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“Is it bad I really want to kiss you right now?”
Filthy, bloody, soaked and exhausted, Cullen stuck a boot on the chest of the corpse and hauled his sword out of the chest cavity with a wet suctioning slurp before he looked up at the Iron Bull. The qunari’s grey skin was coated in blood, mud, and … was that an eye hanging off the tip of his horn? Sweat shone in the glow of the trees of the Arbor Wilds and reflected the tainted red lyrium that erupted from the corpses of the Red Templars beneath their feet.
Between the Red Templars, the Venetori, and these mysterious, murderous elves, Cullen hadn’t slept in three days, barely gone more than a halved hour between skirmish and attack. He and a small group of experienced Inquisition soldiers were the last line of defense before entering this ancient elven temple. They had fought tooth and nail. Most of them had survived so far. The others… their bodies had been burnt quickly between skirmishes.
The last assault had tried to circle them, trap them in the middle of the river. Cullen was having none of it, having beheaded a stealthy prowler, when an arrow had burst through one of the red behemoth’s eye sockets. A deafening shout in Nevarran and an echo in Qunlat followed. Dorian’s unnatural, magical roar froze the enemy in place. Another arrow went through an elven throat, and Cullen turned his full attention back to the assailants on his left as the Inquisitor and his Inner Circle closed in on the right. Corpses of the dead rose around him and he did not flinch. Cullen had worked alongside the Tevinter mage enough he now knew the scent of his magic.
Reinforcements, he laughed humorously in the back of his mind.
When the last of this lot of bloody Red Templars fell, he surveyed the scene quickly before turning to the Inquisitor.
“Inquisitor Trevelyan! The way to the Temple is clear. Go! We’ll hold them off!” Cullen shouted at the man over the rush of water and the echo of distant explosions. The tall man inclined his head and with a wave of his hand he headed towards what they thought were the gates. The Iron Bull paused only a moment beside him.
“Is it bad I really want to kiss you right now?”
“To be honest,” Cullen breathed deeply, fighting to regain his self-control. “the only thing off-putting is the accidental vitaar poisoning one might expect.”
The Iron Bull grinned but before he could do anything else Cullen reached up, grasped the dragon-bone buckle of his harness and pulled him down into a fast, hard kiss.
“There are worse ways to die,” Cullen smirked when he stepped back from the Bull, wiping a hand across his mouth, just in case. “Watch yourself. Some of the Venetori got ahead of us. Maker only knows what they’re doing in that temple.”
The Iron Bull grunted an acknowledgment as he jogged away, following the Inquisitor on yet another life or death mission.
“The fate of the world is in good hands, eh Commander?” the dwarf soldier at his side handed him a skin of clean water. He drank deeply and passed it back to her.
“It is indeed, Lia. Let’s make sure it stays that way.” Cullen lifted his sword and scanned the treeline, listening to the wind in the trees and the screams of the dying, hoping and praying that the Maker would send his lover back to him alive.
The dragon’s tooth pressed into the soft skin of his chest as he turned away, put his back to the temple, and stood ready to fight to the death to protect those within.