"Okay," Cullen nodded, regretting he didn't have a step stool in place for him to stand on.
Lana smirked and slipped off the bench to land upon her feet. With one hand keeping his cock warm, she began to dip down to her knees when Cullen stopped her. She shot him a questioning look, but he had to fight through his mouth clogged with lust first to talk. "No, not that, I...I want inside you."
"Pretty sure that counts as..." she smiled, then eyed up the answer. Spinning in place, she gripped onto the bench, her beautiful ass hidden behind the dress bumping into him.
"You're a little bit short still," Cullen explained. Maybe if they put down a blanket or...
"Grab my legs," she instructed, bumping it into him and enflaming his erection even more.
"Um," he wasn't so certain about this, but Maker, he had to try. Tugging up her skirt, Cullen wrapped it tight around her waist and then knotted the ends together. His wife laughed at the ingenuity, until his hand skirted across her ass, as plump as ever. The moan huffed out of her lips as she tipped her head down to glance across the table. That was certainly promising.
Enjoying the leisurely pace, Cullen scooped his hands forward around her waist while Lana slid her legs further apart. She wanted him, begged for him. Taking care, he parted her inner lips and began to slide a finger inside when Cullen paused. There was some lubrication but nowhere near what he expected.
"Lana," he blinked, concerned that she was only pretending for his sake. "Do you wish to do this?"
"What?" she whipped her head over her shoulder. "Of blighted course I do! I...ah, right. I'm not very wet because," taking in a slow breath, she murmured as if it was a failing, "my body's still figuring itself back out after the birth and that hasn't flipped on yet."
"I don't want to hurt you," he muttered, a hand sliding against the crest of her ass.
Lana turned from her hold, cupping a palm to his cheek, "You never do." Kissing her, Cullen accepted that this would happen another day, when he tasted the veil splitting open. It wasn't much of a spell but as her hand slid up and down his cock, lubrication coated it.
"Grease spell," she laughed, "all the mages learn it, though boys seem far more interested for some reason."
Spinning back around, she gripped onto the table and spread her legs. Cullen ran his fingers over her hips, trying to catch his breath. He hadn't lifted her like this in some time. Always impatient, his wife bumped her ass against his cock. Greased up, it slid between her cheeks and Cullen could take no more. Digging in tight, he tugged her legs clean off the ground, taking almost all her weight in his arms. Working his hips back, Cullen guided his greased up cock down across her taint until the head brushed upon the perfection it yearned for.
He meant to go slow, to be gentle with the woman who only a few months prior expelled a baby, but the grease and his eagerness slid him deep into Lana. A groan erupted from her as she tossed her head back, Cullen freezing in place, until she gasped out, "More!"
Weaving with his wife in his arms, he began to thrust into her. Was it different? He couldn't entirely tell, the pressure mounting so fast with every pump of his hips Cullen could only slow himself down by hoisting Lana higher or lower. The gasping gave way to deeper panting, Lana's legs struggling to wrap around his back as she drew herself to match his thrusts.
It was all over when she did that. The aching drove him to thrust as hard as he could, each slip of him against her internal bumps and turns pushing him closer and closer to the edge until... "Blessed Maker, preserve me!" Cullen gasped, the orgasm burning from his aching balls up through his spine and beyond. He only kept a tight hold to Lana out of pure force of will, every ounce of strength in his body fleeing in an instant. The force struck so hard, he felt the urge to fall to his knees in praise of the woman who was chuckling at the mess dribbling down her thighs.
Tipping his hips back to disengage, and making even more of a mess in the process, he helped her legs back down. She was all smiles, unknotting her skirt so that it slipped back down to hide away her legs. Cullen kept a tight grip to himself to try and contain some of the mess as the final vestiges spurted free. Of course, his wife twisted around and threw her arms around him for a hug. She seemed to rarely care about the stains of sex, as if the spills were always the least of her concerns.
"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked, one hand curling along her back and reaching upward to play with her hair.
"My Honey eyes," she snickered, her own bottomless ones staring up into his. "It takes a lot more than that to hurt me."
"Lana..." he breathed, tucking her tighter to him in a hug. She was the fist of the Maker, a controlled fury to cleanse thedas of a blight. Hero to all and Savior as well. She was also fragile, haunted by demons of her own make, with a body that could fail same as his, same as anyone's. He never wanted to be the cause of it. Not even in Kinloch, not even as he ranted about purging the mages, not her. Not ever.
"What's the matter?" she asked, tucking the far too long curls back behind his ear. Another matter he needed to take care of but kept putting off to spend time beside the fire with his wife and son.
"I love you," Cullen sputtered, burying his face into the top of her head.
She chuckled at that, "Yes, I'm well aware, but I don't think that's a problem."
"It's...sometimes I forget how much I do, and then it hits me and," Maker's sake, he sounded like a babbling idiot, "I'm overwhelmed."
Her chin tipped to the side as if she was trying to diagnose and study him. "Cullen," she breathed his name, her warm fingers curling up against his cheek, "you deserve love."
That was it. He chuckled a bit even as a weight lifted off his chest. "How do you know me so well? How can you pluck thoughts from my mind without me even knowing them?" It was meant as a compliment but for a brief moment he saw the old wall, the old fears rise. Blood magic. No, he never...
Lana laughed too, the threat fading before it even began, "Six years of marriage gives me a bit of a head start in such matters. You care for your son."
"I do," he confessed, feeling even more stupid with every word.
"It will come, in time. Yours is a well guarded heart, always has been."
He sighed at her diagnosis, "If that were true then how did you slip in so quickly?"
Lana folded her arms behind his neck, her cheek nuzzling tight to his chest while he gripped around her waist. Below his fingers he could feel her bum just below the skirt. "A good decade for you to build up the courage to let someone in hardly counts as quick."
"I pray it doesn't take Gavin as long," he muttered.
"Oh, Honey eyes," she buried herself closer to him, trying to mop up his weeping heart with her own chest. "I love you, and perhaps when our son is talking, when he calls out for dada, you'll be able to love him back."
Cullen snorted at that idea. It would be nice, a simple cap on his failing as a father. You were little more than a lump of human skin until one day you smiled, asked for me, and I melted at the feet of my son. "Just," he whispered into her hair, unable to face Lana's quick gaze, "just promise you won't leave us. We need you."
Hooking her arms tighter to him, Lana said, "I swear I will do everything in my power to never go."
That was enough for him. The potion would be fixed, or at least another solution found. She wasn't going to have another...
Cullen tugged back and stared down at her, "You, do you have to um... I know the taint returned, but is there any danger of a second pregnancy occurring?"
She giggled at his serious face, her fingers smoothing up against the laugh lines to his cheeks. "Unlikely, courtesy of my milk, but I'll cast the flushing spell anyway. There's a bit of wiggle room timewise."
"Thank the Maker," he sighed. It was going to take him awhile to get into the habit, having gotten used to her tainted sterility.
"Here's hoping I remember how to do it," Lana mused, her fingers flickering in and out of the veil but not drawing anything forth. "Don't make that face, I haven
't needed it in a very, very long time."
"You ever did?" he asked surprised. As far as he knew she was tainted first then lost her virginity.
She blinked a moment, then shot a look over at him. "It's not worth getting into."
"Code for it involved..." Cullen sighed, doing his best to wipe the King's name from his vocabulary, "very well. It is dropped, as are my pants still. I should probably cinch them back up."
His wife didn't stagger back to allow him. No, she kept rubbing up and down his chest, savoring this moment. "It's a damn good thing the baby didn't suddenly throw a fuss while we were in the middle."
"Oh Andraste, just what I want to deal with on the regular. Horrified stares and snickers."
"Not as if they don't already warn each other," Lana shrugged her shoulder, drawing Cullen's attention. "You never heard them? Every new hire, the older ones give mention that if you should happen to catch the master and mistress of the place alone together...it's best to leave the room quickly and draw no mention to it."
"By the void," he growled, unable to escape the blush at so many people in his employ having any clue about his love life. It was personal, which was where it belonged. No one needed to know save Lana. And the fact that they created a child.
Maybe it wasn't so bad. To be that in love with a woman that people smiled knowingly and turned away. He chuckled, causing Lana to now stare a question at him. "It is a strange thing, to be the one warned about. I remember a few mages from the tower who carried the same."
"Maker's sake," she rolled her eyes, "like cats in heat. Your only hope to get past was spraying them in ice and even then it didn't always work."
There'd been a few known couples in Kinloch who bore a warning almost identical to a bottle of poison: avoid getting it in your eyes or ears at all costs. "I'd never thought myself that type. To be so wanted by someone so beautiful," Cullen whispered, his hands cupping her cheek, "that I can't keep my hands to myself while in company."
A hint of a blush bloomed upon her brown skin and she tugged his hand tighter, "Nor I. You bring out the best in me."
Leaning forward to kiss her, Cullen whispered, "I fear you're reading my mind again, Lana Amell."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
K.E.W.
18 weeks old...
Reiss was playing with Myra in the garden when Lunet appeared. While to every outside eye the elven woman looked calm and collected, Reiss caught a twitch in Lunet's jaw as she gazed around at the modest splendor of the palace grounds.
"I didn't expect to see you today, Lune," Reiss chuckled, rising away from her baby. Myra was trying to snag her fingers at a bright blue butterfly and having no luck. The creature, seeming to be aware that it couldn't be bested by an infant, kept landing just beyond her reach and once upon her head. That caused those vibrant green eyes to twist back and forth around the grass searching for her new friend.
"Reiss, I..." Lunet paced back and forth on her feet, a nervous stamping to her toe as she hammered out what almost sounded like an erratic code. "You busy?"
"Baby," she tipped her head down to her daughter, "but nothing else. We were going to meet two days from now to go over cases." Reiss tried to trail whatever was going on. Her friend only came up to the palace district when it was absolutely necessary. Some of it was due to an elf sticking out like a sore thumb, and some no doubt due to the sting of her ex. That was not a happy breakup; Lace Harding thinking that long distance could work, and her friend insisting it didn't have a chance. Lunet could be a stubborn pain in the ass about some things.
"Right," Lunet nodded her head, then nodded it a few more times, "right, I know. I only, Reiss, you have to come with me."
"Okay," she smiled. Myra cooed, a quick string of babble breaking from her as her tiny hands swept across the butterfly before it skittered back to the air. That was all she needed having won her game. Hefting her baby up off her butt into her arms, Reiss focused back on Lunet.
"Okay?" Lunet blinked. "You can just go whenever, wherever you like?"
"I ain't trapped in some tower like a maiden forced to spin gold, Lune. I'll leave a note for Alistair but it's not a problem. Myra here would love to see any and everything." She twisted her baby around, letting the girl giggle at her friend.
While Reiss expected smiles around this age, she hadn't anticipated how much her baby laughed. It seemed if Myra wasn't crying, or staring at something in surprise, she was laughing. More than a few people would pat Reiss on the shoulder and sigh about how damn much she was like her father.
Getting the wiggly baby safely locked in her arms, Reiss asked, "Where are we going, anyway?"
"To the agency," Lunet twisted her foot up and down before seeming to realize she was tapping out a harsh cadence.
"What for?" Reiss asked. "Don't tell me, Sylaise got into the ceiling and ripped apart all the insulation?" Lunet shook her head. "Jorel's been sleeping in the closet again? We knew his relationship with Qimat wouldn't last long, but Maker it shouldn't be this..."
"Just!" Lunet interrupted her, before her cheeks flashed deep red and her eyes darted around the garden, "come with me. I'll show you. It's something you got to see for yourself."
"All right, but you know you're acting really weird and creepy right now," Reiss said. "I'll have to get Myra's things, write a note to Alistair..."
"You said that already," Lunet muttered, her eyes trailing the few people milling around in the warm early spring air. She seemed to be sizing them all up as if they were about to attack.
Tipping her cheek down to her daughter, Reiss whispered, "You ready to go for a little trip? What are you staring at, Myra?" The baby's eyes honed on a flash of ebony wings perched upon the garden wall. Reiss watched the crow not hoping back and forth while waiting to pounce on food but staring intently towards them with its yellow eye. Great, more portent signs. Why not start raining while at it?
"Rat," Lunet whined, tugging her out of her fog. "Let's get going."
"Fine, right. I need to get Myra's hat and coat..." While walking back into the palace, Reiss listed off the piles of things she'd have to cram into a tiny bag just to leave the place for a few hours. Behind her the crow took to flight, its dark feathers scattering to the ground.
* * *
"See why I brought you," Lunet whispered, her eyes boring into the shattered glass. It crunched beneath Reiss' boot like brittle bones bleached in the sun. She shouldn't be pacing over it, not while holding her baby, but she couldn't stop. Crack, the same sound the brick made when it struck their window. Pop, the wind whistling in through the giant hole. Shatter, what she was going to do to whoever did this to her life.
Reiss hadn't said a word when they turned the corner to reveal the Solver Agency. The door was pried open by a crowbar, barely hanging on its shattered hinges the way a broken jaw would. Their window was shattered from an obvious hunk of rock stolen off a retainer wall down by the riverfront, the reddish hue evident, as the culprit was left to rot where it landed inside. More rocks, smaller ones, smashed into their sign until the name was almost unreadable. And in giant red letters painted over the front of the building were the words "Knife-Eared Whore".
"Well," Reiss flexed her jaw, "I'm impressed they knew knife begins with a k."
"Reiss..." Lunet reached over as if she was afraid her friend and fellow investigator was going to fall to her knees in agony. She shook it off and yanked on the broken door.
A growl greeted her, which she answered by turning back to Lunet and asking, "I assume Muse was with you overnight?" At his name, the dog fell out of attack mode and wiggled his stump of a tail. It was enough to catch Myra's attention, the baby clapping her hands and trying to reach down to the doggie.
There was glass everywhere, glittering tears reflecting Denerim's dingy sunlight while Muse sat perfect still in a desert Lunet must have cleared away for him. They did more than smash up the window and the sign. Tables were ransacked, desks tipped up against the walls. It looked as if a bron
to ran through doing its best to break everything it could.
"You doing okay?" Lunet asked.
Reiss ignored her as she walked through the destruction of three years of her life. Three years of sleepless nights, blood and sweat spent for the sake of helping, of saving the assholes who did this. As she stepped past the broken desk where Jorel and Kurt would argue, around Lunet's that they'd gouged more "Knife-Ear Whore's" into, Reiss took a breath to steady herself. It was only one, but she needed it before walking into her office.
The sword was gone, every case file they'd ever solved splattered against the wall as the thieves slid them off. Her work was smashed by what was probably blunt objects and... A sting struck her throat as she noticed the vase that held all of Alistair's flowers was shattered. A few bits of porcelain remained in place, the blue and white pattern crying out for vengeance.
It was a disaster. Everything they ever owned, everything that they created, everything that proved they were useful to this world destroyed, carved with filthy epithets, then shattered to finish them off.
Lunet dug her toe against the support pillar beside Reiss' office. At least they couldn't manage to break that thing or there'd be nothing to save. "Reiss," she whispered, her eyes staring down at the ground.
"Their first mistake was in taking the sword. That's easily traced, not many deal in gilded weaponry especially one bearing the Theirin crest. Did they get into my apartment?"
"No," Lunet shook her head, her dark eyes fading into the shadows of the unlit office. "Seems they weren't smart enough to figure that out."
"Good," Reiss nodded, one less problem for her to solve. "The others...?"
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