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Lucanis would have said that he didn't take a single breath, would have sworn to it, even if sense and fact dicated that he would most certainly be dead if that were true. Three weeks without a breath. Three weeks while his heart lay unbeating behind his ribcage. Three weeks of numbness, of fear and fury without direction. What he wouldn't give for another god to bury a blade into, to carve out their heart to avenge his own.
Elgar'nan was out of reach, and the lyrium blade was gone. Disappeared alongside the woman who had yanked it free from Ghilan'nain's twisted corpse.
Lucanis had been knocked senseless. He'd woken up to a world without her in it. Rook was missing, vanished without a trace. Well, not any trace that Lucanis could pick up on. Had she been on this side of the Veil, he could have tracked her to the ends of Thedas. He would have followed her anywhere, into any danger—he'd already proven that, but he couldn't follow where she had gone.
Emmrich was certain that she was alive. There had been faint "etheric tremors," where she had been pulled through the Veil into the Fade. Knowing that there was a chance to find her—and if not that there was a chance to find Solas—the lying bastard—and kill both him and Elgar'nan. It was all that kept Lucanis on his feet.
Where. Is. Rook.
"I told you. She's… missing," Lucanis said, yet again. Gone. Lost to them, and Maker knew if they would get her back.
Spite had been asking, every day, multiple times a day. He had raged and howled for days after she had disappeared. He had been relentless, not understanding, or refusing to understand, just what had happened. Not that any of them really understood, but he had finally subsided, his tantrums lessening into sullen brooding and occasional demands. All the demon understood was that Lucanis had woken up to a dead god, and the woman he… With Rook gone, disappeared into thin air.
We lost her. Find her. Again. Now! We. Have to.
"We will," Lucanis said, barely above a whisper. Even in his own ears, the words rang false.
Walking the grounds of the Lighthouse, staring into the infinite expanse of the Fade, had become routine. When he needed to keep himself awake, Lucanis would often wander, cup of coffee in hand. It drove back the fog when it permeated his mind, soothed the desperate ache in his eyes. Now he wandered because staying still, numbing himself, felt too much like being back in his cage at the bottom of the ocean.
Not so long ago, he might have stopped to pet Assan, scratching the cub behind the ears until his rear paw thumped on the ground. Or he would travel up to the balcony that overlooked the grounds, listening to Manfred's rattling and—presumably—contented hissing. Occasionally, Davrin might be awake and would take pity on Lucanis, inviting him to a game of cards, or plying him with that wretched conscription wine. Or it might be Neve, "talking shop," as she put it, regaling him with stories of old cases, which he traded for tales of previous targets.
Silence pervaded the Lighthouse now, in a way it never had, even before they had filled out the team. No fledgling griffins warbled and nipped at his boots to ask for hidden treats. No skeleton offered him tea with a hopeful wheeze, tea that Lucanis always politely turned down.
Davrin's room, so full of his presence, was empty. There were too many empty spaces in the Lighthouse now. Lucanis lifted a half-completed carving from the table where Davrin would sit and whittle. His room had always had the best view. Being in there was painful, but he couldn't say that being anywhere else would be less so.
Why had his feet carried him in there? All that he could do was drift, waiting. Lungs aching fit to burst.
He had gone to her door, when they had come back from Tearstone Island. No matter how long he stood there, he couldn't touch the handle, couldn't step inside. Couldn't be where she ought to be, breathing in her scent while she was absent. Seeing her things, another empty space haunted by a sheer lack of occupation.
With every day that passed, Lucanis felt her slipping further and further away, like a physical thing. He shouldn't have denied her, held her at such a distance for so long. They ought to have had more time, but he had been too stubborn, too afraid of himself to let her get that close. What if he never got to see her again? Or feel her in his arms?
"She's been gone for weeks." Lucanis' had made his way into the kitchens. Taash stood by the fire, arms folded, head bowed. "How could she still be alive?"
Words he'd thought himself, but hearing them from someone else, Taash's voice defensive, bruised, was like a blow.
"Time in the Fade is… different," Bellara explained.
She stood over the stove, stirring a pot. Lucanis' stomach grumbled as he registered the scent of food. When had he last eaten? He'd been neglecting the rota, leaving all the work of cooking to Bellara. It wasn't fair of him, but she hadn't complained. All she had done was look at him, the sorrow in her eyes reflecting his own, but there was empathy, too.
"Yeah," said Harding. "Solas was trapped in there for months, by our reckoning."
"But he's a god," Taash argued. "It's different. Rook is normal. She needs to eat and sleep. How's she gonna do that, stuck wherever Solas put her?"
"She may not need to. We just… we can't give up hope," Bellara said. "Once Emmrich triangulates the thaumaturgical harmonics—"
Taash made a frustrated noise, and spun away from the fire. Their mouth was open, prepared to deliver a retort, but then they spotted Lucanis. None of them seemed to have heard him come into the room.
"Oh, Lucanis!" Bellara said, half-turning from the stove. "We didn't… You must be hungry! Stew's almost done."
"Thank you, but I'm fine," he said, as his stomach twisted, painfully empty.
Harding came around the table. Her expression was tremulous, even as she smiled. "When was the last time you had something to eat?" she asked, echoing his own thoughts. Before he could voice another lie, she put a hand on his arm, nodding to the table. "C'mon. You have to keep your strength up, right? For when we find her."
There was no arguing with that, with her kind insistence. Hope was a luxury, something to cling to in vain. What he truly ought to hope for was a chance at vengeance. That was what had gotten him through a year of imprisonment and torture—closing himself off to everything except the one cold tether of violence.
Rook had been the one to save him from all of that, though. Twice over. If not for her, he might still be trapped down there, or he might have finally given into Spite. If not for Rook, he might still be trapped in the prison of his own mind, cleaved to his own pain and fear like a drowning man, clinging to flotsam in a storm.
Harding was right. He needed his strength. Needed to be at his best, for her. For Rook. For everyone they had lost. Either they would find Rook, find Neve, too. Or they wouldn't. In the latter case, he would find a way to kill Elgar'nan and Solas, if it was the last thing he did.
He barely tasted the stew, eating it mechanically in the weighted silence. There hadn't been much talk in the Lighthouse these last weeks. Murmured conversations, at most, whispers that made the silences twice as bleak. Emmrich muttering to himself as he pulled books down from the library shelves, skeletal fingers skimming over lines on paper, before he found what he was looking for and retreated to his chambers.
Lucanis was no mage. He could feel the pulse of magic on occasion, like nettles against the backs of his eyes. Whatever Emmrich was doing, it drummed against the Fade like a heartbeat. It was like a net, Bellara had explained. Like fishing. Emmrich was casting magical nets into the Fade, a vast oversimplification, but it made as much sense as anything magical to a layman.
He was trawling the immensity of the Fade with a net, hoping to catch any faint trace of Rook. Using an old, bloodied bandage as a focus, but even with that, finding one person lost in the Fade would be miraculous. Finding one person trapped in a magic prison constructed by the ancient elven god of lies and deceit would be…
The bowl was empty. Lucanis excused himself. The stew sat in the pit of his stomach like a leaden ball. He was in the larder—he hadn't meant to go there. It was the last place they had spoken before they had gone to fight the gods, for what should have been the last time. When Rook—when Mirevas had looked at him with her pale eyes, like a field of heather, and she had said, "Lucanis… I-"
Maker, what he wouldn't give to return to that moment. To keep his mouth shut, to hear what she might have said. But he hadn't let her speak, because he was afraid that he might lose her. What a fucking idiot he was. Knowing what she wanted to tell him might not have made losing her any less suffocating, but at least he would know. At least he could have given her that moment, before she… before…
Lucanis dropped down onto his cot, pinching the bridge of his nose. She was gone. Rook was gone. They ought to be going after Solas now. They knew where he was—Minrathous. Aiding the Shadow Dragons, of all things. They ought to… but the thought of going to Emmrich and telling him to stop—he couldn't. Lucanis couldn't be the one to tell them all to give up on her. Even if the search was as fruitless, as hopeless as it felt.
He should not have sat down. Sleep tugged at his eyes, every blink a labor, every limb weighted, as though pressed down by bricks.
"If I fall asleep, you have to stay here," he said, his own voice rough in his ears. "Don't go looking for her on your own."
I want. To find her. I could. Smell her. Find. Her scent.
"That's about as likely as…" he trailed off. About as likely as Emmrich finding some trace of her in the Fade. Probably not the best argument against Spite running off on his own. "Rook would tell you to wait. To be patient. Let me sleep."
Spite only responded in a low rumble of displeasure. No more arguments, though. It was the best Lucanis was going to get.
With a sigh, he turned to kick his feet up, to lie back on the stiff slab of wood he'd made into his bed. Better than what he'd been treated to in the Ossuary, but it wasn't meant to be relaxing. He couldn't let himself get too comfortable, couldn't allow himself to sleep too long or too deeply with Spite waiting to take control of his body.
Resting while she was still missing was almost like a betrayal, but Lucanis knew when he was at his limit. He stared up at the ceiling, blinking heavily, until he could keep his eyes open no longer.
From his perspective, it was as though he had barely drifted off before he heard the commotion. Groaning, stiff, he sat up. Still in his own cot in the larder—for a miracle, Spite had actually listened, for once. Then Lucanis registered the noise that had woken him. Excited voices in the dining room. He had barely gotten to his feet when the door burst open in a flurry of motion.
"I've found her!"
Lucanis could only gape at Emmrich. Excitement looked strange on the skeletal body of a lich, but somehow it radiated from his very bones.
"You…" Lucanis couldn't quite seem to make sense of the words.
"Just a trace, but it's enough," Emmrich was saying. Harding was behind him, adjusting her gear like she'd already been prepared to leave at a moment's notice. "I believe I can hone in on her exact location from the Crossroads, but the connection is tenuous. We need to leave—"
Lucanis was already reaching for his own gear, shrugging into his leathers with a kind of numb efficiency. A tenuous connection. Just a trace. One woman lost in the immensity of the Fade, and they were chasing down scraps. The only thing keeping his hands from shaking as he belted on his knives was the cold, efficient distance he had put between himself and that faint sliver of hope.
They were at the Vi'Revas, all of them together. All of them that were left. Something spun in the air above Emmrich's palm, some device that measured the Veil. The glow from his eye-sockets were focused, even as they stepped through the shimmering glass. On the other side, the Crossroads were still. Quiet. But there was a hum, an undercurrent that made the backs of Lucanis' eyes all but simmer.
All they could do was follow Emmrich. He led them to one of the Caretaker's docks, one that Lucanis was sure hadn't been there before, but that was the way of this place. The Caretaker itself was wordless as it ferried them through the air, unmindful of the weight of their entire party in a single boat. All the while, Emmrich and Bellara had their heads bent over that device. Whatever they were doing to it… something pulled. Pulsed. Dragging them in fits and starts like a fish being reeled in on a hook.
There was an island ahead. Their boat docked carefully against a rickety, wooden pier. Beyond that was a sweeping meadow, a sea of swaying, shimmering grasses. Only a single, narrow footpath wended its way through the shoulder-high growth. The air smelled sweet there, warm like a mild spring day, unassuming.
Lucanis thought he knew this place. Rook had described the place where she grew up. A farm near a little village, surrounded by deep forests and sweeping fields of tall grass. Bounded to the north by a deep, rushing river, the kind that took hold and swept you away in the blink of an eye.
They heard the river before they saw it. Emmrich was manipulating the device. No one else paid the river any mind, but something about it tugged at Lucanis' mind. It wasn't a particularly wide stretch of water. Someone as athletically gifted as Rook could easily jump across. But the depths were deceiving. Someone small enough, someone who couldn't swim, or who was simply unprepared, could be towed under before they knew what had happened.
The water took the shape of Rook's fear. Lucanis forced his gaze away from it. Turned his back. This wasn't for him. This wasn't what they were here for.
He had to hurry to catch up with the others. The meadow began to recede, fade away like something out of a dream. All around them the air was changing. Thinning, stretching. Growing brighter, like sunlight piercing through fog. Shadows darted past the corners of his eyes, and he thought he saw—
"Rook!"
There was a light ahead. Emmrich jabbed a finger toward it as the air began to split. For the first time in three weeks, Lucanis felt like he could breathe.
"We've got something," he said, pushing forward, into the light. It was like a physical thing, thrusting his arm into that blinding tear between worlds. "Get ready!"
Spite was suddenly there with him, after hours of tense silence from the demon. And then so were the others, reaching in, past the blinding, swirling light. For a moment, there was nothing. Then—
A hand grasped his from the other side. Taash was shouting, and then all of them were pulling, fighting some resistance in the very air itself. For a moment, it felt as though time was suspended, like his heart had finally stopped its fruitless beating. All at once, there was a great rushing in his ears and they all fell backward as one.
Lucanis sat up, breathless. That brilliant tear in the air was gone, replaced with the sky of the Crossroads and that infinite meadow. And sprawled on top of his legs, panting and bedraggled and more beautiful than anything he'd ever laid eyes on, was Rook.
Slowly, blinking as though she couldn't quite believe her eyes, she raised her head. Met his gaze. "Lucanis?" His name, so tentative on her lips, as if she couldn't really believe it was him. His heart wrenched in his chest. There was nothing in the Fade except for the two of them.
Of their own volition, his hands reached out for her, pulling her up as he rolled onto his knees and then crushing her to his chest. "Yes it's me, mi amor," he breathed into her ear. "I'm here. You're here." His lips brushed her forehead, her eyelids. He breathed in her scent. Lavender under layers of sweat and filth. How did the scent of her soap still linger, as if she had only bathed that morning?
Her voice shook and creaked-her entire body trembled in his arms. "I thought… I was afraid… but you're okay?"
He pulled back just far enough to look at her, to drink in the contours of her face. Smudged, bruised. Hair tangled, pallor grey and weary, but it was her. She was there, alive. Against all odds, all possibilities, they had found her.
"Three weeks in the Fade and you're worried about me?" he asked, nearly laughing, eyes burning for an entirely different reason now—but of course she would be. Rook was always thinking of others before herself.
Something-a shadow flashed across her face. In a small voice, almost childlike, she said, "Three weeks?"
"We've all been worried half-to-death." Bellara's voice. Right. They were not alone.
"That's how long it took to find you. Just a faint impression on the eddies of the Fade, but it was enough," Emmrich said, relief heavy in his words.
"Oh," Rook said. And then she went limp, fainting dead away against Lucanis' chest. Panic gripped him for a moment, but Emmrich was there, weaving magic over her as Lucanis cradled her body against his.
"Not to worry," Emmrich said, "She's just exhausted, poor dear. Let's get her back to the Lighthouse. She needs a proper rest."
"And something to eat," Bellara chirped. "Good thing I made plenty of stew."
Lucanis lifted her in his arms. She had always been a tiny thing, but all of her energy, the way she carried herself, never backing down from a challenge, had given her a certain presence. Now she felt too light, too fragile, far too mortal to be taking on as much as she did. It wasn't right, that she should be anything less than the force of nature that she was. That she had survived through all of this was only proof of her resiliance, but it was a reminder, too. She was just a person. One woman, carrying so much.
Even Rook needed to rest, no matter how unstoppable she appeared to be. Lucanis would see to it that she did, for as long as they were able to spare.
They had reached the Caretaker's boat again when her eyes blinked open. Lucanis couldn't seem to look away from her face for more than a moment, even as he levered himself into the hovering vessel. He saw her brow become pinched, then the pale lilac of her irises as she squinted into the ambient light. She groaned as Lucanis lowered himself onto one of the seats, and she tried to pull herself upright in his lap, arms winding around his shoulders.
"Don't strain yourself," he said, feeling a lick of concern.
"I'm okay," she said, which couldn't possibly be true. She resettled herself, head on his shoulder. Then she sat upright again, looking around as though alarmed. "I'm not dreaming, right? This is… this is real?"
"It's real, carissima," Lucanis told her, heart twisting, as their companions shot worried looks her way. "You're here with me. We're going home."
Home. The Lighthouse. Not Treviso or Minrathous. Rook nodded, eyes drifting shut again. At least this time she didn't faint. She leaned against him once more, and Lucanis held her there. He buried his nose in her hair, drinking in her scent and her warmth and the weight of her in his arms, all to reassure himself that yes. Neither of them was dreaming. She was here. He hadn't lost her after all.
She is. Hurt?
"No," Lucanis murmured, which was also untrue. "Just very tired."
The Wolf. He did this. We will. Kill him?
Lucanis considered the idea. It had a certain appeal. "His fate is hers to decide," he said. "She's the injured party." Spite quieted down, if not pleased with then at least accepting of the answer.
By the time they returned to the Vi'Revas, Rook was determined to walk on her own. She smiled wearily at their friends, laughing and trying to lighten the mood. Even now, when the strain was so apparent on her face, fatigue and terror etched into the corners of her eyes in equal measure, she was the one trying to reassure everyone else. Lucanis had not held himself together half as well after his own imprisonment. Rather than putting on a facade like Rook was doing, he had simply held himself at a distance, closing himself off until Rook herself battered down all the doors he'd put between himself and the world.
All he could do was try to be for her what she had been for him. A tall task, but for her, he would do anything.
*
Rook didn't think she'd ever been quite this tired. Usually after a bath and a good nap, she would spring up out of bed feeling like a brand new woman. But after weeks—how had it been weeks—trapped in Solas' little mind prison, she felt… out of step. Like nothing around her was quite real, or perhaps that she wasn't. It was unnerving.
She found herself in the infirmary after she had woken. The place where she had seen Varric so many times over the past months, never letting herself wonder why it was taking him so long to recover. Where she could have sworn she could smell that overpriced cologne he liked to wear. Now, the air was still and the beds were all empty. And Varric had never been there at all.
Creators, or the Maker, or whoever she was meant to pray to now, she was so tired. But she couldn't crawl back into bed and sleep for the next month, like she wanted to do. The others were waiting to debrief her, and she was starving, besides.
Seeing the empty chairs in the library hollowed an equally empty space inside of her chest. Neve and Davrin. One missing, one dead for certain. Assan, too. Rook wished she had the luxury to submit to grief, to simply curl up in a miserable ball and sob and wail until she had nothing left. But she was already too weary for even that.
"It didn't feel like weeks for me," she explained, staring at the stone floor, sagging in her usual chair. She could feel their eyes on her, the friends who had come back—unless you're still stuck there, still trapped—and she forced herself to look up, to meet each of their gazes. This was real, it must be real. "Hours, maybe? It was hard to tell. All I knew was that I had to get back."
They told her everything that had happened since. About the reports from Minrathous, before the Venatori cut access to the city off completely. That Solas was there and so was Elgar'nan. That they were ready to go on her command, all of her companions as well as the factions they had befriended over these long few months.
Everyone else needed their rest, though. Rook's absence had put a strain on all of them. The loss of almost half of their team had done its share of damage, too. Even now that she was back, there was an imbalance, the scales tipped the wrong way probably forever. Something they would need to compensate for, though how she couldn't have said. Not now, with her mind in a fog and her heart a leaden ball in her chest.
And then Lucanis was there, squeezing her hand. "I'll meet you in your room," he told her. Once she had checked up on the rest of the team; it was all she really needed, knowing he would be there.
Talking to everyone helped, too. Seeing them, hearing their voices. Bellara obviously missed Neve, the woman who treated her like a sweet little sister. Who went out of her way to buy Bellara her serials, whose cynicism at the world seemed to lessen under Bellara's enthusiastic influence. Taash was angry, angry at their losses, and at the gods. Ready to burn Elgar'nan and Solas out of whatever holes they were hiding in. Emmrich was introspective, missing Manfred but steadfast in his dedication to the cause. Harding was determined, checking and double-checking her kit, ready to put some arrows into the opposition.
For Davrin. For Assan. For Neve. For everyone who had died because the gods were so hungry for power that they would willingly poison the whole world.
Her room was quiet. There had always been something calming about it, most likely by design. Solas had used it for meditation, and so did she, lulled by the light and motion of the aquarium, by the very atmosphere. The Lighthouse was centered, here.
On weary legs, she walked to the sofa. Sitting felt like the ultimate luxury. Sagging backward, eyes closed, sinking into the upholstery, was divine. Her entire body sang, for a moment, to be allowed to rest.
The sound of the door opening had her heavy eyelids blinking.
"I cannot believe we found you."
Lucanis. She hauled herself up, ignoring the protesting of her limbs. He stood near the doorway, watching her. Light from the aquarium played across his face, washing over the emotion in his eyes, the disbelief he hadn't let show before.
"I'm a little surprised myself, to be honest," she said. Three weeks, they had said. What had felt like hours to her, and that had been bad enough. Hours of seeing Lucanis' body on the ground every time she blinked, of making her way through Solas' prison. One that was meant to cage two tainted gods, one that Solas himself hadn't been able to escape without months of planning, of manipulating Rook until she was ripe to take his place.
Lucanis took another step closer to her, then seemed to restrain himself. "I thought I'd never see you again." There was an undercurrent to his words, something pained. Pain she had caused, inadvertantly. But she was the root cause of it, if not the perpetrator. Solas had done this to both of them.
"Oh, come on," she said, injecting humor into her reply. "You know you couldn't get rid of me that easily." She offered him a smile to soften the words. To show him that she was fine, she was still Rook. Still the same idiot who'd led them all into disaster on Tearstone Island, and gotten herself trapped in the Fade.
No matter her intention, it seemed to break the spell holding him back. Lucanis walked toward her, stood before her, then he knelt. He rested his hands on her knees, a warm weight that grounded her more than any amount of talking. Real. This is real.
"Rook," he said, head shaking. Long-suffering. Then he rose up, leaning into her, and the touch of his lips against hers flushed her with warmth. With safety, with you're here and I've got you. She cupped his neck, suffused with longing as he leaned back again, smiling up at her like she was everything. With a soft breath of laughter, he said, "You're impossible."
"But in a good way?" she asked. The fear and pain in his eyes had dimmed, replaced with something else. Something warmer, something wanting.
"It's what I love about you," he said, and her chest felt fit to burst.
Again, he rose toward her, and this time she leaned back, guiding him closer as she shifted away, until her back hit leather. And Lucanis was there above her, his weight solid, pressing her into the cushioning. Holding her down in a way that surely no amount of blood magic could fake. Again, his lips found hers as he settled between her legs, arms caging her in safely, and then—
Wings. Unfolding in a blaze of brilliant violet light, ensconcing them both. Rook let her eyelids flutter shut, winding her arms around him, holding him to her. This was real. The heat of his body, the silky strands of his hair that she raked her fingers through, the softness of his lips as they played against her own. The soft groan that rumbled up from his chest as she arched against him.
He leaned back, just enough so that he could look down at her. Drinking her in, like he still couldn't fathom how they'd managed to find her. Rook reached up, laid a hand against his jaw, stroking a thumb across his cheekbone.
"I'm starting to get the impression that you missed me," she said, just a little breathlessly.
"If I have it my way, I will never be apart from you for that long again," Lucanis replied, his eyes flickering. "Spite was quite beside himself."
Despite the levity of the statement, the softening around his eyes, the way he leaned into her touch… He had truly been hurting, for all those weeks. And Maker only knew how much Spite had understood.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"You have nothing to apologize for," Lucanis said, and he turned his head to kiss her palm. "You came back to me. That's all that matters." And he meant it. He seemed determined to show her exactly that. He kissed her for a third time, and she melted into him. Let her lips part, urging him to deepen the kiss with soft flicks of her tongue.
Lucanis growled, and she felt it reverberating against her ribs. His mouth wandered, his beard tickling her neck, her chin, her collarbones. And then he was peeling away layers of clothing, finding new expanses of skin to taste, to explore, and Rook could only spur him on with little gasps and sighs. Every touch of his mouth, his fingers, charged across her flesh, straight through her. He nuzzled her breasts and traced his lips down the tattoo that ran along her sternum, leaving tingling heat in his wake.
She actually yelped when he traced his facial hair across her abdomen, and tried to stifle her unexpected mirth behind her hands. Only for Lucanis to grin—a decidedly wicked and impish grin that she'd never seen on him before—and purposefully drag his whiskers across her belly, until she was gasping with laughter and slapping weakly at his shoulders.
"It is good to hear you laugh, mi vida," he said. And then he knelt between her legs, tugging off her boots and finally her trousers and smallclothes, until she was laid entirely bare. His gaze roved over her as she lay there, panting and squirming slightly, and she didn't see how anyone could blame her for her impatience. Not here, not with this man, looking at her like a parched man staring at a pitcher of water.
"Bellissima," he murmured.
"Lucanis," she huffed. There was a persistent pulsing ache between her legs, beating in time with the racing of her heart.
"I don't mean to make you wait, cattivella," he said, even as he shifted back, slipping to his knees at the end of the sofa. "I only want to savor every moment I have with you. Now, come here." He gripped her hips as he spoke, drawing her toward him. He kissed her knee, then the inside of her thigh, trailing his lips down and in as she shivered, opening her legs for him.
The prickle of his beard against her sex sent a jolt straight through her bones, and when she felt his tongue, his lips, she couldn't help but cry out. His hands gripped her thighs as his tongue dragged slowly through her folds, firmly tracing circles around her clit until he had driven every last coherent thought from her mind. All she could do was grasp his shoulders, sobbing as pleasure built, rising in slow waves until it broke.
She could feel her body arching up off the sofa as heat raced through every limb. She was flushed, skin damp, heart fluttering, and she felt a soft kiss on her inner thigh.
Rook lifted her head, shakily rising up on her elbows. Lucanis was watching her, watching as she sat up and all but lunged for him, dragging him up to kiss him again. With uncoordinated motions she began to tug at the buttons on his waistcoat, yanking at his collar. Why did he need to wear so many damned layers?
"Allow me," he said, and it almost sounded like he was laughing at her. But she had already forgiven him, too busy watching him shrug out of that vest, eyes greedily tracking the progress of his hands as he unfastened the catches on his shirt, and—
"Oh," she breathed, rolling up onto her knees. Unbidden, her hands rose and slid beneath the fabric, feeling the width of his shoulders, fingers tracing through the breadth of coarse hair that grew across his chest and down his stomach. The dark expanse thinned slightly before disappearing down beneath the waistband of his trousers, and Rook greedily ran her gaze over every inch of skin that he revealed.
"Something wrong?" he asked, as though the way she couldn't keep her hands off of him wasn't indication enough that everything was right.
"I didn't realize you'd be this hairy everywhere," she said, smirking at the heat in his gaze. He grasped her arms, stopping her shameless fondling as he drew her closer, brushed his beard against her cheek.
"Is that a bad thing?" he said, breath hot against her ear.
"No," she admitted. She hadn't been with many human men like this, but she liked this. Liked him. More than liked him, if she was being perfectly honest with herself. She wanted him, all of him, everything he had to give. "Take your pants off."
Lucanis actually laughed, taken aback by the sudden command, but he seemed all too happy to oblige. He kicked off those silly Antivan boots of his, and Rook watched, biting her lip to hold back a grin. Giddyness threatened to burble up out of her throat as a fit of giggles. He was just so… Lucanis was handsome, gorgeous even; he made something ache deep inside of her with just a look.
Still kneeling on the sofa, she reached for him as he shed the last slip of cloth that laid between them. His cock bobbed, already flush and hard and Rook traced a finger along the ridge of his hipbone. She leaned in to kiss his stomach, inhale his scent, heady and masculine. He laid a hand against her cheek, and she wrapped her own around the length of him. The muscles in his stomach jumped at her touch, and he inhaled sharply.
For now, right there, he was all hers. The look on his face said so, the needful plea in his eyes, and the warmth she saw there. Rook stroked him once, twice, and then she took him into her mouth. He hissed a breath, his cock heavy on her tongue. The taste of him was slightly bitter, but she only wanted more.
"Mierda, Rook," he gasped, his hand moving to her hair, wrapping the length of it around his fist. She bobbed her head, taking as much of him as she could, pulling back, repeating. Stroking the base with her fist, again and again until he swore. He gripped her upper arms, lifting her until she was pressed against him, until he could kiss her once again. Holding her there as he moved, lowering himself to the sofa with her in his lap.
Perhaps he meant to hold her there for only a moment, but Rook had other plans. She wriggled out of his arms and shifted until she was stradling his thighs. The heat of him throbbed against her as she kissed him, cradling his head in her hands. She rolled her hips against him, and he groaned into her mouth, pushing up against her in response.
Without breaking their kiss, she reached between them, taking hold of him and rising up, guiding him into her. Maker, the feel of him, filling her up, stretching and soothing and—she rolled her hips again, taking him deeper, and again, she rose, fell, snapping her hips down, stroking him against that most sensitive spot inside of her.
"Rook," he gasped against her mouth. "Mirevas." His arms tightened around her, and he pressed his face into her throat. Rook cried out as he braced himself, and began thrusting upward, somehow striking at the perfect angle to make her vision blur.
Together, they moved, they made the sofa rattle against the shelf behind it, filling the chamber with their heavy breathing, with every sob and cry of passion they could draw from one another. Rook dug her fingers into his shoulders as he pushed her toward the edge yet again. He seemed to do it so easily, as if he could look straight into the depths of her and see just how to touch. How to move. Like their bodies had been made to fit together this way.
Rook felt her body begin to shudder and clench around him, and her mind went blank as heat sizzled through every limb, every nerve in her body. Lucanis wasn't far behind, rolling her to the side so she lay back against the sofa again, as he thrust urgently between her legs. All she could do was encourage him with plaintive little sighs, his movements igniting sweet little aftershocks in her core, until he finally shouted his own pleasure, pushing deep.
When he finally collapsed beside her, he threw an arm over his face, panting, chest heaving. Rook adjusted her body to face him, propped up on an elbow. After a moment he glanced at her, saw the catlike grin on her face, and he heaved a laugh.
"You look so pleased with yourself, cattivella," he said.
"Can't a girl take pride in a job well-done?" she asked.
Again, he laughed. She'd never heard him do it so often. "Don't I deserve any credit?" he asked.
"Hmm. I guess so," she sighed, tapping a finger against her lower lip. Then she grinned again, and Lucanis turned on his side, so that they were face to face. Saying nothing, he leaned in close to kiss her. Just the lightest touch of his lips against her own, and then he leaned back again, regarding her with those impossibly warm, brown eyes.
He had no right, being so pretty. Rook made a soft, disgruntled noise, and pushed herself up, drawing her legs in close.
"What in the world are you doing?" Lucanis asked, obviously amused.
"Move," she ordered, and he lifted himself up at her direction, until she was sitting upright. Then she drew him back down, so that his head and shoulders were laid across her lap. At his questioning look, she shrugged and said, "Just getting comfortable."
"Were you not comfortable before?"
"The leather was getting a little too warm, is all," she said. And she just wanted to be able to look at him—all of him. Every perfect contour of his body, laid out before her, sated and content.
"And you give me grief about my sleeping situation," he murmured. "You ought to have blankets. At least a sheet."
"Never got around to all that," she said. Easier to just walk in here and flop onto the sofa, asleep as soon as she shut her eyes most nights. There was a blanket in the wardrobe, a gift from a friend, but one of them would have to get up to get it. Although, it would be nice, the two of them curled up beneath a blanket, sharing the warmth of one-another's bodies.
This was nice, too, though. Lucanis settled himself against her lap, and she combed her fingers through his hair. Ran her nails along his scalp, teasing the silky strands apart, watching his expression go from contented to truly relaxed. Wondered if anyone had ever done this for him, if he'd ever gotten to lie alongside someone who loved him, or if it had always been over once it was over.
At least they had this moment, no matter what happened in the morning. Just the two of them together, safe, separated from everything else that had been pulling at them for all these months. All the demands and the duties, which felt so far away at the moment. The silence between them was restful, contented. Lucanis gazed up at her, expression languid, blinking slowly, like a cat in the lap of its chosen person.
Rook pressed her lips together, hiding a smile as his blinking grew heavier, until his eyes drifted shut. For a moment she held her tongue—she should let him sleep, but… It ought to be his choice. He always seemed so upset to wake up and realize Spite had been running wild through the Lighthouse.
"Are you falling asleep?" she asked.
Immediately, his eyes snapped open. His expression was almost offended as he shook off sleep's grasp. "No," he denied, pointedly. Then, with the faintest smirk. "I never sleep."
"It's all right if you do," she said, keeping her tone light. She wouldn't hold it against him, and she could handle Spite if he got rowdy. "Spite and I can play cards or something."
"Don't give him ideas," Lucanis said, propping himself up on an elbow across her lap. "If only one of us gets to be here with you, it's going to be me."
"I suppose I can't argue with that," Rook replied, warming again.
Lucanis reached up to stroke her jaw. "I'm not afraid of him," he said. "I just don't want to waste time now that you're here."
"You still have to sleep, sometimes," Rook said with a breath of laughter.
Widening his eyes, Lucanis shook his head. "With you here, like this?" he said, and his gaze wandered lower, becoming something more amorous, "I'd rather stay awake." His hand dropped to her hip, thumb moving, as though he couldn't bear to stop touching her.
Rook laid a hand on his chest, feeling the beat of his heart against her palm, the heat of his skin. "Stay awake all night?" she said, "However shall we pass the time?"
She had meant the words partly in jest, and partly as suggestion. Lucanis looked away from her again, though, brows drawing together. Contemplating.
"Could you… talk to me?" he asked, slowly meeting her gaze again. "Your voice is a comfort."
Not what she was used to hearing, which was that she was too loud, or didn't know when to shut her trap. Rook had to take a moment, to breathe in slowly, settle the rush of emotion that threatened again to take hold.
"I'll tell you the tale of a charming rogue, who stole the heart of a hapless hero," she said. She was no Varric, who had plied her ears with wild stories for an entire year. But she could manage something. For the man looking up at her like nothing else mattered.
He moved his hand to cover the one tracing idle patterns through his chest hair. Brought her hand to his mouth, kissed her fingers. "Rook," he said. "Tomorrow…"
"Hey," she said. "I came back last time, right? And Solas stuck me in a prison for gods. I'll come back from this, too. Not even gods can keep me away from you."
He smiled at that, her bold assertion. "They cannot even try, if I get to them first."
"Or if I do," Rook said.
"I do not doubt you could slay them both," Lucanis said. "You've already done something impossible. You're here. And tomorrow, you'll show Solas and Elgar'nan what happens when they trifle with you."
Rook laughed. "You make me sound invicible."
"You're more than that," Lucanis said. He kissed her hand again. "You've looked a god in the eye and spoken to him like the fool that he is. I cannot wait to see you put him in his place."
"He's not a god," Rook murmured. "Not really. We've seen that much." But she would have to deal with him regardless, and both of them were so much more powerful than anything else they had faced.
"I didn't thank you, did I? All of you," Rook said.
"For what?" Lucanis said, brows lifting.
"For finding me. I don't think… I wouldn't have found my way out of that prison without you," she said. "I might still be there now…"
Lucanis sat up, dragging her to him, wrapping her in his arms and pulling her down to lay beside him again. "You don't owe us any thanks, Mirevas," he said, pressing his lips into her hair. "All I could think about was finding you. I never would have stopped looking, even if it killed me."
Rook believed him, even if that wasn't what she would have wanted. But it hadn't come to that. She was here, in his arms. This was real. The feel of his skin and the warmth between them and the glow of the aquarium, the sweet ache between her legs from their lovemaking, the thudding of his heart. This was real, and tomorrow they were going to kill at least one god. And the rest… the rest was up to Solas, whether he agreed to back down, or not.
It was all so far away, though. Right there, right then, Rook could be Mirevas. She could close her eyes and fall asleep in the arms of the man she'd fallen in love with, despite everything conspiring to keep them apart. Everything else, well… everything else could wait its turn.
Tomorrow, she thought, as she cuddled closer to Lucanis. For now, she was all his.