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You awaken in the morning as the sun is cresting over the horizon -- with an unfamiliar wooziness and pain on the side of your neck.
The memories of what happened in the night filter through as you stir. A body above yours, heat below your jawline, seeing Astarion for what he truly is in the light of the moon: red eyes and sharp fangs.
He’d neither been threatening nor frightened when you pushed him off and confronted him. For him, it seemed to be a simple matter-of-fact.
Petulant, almost: “Could you blame me, darling? I’ve never even tasted another person before, not even a drop of real blood…”
It wasn’t sympathy that twisted you to acquiesce to his cold-eyed pout. Not just sympathy. Perhaps it was a curiosity… or, perhaps, being roused from sleep and feeling him so close, your body for just a moment yearning for intimacy; so long, it’s been, since another was that close…
Had he been lying about his motives, he could have killed you -- or you could have woken up with the painful curse of sanguine hunger that he claims to live with. All of that risked for a moment of teeth in your skin and a nearness that made you hold yourself so very still as he drank.
You are the second one awake in camp -- Astarion’s bedroll is vacant, but Shadowheart is still asleep, laying there peacefully on her back. You sit up and sit through the throbbing of your temples, your body doing its best to make due with less blood. Touching your neck makes your fingers crimson with dried flakes of it; in his haste and thirst, he didn’t even bother to clean you up.
There is a river near the campsite; you might go wash now so at the very least Shadowheart doesn’t instantly panic when she sees you vampire-bitten.
Stepping lightly through the trees, you see Astarion sitting on a rock next to the water, turned from you. His body is at ease, relaxed; the morning sun glints off of his silver hair and white tunic, almost ethereal.
He hears you approach and turns. He bears a wide, sharp grin, utterly pleased and a touch malicious.
“If it isn’t my sweet little treat,” he crows. “Last night was marvelous, darling. I feel alive. ”
His skin has indeed lost some of its pallor, and his eyes are an even richer hue of red.
You don’t quite know what to say. “You’re welcome” doesn’t seem quite right, and his thick entendre of sex sets you off-kilter.
“I feel… a little bit awful,” you admit. “Physically.”
“‘Physically,’” he repeats, still smiling, catching the hidden truth in your words. “Well, ‘physically,’ you felt perfectly good to me. I am sure after a bit of water and food you’ll feel much better.”
You say nothing and approach the riverside; a cloth dipped in cool water feels wonderful on the puncture wounds on your neck.
“You’re wasting perfectly good blood,” Astarion complains.
“You left it there.”
“I was in a bit of a state,” he smiles. “Next time, I’ll be sure to get every last drop off your pretty skin.”
Flushing with blood loss makes your vision spin as you turn to him in shock at the brashness of his words.
“Darling,” he says, chastising, “my mouth was right on your pulse. Do you think I couldn’t feel you getting your twisted little kicks off of that?”
His accusation grips within your chest.
“It was my first time, too.” He feigns a shy pout. “How do you think I felt with your body yielding under me? Had it not risked waking our companion and leading her to stake me through the heart, I would have taken you completely .”
His words pull and tug at a space deep inside of you as you struggle to keep your breathing still. For a moment, you think he’s going to come over and do it now, but after pinning you down with the hunger in his eyes, he starts laughing -- a cruel laugh.
“I suppose you’ll have to wait,” he coos, falsely placating. “Until ‘next time.’”
Your lips turn down, unstoppably, in humiliation. It’s impossible to tell how much he’s lying and toying with you.
“...How did you become vampire spawn?” you ask, turning the subject to try to save face.
Astarion’s eyes harden, and his words become tinged at the edges with venom. “I was kidnapped. Kept as a pet by my master. It’s really very simple. You get bitten; you aren’t allowed the dignity of drinking the blood of the one who bites you; you become like me. All of the hunger and curse, and only the barest fraction of power.”
You’re familiar with the power of vampire lords. Resistance to magic, the ability to transform, regeneration… And the power to override a person’s will and control them as a slave. The one who turned Astarion must have lauded that power over him.
“I will kill him,” Astarion says simply.
You do feel a bit more sympathy now, not knowing the depths of the suffering that he endured, but knowing that his desire for vengeance springs from it untold.
You have only known Astarion for a week’s worth of travel together, but there is a dangerous, perhaps false intimacy of having discovered his secret and of letting him feed off of you. Perhaps a bit of your own blind altruism peeking through.
“I want to help you,” you say, softly.
The anger and sharpness in his expression is smoothed artificially by a charismatic smile.
“Ever so sweet, darling,” he says. “You are helping me. I’m gaining bits of power from your precious blood. Power that I have dearly wanted.”
Before you can speak, he fixes you with a stare -- a different look than you’ve ever seen on him; quiet, intense focus; not quite aloof, nor hungry, but --
As you look, his eyes begin to almost glow, a subtle and fascinating glow in his irises, and you realize that your body is beginning to still, breath slowing… Your mind feels a touch of velvet darkness threatening to envelop it, tempting in an unfamiliar, uncanny promise of control -- and pleasure to sink into --
Astarion breaks the spell, bursting into laughter once more; you gasp as your wits return, icily vivid with alarm.
“ Oh, ” he crows. “I nearly understand why this was done to me, now.”
The very real danger is so much more apparent now -- not only did you risk yourself by letting Astarion feed off of you, but he’s developing true vampire powers, powers that could threaten your life and now the life of your companion because of it --
Fatigued and woozy still, your hand creeps unconsciously towards the dagger on your belt.
Astarion’s mirth halts and he cocks an eyebrow at you.
“Why on earth would I kill you now?” he asks, exasperated. “I shan’t point out the obvious difficulties in you killing me , but have some sense. I didn’t drain so much blood that your brain doesn’t work right.”
Perhaps he didn’t know that that wasn’t entirely accurate -- you do feel a bit dazed, but not so much that you don’t understand what he’s alluding to. It wouldn’t make any sense at all that he would threaten his access to you. Not by killing you, nor your mutual companion.
At least, not right away.
Astarion rolls his eyes, clearly still seeing the tight, stressed line of your lips, looking uncannily still like he did before you knew he was a vampire.
“You don’t think I’d want to fuck a corpse, do you, darling?” he murmurs prettily. “I have standards.”
Desire swells between your legs at his implication, too quickly for the danger still present.
“But --” You push against the feeling. “If you can control our minds --”
“I won’t promise not to,” Astarion says, but it’s with a lurid tone that leaves you feeling hot and unsettled. “You’ll just have to trust me. Is that so much to ask?”
It is, considering it truthfully: a remarkably stupid thing to do.
Your hand lowers away from your belt and Astarion smiles.
“ Excellent, ” he breathes. “Now, we should get back to camp. I don’t care if you do or don’t tell our companion about my ‘condition,’ so long as I don’t awaken with a stake through me.”
…Probably best not to, then, for now.
A band of gnolls prowls the road, ripping their teeth through the bodies and viscera of a caravan who met their unfortunate end. The group of you hides behind brush to survey the situation, out of sight.
“I suspect there aren’t any survivors,” says Shadowheart.
“I suspect you’re right,” says Astarion, smiling, “but I’d love to see what they were carrying.”
Silently, he draws his bow and shoots an arrow straight through the head of a feasting gnoll, prompting the lot of them to howl and begin rushing towards the group’s hiding spot.
You and Shadowheart draw your weapons, ready for the fight.
“He’s in a good mood,” scowls Shadowheart, as Astarion melts into the foliage, poised to take another shot.
The fight is as clean as it can be, considering the bloody circumstances. You feel a tiny bit unstable, still wrestling with the dregs of that dull, thudding headache, but you are perfectly fine to slice the throats of several of the gnolls.
There is only one left, beaten half to death and wobbling on its hind legs. You give your sword a swing through the air to get the guts off of it, and go in to finish the job, but…
The gnoll halts, suddenly, going still. You sense the prickling of magic and see its beady eyes beginning to glow -- a soft red. You see the way its fur is bristling around tensing muscles; the creature is struggling against itself, against something --
“What’s happening?” Shadowheart calls out. “What’s wrong?”
Astarion is suspiciously silent -- you realize with horror that he must be testing out his newfound power, unbeknownst to everyone but you.
Testing it out… and flaunting it right before your eyes.
The gnoll is helpless. Its bulging musculature has softened, and it now stares with those unsettling red eyes a thousand yards out, unseeing. Almost… peaceful.
…A thought slips intrusively into your consciousness: did you look like that, when Astarion was teasing into your mind by the river?
After a moment too long, you snap yourself back to reality and swing your sword against the defenseless creature, cutting it down.
“What was wrong with that gnoll?” Shadowheart asks, walking over and surveying its corpse. “Why were you hesitating?”
She must have been too far away to sense the magic upon it.
“I don’t know,” you lie. “It was just staring me down. Perhaps in a moment of fear.”
“Well, it’s dead now,” Astarion says dismissively, emerging from the shadows, already rummaging through the broken-down cart. He seems a touch annoyed -- as though it had ended too quickly for his liking.
But what exactly did he expect of you? Let him be discovered puppeting the creature around?
“Ah,” he says, more pleasantly, and there is the clinking of glass bottles in the crate that his hands are buried in. “Perhaps some decent wine for our evening.”
Your group walks for another few hours down the road, following it along the trees and river until the sun begins descending, turning hazy and orange in the early evening. There’s a clear spot to make camp for the night tucked a little ways into the forest.
Shadowheart still prefers to spend her nights alone, guarding herself from being social with the strange patchwork trio of you. When you’ve finished setting up your tent and bedroll, you catch Astarion peering at you over a bottle of wine that he’s holding and taking swigs out of.
“Hello, darling,” he purrs when you approach. “Coming back for more tonight?”
Blood rises to your cheeks. You knew he’d surely want to feed off of you again, and perhaps you should have expected he would be so forward about it.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” he murmurs, with perfect bedroom eyes.
Your mind knows that he’s seducing you thick with charm, but your body feels vulnerable to it; hot, wanting.
“I…” It feels so weak to just concede wholeheartedly. “...Perhaps. Yes… But you shouldn’t -- you shouldn’t flaunt your powers in front of Shadowheart.”
“Why not?” he asks, half indifferent, half haughty. “If she objects to them, I can just control her .”
A pang of fear rises inside of you -- as though the matter were so simple as removing her will so it suited him better. An image of her vacant expression, going along with whatever he so desired --
“Don’t --” You feel like it’s hard to breathe. “Don’t do that.”
Astarion studies you for a moment, and his grin widens.
“Are you jealous?” he crows, lascivious. “Do you want me all to your sweet little self?”
“No,” you whisper, but something in his words has taken hold inside of you, and he can see it.
“I can’t promise to only control you, darling.” His voice is sickeningly sweet, placating but cutting. “If I’m to come into my own, I’ll need to control so many others. It’s in my nature as a vampire, you know.”
“That’s not --” Your throat feels tight.
“You can be my first, though,” he murmurs. His hand reaches out to cup your cheek -- it’s warm, and too intimate, and your body is flooding with an uncomfortable pleasure that you don’t fully understand. “Did you like the little taste of it this morning? Inside of you?”
Despite his convincing words earlier, claiming he wouldn’t harm you, you completely and clearly see the risk of choosing to surrender your mind to him -- the things he could make you do: steal for him, lie for him, kill for him --
But his palm resting on your jaw, the tips of his fingers brushing against a spot under your ear, his honeyed words speaking to the promise of a satisfaction you can’t quite place…
“Oh, dear,” he breathes. “Caught up already? I haven’t even started…”
“We should --” You do your best to force out the quiet words, some semblance of dignity even if you are giving in. “Not here…”
Astarion lowers his voice. “You don’t want me to fuck you while my power holds your friend’s body captive, watching helplessly as you lose yourself?” His hand slides down your neck just slightly to pass fingers whisper-light over the puncture wounds from his teeth.
“ Please, ” you say softly, pangs of discomfort sharp in your chest.
“Have it your way,” he drawls lazily, seemingly unbothered.
He draws back from you, takes a final sip of the wine and sets the half-empty bottle down. With no care towards discretion, he begins walking behind his tent, into the woods and towards the river’s edge.
Before following, you steal a glance towards Shadowheart’s tent across camp -- she meets your eyes, a touch disapproving.
…Nothing to be done about it now.
He’s waiting by a rock and tree, watching as you emerge to the riverbank.
“Come here, darling,” he purrs.
Hesitation slows your steps approaching him, the simple skittishness of baring yourself intimately. When you are within reach, his arms draw around your back to pull you in closer, flush to him.
“You poor thing,” he coos, so very near to your face. “Wound up all tight. I’ve waited all day to taste you again…”
Your breath catches and your head tilts just slightly to expose your neck again, anticipating the pain, but he tilts his face, leans in, and kisses you.
Your body sings with fulfillment, the hot, wet slide of his lips and tongue. His hands slide up your back, pulling you in -- and then back down to the curve of your hips, gripping them.
“ Delicious, ” he murmurs against you, and then you feel his sharp canines brush against your bottom lip, grazing it, piercing, stinging, and the iron taste of blood meets your tongue as you whimper.
Astarion makes a hungry, wanting noise, and the kiss turns more aggressive -- sucking at your lips, pushing his tongue deep into your mouth. The heat in your belly curls and twists. His breathing gets heavier against you and he suddenly pulls back, almost frustrated.
He shoves your shoulders, causing you to reel backwards and fall onto your backside, and he wastes no time before getting onto his knees, caging you, looming over you, pushing you further flat onto the ground.
A hand makes its way up your side to your breast, so gentle, cupping and caressing through the fabric of your tunic, tingling pleasure through your chest. His thumb finds your nipple, rubbing against it.
“Your body wants this, doesn’t it, darling,” he murmurs. “Yearning to be taken.”
He pulls your shirt up to expose you to the cool night air, and you reflexively turn your head away as he bends down to kiss and stroke the swell of your breasts, fingers gently squeezing at your nipples, hot little sparks.
You feel the sharpness of his teeth at your flesh, threatening, promising, and then piercing you as you stiffen up and he moans, hedonistic. His hands grip your upper arms now, pressing them into the ground so you can’t move -- he’s licking and sucking at the bite, fervently.
Your head spins, dazed; throbbing between your legs.
“Has anyone else ever treated you like this?” He releases your arms to push himself up, press his hips into yours possessively -- you flush deeply feeling the hard outline of his cock against you. “ Taking. Is that why you want me to control you from the inside, hmm? A desire to be taken ? Something true to your innermost parts…”
As he speaks his fingers drift across your clothed thigh, settling right above…
“All of this is erotic for me since I was turned,” he murmurs. “Feeding from you. And the idea of bending your mind to me, making you limp when I command, making you dance…”
Astarion leans over you, pressing his nose and lips against your neck, beneath your ear.
“What do you say, love,” he whispers. “Shall I make you surrender your will? Shall I coerce these pretty legs apart?”
His voice coaxes pleasure deep within your abdomen, and you can’t stop yourself from moaning. He makes a rough noise in response and pushes his hips into you harder, then braces himself on his hands so his face is above yours, sharp and pale, laced with hunger.
“Look at me, darling,” he coos. “Let me watch.”
Through hot shame you force your eyes to his -- red and deep in the bare light of the moon. He looks at you in that focused way again, concentrating, and his eyes begin to glow softly once more, and it becomes less and less effort to hold his gaze.
Again there’s a touch of darkness on your mind -- tendrils of a rich void reaching out to start consuming you…
“Give in, sweet thing,” he murmurs, and it is as though his voice is in front of you and in both your ears at once, vibrating right up against you. “Or don’t… Fight, if you like. It is too late for you to resist me, but perhaps if you try really hard…”
You’re not sure if you can help but resist the unfamiliar touch upon your thoughts, a pure reaction to being intruded upon. Your vision is beginning to wobble and swim, your eyes effortlessly held by his, drinking them in. Something is happening in your body -- a tingling, buzzing feeling sinking into your limbs.
The touch of his control feels as though it’s stroking through the layers of you, as though when you tighten up it meets you with a softness that melts directly through, lower down. Your thoughts begin to spin, dizzy, dazed, and lowering to a quiet place -- placid.
Your mouth is hanging open limply, and you can feel Astarion’s power lighting his body up in the darkness to you -- hypersensitized to how he’s rubbing his cock against you, your body responding helplessly with arousal.
It is moving so, so slowly through you, as though he’s taking his time.
“Are you even trying, darling?” he breathes. “Perhaps I should yet go over to seduce Shadowheart; she would give me a proper fight…”
That makes you tense, the suggestion of it unlikely but making your muscles try to twitch involuntarily in discomfort anyways, only to be smoothed out by the magic surging.
“You don’t believe me?” Astarion grips your thighs tight. “Think hard with what’s left of that mind, darling. I could so easily incapacitate you and leave you -- saunter over, charm her, fuck her, kill her --”
A noise forces out of your throat. Your mind is so dim, but he is right -- you walked directly into danger for the pleasure humming inside of you now, barely sparing a thought for it. You try to push hard against the fog swirling behind your eyes, but there is so little strength left. You try to move your body, but it’s as though you’re connected to it only by the barest thread.
Astarion can feel it, somehow. He’s breathing rough through arousal.
“Weak as a kitten,” he murmurs. “You’re mine now, darling.”
Suddenly, so fast -- the fog and darkness and tingling pleasure sweeps through to the very deepest core of you and winks out everything .
He is on you immediately, drawing back to pull your trousers down and off your legs, your limbs flopping limply as he rips them off. He is at your neck, biting and feeding sloppily, and you feel no pain and make no noise as he licks and sucks. His hard cock, pulled out, is against the barest parts of you, rubbing insistently, your body throbbing so close to an orgasm already.
You are controlled. You cannot move. You cannot speak. You cannot even think.
The head of it presses, presses, presses in --
“Smile, darling,” he commands. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
Your blank glazed eyes stare widely up as you feel your lips turning up into a placid, mindless smile -- his cock sinking all the way in, filling you, thick pleasure deep inside.
“ Hells ,” he hisses, and his hips start snapping into you, ferociously, making your body jostle, forcing waves of hot pleasure contracting through your lower belly --
You’re going to cum as he grunts and grips at you -- nothing you can do, just cumming, cumming, clenching --
“ Yes ,” he moans. “That’s fucking right -- so tight, darling -- your little cunt squeezing my cock, just for me --”
His nails are scratching your thighs and he slows down, bending over once more to latch onto your neck, kissing and biting and licking against your skin.
“I’m going to want this again,” he growls fervently. “I’m going to want this again and again -- your delicious, helpless little body… You can’t say no --”
The pleasure is blinding you, unseeing now from its intensity.
“Cum again,” he commands. “Squeeze my cock again --”
Another orgasm, instantly, clenching and clenching around him.
“Yes,” he breathes, fucking you through it, savoring it. “I could keep you -- just like this -- a little puppet -- doing whatever I say --”
The velvet fog over your mind keeps you completely consumed. Astarion pushes himself up to get leverage, pushing his hips into you faster, harder.
“Baring your neck when I command it. Taking any pain I inflict upon you, any humiliation --” His hand grips roughly at your breast, squeezing too hard, scraping nails. “Spreading your legs -- opening your lips -- open your mouth now , darling --”
Your mouth opens, tongue coming out to rest on your bottom lip, and Astarion reaches and shoves two fingers inside, stuffing you up as your mouth closes around them and begins sucking automatically.
“What do you say, love?” His voice is ragged with sadism and pleasure. “Want to be my slave ?”
You have no thought, no will to respond -- just fullness and unyielding pleasure.
“Say ‘yes,’ darling,” he purrs, rough, pulling his fingers out from your mouth, making an obscene wet sound.
Your voice is ripped out of you, throaty and moaning: “ Yes… ”
“Good girl, ” he crows. “Cum, again -- yes -- ”
Your pleasure-blind eyes roll back as your body clenches and squeezes, but now the sensation of blood loss and exertion is threatening your consciousness entirely, trembling on the edge of it. Astarion throws his head back and laughs, unhinged with mirth.
“Is that it?” His cock hits deeper, harder inside. “That’s all you can take, darling ? I’m not finished yet…”
The implication of his command holds tight to your mind as it struggles to hold on, but everything is growing dimmer… Dimmer…
“Sleep, then,” Astarion grates out, fucking into you savagely. “And I shall --”
But your exhausted, wrung-out body obeys and drifts into unconsciousness instantly, too fast to hear the rest as he keeps slamming into your motionless figure.
You awaken to the sun in the early morning, trying to move your body and finding yourself unbearably sore. Your arms, legs, and abdomen -- deep inside of you. Pinpricks of sharper pain on your neck and breasts.
You’re still by the river, opening your eyes to the clearing you were in; so different flooded by daylight. Mossy, green, and alive.
Looking around slowly, fatigued and woozy, you see Astarion sitting at the side of the river, watching you. Seeing you stir, he smiles.