Chapter Text
“Cullen leave us,” Rachel said sternly, her eyes not leaving the dying tranquil.
“Inquisitor?” Cullen stammered, shocked by the statement.
“That is an order Commander.” She replied simply. When he was gone she kneeled down beside the dying man. “Maddox please, I want to help Samson, I want to help your friend. I can’t do that without you, tell me where the antidote is. We will patch you up and then we’ll help Samson.”
“You will kill him” The tranquil replied, his tone void of all emotion.
“I will not. I will show him mercy, far more than the Elder One will. Corepheyus will kill him for certain, either with the red Lyrium or with his own hands. I will spare Samson’s life, he will not come to harm under me, I swear it to you.”
“I will not betray my friend”
“No, you will save him” she replied, her hand gentle on his shoulder, eyes never leaving his.
“The far desk in the right corner. Second drawer down has a false bottom. The yellow vial.” Maddox replied at last. Rachel rushed over, found the liquid and poured it down the man’s throat. He revealed Samson’s plans and whereabouts before he seized and lost consciousness. The Inquisition descended upon and captured Samson a week later, returning with him to Skyhold. The Inquisitor had been delayed in her return from the area they had captured him in and when she returned it was to the chastisement of Maddox. “You said you would show him mercy. You said he would not come to harm. You have lied. You are not helping him”.
She didn’t even need to ask whom he was talking about “When is he?”
“The dungeons”
The Maker couldn’t have moved her faster if he’d given her wings. She was furious; she’d given specific instructions on how the former Templar was to be treated. When she reached the dungeons there was nobody on duty and the door opened with ease. She saw why immediately. In the far cell Samson lay shivering in a pile of his own vomit. Lyrium withdrawal alone was brutal, but this was inhumane. Rachel let out a roar for the guards but nobody came. She grabbed a nearby rock and wailed away on his cell door’s lock until it cracked and swung open. He looked up weakly from his spot on the ground; a ghost of the fierce warrior she’d fought two weeks ago. She was hoisting the man up, supporting his frame at the waist and helping him to walk when the guards came in. They stood attention upon recognizing her “Inquisitor” they stuttered.
“Get Lyrium, 6 vials and bring them to my chambers.” When the recruits hesitated she snapped at them and sent them running for the mage’s storerooms.
Rachel didn’t go through the main hall; she took the back stair to her chambers and settled him on the couch. “Are you sure you want a dirty smelly prisoner on your furniture?” he asked sarcastically fighting the painful shaking in his limbs and voice. She ignored the question and yanked the down comforter off of her bed and wrapped it around his feverish body. Boots came pounding up the stairs as the recruits came with half a dozen vials of blue Lyrium. “Give me one,” she said holding out her hand “put the others on the desk and leave. Don’t let anyone up here, I am not to be disturbed under any circumstances.” When they didn’t move she glared. That got them going. Samson would have laughed if he could have focused on anything but the vial of Lyrium in her hand. As soon as the door shut she uncapped it and tilted his head back. Carefully she let the blue liquid slide into his mouth, down his throat at just the right pace. Not fast enough to choke him, not so slow that it was torture.
Samson shuddered as he felt it spread through his body easing the nausea and piercing in his skull. He felt his eyelids grow heavy and sleep come upon him. The next time he woke the light outside the windows was fading. The room he was in smelled like fresh mountains cold air. He looked over and saw her, painted in sunset pinks and Lyrium blue she looked like an angel from a fever dream. She padded over to him with another vial and this time gave him only half, enough for him to regain his senses. She uncovered him and he shivered when the chilled air of the room hit his sweat soaked skin. He was still unsteady on his feet and though he wouldn’t admit to it he was grateful for the stability she offered. The room spun as she led him up some stairs. At the top there was a large tub filled with steaming water. “You’ll feel better if you’re clean she stated simply” and guided him so that he was sitting on the edge of it. Pulled his shirt over his head and didn’t gawk or comment on his scars, but he noticed the way she wetted her lips just a little before she looked away. He smirked just a little, this girl was supposed to be holy, a sweet, pure little thing, but she looked a little guilty as she folded his shirt and placed it on the ground. Then she kneeled, and all sense he’d had before vanished. It was a heady sensation, seeing her kneeling before him. He felt her working the laces of his boot before pulling it off, left foot first then the right. She looked up then, her face unreadable, as she paused for a moment before speaking “Stand up”. Samson gripped her shoulder, pretending to steady himself as he took to his feet. Really he just wanted to loom over her, to have a good view of her and her next actions. Her hands, pale, strong but somehow still gentle undid the laces of his breeches and pulled them down over his hips, snagging his smallclothes with her fingertips and pulling them down his legs with the filthy breeches. His skin was stained and mottled with dirt, blood and fuck if knew what else. Yet she didn’t cringe away, he stepped slowly out of the pile of dirty rags and for a moment considered grabbing the back of her neck and forcing his half hard cock into her mouth and throat fucking the bitch until she blacked out. But then she stood suddenly and offered to help him get in the tub. He shook the thought from his mind and accepted the offered hand while he lowered himself into the hot water. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a hot bath. Maybe Kirkwall? The water soothed the soreness from his arms and legs. He heard her rummaging for something and turned to look at her. She was turned away from him and he found his gaze lingering on her backside. He remembered when they had fought initially; he’d been testing her skills. She’d been terrible, all sloppy footwork and inaccurate swings but damn it she was fast. She wasn’t hell bent on killing him either, and once she’d gotten behind him and swatted his ass with the flat of her sword. It was a taunt, a gesture to let him know that unskilled as she was she still could have had him. Now he was the one behind her and he wanted to reach over and return the gesture. Instead he settled for leering at her as she turned around, arms full with towels, soap and washcloths.
She was scrubbing sick out of his hair with an earthy smelling soap when she spoke next “I’m sorry.” The apology was broad and confused him for a moment before she clarified. “I meant to return with you, to ensure that you were properly seen to. You weren’t meant to suffer here.” There was something heavy in her voice, was it guilt?
“Oh? I take it things didn’t go to plan?” He asked as she rinsed the suds from his dark hair. She didn’t respond and he prodded “well? What happened girl?”
“Red Templar ambush. Arrow caught me in the shoulder, I was down for a week.” She said wringing out the water from his hair and drying it with a towel. She moved to rise but Samson, much of his awareness restored snaked up grabbed the back of her neck with one hand and clamped the other one over her mouth to keep her from screaming and yanked her off balance and forward until she was face to face with him. His death grip on her neck and face the only thing from keeping her out of the water.
“I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to answer them. You scream I’ll put your face underwater and drown you” his voice was a low growl, “You understand me pretty thing?” She shivered and Samson grinned, “You like that don’t you,” he purred, the hand over her mouth dropping to her throat “You like being threatened. Being shown that someone else can take everything from you in a second.” He tightened his grip on her throat just enough to make her panic and release one side of the tub to try and loosen the hold. He shifted slightly so that when he did loosen her hand couldn’t find the edge again and she was forced to rest her wayward hand on him. He couldn’t stop the shudder that ripped through his body when her hand, soft and warm alighted on his damp chest hair. He instinctively pulled her closer to him “Who told you where to find us?”
“I promised Maddox that if he told me where to find you I would help you. That I wouldn’t kill you,” she said, her hair and skin smelled like a heady blend of mountain air, lavender and vanilla. “I did it as much to save you as I did to save him. He’d poisoned himself to protect you.”
Samson shook his head and looked away from her gaze “The bloody fool I told him not to.” Then looking back at her angrily “So you lied to a tranquil, just like everyone else.”
Rachel shook her head “I meant every word, I still do. I want to help, you, Maddox, and any Red Templars that can still be helped. You don’t have to fight and die for Corephyus.”
“So what we fight and die for the Inquisition instead” he sneered at her pulling her closer, he could see flecks of gold and brown in her green eyes she was so near.
“You fight and die for nobody. People make mistakes, Templars are trained from youth to follow orders and sometimes those orders are bad, or lead to bad places.” Rachel said quietly. Samson wondered if she realized her hand was stroking his chest hair, he didn’t care, it felt good. “You made a Tranquil man feel something” her voice held nothing back “You gave hopeless men something to fight for, you gave the lost a path, even if the destination wasn’t Rivane. I’m not asking you or your men to die under my banner; I’m asking you not to die at all. Let me help, let me at least try.” Try. It was more than anyone else had wanted to do for him in a long time. It was more than he’d wanted for himself. “Please”.
The simple word was too much. His cock was already hard under hot water; and the way she whispered the word in that husky voice, somewhere between begging and demanding, threw him over the edge. He pulled her into a bruising, frustrated kiss. It was sloppy, angry and when she didn’t immediately return it he shifted his grip and pressed his thumb into the joint of her haw forcing it open so he could invade her mouth. When his tongue touched hers she stiffened and he prepared to hold on if she tried to pull away. He wouldn’t go too far but he just couldn’t let go yet. She tasted so sweet, like summer. She didn’t pull away though. As if she suddenly realized what was happening she came to life, responded to him. Her other arm abandoned trying to steady her against the other side of the tub and wrapped across the back of his shoulders. She pressed into the kiss and he let his hand slide from the back of her neck down. Down the middle of her back tracing her spine, all the way to her ass, which he gripped hard. Rachel moaned into the kiss, Samson pulled a little harder and her fully clothed body slipped into the hot water on top of him. She didn’t struggle, didn’t fuss just slid her hands into his hair and changed the angle that her mouth slanted over his. Samson slipped his calloused hands up underneath her shirt, gripping the edges of the soaked material and with some maneuvering managed to pull it up to her shoulders. He broke the kiss then to strip the garment from her body and toss it to places unknown where it landed with a wet slapping sound, closely followed by her breast band.
The cool air lapped her breasts and hardened her nipples and Rachel was suddenly all too aware that he was staring at her. She knew she was a hell of a sight. Covered in cuts, scars and bruises. She wasn’t slender like other women around Skyhold; she was thick cut from a combination of muscle and good food her breasts and belly too large for her tiny height. She was suddenly self conscious and wrapped an arm around her breasts and another as much of her body as she could manage and looked away, her face turning what she was sure was a horrible shade of scarlet. She shut her eyes tight and waited for him to start laughing.
Samson kept staring, but what he saw was quite different than what she did. Her body held scars the way pages in a book held words. And he was good at reading scars. A single jagged line from shoulder to shoulder? Templar move, used to cut a mage’s staff in half, she must have taken it protecting one. The large grouping of holes on her right shoulder? Arrows, a combination of smooth and rough outlines meant crossbow bolts and standard, multiple fights most likely. The two thin scars on her side; just out of reach of her arm? Those were from a long, thin dagger, likely an assassination attempt. Judging by the placement the first would have sliced clean through a lung, the second through her kidney. He reached out and took hold of her wrists and pulled her arms away from her body. His jaw tightened when he saw it. Long and wide, paled from time, from her clavicle to her left hip, a long continuous scar. That was one he knew well. It was another Templar move, a killing blow; used on resisting apostates, maleficar and mages who failed their harrowing. It was almost always fatal and was never used on non-mages unless they were fighting for the mage. Her eyes were still tightly shut, her cheeks a devastating, glow of pink that extended down her neck. He could feel her shaking, and placed both his hands on her back and drew her, chest first to him and devoured one of her plump breasts. The shock of the sudden sensation forced a breathy squeak from her and she pressed her fingertips into his taught shoulders he grinned wickedly against the pliant flesh and rolled the sensitive peaked between his tongue and teeth. He felt her arch into him, shifting restlessly against him. He slipped one hand up to the other breast and teased it, pinching and rolling the nipple with his thumb and forefinger. He pulled away from her chest to smirk at her “Look at you” he said, lazily leaning backwards and tracing the outline of a nipple with his forefinger “the holy Herald of Andraste, whimpering and moaning under the touch of a sworn enemy.”
“I’m not” she shuddered as a fingernail scraped lightly over the sensitive tip “Don’t call me-“ she cut herself off with low moan and gave up trying to converse.
He chuckled at how undone she was and laid a few more lazy kisses along her mouth and jaw. “Get up” up he, said finally “We’re taking this somewhere less damp”. She was the one who needed help now, her flushed cheeks and passion-dizzied head throwing her slightly off balance. Samson wrapped one of the soft towels around his hips and stared at the Inquisitor “Well? Are you just going to stand there all night in soaked pants and smalls? Strip you silly girl, you’re already mostly there”. His voice was gruff, impatient. His baser nature looked at her now with her clinging pants and bare chest and wanted nothing more than to bend her over the nearest flat surface and fuck her raw. It had been so long since he’d wanted a particular woman, and not simply satisfaction. He wanted to slam his name out of her mouth in gasps and screams. He wanted to force himself into every part of her, consume her, and know her. Know every line, every inch of skin, and every mewling sound that came out of that throat. He couldn’t take anymore waiting and started toward her just as she reached for the laces of her pants. That is when he saw her hands shaking. He placed his own upon them, his were hot and hers were cold. He wanted to tear her apart, but instead he kissed her forehead. “Meet me on that couch of yours when you’re done” he whispered in her ear, his voice full of dark promise “you won’t regret it”. Then he was gone and Rachel stood there, shivering in the cool air of her tower room.