Drumroll

“James,” she said, emphasizing his name as some desperate plea to get through to him. “Hydra is making more super soldiers. More people like… Like you. Cyborgs like me. But they’re children.” Her voice cracked on the word, like her throat remembered the wail she had let out in her grief when she discovered the tubes filled with kids.

The basement was cold, sterile. White, hot breath curled from Mila’s lips as she weaved in and out of the rows of cryogenic chambers. All of them, filled with sleeping children from all over the world. She looked for names, but all she found were numbers etched onto a plate above their heads. 

She stopped at a random pod and looked up. There, a child slept. Black hair shorn to the scalp, skin made deadly white from the deep freeze, she looked empty. Ordinary. Hydra had taken away her very identity, down to her name. How old was she? How long ago had she been taken? And what was Hydra waiting for? 

Mila pressed a shaky hand to the glass, letting the bitter cold seep into her skin. For so long, she thought she had lost the ability to cry, but with her chest feeling so tight, her heart feeling too heavy to bear, she fell to the ground and sobbed. It was the sort of thing people did when they clutched onto a dead loved one, as Mila watched from the shadows with James at her side smelling like gunpowder and blood.

Under a waning moon beneath a canopy of trees, Astarion hunched over his mirror, muttering under his breath. Frustrated, he shook the damn thing, sending splintered light across tree trucks and underbrush. Breath caught in her throat when he growled, low and dangerous. 

But Veilyn liked danger. She liked the slope of his shoulders, the bend of his long neck, the line of his legs against the silver light of the moon. 

He’s beautiful, she thought.

Light as a cat, she toed closer to him. To live in the Underdark, you had to learn silence. How to live in it. How to be it. Blending into the rock and darkness became second-nature, and so she became one with the broken shadows of the forest, the symphony of crickets, the sharp scent of pine and dirt. The surface was so much different from underground. But her skin sang beneath the moon and she smiled wide with a wicked idea. She pulled out her dagger, gripped it tight in her hand.

Soon, she was so close she could hear his string of curses, his breathing, and with her dagger poised at his neck, he finally sighed, deep and pitiful.

He stood up straight and said, “Looking at something?”

Veilyn pursed her lips. “How did you know I was here?”

Astarion turned, stepped into her space, grinning at the tip of her dagger like a feral cat. “I can hear the blood rushing to your head and… well.” His gaze drifted down her body, past her breasts, to the spot between her legs.

Veilyn laughed, a twinkling sound. “It’s a wonder you can concentrate on anything at all,” she said, raising the dagger to his throat. She liked the way the iron looked against his white skin, the way it felt to hold his absolute trust in her hands. Because she would never hurt him unless he asked. Because, believe it or not, Astarion was the only member of this group she trusted as well. She dug the tip just a bit further into his skin.

And he let her.

“Like that mirror you’re trying to hide.”

“Are you saying you’re always thinking of naughty things to do to me?” He pressed into the point. A bead of blood welled against the cut and dripped down his pale neck, leaving a bright red streak behind. She watched as he swallowed, as the muscles worked around the dagger. Pleased with himself, his smile grew, sensing the desire pooling in her belly.

Energy, thick and tense, pulled at their bodies like magnets. The hairs across her skin stood on end as he looked down at her, so close she could see herself reflected in his red eyes. Veilyn coaxed him closer to her with the threat of her dagger. She tilted her head up, lips falling apart to capture his pink lips.

And paused.

“You’re avoiding the question.” She laughed as he groaned and huffed indignantly.

Finally, Veilyn sheathed her dagger and the energy dropped, like a spell broken at the crest of casting. She stepped to the elf’s side and peered down into the mirror. A round grey face looked back up at her. Black strands of hair came loose from the braids at her temples, making her look a bit wild. If it wasn't for her deep black eyes, cold and lonely, some might say she was cute. Pretty, even. She ignored them.

When she glanced to her reflection’s side, she saw nothing but the trees and underbrush behind them.

She frowned at the mirror. “No reflection.”

“Just one more benefit of my eternal condition,” he spat, lips curling around the words.

Veilyn hesitated, then swung her head towards him. “Do you miss it?”

Astarion gave a breathy, bitter laugh. It almost sounded like a punch to the gut. “Preening in the looking glass? Petty vanity? Of course I miss it. I’ve never even seen this face. Not since it grew fangs and my eyes turned red.”

“What color were they before?” she asked, tentatively brushing her knuckles across his high cheekbones. Like always, he was cold to the touch.

Astarion closed his eyes, long white lashes fluttering against the backs of her fingers. “I… I don’t know. I can’t remember. My face is just some dark shape in my past.” Suddenly, he pushed her hand aside and hurled the mirror to the ground. The sound of shattered glass echoed throughout the forest. Her reflection lay fractured amongst the leaves and twigs. “Another thing I’ve lost.”

The silence that followed curled around them like a plume of smoke. Something about the high note of glass breaking cut the tension in Astarion’s shoulders, the stiffness in his back. Veilyn stepped around the glass and stood in front of him. She held his cold face in her hands. The white curls around his pointed ears fluttered against her breath.

“Let me be your mirror,” she said softly, tilting her head to catch his eye. “What do you want to know?”

A crease formed between his brows. Sadness spilled onto his face. “I want to know what the world sees when it looks at me… What you see.”

Grey fingertips danced across his cheeks and smoothed out the deep line between his eyebrows. He shuddered under her touch. “I see strong, piercing eyes.”

Astarion perked up, brightening. “Oh. Go on…”

Veilyn slowly trailed the tip of her fingernail down to the edge of his lips. They were soft and pink and opened obediently to nibble at her finger. “That dangerous smile.”

His fangs glistened in the moonlight. Watching him take her wrist against his mouth made her blood pound in her ears, her heart hammer against her chest. Her body felt like the end of a lightning spell, static and charged, and all she wanted to do in that moment was watch her vampire sink his fangs into the veins of her wrist and drink deep.

And he did.

The pain was quick and sharp, but eventually turned into a dull throb. Like the many times he asked before, when he took from her, her body became a distant thing and all that was left was numb bliss. When her knees grew weak, he wrapped a strong arm around her waist and held her up. She bowed her head against his shoulder.

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered in his ear.

Astarion’s tongue, red and wet, darted out to catch the last drops of blood before pulling her to his chest and kissing her hard and deep. Blood trickled down the corners of her mouth, down her chin and neck and between her breasts. He licked that up as well.