.
A gorgeous wooden-paneled ceiling with polished timber supports spread above me.
I turned my head to the side and saw plaster walls painted with flowers and greenery, with pedestals holding potted plants, a chest of drawers and a table of the type that I believe one calls a ‘console table’, all in a line against the wall. The table held a magic lantern and another potted plant.
“You’re awake, Your Highness?”
Turning my head the other way, I beheld a golden blond woman dressed in Old Dorian fashion. The lack of brocaded silk in her robe and the dominance of plain colors in a simple but well-made and neatly-pressed fashion suggested that her status was at the domestic staff level.
I knew how to tell that because some of the maids at Mother’s house dress in this style instead of Atian (in other words, traditional English) maid’s clothing. She was standing erect holding some clothing on her upturned palms like a tray, waiting patiently for my answer.
My head was a mass of fuzzy cotton at that moment, but I nodded.
“Due to your ancestry, the Royal Physician felt uncertain whether your collapse was due to need for mortal blood or to pneuma exhaustion. If you are in need of blood, I am able to supply you.”
This was a mortal woman, not a fairy. She might be an elve or a half-elve.
I didn’t pass out from lack of blood. That problem has dire consequences, but it doesn’t make me collapse. Which meant I had finally experienced pneuma exhaustion. I wondered if I would have felt it coming, if I hadn’t been so focused on other issues.
“Where am I?”
“Your bedroom, Your Highness. This is your suite in the Fairy King’s Palace.”
My eyes narrowed slightly. I paid closer attention to my fairy sense, but it was still saying I was in a building of some kind, not an underground warren like I expected. The surroundings were walls, rooms and corridors, not tunnels in solid stone.
I sat up, blinking my eyes, and discovered someone had put a nightgown on me, although it was embarrassingly translucent.
Before I could protest the high visibility factor, she was already slipping the clothing item she had been holding onto me. It turned out to be a scarlet silk robe. She even tied the belt for me.
The intimate distance while she worked confirmed that I was low on mortal blood, although it wasn’t dire. The up-close view also confirmed something else. Pointed ear tips were poking out of her hair slightly.
“You’re elven, though.”
She nodded. “My family has served the King for many generations. There are many mortals working for the Palace.”
I scowled. Slaves? Although some fairies keep ‘pets’, it would not be fairy-like to keep generations of them. With mortal women, fairies generally practice ‘catch and release’.
She smiled patiently. “We are indeed born into this work, Your Highness, but we are not slaves. I am free to leave. Of my siblings, only I chose to stay. My parents and I consider this role an honor.”
As an elve, she wasn’t susceptible to becoming fairy-touched. They are almost impossible to bewitch. But she had mentioned…
My frown continuing, I said, “They told you to feed me, though.”
With a shake of her head, she corrected, “While he was seeking volunteers, the Chamberlain informed us that giving you blood would be part of our duties. So we were aware before we accepted the job.”
“‘Us’?” I echoed.
She turned her head and clapped her hands twice. A door opened at the far end of the room, between a huge wardrobe and a fully-stocked bookshelf. A cart came wheeling in, followed by two more elven maids and the cat-man footman who had held the door open for them.
Have I mentioned before that cat-men skew to the furry side? They’re still mostly human, but unlike cat girls like Ceria, they have cat fur instead of human hair on their scalps, which continues into heavy sideburns like Wolverine, and runs their backs as well. They also have much more obvious cat whiskers (have I ever mentioned Ceria’s whiskers? Hers are tiny and cute, but she is otherwise completely human except for the eyes, ears and tail.)
This man had black fur with a white forehead blaze and white hair on the backs of his hands and the tip of his tail. It struck me how appropriate those colors were for a footman. Especially one who wore black-tie staff livery in the Atian (i.e. English) style.
The other elven girls were in the same Dorian servant’s clothing as their senior.
She added, “We’ve taken the liberty to choose a breakfast for you. My juniors will prepare your bath while you eat.”
I frowned. Being bathed by these beauties would probably exacerbate my blood hunger. Yes, I could tap the blood core to fix that, but I suspected its capacity was related to the amount of pneuma that was bound there. I would lose the pneuma as I unbound the stabilized mortal mana so it could sustain me. I was a bit greedy about it and didn’t want to let any of it go.
So I gave up. I decided I would take them up on their offer after my bath.
During breakfast and bath, I finally had time to think about what had happened.
The vivid flashbacks I had experienced could have been a dream I had after I finished running Mára through. I could have fainted at that moment, and the rest of what I could remember wasn’t real. The strange flashbacks, as if I had traveled back and lived those moments in lives thousands of years in the past, the conversation with Oranos, the bizarre thing that happened when I purified Mára… had I dreamt it all?
But the flashbacks were still vivid and fresh.
Robert and Tiana, and therefore I, were all virgins, and yet I could now vividly remember the joys and anxieties of both motherhood and fatherhood from those moments, viewpoints no part of me had ever known.
Was the strega Senhion, mother of that baby fairy whom I could still clearly remember holding in my arms… was she really me?
Once bathed, while I sat waist-deep in the bath soaking up mana, the senior maid– I now knew her name was Khortys– dried my hair while her juniors, Pirkitta and Austrydhur, rubbed my arms and upper body with a lightly scented oil. Fairy skin and vampire skin are both automatically perfect; as long as I have a source of Water mana, my skin stays soft and smooth. Their excuse was that it would make me smell nice, but… well, it certainly made for a pleasant experience.
The only hairstyle I can do for myself is the basic ponytail Tiana taught herself to tie in the field, when she had to learn to do without maids. It’s lucky she had already taught herself that much, because with only a ribbon and without those little elastic hair ties or scrunchies that Americans use, tying a ponytail by oneself is actually very tricky.
Whenever I’m in the hands of a maid, though, it ends up fancied up in some way or another. Khortys decided on a half-up-do bun, spending a long time brushing it out with a proper hairbrush (all I use is my tortoise shell comb or my fingers) and lecturing me on how badly I was taking care of it. I found myself a little homesick for Genette. She was totally saying all the same lines.
Once she was satisfied, and Pirkitta and Austrydhur had finished rubbing every square millimeter of skin above the waterline, they helped me out of the bath and toweled me dry.
They had stripped in order to wash me and had stayed naked until now, so it was pretty much a foregone conclusion I had to feed now. As they worked, I pondered how I was going to go about my next move. I mean, the few times I had not purchased this as a service had been very particular circumstances. I had just about zero experience with approaching a girl normally, so I was thinking this through very carefully.
As Khortys slipped a bathrobe around me, and the other two donned their own, she told me, “Your Highness, I shall select a court dress for you now. You’re to have an audience today. Would you like these two to prepare tea for you while you wait?”
I regarded her with a smile, pretending I was carefully considering the question as she tied the belt. Then, as she reached for her own robe, I intercepted her hands.
While her eyes grew confused, I began a very light dose of vampire charm, distributing it across all three women. Then, while keeping hold of her hand, I led the nude maid out of the bathing room toward the bed.
“Your Highness…?” she finally asked with a meek voice.
“I should like a different beverage, since you so kindly offered it earlier,” I told her as we arrived. I guided her down onto the edge of the bed and sat next to her.
The other two were watching with wide eyes. Under the spell of the gentle vampire charm I was sustaining on them, they were too fascinated to say anything. They both looked about my age, but as elves, that meant they were somewhat over a hundred. I had expected them to have more resistance. Perhaps I had underestimated the strength of my magic.
But Khortys, having an older, stronger mind (she looked like she was in her twenties, which implied she was multiple centuries old, like Arken), was at least still capable of speech.
“Your Highness,” she protested very mildly, with a bashful smile while looking away, “We have to prepare you for the audience.”
“Is it to be so soon?” I asked, while moving in and brushing her hair back. Growing confident, I leaned in and kissed her cheek.
“Well, they haven’t sent for you yet, so not for at least an hour,” she admitted. My hand took over one of her perky little B-cups and she sucked in a breathe. Sensitive, hm?
“Then there’s no problem,” I told her as my fingers played a little.
She shuddered and giggled. “Your Highness, even though you’re a vampire, you’re no different than the other fairy princesses. Are you sure that my blood is what you want?”
I could deduce from her words that the other princesses didn’t keep their hands off the staff. Considering my mother and my grandmother… yeah, this was probably to be expected.
Turning her chin toward me with a finger, I closed on her lips and invaded her mouth, displaying the results of the ‘training’ Ceria had given me. It became immediately clear that Khortys had plenty of experience at this part. But my fangs had grown and they pricked her tongue by accident.
She gave a light gasp and withdrew.
“Open your mouth,” I ordered. Her lips parted, and I slipped my tongue in to taste her blood for a few seconds and withdrew.
“My saliva will stop the bleeding,” I told her.
She nodded lightly and I kissed my way down her neck and chest and began suckling. Ramping up the charm slightly, I pressed her down to the pillow while continuing to nurse. After enjoying her bosom for a while longer, I sank my fangs in.
Another gasp, followed by a contented sigh. Her breath was already heavy, and it grew progressively heavier as I fed. I concentrated carefully on condensing her blood and pneuma as I drank, carefully keeping any of it from mixing into my blood.
Just like with my last feeding, taking my time so that I could feed more carefully had the side effect of producing the best result for my provider. It was a long one this time. After nearly fifteen minutes of trembling in my arms while grasping the blanket and letting out repeated gentle cries, she arched her back and quaked intensely for more than half a minute while letting out a continuous soft whine.
Once her body settled, I finished folding the newly condensed blood into my core, then let go and gave her tender skin a leisurely stroke of my tongue to make sure the puncture wounds healed without a mark. I sat up and gave it a brief visual and tactile inspection to confirm that her treasure still looked as lovely as the twin that I hadn’t fed from. Excellent. Although they were now coated in a light film of moisture, they retained their maidenly perfection.
Elven maidens aren’t the busty bombshells you see in hentai. Khortys would be modest-sized as a human, but she’s the elven equivalent of an E cup. Let me assure you though, she makes up for it aesthetically.
After kissing her lips again, then licking them clean of the trace of blood that had transfered onto them from mine, I told her juniors, who had been watching us without a word, “Help me get her under the covers. She needs to rest.”
While I lifted the happy, drowsy woman so that the other two could pull the duvet back, Pirkitta asked with a shy smile, “Your Highness, can I serve you next time?”
After watching her boss enjoy herself so much, she was sold on the idea. I gave her my agreement with a nod, but once her senior was tucked in, I smiled and pulled the belt on her robe loose.
“Next time is right now, you know?”
