Chapter Four
"I feel as if I am being subtly punished"
The vampire wrinkled his nose at a particular patch of ground ivy that promised unstable footing and probably something disturbingly slimy beneath. They had long since passed through what one might typically call the 'nicer' parts of the forest where the ground had the decency to be mostly stable underfoot. But the druid seemed to be very purposely moving in a direction that had taken them to a less than inviting part of the forest, where only the meanest slivers of sunlight were allowed to breach the thick and gloomy canopy above, and the air held a distinct scent of decay.
Said decay seemed to be mostly on his shoes right now, and it was admittedly irritating to watch her move through this eerie and frankly, dismal place, with so much ease. Her feet seemed to find stability amongst all this muck without her appearing to make much of an effort. He was about as much out of his element as he could possibly be, and he'd already been a far cry from what he would consider 'normal' already.
Then again, considering what normal was not so long ago, perhaps losing some of his dignity in what could only be described as a woodland graveyard was a small price to pay. Then again, he thought, as his foot slipped on a moss-covered rock and something squished underfoot, maybe not.
He watched her stoop and pick up something tangled in a patch of briar, stooping on her haunches to examine what looked to be a jawbone. The all too present breeze that had been wafting the almost sulfurous stick of rotted vegetation his way for the last half hour now carried the subtle tang of copper and hand-cured soap, indicating that she'd been none too careful about the thorns.
It was one of the many things that kept the vampire's interest in the strange obstinate woman, long after he should have given up. She always carried the scent of blood with her. Be it animal blood from her hunting excursions, the blood of their numerous enemies, or the far more intoxicating aroma of her blood, which she seemed to feed to the forest regularly in little scrapes and scratches.
"Are you going to tell me why we are traipsing through this godforsaken part of the forest or is the plan to wait until I trip over whatever we are looking for?"
He was aware that he sounded slightly petulant but by the gods, he'd never had to hold himself in check this much before. The forest might have been a pungent and spongey hellscape of twisted trees and murderous vines, but that had not stopped her scent from filling his lungs for the past three hours. That desperate and undeniable need he had smelled last night was fainter, but it was still there, and now mingled with the ghostly aura of blood.
Of course, he wanted her again, but 200 years had at least made him smart enough to know that there was a time and a place, and if he picked the wrong time she would slip his advances as she always did. One more night with that cunning little wildshape making her blood run hot was too much to pass up. So he had chosen to play at being patient, and she was not making it easy.
"Trust me, we'll see what we're looking for long before you have a chance to stumble over it, take a look at this"
She tossed him the jawbone, and peered into the bracken seemingly not satisfied with her macabre find. He caught it delft enough and eyed it without much interest. There were a few smudges of something dark on the pitted white surface, it crumbled away when he brushed his thumb over it.
"Oh fascinating…an old bone, unless it can magic up a new pair of shoes I fail to see your point"
"The black dust, it's a corruption of sorts, probably from some residual magic used around here. Halsin said it had started infecting some of the animals, but with what's been happening of late in the circle, they hadn't gotten around to cleansing this place"
Astarion suppressed a groan. They were on another one of her noble causes, weren't they? He understood the practicality of perhaps a little heroic philanthropy here and there if it got them closer to a cure or finding out why the hell the tadpoles had changed them, but Verlaine took it to the extremes sometimes, and it was hard not to remind her that there was a time and a place for such niceties and they probably didn't have a lot of the former to spare.
"Yes, but what are we doing here precisely, gifted as you no doubt are I fail to see you clearing this mess up in little more than a day. Wouldn't you rather be curled around a campfire with, dare I say, immaculate company, and hours to while away"
He couldn't be sure, but the dip of her head might well have been the tree lover's attempt at hiding a smirk, and given her general stony expression, he was going to count that as the barest of hairline fractures in that armor she had spent the morning so desperately trying to gather around herself. As if that could make her any less naked in his mind. The smallest of cracks could bleed into chasms.
"There are reports of a very old and currently very destructive bear that's made its den here. One of the druids reported it to be in the end stages of infection, I told Halsin I would take a look while I was here, it'll probably need putting down"
Astarion rolled his eyes, hard, then with some extremely concentrated effort, hopped onto the outcrop of rock she was hunched down on, still poking around in that damn bush, hauling her to her feet with a hand under her arm. He couldn't decide whether he was more frustrated, amused, or incensed.
"We've been traipsing around in the muck and the weeds for half the day…for a bear?!"
There was apparently something rather amusing about his state of being, as she regarded his statement with a half smile that was seriously threatening to turn into a smirk when she nodded to confirm that she had indeed dragged him through this stinking hellhole for a creature that sounded like it was going to die of its own accord fairly soon anyway.
He steadied an arm on a thick branch behind her, bringing that catalyst of a scent closer, amused at the way she still stood her ground even when he could hear that discordance in her heartbeat.
"You know I'm not sure whether i want to bite you or bury you in all this undergrowth, we could be in this place for days trying to find a single bear"
She was still wearing that half smile, not exactly mocking but secretive, it pulled her mouth into a shape that all but begged for the kiss he stole with just just a split second to think about it. Through a half lidded gaze, he watched those dark gray eyes close and felt her sigh against his lips while her hands sought to find purchase on what remained of his shirt as he stole a little of her careful balance with a delicate sweep of his tongue at her lower lip.
That heady scent of her enhanced arousal bloomed suddenly, blotting out the stink of dead leaves and long dead discarded prey. It filled his nose and rolled over his tongue like a thick vapor, and the vampire breathed it in greedily.
"Astarion…"
His name breathed against his mouth, while his thumb traced the line of her jaw, delighted in the way it tilted to automatically give him access.
"Hmmm?"
He didn't dare stop now, she was always one second away from remembering herself and putting the brakes in place with all the efficiency of a boulder.
"Astarion, I think we're standing on its den"
Like that. He sighed and made himself pull back, at least gratified to note that she appeared to be somewhat breathless as she ducked under her arm and pointed to the hold she had made in the tangle of thorns. He dutifully leaned in to look and saw that the litter of bones she had been poking through appeared to lead into an opening big enough for a bear to squeeze into if it was determined.
"Please tell me I'm not about to watch you wriggle into that hole, if you die nobody is going to believe me that you were so stupid"
"I won't need to climb down there, I'm going to make it come up, you uh…might want to stand back"
He frowned an inquiry at that but did as she said. He might not have been able to empathize `1-w with her motives most of the time, but he'd trust her while in her domain. Whatever he might have done to give her concentration a little shake, now seemed to have been taken over by a very focused stare as she removed a small knife from her boot. He wanted to ask what she hoped to accomplish with such a stunted weapon, but he didn't have to. What he did need to do, was take a few more steps back, as he watched her drag the small blade over her palm, cutting a long diagonal slash along the palm.
He grit his teeth together as she held the wound over the bramble strewn entrance, eyes unable to stop themselves from following the steady drops of crimson. It almost seemed as if the rest of the forest around them had also paused to inspect this strange, but oddly compelling scene.
There was something incredibly poised about the way she crouched there, the tilt of her head and the fall of her hair, she would have been a painter's dream, a perfect romantic image of nature's child, made slightly (and in his opinion, deliciously) macabre by the blood still seeping from the self inflicted wound.
They didn't have to wait long. To him, her blood was akin to a shot of exotic brandy on the tongue, and apparently, the long awaited bear thought along the same lines if the slight shifting underfoot was anything to believe. Astarion quickly found himself better footing on a log that wasn't quite rotting just yet, while the ground heaved and heavy growling pants could be heard coming from the hole in the ground.
The vampire watched in growing confusion and then horror as she leapt up and grasped an overhanging branch, not having to just wonder where all that muscle definition came from when she pulled herself up and half crouched just above where the hole was. He could see what she was about to do and had already opened his mouth to ask if she were completely insane, when the undergrowth covering the hole practically exploded outward as the bear forced its head and shoulders through the holf, growling and snuffling hard at the ground where her blood had fallen.
She seemed to sense his desire to point out the lunacy of her half baked plan, and placed a finger to her lips as she pulled a second, far larger knife from its sheathe at her hip and seemed to ready herself.
The bear appeared to be having some trouble getting its hind quarters out of the hole, and that gave Astarion time to notice the dark red and orange pustules that almost seemed to pulse from within, amid a twisting lattice of black and red sores that had taken over most of its body. When it finally managed to drag its rear free, he could see parts of the things rib cage, where the flesh and innards had fallen free. Wonderful, not just an infected bear, but an undead infected bear.
It was too late to ask further questions, as soon as the bear had taken a few steps into the clearing, Verlaine had dropped from the tree, landing on the bear's back and causing all hell to suddenly break loose. Astarion could do nothing but watch as the old beast bucked and swiped at the invader on its back, Verlaine only managing to stay on when it reared by grabbing a fistful of its thick scruff and jamming the knife into its flank, making the ugly bastard roar and shake its body all the harder.
He honestly hadn't quite been able to picture it when she had told them she wrestled monsters, now he was getting a front-row seat while wondering how in the hells she managed to live this long. The woman was insane! She was also apparently very determined, clinging on for dear life as she pulled the blade out and tried to aim for the bear's thick skull, only barely missing getting cuffed by a massive claw tipped paw when she aborted her first attempt in favor of ducking the blind blow.
Old bears were smart bears, and undead or not, this one had the sense to eventually stop swiping long enough to drop on its side in an attempt to squash the annoying, biting little insect on its back. He watched her roll away before she could be trapped beneath all that fetid bulk, popping back up with what he first thought to be a snarl, but as the bear rolled over and got to its feet again, he was surprised to see she was actually grinning.
She was enjoying this?
The bear began to run at her, and the Vampire felt his feet twitch with the need to at least do something, but he was designed for bedding and assassination, not bloody bears! But Verlaine? She was in her element, there was no other way to describe it as he watched her duck the bear's powerful but clumsy strikes, striking out with her claw tipped fists when she could. But the creature was backing her up against a cliff face hanging thick with ivy and she appeared to be running out of ground in which to get around those wild and furious blows.
Another swing and she was sent hurtling across the clearing, crashing into the broken trunk of a rotted tree that practically exploded on impact. As the bear stomped the ground with both paws and all of its body weight, Astarion understood that it meant to charge her again and swore as he jumped into the clearing, doing his best to ignore what he hoped was water, filling his shoes.
Grabbing the end of a thick branch, he grunted with the effort of pulling it free of the brambles and hurling it at the old bear's flank. The response was immediate, all that great bulk whirling on him, its great jaws yawning open to reveal its rotted tongue and yellowed teeth. At this point it very quickly occurred to the Vampire that he hadn't really thought beyond getting the thing's attention
Those huge claws now scored the ground as the bear pawed at it, readying itself for another charge, its great head swinging from side to side with a mournful roar. He was going to have to run, and even then….
Something sailed across the clearing and hit the bear in its flank. It was all black fur and spitting white jaws, ears laid back, and golden eyes wild as it snarled a challenge at the undead beast.
Astarion had fought alongside Verlaine long enough to know that she preferred a ballistic approach when it came to dispatching their enemies. They had all gotten used to the bulk of her owlbear form acting as a living battering ram, scattering enemy lines with aggressive competency. But this was…something altogether different. The leopard was smaller, but far more agile and dare he say…more violent.
The hissing, roaring needle pawed creature was darting rings around the bears lumbering attempts to swat it away as it darted in and started ripping bits of its flesh away. Every time the bear made a grab for that sleek bullet like head, it would jerk back, pawing at its nose which was becoming bloody and raw. The noise was deafening, booming blood choked roars and high bitched wildcat screams echoing around him as the ground shook with the old bear's fury.
She was managing to keep out of the bear's way for now, but the injuries she was inflicting weren't doing much. He knew she could still understand him, and when he yelled across the clearing, he was already running, a foolish and completely half baked plan in his head.
"Get it on its bloody hind legs!"
He wasn't quite sure if she really had understood him until those hindquarters hunched back, wriggled back and forth and that sleek form leaped upon the bear's back, burying its teeth in the bear's scruff. The bear's fury shook the leaves above them, roaring in rage and pain as it reared up on its hind legs, trying to grasp the needlesome creature on its back. He saw her claws digging into its flesh for purchase and continued to run at them both, scooping up another large fallen branch on the way.
There wasn't any room for hesitation or wondering if this was going to work, he could only pick up speed and momentum. He was but a few steps away when he hauled the branch back and with every ounce of strength he could muster with her blood in his system, shoved the branch upwards, up into the very apex of its throat and jaw. With a hoarse snarl of effort, he gave another hard shove and watched as the branches' broken end appeared out of the flailing bear's skull.
He was forced to step back as one huge paw narrowly missed his face, and then take a further few steps back as all that towering weight began to fall, the leopard riding it down, her jaws still buried in its pelt. There hadn't been much more than hate and pain powering the bear beforehand, with perhaps a little magical malignancy to help along the way, now even that seemed to be ebbing away from it as it coughed up chunks of congealed blood and a black substance he didn't even want to guess at.
He might have felt a sense of accomplishment if he hadn't looked down to discover that he was absolutely covered in what he hoped was only mud and forest slime. He glared at the leopard, still standing atop the dying bears body, watching him warily with its head lowered between velveteen shoulders. On closer inspection, he could see that its fur was more a dark brown covering black rosettes that were streaked here and there with the bears foul blood. None the less, that fur all but begged for him to reach out and touch, earning him a wrinkling of the muzzle and a display of those lethal, white canines while a thick velvet tail lashed behind her.
He distinctly remembered her telling them once, that while she could think in wildshape, Verlaine found that her senses and instinct tended to be more hard wired to the animal she was mimicking, which made a sense of sorts. Ignoring the squelch in his shoes, the vampire dropped into a squat, stealing those gold ringed eyes with his own, predator to predator.
"Now now, we're all friends here little beastie"
He watched her hop off the bear to land lightly, just a few feet away, her muzzle extending towards him, scenting the air around him, ears still flat to her skull. Luckily he'd had practice at staying perfectly still, and did so now as her paws crept forward, nose snuffling at the air, He held his breath when she was just a few centimeters away, hot, primitive breath exhaling over his cheek. From this distance, she could go for his throat if she wanted to.
Instead, he felt the velvet covered bone of her skull, rub against his cheekbone and jaw, a gesture he might have appreciated were it not for the fact that she was covered in just as much grime as he was.
"Yes yes, I appreciate the gesture but if it's all the same, you owe me a bath and much less grime encrusted forms of gratitude"
He still found himself plunging his fingers into the sleek, soft fur of her neck, wondering at the heat of her beneath his fingers. The long and drawn out rumbling that answered him in response would be counted as a victory on his part for weeks to come.
~o0O0o~
Drinking her was like swallowing down liquid rage along with the strongest of aphrodisiacs. It flowed into his throat in greedy copper toned swallows, lighting up nerve endings and filling his soul with that ancient desire to fill his mouth with her flesh. He felt rabid and raw, his cock, a painful exclamation pressed between them that pulsed and twitched at every little sound that she made. Fingers fisted into hair, jerking her head back onto his shoulder, opening up the line of her throat for him to gorge upon her as much as he dared.
The temptation to keep going until there was nothing left was always present, it was as natural as his instinct to rut and grind against her backside where he fit so neatly, it was as if she truly was designed for his body. He forced himself to stop, pulling away from her blood smeared neck to bite and suck at her slimly pointed ear before using his leverage on all that dark hair to make her taste her own heated blood on his tongue.
He felt the lethal glide of claws extending from fingers that gripped his thighs and hissed, tugging on his hand hold in warning, answering her ragged cry with another sharp nip along the outer edge of her ear while the fingers of his one free hand danced down her quivering belly to stop just below her navel, moving in featherlight strokes in contrast to his harsher treatment to the rest of her body.
In one deft lurch forward, he had her on her knees, bent over that hand at her belly, guiding her cheek to rest on the hard earth beneath, earning him a baring of her monstrous teeth and a low growl, a complete contradiction to the way her hips pressed back against him in sheer wanton need. He smirked and slid his hips back, denying her desire and his own for the time being. Of course there were always more desires in the making, and watching her darling backside squirm had given him another, along with that heady scent she couldn't help but make.
When he was sure she would stay in the position he put her in, Astarion withdrew his hands to place on the back of her thighs, one swift jerk parting them even further and causing her back to arch in a pleasing line. Thumbs parted her leaking sex, one slipping in to the first knuckle and slipping away again before she could do more lift her hips to the sensation. She was mewling in desperation now, not quite daring to move from her position but unable to stand still.
He gave her the briefest of reliefs, a single sweep of his cool tongue, withdrawing again to savor her earthen taste and listen to the sounds of frustration rising. Only when she screamed for him did her suddenly slip his arms under her thighs and plunge his tongue into her quivering heat. He wasn't disappointed to feel the first tightening rush of heat flood his mouth with just a few strokes inside those velveteen walls. The fact that she was so sensitive this time of year was his very own delight.
He was merciless now, chasing that sudden climax with another thrust into delirious spasmning heat, nipping gently at lips and capturing that small but oh so important bundle of nerves to suck and torture with a flicker of his tongue. She was torn between pushing back into his mouth and clawing to get away from the intensity of it all. But his grip wouldn't allow her to escape, pulling her back into his ravenous mouth each time. She came again with a violent jerk of her hips and he rode it out with her, never stopping what by now must have felt like torture to her overly responsive nerve endings.
If his mouth wasn't utterly occupied he would have worn a grin to rival a devil as his lips captured her clit once more and sucked hard. Her breath came out in choked sobs now, one fist beating against the floor as she fought the iron clad pull of his hold on her. But he continued to suck and nibble and persecute that tiny mound of flesh until she was screaming in delirious ecstasy designed to utterly wipe her mind.
Only when there were tears in her eyes did he finally stop, his jaw aching pleasantly, his lips thick with the taste of her. His own forgotten desire twitched again at the sight of her as she collapsed, half in his lap, the other half prone and shaking on the floor.
As much as he wanted to bury himself into her right there and then, he gave her time to come down from the plateau that he'd practically launched her up into, hands stroking shaking thighs, running his thumbs aside the long ridge of her spine to her neck, coaxing her mind down from that stratosphere of lust he'd been more than willing to create.
"Come back to me darling, we both know you're nowhere near done just yet"
He felt the tiniest pangs of regret as he watched her slowly will her limbs into moving again. She would have looked gorgeous writhing on delicate silks and rich furs, sighing beneath him on the soft and expensive furnishings of his bed. He'd never had the opportunity to lavish upon that body all the little evils he wanted while in the familiar surroundings of the palace.
She had denied him that. And he had crushed her with a cruelty that he could scarcely think of years later without feeling a gut wrenching stab of bitterness.
The pang was fleeting, however, time and the sight of her regaining her strength as she sat up and faced him with those extraordinary eyes still ablaze, would not allow much room for the specters of the past. She was here and she was his, for as long as the night could hold, and if it were in his power to blot out the sun already he would have made this night last for the eternity he had bargained the remains of his soul for.
She was crawling into his lap now, his kin immediately leeching the warmth from her as greedily as his mouth had done, and now it was her mouth at his throat, chasing a line of soft ghostly kisses and tiny laps of her tongue. He pulled her thighs either side of his own and hissed when the fever of her cunt slipped along that forgotten length of hardening flesh, pulling a long and lazy groan from him as she lavished his throat and began to softly grind, not enough to relieve tension, but only heighten it for the both of them.
Fingers played lightly along her spine in a tactile game of finding all the scars back there, old and new, sliding down to squeeze the flexing muscle of her ass. Her slow breath enflamed his pulse and bid him to tip his gaze up to the stars. He might have allowed her to tease him like this all night if her thighs didn't suddenly clamp around him just moments before she set her teeth to his throat, hard. He stiffened, arms locking at her lower back as she held him there, her tongue tasting the flesh held in her teeth.
He grit his teeth against the pain and held her there, knowing all too well what she was thinking while at his throat, knowing the temptation that she held in her mouth. It would have been all too easy to bite down harder and bring the very hells down upon their ears.
"Careful now Darling, that's dangerously close to a decision you'll come to sorely regret by dawn"
Gradually she pulled away trying to look anywhere but at him, the vaugest trace of shame and…yes a touch of sorrow in those gold ringed eyes. A cruel part of him wanted to taunt her at that moment, to see the brim of tears and the grief stick in her throat. An old but not forgotten part of his shattered ego found the idea all too appealing. To fuck her senseless while she mourned her mistake between tears and sensual cries of pleasure. But that was a fantasy neither of them would ever be able to fulfill no matter how badly he wanted it.
"Look at me Verlaine"
The shock of her name on his tongue rather than one of hundreds of inventive pet names, brought her back to him, though he could still see the hectic spots of color on her cheeks. He would never deny that their sort of love was about as caustic as you could possibly get, but he did love her, as much as was possible for a man like him.
He carefully bore her back to the earthen floor again, never letting her gaze waver from his when he reached between them and took himself in hand, feeling a certain sense of sadistic joy when the pulsing head brushed against her abused clit and made her squirm fitfully.
"Say it"
His command was soft, but it was a command all the same and one she knew would twist in her mouth. Not because she would have to lie, or because it was too sordid to say amongst the many other things he had forced her to cry out over the years. He wanted to hear it because he knew it would both hurt and feel sweet upon her tongue. The words were a deadly poison, the symptom of which was their ongoing obsession with each other.
He could sense that she wanted to close her eyes, look away, do anything to not say those words while under the heated gaze of scarlet tones, but his gaze pinned her as effortlessly as chains of iron and eventually, she had to relent, had to play their torturous little game.
"I love you, Astarion"
He released a gratified sigh and hips surged forward, impaling her in one long stroke to the hilt. He stayed there for a few moments, completely encased within all her pyretic softness, his eyes still imprisoning hers as he shuddered and pulsed within her. A hand slid beneath her head, pulling that golden ringed gaze closer to his, the other lifting her leg to place under one shoulder, opening her up to the almost languid stroke of his hips, the movement almost tender in comparison to what had come before.
If he were bedding any other, he might have turned them to face anywhere but looking at him, for he couldn't bear to look upon eyes he would not remember come the dawnlight. This particular intimacy was reserved for these eyes only, and some bitter, distant part of him knew that when he next took his due from some innocent creature lured to his bed, it would be her eyes he would see when his release came to him.
Staring into those gray-golden depths now, he drew back and plunged forward again, relishing the sharp impact of their bodies and the sudden plosive cry from her lips. He began to set a rhythm now, each pull away from her body a slow and torturous exit from walls that seemed to grip him in reluctance to let go, every thrust forwards a forceful impact that jerked her body onto his. She was not passive here, she was never passive for long, even when he was pushing her to her limits and her hips picked up the pace he was setting, her free leg hooking around his waist and urging him on.
Somewhere along the line, those claws had retracted, and gentler fingers threaded through his hair, brushing through his hair as another roll of the hips brushed his cock against that hidden little spot that made her squeal and lock her fingers in those white curls.
A savage grin bared his teeth to her and he began to hit that spot over and over again, hands slipping under her arms and gripping her shoulders to pull her onto each deep concussion of his body hitting the deepest and sweetest part of her.
He was aware of his breath coming in short growls and harsh grunts as he pushed his body to utterly dominate hers. She would be bruised come morning, but he wouldn't have been able to make himself stop even if he cared at this moment. But there was no room for caring anymore, there was only the feel of her body giving way to his, the sensation of utter ownership at this time, in this place.
Over and over he rode her into the dirt, the hard slap of flesh echoing over the water along with her growing catamount cries. Her rapidly building pulse pushed thin rivulets of blood from the holes he had made earlier, and it was instinct to bend his head and chase them with his tongue. Every perfect muscle in that body now redoubled its efforts, her taste lighting a touchpaper that promised a mind altering explosion if he could just push them to that perilous edge. Two people racing towards that little death they had died a hundred times.
"I love you"
Her faint, hoarse whisper was the catalyst that came from nowhere and Astarion felt his hips stutter, their rhythm becoming frantic and lost to his control. A tightly clenched fist grew in his gut and guided his hips in a final brutal thrust that spilled him inside her in pulsing, shaking waves. She was the only woman who could bring him true satisfaction, Everyone else felt wrong, smelled wrong, and sounded…wrong. The euphoria of finally releasing inside her was indescribable as if every wound in his soul had been lanced and cleansed, leaving the poignant sting of bliss to settle over him.
When his head fell to the safe haven of her neck, he shuddered hard against her sweat slick skin, unwilling to pull away from her, unable to let her go from the trap of his arms.
They could both feel the unstoppable coming of the dawn and neither of them wanted to face it, better to stay here in this warm cage of their own making, better to be ignorant for as long as they could. Her fingers now traced calming lines along old scars that lulled his eyes into closing in a perfect moment of contentment and peace. The life that awaited him back home was a violent and bloody one, it demanded nothing but ruthlessness and cruelty on his part. But here, with her, he was in another world, a world that he would never admit to missing. Only in the deepest and quietest of nights would he ever admit to even himself, that he might have done things differently.
"My my, what a delicious trap for a little mouse, caged in flesh and desire…I almost feel bad for interrupting, but the sand has reached the bottom of the hourglass and I believe you have taken full advantage of my part of the deal"
He felt her stiffen against him, those stroking hands trembling as she tried to burrow her face into him, denying that voice and its truths. Astarion lifted his head from the sanctity of her skin and gave the interloper a murderous look.
Raphael merely bowed in mock apology and held up a set of silver chains that swung prettily back and forth, catching the light of the dying embers along with the devils grin.
"Console yourself Astarion, our little deal will return her to you safe and sound once again, next year. But now you must relinquish your little mouse. It's time for her to come home"