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Loghain went to Morrigan alone.
Hero had intended to escort him, to present him to the swamp witch, to take responsibility in this as in all things, but Loghain had declined. She had enough to worry about come the morning and needed whatever sleep she could find.
Morrigan waited, watching the fire with her back to the door, no doubt expecting the younger Warden to come with news of his answer. She didn't turn when he opened the door, a slight raise of her head the only indication she had heard it at all. It wasn't until he closed the door behind him that she looked back.
“Where is Hero?” She asked, her brows rising in curiosity.
Loghain took a deep breath, steadying himself. “I sent her to her own chambers to get some rest. She explained to me what you require.”
Morrigan turned, her arms crossed over her chest, expression returning to a calm neutral. “And you are agreeable?”
Agreeable. That was one way to put it. Did Loghain want to bed a girl half his age who was willing to do so only out of necessity? No. If the alternative was Hero's death? He found the former agreeable under those circumstances.
“I am,” he replied simply.
The woman's nod was stiff. “Very well. You should, uh, make yourself comfortable.” She gestured vaguely at the bed. She put on a good show, but Morrigan’s discomfort was clear in the sharp set of her shoulders and the slight quaver of uncertainty in her voice.
Loghain frowned. “Have you lain with a man before?” He asked, the thought never having occurred to him prior to that moment.
Morrigan's defensive scowl answered for her before her lips even parted. “No, I have not.” She raised her chin pridefully. “But I am not a child, unknowing in the ways of men. You need not concern yourself.”
Maker.
Loghain was not a letcher, he felt no arousal or carnal delight at the thought of deflowering any woman, but particularly not this one with whom he had developed a very nearly cordial accord. If it were not Hero Cousland’s life that hung in the balance he would have aborted the entire agreement. But it was, and so he did not move.
If he was to do this, it would not be taken lightly.
“My concern is not for your lack of education,” he clarified.
Morrigan's smile was bitter and forced. “I have experienced pain before. You need not concern yourself with that either.”
Loghain grimaced. “I will not ravage you like some callous beast. You deserve more regard than that.”
“Do you intend to make love to me, then?” She asked, her voice and expression dripping with sarcasm. “Whisper sweet nothings in my ear as you have me?”
He should have expected cynicism from her, it was her usual way of handling things in his experience. But this was no light matter, not for him. “I do not wish to do this. You do not wish to do this. If we must, and it seems we do, then I would prefer it be done… respectfully.”
“I would prefer it be done quickly, but have it your way.” She crossed her arms again. “How would you suggest we begin?”
It had been years since Loghain had been with a woman. He was not Maric, seeking pleasure in whatever pretty port would have him. After his wife's death he had never sought another, nor any supple body to fill his bed. Even so, he remembered enough.
“Disrobing would be a good first step,” Loghain offered.
Morrigan shrugged. “As good as any.”
Loghain turned away as she began to undress. It occurred to him that attempting to preserve her modesty was a ludicrous notion given what they were there to do, so he covered the movement by going to the various candelabra around the room and extinguishing the tapers. When the room was illuminated by the hearth fire alone he removed his shirt, tossing it aside.
A hum from behind him caught his attention and he glanced back to where Morrigan stood. She wore only her smalls, her arms crossed over her breasts, her eyes lingering on his bare chest.
“I take it you wish me upon the bed?” She asked, her gaze snapping to his face.
Loghain consciously focused on her eyes. “Yes, that would be best,” he confirmed, then turned his attention to his boots. He did his best not to think about her as he removed one, then the other, setting them beside each other. His hands fumbled with the ties of his trousers, nerves and discomfort making him clumsy. It was too late to back out, too important to be a coward when this act could be the difference between life and death. Loghain would have been happy to take the final blow, to be the sacrifice the death of the archdemon required, but such a thing could not be assured. If he fell before the final push, if he failed to slay the beast, it would fall to Hero. He would not be the reason she died. Not after everything he had taken from her already. Not if he could do anything to prevent it.
He kicked the leather trousers from his legs, leaving them in a heap beside his boots and shirt, then turned to face the bed.
Morrigan still looked uncomfortable, laying back against the pillows, arms still crossed over her breasts, but her expression was not the scowl he had expected. It was difficult to tell in the low light, but she appeared to be watching him with more than distaste in her eyes.
Loghain crossed the room, taking another deep breath in an attempt to quell the cacophonous pounding of his heart. It did not work.
He sat on the edge of the bed. “May I touch you?” He asked, voice uncharacteristically gentle.
Morrigan scoffed. “I rather think you'll have to eventually.”
Laying his hand against the warm skin of her pale bare thigh, Loghain could feel her shuddering under his touch. She was more nervous than she let on, than she wanted to admit. Morrigan was a woman who kept her weaknesses close, revealing as little as possible to protect herself from those who would use them to do her harm. Understandable, perhaps, but it would make what they had to do more difficult and less pleasant for both of them, especially her.
Loghain rubbed his palm up her thigh to her waist, then up her ribs until his thumb brushed against the side of her breast. Morrigan tensed under his hand, then reluctantly moved her arms.
“We do not have to do this,” Loghain told her. It was true that this ritual might save Hero's life, but it was Morrigan's right to refuse him.
Morrigan swallowed, her breathing as shaky as her limbs. “We do. It is what must be done”
Loghain nodded his understanding. She was resolute, as was he, both driven by forces outside of themselves, driven by their love for another whose sacrifice was worth much more than what this would cost.
His thumb brushed over her nipple and Morrigan inhaled sharply, then exhaled slowly as he did it again more purposefully. He turned his body up into one knee, bringing up his second hand to cup both her breasts in his palms, his calloused thumbs working over the sensitive skin of her nipples until they pebbled under his touch. Morrigan's lips were pressed firmly together, keeping back any sounds that his touch might have elicited, but he felt the way her back arched slightly into his touch, how the muscles in her arms flexed, and how she tugged at the blankets. He tried not to think of another young woman, one many years gone, lying beneath him and shuddering as he touched her. Those memories did not belong here. Morrigan deserved better than being a surrogate for anyone.
Leaning over her, Loghain lowered his head to Morrigan's chest, taking one nipple between his lips. She gasped, then her lips clamped back together, cutting off the sound. It was as if she was fighting against any pleasure he might give her, refusing to let it slip between her lips, as if that might make the duty more bearable. As much as Loghain would have preferred to have it done quickly, he was not going to roughly snatch away her maidenhead, force himself on her unyielding body regardless of the pain it might cause. Loghain was many things, but he refused to be that sort of man.
His mouth taking the place of one of his hands at her breasts, he moved his now free hand back down her ribs and over her hip, the slight drag of his fingers against her skin telegraphing his movements so it would not startle her. When he touched her, it was through her smalls, a gentle but firm press of fingers that forced another gasp to break between her lips.
Her hands, which before had been pressed firmly against the mattress at her sides, were on his head, fingers winding into his hair. She tugged him back from her breast and Loghain immediately stopped touching her, both his hands pulling away. If she wished for him to stop, he would without question. Instead of pushing him back from her, however, Morrigan's hands in his hair dragged his mouth to meet hers, kissing him fiercely as her knees fell further apart for him.
She tasted like rain and growing things and the first breath of crisp morning air on a spring day. It was not a kiss of necessity; their intercourse required no such intimacy, and even if it had the desperate nature of her instant press of lips spoke to something more than requirement. She kissed him because she wanted to, because the touch of his hands had awoken some need within her.
Loghain doubted it was for him, that some light heavy petting had made her want him specifically, but some deep desire to be held, to be wanted, to be pleasured. It felt like a lonely desperation Loghain recognized because he felt it himself. Like Morrigan, Loghain also kept his weaknesses close; he did not allow them to rule him. Longing for closeness, for the touch of another in any way, was a weakness and not to be indulged. So you swallowed it, you held it down and let it fester in your heart so no one would know or suspect that you were human enough to desire such a thing. Until, of course, something forced it out.
He returned her kiss, his fingers slipping under her smalls as her tongue pressed into his mouth. She shuddered, her grip on his hair tightening as she made a small, approving sound. When he rubbed the calloused pads of his fingers over her clit, Morrigan moaned into his mouth, biting his lip, her hips arching up into his touch. He messaged her breast, feeling her grow more and more wet as he toyed with her clit. Her breathing was erratic and peppered with whines and moans, all of them muffled by his mouth against hers.
Morrigan clung to him, her body twitching with every pass of his fingers. She was wet, but arousal alone did not mean her body was ready. Loghain pulled back from her kiss, shrugging off the dig of her nails on his scalp which tried to hold him in place, pressing his lips instead to her chest between her breasts. Her needy whine was cut off as Morrigan bit her lip, her hands sharply tugging at his hair as he moved lower, his hand moving from her breast to tug at her smalls. That finally dislodged her hands from his hair and Loghain was able to sit back, removing his hands from her body. He tried not to look at her flushed face, the sweat dampening her dark hair, or her heaving chest, instead focusing on sliding her smalls down her legs. Morrigan shivered as the last speck of clothing she wore was removed, watching Loghain with dark eyes as he tossed them aside and adjusted her legs to kneel between them.
Loghain didn't meet her gaze. He didn't want to see what they might hold.
He lowered his head between her thighs and Morrigan gasped, her hands plunging once again into his hair as his tongue delved between her folds. She tried to keep back her moans, the sounds strangled in her throat or hissing through clenched teeth. When Loghain pushed a single finger inside her tight body she pulled one hand back to shove between her lips like a gag, the other clenched in his hair.
She was so tight, too tight for him to have taken her without this preparation. Loghain worked his finger inside her as he sucked at her clit, slowly loosening her body enough for a second finger to join the first. He heard her breathing rush, her body trembling as he stretched her walls, then she choked on a cry as she came, back arching off the bed and her grip pulling his hair hard enough that he grunted from the sharp pain of it. Her walls convulsed around his fingers and Loghain felt his length, already hard, strain against his smalls uncomfortably.
Loghain sat back slightly, fingers still inside her, and took several staggered breaths, feeling her body relax. He allowed a glance at her face during the reprieve, but her head was tossed back among the pillows as she struggled to breathe normally, her tooth-marked wrist lying limply across her breasts.
She was beautiful. He could not deny that. Somehow, however, that made it worse. He should not have been the one giving her these pleasures, he should not have been seeing her like this. Life was rarely fair, but in certain moments, the injustice of circumstance was painfully sharp.
He pushed a third finger inside her, watched her back arch up again, then he cast his eyes away from her gasping face, focusing on pleasuring her with his lips and tongue, fingers pumping inside her, bringing her racing to a second release, another cry, this one unmuffled my lips or hand, as it crashed over her.
Morrigan was reaching for him, limply tugging at his hair, her second hand shakily held up in a breathless entreaty; and Loghain could not refuse her. Sliding his slick fingers free of her body, he leaned over her, allowing Morrigan to pull him down to her, their lips crashing together. One of his hands was in her hair, the tie that had held it lost, her dark, sweat-curled locks wrapping around his fingers as she thrust her tongue between his parted lips. With his other hand, Loghain freed his aching length from his smalls and guided his tip to her entrance, then her fingernails bit into the flesh of his back as he pushed himself inside her.
Loghain gasped, the sound captured by Morrigan's mouth. She still felt tight around him, but yielding, her walls confirming to accept his girth. He had forgotten the exact feel of a woman's body, the way the clenching heat of her made the hair on his body stand on end, the way it felt like drowning in pleasure. A hungry, animalistic part of him wanted to do just what he had sworn he wouldn't, to ravish her, slamming himself deep and hard until she screamed, but Loghain held it in check, suckling at her tongue and slowly working his hips forward and back, easing himself deep inside her.
“Yes!” Morrigan's moans at last coalesced into speech. “Gods, yes!”
Groaning, Loghain buried his face into her neck, sucking at her pale skin as he fought to not lose himself in the feeling of her body, the sound of her pleasured moans. He was a warrior, a commander, a grey warden, not a beast with no semblance of control of his faculties—but Maker the way she whined and moaned, the drag of her nails against his back, and her walls fluttering around his thrusting length. With a low moan, Loghain allowed himself to move faster, the rhythm of his hips striking hers picking up speed. Morrigan dragged his mouth back to hers, her hips rising to meet his thrusts, back arching at each apex of their bodies’ convergence.
She wanted him, and by the Maker, that did something to a man.
He pushed the hair back from her face, looking into her eyes as he pressed faster and faster, thrusting with the stamina of a younger man, chasing the aching isolation away with the feel and the sight and the sound of her. He forgot about the Blight, and Hero, and Celia; he even let himself forget Rowan, submerging himself completely in that moment. Morrigan met his gaze, her eyelids fluttering with every thrust, then her back arched and she cried out, her body clenching tightly around him, and it stole the breath from Loghain's lungs. He felt his release chasing the heels of hers, and he kissed her savagely, his hips slamming forward, burying him deep before, with a choked moan, he came. He filled her, felt his seed stretching her already limber walls to the brink, and a pair of staggered, uncontrolled thrusts forced his release even deeper inside of her. Morrigan gasped for air, clinging to his shoulders like she might be swept away, carried off in the tide of his release.
Then everything was still.
Loghain's arms ached, but he didn't allow himself to collapse onto Morrigan's chest, his arms trembling with effort as he focused on breathing, on recouping enough to move. Morrigan, below him, raised her head, her hands sliding once again into his hair, and pressed her lips to his.
“Thank you,” she murmured breathlessly.
Guilt, shame, chased away by the sex returned in a wash, and Loghain nodded his head, his forehead brushing hers. What did she have to thank him for? It should not have been him. Perhaps if Hero had let him die, executed him like she tightly should have, it would be the Bastard here with Morrigan. A fool yes, but young and handsome and someone she knew, trusted; not an old man who had once tried to kill all of them.
His lungs still burned, but Loghain ignored it, carefully lifting himself off of her, wincing as the removal of his flaccid length from her body made her shudder. He sat up on the side of the bed, as he had when they had started, and looked at the fire. “I am sorry.”
Morrigan rose onto her elbows. “You did only what was asked, and with much more care than I had expected.” She put one hand on his arm. “Truly, my thanks was not lightly given.”
Loghain nodded, but he could not look at her. “Did it work?”
“It did. Even now the carefully woven spell works within me.”
He did look at her then, at her hand placed up on her belly, at her dark eyes watching him with interest. He looked back at his hands. “It falls to us then. To finish it.” It was now like any other battle, ensuring that they lived long enough to strike the final blow against the archdemon, then the life within Morrigan which he had sired, would ensure its destruction.
“As it always has,” she agreed.
Duty done, Loghain felt it would be prudent for him to leave, to allow Morrigan to be alone, to not force his company upon her any more than he already had. But he didn't want to be alone, shameful as that was.
“Can I… is there anything I can do for you?”
Morrigan's head tilted to one side. “Meaning?”
He sighed. “Something to drink, assistance in…” he raised one hand in a vague gesture. “cleaning up. Anything.”
“Loghain, look at me.”
He did not want to, but how could he refuse? She had sat up fully, her eyes clear, her expression open and unpinched by anger or discomfort, her hair fanned out around her pale shoulders. What had passed between them had erased the unsurity she had displayed upon his arrival, while only increasing his own.
“I am glad, truly, that it was you to whom this task fell,” she told him, not a shred or a shadow of pity or sarcasm tainting her voice.
Loghain exhaled a bitter laugh. “You were not left much choice.”
She raised a brow. “You think I would have preferred to lay with Alistair? After what he did to Hero? You think I would want such a man to be the father of my child?”
Loghain was relieved to know his distaste for the Bastard's behavior was shared by others close to Hero, that they saw him for the heartless coward that he was, but her last words made Loghain turn from her and gaze once again into the fire. Child. It was one thing to conceptually understand that the point of their copulation was to create life within her womb, it was quite another to reckon with the idea that it would be born and grow into a child. His child.
“I rather think many would prefer such,” he said softly.
“I am not one of them,” Morrigan responded firmly.
She sounded sure. He nodded.
“You need not worry,” she added after a pause. “I have no wish to saddle you with burden. The child will be my responsibility. Your part of this ends here.”
Loghain looked at her again. “And if that is not what I wish?”
Her brows depressed. “It is not your choice.”
He wanted to argue with her, insist that he had a right to this child, to know them, to read them, but he bit his tongue. What right had he to make demands of her? Instead, he stood and went to retrieve his discarded clothing.
For a few heartbeats, Morrigan watched him in silence. He could feel her eyes on his back as he picked up his trousers and began to don them. Loghain could not fathom what she was thinking, what words perhaps pressed at her lips, if any. Perhaps she simply wished him gone. A logical desire.
“You are free to stay,” she offered, the harshness gone from her voice. “You need not slink from my chambers in the night. There is certainly room enough for both of us here.”
He paused, a single leg enrobed in leather, and looked back at her. The discomfort had returned to the tilt of her shoulders and the shape of her lips. “I do not wish to impose upon you any further than I already have.”
“It would not be an imposition,” she clarified. “I… would prefer you not go.”
There was once again a familiar echo in her request, the desire not necessarily for him, but for a chance to chase away a loneliness she was too proud to admit.
He dropped the trousers, stepping back out of them. “Then I will stay.”
Morrigan nodded, adjusting herself and the blankets of the bed so she lay underneath them, leaving enough room for him to do the same. It may have been a mistake, a foolish sentimental act of a man as proud and as lonely as she, but he did, lying on his back beside her under the soiled blankets. They did not come together, no comforting holding of the other in the dark, both of them content to leave a channel of empty space between their prone bodies, but Morrigan reached out a single hand, laying it atop his where it lay beside him.
“Thank you,” she breathed, not looking at him.
Loghain turned his hand over, gently closing his fingers over her smaller, softer hand. “Thank you,” he echoed.
He closed his eyes, his breathing leveling out. Neither of them were in a hurry to take their hands back; both of them content to simply be acknowledged by the other with that simple touch.
Alone together, on the eve of battle.