31 #2
“Chivalry requires me to stand when a lady enters the room,” den Suriel said. “You’re going to have to give me a minute.”
The goliath laughed. “I’m no lady.”
“It’s the principle.”
Principle got den Suriel sitting upright. The smell wafting from one of the cups on the tray actually got Astarion to his feet.
It was more pig’s blood, but at the moment, it was ambrosia. Astarion drank it down in one long swallow and wiped crimson drips from the corners of his mouth. “You may not be a lady, but you are most certainly a saint.”
Lief grinned. “You know I was a pirate, right?”
“Doesn’t matter. You can be the saint of pirates.” Astarion didn’t dare sit down again or he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get back up. “Your people performed admirably. Please tell your mistress all debts are paid.”
“Good to know. I’ll assume you were successful, then?”
“Indeed. Undead cult leader slain, relic found and placed in safekeeping. It’s all over but the shouting.”
“Try to keep the shouting to a minimum. My staff is trying to sleep.” Lief nodded to them and slipped out the door just as den Suriel got to his feet.
The paladin staggered to the desk, sat down, and applied himself to another bowl of fish stew the way a starving wolf applied himself to a lamb. He polished off the bowl and wiped bread around it. Astarion pushed his bowl over.
“Do you not eat?”
“I can and do, but not much. And the cook here thinks spice is what you add to cover the smell.” The cup of blood had been far more filling than any food, but he wasn’t about to say that. He took a slice of bread instead, slathering it with butter.
“Mmm.” The aasimar got through the second bowl as well, though he slowed down toward the end. “Why did you lie about stashing the relic somewhere?”
Astarion raised an eyebrow at him over the slice of bread. “I trust Lief insofar as I can predict her, but once a pirate, always a pirate. That blood could be worth a fortune to the right buyer. I’d rather not let her know that it’s within her immediate grasp.”
Den Suriel grunted. After a moment, he said, “Wise, but cynical.”
“Throw in devilishly handsome and you’ll have described me perfectly.”
Pale eyes lifted to meet his. “Then why did you save my life?”
There was a bottle of wine on the tray. Astarion poured some into his cup to buy himself time. So we’re doing this now, are we? Not even time for a bath first?
“You could have left me to die,” den Suriel said when he didn’t answer immediately. “You know I’m sworn to kill you. You’d have gotten away free and clear, and no one would have blamed you for leaving a man with a mortal wound, if they even knew.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“So why did you do it?”
Astarion sighed. “Have you ever seen something—a piece of art, say—that was large and dramatic and unwieldy and nothing you’d ever hang on your wall, but you were still rather glad it existed?”
Den Suriel looked blank. Astarion tried again.
“There was a stained glass window on the temple of Ilmater in Silverymoon. The artist clearly wanted to depict suffering and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. It was twenty-five feet high, so every time you turned down that street from anywhere in the city,
you could clearly see that you were walking toward a god who was having one of his legs flayed while his other foot was burning in hot coals and some nefarious individual was sawing one of his nipples off.”
“This is starting to seem like a very unflattering comparison.”
“In that case, yes. But you see, even though the art was bizarre and deranged, it was perfect. And everyone in the city loved it because it was theirs. I’m told it got smashed during the Time of Troubles, and when I heard that, I felt genuine grief.
The world felt smaller and colder because this absurd, ridiculous…thing…was no longer in it.”
Den Suriel had tilted his head to one side as Astarion began. By the time he finished talking, the paladin’s ears were nearly parallel with the floor. “I have never been so simultaneously moved and insulted.”
“Possibly I picked the wrong example.” Astarion considered for a moment. “All right. So there’s a carving of a kuo-toa eating a gnome…”
“No, please, stick to Ilmater.” The aasimar lifted his hands in surrender. “Very well. I am a large, ridiculous, and apparently garish piece of art.”
“Precisely. Letting you die would have been a crime against aesthetics.”
“And I have come to see how you value aesthetics.”
His eyes were warm, and they held Astarion’s a little too long. His gaze didn’t drop until Astarion licked his lips, and then the effect was almost electric. Den Suriel rose to his feet, and the space between them seemed suddenly small.
And then, of course, the hot water arrived.
Astarion went first again. The damage to his hands from climbing all those walls had already started to heal from the pig’s blood, and they didn’t sting at all when he lathered them with soap. That was good, given what he planned to be doing with them over the next few hours.
As much as he would have loved a good soak, he suspected that giving den Suriel time to stew was a poor idea.
So he cleaned off quickly and thoroughly, then emerged, wearing the emerald green dressing gown, to find that den Suriel had already shed his armor.
Astarion sat on the edge of his bed, drying his hair, aware that he was being watched and reveling in it.
The servants came with fresh water, and the paladin disappeared. Astarion finished with his hair and considered his next move.
Truly, there is only one way that this can end. And if I wait for the man to pick up on subtle clues, even I will die of old age before then. Perhaps the time for subtlety is over.
So when den Suriel emerged, clean and only slightly dripping, he found that Astarion had already slid between the sheets.
Of the aasimar’s bed. With the lover’s oil on the table next to him.
Astarion heard a sharp inhale and looked up with a lazy smile. “Well?”
Den Suriel took three long steps toward him. Astarion sat up, letting the blankets fall away.
And waited.
He didn’t have to wait long. “The gods have mercy,” the paladin said, and sank down beside him, closing his mouth over Astarion’s.
The gods might have mercy, but Astarion did not. He might have been gentle with a dying man, but not with one who was no longer dying. He slid his hands into that wealth of metallic hair and plundered den Suriel’s mouth until the aasimar pulled back, gasping.
“I shouldn’t want a vampire,” den Suriel said when he had the breath to speak.
“I shouldn’t want a paladin who’s sworn to kill me.” Astarion could smell his soap on den Suriel’s skin. It felt unexpectedly intimate, as if he’d marked the other man in some way. Can I keep him, Father? I’ve already handled him, and now the god won’t take him back…
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Everything. This. Us.”
The paladin huffed a laugh and rested his forehead against Astarion’s. “What do we do?”
“I can’t go anywhere until the sun sets. Do you suppose we could set aside the killing until then?” Astarion slid one hand down the back of the aasimar’s neck, over his collarbone, and down his chest.
“That—ah!—sounds like a very good idea.”
“Oh,” Astarion said, loosening the knot on the other man’s dressing gown, “I think you’ll find I’m full of good ideas.”
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