Chapter Text
As I lay crumpled and bleeding out on the cold, rain-slicked cobblestones of some forgotten alleyway, the world tilts and spins around me. My body is shattered, warmth draining from the gaping wounds that stain the stones beneath me crimson. Somewhere above, the moon watches through a thin veil of clouds, distant and indifferent. I fight to summon a thought—anything to anchor myself in these final moments.
Ah. Yes. That's right.
I remember now.
It must've been them—my stepmother and half-brother, the ones who bore smiles laced with venom and eyes that looked through me as if I were some smudge on the glass of their perfect life. I was never one of them. Not quite human, not fully elven—a halfbreed, a living reminder of the love my father once shared with my mother before her death, a memory my stepmother resented with every breath she drew.
When my father died, it was as though a dam broke inside her. The grief she pretended to wear for him curdled into cruelty. She wasted no time, clawing me out of every space I had once called home. Her campaign began subtly—one by one, she removed the pictures of my mother, each frame disappearing from mantels and walls like ghosts being exorcised. And then it escalated—her barbs, her manipulations, the way she turned my half-brother against me until his eyes mirrored hers.
She didn't want me gone. She wanted me erased. Forgotten.
And tonight, they succeeded.
They sent me here under the pretense of peace—an errand, a meeting. Instead, I walked into an ambush.
"You see..." The man crouched before me flips a dull, rust-flecked dagger between his fingers with the ease of someone far too comfortable with killing. His grin gleams yellow in the low light. "This little job brought together two of my favorite things—coin... and murder."
I try to move, to flinch, to summon even a whisper of defiance, but my limbs are leaden, numb with blood loss and pain. I barely register the fresh slash that bites across my ribs, the sharp burn lost in the symphony of agony already playing across my broken body.
The dagger finds my face—he presses it to the skin beneath my right eye, then drags it slowly, deliberately. A white-hot burst of pain blooms behind the socket and then—nothing. Darkness.
I whimper, a sound barely more than a breath, raw and ragged in my throat. A final plea to the universe.
But the alley doesn't care.
The night doesn't answer.
And I am left to die, sprawled like discarded trash, the stink of my own blood mingling with the rotting scent of the city.
Just as the killer lifts his blade again—perhaps for the final stroke—something shifts.
A thud. Bone meeting stone with a sickening crack.
Slurping sounds, disgusting and hungry.
Then the soft slump of a body hitting the ground.
Silence.
I don't know if I'm hallucinating or slipping away, but I feel hands beneath me, lifting me with inhuman strength.
Then—something wet. A tongue dragging across the ruined remains of my right eye. It licks away the blood, the filth, the agony.
"Poor thing..."
The voice is smooth—velvet wrapped around steel. There's a false sweetness to it, like honey gone sour. Something that coils in the pit of my stomach and sets my instincts screaming, even as my body can no longer obey them.
"Let me take care of you."
The instant a hand brushes my forehead, I jolt awake, a hiss rattling out between my teeth. My body reacts before my mind catches up—I scramble backward, frantic and wild, like a spider fleeing from the crushing heel of a boot.
"Don't touch me!" I gasp, voice ragged, breath tearing in and out of my throat like knives.
Before me, Astarion freezes, his face caught in an expression of startled concern. His forehead is creased with worry and those sharp, glacier-blue eyes gleam in the firelight—not with mockery or judgment, but something dangerously close to empathy.
"Sorry", he says quickly, raising both hands in a placating gesture and dropping the one that had reached for me. He tries a smile—soft, careful. "You looked like you were having a nightmare."
"A nightmare?" I echo, frowning as I glance around. The camp is hushed, blanketed in the soft stillness of deep night. The fire crackles low beside me, its embers pulsing gently in the shadows. Everyone else must've turned in. I must've dozed off right here by the flames.
Astarion settles down again, crossing his legs, but he doesn't come closer. And I'm thankful for that—grateful that he keeps his distance.
"You were squirming", he murmurs, voice light but observant. "Whimpering a bit. Holding your eye." He gives a faint shrug, tilting his head as if trying to catch a glimpse beneath the curtain of hair I always keep draped over the ruined side of my face.
I know what he's looking for. I know what he's thinking.
Sure, I could get an eyepatch now. I'm no longer in Cazador's clutches. No one's going to rip it off and laugh at what's beneath just to see me burn with shame.
But by now, I've grown too used to the concealment my hair provides. It's easier. Thoughtless. A habit formed in captivity that never quite left, like the feel of invisible chains still clamped around my wrists.
"So", Astarion says, voice gentle, probing. "You want to talk about it?"
His smile is light and inviting. There's no pressure in it, only a quiet offer.
"No", I answer flatly, my voice stripped bare of warmth.
I smooth my features into a mask—something carefully neutral, meticulously practiced. It slips on like a familiar glove, seamless and worn from years of use. Pretending has become second nature. The real me is tucked so far beneath the surface that even I forget what he looked like.
The mask is safer.
The world doesn't want the truth. It wants a performance.
Cazador's puppet. One of his pets. I played each role he demanded—silent, obedient, seductive. And over time, the lines blurred.
Who was I, before the masks? Before the layers of false smiles and poisoned charm?
Sometimes, in flickers and fading dreams, I see it—the kid I once was, laughing on my father's lap, watching my mother dance barefoot in the morning light. That kid feels like a stranger now, a ghost in someone else's memory.
"Well", Astarion exhales, rising to his feet with a fluid motion, "if you ever change your mind..." He trails off with a wry little smile. "You know where to find me."
I offer a small nod. It's all I can manage.
He leaves, his footsteps soft on the earth, vanishing into the shadows beyond the firelight.
I draw in a breath. Then another. The night air is cold and crisp, cleansing in its own way.
Sleep won't come now. I can already feel it, my body too wired, too exposed.
But that's fine. I needed to hunt anyway. The fight earlier—the bugbear and his ogre mate—took more out of me than it should've. My strength has been waning.
The parasite beneath my eye grants me gifts, sure: sunlight no longer burns me to ash and I can cross running water without agony. But it slows me down. Makes me feel... wrong.
Weaker.
I exhale sharply, shoving the thought away and rise to my feet. My limbs ache, but movement is familiar. It's something I can control.
Without a word, I slip quietly into the forest. The shadows welcome me like an old friend.
Days slip by like water through clenched fingers and with each sunrise, the illusion frays further. It becomes all too clear: animal blood isn't enough. Not anymore.
At first, I told myself it was simply fatigue, the wear of battle and travel weighing heavier than usual. But now... every breath feels thinner, my limbs sluggish, like I'm moving through mud while everyone else soars ahead. My strength ebbs quietly, cruelly and the hunger—gods, the hunger—is no longer a whisper at the edge of my mind. It's a roar. A clawing thing that rattles my ribs and scrapes down my throat.
And worse—my companions are starting to look delicious.
It's almost laughable.
Gale is hunched over the cookpot, humming to himself, absorbed in the rhythm of chopping, stirring, seasoning. The rest of the camp is scattered—some sharpening weapons, others tending to armor, murmuring conversations drifting on the breeze. I sit back and watch them all with a predator's stillness masked behind a tired traveler's slouch.
They're strong. Capable. Every one of them has spilled blood and walked through fire for this strange little fellowship.
And I wonder—quietly, darkly—if they'd be strong enough to kill Cazador for me.
I could spin it just right. Wyll, especially, would leap at the chance to slay a vampire lord if I framed it patriotically enough. The perfect monster hunter and yet he's blind to the one walking in his shadow. All I'd have to do is whisper the truth: There's a vampire nesting in Baldur's Gate, your home. Feeding. Thriving.
He'd take the bait. They all might.
But that's a thought for another time.
Right now, the only thing I can focus on is the gnawing, ravenous ache clawing at my insides with every step, every breath. It's turning even thought into effort.
My gaze drifts—unbidden—to Astarion.
He's seated a short distance away, polished and poised, as always. His silver curls catch the firelight like sunlit snow, his smile as practiced as it is lethal. I've watched him in battle—graceful, efficient, dangerous. A swordsman first, though he's been picking up a bow now and then and I'd be lying if I said he hadn't saved my life more than once already.
He's been kind, in his own way. Not warm exactly, but... aware. Observant. A magistrate from the city, he said, though our paths never crossed. Makes sense. He ran in refined circles, suave salons and polished courtrooms. I was more gutter alley than chandelier ballroom.
But the fact that I've never seen him at any of Cazador's parties must mean he's at least not corrupt. Or not important enough to be invited.
Still, he's handsome. If I ever had the luxury of choice—if hunger, need and survival weren't the only things guiding my gaze—he would've been my type.
And if I had to choose someone here to taste... it would be him. Without a doubt.
Karlach is literally on fire. Shadowheart is wrapped in even more secrets than me and drinking from her might unravel things neither of us are ready for. Gale has that orb pulsing in his chest—I don't even want to imagine what that would do to his blood. Wyll would drive a stake through my heart out of duty. And Lae'zel? She'd kill me for breathing too loudly near her tent.
But Astarion...
He's been so kind to me that I'm even beginning to quietly hope he'd understand.
Still, I don't dare.
The Master forbade it.
His voice, even now, echoes inside me: Thou shalt not taste the blood of thinking creatures. A leash I haven't tried to break yet. But the hunger makes me wonder day in day out if maybe now that I'm so far from Baldur's Gate... I could.
I try to shove the hunger down, lock it away. I reach for distraction instead, my fingers settling on the old violin I found buried in the wreckage of a ruined cottage. It's seen better days, but the strings are mostly intact and the body sings with a haunting resonance when I coax the bow across it.
I've been growing comfortable with my flute—channeling magic through its melodies with the ease of breath I no longer need—but a second instrument never hurts. Especially now. Especially when I need something, anything, to focus on besides the hunger.
The world narrows to the whisper of tuning strings—until a shadow falls over my tent.
I glance up.
Astarion stands there, smiling, two bowls cradled in his hands.
"Dinner's ready", he says casually, voice warm and low. "And since I know you're not particularly fond of... crowds, I thought I'd bring you some. You've been looking rather pale lately. Thinner, too."
He smiles, gentle teasing wrapped in real concern.
"You're imagining things", I reply, keeping my tone flat, even as I reach for the bowl. I already know I'll regret eating but appearances must be kept. If they find out what I truly am... it's over.
"Maybe", he says with a light chuckle, then drops down beside me without waiting for an invitation.
I don't mind Astarion's company. In fact, it's oddly grounding. He knows how to exist beside someone without pressing in—without asking for more than I'm willing to give. At least he has the decency to leave my silence undisturbed, unlike Gale, who'd deliberately nudged his thigh against mine the last time he tricked me into joining the others for dinner. That had felt less like kindness and more like testing boundaries he already knew were fragile.
Astarion, for all his easy charm, doesn't do that.
His voice pulls me gently from the mire of my thoughts.
"But maybe it's true", he says lightly, spooning at his stew. "Maybe I simply worry for one of the friends I've made on this journey."
I glance over at him, unsure how to respond to that word—friends. It feels foreign. Like trying on someone else's clothes, ill-fitting and strange against my skin.
"You're friendly enough with the others to disregard me entirely", I murmur with a small shrug. "I don't exactly make it easy for anyone to be friends with me."
"Really?", he laughs softly, his voice curling around my name like a ribbon. "I beg to differ, Rolim."
The sound of it—my name in his mouth—is gentler than it has any right to be. It slides off his tongue like silk and I hate how it makes something in my chest tighten. I force my gaze back to the bowl in my hands and prod at the food, suddenly unsure of what to do with my fingers.
You don't deserve this softness, something inside me hisses, cold and coiled. And worse... what if it means something?
I shove the thought away. Focus. Speak. "What makes you say that?"
Astarion shrugs, scooping up another spoonful of stew before answering. "Well, I think it's quite easy, honestly. So long as the one trying knows how to respect your space."
He closes his eyes briefly, savoring the mouthful like it's divine.
I take a hesitant bite of mine, chewing slowly, mechanically. The flavors are probably good—seasoned just right, lovingly prepared—but to me, it just tastes like ash. My tongue registers texture more than flavor and every swallow feels like a betrayal. I can already feel the nausea coiling at the edges of my stomach. Vampires and solid food were never meant to mix. Eventually, it will come back up. It always does.
Still, I keep chewing. Keep swallowing. Keep pretending.
"I'm... glad you're respecting my wishes", I say after a moment. The words come out quieter than I intended, but I mean them. That much, at least, he deserves to hear.
"Of course", he replies with a half-smile and another chuckle. "You're a person, not a puzzle to pry open. Though I want to ask..." He angles toward me just slightly. "What do you think of our newest companion? Karlach?"
I barely register the question at first—too focused on the internal countdown, on the subtle shift in my gut that signals the coming storm. But I reply anyway, the words tumbling out too quickly, too honestly.
"I envy her." I blink. Damn it.
"If it were me", I continue, more careful now, "I'd welcome having a condition that kept others from touching me."
There's a beat of silence. A shift in energy.
Astarion turns to face me more fully, his amusement dimming. There's a frown now creasing the space between his brows.
"That sounds... very lonely, Rolim." His voice is quieter, gentler. Real.
I flinch. It's barely visible, but it's there—the tell in the flick of my fingers as I reach up, brushing my long black hair more deliberately over the ruined side of my face. A nervous reflex. A shield.
"I... I don't want to talk about it", I mutter, pushing the words past the lump rising in my throat. I push my bowl into his free hand, still mostly full and stand before he can respond.
He looks up at me, confusion and concern written plainly across his face, softening the sharp lines.
"I'm sorry", he says quietly, voice tinged with regret. "I didn't mean to prod into something painful."
"It's fine." My voice is flat. Not angry—just done. "I just need some space, I guess."
And without waiting for a reply, I turn and leave him there in the firelight, bowl in hand, shadowed in silence.
I force myself to walk—not run—into the woods, every step deliberate, every breath carefully measured. My legs tremble beneath me, but I keep my pace even, pretending I'm not falling apart from the inside out. I don't dare look back. Not until the campfire's glow fades behind the trees and the shadows swallow me whole. Only then do I break into a sprint.
Branches claw at my arms, the underbrush rustling around my boots as I push deeper, farther, toward the river. My body is already rebelling, nausea cresting higher with every step. It twists inside me like a coiled serpent, rising from my gut to my throat in a hot, acid surge.
Then—it's too late.
I stumble to a stop, nearly falling forward with a strangled sound and double over. The retching tears through me violently, my stomach heaving as the paltry bites of camp stew I forced down erupt back up with vicious force.
It burns.
Every fiber of my body revolts, punishing me for pretending to be something I'm not. The taste lingers, foul and wrong and it takes another brutal heave before even the ghost of it is gone.
But the convulsions don't stop.
My body continues to spasm, dry and aching, until the remnants of last night's meal—a mouthful of barely-satisfying boar blood—splashes onto the moss in front of me.
I freeze.
Panting. Trembling. Staring at it.
The dark red puddle gleams in the moonlight like a jewel. A drop of life I had barely scraped together, now wasted.
My mouth waters.
The hunger inside me flares like an open wound, a burning need that eclipses even the shame curling in my gut.
I hesitate. Just for a heartbeat. But it's already too late for pride.
My knees give out beneath me and I collapse to all fours, the cold earth biting into my skin. My fingers dig into the moss and I lower my face—closer, closer still—until my lips touch the blood.
I lap it up like a desperate animal.
The taste floods my senses, bitter and metallic, but it soothes the ache in my veins. Just a little.
I hate myself for it.
I hate the part of me that moans softly at the relief.
I hate how good it feels to get that blood back.
And then—
Someone gasps behind me.
I freeze, the blood still on my lips, my body tense and crouched like a cornered beast.
"R-Rolim...?"
It's Astarion's voice—soft, hesitant, uncertain. Of course it's him. It was always going to be him. He's been the only one to notice, to really notice. Not pushing. Never prying. Just... offering. A hand, a word, a presence when the silence threatened to swallow me whole.
I stay crouched, staring at the blood glistening on the moss in front of me. Everything inside of me still screams to finish licking it up, to not waste a single drop of crimson. Shame coils tight in my chest, but instinct thrashes just as fiercely. And in the end, neither wins.
The war is interrupted by a rustle behind me.
He's approaching—slowly, carefully. I hear the shift of fabric, the soft crunch of his boots on leaves. Then, a touch. His hand, gentle and almost timid, presses lightly to the center of my back.
I flinch as though struck. My whole body snaps taut, muscles seizing so violently it feels like they might tear from my bones.
He pulls back immediately. "I'm sorry", he says quickly, voice strained. "I didn't mean to—"
But I'm already rising.
I surge to my feet and spin around, boots grinding down deliberately on the bloodstain between us. Smearing it. Burying it. As if that could hide what he's already seen.
"Why did you follow me?" I snap. My voice is too sharp, like glass rattling in my throat. But the hunger is sharper still—an ever-present knife sawing into my insides.
Astarion recoils slightly, then straightens, folding his arms across his chest. The concern in his eyes hasn't vanished, but something else is there now too—tension, perhaps. Wariness.
"I was worried", he says, his voice low, calm. "You barely touched your food... and now I find you here, vomiting what little you did eat." He tilts his head, trying to read me. "Do you have an eating disorder or something?"
The question shouldn't hit as hard as it does.
I bark out a bitter, humorless laugh, one that scrapes from my chest like broken stone. "You could say that."
He blinks. "What?" His brow furrows. "You sound like you're laughing at some inside joke no one else is in on."
There's a note in his voice I haven't heard before. Frustration. Just a thread—but it's there. He's always been so careful with me, so measured. But even Astarion seems to have his limits and perhaps I've finally worn them thin.
The worst part is—I can't blame him.
And gods, I'm so tired.
Tired of lying. Of acting. Of pretending I'm just another half-elf with oddly sharp canines. The masks are wearing thin and the cracks are starting to show.
So I let them.
"I'm a vampire", I say.
The words fall out like stones. No dramatic flourish, no practiced confession. Just the raw, blunt truth. I lift my gaze to his, crimson eye meeting blue. My pupil dilates in the dark, glowing faintly like a piece of coal.
His face stills. Not shock, not quite. But something unreadable slips across his expression.
"Well... a spawn", I say at last, the word sticking in my throat like a stone. "If we're being precise." I shrug, feigning nonchalance that doesn't quite land. Inside, I brace for judgment. For revulsion. For the inevitable retreat.
Astarion exhales slowly, his lips curling into a grimace as he runs a hand through his pale curls.
"Bloody hells...", he mutters. "A vampire spawn?"
The weight of the words hangs between us like a guillotine.
But then he sighs again, more thoughtful than condemning. "That explains a lot. And yet... it poses even more questions."
He tilts his head, those glacial eyes narrowing slightly as he studies me—not like I'm something grotesque, but like a puzzle he suddenly has more pieces to than he can make fit.
"Important things first", he says calmly. "How have you been feeding?"
I hesitate. My tongue darts out to wet lips that have gone dry.
"Off animals", I begin, then falter. The words twist as they rise, catching on a memory that flashes like a blade across my mind. "My m—"
I stop myself, jaw tightening.
I close my eye for a moment, forcing the memory back into its cage, shoving down the ghost of his voice, his commands, his cruelty. When I speak again, my voice is rough—hoarse from vomiting, but even more from the years of silencing myself.
"The vampire who made me... forbade me from drinking the blood of thinking creatures." My fingers curl into my arms, where I've folded them tightly against my chest. "I haven't dared disobey him. I don't know what it would do to me."
Astarion's expression shifts—something tightens in his jaw, in the line of his shoulders. He's listening, really listening and that alone is almost too much.
"But you've been getting thinner", he says quietly. "You're starving, then... slowly. What happens if you keep going like this?"
The answer is too easy. Too clear.
I've lived it, remember the year that I was locked inside a tomb for refusing to lure in someone I once considered a friend.
"My limbs will fail me first. I'll lose the ability to walk, then even to lift a single finger. The hunger will strip my mind down to scraps. My bones will turn brittle and crack beneath even the lightest touches. My flesh..." I press a hand to my forearm, as if feeling for what's still there. "It will dry out. Mummification, they call it. A living corpse."
Silence stretches out again.
When I look up, Astarion is staring at me—long and hard.
And then, softly, he says, "Then... let me help."
The words hit me like a thunderclap.
My eye snaps open wide, breath catching in my throat. "You... you can't be serious", I breathe, barely managing the words.
But he is.
"Rolim...", he steps a little closer, his arms falling loosely to his sides. His fingers twitch like he's fighting the instinct to reach out. And I know why he doesn't. He knows how I recoil from touch. He's seen it in how I flinch, how I keep a careful radius around everyone, even him.
Still, his eyes never waver.
"I can see the darkness you carry", he says, voice quieter now, thick with something softer—empathy? Pity? No. It's not that. It's something else. "But that kind of darkness... it doesn't come from cruelty. It comes from grief. From pain that's been twisting inside you for so long, it's become part of you."
He pauses, searching my face and when he speaks again, his voice is almost tender.
"It makes me question whether the term 'monster' really belongs to vampire spawn at all. Because you don't seem like a monster to me, Rolim."
He breathes out slowly. "You just seem like someone who is very, very sad."
And damn it—he's right.
I am sad.
And angry. And hollow. And bitter.
All the damn time.
I've carried those things for so long, I forgot what it feels like to be anything else.
And somehow... he saw it.
"How did you..." Astarion's voice is quiet, careful, as though the weight of the question might break something fragile between us. "How did you become like this?"
Another bitter laugh tears itself from my throat—raw, jagged and humorless. It hurts to laugh, not because of my body, but because of the truth.
"I got assassinated", I say, my tone sharp and biting, the words tasting like rust on my tongue. "My stepmother and half-brother paid someone to kill me. And he did. Had his fun with it too."
Astarion's brows knit together, but I push forward before I lose my nerve.
"I bled out in some gutter like a stray dog and as the light was leaving my eyes, that's when he found me", I snarl. "The vampire lord of Baldur's Gate. He didn't ask if I wanted to be saved. Didn't offer me a choice. He just... drained me dry. Like I was dessert. The assassin got to be his first course, I was just the sweet red icing to top it all off."
"So you were turned against your will?", Astarion's frown deepens, but then his eyes widen slightly. "Wait—did you say there's a vampire lord in Baldur's Gate?"
"Yes, to both those things", I reply coldly, gripping onto my bicep, both to keep myself steady and to smother the flicker of resentment that always burns when I speak his name. "His name is Cazador Szarr."
"How have I never heard of him?", Astarion wonders aloud. "I've lived in the Gate for two centuries."
"No one notices", I say, shaking my head. "The Szarrs have been leading the city's vampire coven for generations. They've perfected the art of hiding in plain sight. Living behind velvet curtains, masquerading as nobility. Even the most watchful eyes can't see what doesn't want to be seen."
"Bloody hells..." Astarion breathes, his expression shadowed. He takes a tentative step forward. "And what... what did he do to you?"
I laugh again, but this one's emptier, more exhausted than bitter.
"You see..." I smirk, but the expression is paper-thin, stretched over too much pain to be convincing. "A vampire spawn isn't just a slave. It's not even a person, really. We're puppets."
I let the truth settle, heavy and vile in the quiet night air.
"When he speaks, I obey. My body moves—even if my mind screams not to. Every motion, every word, if he wills it... I perform it."
I glance up at him, my voice dropping into something hoarse and hollow.
"I've been forced to do things I can't forget. Things I didn't want to do. For two centuries I've lived in that cage. Two centuries of wearing masks to lure in people that Cazador would then feed on."
Astarion flinches slightly, as if the weight of it hits him, too.
"I'm sorry", he says and the sincerity in those two words threatens to unravel me more than anything else.
"I appreciate the sentiment", I mutter, my voice a whisper now. "But it doesn't explain why you would let me feed off you."
A small, wry smile curves his lips then—genuine, if a little wary. He opens his arms slightly in a gesture of peace, of trust.
"We're all neck-deep in this illithid mess together", he says lightly. "And having a vampire at full strength on our side? That's a strategic advantage. Especially one who doesn't want to be a monster."
I stare at him, stunned by the simplicity of his reasoning... and the trust he's offering so freely.
He doesn't understand.
He shouldn't trust me.
The moment his blood touches my tongue, instinct will flare to life. I'll want to take more. My body will demand it. I could drain him dry without even meaning to. And gods help me—I want to.
But the chance he's offering...
It's too good to pass up.
And I'm far too hungry to refuse.
"Well then..." I murmur, my lips curving into the faintest smile, more shadow than joy. I tilt my head to the side and the curtain of long black hair spills over my mouth, veiling the glint of my fangs. "I appreciate the offer."
My voice is soft, almost reverent. A thread of dark anticipation curls beneath it.
"How will you explain the bite marks, though?" I ask, tone just bordering on playful.
Astarion grins, all gleaming teeth and irreverent charm. "Mosquitoes", he quips with a wink and with casual grace, he slides down the collar of his shirt, exposing the smooth, unblemished skin of his neck.
And just like that—my focus narrows.
The rest of the world dulls, sound and motion slowing to a distant hush as my vision locks onto the soft pulse fluttering at his throat. It calls to me—seductive, rhythmic, a siren's song beating just beneath the surface.
Hunger roars through me. It claws at my insides, coils hot and needy beneath my ribs. My throat burns with thirst, drier than bone dust and my fangs ache with anticipation.
I lick my lips without meaning to, instinct overriding thought as I step closer, the space between us collapsing. My hand rises and I trace the line of his pulse with the tips of my fingers. His skin is warm beneath my touch, impossibly soft.
I know I'll have to touch him fully—something that usually grates against my every nerve—but right now, that discomfort is drowned beneath the tide of need.
I lean in, breath ghosting over his skin. My free hand lifts to cradle the back of his head, fingers threading gently through his silken curls, anchoring us together.
And then, finally—finally—I sink my fangs into his flesh.
The moment his blood hits my tongue, the world fractures.
His taste floods my senses like wildfire, like the sudden rush of color after living in grayscale. It's divine. Exquisite. Like the first snow melting on the tongue, like the sweet, clean bite of rain after drought. It's cool and crisp like moonlight—yet underneath, it burns golden and warm, like sunlight slipping through forest canopies.
I can't help the growl that rumbles from my chest, low and primal, vibrating against his skin as I drink.
And gods, I drink.
My tongue moves to coax more from the wound, to draw every precious drop I can. It's pure ecstasy. Strength pours into my limbs with every swallow, sharpening my senses, reigniting something long-silent in my blood.
Astarion shudders beneath me. I feel the tremor run through him, hear the low, involuntary moan slip past his lips as my venom numbs the pain and replaces it with something heady—pleasure, tinged with surrender.
I could lose myself in this.
I want to lose myself in this.
But then his hands press gently to my shoulders—pushing almost imperceptibly.
"Th-That's enough, Rolim", he breathes, voice faint, trembling just slightly.
It takes effort to pull away.
My fangs slide free, reluctant and I lower my head to lick over the twin pinpricks—cleaning them, sealing them. It's instinctual. Intimate.
And as I step back, swaying slightly, I feel it.
Not just the surge of energy coursing through me, not just the way my strength has returned in full like a river breaking free of a dam—but the absence of something, too.
There is no burning in my body. No whisper in my blood.
No reprimand.
No pain.
I have disobeyed Cazador's command. I have drunk from a sentient being.
And nothing happened.
The realization crashes into me—shocking and exhilarating. I stare at my hands, my breath shallow, my mind still hazy from the intoxication of his blood... and the even headier freedom that now hums in my bones.
For the first time in over two centuries...
I am free to choose.
"That was..."
My voice trembles, soft with reverence and raw with the aftershocks of what just happened. I draw in a slow breath, tasting him still—cool and radiant—on my tongue. I can't help it. My lips part slightly and I run my tongue across them, savoring the lingering trace of his blood like the last notes of a beautiful song.
"Amazing", I whisper.
The word feels too small for the experience.
Automatically, my hand lifts, fingers brushing through the dark strands of hair that veil the right side of my face. A nervous reflex—checking, always checking, that the ruined eye is still hidden. This mask must stay intact. Even now, even after this.
"Thank you", I murmur, quieter than before, as Astarion gently presses a neatly folded handkerchief to his neck. The twin punctures are already fading, but a trickle of red still beads against his skin.
He gives a wry smile, brushing it away with casual ease. "Don't mention it. And... if you ever feel ready to tell the others, just know—I'll be there. I've got your back."
Something tightens in my chest, not quite pain but not comfort either. It's unfamiliar. I manage a small, crooked smile.
"Remember that", I say dryly, "when Wyll and Lae'zel start sharpening their wooden stakes."
Astarion chuckles, a low sound that wraps around me like warm silk. "Oh, I will", he promises, amusement still dancing in his eyes. Then he tilts his head, considering me. "So? Want to return with me?"
"I can't. Not yet."
The truth slips from my lips without hesitation. I'm still trembling beneath the surface, still reeling from the rush, the hunger still prowling just under my skin.
"As much of a boost as that was, I still need something... more filling", I admit. "But you've given me the means to catch something better than a geriatric, three-legged boar."
His grin sharpens a little, a flicker of approval in his gaze. "Well then", he says, stepping back with a graceful nod, "I'll see you back at camp."
He turns and I watch him go. His silver curls catch the dappled moonlight filtering through the canopy above, gilding him in glints of soft silver and pearl. He moves like moonlight itself—quiet, elegant and gone before you can blink.
I exhale slowly, the night air cool and sharp in my lungs.
Then I turn toward the river, the forest opening before me like a corridor of shadow and scent.
I cross the water in silence, my senses alight, the hunger in me no longer screaming—but focused, honed.
It's time to hunt.