Page 61 of Astarion

Astarion, for whom the law might best be described as a series of loosely connected loopholes, shrugged. “You’d find out soon enough, wouldn’t you?”

“Hmm.”

The aasimar’s eyes bored into him. Astarion feigned nonchalance. “Of course, if you let me live, I suppose there’s a chance you could track me back to my master’s lair. That place where he sleeps during the day. Helpless.” Was that obvious enough? He is a paladin. They think subtlety is a type of pastry. He wondered how pleased Cazador would be if he served up both the blood of a god and a live aasimar paladin, then hastily buried the thought before the truth spell could force him to blurt it out.

Den Suriel gazed at him for long enough that Astarion began to worry he needed to draw a diagram. Then the other man nodded slowly. “What happens to you if this vampire is slain?”

“I remain a spawn, but one in control of his own mind. Not the ideal circumstance, perhaps, but better than my life now.”

“I would still be bound to kill you.”

“Yes. But before that happens, you might die, or I might die, or illithids might invade, or the sky might fall.”

The paladin was silent, clearly weighing his options. Perhaps it was time to give him a little nudge. Astarion let his tongue drift across his lower lip. The aasimar’s eyes riveted on the motion. “Don’t you want to kill me?” Astarion asked.

The paladin flushed and looked away. “Believe me,” he said in that low golden gravel voice, “there is nothing I want mo…mm…” He choked then, as if the words were being dragged out of him: “Killing you feels like such a goddamn waste.”

“Oh.” Astarion cocked his head. “Oh, I see. The spell works on you, too.”

“It does, yes.”

“So, just how attractive do you find me, Hahn den Suriel?” He let himself linger on the syllables of the man’s name, drawing them out like a caress.

“I shouldn’t find a vampire attractive.”

“That wasn’t the question I asked.”

“It’s as much of an answer as you’re getting.”

Astarion laughed out loud. He bounced to his feet. “Come on, then. You help me steal the blood of a god, and then you get to take a stab at killing me…and who knows what else might happen in between?”

A thought clearly struck the paladin then, and he gazed up at Astarion with narrowed eyes. “Perhaps it would be better to break my oath than to deliver the blood of a living god to a vampire lord.” His voice was acquiring that ringing timbre again. “Who knows what evil your master intends to commit with it?”

“He wants to see what it tastes like.”

Den Suriel blinked. In a rather more normal voice, he said, “You’re shitting me.”

“I can’t right now, remember?”

The aasimar rubbed his temples. “We are constantly warned about the banality of evil, and yet it never fails to astonish me.”

“Darling, you should see his choice of décor.”

Den Suriel climbed slowly to his feet. “Very well,” he said, sounding as tired as Astarion’s heart. “May the gods forgive me. I will assist you as I can, and then I will slay you as I must.”

He reached out and caught Astarion’s shirtfront. The battered silk ruffles flattened under his grip. “Answer this one last question, though. Do you intend to see me turned into a vampire?”

“Gods and devils, no.” Astarion tried to imagine the aasimar dropped into the politics of Szarr Palace and repressed a shudder. He enjoyed a certain amount of chaos, but that went beyond chaos and well into catastrophe. “I hadn’t even thought of it.”

“To drink my blood, then?”

“I do not drink the blood of thinking beings.” That came out a little too clipped, so Astarion smiled to soften it. “Darling,” he murmured, leaning in until they were separated only by the width of den Suriel’s fist. “It isn’t your neck I’d like to suck.”

The paladin released him and stepped back hurriedly. Astarion strolled past him, a lazy smile on his face.

That went far better than expected. It’s amazing how much you can lie with the truth.

The truth was, Astarion didn’t actually like necks. There was far too much cartilage there on a large mammal. Given the choice, he’d go for the femoral artery every time.