.
This situation was bad. My body was craving mortal mana and my vampire instincts were demanding I partake of the ample supply right in front of me. I bit down on those instincts violently, forcing them back as far as I could, which wasn’t very far.
It was vital that I avoid giving in. I could feel the presence of a large number of onlookers, attracted by the commotion we had been making. I absolutely had to avoid rushing in and drinking my fill, right in front of them.
I wanted Allia to stay down, but using [Command] on her was out of the question, and not just for reasons of knightly honor. Someone so dedicated to the use of talismans and tools would almost certainly possess a mental defense ward of some form, and someone this powerful would certainly be able to fuel a strong counterattack built into that defense, even in the condition she was in, now.
She was recovering even slower after the second hit, but she began gathering mana yet again while retrieving her sword and climbing to her knees, preparing to stand. This woman just would not stop.
I began walking toward her, pulling my utility knife from its scabbard and used [Fortification] on it, in case I needed to have something to use for parrying. I kept the Starfire Jade Writing Brush trained on her.
“I’m about to shoot another [Wind Bullet], My Lady!” I declared while trying to keep the shakes out of my voice. “Drop your magic!”
She looked at me for a long moment, her eyes a bit dull. Then her senses seemed to recover. The tension went out of her like strings had been cut and she dropped down onto her rump.
After staring up at me with bunched eyebrows for another long moment, she demanded, “How are you still drawing so much mana?!”
A complaint about my mana capacity was the last thing I wanted to hear from this walking bottomless bag of tricks, so I just demanded, “Do you yield, My Lady?”
The vampiric hunger was becoming too much. I couldn’t risk letting this drag on. It might turn into a very different outcome. With bitter regret, while I awaited her answer, I tore a bit of concentrated blood away from the blood-ball and pulled it apart. The warmth from it spread through my chest as my body absorbed it into my depleted bloodstream, relieving the tremors.
With a huff, she closed her eyes, then held her sword out to her side and opened her hand, letting the weapon fall to the grass.
“I yield.”
I felt the cravings begin to retreat, to my relief. Grandmother had been right about this thing working as an emergency blood supply.
Staring at the fallen weapon, Allia declared, “Your swordsmanship is inelegant, My Lady. Effective but brutal. You rely too much on power. Who is your sword master?”
I have been told so before by my teachers, so I couldn’t retort.
“Matthias taught me the basics. In the Royal Knights, my sword master is Sir Hamath Ozer.”
After staring at her weapon for a few more moments, she turned her head to look up at me. I noticed some tears in her eyes, and a bitter expression.
“When I was young, I was just like Ceria and Bruna. I dearly loved the old stories about the stregas. I prayed in the temple every Restday for the gods to forgive us and send them back to us.”
She stayed silent for several heartbeats, then said, “My daughters truly believe that you actually are a strega, you know.”
Said daughters, and the rest of our group, were walking toward us from the sidelines where they had been watching.
I nodded. “I know.”
“I was angry at you for fooling them like that.”
She pressed her lips together after saying so, twisting her mouth and continuing to stare at me.
“I’ve never claimed to be one,” I insisted.
“If you had been trying to kill me, I would be dead right now,” she concluded. “And that’s because… you really are a strega, aren’t you?”
It was a little shocking, hearing her claim the reverse of what I was thinking. Personally, I was certain she would have won if she tried to kill me instead of punish me. She might not have succeeded in killing me, but she would have forced me to withdraw.
It was probably the power of faith convincing her of the opposite.
But, I was unable to lie and say, No, I’m not really a strega.
I mean, it’s true. More or less. Almost all of Senhion’s ancient experience is inaccessible to me, and I’ve hardly begun to learn for myself everything that I need to know. As I am now, I’m barely even a newborn.
Even so, I can no longer claim that I’m not one.
With a shrug, I just told her, “I’m a fairy vampire, My Lady. Let’s leave it at that.”
My two Servants were first to arrive, and they both looked worried.
“My Lady, are you okay?” Melione asked.
“Yes, I’m… I’ll be fine,” I assured her as she and Ceria drew me aside.
“What happened to you?” Ceria demanded in a low voice, leaning close. “We could both feel something bad, and we’re sure it was coming from you.”
That surprised me. They could feel my hunger through the bond? Or was it my state of distress in general?
“Between the blood loss and the mana drain, I was pushed into blood hunger,” I admitted. “But I learned a technique recently that allows me to control it better. I’m alright, now.”
Melione, who had come close to me as well, grew an odd look on her face. I told her, “Thanks to this technique, I won’t forcibly do that thing I did to you back then to anyone, okay?”
She nodded without saying anything.
“I’ll feed you when we get back to where we’re staying,” Ceria said quietly. Melione looked at her, then back to me, opened her mouth, then closed it again.
I wasn’t sure what Melione’s behavior was about, so I let it pass and just nodded to Ceria. I didn’t want to say, actually, it’s not necessary, I’m fine now, because I suspected they wouldn’t believe me. Even though they wouldn’t still be feeling the vampiric pangs, since I was no longer having them, they both continued to appear very concerned for me.
And I could replace the blood I had lost, so it was all good.
We returned to the Headmaster’s Residence with these two bracketing me. Ceria kept me walking, continuing straight to her bedroom.
Melione was following us, only stopping when we passed through the bedroom. Ceria smiled at her and asked, “Wanna help?”
She hesitated, then frowned. It was at that moment that Brigitte appeared, saying, “Melione, what are you doing? Come on.”
She dragged her away as Ceria shut the door. Ceria smirked a bit as she said to the closed door, “Maybe next time.”
When she turned to me, I told her, “Melione is very young. I hope you’re keeping that in mind.”
Ceria pooched her lips out, then started removing her gear while saying, “Her home village would’ve been pressuring her to pick a husband by this age, if she hadn’t left.”
I shook my head. Melione’s five months younger than me. In other words, she’d turned fifteen only two months before this.
“I just don’t want you pressuring her,” I told her while I sat on the bed to remove my boots. “You guys don’t have a duty to serve me. I only want you doing the things that you want to do.”
She sighed, and frowned a little. “Lady, please don’t say that anymore.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Oh forget it,” she groused, then pounced on me, snuggling into my neck with her nose. Ceria’s cat whiskers tickle when she does that. The snuggling quickly progressed into kissing, mostly on my neck and ear.
“We shouldn’t take a long time, Lady,” Ceria whispered into said ear. “Mom will probably figure out where we are pretty soon.”
Of course, hurrying was a bit of a problem. I had just ‘fed’ from my blood ball. I told her, “That technique that I used is going to make it hard to start. Can you do something about it?”
She giggled, and the next thing I knew… well, the very first time I ever saw Ceria, she’d been in the middle of a tabletop striptease in a Cara Ita bar. I began getting a repeat performance, with her quietly humming to herself for music. It was followed by… well, I would have to describe it as a lap dance, while she helped me out of my blouse and skirt.
“I need to repair that,” I said as I first saw the tear in my brand-new skirt that happened during the fight. And the associated damage to my new chemise.
“Make Mom do it,” she answered while pulling said chemise up and off of me. “She’s the one that ripped it. She’s good at sewing.”
She climbed back onto my lap and began sliding her naked skin against mine… then looked at me with a little surprise.
“What?” I wondered.
She watched me for a bit while continuing to rub her chest against mine.
“You’re not stopping me,” she finally answered, sounding a little pleased.
I recalled that I had been a lot more shy about this, our last time together. She was only barely getting me to kiss, back then.
I put my hands on her back and started caressing a little. “I decided I should maybe enjoy things a little more.”
She grinned, “Then maybe could we…”
Her hand glided downward as she spoke.
“No,” I said firmly, catching it. “I still need to draw the line somewhere. At least until I’ve talked about it with my fiancé first.”
Her eyes grew a little. “You’re gonna tell him?”
I nodded. “Before we get married, he needs to know. If he can’t handle it, then it’s better we not go through with the marriage.”
She nodded. “You’re right. You think he’ll accept it?”
I didn’t want to admit that I was half-hoping he wouldn’t, and would break the engagement. Part of me hoped he would approve, though. The fact was, I had come to realize that sex was the only part that was a negative for me about marriage with Rod. Becoming part of his family for real was a positive. Of course, the negative was a really big negative, but if we could be family while he took care of his sexual needs with concubines…
Yeah, that was just trying to have my cake and eat it too, right?
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
With that, she leaned forward until I was forced down onto my back on the mattress. With sparkling eyes, she said, “So I can’t do that yet, but maybe I can do this…”
Cat-kin have catlike canines, long and pointy. I hissed a breath in through my teeth as hers taught me a new technique involving the tenderest skin on my bosom. It was plenty effective. I could feel my fangs beginning to appear, and other parts of my body also beginning to react. It was a good thing my panties were in the pile of clothing on the floor.
“You know,” I commented as I took over, rolling her over and approaching her hills to do something similar, “I can feed on these, if you like…”
The suggestion caused her to go into a giggle fit.
