Archive of Our Own

How long is eternity? It’s a question that’s been turning in the back of her mind with numbing regularity for a while now. The very idea of time seems to wear away when she has forever at her fingertips, stretching on and on into a grey horizon. It’s not really a concept that exists between the dark walls of the palace anyway. She couldn’t tell you how long she’d been here with any more accuracy than guessing the number of pebbles lining the streets of Baldur’s Gate beyond. Years seem to melt past with unknowable speed but the turning of days drag slower than dripping molasses. 

Never is that thought more pressing than the nights Astarion feels charitable enough to acquiesce to audience requests. 

The ballroom is draped in half darkness, his preferred atmosphere for these meetings. Long shadows shift in flickering silence from the high ceiling, the wrought iron candelabra standing stiff as they throw their orange glow over both the polished tile and his quaking guest.

He’s reclined in the throne at the end of the room, the lack of furniture only serving to make the space between him and the visitor seem that much longer. She stands behind him as usual, one hand at her side, the other gripped to the top of the chair just behind the crown of his head. It’s her place - looking every bit the beautiful weapon she’s been polished to be. Cold. Sharp. Sheathed.

Astarion’s head inclines as they continue to speak, a clear sign he’s only half paying attention to whoever this poor soul is. She never needs the details but from a glance she can glean he’s some elven noble who’d drawn the short straw to come and beg at his feet. 

Before, these meetings had almost made her smile. Those with status always wear their fineries like armour but golden threads do little to hide their true nature once they cross this threshold. Tonight is no different. The elf’s words are steady but his eyes shake madly in their sockets, never landing on either of them for too long. 

It’s not exactly surprising. It’s an open secret as to the nature of those who dwell here. Whispers of power, blood and darkness float throughout all of Baldur’s Gate and beyond, working their way into every rotted inn and polished mansion. If the palace is where this elf has ended up then all brighter roads had obviously crumbled under his feet.

She keeps her gaze fixed just over the elf’s head to the door as he continues- something about debts or an ongoing feud. He could have come with tales of great gold dragons circling the palace or a portal ripped open at the centre of the city and she still doubts it would be enough to cause her expression to break. Astarion’s either.

There’s the tiniest sigh from his lips and she instantly draws her gaze back to the pale sweep of his profile. She’d call him beautiful but the word doesn’t taste right when she’s used it to describe the same perfection for Gods-knows how many years now. The only change is the colour of his clothes. Today’s ensemble is wrapped by two grand peacocks, immaculately stitched in scarlet and black. She can’t even say that it’s one of the more resplendent outfits when every garment in his wardrobe is equally fine.

Her own dress matches - naturally.

It only takes a few more seconds before he slightly raises his index finger. The signal that this conversation is decidedly over.

She’s on the elf instantly, her hand slamming clean through his chest to the other side. The rest of his sentence gargles in his throat and his body crumples to the floor in a pathetic heap. Blood pools sticky and savoury from the wound until there’s an almost perfect disc reddening the tiles. Her stomach clenches at the scent. Hunger, ravenous as an unquelled blaze snarls within but she resists the urge to feast. She stares at the gore dripping down her arm instead as she catches her breath.

Astarion’s feet are silent behind her but she sees him approaching in the blood, his own eyes fixed to the spot where her reflection should be.

“Slower than usual. You haven’t been eating,” he comments dryly. It’s not a question.

She keeps staring at her wet hand. It quivers at her overwhelming urge to suck it clean and then the floor. 

“I will when you do. I’m not hungry,” she answers without turning to him. They both know it’s a poor lie. She’d been in a constant state of starving since the second she opened newly reddened eyes, something she’d never quite acclimatised to.

He raises her stained hand to his lips and licks a stripe from her palm to her wrist. He doesn’t tear his eyes from hers as he audibly swallows. She does too but for a decidedly hotter reason.

“Not the finest fare I will admit but it’s better than hunting for whatever wastes are wandering the lower city,” he says calmly, a red drop staining the corner of his mouth like a bloody kiss. “And you know I’d never let that dreck anywhere near your lips.” 

Some nameless spawn shuffles forward and drags the body back into the shadows, their gifted feast for the night. 

Her eyes stay fixed to the smear. She wants to lick it. She wants to bite his lip and taste him properly, drink something that sings for her, something to drown the other thoughts forever clawing at the flat wall of nothingness wrapped around her mind.

His fingers flex harder around her wrist. “What’s the matter?”

She sighs - the question with a thousand answers, and so many of them so so stupid. She wants to leave and see every corner of this Gods-forsaken continent. She wants to stay and never leave their bedchamber. She wants to feast until she rips apart at the seams. She wants to starve and see how far she can push herself as a spawn. She wants more . 

She holds his gaze, waiting for him to relent. 

Above it all, she wants one thing. The one thing that’s slowly pushing her to dull foggy madness as she waits.

“It’s nothing,” she answers softly. She doesn’t want to have this fight again and she’s fairly certain she doesn’t need to answer anyway. His stare is so intense she’s sure it can see through to the very back of her skull. His own expression is as impassive as an ivory mask, perfectly carved and cool. What she’d give to crack through and unspool that beautiful, maniacal mind and understand his whims for just a moment . She’s sure she could once upon a time- a lifetime ago, perhaps when the word lifetime actually meant something.

His tongue suddenly flicks out and catches the drop at the corner of his mouth. Her own tongue mimics the movement behind her teeth, a jealous breath rushing from her nose. She isn’t sure how long it’s been since he’s actually touched her-  perhaps days. Maybe months. She can’t quite remember the number of moons she’d watched rise and fall from the balcony, throwing a dagger in the air and catching it bladeside again and again until it finally left a scar. 

He slides his free hand up her neck and cups the side of her face. “Perhaps I’ve been neglecting you of late,” he murmurs, lightly tracing the contour of her jaw, then her ear until she shivers slightly. It’s a small thing- the sweet reminder of exactly who she is to him. 

His right hand. His treasure. His precious thing. 

She remembers the first time someone had dared question that fact, years back. She’d heard the whisper from the dark of their library- a jovial tone and one far too warm for these halls.

“I guess there’s no thinking blood required, eh?”

She’d ripped the head from the spawn’s shoulders and tossed it towards another before the words had cooled in the air. She almost wishes it was the only time.

He tugs her towards the door, the lights snuffing out with every step as they go. “Come.”

He leads them to the other end of the palace and into her bedchamber. Their bedchamber really though she can’t recall the last time he’d used it… or slept at all. To be fair she hadn’t for at least a few days, exhaustion just another pain she’s found she can put up with.

The room is grand but mostly empty save for the ridiculously huge bed he’d had installed. He’d clawed away anything in the palace left by its former master, even his name forbidden to be said aloud. She’d seen all too many messes left smeared for days on the new carpets when anyone had forgotten that particular rule- a warning few had forgotten since.

Besides a few drapes the only thing she’d added was a painting, the one staring down like a great round eye opposite the bed. Both of them had been captured in a similar pose to when they'd received their unfortunate guest- pale faces stark against the dark backdrop, his hand resting over hers. It's her only real reminder of how she looks or at least some overpaid artist's interpretation of her. She’s as beautiful as temptation itself but it’s hard to imagine such grandeur when her face hardly feels the same. She’ll never age, never wrinkle or shrink but it’s like she can still feel the hands of time slowly pulling more of her away under her skin.

He closes the door and then the distance between them. Even at the same height he still seems to tower over her into infinity like some dark God. She can’t remember if she had any faith before this, but there can’t have been a being divine or otherwise that she’d loved with such fervour. Worshipping with bloody hands and eager parched lips.

“No audience here. Now-” He tilts her chin up, his thumb resting against her bottom lip. “Tell me what you want.”

She feels a lie rolling on her tongue but she can’t quite spit it out. “You know what I want.”

“Say it.”

“Make me a true vampire.”

He releases her face, shaking his head. “Gods. This again.” He doesn’t seem as irked as the last time she’d pressed this, but her gut still twists when he turns away. It’s the same cool brush off as always, the way one would to an errant pet that’s not quite trained yet.

“I really didn’t want to discuss this now,” she admits quietly. Last time her frustration had gotten so loud she’s surprised her voice hadn’t cracked the windows. 

Her fist had instead after he’d stalked away from that conversation.

She takes a risk, palming a hand to his shoulder and slowly turning him back around. “I know you promised. It’s just been so long, ” she starts carefully, keeping her eyes to his chest. She cups his other shoulder when he doesn’t pull away, letting herself feel the strength hidden under the dark cloth. “I want to be stronger. For both of us.”

It’s a half truth. She does want it for them- the power being full vampire would give her coupled with his extra gifts would be everything. They could take more, do more, finally see more of the world in bright and dazzling splendour. 

Her lip quirks up at the thought. Perhaps even feel more too.

He sighs and runs his finger over the crest of her hand. “Your strength is already quite the feat to behold. You change any more and you might destroy a wall.” He holds it firm as she starts to step away, his chuckle soft.

“I said that I will. You know that I will. But the timing has to be perfect.” He brushes a stray hair away from her face, winding it around his finger and letting it fall back against her shoulder. “You’ve tasted me enough, you must know being sired by the Ascendent will take a little more preparation than your standard vampire. But when I do, I’ll be able to give you so much more, more than you even have now.” His hand leaves hers to grasp her chin, fingers lightly pressing into both cheeks until she’s pinned under his gaze. “I’ll not waste such a gift on any regular night. It requires proper celebration. And time.” He leans in until each word kisses over her lips in a long low whisper. “Time for me to properly indulge you. Pleasure upon pleasure upon pleasure.”

It’s a heady promise and one she’s heard before. That doesn’t stop it being so easy to let herself sink into the words - the sweetness of such a beautiful tale. 

She closes her eyes, waiting for his kiss. 

He chuckles again when she finally opens them, his smirk perfectly pointed. 

“Until then, you still share in immortality with me. So tell me, what else can I possibly give to you?” He squeezes her face again before releasing her. 

She rubs her cheeks. “You have so many other spawn. They all share it too.”

His hand lashes out and grabs her wrist, a little harder this time. “All this time and you still believe you’re just some spawn? Like the rest of them?” He jerks her closer, folding her into the circle of his arms until their bodies rock together with her every breath. “How many times must we go through this?” 

She clings to the sides of his jacket, pressing back harder.

“Have I extended any of my talents to anyone else?” 

She shakes her head.

“Do I make you do such grunt work?”

“No, but-”

“Then how can you possibly think you’re the same?”

Her answering protest vanishes as he slips a hand under the back of her dress. He curls his fingers over the skin of her waist, cradling her in a way that has something prodding below the surface of her mind, smudged memories too worn to pull into focus.

“You will always be my first. My first spawn. My first thinking blood. The first person I told everything to.” He lightly scrapes his teeth down her neck until she shudders in his arms, the memory quickly disintegrating. “200 years of nothing and I finally had something that was mine . No power on this or any plane is going to take that away from me.” 

He tilts her head back and finally crashes their lips together in a firm, desperate kiss. It’s as messy as a storm - every movement taking more like he’s drawing the remaining life from inside her. She can taste the wine on his breath, the blood on his teeth- tart and rich and maddening. 

Something stirs within her again, something larger and familiar. Even under the fog, she has what feels like aeons of love for this man inside, swelling and gnawing, threatening to burst and consume her whole with its painful teeth. It’s the only feeling she can fathom with any clarity, equal parts sin and sanctity.

 She holds him, her arms clamping round his middle with all the strength she can muster. 

She’d be less than nothing without it, drained to dust. So she’ll let herself be devoured by the pleasures of hell’s flames with a smile on her face and tears on her cheeks.

“You could have anyone,” she breathes against his lips.

She yelps as his hand digs into her thigh and roughly hitches it to his hip.

“I want you ,” he murmurs, kissing her again. Satisfaction blooms under her skin as he opens his mouth, her body already on fire for him. She knows it. Of course she knows it. She wanted to hear him say it, hear the words as sweet as a siren’s trill to drag her back to the present.

“But perhaps you need reminding.” He pushes her until the backs of her knees hit the bed. “I will see you living the best life. Even if you won’t take care of yourself, I’m not letting either of us go hungry.” His fingers brush from her face down to her chest, blood from that elf still shining against the fine material. He pinches the fabric and tugs, red smearing over his thumb. 

“What a mess,” he observes quietly.

Before she can apologise, he grabs two fistfuls of the fabric and pulls, tearing it and her undershirt apart until she’s all but nude before him. He turns her and pulls the remains of her outfit from her body, pressing his hand against her bare stomach so her back curves against him. She shivers slightly as his fingers rip through the seams of her underwear and leave her fully naked. He sweeps his hand up over the curves of her torso and slips his thumb into her mouth, the cool taste of the elf’s blood igniting the fires in her stomach.

Her restraint snaps immediately and she sucks, desperate for more. She moans as he adds a second coated finger, the frustration in her gut only matched by the one growing hot and frenzied between her legs.

“That’s it,” he says quietly as she licks them clean. “Don’t deny me. Don’t deny what you are.”

His hand moves from her lips until she feels it close around the sides of her throat, his thumb resting over the twin scars there. Their matching pair he’d said when she’d awoken that first day. She can’t see it in a mirror but she can feel it, still aching like it’s a fresh wet wound.

He touches his mouth to her ear. “No more doubts. You are mine . Say it.”

Her words dry to a sigh as his thumbnail scratches across the hollow of her throat.

He squeezes harder at her silence until she throws her head back against his shoulder.

“Say it.”

“Yours,” she gasps out.

His other hand wanders down her body to cup her breast and she arches into his touch. 

“That’s better,” he whispers, rolling her nipple between his fingers until she keens softly. He pinches harder, drawing a louder gasp, her back slamming back against his torso. 

She presses her free hand to her neck so their joint touch encircles her throat in a makeshift collar. His smile grows against her ear. 

They both know it'll only ever be a symbol. She’ll bow her neck for one without him even having to say, but it’s so much more for him to not need to. Where could she ever run to where he wouldn’t find her? 

Bound in blood and flesh for eternity.

He brushes his mouth down to the base of her neck and bites down hard. White hot pain melts into pleasure as he does it again, his tongue laving over the fresh marks. She moans and grabs the back of his head to press him down harder. The caress of his lips, his tongue- it’s her bloody paradise. She barely registers his hand move from her neck and down over her stomach, seeking its prize. 

He cups her between the legs and her mind starts to spin. He spreads her, her breath hissing between her teeth as he fingers tease a familiar path through her folds, so achingly close to where she needs to be touched.

He holds her upright as he pulls off her neck, kissing the shell of her ear. “Delicious.”

She presses down, grinding her clit against the heat of his palm. He’d mastered the command of her body long ago, what it takes to make her beg, gasp, to drown out any needless thoughts in red wet screams. 

He spins her round, one hand sliding up her spine and leaning her backwards. He lowers his mouth just below her collarbone, lips and teeth dragging further down until he bites again over the swell of her left breast. She moans again at the sensation as his tongue traces over the wound and then against her nipple in a slow circle.

She sees the blood smeared like rouge on his lips as he lifts his head. A beautiful colour. Their colour.

She isn’t sure the last time she hasn’t thought about her life in shades of red: dripping from her hands, hot in her mouth, shining sharp and violent in his eyes.

She looks down at those same eyes now, burning intensely as he works her.

There’s an image she hasn’t been able to get out of her mind for a while, more faded than a dream. She’s sure they were softer once, rich like apple skin, fresh as autumn hues. Now if she stares too long it feels like she’s looking down the lit barrel of a cannon. 

There are other moments too, touches that almost felt tender, maybe even unsure. They’re all wrapped in his same face but somehow different. Different enough for her to wonder if the man she knew before the ascension was even real or just another mask. One he could finally drop when she let 7000 souls burn through her eyes.

She pushes the thought away, angry it could still worm its way back to her when she’s in his arms. She could live long enough to watch the oceans boil and the skies crash down and she’d still stand steadfast as bedrock knowing that she’d never have made any other choice. 

She cradles the back of his head, keeping his lips right above her cold silent heart.

Of course she’d burn the world if it kept him safe. And she’ll stand next to him as king of the ashes knowing there’s nowhere else where her broken parts would ever feel even close to whole.  

A sliver of moonlight cuts through the curtains and over the portrait in front of them. The lacquer shines coldly, Astarion’s painted eyes staring at their bloody pleasure with the unyielding intensity of the sun. The eyes of a killer to so many fools, too scared to look past their scorching surface. She knows better. Knows that the true eyes of a killer watch from next to him, as flat and dull as a red sheet. Numb. Trained. Obedient.

He softly bites her nipple and her fingers tighten in his hair. “Please.”

He languidly moves on to her other breast, sucking and nipping in a sharp tease.

She tugs harder. “Gods, please .”

He lifts off of her with a sinfully wet noise. “You know as well as I that the Gods fear to tread these halls. Not even the divine would dare intrude on a night like this.” He kisses the tip of her nipple, dragging his lips down over the new fresh marks until she groans and shivers. “So, who’s name should you be saying?”

Her hips rock against nothing but cold air. Gods she needs to feel him. Feel something .

“Astarion,” she cries.

He nips harder and pushes her onto the bed below. 

She slides up the sheets, blood from her last meal still splattered around her like a handful of rose petals on the silk. He ignores it, roughly pushing her thighs apart and licking one firm stroke through her folds until her hips arch off the mattress. He does it again, then again, lingering against her clit before twisting and biting the soft flesh of her inner thigh. 

She cries out again. She isn’t sure how many more places he can mark her before she all but melts away from this reality.

She lifts herself onto her forearms as he spreads her wider, swallowing another embarrassingly loud noise as he tongue dips inside her with a shallow thrust. Blood beads from the fresh bite and trickles down the slope of her leg, heading towards his shoulder.

She quickly pulls her thighs away and scrambles towards him.

“Wait.” She wipes his mouth when he looks up, then unlaces his shirt as carefully as she can. His trousers follow so she can finally see him. All of him. 

“Better,” she breathes, tracing the slope of his shoulder. He catches her hand before it can go any further and turns it slowly between his fingers. She expects him to bite again. Her wrist is already dotted with so many tiny marks that she isn’t sure there’s any virgin skin left to taste. The ghost of a blush runs through her instead as he skims his lips from her forearm to her palm, scraping the skin but not letting it break. 

Through half-open eyes she quickly catches his, the way they study the veins on her wrist like the secret to the universe is tangled in them. They’re open wider now, like some gaping red maw. It’s so much. Too much. She blinks and the look is gone, his eyes now closed and his mouth back on hers.

He pushes her down onto the bed and climbs over her. She grabs the back of his head but he quickly pulls her hands away, pinning them above her. She doesn’t resist, letting herself be claimed again as he pushes inside. 

Gods , she needed this. She’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be wrapped up in darkness and in him. She hooks her feet around the small of his back to pull him deeper, revelling in every near silent breath he pants against her ear. 

He sets their pace. Fast. Fucking her into the mattress below until she’s crying out his name with every precise movement. She gives back in kind, thrusting with him until he finally  releases her wrists to find better purchase by her head. She immediately grabs his back, one hand sliding down and stroking over the familiar ridges of his scars. It’s a jagged reminder of the past, one he refuses to speak of again. As cold as it sounds in her head, she knows why he doesn’t. What power could truly be so impenetrable if people knew he could feel pain once, fear- terror even.

So it stays locked away behind both their mouths, same as anything that ever brought them such sadness. His own kindness in a way, she reasons. Why exhume those parts of the past when they’re much better off laying with the rest of her mortal affairs. Buried.

He moves harder and her nails dig in. She hopes they leave marks, scarlet crescents sore enough that he might feel how deep her own claim to him runs.

She tightens around him, desperate to come. Desperate to pull him with her too. But he stops suddenly, letting her waver on the very edge of that little death. It feels like she’s dancing on some taught cusp, pulled so tight like a bow string and begging to be released.

She reaches down to touch herself but he grabs her hand again. 

“Bad girl,” he whispers in a tone so low it almost pushes her over that edge. He flips her over, clamping his hands over her hips as he pushes back inside. He wastes no time setting a faster rhythm, ramming into her mercilessly until she’s screaming into the silks below, loud enough to drown her doubt and that of every wretched spawn in this place. It’ll only be her. Forever.

His fingers dig in hard enough that she knows there will be a pretty set of inky marks there, painful to the touch for days. The hurt doesn’t matter anyway- not when she knows what true torture feels like. She can still remember the night she was changed, perhaps more vividly than anything else. The way her body snapped and convulsed as every part of her died and then roughly reshaped into something new. Something that was his.

“He’ll ruin you.”  

The warning calls from somewhere dusty in the back of her mind. She can’t quite place where it came from. Probably the same closed door where every half faded image and whispered concern hid and occasionally slipped through when her nights alone were so utterly silent she could almost hear her brain churning. There’s a shadow of a half elf’s face, mismatched eyes, the fading melody of a wizard’s warning. She can’t grab them and pull them into focus, the words buried too far below the surface of her mind. 

She turns her face into the silks as if she could rub the thought away. Perhaps she’s scared to dig too deep and remember what it is she might have wanted before every moment was about their shared dream. Bright and bloody and beautiful.

Astarion’s hand finds her clit and everything else melts away. There’s nothing else now, just their sweat on the sheets and the discordant slap of his body on hers.

So let them sin, feast, burn. She’s already ruined anyway - punctured with so many holes that whatever there was of her mortal life had trickled out long ago.

She finally comes against his hand and collapses in a sticky, spent heap under him. He slowly traces his finger down the length of her spine as she catches her breath, every inch of her body heavy and useless. She barely registers herself being heaved into his lap, her head falling against his shoulder with a gentle thud. 

The haze of her orgasm parts a little when she smells something fresh above her. Blood, his blood. It starts to drip in a slow mess over her mouth like thick hot rain. Her body moves on pure instinct, surging up to clamp down on his cut forearm, but he holds her steady by her hair. She swallows the offering, her hunger only growing at the tease of something so decadent. He guides her head back further, letting a few more drops fall messily over her face before finally lowering it to her waiting mouth. 

He doesn’t flinch as she drinks desperately. It’s exquisite, like cool wine to her parched throat. She’s sure she could drink him dry or until her stomach bursts open and she’d still not be satisfied. She sucks harder, flitting her gaze up to his as he watches with clear amusement. There’s still one more thing she wants. One thing she’s not sure he’d ever let her do even if she still had a soul to offer him. She wants to sink her own fangs into his neck, the one place she never has. She wants to cover those ugly punctures just for her own pleasure. 

“I love you,” she whispers as he pulls back. It might be these moments when such love swells the most: clothes shed, scratches still fresh on his skin, hair curling out of place against his forehead- a reminder that the ritual can’t keep him quite so perfect for every moment of forever.

He wipes the remaining blood from her lips, his thumb resting there a moment longer. “And I adore you, terribly.”

She narrows her eyes and digs her nails in harder, enough to draw blood. “Say it properly. Say it.”

He raises an eyebrow, but his smile doesn’t waver. He presses his arms back to her mouth, squeezing the back of her head as she sucks again. “I love you.”

She bites down harder at the words. They’re what she wants and yet she doesn’t understand why it doesn’t feel like enough. The fog in her mind clears a little as her hunger quietens but she can’t think of even a moment when something was enough for either of them. They have almost everything this realm could offer and it still feels the same. 

How big will the pile of gold and corpses need to be before either of them can remember what joy actually tastes like?

He pulls his arms away and kisses her again, slower this time. She keeps her eyes closed as he stops, trying to centre herself.

“Are we bad people?” she murmurs.

He drops her from his lap, eyeing her curiously. “My, what a question.” He looks past her to the mirror on the bedside table, brushing his fingers through the mess she’d made of his hair. “Good and bad are such trivial concepts to us. Darling, you need to think bigger than that. We are everything . Beyond such unimaginative definitions.”

“Right.” She pulls the sheet over her torso. The room feels colder somehow, like the darkness itself is judging her nakedness. 

“None of that,” he says, rubbing her cheek. “Besides, thanks to me you’ve become one of the finest killers, dead or alive. Nothing can stand in our way.”

“The only one who could kill you I suppose,” she mumbles, leaning into the touch.

He quickly nips her chin, then her throat. “Oh my love. Now that’s something I’d like to see.” He pushes her back down and crawls over her, sliding his hands over both of hers. “So tell me, how would you do it? How would you defeat the most powerful being alive?”

“Who else could get close enough?” She leans up and kisses directly over his heart. “One thrust with the right weapon is all it would take.” 

“And then what would you do? You’re mine - always.” He moves a fraction more until his legs trap her thighs, the hands so gently wrapped around hers now pinning them into the mattress. “No direction. No love. No power. Without me your life would be a shadowed path. Pure nothingness.” Every word wraps around her like velvet, his hands the softest chains she could be caught in. “You must know it hurts me to even think of you like that,” he continues, dipping down and running his nose against hers.

He squeezes her hands harder as he does, walking her along the very edge of pain before letting go. She flexes her limbs slightly, letting the soreness settle along with her mind.

He kisses her forehead, each wrist then her lips again. “But we need not worry about such awful things.”

She cradles the back of his neck, idly wondering just how hard she’d have to press to snap it. “Of course not.”

His eyes drift up and down her body as she answers, before his hand works its way between her legs again. She lets him, her hips bucking with needle-sharp pleasure as he presses against her over-sensitive clit. 

“Until the world falls down,” she says, throwing her head back and grinding her core against his fingers. 

He leans forward and muffles her exhausted moans with shining, brazen lips. “And even after that.”

Perhaps that’s how long eternity is , she thinks and surrenders herself to him again.

***

It’s almost dawn when he rolls away from her. He leaves a promise of tonight against her shoulder as she stares at the ceiling, thinking in circles. 

One day, when she finally drives a stake through his chest, she’ll weep. He’s more than everything to her, his arms as tight as a cage, as comforting as salvation. The only person with a heart as black and silent as hers and yet she’d still rip it out and give it to him on a sharpened skewer if he asked. 

It’ll break her, but it's still her task and hers alone. One she can do with deliberate and devoted hands, away from any angry mob or pack of ravenous spawn.

She surges up and captures his lips before he goes, kissing with every ounce of passion still warm inside her.

Until then they’ll stay like this, wrapped and writhing in bloody matrimony. Frozen. Perfect.

Red.