Chapter 21: Bella's breath catches as she takes in Daylen's powerful body—every muscle defined, his arousal undeniable. Morrigan traces a finger down Bella's arm, whispering, 'He's quite... thorough. Would you like to experience it yourself?' Daylen's deep chuckle fills the room as Bella hesitates, torn between duty and desire.
The knock at the door was a timid, clumsy sound, like a bird bumping against a windowpane.
Inside the rented room, the world was reduced to the scent of spent candle wax, woodsmoke from the tavern below, and the sharp, musky perfume of sex. The fire had burned low, painting the walls in undulating orange and black. Daylen lay on his back on the lumpy mattress, the rough wool blanket bunched at his waist, the chill air a pleasant contrast against his overheated skin. Morrigan was a pale, gleaming shape against the darkness, straddling him, her back arched as she rode the last gentle aftershocks. A sheen of sweat made her skin glow. Her head was thrown back, the line of her throat taut.
The knock came again, slightly louder.
Morrigan went still, a predator catching a new scent. Her golden eyes, heavy-lidded and sated a moment before, snapped open, sharp and aware. She turned her head toward the door, her dark hair sliding over her shoulder.
Daylen, his breathing still ragged, frowned. “Ignore it.”
“They will not go away,” she whispered, her voice a low, satisfied rasp. She shifted, and he felt her inner muscles flutter around him, making him groan softly. A wicked smile touched her lips. “They are persistent.”
“Daylen?” came a voice from the other side of the door. Bella’s voice, strained and tentative. “I… I brought more towels. For the bath you asked for earlier. The water’s… gone a bit cold, but it’s still there if you…”
Her words trailed off into the thick silence of the room.
Morrigan’s smile widened. She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, her face inches from his. “The charming innkeeper,” she breathed, her tone playful and merciless. “Come to tend to her heroic Warden.”
Before Daylen could respond—to tell her to stop, to tell her to answer, he wasn’t sure—she moved. With a fluid, unconcerned grace, she lifted herself off of him, the loss of contact a sudden chill. She didn’t reach for her discarded robes. Instead, she walked naked to the door, her bare feet silent on the floorboards, her posture as regal as if she were clothed in silks.
Daylen pushed himself up on his elbows, a protest dying in his throat as he watched her turn the latch.
The door swung inward.
Bella stood there, arms laden with folded linen towels, her face lined with the day’s worries. Her eyes, which had been fixed on a spot on the floor, travelled up. They took in Morrigan’s nakedness, the flush on her skin, the messy disarray of her hair. They flickered past her into the room, landing on Daylen, shirtless and tousled on the bed, the evidence of their activities still starkly visible on him.
All color drained from Bella’s face, then rushed back in a violent, mortified crimson. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. The towels seemed to grow impossibly heavy in her arms.
Morrigan leaned against the doorframe, one arm raised above her head, a study in languid indifference. “Apologies,” she said, her voice smooth as oiled leather. “We were… occupied.”
Bella’s gaze was stuck, wide and horrified, on Daylen. He saw the exact moment her understanding clicked into place. It wasn’t just the naked woman; it was the intimacy of the scene, the heat still radiating from the room, the sheer normalcy of it amidst the village’s deathly panic. A small, choked noise escaped her.
“I… the water…” she stammered, her eyes finally wrenching away, fixing on a knot in the wooden wall beside the door. “It’s… never mind. Sorry. I’m so sorry.” She shuffled backward, her boots scraping on the hallway floorboards.
“Leave the towels,” Morrigan said, not unkindly, but with a finality that brooked no argument. “We may have use for them yet.”
Bella fumbled the towels into Morrigan’s waiting arms, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. “Right. Of course.” She couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, her gaze bouncing from the floor to the wall to the ceiling.
“A kind thought,” Morrigan continued, shifting the linen stack slightly. “Bringing comforts to the hero of the hour. Though, truly, the chill of the bathwater is the last thing on his mind at present.” She let her eyes drift back toward the bed, a slow, deliberate slide. “Isn’t that so, my dear?”
From the mattress, Daylen let out a low chuckle, running a hand over his shaved head. He made no move to cover up. “Something like that.”
The casual intimacy of it, the sheer normalcy in his tone, seemed to flay Bella raw. She hugged her arms around herself, though the hallway was warm. “I should… the barricades. Murdock will need…”
“He knows where to find you,” Morrigan said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial purr. “Unless your duties as barmaid now involve nightly inspections of your guests’ chambers? A… welfare check?” She leaned forward just an inch, the towel pile brushing Bella’s arm. “Or perhaps you heard a noise. A cry. Something that sounded like… distress.”
Bella’s flush deepened to a painful scarlet. “No! I wasn’t—I didn’t hear anything.”
“Pity,” Morrigan sighed, feigning disappointment. “The walls are so thin in these Fereldan hovels. I was certain our… enthusiasm… might have carried.” She glanced over her shoulder at Daylen, a proprietary gleam in her eye. “He does have a remarkable voice, doesn’t he? When he’s properly motivated.”
Daylen shook his head slightly, a silent ‘enough’ that held no real force. He watched, a faint, amused twist to his lips.
Bella looked as if she wished the floor would swallow her whole. Her earlier boldness in the tavern, that appraising look she’d given him, was now a source of visible torment. Morrigan was piecing it together publicly, without mercy.
“I just brought the towels,” Bella whispered, the statement a weak defense against the unspoken accusation hanging in the air.
“And we appreciate them,” Morrigan said, her tone shifting from teasing to something more direct. She tilted her head, studying the woman’s mortified face. “It is a unique night, is it not? The dead gather beyond our walls. The morning is no guarantee for any of us.”
Bella finally looked at her, confusion breaking through the embarrassment.
“I merely wonder,” Morrigan continued, leaning casually against the doorframe, her nudity now a simple fact in the conversation. “When the nights are so potentially short… curiosity can become a powerful impulse. Were you curious, Bella? About what happens behind a closed door when the world is ending outside?”
Bella’s breath caught. Her eyes flickered, unbidden, past Morrigan to where Daylen still lay on the bed. She pulled them back, but the glance was an answer.
“It is alright,” Morrigan said, her voice surprisingly gentle. “You are among pragmatists. There is no judgement here. Did you like what you saw when you looked at him?”
The question hung, shockingly plain in the dim light.
Bella’s mouth worked silently. She was cornered, not by the door, but by the brutal honesty of the inquiry. All the village’s unspoken fear, the tension coiled in her since the castle fell silent, seemed to focus into this one illicit, terrifying point. She gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, her eyes fixed on the floor.
Morrigan smiled, a real one that touched her eyes. “Good. Honesty is a refreshing draft.” She straightened up, taking a half-step back into the room. “You may stay, if you wish. The door is open. No one will be upset.”
She turned then, leaving Bella standing on the threshold, and walked back to the bed. She placed the towels on a chair with deliberate care. Daylen watched her, his expression unreadable, a faint line of amusement or curiosity at the corner of his mouth. Morrigan climbed onto the mattress, not touching him, and sat cross-legged beside his hip. She looked at Bella, then back at Daylen, her meaning clear.
The invitation was absolute. It was also a cliff’s edge.
Bella stood frozen in the hallway, the warmth and the musk of the room washing over her. From the tavern below, a faint strain of laughter sounded, hopeless and forced. The contrast was devastating. Here was life, raw and immediate. Out there was only waiting dread.
Her feet moved before her mind consented. She stepped across the threshold, her movement stiff. She closed the door behind her with a soft, final click, sealing herself inside. She didn’t move further, just leaned back against the rough wood, her arms still wrapped tightly around herself. Her eyes were wide, taking in the scene fully now—the rumpled sheets, the discarded clothing, the two of them watching her.
Morrigan reached out a hand and trailed her fingertips idly up Daylen’s chest. “She finds you compelling,” Morrigan said to him, as if commenting on the weather. “Given the circumstances, who can blame her?”
Daylen’s gaze shifted from Morrigan to Bella, standing there like a startled deer. He didn’t speak. He simply waited, his body relaxed, his expression offering neither pressure nor promise.
“It does not have to be a transaction,” Morrigan said, her voice a low hum in the quiet room. “Think of it as… a distraction. A memory to hold against the cold. You may watch, if that is your preference. Or…”
She let the word hang. Her fingers continued their slow exploration, dipping lower. Daylen’s breath hitched, just slightly. His eyes never left Bella’s.
The silence stretched, thick and charged. Bella could hear the pounding of her own heart, a frantic drum against her ribs. She could leave. The door was right behind her. She could mutter an apology and flee back to the desperate normalcy of the bar.
Instead, her fingers, numb with tension, began to fumble with the simple wooden toggle of her cloak.
Instead, her fingers, numb with tension, began to fumble with the simple wooden toggle of her cloak.
The clasp clicked open. The heavy wool slid from her shoulders and pooled on the floorboards with a soft, heavy sound. She stood revealed in her simple village dress—undyed linen, worn soft at the elbows and knees. The firelight traced the outline of her body beneath the fabric, the quick rise and fall of her chest. Morrigan watched, her head tilted slightly, an artist observing the first brushstroke on a fresh canvas.
“It feels heavier when you are not the one removing it, does it not?” Morrigan asked softly. “A burden lifted by another’s hand.”
Daylen said nothing, his gaze steady on Bella’s face. He could see the battle there, the shock of wanting something so simple and so impossible warring with the ingrained shame of Redcliffe chantry sermons. A muscle in her jaw fluttered.
Morrigan uncoiled from the bed with that liquid grace. She moved across the room, the space between them shrinking with each silent step. Bella flinched when Morrigan’s cool fingers touched the side of her neck, but she didn’t pull away. They skimmed the rough stitching at the collar of her dress.
“Let us see the curiosity that brings a woman to a hero’s door on a night of death,” Morrigan murmured, her voice a hypnotic thread in the quiet. Her fingers found the laces at the back. They were clumsy, utilitarian knots, tied in a hurry that morning. Morrigan worked them loose with methodical patience, one pull at a time.
Each tug seemed to unwind a coil of tension from Bella’s spine. Her breathing shallowed. The dress loosened, gaping at the front. Morrigan slid her hands over Bella’s shoulders, pushing the fabric down her arms. It caught at her elbows, then slithered down to join the cloak on the floor.
Bella stood shivering in her thin cotton shift. Gooseflesh rippled across her arms. The linen clung to the soft swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips. The cold air of the room was a shock, but also a revelation. Morrigan walked a slow circle around her, an appraising hum in her throat. The inspection was clinical, yet charged.
“Examine the product of your curiosity,” Morrigan said, stopping behind Bella. She placed her hands on the woman’s shoulders and turned her firmly to face the bed, to face Daylen. “Look. He is not a statue. Not a figure from a chantry tale.”
Bella’s eyes were locked on the rough wool blanket still draped across Daylen’s hips. It concealed the very shape of him. She swallowed, her throat clicking dryly.
“Now,” Morrigan’s voice came from just behind her ear, intimate as a secret. “You have seen his hands wield lightning. You have seen him plan the defense of your home. But you have not seen the instrument of his most personal power.” Her hands slid from Bella’s shoulders, down her trembling arms, and gently grasped her wrists. “Pull the covers back. See what you have walked into.”
Bella let out a small, shuddering breath. Morrigan guided her hands forward. The air vibrated. Daylen remained motionless, a tableau of calm at the center of the storm.
Her fingertips brushed the scratchy wool. She hesitated, her knuckles white.
“Do not worry for his modesty,” Morrigan whispered, her lips almost touching Bella’s ear. “He has none left. I have seen to that. This is for you. So you may judge the risk you are considering. Pull.”
Bella closed her eyes for a second, a silent prayer or a curse. Then her fingers clenched in the fabric. She pulled.
The blanket slid down his legs, pooling around his ankles on the mattress.
Her eyes flew open. A soft, involuntary gasp escaped her lips. There was no tenting of smallclothes, no modest concealment. He lay fully exposed, still semi-aroused and slick from his union with Morrigan. He was thick, impressively so, the veins prominent along the length. He rested against his thigh, a blatant, fleshy truth in the firelight.
The sight was profoundly different from the furtive, grubby gropings she’d known in the village. This was not a boy fumbling with his breeches behind the mill. This was a man, confident and spent, yet potent. The sheer physical reality of it stole the air from her lungs.
“Knowledge is power,” Morrigan said, releasing Bella’s wrists and stepping back. She circled to the side of the bed, giving Bella the full, unobstructed view. “Now you know. This is what awaits if you choose to stay. Not a gentle kiss. Not a sweet promise. This.”
Bella’s hand rose, almost of its own accord, to cover her mouth. Her eyes were enormous, drinking in the sight, transfixed. She wasn’t horrified. The raw shock had passed, replaced by a dawning, deep-seated understanding. This was the culmination of the attraction she’d felt in the tavern, stripped of all pretense.
Daylen finally moved. He shifted, propping himself higher on the pillows. His eyes met Bella’s, holding her gaze without challenge or invitation. “Morrigan enjoys a dramatic reveal,” he said, his voice low and roughened. “She’s not wrong, though.”
The casual acknowledgement, the lack of shame, broke the last of Bella’s paralysis. Her hand fell from her mouth. She took a single, shaky step toward the bed. Her hips brushed the edge of the mattress. The old ropes beneath the straw creaked.
“Do you still wish to bring the bathwater?” Morrigan asked, a genuine thread of humor in her tone. She settled herself again on the edge of the bed, a queen on a shared throne.
Bella shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving Daylen. The curiosity that had brought her to the door had been answered. A new, sharper wanting was taking its place, forged in the heat of the moment and the cold dread outside.
Daylen reached out. He didn’t grab, didn’t pull. He simply offered his hand, palm up, on the rumpled sheet beside him. It was the same hand she’d seen grip the hilt of his white-steel sword, the same fingers that had traced troop placements in spilled ale on her tavern table.
She looked at it. Then, her movements still trembling but decisive, she placed her own hand in his. His fingers closed around hers, warm and strong. He guided her down to sit beside him on the bed. The straw rustled loudly.
He leaned in close, his breath warm against her temple. “Just tell me what you want,” he said, his words for her alone. “Just one word.”
Bella’s free hand came up, fingers tentative as they brushed the hard plane of his chest. She felt the powerful muscle, the beat of his heart beneath her palm. She looked from him to Morrigan, who watched with a serene, knowing expression.
Then she turned her face back to Daylen, and found her one word. It was barely a whisper, sighed into the space between them.
“Stay.”
Daylen’s thumb stroked the back of her hand, a slow, deliberate caress. “That I can do.”
He pulled her closer, his other hand coming up to cradle the side of her face. His kiss wasn’t gentle. It was deep and searching, tasting of spiced ale and the faint, metallic tang of the apple Morrigan had been eating earlier. Bella gasped against his mouth, her body melting into the hard planes of his chest. One of his hands slid down her back, tracing the line of her spine through the thin cotton shift. He bunched the fabric, and she felt cool air on her skin as he drew it upward.
She broke the kiss just long enough to lift her arms, letting him pull the shift over her head. It joined the small pile of discarded clothes on the floor. Now she was as naked as they were, the firelight painting her skin in warm gold and deep shadow. Her nipples tightened in the cool air, a blend of chill and anticipation.
Morrigan watched from her perch on the edge of the mattress, her expression one of frank appreciation. “She carries herself well,” she commented, her gaze tracing the soft curve of Bella’s waist. “Less tension in her shoulders now. See?”
Bella flushed, suddenly aware of their dual attention. She tried to cover herself, an instinctive gesture, but Daylen caught her wrists. “Don’t,” he said, his voice low. “It’s just us. There’s nothing here to hide.”
He guided her hands to his shoulders. Her fingers dug into the hard muscle there, finding purchase. He kissed her again, slower this time, his tongue coaxing hers into a hesitant dance. His hands explored her back, her flanks, mapping her with a quiet, thorough intensity that felt utterly foreign. This wasn’t a rushed fumble. This was a study.
When his palm cupped her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple, she arched into the touch with a soft, strangled cry. Her hips pressed against him, and she felt him stir, thickening against her thigh. The evidence of his renewed arousal sent a jolt of pure, visceral heat through her core.
“Look at that,” Morrigan murmured, shifting on the bed. She leaned forward, her dark hair falling like a curtain as she observed the place where Bella’s body met Daylen’s. “The body’s honesty is so refreshing. No politics, no pretenses. Just want.”
Daylen’s mouth left Bella’s lips to trail down her neck. He sucked gently at the pulse point there, and she felt the sensation arrow straight down her spine. Her head fell back, a moan escaping her. One of his hands left her breast to slide between their bodies. His fingers found the wet heat of her, and she jerked, a surprised gasp tearing from her throat.
“Maker,” she breathed, her hips rocking against his touch.
“He’s not here,” Daylen whispered against her skin, his fingers circling, delving with a confident pressure that stole her breath. “Just us.”
Morrigan gave a low, throaty laugh. “And I find myself somewhat… fatigued. Sore, even.” She stretched, the muscles in her back and legs elongating like a cat’s. “I have ridden that particular steed quite vigorously this past hour. He is a demanding mount, our Warden.”
Bella’s eyes, glazed with building pleasure, flickered open to look at Morrigan. The witch met her gaze, a wicked spark in her golden eyes.
“The saddle is yours, if you’ve the courage for it,” Morrigan continued, her voice a silken challenge. She nodded toward Daylen, who had paused his attentions to listen, a smirk playing on his lips. “My legs have quite lost their conviction. I am content to watch. And to… advise.”
The invitation hung in the air, more explicit than any touch. Bella looked from Morrigan’s satisfied, slightly weary smile down to Daylen’s face. His eyes were dark, his expression one of patient, hungry amusement. His fingers still worked gently between her legs, coiling the tension tighter inside her.
“Take a turn,” Morrigan urged, her tone light but insistent. “See if you can manage him better than I. He does enjoy a firm hand.”
A wild, reckless thrill shot through Bella, burning away the last shreds of hesitation. She placed her hands on Daylen’s chest and pushed. He went willingly onto his back, his hands falling away to grip her hips as she straddled him. The position was daunting, intimate. She could feel the solid, insistent weight of him pressing against her inner thigh.
She looked down at him, at the man who had arrived in white armor like a vision from the tales, now a creature of sweat and heat beneath her. The firelight caught the planes of his face, the intent in his eyes.
“Like this?” she asked, her voice trembling only slightly.
“Just like that,” he said, his hands guiding her, positioning her. Morrigan shifted closer on the bed, her own breath quickening as she watched.
Bella took him in hand, aligning him. The broad head of him pressed against her entrance, a blunt, impossible promise. She lowered herself slowly, the stretch a sweet, burning fullness that made her cry out. She saw his jaw tighten, his eyes squeeze shut for a moment as she sheathed him completely.
For a heartbeat, there was only the sensation, the overwhelming feeling of being filled. Then she began to move.