Work Text:
His Office
She stands before the fireplace, the glow of the fire on her pale skin, her black hair pulled away from her face, the rest a sleek panel down her back.
Astarion kneels, eyes cast down. He examines his hands nervously, while she paces slowly back and forth before the fire.
With a decisive breath she leaves him and turns to the bookcase. Her fingers trace the spines while she searches. They stop. Pulling a large leather bound tome from the shelf she instead sits behind the desk.
Astarion jumps at the sound of the heavy book hitting the desk, but he doesn’t look up. He knows better than that.
‘Come to me.’ Her words are quiet, but cold, and Astarion keeps his eyes trained on the floor but comes to stand before her behind the desk.
‘Kneel.’
He does.
Astarion follows another series of short, emotionless instructions, and returns to his kneeling position, naked at her feet, where she rests easily in the crimson leather chair.
He flinches when she places a hand on his shoulder and pushes him down to all-fours.
‘Now, from memory—recite the poem.’
Astarion hesitates a moment, and her voice becomes more sharp. ‘Do it now.’
Haltingly, Astarion attempts the words. The language is unfamiliar, but he does his best to approximate the sounds he’s had drilled into him over hundreds of hours spent just like this.
He stutters on a syllable, she slams the cover of the book, the snap of it splitting the silence.
‘No. Start again.’
Astarion does not speak.
He does not move.
He does not breathe.
‘Start again.’ The slow words hold a multitude of threats. She does not like asking twice.
‘No.’
A rough grasp on his chin forces his face up to meet hers. Her eyes burn with malice.
‘Start again, or I will make you start again.’ She holds his gaze, her jaw set tightly. ‘You will not like what else I will make you do.’
In less than a breath Astarion is on his feet, his fingers around her neck, squeezing and pressing her into the chair back.
Another breath and he pulls her from the chair. His nails in the flesh of her neck have started to break skin, and blood seeps under his fingernails.
With snarl and a single sweeping motion, Astarion clears the desk. The book hits the wall, pages coming loose, glass shatters on the stone hearth, the lamp goes out as it hits the floor, leaving them in darkness but for the glow of the fire
Her attempts to struggle are fruitless—she is no match for this vampire. Her attempts to scream are silenced by the grip on her windpipe.
Roughly, he turns her, driving his hips hard into her ass. A dark sneer crosses his lips at the smack of her body against the desk—the sound is dulled as are her attempts to cry out.
One hand still around her throat, Astarion tears at her clothes. When he pulls hard at the bronze lace of her corset, the silk ribbon that laces it scrapes cruelly against her skin. The friction burn instantly starts blooming with pinpricks of blood, red as the ribbon itself. Her panties too, cut deeply into her skin, before giving way.
‘You will make me?’ His voice is a mocking snarl. ‘Does this look like you making me do anything?’
Astarion loosens the grip on her throat, though only slightly.
‘Answer me.’ he demands.
She is only able to gasp in a single much needed breath, before his fingers again close around her throat.
He backs off her slightly, only to slam her body again against the desk, this time sinking his fangs into her neck, and pulling hard on the wound. Her hands scrabble ineffectively as his, trying to get air, but his other hand reaches across her middle to grab her wrist. One wrist trapped in his merciless grip, and her other arm pinned at her side, she can do nothing to defend herself.
Again he loosens his grip on her throat long enough for a single gulp of air before retightening again. He’s toying with her. He continues to feed from her, controlling her access to air until her head swims, and her knees buckle.
Sated—at least of blood—he removes both fangs and fingers from her throat. A relieved moan escapes, but any relief is short lived. He traps her wrists in his grip and slamming her hands to the desktop. Painfully, his knee presses into her inner thigh, forcing her stance open.
‘Astarion, please.’ she rasps. Her plea is met with cruel laughter.
‘Please what?’ he taunts back, and she feels his cock hard against her ass.
She turns her head, but can’t quite see him behind her. Over her.
‘Please stop.’ she cries.
There is a silence that seems to drag on infinitely. His cock notches against her opening.
‘Make me.’ he snarles and fucks hard into her, bottoming out in a single thrust.
Her hips are crushed into the desk edge, the heels of his hands press hard into her wrists, and she can only manage a whimper as he drives his hips forward savagely again and again.
‘Beg me.’ he snarls.
‘Astarion, please.’ She whimpers. A moan escapes her, followed by a choked sob, when her body betrays her and she writhes back against his cock.
‘So fucking needy.’ he snarls, a thrust accenting each word.
Shame blooms across her chest and neck, and she loathes the pleasure she feels building.
‘Astarion,’ he pulls his name from her panting lips with every vicious surge.
In the dim light of the fire, Astarion looks around this room.
This was the first room he visited after it was over. His companions led him, bloodied and shaken from the chapel, and directly to this room. He will never know why they chose it. They couldn’t have known what it meant to him. What happened here.
It was the first room he destroyed. The first day he raged until every strip of paper was torn from the walls. Until the stones around the fireplace were cracked and crumbling. The second day he was more exacting. More precise. Books ripped from their bindings and piled on the floor. Paintings were carefully considered before the canvases were slashed through, their frames splintered.
Astarion sat in his chair—that chair—for two days, tossing page after page of his precious library onto the fire. He drank his wine, he played his music, and watched it turn to ash.
He kept the chair. And he kept the desk.
He couldn’t have said why, at the time. How these two things were somehow above destruction. He knows why now.
He shifts to put both of her wrists in a single grip, so that he can yank hard on her black hair.
‘Again.’ he commands her.
‘Astarion!’ she screams, and her release crashes through her.
With a snarl, his orgasm immediately follows.
The desk feels cool against her cheek, damp from sweat and tears. She closes her eyes and grounds herself to that single feeling, still unable to move beneath him.
He releases her hands, and steps back to survey the damage.
He places a small phial of red liquid on the desk within her eyeline, then stumbles back into the chair.
Carefully, she straightens up and drinks the potion. She drops the glamour that darkened her hair, and the Song of Defense that protected her body.
The bruises and burns are real enough, but nothing the potion won’t help with.
Carefully, she lays a hand on his shoulder before kneeling before him.
‘How are you feeling?’ She asks, quietly.
‘I don’t know.’ his gaze is far away. ‘But, thank you.’
She stands again, and kisses his head. ‘Come on,’ she encourages gently, and he allows her to lead him. ‘We don’t spend any more time in here than we need to.’