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It begins with a knife.
It always does.
Gortash had invited his bhaalspawn for dinner. As usual, he had extended the invitation under the guise of a debriefing session, citing the necessity of discussing the finer points of their most recent and rather brazen heist on Mephistopheles’ realm. He knew well that the cagey assassin would be quick to plead ‘temple commitments’ if she suspected any hint of personal interest.
Yet, after their slapdash escape from the Hells, Gortash found himself strangely fascinated by his dangerous accomplice.
Now that his wounds had a chance to heal, he couldn’t help but be intrigued by the woman known as the Blade of Bhaal – so deadly, yet showing such tantalising promise as a possible convert to the Church of Bane.
The table was meticulously set for an intimate dinner for two, the cutlery and flatware chosen with a purposeful simplicity to suit his companion’s austere preferences. Gortash, ever calculating, had intended to surprise and impress with a bottle of fine Colovian brandy he’d thoughtfully selected, accompanied by a rare vintage he suspected even she might appreciate. He had spent some time pondering whether or not the menu would meet her approval – tonight’s offerings veering away from her typical tastes – but he hoped that his company and the novel atmosphere might prove a worthy distraction from any culinary disappointments.
She arrived precisely on time, as expected. The window to his office slid open without a sound; the only indication of her presence was the faint whisper of her robes brushing against the windowsill – a delicate warning that she had entered.
“What is this?”
“Ah, come my friend, I’ve arranged for a small meal while we discuss next steps.”
She moved over to the table with deliberate purpose, one eyebrow arched as she absorbed the scene before her. Her robes were stained a deep, ominous red – the same shade as the carafe of wine set between them – and her body twitched with restless energy, her usual composure conspicuously absent. She sat without a word, but the intensity of her glare told him everything he needed to know.
Gortash raised a hand, summoning his staff from the room’s periphery. The boy entrusted with serving them hurried over, deftly filling their glasses with wine. As he leaned around the assassin, Gortash watched with fond amusement as she turned her head with calculated precision, her eyes flicking over the boy – cataloguing his carotid artery, the line of his throat, his movements in her proximity. To his credit, Gortash’s attendant didn’t flinch, though he was clearly holding his breath, fully aware of the predator quietly evaluating him. As soon as he could, the boy retreated to the room’s edge, awaiting further instruction with barely concealed relief.
“This is not a debrief, Enver.”
“No, it’s dinner.”
“Indeed. Explain.”
Gortash paused to sip his wine, savouring the rare moment of having her full attention. She tapped her foot in a frantic rhythm on the floor, and he noticed the muscle in her jaw twitching with irritation. He wondered who she might have slaughtered before coming here.
“What’s there to explain? After our success in Cania, I thought we deserved a night to ourselves – a chance to reflect on what we’ve achieved together. I like you, after all. I consider us friends. What’s so odd about sharing a meal with a friend?”
She scoffed, then took a sip of her wine, her eyes narrowing as she let the liquid linger in her mouth. After another small sip, she set the glass back on the table – harder than necessary. So, he had indeed been correct in his assumptions about her taste.
“I think perhaps I should have left you in Cania, bleeding out in the snow.”
“Please, we both know you find me far too endearing to have abandoned me to the hells.”
She rolled her eyes, which Gortash took as a sign of her tacit blessing, prompting him to voice a few genuine concerns about their imminent next steps. This happened just as the first course – a delicate Amnian soup – was presented. His companion sipped at it with mounting agitation, the fine porcelain trembling faintly in her hand.
With effortless grace, Gortash managed to draw her into conversation, though her responses were noticeably more clipped and restrained than usual, even for her. Beneath the guise of composure, she seemed beset by some internal struggle, her focus flickering as if shadowed by unspoken anxieties. Gortash, ever observant, couldn’t divine the source of her vexation, but he noted her every restless glance, committing it to memory for later reflection.
Soon enough, he caught the attendant’s eye and gestured for the table to be cleared. In short order, the main course – a perfectly seared steak – was presented, the air between them now taut with anticipation and unresolved tension.
And then.
The knife.
She held it delicately between her fingers, her eyes glimmering with fascination as they traced the serrated edge. Enver had no more than four seconds – he counted each one in the rapid flutter of his pulse – before he heard a soft, dangerous invocation. Suddenly, he found his lap occupied by a murderous-looking half-elf. The steak knife was now pressed almost lovingly against his throat, her proximity radiating a predatory threat as sharp as the blade itself.
Despite – or perhaps because of – the precarious situation he now found himself in, he felt his cock stir beneath her.
“Now my dear–”
“Enough, Enver. Stop talking.” The knife pressed more insistently against his throat, the edge sinking in with a hot, unforgiving sharpness. He could feel the bite – dangerously close to drawing blood. “You summon me under the guise of business, only to squander my time with hollow pleasantries and dinner when, by all rights, I should be tending my father’s flock. Do you think me so easily leashed? Am I to be some pet or pawn for your amusement? I ought to tear out your lying tongue and rip the dishonesty from your chest.”
He couldn’t stifle the groan that slipped from his lips as she seized the front of his shirt and yanked him even closer. She was a tempest incarnate – and he found himself irresistibly drawn into the heart of her storm, powerless to resist, utterly bewitched and enthralled by her fierce gravity.
“As if I would ever permit a mere mortal to dictate terms to me.” Her voice adopts that irresistible, melodic lilt it so often took on when she spoke of her divine calling, captivating and inexorable. In that moment, he feels himself drawn in, as helpless and mesmerised as one of her adoring lambs. He leans closer, as if he might breathe in her every word, and etch them onto his soul, longing to keep her as an indelible part of himself forever.
“Do you think yourself powerful because you stake your claim in the shelter of my shadow as we stand together? Do you imagine you might steal even a sliver of my divinity?” The hand clutching his shirt glides up to cup his face, her nails digging mercilessly into his jawline. He feels the relentless grip of The Black Hand constrict around his heart, his Master seething, appalled that Gortash allows this woman to move him at her whim, indignant that his Chosen surrenders so willingly to the lash of another’s will.
He defies it. Instead, he cants his hips up into hers, relishing the fleeting bewilderment that flickers in her eyes. He does so enjoy catching her off guard.
“Once you’ve torn out my heart, what then?”
She hooks her thumb into his mouth, the point of her nail pressing sharply against his tongue. He accepts it greedily, running his teeth around her knuckle, savouring the stinging imprint she leaves behind.
She lifts the blade from his neck, the edge of it boasting precious drops of his blood. She lifts it to her mouth carefully and her tongue slowly licks his life essence from the knife. His hands, which had gripped the arms of his dining chair up until this point, now slide up to encircle her waist, fingers digging in possessively as he feels her muscles clench and tighten in an electrified response to his touch.
“Once I tear out your heart, if I deem you worthy, perhaps I shall devour it entirely.” She withdraws her thumb from his mouth with a slow, deliberate motion, then shoves his face away with a force that’s almost bruising, rising gracefully to her feet – leaving him behind, his pulse pounding and desire burning hotter than before.
A retort lingers on the tip of his tongue, but he is rendered speechless when she utters another incantation. Gortash suddenly feels an unseen force wrench him from the chair and pin him to the table with electrifying force, the shockwave causing the items on the table to scatter across the room. The bhaalspawn regards him with a devious, almost predatory anticipation, curving her lips. His pulse stutters and quickens as she glides back into his personal space, the knife still glinting – lethal, hypnotic – in her unwavering grasp. He can see her chest rise and fall, breath uneven, the electric scent of the oncoming storm thrumming in the air. Every inch of her seems to smoulder with a hungry, dangerous intensity he can nearly taste; in that instant, he realises he is as utterly claimed as any victim ever laid upon her altar. For a single, aching breath, he envies those who have perished at her hands, to have witnessed her – radiant in all her terrible, exquisite beauty – as the final vision before death’s embrace.
He’s frozen in place, utterly unable to move, not even permitted the luxury of turning his head as she ascends onto the table, her limbs fluid and predatory as she straddles his waist. The blade skims down the side of his face in a motion both delicate and threatening, akin to a lover's caress. Magic crackles in her gaze, a wild storm of bloodlust and power made manifest, and he aches – desperately – to seize her, to pull her down until her mouth is crushed against his own. But she does not meet his eyes; instead, her attention stays locked on the crimson rivulets trickling into his hairline, hunting each drop with predatory precision. Suddenly, her hand darts again – a blur – and the knife grazes just beneath his jaw, the cruel edge gliding swiftly to rest beside his ear. The touch isn't deep enough to inflict lasting harm, yet it is close – so perilously close to his jugular. A cold thrill races down his spine, anticipation mingling with desire, as her knife promises a pleasure as sharp and dangerous as pain.
“Would you desire it, Enver? To surrender yourself, wholly and utterly, as the chosen plaything of a demi-god? To belong to me – a willing sacrifice, eager to bleed at my whim, your devotion painted in crimson as I command? Could you worship me with every trembling breath, casting aside the name of your own god – desecrating it – just for the honour of glimpsing my benevolence? Imagine it: kneeling before me, intoxicated by the privilege of my favour, your faith unravelled and remade in my image. Would you, for me?”
His mind reels at her blasphemous taunts, his cock harder now than it has ever been, even as the gleaming blade traces a wicked, tantalising line down his throat and across his chest. She’s toying with him, poised on the edge between domination and desire, and he finds himself maddened by the way she refuses to give in – he aches, now, desperate for her to truly touch him…
A soft whimper echoes from the shadowy corner of the room. Both figures atop the table turn, momentarily startled to find the attendant from earlier still cowering in the gloom. The magical hold on Gortash’s body begins to wane; seizing the moment, he pushes himself up onto his elbows, his sharp eyes settling on the staff member whose palpable fear had just shattered what was becoming an unforgettable – and deliciously strange – evening. Gortash’s glare is charged with irritation, as if silently scolding the attendant for spoiling a uniquely exhilarating dinner experience that hovered on the edge between peril and seduction.
His assassin still has her steak knife pressed firmly into the flesh of his chest, the blade poised by ingrained habit to slip expertly between his third and fourth rib. Yet now, her predatory attention has shifted entirely to the trembling steward, whose terror is so palpable that he appears on the verge of collapsing from sheer fright. The knife doesn’t waver, but a new, electric anticipation crackles in the air, the twisted intimacy between predator and prey momentarily interrupted by the fragile human caught in their midst.
“We have an observer.”
“Indeed. It would not do for this...interaction to be spoken of beyond these walls.”
The attendant recoils, the tray slipping from his trembling hands. Metal plates clang and tumble onto the unforgiving stone. “Please, Lord Gortash, I swear I won’t speak a word, not to anyone, I–”
“Would you prefer to handle this, dear?” Gortash’s hand glides upward, fingers twining around the bhaalspawn’s wrist with calculated care. He redirects the knife – its polished edge glinting in the candlelight – from his own chest to the attendant, his unspoken command unmistakable. A hungry smile curves her lips. She rises from his lap with sinuous fluidity, each movement graceful yet chilling, and prowls toward the shadowed corner where the attendant cowers.
The air thickens, saturated with mounting dread. As the sounds of terror intensify – urgent, desperate whimpers echoing off the cold stone – Gortash casually surveys the room. His gaze lands on the carafe of wine, astonishingly upright amidst the chaos. He picks it up and drinks deep from the neck, his eyes never leaving the spectacle unfolding before him. There’s a spark of wicked amusement in his gaze as he watches his assassin ply her trade with clinical elegance.
He wonders, idly but with hungry anticipation, if once she has finished tying off that hopelessly loose end, she might return – like a revenant from the carnage – and they can resume their intoxicating dance right where they left off.