“I could lo—”
“Don’t,” she snaps. “I’m not a fucking sweetheart you found on the street—”
“No,” Astarion says, and he puts his hand on Amma’s knee, carefully, on purpose. Her cheeks are shining when she looks down at it, then up at him. Her upset face is terrible to look at— he doesn’t want to see her to make that face.
“No. You’re not. You don’t want love— that’s fine, then, I won’t give it to you. But I have never seen you shy from bloodshed until now. What are you afraid of? That you’ll hurt me?”
He tips his head back and laughs, and though it lacks malice, it is far from joyful.
“You imbecile. You beautiful, wonderful idiot. I could kill you— I have killed you! And still, you come to me, a vampire, a monster, and you are alive. You won’t hurt me.”
Amma wants her freedom, and she’ll kill everyone she loves and skin herself alive to keep it. She’s a survivor to a fault. What a dreadful thing to be, Astarion thinks: what a void of a person.
What a cockroach.
What a bloody wonder.
How could he have ever gone for anybody else?
“You won’t hurt me,” he tells her again, barely more than a whisper. “And I won’t hurt you. Forego love, and just trust me when I say this. We needn’t be afraid of one another. Not now. Not ever.”
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