Chapter Text
Hades
Dawn bleeds through the heavy drapes of Enver Gortash’s opulent bedchamber, staining the room in a pale, hesitant gold. You wake slowly—an unfamiliar luxury, a stolen moment of peace that feels like a transgression in itself. The first thing you register is the weight. The solid, warm pressure of an arm draped over your waist, the heat of another body pressed firm against your back. Enver’s breath is a steady, rhythmic tide against the nape of your neck, his fingers curled loosely against the sharp plane of your hip, possessiveness ingrained so deep it persists even in sleep.
For a long, suspended moment, you don’t move. You don’t dare. You simply exist within the cage of his limbs, a captured thing playing at being tame. And you love it. This quiet, this control. In his arms, your urge thrashes and claws but it cannot escape.
He’s the only one you allow to hold the leash.
The dream lingers, its texture sticky as cooling blood between your fingers, its afterimage seared onto the back of your eyelids.
In it, you were someone else. Not Vesper, the broken child honed to a razor’s cruel edge. Not Bhaal’s Chosen, whose every breath and art is a hymn to the Murder Lord. You were just a man. The ghost of that terrified boy who still whispers hesitantly in the private darkness of your skull, all grown up and inexplicably whole. There was no chitinous armor made from the bones of your victims, no phantom screams echoing in your ears, no coppery taste of slaughter flesh on your tongue.
There was a modest house by the sea, the air thick with the smell of salt and old paper and ink instead of iron and fear. Enver was there, but a softer, simpler version of himself, stripped of his machinations and his god’s iron grip. He’d kissed your temple, a gesture of effortless, unthinking affection, as he passed you in a sun-drenched hall. And you—the most impossible part—you didn’t flinch at the love. You leaned into the touch, a silent answer to a question he hadn’t even needed to voice.
You shut your eyes tighter, pressing your lids together until stars burst in the darkness, as if you could physically crawl back into the fading fantasy. The muscles in your back tense, a coiled spring ready to launch you from the bed, from this illusion of comfort.
Stupid. Sentimental. Weak.
The Urge’s laughter curls in the base of your skull, a jagged, mocking sound like bones breaking. It is a physical presence, a serpent coiled around your spine. The boy inside you—the one who still flinches at the sight of your own hands, expecting them to be forever stained—whimpers in the ensuing silence.
But it was nice, wasn’t it? the boy whispers, a traitorous thought. To be normal. To be touched without the intention of causing or receiving pain. Even in a fading dream.
Gortash stirs behind you, a deep, unconscious shift of muscle and bone. His arm tightens around your waist, a reflexive, possessive pull that draws you flush against him before his mind has even engaged. You feel the exact moment consciousness returns to him—the subtle tension that replaces sleep-lax muscles, the quiet, sharp inhale that means his brilliant, scheming mind is clicking into place. His thumb, calloused from his quill and the turning of schematics, brushes a slow, deliberate arc over the jut of your hipbone. A question.
You answer by rolling over to face him. The movement is fluid, practiced. Your grin is already sharpening, the mask of the Deathstalker slotted neatly into place, but not completely hiding the dreamer, the boy beneath. You don’t have to say anything. The look is a challenge, an invitation, a promise of delicious violence.
He blinks at you, his dark eyes still heavy with sleep, his usually impeccable hair a mess of black waves across the pillow. The shrewd warlock, the tyrannical visionary, is muted. For once, he looks almost ordinary, just a simple politician roused from a deep sleep.
(You hate the way your treacherous heart gives a painful, yearning thump at the sight. You hate how much you like it.)
“You’re insatiable,” he mutters, his voice a low, sleep-rough rasp that vibrates through you. His hand slides up from your hip, over the dip of your waist, mapping your side with a possessiveness that is both infuriating and intoxicating, even half-awake.
You press closer, the length of your body aligning with his beneath the silk sheets. You duck your head and nip at the strong line of his collarbone, a sharp, claiming bite. “Prove it.”
A low groan rumbles in his chest, and the last vestiges of sleep vanish from his eyes, replaced by a dark, hungry focus.
Oh, he does.
You are utterly insatiable in your submission.
His hand comes up to cup the back of your neck, not gentle, but firm, anchoring you to him. His kiss isn’t the soft, dreamlike phantom from your fantasy. It’s all demand and conquest, a battle for dominance you are all too happy to wage. It tastes of last night’s wine and the inherent, metallic tang of ambition that always clings to him. You open for him without hesitation, your tongue meeting his in a familiar, frantic dance. This is a language you both speak fluently: the clash of wills, the sharp edge of desire honed on the whetstone of mutual depravity.
His other hand roams, sliding down the curve of your spine to grip your backside, pulling you tighter against him. You can feel him, hard and wanting, against your thigh. A breathy, triumphant sound escapes you, swallowed by his mouth. You break the kiss, gasping for air, and trail your lips along his jaw, down the column of his throat, tasting the salt of his skin, feeling the frantic beat of his pulse beneath your teeth.
“All that talk of tyranny and order,” you murmur against his throat, your voice husky. “And you’re so easily overthrown first thing in the morning, my tyrant.”
He laughs, a short, dark sound, and flips you onto your back with a surprising strength that steals your breath. He looms over you, his weight pinning you to the mattress, his eyes gleaming with predatory amusement. “Overthrown? Hardly. This is merely consolidating power.”
He dips his head, his mouth finding yours again, but slower this time, more deliberate. This is where the calculation falls away, replaced by a raw, startling honesty that exists only in this space, between these sheets. His kisses trail down your neck, over your chest, his tongue flicking against a nipple, drawing a sharp gasp from you. Your fingers tangle in his hair, not pushing him away, but holding him there, a silent plea for more.
He worships your body like it’s a blueprint only he can read, his hands and mouth tracing the map of scars and lean muscle with a reverence that is utterly blasphemous. He knows every mark, every story your skin tells—the thin lines from battles long past, the deeper scars that are your badges of surviving violation, the faint bruises from last night’s exertions. He kisses them all, as if claiming them for himself, rewriting their history with his lips.
You arch into his touch, a low moan escaping you as his mouth moves lower, down the tense plane of your stomach. Your hips buck involuntarily when he takes you in his mouth, hot and wet and devastatingly skilled. Your head falls back against the pillows, a string of profanities and half-formed pleas falling from your lips. You are unravelling, coming apart under his meticulous attention, and the sheer loss of control is more terrifying and more exhilarating than any kill.
This is your true undoing. Not the violence you wield so effortlessly, but this—the way he can reduce you to a shuddering, desperate wild creature with nothing but his mouth and his hands and his intimate knowledge of every single one of your breaking points.
“E-Enver…” you gasp, your voice strangled.
He releases you with a soft, wet pop, crawling back up your body to kiss you deeply, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. It’s filthy and intimate and it makes your head spin. “I love seeing you like this,” he rasps against your lips, his hand sliding between your legs, fingers slick with spit, probing. “The mighty Deathstalker, brought to his knees merely by my eloquent tongue.”
You bite your lower lip, drawing a faint bead of blood. “Get on with it, my tyrant,” you growl, but the effect is ruined by the way your voice cracks on the words.
He smiles, that sly, knowing smile that makes you want to both kiss him and kill him. He reaches for the vial of oil on the nightstand, the movement efficient, never breaking eye contact. The slick, cool wetness against your entrance makes you jump, but his body is heavy on yours, holding you still. His fingers return, pressing, stretching, preparing you with an agonizing patience that is its own form of torture.
“Always in such a hurry,” he chides softly, curling his fingers just so, and you see stars, a broken cry torn from your throat. “Some things, my dear, require a deliberate hand.”
You’re trembling, writhing, reduced to a state of abject need. The Urge is silent. The boy is silent. Both want this. There is only this aching, burning need. “Now, Enver. Gods damn you, now.”
He finally, mercifully, settles between your thighs, guiding his uncut hardness to your entrance. The initial pressure is a familiar stretch, a burning ache that quickly transforms into pure, blinding pleasure as he sinks into you, slowly, completely, until he is buried to the hilt. You both go perfectly still for a moment, breathing ragged, foreheads pressed together. It is in these suspended seconds, joined so intimately, that the masks truly fall away. You are not Bhaal and Bane’s Chosen. You are just two men, anchored only to each other in a world that would see you tear each other apart.
Then he moves and thought evaporates.
His thrusts are not gentle. They are powerful, claiming, each one driving the air from your lungs. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, meeting him thrust for thrust. The bedframe protests with a rhythmic groan, a base counterpoint to the sounds of skin on skin, of your ragged pants and his low grunts in your ear. He shifts the angle, and on the next thrust, he hits that spot inside you that unravels the very fabric of your being. A punched-out cry is torn from you, and he does it again, and again, and again, a relentless, perfect assault on your senses.
Your fingernails dig into the muscles of his back, surely leaving half-moon crescents in his skin. You want to mark him, to brand him, to leave some physical proof that this happened, that you happened to him, just as he is happening to you. He mouths at your neck, sucking a bruise into the tanned skin there, a claim of his own.
“Look at me,” he commands, his voice thick with strain.
Your eyes, which had screwed shut against the overwhelming sensation, flutter open. His gaze is dark, intense, unwavering. He wants to see you break. He wants to witness every second of your surrender. It’s the most vulnerable you ever allow yourself to be, and the most powerful you ever feel. You are laid bare, but so is he. In his eyes, you see not just hunger, but a raw, terrifying need that mirrors your own.
The coil of pleasure tightens unbearably in your gut. Your release builds, a tidal wave threatening to crash. You’re babbling, a stream of curses, his name, meaningless pleas. He kisses you, swallowing your sounds, his own rhythm becoming frantic, losing its polished control.
“Vesper,” he groans, your name a prayer and a curse on his lips. It’s that—the sound of your name in his voice, stripped of all titles and pretense—that shatters you completely.
Your climax crashes over you, violent and absolute. Your body seizes, arching off the bed as white-hot pleasure arcs through every nerve ending. You cry out, the sound muffled against his shoulder. The convulsions of your body pull him over the edge with you. He buries his face in your neck with a guttural shout, his own release pulsing deep inside you, his entire body shuddering with the force of it.
For long minutes, there is only the sound of your harsh, shared breathing. He collapses on top of you, his weight a crushing, welcome anchor, keeping you from floating away on the aftermath. His heart hammers against your chest, a frantic rhythm that slowly steadies. You can feel his own pulse everywhere, a frantic echo in your own veins.
Slowly, carefully, he withdraws from you, the loss of him leaving a hollow, aching feeling. He rolls to the side, taking you with him, so you are once again tucked against his side, your head on his chest, his arm a heavy, comforting weight around you. The scent of sex and sweat and him fills you. The dream is a distant, pathetic memory, thoroughly scoured from your mind by the brutal, wonderful reality of him.
---
Later, tangled in sweat-damp sheets that smell of him, of us, of sex and brazen ambition, you trace the scars on his chest. They are a library of his suffering, thin, precise lines interspersed with older, rougher marks. Each one is a remnant of his own devotion and sufferings, a testament to the price he’s paid for the power he wields. Gortash watches you through half-lidded eyes, sated and lazy, his fingers idly combing through your wine-dark hair. His touch is firm, yet softened by the afterglow.
“You’re quiet,” he remarks. His voice is a low rumble beneath your ear.
You hum, noncommittal, your focus on a particularly nasty scar from his time in the House of Hope. “Thinking.”
“A dangerous pastime. I should know.” His thumb strokes your temple. “What about?”
You shouldn’t say it. You should lie, make up something crude and violent that fits the persona you’ve so carefully constructed. But the dream clings like his seed slowly trickling out of you, and the languid warmth of his body makes you feel, for a fleeting second, like you could be honest.
“About a future,” you murmur, the words feeling foreign and dangerous on your tongue. “A different one. Without all the… blood. And the madness.”
He goes still beneath you. The idle motion of his fingers in your hair stops. You can feel the shift in him, the sudden sharp focus. “There is no escaping our fetid fates, Vesper,” he says, and his voice is softer than you expect, almost weary. “We are Chosen. Our blood sings for our dread gods. The only freedom is in shaping the madness to our will. Making the most of it, on our terms.”
You flick his ribs in mild irritation. He catches your wrist with startling speed, his grip firm but not painful. He brings your palm to his mouth and presses a kiss to the center of it. The gesture is so startlingly tender, so at odds with the man who just moments ago was talking of inescapable, bloody destinies, that your breath hitches.
(You don’t pull away. You can’t.)
“Tell me,” he says, his lips moving against your skin.
It’s not a demand. Not quite. It’s an offering. A chance. A test.
Again. You could lie. You should lie. You should shove him away and make a joke about eviscerating someone. Instead, you close your eyes, as if to hide from his perceptive gaze, and the words tumble out, quiet and vulnerable.
“I dreamed we had a little house.”
Gortash goes very, very still. The air in the room grows thick.
You barrel on, your voice forcibly light, trying to coat the raw nerve of the confession in a layer of irony, “Somewhere by the water. You’d written terrible, sentimental poetry. I pretended to hate it.”
The silence stretches, taut and uncomfortable. Then, slowly, his hand releases your wrist and comes up to cup the side of your neck, his thumb stroking the frantic pulse beating there. “You’d burn it all down within a week,” he says, but his tone is considering, not mocking.
You laugh, but it’s a brittle, fragile sound. “Probably.”
He studies you for a long, unnerving moment, his dark gaze seeing straight through the flippant act to the desperate, yearning core of it. Then, with a deliberate, calculated casualness that you know is anything but, he says, “I’d install a proper torture chamber in the cellar. Soundproofed, of course. Keep you entertained. I do so love watching you deal with unruly… visitors.”
Something in your chest twists, sharp and painful. He’s humoring you. He’s taking your foolish, tender dream and grafting his own brutal, practical reality onto it. He’s not dismissing it; he’s adapting it.
(You love him for it. For trying to bridge the impossible gap.)
(You hate him for it. For reminding you that even your purest fantasies are ultimately stained with blood.)
A wave of conflicting emotion surges through you—affection, frustration, a desperate kind of ache. You shove it all down, channeling it into physicality. You push yourself up, rolling him onto his back and straddling his hips with a familiar, predatory smirk. The sheets pool around your waist.
“A torture chamber,” you muse, leaning down to brush your lips against his. “Almost romantic.”
His hands settle on your waist, his grip firm, anchoring. A smirk plays on his own lips. “I have my moments.”
You kiss him then, not with the frantic hunger of before, but with a slower, deeper intensity. It’s a kiss that tastes of saltwater dreams and cellar-damp blood, and you lose yourself in the terrible, beautiful contradiction of it.
A low, rough chuckle vibrated through Enver’s chest. His thumbs stroked possessive circles on the bones of your hips.
“Insatiable,” he repeated, the word a dark caress. His smile was indeed a menacing thing, all sharp edges and promised dominion. “Like a wild animal, and I hold the leash you offer so willingly.”
You leaned forward, your faces inches apart. “A generous master, to grant this beast such… liberties.”
His grip tightened almost imperceptibly. “You’ve had your liberty. The sun is up and there are meetings to attend. A second round so soon would be… irresponsible.”
You couldn’t help the mocking whisper. “Is the great Enver Gortash struggling? Is my tyrant struggling to rise to the occasion?”
The effect was instantaneous. With a growl, he crushed your mouth to his in a fierce, claiming kiss. He rolled, pinning you to the sheets beneath him. He broke the kiss, breathing ragged, eyes dark with fervor.
“Struggling?” he hissed. Then his hand came up. His palm settled against your throat, his thumb tilting your chin up. The pressure was absolute, dominant, but meticulously, reverently measured.
A tremor, faint but unmistakable, ran through you. From the corner of the room, a deeper shadow detached itself—the silent, massive shadow mastiff, its eyes glowing embers. It watched, a loyal specter born from shadow and suffering.
Enver’s eyes flickered toward it for a fraction of a second, acknowledging its presence, its reason for being. His gaze returned to yours, and the fierce possession in them softened by a single, crucial degree. He knew what this meant. He knew the implicit trust Nimbus represented if he wasn’t growling.
“You will learn the cost of that taunt,” he promised, his voice dropping into a register that was pure, wicked intent.
His free hand didn’t just find your cock; it explored. A slow, torturous stroke that had you arching off the bed, a choked gasp escaping your lips. He did it again, and again, until you were writhing under his hold, your hips chasing his touch. Just as the pleasure began to crest, his hand stilled, leaving you trembling on the precipice.
“Enver—” you breathed, the name a plea.
“Patience,” he chided softly, his breath hot against your ear. His fingers trailed lower, past your aching length, tracing the cleft of your rear with a maddening slowness that made you want to scream. He pressed with the pad of his finger, a firm, circling pressure against your seed slicked entrance that promised everything.
You bucked against him, a silent, desperate plea he felt through the hand on your throat. He smiled, that infuriating, menacing smile.
“So eager,” he mused, and finally, blessedly, he pushed. Not just the tip. He pushed one long finger deep inside you in a single, smooth, devastating stroke that stole the air from your lungs. It was a perfect, stretching that was somehow both not enough and entirely too much. You cried out, your body clenching around him, your fingers digging into the sheets.
He began to move, a slow, deliberate pistoning that had you seeing stars. He crooked his finger, brushing against that spot deep inside you that made white-hot lightning fork up your spine. Your back arched violently, a ragged sob torn from your throat.
“There.” he purred, his voice thick with smug satisfaction as he added another digit. He pistoned again, and again, each stroke a masterpiece of torment, each brush against that perfect place sending you spiraling higher, closer to the edge. You were panting, squirming, completely at his mercy, a litany of “please, please, m-more” falling from your lips like a prayer.
Just as you felt the coil of release tighten unbearably in your gut, he stopped. He went utterly still, buried deep inside you, and then, with exquisite cruelty, he withdrew completely.
The loss was a physical pain. A whimper, pathetic and broken, escaped you. You were left empty, trembling, teetering on the very peak of climax with no way to fall.
He released your neck, the absence of his touch a cold shock. He brought his slick fingers to his lips, never breaking eye contact, and sucked them clean with a dark, humming approval.
“You will beg for it later,” he whispered, his voice husky with a promise that was both a threat and a reward. He rolled off you, leaving you a shaking, desperate wreck on the sheets. The shadow mastiff in the corner whined softly, a mirror to your own frustration.
You love him for it. For the mastery, for the way he can play your body like a fine instrument, wringing sensations from you that border on agony and ecstasy. For the trust he never breaks.
You hate him for it. For the denial, for the smug triumph in his eyes, for the exquisite, empty ache that throbbed inside you, a hollow echo of what could be if not for your foul fates.
You turned onto your side, curling in on yourself, a shudder wracking your frame. A frustrated tear escaped, tracing a hot path down your temple.
Enver’s hand came to rest on the small of your back, his touch unexpectedly gentle. He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.
“Every whimper, every plea, every tremble,” he murmured. “I collect them all. And tonight, when I finally give you what you’re aching for, it will be all the sweeter for the wait. You know this. I never leave you unsatisfied, Vesper.”
He pressed a kiss to your shoulder.
“Rest now, my insatiable killer. Gather your strength. You’ll need it tonight to keep up with me.”
---
By midmorning, the dream is a distant itch beneath your skin, a phantom limb you refuse to acknowledge. The practical light of day has fully invaded the chamber, bleaching out the intimate gold of dawn. You lean against Gortash’s immense, mahogany desk, freshly washed and still gloriously naked, picking through his correspondence with idle curiosity. He, meanwhile, has reassembled himself.
You watch as he dresses with an efficiency that is its own art form. The silk shirt, the perfectly tailored trousers, the waistcoat that hugs his torso. Each piece is armor. He shrugs on the dark, expertly cut doublet, his fingers making quick work of the fastenings. Finally, he runs his hands through his hair, slicking it back into its usual severe, controlled style. The transformation is complete. The sly, dangerously handsome warlock has fully re-emerged; the sleep-soft, almost ordinary man from this morning is gone, locked away behind a wall of velvet and steel.
(You ignore the small, sharp pang in your chest. A feeling suspiciously like loss.)
“You’re pouting,” he states without looking at you, fastening a heavy, ornate cufflink.
You scoff, tossing a sealed letter from a minor nobleman at his head. “I don’t pout.”
He catches it without even seeming to try, setting it down with infuriating neatness. “You do. It’s a particular curl of your lip. Right before you decide to be deliberately disruptive because you’re bor-”
The accuracy of the observation rankles before he finishes. You lunge off the desk, a flash of tan skin and dark intent, and sweep your arm across the polished wood, knocking a cascade of papers, quills, and seals to the floor with a satisfying crash.
He’s on you in an instant. He pins you against the now-cleared edge of the desk, the hard wood digging into your back. His mouth crashes down on yours, hot and demanding. For a single, suspended heartbeat, it’s enough. The kiss is a brand, a reassertion of ownership, a reminder that beneath the armor and the titles, the raw, wanting connection still simmers. It feels like coming home to a house that’s always on the verge of burning down.
Then you break away, breathing ragged, a sharp, glittering grin spreading across your face. “Missed me already, Lord Gortash? The sun’s just about cleared the rooftops.”
He smooths a non-existent wrinkle from his sleeve, his composure already restored, though his eyes are darker than usual. “Tolerating you is a full-time occupation.”
You throw your head back and laugh, the sound bright and sharp as broken glass. It’s the laugh of the Deathstalker, confident and cruel. You turn your back to him, a show of utter disregard for the danger he represents, and saunter toward the door, making a show of retrieving your discarded clothes from the floor.
You pretend not to notice how his eyes linger on the lines of your back, on the scars he traced with his lips just hours before. You pretend not to feel the weight of his gaze, heavy with something that is not just possession, but a strange, unnameable longing that mirrors your own.
(That night, you paint the streets of the Lower City red. The blood is warm and the screams are a symphony. The Urge purrs its approval. The boy doesn’t whisper. He is silent, sated by a different kind of touch. You try not to wonder why the crimson on your hands feels less like worship and more like a desperate attempt to wash away the memory of a kiss that tasted like a future that can never be.)
---
The Lower City’s stench clings to you—rotten fish, cheap ale, the iron bite of old blood. You move through the alleys like a shadow given form, every step measured, every breath controlled. You are Bhaal’s beloved blade, and this city bends to your will as surely as a neck to the executioner’s block.
Then the air shifts.
A voice, slithering from the dark: "Ah, milord!"
You don’t stop. You don’t need to.
Sceleritas Fel scuttles into step beside you, his hunched form bobbing like a carrion bird. His heeled shoes click against the cobblestones, his beady eyes gleaming with that insufferable mix of devotion and condescension.
"You’ve been... distracted, milord," he croons, voice dripping with concern. "Sarevok grows restless. Orin whispers to her little knives. And your dread Father—"
Your fingers twitch toward your rapier.
"—well, He does not approve of divided loyalties."
That stops you.
Slowly, you turn. Sceleritas’ grin is a jagged thing, full of yellowed teeth and insinuation.
"What," you say, voice soft as a garrote wire, "did you just imply, you loathsome cur?"
Sceleritas clasps his claws together, feigning innocence. "Oh, nothing so bold, milord! Only that the newest acolytes... well, they talk." A pause. A tilt of his grotesque head. "They say our Deathstalker bends over for the Chosen of Bane."
The words strike like a blade between the ribs.
Your vision burns red.
The rapier is in your hand before you think, a silver flash in the dim alley. Sceleritas’ torso splits clean in two, his top half hitting the ground with a wet thump.
For a moment, there’s only the sound of his gurgling laughter.
Then, with a grotesque squirming, his halves begin knitting back together, flesh stitching like a macabre puppet pulled by Bhaal’s strings.
"Temper, temper, milord!" Sceleritas wheezes, his voice bubbling from his severed windpipe. "Surely you don’t take such petty gossip to heart?"
You plant your boot on his chest, pinning his half-reconstructed body to the ground. The tip of your rapier hovers over his beak-like nose.
"I could send you away," you muse, voice light. "Permanently."
Sceleritas freezes.
A flicker of genuine fear passes over his face.
(Orin killed her butler. Permanently. Bhaal did not replace him.)
The silence stretches. Then, slowly, Sceleritas’ mangled form bows as much as it can beneath your boot.
"Of course, milord," he rasps, voice suddenly small. "This humble servant lives only to obey."
You step back, flicking gore from your blade. "Good. Tell Sarevok to meet me in the Undercity at the safehouse furthest from the temple."
Sceleritas scrambles to his feet, his body now whole but his posture diminished. "That safehouse, milord? But the new recruits, Orin’s little knives—"
"Are about to learn why I am Deathstalker and not she."
You turn on your heel and stride into the shadows, your blood singing with purpose.
---
The safehouse stinks of damp stone and unwashed fear. The new recruits—barely more than children playing at murder—jolt to attention as the door creaks open.
You step inside, your armor gleaming in the torchlight as you pull off your hair tie. You toss it aside nonchalantly, shaking your wine-colored locks free; a profound coldness, sharper than a needle falls over you like a beloved veil.
Your ritual is done. Loss is embraced, repurposed for Father.
"Who," you say softly, "called me Bane’s whore?"
No one speaks.
No one breathes.
You smile.
The first to break is a wiry drow, her fingers dancing along the edge of a serrated dagger. "Orin says you’ve gone soft," she sneers. "That you let Gortash leash you like a—"
The dance of death begins.
You move.
Your rapier takes her through the throat before she can finish. You don’t wait for her to hit the ground before pivoting, your blade flashing out to open the stomach of a hulking half-orc beside her. The man bellows, clutching at his spilling guts—until you silence him with a thrust between the eyes.
"Like a bitch? Why yes, Enver does take me. But I am no less the monster I’ve always been. Anyone else want to test my mettle? I am positively itching to see your mangled corpses by the time I’m done. Maybe I’ll make art of you. I need a few more knuckles for the gift I’m planning to give to Z’rell anyways."
A chorus of steel rings out as the remaining acolytes draw their weapons.
Time to amputate a dead limb.
The twins come at you first—matching tieflings, their movements synchronized, blades weaving a deadly pattern. You duck the first strike, parry the second, and drive your rapier through the first twin’s heart. The second screams—Dissonant Whispers turns it into a gurgle as his mind shatters, dying instantly.
The halfling lunges from the shadows, poison-coated daggers glinting. You break his wrist with a sharp twist, jam one of the daggers into his own eye, and kick the body into the path of a charging berserker. The berserker stumbles—your blade finds his throat.
"Pathetic," you murmur, watching the man choke on his own blood.
The last three hesitate.
One, a scarred veteran with the look of a Flaming Fist deserter, raises his sword in a shaky guard. "You’re just one man," he growls.
“Wrong.” You smile. "I’m Bhaal’s artist. You’re my paint and my palette."
You move like a storm. The veteran’s head hits the ground before his body realizes it’s dead. The next, a giggling gnome with blood-caked nails, dies mid-laugh, your rapier pinning her to the wall like a butterfly.
The last—a young human, barely more than a boy—drops his knife.
"P-please," he stammers.
You consider him. Then, with deliberate slowness, wipe your blade clean on his sleeve.
"Run," you say softly. "Tell everyone what you saw."
The boy doesn’t need to be told twice.
The door bursts open as he flees—Orin stands there, her ever-shifting face settling into a mocking replica of your own."Cousin," she purrs. "Did I interrupt your lesson?"
Behind her, Sarevok looms, his expression unreadable.
You don’t answer. You simply raise a hand—
"Obedi me."
Otto’s Irresistible Dance seizes Orin’s limbs, sending her jerking in a grotesque parody of motion. The look of horror on her face is glorious to behold.
"You’re lucky," you say, stepping gracefully over corpses to face her, "that Grandfather still has use for you." You lean in close. "Because if it were up to me? I’d turn you into art. A lovely still life of blood and gore painted into the walls of Wyrm’s Crossing."
Sarevok’s hand clamps on your shoulder—not to stop you, but in approval. "Enough, Chosen." the old killer rumbles. Then, to Orin: "You overstep, granddaughter."
A beat of silence.
Then—
Sarevok bows his head submissively. Just slightly. Just to you.
Orin’s childish snarl of rage is almost worth the carnage as you dispel the enchantment.
You turn away, leaving the safehouse painted red behind you.
Let the boy run.
Let him whisper of the slaughter to all who will humor him.
Fear, after all, is the purest form of worship.
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Original scene and full series (SFW) available here: Vesper
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