Astarion's theatrics evaporated. The charming rogue routine required a willing audience, and this one had just sprinted offstage.

He was annoyed. Also impressed, not that he'd ever admit it. Most people froze. She'd bolted. Good instincts. Terrible timing, but good instincts.

Just catch her, take the sip, wipe her memory clean with the bite, leave her by the road. No harm done. She won't even remember.

He could have caught her in three seconds. Vampire speed was a beautiful thing. But there was something about the chase — the thrill of it, the rush of the hunt after hours of chasing that useless boar — that made him draw it out. He tracked her through the dark, silent as a cat, letting her think she was gaining ground.

She dove into the hollow of an uprooted willow. Pressed herself into the dirt. Held her breath.

Oh, darling. I can hear your heartbeat from across the clearing.

He climbed the fallen trunk without a sound, crouching above her hiding spot like a gargoyle, and waited. One heartbeat. Two. Three. He let the silence stretch until the exact moment she started to think she was safe.

Then he snapped a twig. Deliberately. Because timing, as previously established, was everything.

She looked up. He grinned down at her, crimson eyes glowing in the dark like embers.

She scrambled out of the hollow with a strangled gasp, and — clever girl — dove into the densest thicket of briars she could find. Thorns that were too tight, too tangled for him to follow without shredding his shirt.

Astarion stared at the wall of briars, then down at his shirt. The linen was imported. He'd stolen it from a very fashionable corpse outside of Baldur's Gate and it fit him beautifully.

"You cannot be serious," he muttered, and circled around.

By the time he found the gap, she was gone. He could still hear her — crashing through the undergrowth like a startled deer — but she was deeper in the woods now. Deeper than was safe, even by his standards.

Stop playing, Astarion. Catch her and be done with it.

He moved.