind his ears and scratch at the scalp. His tail wags once, and then stills. "Oh, who's the most beautiful, majestic creature in all of Thedas..."
"Vhenan," his own voice, deepened in a growl, sounds fond beneath the exasperation. Still, he moves to lay his head into her lap, snout pressing into her stomach, so she supposes that it is all forgiven.
Mighty Dread Wolf. The most feared of creatures to haunt the stories of her people, master of lie and deceit, nuzzling against her like an oversized puppy. For a moment, she longs for Dorian's company, if only to have an outlet for all the emotion whirling inside her, a hurricane she cannot name, let alone dissect. He would call her ridiculous, she knows this for a fact. Perhaps she is, all things considered.
"I didn't mean to interrupt your nap," she says, soft and sweet, then bends to press a kiss to the soft fur between his ears. One of them twitches, but he does not open his eyes this time around.
"You ought to know by now that your presence is never unwanted, nor an interruption," he rumbles. Then, as if sensing her unvoiced question (one of many!), he says, "At times it is easier to rest in this form. I have slept like this a long time."
Her heart breaks into a million tiny pieces. She still does not know how to navigate the edges of his grief. It is too large a thing for her to comprehend; could spend lifetimes charting its perimeter and still be unable to reach the place she's started in. She believes him when he says that her presence helps, of course, because she's seen the clouds disperse when she draws near, but it is an old, ancient thing. She cannot hope to grasp it by the roots and yank it out like a weed.
"Looks comfortable..."
His body tenses beneath her fingers, but before he spirals into catastrophising, she presses on, "We should get you a doggy bed - hey!"
He bites at her thigh for her troubles, just enough to startle, not hurt, and she dissolves into laughter, burying her face into his back. He's lax once more, so she continues her petting.
She doesn't know what to do with his gratitude either, but that's quite the different beast to tackle, so she settles on loving him.
"You are not... displeased at my form," he says, once the silence has stretched so long she thinks him asleep. It's not something she'd been expecting him to say, truthfully, and the shock causes her to straighten.
"Why would I be displeased?"
"Your people do not take kindly to being in the presence of the Dread Wolf."
Ah. Of course. For a moment she pictures him, barely woken up from his long sleep, strolling into a dalish settlement. I am the Dread Wolf, he would say, then have to run when met with arrows and steel. It's not that she blames her people either. The stories are ingrained into them as much as they are the diet they live on, fractured history woven together by clumsy hands. She'd never been particularly interested in following the religious aspect of the culture, which in retrospect is funny. She is, after all, petting one of her gods as he dozes.
"I think it's cute," she shrugs, and watches in amusement as he lifts his head, frowning at her as much as a wolf is capable of frowning.
"I am not cute."
She gently bops him on the nose, "Adorable, even."
Magic shivers, like the horizon line does when heat melts the air, and there he is, her Solas, eyes narrowed, some of the wolf lingering in his expression.
"I will show you adorable," he growls, and pounces on her.
"Does the world feel different when you are a wolf?" she asks him later, watching the muscles in his back shift as he paints. He's stripped the walls of his regrets and has begun anew, delicate brush strokes telling other stories now. It's too early to tell what this one will be: he's sketched ochre lines into the white, but from this angle all she sees are random shapes.
He gives her question his usual careful consideration, pausing to think, to turn it in his mind's eye until he reaches a satisfactory conclusion. At length, he turns, regarding her with soft eyes.
"Not insomuch that it would hinder my senses, no. But yes, I suppose it is different. The colours change, for one."
She hums, tucking her feet under her, his missing shirt loosely draped over her own torso. "What about when you're..." Her hands splay apart to indicate large, watching the way his mouth twitches into a smile. "You know. Six eyes, big teeth."
"That form requires more energy to sustain, partly because the world becomes... more. It is difficult to explain." He frowns, rubbing a hand over his chin. "And it does come with a certain degree of... hunger."
"Oh?"
His eyes sharpen, pinning her in place. She'd aimed for casual and missed the mark by a mile, so she gives up on that play, leaning back against the pillows she'd brought to nest in instead.
"Ravenous, even," his voice dips, some of the growl returning. His smile is particularly wolfish.
Her fingers itch for the bow. She laces them together in her lap instead, tilting her head to the side.
"Little hunter..." There he is, Fen'harel. Eater of dreams, seductive nightmare, the cautionary tale spoken in hushed whispers around campfires. Do not wander too far, da'len, guard your dreams, do not allow the wolf to eat your heart. Helena has always done poorly in following her Keeper's teachings.
She feels like so many things all at once, but mostly she feels like a halla trapped in the predator's gaze. Every instinct in her tells her to flee... and why should she not? She knows he will catch her.
He swipes at her and she squeaks, scrambling to stand, laughing, heartbeat a dashing rabbit in her chest. Beneath the intensity in his gaze, her amusement is mirrored back at her. She holds eye contact for a moment, and then turns and flees up the spiral staircase.
The lighthouse stretches before her, more dead ends than corridors; it does not yield to her with ease, not with his shadow a quiet stalker in her step, but she manages to dodge him again, her laugh bright and airy. Knows that she has escaped him only because he let her - when she risks a glance over her shoulder, there he is, pace slow and languid, hands clasped behind his back. Damn.
"Where are you running, Helena?"
Where indeed? She leaps over the banister, shifting from foot to foot as the door to the courtyard groans as it rolls open, shouldering her way through the gap before it has time to settle. Wrong move. The hall is short, and she is just about to taste freedom when his hand closes around her wrist. A tug, her back meeting firm muscles, his other hand settling on her hip as he leans in to nose at the side of her neck.
"Caught you," he growls, the hand on her hip migrating upward, slipping under her shirt to cup her breast in his palm.
Her breath trembles with a moan, letting her head fall to the side to offer more skin for his teeth. His breath is hot and wet against her skin, tongue licking a path from shoulder to jaw, then blowing cold air to make her shiver. Her nipple tightens against his palm, his smile pressing into her throat. "You cannot run from me, little hunter. I have caught your scent."
"Solas..."
"Ah, ah," he tuts, releasing her wrist to bring his hand to her neck. She'd wanted a game, and he, her darling heart, her most cherished love, is only ever going to indulge her. "You and I both know who it is that has you trapped now."
"Fen'harel," more whimper than word. She feels dizzy with it already, sinking into the warm haze of boneless lust that taken her over whenever he is feeling particularly giving. Or, well. A different kind of giving, she supposed, one he disguises so deftly into selfishness.
Solas swipes her feet from under her, lifting her up in his arms like a bride - like a sacrifice. She's too breathless for protest, too far gone for snark, his steps measured as he returns her to her mound of pillows. Only this time he kneels as well, keeping her pinned with the weight of his gaze.
"Do you know what happens to little dalish mortals wandering too far into my domain?"
There is a story. Helena scrambles for coherence, but it's a little hard with the way his elegant fingers peel her shirt apart, leaning down to nose at the heaving valley between her breasts. Then, with little warning, he turns his head to take a nipple in his mouth.
Her reaction is instantaneous. Her back arches, fingers clutching at the pillows, legs parting to make space for him between them. She would feel ashamed if she were not viscerally aware that he likes her needy, that it feeds his own arousal, a closed circle.
He releases her breast with a wet pop, swirling his tongue over the stiff bud, then quirks an eyebrow. "Well?"
What were they talking about? Her mind is a hurricane of want, drowning out her thoughts. Right. Stories. She breathes in deep, trying to gather her thoughts when his hands spread over her ribcage, long fingers and cold palms warming steadily from the heat of her skin.
"They get eaten?"
"They get eaten," he rumbles, sliding his hands down to frame her stomach instead, thumbs dipping to caress the edge of her underwear. Already she feels on fire and drowning at the same time, wetter than water, thighs parting easily when he nudges. He's pleased with her, because he bends to kiss her, slow and steady no matter how desperate she is. "And yet you still have wandered deep into my domain. Here you are, spread before me, like an... offering. Perhaps this has been your plan all along, little hunter."
Hunter, he keeps calling her. In all her life she has never felt more like prey.
He trails kisses down her chest, following the line where ribs meet together to slope inward, then down her stomach, then farther down still, nibbling at a hip bone before continuing his journey over her right thigh. She's so keyed up she's likely going to scream any minute now.
Instead, she takes another breath, swallowing a whine, asks, "Are you going to eat me, Dread Wolf?"
He is beautiful when he smiles, but this is a dangerous smile, right until his teeth sink into the flesh of her thigh. Helena yelps, then moans when his tongue soothes the sting.
"Oh, I aim to devour you, da'len. Spread for me, just like that."
He makes quick work of her smalls, pausing to admire the way her folds are flushed with want, glistening with arousal. One dextrous finger traces her slit, gathering the moisture, then brings it to her lips, smearing it around with dark eyes, anointing her in a rite that borders on heresy. Or it doesn't, she supposes, with him being as divine as it gets and all that.
Then he dips his head between her legs, and all hope for coherent thought promptly leaves her. His tongue finds her clit, circling, closing in, until he sucks it into his mouth entire.
His mouth is a furnace, hot and ravenous, his eyes closed as he feasts - there is no other word for it, not when he licks and sucks and coaxes pleasure out of her with damnable ease. And then he sinks two fingers into her, and she sees stars.
"Ah! Ah - So-Solas..." She's unbound. She's not a body, but the places he touches alone, a thigh, a hip, a cunt for him to drink from, to fill.
And then, all of a sudden, he withdraws. Helena sobs, trashing against the pillows, forcing her eyes to open so she can glare at him. "Wha - I... why?"
"Is that any way to address a god, little hunter?" he drawls, cocky and sure of himself, that damn eyebrow raised again. Helena has half a mind to growl, to demand, but no. She likes this. She likes seeing him like this.
"No, hahren," she says meekly, watching in satisfaction as his mask of control quivers when she parts her thighs further, offering her body to him. "My apologies, hahren, I am young and impatient and in need of a very firm hand."
Solas swears under his breath, ancient words washing over her, his fists clenched. "You have no clue what you do to me, Helena."
Then he seems to straighten, the shadows in the room swirling around him, her eyes wide as she watches him slip back into his role.
"Very well," he says, leaning down to breathe in the scent of her arousal, setting her cheeks on fire. When he resumes, it is at a slower pace, sparking desire up her spine. He takes his time, licking broad strokes over her pussy, fingers slipping inside her again, in and out, in and out, until her body is quivering beneath him, hips tilted up to entice him to hurry the fuck up.
He doesn't, of course. He's intent on driving her absolutely mad and poised to enjoy it throughly, his hot tongue lapping at her folds like he has an eternity before him to do just this. He would if she let him, she knows.
Despite the pace he set, it's no time at all until she feels the embers low in her belly fan into a flame, growing steadily with every trust of his fingers. His other hand moves to her stomach, petting her as if to soothe, but his fingers curl deep inside her, pressing against something so devastating it makes her cry out, head thrown from side to side.
She's babbling, she realises, a litany of please and more and hahren all pouring from her lips. Creators, she's never felt like this before. Like she's standing at the edge of a chasm, balanced on the lip on the tip of her toes, with only a gust of wind to tip her over. She sobs, "please, please, please, I'm yours, Dread Wolf," thighs quivering. He rewards her by swirling his tongue around her clit, a snarl deep in his throat, and then he closes his lips around it to suck and -
Stars. Everything turns to light, so blinding she thinks for a moment that surely she must have died for her body to go through so much pleasure all at once, back arching, his name a prayer in her mouth. She shatters and cums in his mouth, pussy flooding, his hands around her hips the only thing keeping her grounded, but he keeps on licking, patient, like he's not just rearranged all of her bones and melted her flesh and taught her colours she could never hope of even imagining before.
When she comes to, his teeth are at her throat and he's rutting against her, cock heavy and full against her cunt, nestled in the hot wet cleft of her. Every time he nudges against her clit she twitches, whimpers, arms wrapping around his back of their own accord to cling to him.
He does not seem to mind. Quite the opposite, in fact, because he turns his head to whisper, voice hoarse, "I need to be inside you," and then does just that, notching his cock to her entrance and sinking in.
Time loses meaning for a while. The stretch is exquisite, filling her in ways only he can. She's still fluttering from her - quite frankly - astronomical orgasm, but he doesn't stop, rocking against her.
"Ma vhenan," he's saying, suckling bruises over her chest, reverent, worshipful, her Solas, "my love, my home, my everything. I'm going to fuck you now."
Helena barely has the time to be surprised at the sound of that word on his tongue before his hips begin snapping against her own in earnest. If he was patient before, now he is a beast unleashed; all she can do is lay there and take everything he has to offer her, moaning, whining, legs hooking around his hips to pull him closer. The angle changes everything, meaning the head of his cock hits that spot inside her with a marksman's precision.
His hand moves, slipping between their bodies to toy with her poor, sensitive clit. The wave of her orgasm hits her straight in the chest, pulls her under, but this time he's tumbling right along with her, clinging to each other, shivering.
Things slowly return to her one by one. The warm, darling weight of him over her, the way his thumb rubs circles into her hip, affectionate and gentle, the humidity of his breath where he's pressed his face into the crook of her neck.
She lifts a hand, shaky, running her fingers over his head as they bask together in the afterglow.
"Well," she breathes, feeling his smile against her skin, laughing a little herself. Solas grunts in displeasure but peels himself away from her, turning on his side so he does not crush her anymore, even as he immediately pulls her closer. His heartbeat is fast under her ear.
"Well," he agrees. Humidity has curled her hair around her face; it's with the short strands he plays with now, looking at her in quiet contemplation. But he looks at peace, for once, divested of the shadows that cling to him even in bright sunlight, watching her watch him.
"If I knew this would be the result, I would have wandered off into the woods much sooner."
He laughs, startled, then bends over to kiss her.