Tav and Astarion discovered a game they both enjoyed.
Hunters camped around the forest in the Druid's grove, their roaring fires a deterrent to wolves and boars but a beacon to the two elves.
A few hundred yards from one of these camps, Tav gulped from a flask and laid down on the forest floor. Astarion crouched at her side, ready to lean forward and tease himself with a drink he wouldn't receive. This drink was foreplay to the ones to come.
"Help! Help!" Tav shrieked, her face bored but her tone frantic.
Footsteps crunching through the fallen leaves and torchlight dissipating the darkness signaled the next part of the game. Astarion posed himself, his mouth closed but inches from her neck. She continued to scream but grinned at him. She smelled wonderful. Like rain and cloves.
A hunter, a young man in his twenties, found them. His mouth fell open in terror. His feet wanted to turn and run, but the fear bolted him to the ground. The creature leaning over the screaming woman turned to him, grinning.
Astarion sprung at the man, knocking him to the floor. He sank his teeth into the tender flesh on his neck and drank deeply. His blood was hot.
"Oh no, help me," Tav said sarcastically while sitting up.
She watched as Astarion drained the man, fascinated. The hunter stopped fighting quickly. He looked at Tav before he shut his eyes for the final time, pleading. He couldn't understand what was happening.
Astarion finally rose and rolled his shoulders. His face was smeared with blood, a look Tav found endearing. Something in between a child's face covered in icing after diving into a cake and a man drenched in the blood of a flayed victim.
"All set?" she asked, rising.
"Quite. Thank you for your performance. Most convincing."
Her eyes were focused on the blood on his face. She wanted to run her tongue over his lips and chin. She had acquired the taste for blood long ago. Rituals involved it, and she associated it with power and pleasure. Her patron saw little divide between the two.
She stepped forward and ran her finger over his lips, picking up the sanguine fluid. She wouldn't do what she wanted to, but allowed herself a taste. She lifted her finger and slipped it between her lips, closing her eyes and savoring the iron taste.
"Oh?" Astarion asked, eyebrows raised.
"I'm a warlock. We do weird shit. Thought you'd be used to it," she laughed, recalling how he had watched with morbid curiosity as she harvested organs from his prey.
"That was far from gutting a man," he remarked, crossing his arms over his chest. "That was almost...tender?"
She blinked at him. Was it?
"I'm stuffed to the gills, I'm afraid," he falsely complained. He was full and felt wonderful.
He wanted her to do it again. If his heart beat it would have fluttered in his chest. She was strange and exciting. She didn't shy away from gore and guts. She understood the beauty in such visceral concepts.
She swiped her finger down his lips again, repeating the process.
"If only there was a faster way to deal with this," he sighed. He wanted her to press her lips to his. He wanted to feel her tongue on him. He wanted to taste the blood again. He was afraid to propose such a thing, not knowing if there was a boundary lurking.
Tav laced her fingers through his hair and brought his face closer to hers. She was a head shorter than him but closed the gap before sliding her tongue from his chin, over his lip, and to the tip of his nose. Roughly, she turned his head to the side and licked from his jaw to his cheek. Her breath was heavy.
Astarion tried to control his own shuddering breath but failed. She seemed to be teasing him, avoiding licking his lips after the first swipe.
She was.
Astarion gently pulled her body into contact with his, hoping to signal he was in for whatever she had planned. She wrapped her arm around his waist and forced them even closer together, replying to his signal.
After minutes of excruciating and delightful teasing, Tav returned her tongue to his chin and slowly snaked it up to his bottom lip. She delicately traced his lip before gently bringing it between her lips. Her eyes locked with his before she slowly sank her teeth into it, eliciting a moan that sounded like the heavens. She gently sucked on the tender flesh.
She released and looked into his eyes. They met hers for only a moment before he placed his lips against hers, the taste of blood still present.
Tav returned the kiss, then knocked him to the floor with a shove. She knew he could take a little rough housing, and ventured he might even enjoy it. He grinned up at her.
She whispered the words of a spell that would grant her muscles the strength to be on level with Astarion. She wanted to surprise him. Her veins throbbed as the effect took place, and he watched with interest. He wasn't much for magic and wondered what she was doing, but his question was answered when she sprang onto him and pinned his arms to his side.
"I don't think you needed my help fixing your tent," he teased, testing the resistance provided by her arms.
"I didn't," she whispered, leaning beside his ear before nipping at it.
Tav leaned back, keeping Astarion pinned while putting her weight on his groin. She could feel his desire beneath her. He drove his hips forward, eager.
Normally she would rough her partners up. She enjoyed slapped red faces and bloodied scratches down their sides before the act. After intercourse she would slip away and never return, bored with a broken toy. They endured the ministrations because a wet cunt was at the end of it.
She didn't want to break this toy. In him she found a reflection of herself: depravity and curiosity. His thrusting hips weren't a desire to rush things along, but to show willingness.
"Is it alright if I touch your neck?" she asked softly. The scarred puncture wounds warned of unpleasant associations she didn't want to get tangled in.
"Be my guest," he answered, turning his head and smiling. He hadn't been on the receiving end of this treatment in a very long time. He hid his neck as much as possible.
Tav lowered her lips to the side of his neck and stopped just before they touched, choosing instead to trail her fingers over the puckered flesh. She regretted that such a horrible man had done this to him. He was smart and cunning and could have served a much wiser master. He deserved better.
She kissed over the scars, eliciting tensed muscles beneath.
"No good?" she asked, hoping to avoid the minefield that was the nature of trauma.
"Very good," he whispered, almost choked. "Very very good."
Tav returned her lips to the scars and introduced her tongue. She traced circles with the tip of her tongue over the circular wound.
Astarion shuddered and tensed.
Above the scars, she sank her flat teeth into his porcelain skin. She wouldn't break the skin, but to the universe she communicated she was above Cazador. The man beneath her was hers now.
Astarion gasped and a moan shuddered out between his parted lips. Tav ran her tongue over the flesh pinched beneath her teeth and squeezed his wrists gently. She released and slowly rose over him.
A beautiful violet bruise would form where her teeth had sank. More prominent than Cazador's mark. Better. In the coming days she would eye the bruise and lust would burn in her stomach.
Astarion's vermillion eyes met hers, wide and ready. A grin lifted one side of his reddened lips.
Tav lifted her hands and slid a dagger from its sheath on her boot.
"Not for you," she explained, raising an eyebrow. "Leave your hands where they are."
He nodded, otherwise unmoving.
"Open your mouth," she spoke. He complied.
Above him, Tav took the dagger and sliced into the tender flesh of her underarm. Blood rushed to the surface and she held the wound over his frantic eyes and twitching tongue. The sanguine fluid ran down the side of her arm and trickled into this open mouth.
His eyes rolled back into his head. Tav lightly grinned against him, her heat barely tangible through her clothing. He was close to going over the edge when the trickle of blood into his mouth stopped. His lips met, confused.
Tav had pressed her own would to her lips. Her eyes warned him to hold still, and he did. He hadn't moved a muscle and she had driven him to near madness. Blissful madness.
Lips smeared red, Tav gripped a handful of his hair and pressed her mouth to his. Her lips parted and a wave of her blood rushed into his mouth. Her tongue snaked around his and a moan hummed in his throat.
He shuddered as he climaxed, swallowing and choking on the blood in his mouth.