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A Princess for Starkhaven

Chapter 6: Release

Summary:

In which our newlyweds find solace in each other.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Tonight, Sarah would become Sebastian's wife in every sense of the word. That much was obvious to them.

What wasn't so obvious—to Sarah, at least—was how it would unfold. She had only ever heard whispers of Sebastian's hedonistic past; a good number of ladies from different royal courts had mourned their loss when he entered the Chantry and took an oath of chastity.

Tonight, she would find out why.

"I will lay down everything I know about pleasure at your feet."

He had said so earlier. The very thought made her shiver in anticipation. His strong arms encircled her possessively, pressing her soft curves flush against his solid chest. He had kissed her once before, but now he wanted—craved—more. His lips firmed, pressed, demanded; she yielded gladly, parting her lips with a soft moan.

He must have kissed scores of women in his rakehell days, but none held a candle to her fire, her passion. Though she was as yet an innocent in this sphere, she was patently eager to please and be pleased, acting entirely from instinct. Her body moved like a lithe wave in a slow, erotic dance that could have been in the repertoire of the infamous Veridium Bull in Llomeryn. She began by rubbing her luscious breasts against his chest, then she flexed her spine, pressing her waist and her stomach against his body before grinding her hips forward to caress his rock-hard bulge.

He'd be a fool to think he could withstand the turbulent waves of lascivious passion that swallowed them both; all he could do was drown. Drown in the taste of fire and sun-warmed honey on her tongue. Drown in the lavender and vanilla scent that lingered irresistibly on her skin and seeped into his veins like vallaslin.

Drown in her.

All earlier apprehension was reduced to ash. All that remained—all that mattered—was the desire that threatened to consume them both in its flames.

She was the first to break the kiss, gasping for air. He seized the opportunity to trail one hand upward, his thumb stroking the side of her right breast. Her nightgown was still open from earlier, and the slight movement of his thumb made the opened placket shift.

A small grin crossed his lips. "You're wearing too much clothing, leannan."

She laughed as she lowered her hands from his face to his chest. "Well, so are you. What does leannan mean?"

He smiled. "It's a Starkic term of endearment that means 'dear' or 'sweetheart.' My parents used to call each other that."

Her fingers set to work on the buttons on his nightshirt. "It sounds lovely. I've barely heard a word of Starkic since I arrived. I think I heard one of your lords call Lord Otranto a... cacan? Whatever that means, I'm guessing it isn't pleasant."

His chest shook as he let out a hearty laugh. "You guessed right. No one really speaks Starkic anymore, unless it's to curse or compliment someone. My grandfather used to say that Starkic is a language that loves and loathes in equal measure."

"And you dare call Antivans emotional," she said with mock indignation as her fingers reached the bottom button. She pushed the halves of his shirt aside, placing her hands flat against the expanse of his broad chest, lightly dusted with fine auburn hair. He shrugged out of his shirt and tossed it aside, letting her explore her newfound territory. Her touch was inquisitively gentle over his heated skin, lingering on the taut muscles of his arms. Every caress, every sweep of her palm over his bare skin only reminded him that he was half-naked already while she was not.

And it was driving him insane.

"Your turn, leannan," he rasped, his fists balled tightly in the sheets to exercise restraint.

Hours ago, she might have been nervous. Hesitant. Embarrassed. But now, she felt none of those—only an incredible sense of rightness.

Without a word, she gripped the hem of her nightgown and pulled it over her head, tossing it aside to join his nightshirt.

Leaving her completely naked in his lap.

She felt a peculiar sense of pride from the way his intense gaze raked over her body—over her heavy, succulent breasts tipped in dusky brown, her gently rounded belly, the evocative flare of her hips, and down to the soft, glistening flesh at the apex of her shapely thighs.

Fully dressed in her wedding finery, with his mother's golden circlet atop her head, she was every inch a proper Princess of Starkhaven. Naked, with her lustrous black hair flowing behind her like a living veil, she was a goddess among mortal women.

Gently—reverently—he set his hands on either side of her neck, his fingers brushing against her silky black locks. He let his hands slip down, over her collarbone and her shoulders, before he paused and met her gaze, a question in his eyes.

No words were necessary. She nodded.

He cupped his hands around her swollen breasts, and she gasped, his touch a fire-hot brand on her bare, sensitized skin. He kneaded, and she moaned. To his surprise—and her delight—years of disuse had done nothing to dull his sexual finesse. When his skilled fingers found the peaks, already puckered tight, and squeezed, she had to bite her lip to suppress her cries of pleasure.

He chuckled, his adept fingers not easing up on their torture. "It's alright, leannan. No one will hear."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Even if I scream?" she asked, with a smile of feigned innocence.

She yelped in surprise when he grabbed her waist and flipped her over so she was pinned beneath him.

"Yes," he growled, before capturing her lips in another searing kiss. Despite having left the Chantry for years now, he had still kept the primal, animalistic part of his nature shackled and guarded, but she lured it forth with unabashed ease, her every sigh a siren song. That part of him wanted to relish every sound he could draw from her lips. Every soft whimper. Every shattered moan. Every rapturous scream.

He lowered his body carefully onto hers, deliberately letting his chest abrade her aching breasts, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to pull him closer as she deepened the kiss. She was intoxicating, like heady Orlesian mulled wine on Satinalia, and Maker was he parched.

"Trust me, leannan," he whispered against her lips when he pulled away from the kiss, eliciting a soft sound of protest from her. His lips cruised over the smooth column of her throat, lingering at the point where her pulse thundered, before moving to the creamy upper swells of her breasts.

A chorus of her wanton moans and frantic pleas to the Maker echoed throughout their bedchamber when he took one tightly rucked nipple into the ardent heat of his mouth. He gripped her hips and settled to worship her in this way, licking, laving, and sucking languidly as she arched beneath him, her fingers clenched tightly around his skull. Just when she thought she had gotten used to the novel sensation, he switched his attention to her other breast and began the sweet torture anew.

"You're positively succulent, leannan," he said as he pressed a last kiss to her swollen peak, "but I wonder if you taste just as sweet elsewhere."

Her eyes widened—from shock as much as lustful curiousity. "Venga ya, you cannot mean..." Her words died as her gaze fell to his ultimate destination.

"Oh, but I do," he said softly as he trailed kisses over her soft belly, stopping short of the smooth, bare skin just above her nether lips.

"Do you usually keep yourself so smooth here, leannan?" he asked gently, looking up at her.

Blushing furiously, she propped herself up on her elbows to meet his crystal-blue gaze. "Sometimes. I usually just keep the hair trimmed short, but Mama... She insisted that I should be bare. For tonight." She cocked her head inquistively to the side. "Does it matter?" She tried to hide it, but he heard the wisps of doubt and worry in her voice.

"No, it does not," he said reassuringly. And truthfully, it didn't. After all, it was her body; she could do whatever she damn well pleased to the hair on her own body. She swallowed a gasp when he placed his hands on her thighs and spread them wide, exposing her soft lips, already slick and swollen with her arousal. He traced her entrance with one finger and found the swollen bundle of nerves at the top, making her cry out sharply, her doubts swiftly forgotten. He bent his head and dotted featherlight kisses down her sensitive inner thigh, and smiled knowingly when he heard her giggle; he would need to keep track of his wife's ticklish spots for future reference. "For I am fairly certain," he continued, tracing the same path on her other thigh, "that you will taste just as sweet either way." And without further warning, he dragged his tongue langorously across her wet, swollen folds.

Again, and again, and again, before he flicked his tongue against her sensitive pearl.

His reward was an ecstatic scream, followed by a flurry of Antivan curses. She tasted so sweet, like watered-down honey, and he was content to remain there, sampling her nectar until she blossomed for him. As he lapped and sucked at her petal-soft lips, he watched with utter fascination at the way she arched her body and tossed her head back in sheer abandon. The way she raised her shaking legs in the air instinctually. The way her fingers scrambled at anything within reach—the red fleece blanket, his pillow, her hair.

She couldn't help it; she needed something—anything—to anchor her against the tide of rapture that was poised to sweep her away. It very nearly did, when, without his mouth leaving her, he slid his middle finger inside her tight, slick channel.

It took every ounce of her strength and willpower to cling to her wits as he pumped his finger in and out of her. "So fucking wet and hot," he murmured in praise as he slid another finger inside.

"D-do you w-worship the M-Maker with that f-f-filthy mouth?" she choked out in between sobs.

He laughed, low and gravelly, recalling their game of Wicked Grace when she had asked the same question. "Call it blasphemy, leannan, but right now I would much rather worship you with my fucking filthy mouth."

And he proceeded to do so with renewed vigor, sucking on her excruciatingly sensitive button while his fingers tapped relentlessly at the spongy flesh of her hidden sweetspot. She speared her fingers through his hair and clutched tightly, moaning his name as her head thrashed against the pillows. No other sound—not even the Chant of Light—was more sacred to Sebastian than his name on her lips.

He could tell by the way her inner walls began to pulse around his fingers that she was dangerously close. A few more minutes of this and she'd be lost to him.

All too suddenly, his desire to be inside her became a necessity.

He withdrew his fingers from her sheath and began to massage her lips gently, keeping her release at bay but her senses engaged.

"I think it's time I worshipped you in a different way, leannan."

Before she could reply, he rose from the bed and began removing the rest of his clothes with a brisk, impatient speed, tossing them aside to join the pile of their discarded clothes. Then he turned to face her.

She gasped. "Maker's balls."

He smirked. "They're hardly Maker-sized."

"Well, 'Maker's cock' doesn't have as nice a ring to it."

She now understood at least part of the reason why so many ladies deplored his taking the cloth. He was unexpectedly, impressively big—as thick as her wrist and just a few inches shy of the length of her forearm.

He chuckled as he rejoined her on the bed, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. "And you say I have a filthy mouth."

"Perhaps we deserve each other," she said, with a lopsided grin.

"Perhaps we do."

He reached over to the bedside table and pulled the drawer open, pulling out a half-filled bottle of some kind of clear, viscous oil. He poured a generous amount onto his palm before stroking his shaft, completely coating it in a clear sheen. "Just dragonthorn oil," he said, when he caught her questioning glance, "To help ease my passage." He positioned himself on top of her, careful not to crush her with his weight. She expected him to enter her right away, but he didn't. Instead, he guided his throbbing staff to her entrance, letting it glide across her sopping wet lips, but never entering.

She searched his eyes and, much to her surprise, saw hesitation muddled with his transparent desire.

"Sarah... Are you sure you still want this?" he asked, the concern and uncertainty palpable in his voice.

She didn't just want it. She needed it. She nodded impatiently and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Yes, yes, just get inside me, you silly Chantry boy."

His laughed, shaking his head. "Aye, bossy." He stroked her still swollen pearl with his fingers while he wrapped one arm around her waist, angling her hips up slightly. He slid the bulbous head of his cock past her slick folds into her tight, molten heat, and swallowed a curse. He bent his head to kiss her as he sank in slowly, inch by sweet inch. It took every last shred of his will to refrain from forging straight into her blessedly tight sheath, but he could feel the tension mount in her spine. Her body wasn't ready for a rough, ruthless coupling. Yet.

He soldiered on, going as slowly and gently as he possibly could, aided by the lubricant dragonthorn oil. He felt her stretch lovingly over his shaft, until he was sunk to the hilt inside her silken sheath.

She broke the kiss with a choked gasp, her eyes wide from shock.

Because even though she cradled his entire length inside her body, she felt no pain.

"Are you alright, leannan? Do you want me to stop?"

"I... I thought the first time was supposed to hurt, but it doesn't."

"It isn't always so," he said through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to mate with her rough and hard. "Not if the man goes slowly and gently, and the woman is relaxed and wet enough. I understand it's different for every woman."

The feeling of her wet, scalding heat engulfing his throbbing erection almost made the idea of going slowly and gently unfathomable, but he held still and turned his attention to her pleasure. He kissed her again while his hand continued to stroke her sensitive bud, giving her time to adjust not only to his length, but the sensation of him inside her. When he felt her body soften, he withdrew a fraction and thrust back in slowly.

Still no pain. Only a delicious feeling of fullness.

"Do that again."

Sebastian proved to be nothing if not obliging. With his hands clamped around her hips, he established the cadence of their intimate dance, steady and unhurried. Sarah gave herself whole-heartedly to the rhythm, her heightened sense of awareness taking in every physical sensation.

The sound of the quieting autumn storm—now just a light shower—mingling with the soft huff of his breathing.

The earthy, woodsy scent that clung to his skin and deepened with desire.

The look of raw, soul-deep hunger in his intensely focused archer eyes.

The taste of her own nectar still sweet on his tongue.

The feeling of having him fill and stretch her so completely, so perfectly, it was as if the Maker had molded them for each other.

It was almost too much for her.

"Touch your pearl, leannan. Show me how much pleasure you can give yourself," he growled into her ear.

Without a second thought, her fingers went down to caress the tender button. Sensation lanced through her anew, pure and white-hot. She had touched herself like this countless times before, but always in the privacy of her own room, with no one there to watch or hear her.

No one there to fuck her until she couldn't think straight.

That was the direction their lovemaking seemed to be headed. He hooked her legs over his elbows and leaned forward, allowing him to penetrate her core more deeply. She could feel the pace of his thrusts grow steadily faster while he pressed fevered kisses to her lips, her chin, her neck, her breasts—whatever part of her his mouth could reach.

"We're both almost home, leannan," he whispered hoarsely against her swollen lips, "I need you to tell me: where do you want me to come?"

She knew perfectly well what would happen if he finished inside her. She knew perfectly well it meant the possibility of a child—their child—growing in her womb. The first of our thirteen children, she thought to herself with a smile.

"Inside, Sebastian. I want you to come inside me."

Maker be praised. "As my lady wishes." He urged her on, and she matched him step for step, climbing inexorably towards the peak together.

Higher, and higher, until the passion crescendoed and sent her careening over the edge.

She arched her back off the bed and came with a muted cry, buoyed by rapture so deliriously intense she felt like her body was afloat on the Rialto Bay. The rhythmic contractions of her release were the last straw for Sebastian. With a final thrust and a guttural moan, he joined her in the void, pouring himself deep inside her. Limbs entwined, they fell back together against the sea of tangled sheets and pillows.

And in that moment of consummate bliss, Sebastian knew that paradise would not come when the Chant of Light was sung from all the corners of the world, as the Chantry had long taught him.

No. Paradise was here.

With her.

*****

3rd of Kingsway 9:42 Dragon

Hours later, Sebastian was the first to awake.

Outside, the autumn storm had passed, and the whole world lay quiet as the first rays of sunlight painted the dawn sky in brilliant streaks of vermillion and amber. A few moments later, the bells of the Starkhaven Cathedral pealed throughout the city to herald the new day's sun.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

On a normal day, he would drag himself out of bed after the second bong!, and begin his morning routine of making his bed, washing, shaving, and dressing—all by himself, because old Chantry habits died hard.

But today was no normal day.

Today there was a woman, stark naked and deeply sated, sharing his bed.

His lovely new wife.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

His lovely new wife who could apparently sleep right through any clamor or clangor; by the time the bells had finished their first chorus of the morning, Sarah was still sound asleep on her side, facing him.

She must not be a morning person.

A pity, for in his eyes, she was exquisite in the early morning, when soft sunlight poured in through the windows like honey and clung to her curves, left bare from the waist up by the red fleece blanket.

Sunshine becomes her.

Unfortunately, he didn't have much time to enjoy the way the sunlight danced on her golden skin. Not if he wanted to attend the first morning Chant in the palace chapel, as he had done every morning since he became Prince.

On a normal day, he'd take a detour through the "scenic" route to the palace chapel—passing through the cavernous art gallery and the long hall of high windows overlooking the rose gardens—before the start of the first Chant, attended at this ungodly hour mostly by servants who wanted to fulfill their weekly obligation to the Maker and His Bride before carrying out their morning chores.

But today was no normal day.

Today Sebastian felt no particular inclination to attend the first Chant.

Not when the scenery before him provided a far more enticing inducement to stay in bed.

He heard her let out a soft groan—probably in response to the steadily brightening room—before she rolled onto her belly, her slightly disheveled hair obscuring half of her face.

He chuckled. Yes, definitely not a morning person.

He let his eyes wander over her bare back, taking in certain features that he hadn't noticed the previous night.

Like the pair of dimples at the base of her spine, just above her luscious bottom. He knew they'd be the perfect spot to place his thumbs if he ever took her from behind.

Maker preserve me, it's far too early for these prurient thoughts.

His stiff morning wood, however, seemed to think otherwise.

I really should go now. The Chant will start soon.

As he reluctantly moved to get up from bed, he felt her shift again. When he looked back, Sarah was stretching languidly like a cat before she finally opened her eyes and gave him a soft, contented smile.

The smile that tugged at his heart the night before.

The smile that made him believe that happiness might just be possible after all.

"Good morning, my Prince."

The Chant can wait.

"Good morning, my Princess."

Today was no normal day.

Notes:

It took awhile, but this story is finally done! One of my biggest complaints with Sebastian's romance arc is this *ugh* chaste marriage nonsense. WHY make such a gorgeous man in a Bioware game and not let us romance him properly? Given that he used to play around when he was younger, I think it's such a wasted opportunity—and a waste of Sebastian's "talent." I think he would have made a much more interesting character if we were allowed to explore his past.

I'm thinking about doing a oneshot or two featuring our Prince and Princess, but we'll see. If you enjoyed reading this story as much as I enjoyed writing it, please leave a comment and/or kudos! I really appreciate them. :)

Note on languages:
In the Dragon Age games, most characters from Starkhaven (e.g. Sebastian and Rylen from DA:I) have Scottish accents while most Antivan characters (e.g. Zevran from DA:O and Vincento from DA2) speak with Spanish accents—Vincento even says, "Maldición!" which is Spanish for "Damn!" As such, I've decided to base Starkic on Scottish Gaelic and Antivan on Castilian Spanish:
Cacan (Gaelic) - Wee shite
Leannan (Gaelic) - My dear; sweetheart
Venga ya (Spanish) - Come on (used to express disbelief)

Note on lore:
While writing this story, I tried to stay faithful to the lore whenever possible. This includes references to other games in the series, codex entries, and word-of-God:
-Vallaslin, sometimes referred to as blood writing, is what the Dalish call the intricate facial tattoos worn by all adult clan members.
-In DA:I, party banter between Varric and Iron Bull regarding the latter's name reveals that there is a pair of identical twin exotic dancers called the Veridium Bull based in Llomeryn in Rivain. Since Sebastian used to be fuccboi (and a rich one who could afford to travel around Thedas), I imagine he would have gone to see them.
-It bugs me that most fanfic doesn't mention proper lubrication, because anyone who's actually had sex knows that lube just makes it better. Personal lubricant has been around for thousands of years; the earliest written record mentions the use of olive oil for this purpose in Greece in 350 BCE. So it's not a stretch to imagine that the people of Thedas would have something similar. I decided to go with dragonthorn oil because in DA:I, dragonthorn is used to make Antivan Fire. ;) I have an odd sense of humor.
-According to the Chantry, the Maker has turned his back on the world because of mankind's wickedness. The Chantry teaches that one day, when the Chant of Light is sung from all the corners of the world, the Maker will finally return and transform the world into a paradise. Until that day, however, He only watches for those few who follow Andraste's teachings. When they die, the Maker brings them to his side.

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