Chapter Text
He’d meant only to get her out of his system, at first.
Astarion tries to imagine telling all this to the version of himself still trapped back in Cazador’s den of nightmares—that in a matter of days he’d be liberated from his master’s torment, walking in sunlight, blessed with new psychic abilities, and yet spending far too much of his new freedom consumed with thoughts of a weakling human spellcaster who happened to wash up on a beach with him.
He’d thought her almost simple at first blush. Most of the pretty, young, highborn ladies he acquired for his master were, and Neve was certainly two out of three. He’d held a knife to her throat in those first few moments when he’d suspected her of being an agent of the Mindflayers, and she’d asked him to travel with her only minutes later. Insane, stupid girl. It had apparently rolled right off her back along with all the other traumas of the day. More than anything, she seemed concerned with soothing the prickly tempers of the ragtag band of companions they had picked up along the way, diffusing arguments, coaxing cooperation from tense faces by the end of that first night.
She had offered him tea, for f*ck’s sake. After he’d nearly slit her throat.
At that point, he’d moved on to admiring her survival strategy. Genius, really, to ingratiate herself with those obviously stronger than her. It wasn’t so unlike something he himself would do, although her manipulations were delivered with a level of sincerity he could have never managed. But, as it turned out, she wasn’t that weak on her own. She’d blown a hole in a pack of goblins that cracked the earth and made him strongly reevaluate getting on her bad side.
She did favors unprompted. She asked people how they were and seemed to care. But neither was she some insufferably optimistic sap—her retorts were often dry, self-deprecating, even morbid, but somehow never at her companions’ expense. She kept smiling at him when he didn’t expect it. He found himself probing her with increasingly inappropriate comments to see where the line was, where this unflappable façade finally ended. Rather than revealing a temper, he found her prone to the most curiously pleasing flush of embarrassment. There didn’t seem to be an inch of her skin that couldn’t turn pink. He’d be lying if he said it didn’t make his mouth water.
It had driven him so crazy that his feet carried him to her bedroll almost without thinking once the hunger finally caught up with him. And miraculously, she’d actually listened to him. She’d been so warm under his hands, so soft to hold against him, her blood rich and deep like a spiced winter wine, and the things she’d been thinking about him…
Well, her taste was impeccable. He’d give her that. But it also marked the official start of trouble.
That she was inexperienced ought to have put the notion out of his head entirely. After all, it wasn’t as if he could even count on her being a fun romp. But there was an allure to that sweet face, and his careful watching told him that damned hideous robe of hers was hiding a sumptuous little figure from the way it occasionally pulled tight around her body, and from the brief glimpses he got when she shed it before climbing into her blankets in the evenings.
Plus, the wizard—the other, not-so-pleasant wizard—was sniffing around her too, and something about it curdled Astarion’s insides. He’d sooner have stepped into running water than stand aside and let Gale talk his way into her bed to clumsily grope his way through what would be her first experience in the realm of carnal pleasures.
The idea of marking her beyond that bite mark possessed him entirely, until he’d finally blurted out his insufferably obvious proposal to her.
It was pathetic. It was beneath him. It was a waste of energy in his very limited window of opportunity to find a way to free himself from Cazador permanently.
It was absolutely imperative that he f*ck her again.
A day had passed, and they hadn’t yet spoken about what had happened between them the evening of the party. Not that she was avoiding him—she’d had her usual smile for him the next morning, albeit one that was a little more shy than normal. Whatever their companions had intuited about the two of them, both he and Neve seemed to come to a silent agreement that they weren’t about to be obvious about it in front of everyone. Frustrating, but in a way, he was also relieved.
It was hardly the act itself that he was embarrassed of acknowledging. He’d fulfilled his end of the bargain spectacularly if the noises she’d made were anything to go by. But she’d fallen asleep in his lap after they were done, and for some reason, he’d let her stay there nearly until daybreak, the first gray touches of dawn making it perfectly obvious just how long he’d indulged in her once her eyes fluttered open again. He was not in the habit of denying himself pleasures where they could be taken, and the warm weight of her against him had been—well, hells, it was soothing.
And he couldn’t say he regretted it, knowing where they were headed next. According to the druid, it was to be the Underdark for them once they mustered enough supplies and gathered their strength. Not a place in which he could expect to feel comfort in the near future. Or possibly ever again.
Astarion hangs back as the others stand gathered around Neve, all talking at her again. Annoying, really, how they all act like they’re doing her some great favor by advising her when she’s the one holding this group together. She’s the neutral party, the one who watches them all argue like children and then manages to find the middle ground.
He doesn’t really know what they’re all blathering on about this time—he can hear them easily, of course, but something else about the encounter has pulled all of his attention. Neve had disappeared to a corner of the campsite earlier in the morning, digging through some items from the shared stash of loot no one had yet claimed. He’d nipped off to find himself a buck to drain for breakfast, and when he returned, found that the little caster had traded that potato sack of hers for a hooded tunic of deep forest green. Hardly anything fancy, but the difference is striking. Rather than obscuring her from neck to ankles, delicate collarbones now show above a comely neckline, a simple rope belt around the middle flaunts the curve of her waist, and the hem flutters around mid-thigh, displaying trim legs clothed in brown leggings and boots.
He really ought to be more ashamed of how distracting those legs are, considering that he’s already felt them wrapped around his hips. But he’s too busy fuming over the fact that the rest of their incredibly annoying party members closed in around her before he could slip in and convince her to disappear with him for a bit.
None of them have noticed him yet, leaning against an oak with arms folded, still partially obscured in the treeline. Perhaps that’s why the wizard sticks around as the group otherwise disperses. Neve turns, giving Gale a look of surprise as he pulls her aside for a private conversation.
Now Astarion’s ears perk up.
“…can’t help but recall that we shared a moment while cloaked in the weave…” Gale is saying to her. “Didn’t we?”
The wizard pauses and casts a sheepish glance over his shoulder, as though he can feel the daggers Astarion is glaring into his back without actually being able to identify the source. The next words out of his mouth are delivered too low for Astarion to catch, but he watches as Neve’s brows ascend nearly into her hairline.
Going over there would be overkill. Entirely. The little spitfire had more than proven that she could handle herself against all manner of physical and verbal threats far more serious than that purple-clad party clown sniffing at her skirts…and yet his fingers flex at his side as the oaf makes a pass at her. In the last few days Astarion has been more than a bit guilty of sizing up his companions’ necks, and right about now Gale’s is looking ripe for strangulation more than anything else.
Which is ridiculous. Never in two hundred years have any of his brief, carnal attachments been anything resembling exclusive. The worst mistake you could make under Cazador was to believe that anything in this life could belong to you.
And yet…
Neve is too considerate to let her voice carry, but her expression stops him just before he’s tempted to take a step toward them. She’s shaking her head, the usually sweet curve of her lips pressed into a thin, uncomfortable line. Gale takes a half step back, obviously stung. And just like that, the biggest, most sh*t-eatingest grin stretches across Astarion’s face.
He tells himself it’s pleasure at the sight of that lout getting soundly rejected. Because it’s not relief. Certainly not.
The temptation to snake his way over to Gale to bask in his misery is almost too strong to resist, but Neve is walking fully out of camp in her effort to escape the situation, and the part of his brain that has been occupied with getting her alone again wins out instead. Easily. Astarion slips back into the treeline to skirt around the campsite undetected and follow her at a slight distance—and she’d wallop him for it with that spellbook of hers, but there’s an element to pursuing her this way that scratches an itch that has been tormenting him for two centuries. He’d never been allowed to hunt properly, and certainly not for himself. Rounding up beautiful specimens for Cazador at high-society events came with its own shallow perks, but it was not the thing that his blood and muscles burned for. It was not the freedom to prowl wherever he pleased, taking what he wanted, sating his own thirst.
Odd, to think Neve had been somewhere just out of sight in Baldur’s Gate—withering away under some stodgy old enchanting master, she’d told them. Their paths likely never would have crossed. Lucky for her. Cazador preferred his victims to be of noble stock, or at least adjacent to it, but every now and then he’d respond favorably to a truly exceptional beauty even if they had been plucked out of the gutter. It seemed to thrill him to uncover such hidden gems. A sweet little shopgirl with wide, dark eyes contrasting with lush waves of strawberry-blonde hair, and a fine spray of freckles across pale skin that pinkens at the slightest provocation—his master would love to save a precious thing like her for dessert, a slice of cake to be indulged in slowly. He always seemed to know when he was being held out on, as well. If Astarion had ever run across her…
Like he said. She’s lucky.
Lucky for her too that he’s the only thing out here following her. Neve would be easy to track even without the enhanced senses that accompany his…condition. Despite her prowess with recognizing plant life and brewing it into useful concoctions, she carries herself like the lifelong city dweller that she is. For such a little thing, she’s clomping through the wilderness with all the subtlety of a company of dwarven miners on their way to the tavern at the end of a shift. Usually she’s a bit stealthier than this.
Then she pauses and kicks a stone into the underbrush, and it occurs to him that she’s not oblivious—she’s upset. Quite possibly upset enough not to be thrilled by him sneaking after her much longer. He considers darting ahead to give the illusion of intercepting her by chance, but Neve has demonstrated an almost preternatural tendency to see right through his attempts at bullsh*t—even harmless, well-meant bullsh*t. It’s been an absolute blow to his usual ability to manipulate situations to his liking. Somehow, the best method to approaching her has been without any kind of method at all.
“Darling,” he calls, stepping out onto the path, “I’m not sure where you’re going, but you’re going to have every bear within a square mile joining you there shortly if you carry on like that.”
The spellbook nearly goes flying out of her hands as she yelps and whirls around, and he can’t help it. His lips twist.
“Don’t smirk at me,” she huffs. “I suppose I should have known you were lurking about. You always seem to find me when I’m at my wit’s end.”
Astarion lets the smirk falter, a little. “That seems to be the only time you’re alone.” He pauses, gauging her expression—guarded, but not unwelcoming. A few slow, sauntering steps close most of the distance between them, and there’s something pleasing about the way her chin has to tilt up to him as he draws closer. It looks meant for him to take in hand, but she still seems much too agitated for that. “Someone’s upset you.”
It’s not that he’s trying to be dishonest, exactly. But he’s curious how much she’ll divulge. She’s an honest one—to a fault sometimes—but she also has a knack for avoiding conflict.
Neve’s eyes search his face as though trying to deduce something, a faint crease appearing between her brows. “Gale,” she says finally, reluctantly. “He…”
Astarion tilts his head interestedly.
Neve sighs. “He propositioned me.”
“I see.” Astarion looks meaningfully over her shoulder in the direction that she was headed. “So you were…on your way to drown yourself in the bog? Completely understandable.”
Two hands plant on his chest to give him a good shove. Grinning, he lets himself be pushed backward a step, although he catches both her wrists to pull her with him.
“You’re laughing at me,” Neve complains, but notably, doesn’t try to free her hands. “It’s just…he knew. He knew something had—” she pauses for a second and goes pink in the ears, “—had happened between us, and he still…”
That was a little detail of their conversation that had escaped him. Astarion can’t really say he’s particularly shocked—he’d likely have done the very same in Gale’s position—but his smile fades as he takes in Neve’s expression. There is something truly scandalized in her eyes.
“And you told him off,” Astarion comments, a little awestruck.
“Of course I did! I wouldn’t have—” Neve blurts out, and only after the words have left her mouth does it seem to occur to her that they have exchanged no promises on the subject that weren’t gasped out shortly before org*sm. Her cheeks color brilliantly, but she holds his gaze anyway, defiant, daring him to take issue with it. “Of course I did,” she repeats, more firmly.
That the mere suggestion of disloyalty to him had offended her so deeply inspires a rather inexplicable feeling somewhere in the long-silent cavity of his chest; a curious mix of pride and terror that leaves his head swelling at the same time that his stomach sinks. He has not earned this. Not even in his own warped mind could he think that he had. Fear, he understands. Debt, he understands. But devotion is a word that hasn’t had cause to enter his vocabulary in two hundred years.
He scarcely knows how to respond—so he doesn’t. Silently, he brings one of her wrists to his mouth before looping them both around his neck and backing her slowly off the path. Neve goes with him easily, something hopeful sparkling in those dark eyes as she allows him to lead her. He can’t possibly deserve such a look, but hells, he’s not in the habit of turning down anything she’ll give him.
Orphaned sections of crumbling stone fence line this particular area, marking what once must have been a well-traveled road. He backs her up against one of the waist-high fragments. “What shall I do, hmm?” he asks in her ear. “Shall I drain him dry for you? Would that make you feel better?”
She looks pleasingly flustered already. His voice seems to have that effect on her, and he’s not above using it. Well below it, in fact. Leagues below.
“I think that would make you feel better,” Neve chastises him, although there’s no venom in it.
“True,” he agrees lightly. “But I’m sure we can imagine some way to achieve mutual relief.”
With that, Astarion stoops to grasp her hips eagerly, depositing her onto the wall in a motion that rips a quiet gasp from her throat. She’s so gods-damned responsive, no touch of his going unrewarded with some helpless noise of pleasure. It makes him mourn for some semblance of true privacy; a room where they can lock themselves away with a proper bed, where he might have his fill of her without dirt and stones cutting into their knees and backs—and where he can be sure every little sound of hers is his alone.
Although…
Perhaps Gale ought to remain alive, so he may be educated on just how unavailable she is.
“I said I’d have you in the sunlight,” he reminds her, bringing his lips close enough to hers that they come just shy of brushing as he speaks. “Perhaps I ought to bend you over this wall and…”
“We’re on the path,” she interrupts in a scandalized whisper, as though someone might hear them.
He enjoys shocking her just a bit too much; his head is no longer the only thing swelling in response to her. Astarion presses closer to her, hooking one of her legs around his hip so she can feel just how serious he is, relishing in her warmth even as the sun shines down on them both. She’s like a bit of living sunlight herself, all that red-gold hair falling over one shoulder, the steady beat of her heart pressed against his chest almost making him feel alive once more. Her lips part, dark eyes going half-lidded under feathery lashes as she lets out a shuddering breath.
"He thinks he can give you something I can’t,” he whispers to her, rocking against her once, just slightly, “Perhaps he’ll come nosing after you and find out just how mistaken he is.”
“Astarion…” Neve murmurs, and though he can tell it’s meant as a protest, she sounds more spellbound than anything else. His hands creep under the hem of her new tunic, finding the waist of her leggings, and he watches with glee as her eyes widen when he sinks to his knees. He lays his cheek on one soft thigh, staring up at her with feigned innocence.
“Perhaps,” he continues, “he’ll find out how pretty you sing with my tongue inside you.”
“Hells.” Neve looks up at the sky as though for some kind of divine intervention, but when she lowers her gaze to him again, he knows he has her. She worries her lower lip between her teeth, but she shifts to allow him to roll the fabric down her hips, pupils blown out and color high in her cheeks.
He’s barely gotten a moment to enjoy the sight of her spread before him, all white thighs and pink flesh, when a slight noise draws his attention.
f*ck. Someone is headed their way, but from the sound and smell of them, it isn’t Gale. It isn’t even one of their other companions—in fact, it’s coming from the complete opposite direction.
“sh*t,” he curses, scrambling to his feet with far less grace than he usually likes to display. “Get up,” he urges Neve, whose face has suddenly blanched for a change at his abrupt reaction, unable to hear the approaching figure herself yet. Whoever this is, Astarion is likely to gut them neck to navel for spoiling his very expertly set mood. “Someone’s coming. Not from camp.”
She practically squeaks, sliding off the wall to her feet, hauling her leggings back up in a hurry. “I swear to the f*cking gods, Astarion—"
But Astarion holds up a hand. “What in the hells is that?” he asks, wrinkling his nose, although Neve is unlikely to be able to detect the same thing quite yet. Whatever is approaching certainly sounds humanoid from its gait, but the smell. It’s foul, metallic, sickly sweet.
He knows the moment Neve can smell it, too, because the indignant expression on her face at being shushed morphs into a kind of disgusted bewilderment. They share a look of perplexed concern before, finally, a man comes into view over the crest of the sloped path.
The stranger has the distinctive look of one of the Gur—deep olive skin, braids in his long, dark hair. He halts at once, probably rightfully so at the sight of two unfamiliar figures by the side of the road, clearly not just passing by themselves. But the man’s eyes fall on Neve, and something about her stature appears to put him a little more at ease. Foolishly so, Astarion thinks; he’s seen her blow a crater in the earth twenty feet wide.
“Ah, strangers,” the man greets them jovially enough. “Forgive the aroma. Powdered ironvine—an old hunter’s trick. Most monsters will think twice before making a meal of me.” He draws the slightest bit closer, and finally seems to pick up on the strange energy coming from the pair of them. “Are the two of you well? It was not my intention to startle anyone.”
“Just fine, thanks,” Neve says breezily, although she still looks just the slightest bit rumpled from rearranging her clothes in a hurry. “I’m sorry, did you say you were repelling monsters?”
“Indeed,” the man says. “Hunting them is my trade. The name’s Gandrel.”
“How fascinating,” Astarion says, and Neve clearly catches the undertone in his voice. She meets his eye quickly, but turns her attention back to their new friend—who, luckily, is all too happy to keep his attention focused on her as well.
“The road has been quite empty until now,” Gandrel says, “But you’re right to be on edge. I am on assignment at this very moment—if my information is correct, my quarry may be somewhere in these woods. You would be wise to exercise caution, especially come nightfall.”
“Nightfall?” Neve asks. “What are you hunting?”
But all at once, Astarion is fairly certain he already knows.
“A vampire spawn. He goes by the name of Astarion, but I fear he has gone to ground,” Gandrel says. “I hope the hag of these lands can help me flush him out, if I can afford her blood price.”
A Gur hunting him specifically. By name. Astarion’s vision swims for a moment. He isn’t stupid enough to believe it could be a coincidence—it can only mean one thing. Somehow, Cazador knows where he is.
They’ve both been silent for too long. Gandrel frowns. “I am sorry to bring such frightening news. Be assured that you are safe in the daylight, but I do urge you to find somewhere secure to spend the night. You will not find a more deadly creature when the sun is down.”
“This…Astarion,” Neve begins tentatively, “You’ll kill him?”
Even with his life flashing before his eyes, it doesn’t escape Astarion’s notice that she shifts her position ever so slightly, standing almost in front of him. He’s nearly a head taller than her, so she doesn’t exactly offer much in the way of physical protection, but it stirs something odd in him nonetheless.
“Not this time, I’m afraid,” Gandrel tells her. “My orders are to capture him.”
Hells. That’s worse. Much worse. The ground is beginning to feel slanted beneath him. He wonders how long Neve will refuse to speak to him if he just kills the man in cold blood right here in the middle of the road, or if he might be able to sneak off after him later so that she’ll never know.
“And bring him where, exactly?” Astarion asks, managing to find his voice again.
“Baldur’s Gate,” Gandrel confirms. “My people wait for me there.”
“How might we know if we’ve seen him?” Neve asks, and Astarion can hear the effort it takes to keep her voice casual. “Do you have a description, or…?”
“Oh, believe me,” the man nearly chuckles, “If you had met this creature already, you wouldn’t be here to speak to me today, unless—”
Astarion isn’t quite of the order of events of the next several moments; if the possibility occurs to Gandrel first, or if it’s the gust of wind that tousles Neve’s bright hair on her shoulder, drawing his eye.
“My lady,” he says, all traces of laughter suddenly gone from his voice. “Your neck.”
All at once, there’s nothing more to be done. Neve pulls her hair over her shoulder once more, but it’s no use—after the other night, both sides of her throat are marked with the twin punctures of his fangs.
Distantly, some part of Astarion is capable of noting that he’s really going to have to find some much less conspicuous places on her body to sink his teeth into. Which doesn’t sound half bad, actually.
He’d been thinking just a moment ago that this stranger seemed a little too slow on the uptake to be that successful at monster hunting, but with this new piece of the puzzle in place, Gandrel’s eyes drift slowly to Astarion, wide with dawning horror.
“Like what you see?” Astarion asks the man icily.
“The vampire—it can’t be!” Gandrel cries; but he reaches for his crossbow without hesitation at the same moment Astarion goes for the dagger at his side. He’s about to shove Neve out of the way—for his own clear shot as much as to get her out of the monster hunter’s path—when suddenly, she’s out of his reach already.
“Stop!” she shrieks, and with one arm outstretched, ducks under the crossbow Gandrel had been raising and flattens her palm to the center of his chest. An explosion of violet-tinged electricity erupts from her hand, and the Gur is briefly lifted off his feet before he drops to the ground, smoking slightly. He doesn’t stir.
Neve just stands there staring down at him for a moment, her palms crackling with residual energy. Then she seems to gather the courage to kneel down to him, fingers searching out the pulse in the man’s throat. Judging by her lack of reaction, she finds nothing.
Astarion can’t seem to bring himself to move. He’s bracing for—for her to burst into tears, or start shouting, or something. It’s not as though they haven’t all killed during the course of their travels in the wilderness, but Neve is far and away the least experienced with it, and never one to relish delivering the final blow. But while her face is sober when she finally looks over her shoulder at him, it’s also determined.
“Are you alright?” she asks him, bewilderingly.
“I…yes,” he says, blinking stupidly. “I feel as though I should be the one asking you that.”
“I knew that could kill him. I wasn’t sure if it would,” Neve admits bleakly. She pauses, looking down at Gandrel’s lifeless body again. “But he was going to take you.”
He stares at her, dazed, a dull kind of buzzing beginning to fill his ears as she gets to her feet and brushes dirt from her knees. Before his abduction, the greatest kindness he’d experienced in the last two centuries had been occasionally receiving the largest rat in exchange for delivering a particularly satisfactory victim to his master. But in the course of little more than a week, Neve had given him his first real taste of blood, opened her body to him—and now killed a man for him.
“Astarion?” she asks again, brow furrowing as she seems to realize he hasn’t moved an inch yet. “Are you…sure you’re alright?”
Oh, he’s definitely not. But he shakes himself. “Magnificent. Although I highly doubt Cazador will stop at sending just one peon after me.” He smiles bitterly.
“Hey.” She’s up in his face now—or as close as she can be at her height, anyway. “You’re not going back to Baldur’s Gate in chains. Do you hear me?”
She doesn’t know what she’s saying, of course. The lackeys that Cazador sends after him may be no challenge for her, but the idea that a little human spellcaster could meaningfully obstruct the will of a vampire lord was absolute folly. But it’s a pretty sentiment. One that deserves rewarding.
It’s beginning to feel like there is no realm in which he could possibly hope to repay her for any of this. That he’s even considering wanting to is an utterly alien feeling. But there is, at least, one thing he can do for her.
“I suppose this is what I get for flirting with exhibitionism,” Astarion says dryly. “Now—where were we?”
