Part 1: Mirror Images

As Warden-Commander, Elissa had expected to be sent to Headquarters to start rebuilding the Wardens. It was her task now, since Alistair had betrayed her love and married Anora.

Anora, however, wouldn't let her go. Elissa had realized too late just exactly what Anora's intentions were when she lied at the Landsmeet. But never, for a second, had she expected Alistair to accept being King, and to draw Anora against him almost as if he had always wanted her there to begin with.

When she had confronted him afterward, he had insisted that it was all her own fault. He reminded her that it was her that said the Kingdom needed stability. It was her that reminded him he had a sacred duty to unite the people.

That because of her, he was going to do the right thing, no matter how hard or heartbreaking it was. He cried and expected her to comfort him for all that he had lost by becoming King. The poor, poor baby.

She kicked a pillow across the room—one which, coincidentally, she had thrown from the bed earlier that day in an equal fit of pique.

Being King was certain to be such a horrible burden. What a difficult life he would lead, especially since he wouldn't even be ruling—Anora would do it. He would look pretty, smile at the commoners, and then do whatever he wanted. Except, of course, her.

If she could even believe his protestations of love. No doubt he had just fallen for the first skirt that looked at him as a person and not a Prince or a bastard. He sure looked snug and satisfied with Anora.

She sighed and looked out the window. She knew that Anora demanded it of him, and she also knew that Anora was keeping her here to remind her of exactly who Alistair belonged to.

The one thing that had always bothered her about Alistair was his lack of will and his willingness to follow any strong personality that bid him. She had thought that it was something that he'd outgrow as time went by, but now he would never have the opportunity. He was a puppet, and little more.

It had been two weeks since she'd seen him, and she hated every minute alone at the castle. She wanted to leave Denerim, leave this cold, unfriendly, dark castle. She wanted to be under the sky and looking up at the stars—or the clouds.

She was glad Fergus was alive and home in Highever, because it gave her the freedom to move around as she wished. Or it should have.

Suddenly, she realized something. She was as bad as Alistair! She was cowering obediently in the castle as if she was a puppet of the Queen! But she wasn't.

She was a Grey Warden. And more than that, she was the Commander of all the Grey Wardens in Ferelden!

Turning, she packed quickly and left the room, backpacks in tow.

"Where are you going, My Lady?" asked the guard at the end of the hallway.

"I'm off to begin the job of recruiting Wardens," she told him. "Do you think you're going to stop me?"

"I'm not to let you leave, My Lady. I'm real sorry, but I have no choice. Queen Anora thinks you may be a threat to the throne. It's nonsense, I know—"

She cut his throat before he could finish the sentence, and with a high block and a feint, she whirled around behind the other guard and buried her dagger in his back.

As they lay dying, she said, "You should have thought for yourselves. That's what got us a tyrant for a Queen and a Puppet for a King—the inability to think for one's self." She knew she was talking about herself as much as about them.

Then she crept from the castle, melding with the shadows and creeping across parapets until she could slip undetected into the night.

The Arling of Amaranthine was hers. It belonged to the Grey Wardens, and she was going to claim it for them. She wasn't going to lay down and take it even when a Queen tried to usurp the power of the Wardens.

A hand covered her mouth, and a powerful arm curled around her. "Don't scream," a familiar, warm voice said in her ear.

"Alistair, what are you doing here?" she said when he let his hand slide away from her mouth.

"I followed you," he said. "I couldn't stay away a minute longer. I wondered when you were going to wake up and get out of there. I was starting to think I was going to have to kidnap you."

His hand slid down the front of her body, and she gasped as it claimed one of her breasts. She turned her head, wriggling and trying to escape him.

"Why are you fighting me? You know you've always wanted this," he told her, his voice husky and hot in her ear.

"You betrayed me!" she snapped.

His hand dipped boldly down into her pants. "I never betrayed you, Elissa. Never. But your body betrays you even now." His fingers slid into her slit, which was already wet and slippery.

"It doesn't matter. Just because I want you, doesn't mean I want you!" she said.

"But you do want me," he told her.

His fingers delved deeper into her, flicking across her clit, making her squirm and shiver and arch against them. She gasped as he licked her neck, then bit her—not hard, but with a sort of dominant aggressiveness she dreamed of from him, but never once saw.

Liquid gushed from her onto his probing fingers, and he chuckled against her neck. "You like that." It wasn't even a question.

He rolled her onto her back and pulled her tunic abruptly over her head—leaving her bereft of his exploring fingers. In the gloom, she could see him looming over her, and wondered vaguely when he'd grown his goatee into a full one, rather than the usual light scruff he left on his chin.

But the thought flew away as she was divested of her pants in one rough, firm movement. He looked at her with a predatory hunger that scared her, even while it thrilled her.

He didn't wait. The foreplay was over, and somehow, the act was that much more exciting for the lack of it. It wasn't like she needed it, anyway… she was more ready for this man than she'd ever been for anything in her life.

He positioned himself quickly, and shoved into her, leaning forward to look into her face with a hooded, unknowable expression. He thrust into her again and again, long and slow strokes that made her squirm and wrap around him.

Try as she might, she couldn't get him to go faster. In the simple act of fucking her, he was showing her that she wasn't the boss anymore. He would go at his own pace, take his own pleasure, and her expectations be damned.

It was the sexiest thing she'd ever experienced.

He leaned on one arm, his hips thrusting his cock into her with rhythmic perfection, while his other hand grasped and kneaded a breast. It was a rough touch, lustful and exotic. She would have never thought he could be so… unflinchingly male.

When she quit trying to pull him deeper and began to move to his rhythm, submitting to his control over her, he began to speed up, his hips slapping lewdly against hers in the gloom.

He stopped then, and she groaned in unmet need. He laughed at her—laughed at her!—and then pushed her legs up until he could look down at the place their bodies met. He held her thighs up as he shoved into her again and again.

It was vaguely humiliating, lying there opened up that way while he stared at her. It was thrilling, too.

More than that, though, with every rough stroke, he was rubbing against the most sensitive spot in her body. She gasped and squirmed, rapidly approaching the edge of raw pleasure.

When she came, it was a powerful, overwhelming, uncontrolled surge. It buried her in its intensity, and he growled at her as she milked him, sending him into his own orgasm. He came in her without hesitation, jerking her against him almost cruelly. It made her orgasm again.

Something had come over him, and whatever it was, it was hotter than an abomination's explosion.

He thrust into her one more time, roughly, firmly, as if to make a statement—"Mine!"

Then he collapsed on top of her, rolling off to pull her against him.

"What are you really doing here?" she asked against his shoulder.

"Don't talk, Elissa. Just go to sleep. Plenty of time for talk tomorrow," he told her, his voice low in the darkness, his goatee prickling against her forehead.

At her gasp of outrage at being told what to do, he said sleekly, "Don't make me fuck you to silence. I can do it, you know."

And he expected her to go to sleep after that?

It was a long, restless night for her, too keenly aware of the man next to her. A new Alistair that she almost didn't even know. But an Alistair she wanted to keep. Very much so.

But the question nagged her, and so as they broke camp to travel on the next day, she asked him again.

He stopped packing and looked at her. "And where should a Grey Warden be?" he asked, leveling a look at her that seemed to indicate that it was a stupid question. She felt childish and silly suddenly.

She never felt like that around him. It wasn't fair. She scowled at him.

"Who am I?" he asked her. When she just blinked stupidly, he asked again, "Who am I, Elissa?"

"Alistair," she said, something tripping up inside her as she said it.

"And just who is Alistair?"

"What?"

"Who is Alistair? Is he a camp follower? Is that his position in this world?" he drew her against him as he said it, looking down at her and demanding an answer with a tense, almost cold look.

A shiver ran down her spine. "You're the King," she said.

"And do you think the King answers to you?"

She gasped and frowned again. "No, I suppose not," she said as the moment drew out and he didn't release her. "But you're a Grey Warden, and I'm the Commander of the Grey Wardens, so you answer to me because of that," she said. She had him there!

"I'd like to see you try to make me answer to you," he said, shocking her to her core.

He released her then, and finished packing. They walked away from the camp with Elissa in turmoil. He was behaving oddly. But somehow, it seemed almost as if he was finally the man she thought he should have always been.

He stopped abruptly, right in the middle of the trail. "If you keep looking at me like that, I'm going to fuck you right here and right now."

She blinked stupidly at him and swallowed hard. He wouldn't dare! Would he? She looked down, disappointed that she couldn't see whether or not he was hard behind the codpiece of his plate armor. And when had he started wearing Dragon Blood armor, anyway?

She blinked again as he started pulling armor off. "Okay, point taken!" she told him. "Sheesh, why so bossy all of a sudden?"

"Take my greaves off," he told her, his voice silk and gravel.

"You can't be serious! Someone could come up on us any second!"

"You'd better hurry it up, then, hadn't you," he said, and she wanted to slap the smirk off of his face.

She crossed her arms and scowled.

"Suit yourself," he told her, and pulled them off himself. Now clad only in the tunic and breeches he wore beneath the armor, he grabbed her and turned her around, shoving her against a tree.

"Hey!" she protested, then she tried to pull away as her hardened leather scale breeches were yanked down around her knees.

Then, without warning, he was sliding inside her, plundering her like a pirate. "Oh Maker," she groaned as he stoked the fire already burning in her pussy.

He slapped against her, his hands hard and strong on her hips. The only sound on the trail was the sound of their furious coupling, his body slamming into hers over and over again, her involuntary cries and groans… his grunts as he seemed to try to ride her into the tree itself.

Then he leaned forward over her, thrusting into her roughly, growling as he orgasmed. The thought of him pumping into her sent her instantly over the edge, and she howled like an animal as her orgasm washed over her.

He slipped out of her, pulling her upright against his chest.

"For someone who didn't want to get caught, you sure as fuck made a lot of noise," he said. He was being smug again, to her chagrin.

"Something isn't right," she said. "This isn't like you. I've never seen you act like this."

"On the contrary, my dear," he said.

They were redressed, and as he came up to her, she realized that he looked intimidating and even almost frightening in this armor.

"This is exactly like me. And I've always been exactly like this," he told her as he crowded her back against the tree. "And you may not realize it just yet, but I'm exactly what you've always wanted. I can do everything you thought you wanted, and more. I'm your perfect match."

He crushed her lips beneath his, taking, devouring, consuming… yet bringing up confusing and warm feelings inside of her that hadn't been there before. She thought she had loved him—and she still did—but now that love was imbued with a growing passion the likes of which she'd never known.

"Darkspawn!" she warned, surprised that she had beat him to it. He was longer as a Gray Warden than she, and usually responded much more quickly.

He whipped out a powerful axe, and laid into them. An axe? A two handed axe? What the Darkspawn—

She lost track of the thought as she ducked a wild swing from a Hurlock. Then it was gone as Alistair slashed its head clean off, laughing manically. The powerful axe whirled and danced in the air, and even as she slid her dagger into the back of a genlock, she couldn't take her eyes off of him.

When the fight was over, and they stood in the midst of carnage, she turned on him. "That was a Reaver move!" she accused.

"Yeah," he said. "What of it?" He stood inches from her, covered in gore and blood and grinning like an Archdemon.

She shivered. "You're not a Reaver," she said warily.

"Yes," he said, his voice husky and deep again. "I am."

"You're not Alistair," she said, backing away.

"I wondered how long it would take for you to catch on," he said with a grin. A malevolent grin. A sexy grin.

"You're a demon!"

He laughed. "I've been called worse. But no, I'm not. You'd feel it if I was."

"A malifecar," she said, uncertain.

"No," he said, closer now, as she stood with her back against a tree.

"Then what?" she said, fear rising inside her.

"What do you think?" he asked her, toying with her, playing some game she couldn't quite understand.

"A brother?" she breathed. "Another unknown bastard?"

"I'm his twin," he told her. "Identical twin. In case you hadn't noticed."

Suddenly, it struck her as funny. "Really?"

"Yes, really," he rumbled at her, his hand—covered in blood and gore—pawing at her breast through her gory leather shirt.

"Can I call you Malistair?" she asked, smirking at him.

"Not if you want to live," he growled, and she laughed again.

"Don't laugh at me again," he warned her. "I hate being related to such a milk-sop. Much less being his brother. But I'm going to do something about it. We're… going to do something about it."

Now she was intrigued. "Oh?"

"We're going to replace him. And then, when the time is right, we're going to dispose of Anora."

She stared blankly at him.

"After that, my dear Warden, with you at my side, I am going to rule. First Ferelden… and then the world."

She wondered, for all of ten seconds, just exactly what she had gotten herself into. But then he was stripping her and shoving into her, and despite the blood and death all around them, she was simply too fucking horny to care.