What were all those people doing that most of them were still awake? Should he have poisoned their wine with a potion of sleep at some point during the night? The sweet and charismatic vampire elf was starting to regret not having those kinds of ideas a bit earlier. He was graced with a lot of things — beauty, agility, stealth, persuasion, time — none of which was patience. And he had been waiting for more than two hundred years for a night like this. He may have all the time of the realms in his hands — it didn't make it more bearable. Not after enjoying her little show, patting himself on the back for bagging precisely that woman for the night.

It didn't matter so much that it was her, it was mostly a bonus. He would have promised himself to almost anyone in order to feel freer than he felt every waking moment of his life. But her — the untamable leader of their group, the cold-hearted bitch that let a snake kill a little girl because it wasn't her problem, the flirty beautiful thing that moaned and clawed at his back while he drank from her in the middle of the camp, not a care in the world — was his most deserved prize.

He should have taken her the night she offered her blood for the first time. He should have said 'fuck them' and dragged her just far enough to have her only for himself. But no, 'let's wait until the others are asleep', he had to say. What little was keeping him cool resided in the fact that he preferred not to have an audience, not after having been forced to perform so, so many times before. This night was selfish. This night was his alone.

At least, if he had to be honest with himself, the wine was amazing. Rich, deep, old… and as red as freshly spilt blood. And the company wasn't as bad as he was expecting. The goblins knew how to have fun — fighting and torturing each other, filling a strange ritual statue with gore near the river, pestering Withers to the point that the old bones had started ignoring them completely and running around the entire area of the camp chasing Scratch, who was focused on his own hunt against a chicken — and, since he had no other choice until later, he decided to enjoy it all. The gossip, the curious looks, the inconsequential conversations with the girl cleric and the alien swordswoman. He deserved a little celebration after all they've been through these past weeks, didn't he?

Once and again Stengah's eyes would search for his. Once and again he would know because he was looking back at her, ready to throw a wink in her direction. She would laugh loud enough for everyone to hear before smiling at him and continuing whatever activity she decided to start a couple of minutes before. He would remember her fingers playing with his hair, he would retrace in the air the arch of her neck — so freely offered, so slowly taken — and his patience would wear thin once again.

He needed to remind himself that he was using her — after all, a vampire spawn without a master was like a baby with candy for the dangers of the world, his own companions included, and she had it so, so easy to protect him. It was his purpose from the moment he started sweet-talking her, soon after they met. It had been so easy he almost pitied her. Yet it always was. If he started pitying her he should do the same for the hundreds, thousands of prey he had to caught over the course of his life and he certainly didn't want to waste so much time thinking about something so inconsequential. The impression that something about this time was different was caused, most certainly, by the absence of his master.

His attention was seized by a couple of goblins who were playing instruments near the ritual area — seriously, he had zero ideas of what was supposed to be except a damn bucket of blood that he could have smelled from Szarr's Palace — and who started playing louder, somehow even more asynchronous, when both drows approached the blood-bowl. The music wasn't what he would call his 'taste' yet he was inebriated enough to follow the rhythm with his head while trying to discern what was happening. The white gown Stengah was wearing fell to the ground seconds later — revealing her gorgeous golden underwear, snakes sizzling every flat and mould of her most treasured body parts and completely exposing the rest, much to his satisfaction, thank you — and he heard a whistle thrown at her from somewhere behind him. He wasn't the only one curious, everyone turned at least a bit to see where it was coming from though he shouldn't have been surprised to see Shadowheart, cup in hand and a lot of bottles surrounding her tent, a hand in the air indicating approval. He chuckled, amused at the unusual situation, and caught himself smirking after seeing their own drow blowing a kiss back to the cleric, a flirtatious wink hiding one of her eyes.

He felt lucky to have met her at this point in their life. Lucky she wasn't another one of his offerings to his master. Lucky because he wouldn't have to share her, nor himself, with Cazador. He had no problem with sharing, he wasn't ready for a closed relationship and didn't think he would ever be. That kind of thing was for people in love, that infamous word everybody adored, not for people who wanted a bit of fun now and then. He was just glad not to have Cazador in the picture for the first time in centuries. It was the first time he could remember when he wanted someone because he wanted her, not because he was ordered to.

Soon after the rest of the group approached the drows and the goblin's music band, circling them until both girls and the ritual statue remained in the center. He squeezed beside Shadowheart, his curiosity picked, hoping to bring yet more entertainment into the night. The anticipation of the moment reached a peak point when the True Soul brought a knife to her wrist, made a fairly deep cut on it — enough to make him flinch due to the unexpectedness of it — and used her other hand to leave a line following their leader's spine.

"For the Absolute! May she bring us power to destroy everyone who opposes her!"

Her voice was clear and angered, tinted with the thrill of victory, flawed with desire. Honestly, was there someone in this camp who didn't want to fuck their red-and-white-haired companion? It was starting to irk him. It was his night, why was everyone trying to ruin it? He could smell it on them, their lust, their anger, their hate, their hunger. From the excessively and unnecessary poetic wizard to the aggressive and abrasive gith, everyone wanted a turn with her. It made him cocky, knowing that she could have picked anyone and still signaled at him. It made him cockier watching her bite her lower lip, searching for him in the multitude and shaking her head to whatever the other woman was telling her. He should have been able to hear it but there was too much noise surrounding them and he wasn't paying enough attention. It didn't matter, her expression told him more than her words could. And he stood proud in his place, bringing his glass of wine to his lips.

Goblin after goblin, the wretched things imitated their True Soul, drenching their hands in the bowl of blood or wounding one another to get the blood out of them and into Stengah's skin — her stomach, her back, her legs, her arms — until each of them had plastered their hand over her at least once. When they finished they opened the circle for them and continued chanting, dancing and drinking around them. Lae'zel was the first one to move, using her own nails to dig her neck until she dropped enough to dye their leader's neck the same color. She seemed proud of her work after finishing, and both bowed slightly to one another.

"Let the only blood that tarnished us be that of our enemies!"

After her intervention, the woman who was the centre of attention turned to the rest of them. She looked at the half-elf cleric first, earning an expression of mixed revulsion and disgust with a touch of amusement that didn't seem to sour her mood as she shrugged, her gaze passing onto the next person, the wizard. Gale, as he worthlessly memorized, would either have killed her on the spot or fuck her senseless, he was unable to identify which was winning but he knew it was one of those two and it was going to be oh-so-fun figuring it out which. His mind was brimming with ideas, almost missing the quickly hidden moment of hurt that plagued his night partner's eyes before they reached him. There was more going on with those two that he gave them credit for and he had every intention of learning exactly what.

However, it was his turn and he had a pretty good idea of how he wanted his offer made. He wasn't going to turn down such an opportunity and it wasn't as if he had any kind of problem with the blood. He'd drunk worse.

Thus, after gracefully donating his glass to the black-haired girl on his right, he approached Stengah in a provocative manner, inciding his own lower lip with his left fang and smirking at her. She seemed to have read his mind, despite feeling his tadpole as still as it usually was, and welcomed him with a smirk of her own, her hands traveling down her own neck, down her chest and all the way to the end of her belly. A treat, on this occasion only for him, that he wasted no time claiming. He felt her neck rumble with laughter the moment his lips reached it, his hands lost between the lower of her back and the disastrous bun that remained as her hair. It was almost impossible demanding of him not to let go and simply bite her. He could have died again in exchange for it and he would have done so willingly.

Nevertheless, that was not his purpose at the moment, it could — he sure as hells hoped it would — come later. For now, he left kisses along her neck until he reached her chin and left kisses there too, enjoying the change in her breathing, the absence of it, the anticipation of so much fucking more he would have needed absolutely nothing to bring her down her knees and…

Later, Astarion, later.

The next moment he was kissing her, devouring her mouth, gripping his control just enough to stop himself from piercing her lip too. This was his offering, not the other way around, and he wanted to make sure it was the best of them. Just as he was expecting, she was eager to reciprocate, to drink the juice of life from him, as if he were playing with another vampire. To see her as one of them… he might have awoken one of his hidden desires. She stopped sooner than he was ready and he let her, for the moment. Soon, she'll have no place to run to, no wish to stop. He couldn't wait any longer. She moved back to him, bit his lip with the most provoking expression he had ever seen and simply left him alone, showing herself to the rest, indicating that the strange ritual was finally complete.

"Enjoy the rest of the night, you are the guests of honor after all! Drink and eat as much as you wish!"

The goblins roared in acceptance and excitement before dispersing through the camp, grabbing and opening every bottle left alone before. The music, small mercies, suddenly stopped and the rest of the people moved slowly to their tents, some asking for more wine, some chatting with each other. Every other person except Stengah was accounted for near their bedrolls or the centre of the camp. So, obviously, he had to visually search for the woman who just stole first place in his kiss ranking — if she fucked half as good as she kissed he was in for a treat.

He walked towards the side of the ritual statue and looked towards the forest. Nothing caught his attention, just trees, what more was he expecting to see in a forest? Mildly disappointed he changed his focus towards the beach, realizing there was a narrow path to the left that he hadn't seen before. He couldn't take the blame, he was distracted with much more interesting things. He followed the pathway to a hidden corner of the beach filled with sand and, what a surprise, even more trees. He would have said that he missed the comforts of Szarr's Palace if he had been allowed to enjoy them sometime when he wasn't used as a plaything. So, not really. The trees, the sand and the extremely thin bed roll were growing on him after all.

"I was hoping you would follow me here."

Guided by her voice, he found her in the water, her back to him, her hair down, the top of her underwear — and maybe the rest of it since he couldn't see lower — discarded from her body. It took him a moment to realize she was washing off the blood before it dried, stopping every now and again to blow on the palm of her left hand. He completely forgot about the Brand of the Absolute, perhaps because he was expecting her to ask the cleric for a healing spell for it and assumed it wasn't a problem. Clearly, he was wrong.

"Why haven't you healed that?"

He approached her — consciously ignoring how his pants were utterly drenched the moment he joined the woman in the water — catching her gaze over her shoulder, and slowly cupped the water with his hand and dropped it on her back, rubbing it softly until the blood started to dye the water red. She leaned into his touch, standing a bit straighter and moving her hair to one of her shoulders.

"I want to save the potions for when we need them most, we are not so good on gold for the moment. And, being honest, would you ask a drunk cleric whose only motivation for the night is gossip to heal you?"

Her small laugh made him crack a laugh too, imagining Shadowheart trying and failing to cast even the easiest of her spells and suddenly invoking a devil. Honestly, with the track their group had he wouldn't even be surprised. They had been invited to dine with one already, what was the worst it could happen?

"I most certainly won't. Unless I desperately needed it."

She disappeared under the water for a portion of a second and continued washing her hair as much as the water allowed her. He trailed the rest of the blood with his hand, discarding the remains of it, and grazed her empty shoulder, making her tilt his head in the opposite direction.

"Mmmmnh… I don't think healing is what I desperately need tonight."

She usually wore her hair in a low bun, two white bangs at the sides of her face, so seeing her hair down and wet, smelling her sweat and the blood that happily abandoned her skin, was, he decided, one of his new life's pleasures. Listening to her muttering so close to him filled him with a lot of ideas of what, exactly, she desperately needed tonight. Watching her move her upper body a bit, tilting her head even more, searching for his eyes over her shoulder… he was starting to get a whole picture. She wanted all of him and, in return, she was offering all of herself.

He bit down sweetly, slowly, doing his best to not ruin the moment. She let out a sigh of relief and forced her shoulder up, stabbing his whole fangs into it and turning such a sound into a full-fledged moan. He was so used to the delicate people of Baldur's Gate, so accustomed to tread lightly with everyone else in order to keep the deception in place, to hide his real nature that he underestimated her, believing she would be the typical girl who just liked to play a little harder, but she wanted it rough and who was he to deny her of the pleasure?

He continued drinking, elation filling him with every drop. Her arms had surrounded his neck, bringing him even closer, pulling at the ends of his hair with one of her hands. He could hear her panting, too busy losing herself in the pleasure of the bite to even remember to try to breathe normally. He paused, every fiber of his being disapproving, and moved his hands — first from the side of her hips to the front of her stomach, then up, up, up until his left hand cupped his breast and his long fingers reached her nipple, caressing it with each of them, the cold of his skin hardening them even more. As if allowing him to go further the back of her head fell into his chest, almost to his shoulder, and her right hand searched for his leg, reaching lower than what he had in mind.

With a frustrated sound that could have very well been his, she turned around completely, bringing her hands to his chest and pushing him until he voluntarily stepped back. One, two, three steps. He smirked and stopped there, arching one of his brows. He wasn't going to be so easy and she was ready to submit to his game. Her hands sneaked under his shirt, the damn thing still in the way, and her lips tiptoed their way to his. He closed his eyes, enjoying for the first time in centuries the warmth of her skin possessing his. Of course he remembered the sensation from his days with Cazador, he just couldn't remember the enjoyment of it. He wondered if he ever had any.

He seized her ass while yielding a bit more steps back prior to the moment she decided to jump on top of him, her silky legs surrounding his huckle and positioning his cock trapped inside his pants under a very, very naked Stengah. Water be damned, he kissed her the rest of the way to shore and leaned her back into one of the multiple trees. If the rough crust of it bothered her in some way, she said nothing, her body instead rubbing her pussy against him, one of her hands lowering until she could pinch his nipple. He hissed, bringing back his head, abruptly stopping the kisses and doing his best to bring down his pants just after she fumbled with his shirt, fucking finally discarding the thing. She wasn't being patient, wasn't playing fair — she was biting his neck, licking the skin that covered his collarbones. If she wasn't going lower still it was because she physically couldn't. It was fine. He'll have time to make her suck his dick until she gagged on it on another occasion. He had waited a lot longer than he deserved.

When he finally let the rest of his clothes fall to the floor and his cock slapped her clit both of them groaned. He probably should have guessed it by the way she didn't give a fuck about anything, but she was a screamer. He loved that kind of people, people who were very vocal about their pleasure, people who didn't mind if the rest of the camp woke to her voice.

"You know, I've been waiting for this from the moment I set eyes on you."

He needed to make her feel special. He needed to turn into something special to her if he wanted to have certain privileges. So he whispered to her ear, biting her lobe when the words were said, stroking his cock with her clit in a rhythmic motion.

"Uhmm, yes? Waiting for what, exactly?"

He pushed the top of his dick just a tad into her and her breathing stopped again. Making her react felt like a drug, like his own need for blood. He didn't think too much about the inkling that told him he wanted to search for every reaction until they were burned on his skin.

"Waiting to have you."

She laughed, his answer more than expected, the rumble of her body as delightful as the more sexual things they were doing. Her eyes fixed on his, so deep he felt bare in front of her, barer than that of his naked body. And her lips formed, enveloped by the most unmitigated silence, the words that would haunt his more vivid dreams.

"Then take me."

He didn't need to be told twice, not after hearing her passion loaded murmur so clearly, her voice coming short, her nails digging through his chin and neck. He positioned himself in the middle of her cunt and pushed, claiming her lips just in time to steal the arousing moan that escaped them after having been entered by him for the first time. It had no meaning yet he wanted the privilege of robbing the air of her sigh, the way her voice trailed off and pronounced his name between kisses and moans, before he interlaced his tongue with the opposite one and pushed once again. He didn't usually kiss this much. He gifted a couple or more depending on his catch of the night and he of course was forced to kiss Cazador as much as his Master desired, but it had never been an important part of sex. He was starting to believe he had been wrong about that both his lives.

She was strongly pulling his hair, the pull and push of their sexes quicker every time, when he decided he had had enough of not being able to move properly. He moved both of them to the grass nearby, gracefully evading both his discarded clothes and the sand, and continued his pace, moving one of her legs to the air, separating them. She brought two fingers to his mouth, thrusting them inside, and he licked them as he would lick a dick, only for a moment. She used those same fingers to search for her own pleasure, pitching her own nipple, and he didn't wait for an invitation to eat the other one, his tongue playing with it, circling and biting it down.

With a swift movement of her leg and hip she was suddenly on top of him, riding him, her body thrown back in the air, not stopping her movement for a second. He had to slow them down a bit if he didn't want to bring the end much too soon. He gripped her thighs hard, bringing her down, and resumed movement slower this time, his right thumb finding her clit and remembering how it was that they usually liked it. He started with circular movements and a bit of pressure and she rode him harder, quicker, louder. In the middle of the night the only sounds that remained were that of their bodies colliding and their usually coordinated moans.

He couldn't finish yet, as much difficult as he found to not allow himself the pleasure, but he had been wanting to grant them the extreme pleasure of his condition long before they fucked for the first time. He turned them once again — earning a low groan from Stengah that promised to punish him if he didn't have a good reason for stopping her and that made him almost wish for such a punishment at her hands — and bit her between her neck and her shoulder, drinking not only from her blood but also from her lust, from the alcohol that remained in her, from her sounds of pleasure, so close to his ear. He pushed and pulled in the exact rhythm at which the blood pumped towards him and he was constant and careful with the amount he was drinking, her cunt gripping his cock tighter, closer and closer to cumming with him. For him.

The pleasure of the bite, as he remembered his at least, was on par with that of an orgasm. So he wanted to grace her with both at the same time. Problem was, he was also more than ready to let go. He had been nipping from her, a little bit here, a little other there, none of them too problematic — they would be healed in the morning. But he remembered how the rest of the camp was looking at her, how the other drow grabbed her waist, how the wizard had made her look… and he had the impulse of marking her. I have taken her already, he wanted to announce.

What better way than with his signature bite? He bit down in the lower part of her neck and pushed hard, harder that he did in the water, a lot harder that he was doing while they fucked. So hard that she cried out loud, a cry tinted with so much desire, so much want that he had no doubt she found pleasure in pain. He wondered, if she hadn't been a faithful servant of Lolth, if she would have ended as a servant of Loviatar. He hoped to have more situations like this to explore his theory.

After that neither of them could stop the infinite waves of pleasure that consumed them. He pushed a couple times more until he could feel those waves tightening and loosening the grip of her cunt on his cock and he let go, enjoying each of them. He moved to the grass on their side, laying there, the tiredness of the night and the battle before it catching up to him, his thirst — for more than one thing — blessedly satiated.

Stengah found his chest and used it as a pillow, her fingers drowsily caressing his stomach, her breathing slowly calming. This has been one of the most satisfying orgasms of his life. Maybe one of the most satisfying sexual encounters he had maintained. Undoubtedly the most special one he could remember, the most his.

His intention was to relax a little, watching the first rays of sunrise appear on the beach, and leave after it. He wasn't much of a cuddle and sleeping with someone gave him the sensation that they were something more. They weren't. They were two people having fun — a lot of it. He didn't need the strings that people usually associated with sex. But at that moment, the darkness of the night flirting with the light though not yet, he couldn't think of a single place where he would be better off than surrendering himself to sleep while leaving his fingers to trail the arch of her back one last time.