Chapter Text
Astarion made his way through the gauche halls of the Szarr palace, the only sound the wet squelch of his own bloodied footsteps. He looked down at the ruin of himself, worried what the master would make of the mess. Godey wasn’t usually this careless—the slashes across Astarion’s belly looked jagged, more like the claw marks of a great beast than the precise incisions of Godey’s beloved tools—but it wasn’t Astarion’s place to question the methods of his keepers.
Astarion couldn’t even remember what he’d done to displease the master, what mistake he’d made to prompt this punishment; likely: nothing at all. Oftentimes just the sight of Astarion was enough to send Cazador into a frenzy. Whether that frenzy led to time in the kennel or the bedchamber… Astarion could never predict. Sometimes—as was the case now, he feared—it was both, one after the other.
The agony of his injuries was a simple enough matter to ignore. Even the anxiety of what might yet come was little more than a dull throb in the center of this chest. The master had summoned him. That was all that mattered.
The immense iron double doors leading into the ballroom were open, though heavy velvet drapes were drawn across every window, swathing the imposing chamber in shadow.
Ah, morning then.
Astarion padded across the ballroom, each sodden footstep sending a hollow echo across the vast empty room, until he reached the ornate, polished wooden door of his master’s private office. The door opened at his approach, and Chamberlain Dufay’s pinched, sallow face peered out from the darkness within.
“There you are, wretched thing,” Dufay groused, ushering him into the foyer. “You’ve kept him waiting.”
Astarion knew better than to reply. He hadn’t been instructed to speak.
Dufay glanced him over, tutting ruefully at the gaping wounds gouged across his torso. “What a mess,” he complained. “From here to the kennels, no doubt. No decorum. No manners.” He shook his head, nodding for Astarion to follow behind him.
Dufay led Astarion across the foyer, past a heavily padlocked door the spawn had never seen opened, and into the grand study of Lord Cazador Szarr.
“Master Astarion has arrived,” the chamberlain announced, stooping into a low bow. “Shall I send him in, my lord?”
Astarion, from his place behind Dufay, shivered as the weight of his master’s gaze fell upon him.
“Leave us,” Cazador ordered.
Dufay dipped lower, his long dark hair sweeping along the floor as he withdrew.
The door closed behind Astarion, softly, although the sound of the latch was enough to make him flinch. He stood in the lightless study, intensely mindful of his tattered clothing and the blood pooling beneath him, staining the plush red carpet.
Cazador’s desk was an ostentatious display of gaudy craftsmanship—too large and complex to be of any practical use—and raised on a dais in the center of the room like a throne. The vampire lord sat behind it, in a straight-backed chair equally as pretentious, leaning against one armrest, his legs spread in a manner Cazador no doubt considered dominating and intimidating, but that Astarion had always found merely vulgar.
Cazador’s shoulder-length black hair was slicked back and oiled in his usual fashion, not a strand out of place, and his sharp eyes gleamed from the shadows like two red-hot pools of liquid iron.
“Come here, child,” Cazador commanded, his tone at once patronizing and imperious.
Astarion shuffled closer, feeling as though his insides were sloshing about, molten with trepidation, and paused at the base of the dais. He kept his hands at his sides and his eyes on the ground.
“Do not make me repeat myself, boy,” Cazador hissed.
Astarion swallowed thickly before mounting the steps. His breath stuttered in his chest as he reached the desk, then stopped altogether as he sidled around it, to the side where his master sat in poised expectation.
“Let me see you.”
Astarion understood what he was meant to do. It wasn’thimCazador was interested in viewing, but the injuries he’d been dealt. He dutifully peeled away the remnants of his ruined shirt, remaining silent aside from the pained grunt that slipped free as the fabric caught against his open wounds, and removed it with the fluid, sensual movements he knew his master liked.
Cazador’s eyes flickered, the corners of his mouth tightening in ill-concealed arousal. He lifted one clawed hand, dipping his fingers into the center of the wounds, miming the motions it must have taken to inflict them.
Astarion ground his teeth together but did not move, did not protest.
“Do you see what happens,” Cazador asked softly, “when you leave my side?”
Astarion remembered then, in a rush of tumbling images and emotions, all that had happened. He stumbled forward, inadvertently driving Cazador’s stiffened fingers deeper into his injuries, moaning from the raw pain that followed. “I didn’t run away,” he gasped, knowing it was a mistake, knowing what this defiance would cost him. “I was kidnapped, I would never—”
Cazador rose with a snarl, his hand—slick now with gore—clamping like a vice around Astarion’s throat, driving him back, slamming him down across the expansive desk. Astarion writhed beneath him, struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt punctured and crushed. He couldn’t speak anymore, couldn’t make any sound aside from a horrible rattling gurgle. His mind felt bruised, racing through memories and images that made no sense. He’d been in a forest, hadn’t he? Far from the city, far from Cazador. He’d been free—
Cazador’s face split with a cruel sneer. “Is that truly what you believed, hmm? That you were free of me?”
The claws of Cazador’s right hand dug into the sides of Astarion’s neck—his immense, inescapable strength keeping the spawn firmly in place despite his desperate struggling—while his left plunged into the ragged lacerations on Astarion’s stomach.
“Tell me, worm—does this feel likefreedom?”
Cazador shredded into him, through him, tearing him apart from within, his fingers slipping deep, wriggling like eels through Astarion’s innards. Astarion found his voice then, screaming endlessly, coughing on his own blood as it rose up from within him and rained down from above in the shower of Cazador’s destructive fury. Crimson droplets splattered across his chest and face, pooling into the hollow of his clavicle and the creases of his eyelids.
“You willneverbe free of me!”
Cazador’s face was twisted in a way Astarion had never seen, a rage so visceral it teetered on the edge of lunacy, his fangs bared and dripping necrotic venom into the devastation of Astarion’s torso, his jaw distended grotesquely, his eyes whirling with a strange violet light.
“You aremine!I made you! They cannot have you! They cannotsave you!”
Astarion felt himself growing weaker, felt the darkness around him deepening, drawing him into its cold embrace. Cazador was ripping at Astarion’s trousers now, making ribbons of both the fabric and the flesh beneath, panting—all but grunting—as he pried Astarion’s legs apart.
“Iownyou. Say it, Astarion. Say it, so I know you understand!”
Astarion froze, the rest of his scream trapped in the center of his throat, and stared listlessly at the creature above him, poised to consume him whole. “W-wait.” He licked his lips, tasting the blood on them. “What—is this? What’s happening? This isn’t… isn’t right.”
The creature went still, and the slow grin that opened like a plucked seam looked so foreign on Cazador’s face that Astarion thought he might be ill just from the sight of it. Cazador’s sharply angled eyes rounded out, the white sclera swallowed by whorling black tendrils. Thick black veins webbed across his face and down the length of his neck, disappearing beneath his blood-spattered doublet.
Astarion shouted hoarsely and tried to scramble away, across the desk, but the creature held him firm, his claws fully lodged into the meat of Astarion’s thighs.
“How unlike me, to make such a mistake,” the creature leered, with Cazador’s voice. “Your master never addresses you by name—I knowthat. What a silly slip I’ve made, but the game’s up now, I suppose.”
Astarion’s vision flickered. The paneled ceiling, far overhead, spun alarmingly, transmogrified briefly into swaying trees and spiraling stars. He felt, for a single wavering moment, a colossal weight atop him, crushing his body, and a slow, wet warmth spreading over him.
“What is th—?”
Astarion’s question was cut short by two unnaturally long fingers plunging into his mouth, their clawed tips delving into the depths of his throat, slicing into the tender flesh there. Astarion’s eyes widened, watering, as blood filled his mouth and his tongue spasmed against the intrusion. His strangely overlapping vision settled as his focus was reclaimed by the creature wearing Cazador’s face.
“That’s better,” the creature sighed. “You look only at me, understand? I know your thoughts; there’s no need for you to speak.”
“Mmmff!” Astarion squirmed, biting down on the fingers in his mouth, expecting another bitter splash of blood and the grind of bone, but encountering only spongy, wriggling flesh.
“Calm yourself!”
Astarion felt his hair seized, his head lifted, as the not-Cazador pressed their foreheads together. The fingers withdrew from his mouth and Astarion’s spine arched off the desk, gagging on the folds of shredded skin he felt flapping against the back of his tongue.
“I have given you the sun, ungrateful wretch,” the creature spat, “so that you might enjoy what little time you have left to parade about in this crude sack of blood and bone. It was me who quelled the beckoning call of your master. Perhaps you were his once, but now you are mine.”
Astarion froze, conscious at once of the overwhelming pressure behind his right eye. Parasite! He thought, frantically. Mind flayer!
“Very clever of you to realize,” the creature said drily, “after the matter’s been all but spelled out for you. But I suppose Cazador didn’t keep you for your wit.” He reached down, gripping Astarion’s face, his claws nearly puncturing through the spawn’s cheeks. “Now listen—I’ve summoned you for a reason. A warning.”
Astarion closed his eyes and forced himself to be still. This isn’t real.
The desk beneath him felt oddly soft and damp, more like grass and earth than cold, polished wood. There came again the sensation of weight atop him, but something more now, something resting in his trembling hand.
“This is real enough,” the parasite insisted. “And we need each other.”
Astarion focused on his right hand, the familiar heft of a dagger nestled in the center his outstretched palm, and curled his fingers around the hilt.
“You lot keep running about,” the parasite went on, “looking for a cure.” It had settled back into Cazador’s features, all the horrific distortions smoothing into an expression of smug superiority to which Astarion was all too accustomed. “I thought you, at least, would have known better. You were grateful for me at the start, were you not? Once you felt the sun on your skin.”
The creature pawed at Astarion’s splayed thighs, dragging him closer, lifting his legs to wrap them around Cazador’s elegantly clad waist. It bent over Astarion, planting a row of soft, gentle kisses along his collarbone, up the side of his neck to his jaw.
“You must forget these notions of having me extracted,” the parasite whispered, its breath a chilled gust against the backside of Astarion’s ear. “I know every facet of your timid little mind. All you want is to be safe… protected. No one will provide that for you better than I can. There are powers I can show you, teach you to wield, if only you would embrace me, Astarion. Accept me.”
“I might have agreed with you,” Astarion said, his voice sounding strangled, “I might have even listened to whatever deranged nonsense you want to spout about needing each other—if you’d worn any face but his.”
Astarion flipped the dagger in his palm, then drove the entire length of the blade into the side of Cazador’s neck, screaming with the madness he felt collecting at the periphery of his mind. His brain exploded with agony as the parasite squealed and shuddered like a leech in salt.
The illusion of Cazador’s study bled away, and Astarion found himself returned to the forest, on his back, pinned beneath a massive dead bear, soaked in blood and still screaming.
The bear looked to have been stabbed—dozens and dozens of times. Astarion’s dominant arm was sore, throbbing with a leaden ache from shoulder to wrist, and clutched in his hand was the infernal dagger.
He remembered nothing beyond the bear’s initial strike, had no memory of what must surely have been a fierce encounter.
Was this all the parasite’s doing? Had it… taken him over? Or had he slipped unknowingly into the cold fog of absence, and let his body do the work? He shuddered, contemplating which of those options boded worse for his deteriorating mental state, and was filled again with a sudden urge to be sick.
Astarion calmed himself, squirming desperately to wriggle out from beneath the bear, but it was too heavy. The numerous wounds perforating its thick fur smelled faintly necrotic, and were still oozing blood. Astarion’s tongue lolled out, tentatively lapping at the bear’s leaking hide, curious if the necrotic damage from the blade had spoiled the blood.
He grimaced. The blood was sour, but palatable. He bit in deep, drawing out what he could, what was left. Warmth spread through him, along with an indistinct numbness from the necrosis. He drank until—for the first time in all his long memory—his sanguine hunger dulled, fading into the edges of his awareness.
He blinked sluggishly, stunned by the feeling of being not only full, but glutted.
All it took was a gods damned bear.
The stars dancing overhead settled into stationary pinpoints of flickering light, and the trees stopped spinning. The nausea passed slowly. He felt strange, his entire body vibrating with the powerful strength flowing through veins that felt engorged.
Invigorated by the blood and still surging with the adrenaline induced by the horrific encounter with the illithid parasite lodged in his brain, he tried again to extricate himself from beneath the bear. This time, he managed to leverage enough weight from the massive corpse that he was able to wrench his legs free and scoot back.
He knew better than to try standing. An experimental swallow was all it took to reassure himself that none of the mutilations inflicted by the tadpole in that strange dream-state had carried over into the physical realm, but the bear had done plenty of damage on its own. He’d been eviscerated—Again, he thought ruefully,Godey would be so pleased—and there was a rather nasty looking bite on his left thigh he had no recollection of receiving.
He was, of course, absolutely drenched in blood. He could feel chunks of it congealing in his hair and inside his ears and between his fingers. It was impossible to distinguish between his own and the bear’s.
Astarion lay there on the forest floor for an indeterminate time, cradling his stomach, resisting the pull of the pain and fatigue that lured him toward a trance. Now was not the time for rest. There were likely other predators lurking in the night, drawn to the scent of blood and viscera, and he couldn’t defend himself if he was all but unconscious.
With that sobering realization prevalent in his mind, Astarion sat up. The pain nearly sent him back into the darkness, but he seized it firmly, constricted his will around it, and cloistered it away into a dusty, distant corner of his awareness.
He stood. Found he could bear weight on the bitten leg. With Tav’s wine-laced blood well diluted now, the dizziness was easier to overcome, and his senses seemed sharper. He might not be adept at navigating through the wilds, but even he could reliably retrace his own drunken path. He hadn’t exactly taken the subtle approach.
All he had to do was walk.
*****
With a clearer mind and steadier vision, it didn’t take long to find his way back to the clearing where he and Tav had drunk together.
A few steps beyond drinking together, boy. Her c*nt was warm and tight, was it not? But still not enough to satisfy. Soft and supple she may be, but she is not your master.
“Shut up,” Astarion said aloud, no longer certain if the voices in his head were of his own making, or a product of the torment his parasite sought to inflict.
Astarion surveyed the scene before him, reluctantly recalling all that had transpired here, irritated by how vivid the memories were. He would never f*ck like that again, he resolved, trapped in his own body where he couldn’t escape. Getting drunk had been an interesting experiment, but was an experience he vowed never to repeat. Tav was welcome to make use of his body all she liked, but not even Cazador had ever been able to take his mind from him.
After a few moments’ hesitation, Astarion bent and began retrieving the discarded wine bottles. He’d never hear the end of it from Halsin, if the druid ever found out they’d left clutter in his beloved nature.
A flash of gold caught his eye and, with a pained grunt of exertion, he dipped lower to further investigate. Nestled in the grass, beneath the bottle of Portal Sherry, was a hefty golden pendant, inlaid with a brilliant marquise-cut emerald, hanging from a fine golden chain. A small waterfall was engraved on the back of the pendant.
Astarion recognized the amulet immediately. Tav had found it on their first incursion to the Emerald Grove, hidden behind a rock near the riverbank, next to the fishing grounds of a very distraught bear.
Karlach had struck up a conversation with the bear immediately—“He looksso sad, poor bugger.”—and revealed to the rest of the party that the bear’s name was Ormn, and that he was, indeed,sad.
“He misses that druid everyone’s talking about,” Karlach had relayed to those not burdened with the ability to converse with animals, turning her big wet eyes on them. “He didn’t cheer up even after I told him we were gonna find Halsin and bring him back. Seemed to think that was a hopeless notion. According to him, the woods have gone dark and there’s too many predators, even for an archdruid. Said ‘His smell is gone.’”
Tav had been only half listening, more preoccupied with searching the area for anything useful. She’d found the amulet and lifted it up toward the sky, letting the emerald catch and scatter the sunlight. “Ooh,pretty,” she’d said. “It’s enchanted—abjuration magic, I think. Something restorative. Good find,” she congratulated herself.
Gale had started to protest, spewing some drivel about how finding something didn’t imply ownership, but his pretentious whining had been overtaken by the lowing sounds of distress from Ormn the bear.
“That’s Halsin’s,” Karlach translated. “Ormn has it for safekeeping, and to comfort him while he’s away. He said it still smells like him, like Halsin. You can’t have it.”
Tav’s eyes had narrowed, sparking with a gleam that everyone, including Astarion, had come to associate with her temper. She’d taken a deep breath, calmed herself, and plastered on a smile so obviously false that Astarion had nearly lost his own composure with the laughter that threatened.
“Tell him we need Halsin’s scent to find him,” Tav had instructed. “If he wants his druid back that badly, parting with one little amulet shouldn’t be too much to ask. He had it practically buried, for gods’ sakes. At least we canuse the thing… Don’t tell him that last bit.”
Karlach had hesitated, searching Tav’s face for several moments. “Is that true, though?”
Tav had scrunched her shoulders up around her ears in an exaggerated shrug. “It could be. Bottom line is, we need it more than he does.”
Astarion hadn’t seen the amulet since, had all but forgotten about it. Ponderously, he lifted the amulet to his nose and drew in a long breath. He smelled metal and grass and the complex notes of sweet floral musk he’d come to associate with Tav.
He kept hold of it, and the wine, and followed Tav’s trail back toward camp.
*****
Astarion heard the voices of his companions before they came into view, and froze, seized by a tumultuous fear the source of which he could not identify.
“Far be it from me to raise any undo alarm,” Gale was saying, “but it’s been over two hours. I really think it’s time we ought to strike up a search.”
“I understand your paranoia,” Tav answered smoothly, “but he’sfine. He just needed to ride it out. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”
“This may not be my place to say—” Halsin began.
“Then don’t,” Tav snapped, cutting him off. “No offense, Halsin, we’re glad to have you, but this isn’t the Grove, and you aren’t archdruid here.”
“I speak not as archdruid,” Halsin countered firmly, “but as a healer, and as Astarion’s friend. He has not felt the effects of alcohol in two hundred years or more, and I cannot fathom how you determined thatleavinghim alone in the wilds, in that condition, to be a sound decision.”
“Come to think of it,” Gale added, “wasn’t the purpose of this entire addled notion to get yourself intoxicated first, and let him drink from you? Well, it certainly seems to have been a success—you made it sound as though Astarion couldn’t even stand after—but I can’t help noticing you seem remarkably sober for a woman professed to have consumed over two bottles of wine.”
“Not that I need to explain myself to you,” Tav said, “but you seem to be implying something so I’ll be clear. I remedied myself after the wine—it’s true. That pendant from the Grove did the trick, you remember the one. The point was for Astarion to experience it, and all that wine would have made me sick for days. You think I should have just sat there vomiting and moaning and ruining the moment for him?”
“What pendant?”
Halsin sounded like he was frowning. Astarion crept a little closer, keeping out of sight, cursing the armful of clattering glass bottles preventing him from sustaining a more reliable degree of stealth.
“I got it from a bear,” Tav answered. “He said it was yours, actually, now that I think about it. I’m afraid I’ve misplaced it, so if you want it back feel free to search the woods.”
Astarion felt the weight of the golden amulet dangling from his fingers. Abjuration magic, Tav had declared, all those days ago. A restorative enchantment.
Against his better judgement, he thought back to what had happened in the starlit little clearing, wondering at what moment she had used it, realizing it must have been while she’d been undressing.
He didn’t understand why, but a coiled knot of something heavy and mean twisted in his chest at the revelation. In exchange for his silence regarding what had truly befallen Alfira, Tav had promised to watch his back, to keep him safe. In the time since making their agreement, Astarion had been kidnapped and beaten by the hated Gur, ambiguously indebted to a devil, and nearly devoured by the wildlife.
He was finding it difficult not to embrace the resentment he felt rising within him. With enormous effort he reigned in his anger, reminding himself he still needed her. Of all the people involved with this strange new freedom of his, this perilous little adventure, she alone had bound herself to him, joined their bodies and accrued a debt.
He really wasn’t in any position to complain.
Have you no respect for yourself? Cazador’s voice wheedled from the depths of Astarion’s beleaguered mind.
“f*ck you,” Astarion bit back.
You are weak indeed, my child, to seek protection from such wretched cattle.
“The Amulet of Silvanus,” Halsin said, his tone low and edged with anger, “was a gift from my mentor, the former First Druid of the Emerald Grove. Ormn confessed it was taken from him by ‘weaponed two-legs.’ I’d assumed he meant Aradin and his crew. But you had it. And lost it.”
Astarion crept closer still, bringing the trio within sight at last.
Gale and Halsin stood together, the wizard’s arm linked through the druid’s in a manner that did not seem solely cautionary, and Astarion felt that weighted knot in his chest constrict and plummet toward his stomach. Gale’s hair was mussed, his eyes bloodshot. Halsin looked little better, worry deepening the lines of his face. Anger had brought a ruddy flush to his tanned features as well, making his scars stand out more vividly.
Tav stood facing them, her back to Astarion. Both hands were clenched into fists at her side, and her posture was stiff and defensive.
“I know you’re not this upset over one little necklace,” Tav said, a slight note of mockery in her words, “not the great druid Halsin. You’re mad I got to him first. Had him before you.” She tilted her head back, and although Astarion couldn’t see her face, he could well envision the look of vicious triumph in her eyes. “But gods know you had your chance with him. Had him locked up in your private chambers for days. Knowing Astarion, I’m sure he offered. You could’ve made him yours, but you didn’t.” She lifted an arm, pointing an accusatory finger at Gale. “You chose him. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you both, but you can’t expect Astarion not to look elsewhere to have his needs met.”
The cattle lows about things of which it knows nothing. Does she think her sodden c*nt is somehow unique from the thousands you’ve sampled before?
Astarion grit his teeth and groaned without meaning to.
Halsin’s eyes darted toward him immediately, spearing through the darkness. Tav spun on her heels, following the druid’s line of sight, and Gale swiftly followed suite. Three pairs of eyes peered at him in varying states of alarm and distress.
“Oak Father preserve us,” Halsin exclaimed. “Astarion!”
“I told you he was fine,” Tav said stubbornly, although her voice shook as her weak human vision took in the sight of him.
Astarion moved toward them slowly, trying not to limp. The bottles in his arms served to conceal the worst of his injuries, but the bite mark would be obvious to all.
“Fine?” Gale strode forward, and the air crackled like the onset of a storm in his wake. “Look at him! Astarion—here, let me take those—what in the hells happened to you?”
Astarion shook his head, shying away from Gale’s outstretched hands, cradling the wine bottles tighter against himself. He took a deep breath, ignoring the jagged sting of agony that wracked through his torso, and pasted a smile on his face. The crooked one that everyone always seemed to adore.
“There you are! My friends.” He forced out a tittering little laugh, feeling himself sway from the effort, and nearly tipped over.
Halsin surged forward, grasping onto Astarion’s shoulders, his expression grim as he looked him over. “How much of this blood is yours?” he demanded. “Are you still drunk?”
“Tav, darling, you were invigorating,” Astarion said, deflecting with ease, “but I found myself in need of something a bit more… filling.”
“What do you mean?” Tav asked nervously. “You went hunting?”
“Was hunted, rather,” Astarion corrected, knowing full well that a touch of truth lent credence to a larger lie. “I ran afoul of a bear. He took a little of my blood, I took all of his.”
“You’re hurt, then,” Halsin affirmed. “Where else, besides your leg?” His hands were already warming, gathering healing magic.
“It’s nothing,” Astarion insisted, shrugging out of Halsin’s arms. He glanced at Gale, expecting irritation, jealousy—finding only concern. “A scratch. Well—a bite. But do save your spellwork, druid, it’s nothing that won’t heal on its own.”
Probably not true. He’d have to pilfer about the camp for healing potions.
With some difficulty, Astarion managed to draw Halsin’s eye toward to the shimmering trinket looped through his fingers. Halsin reached for it ponderously, lifting the amulet in disbelief.
“There now,” Astarion said. “Not lost after all, and no harm done. We’ve a long road ahead of us yet; I trust we can all be civil with one another?”
“How long were you standing there?” Tav asked. “What else did you overhear? Did you hear the things they were saying before? What they were accusing me of?”
Astarion wanted this conversation—this entire night—to be over. He wanted to return to his tent and not emerge again until the party was prepared to resume their journey along the Risen Road. He wanted to hide away, out of sight, beyond the reach of anyone’s touch or interest. But he tampered down his fatigue and irritation, keeping his expression bland and pleasant.
“I’m afraid not, darling. Surely whatever it was has been proven groundless, seeing as I’m all right and all is well? I trust everyone’s had themselves as uproarious a good time at this lovely gathering as I have.”
But Tav wasn’t ready to let the matter drop. She gestured to Halsin and Gale with a trembling hand, rage hardening her features. “They were trying to make it sound like I coerced you out here, forced myself on you. They said I raped you!”
Astarion reeled back, speechless. His mind slid sideways, and Cazador’s laughter filled the vast empty chambers of every memory he’d ever suppressed.
“Well that—that’s nonsense, clearly,” he heard himself say, as if from a great distance.
You can’t rape a whor*.
Astarion lips parted, and he spoke against his will, his voice hollow and emotionless.
“You can’t rape a whor*.”
