.
We faced each other in open water as Chiara absorbed my proposal. Both of us were currently creatures of the sea, me holding up my weight with steady strokes of my flukes, and she using her merrow swimming powers. Neither of us used the vigorous sculling with the arms of a typical human swimmer treading water.
In the moonlight, her expressions were fully visible. I could see the slight darkening of her already dark mood in her eyes.
“I’m a dead woman anyway, so you might as well feed on me,” she stated. “Is that the idea?”
“Not exactly. I’m not interested in non-consensual feeding, even with a convict,” I told her. “If you decline, I won’t do it.”
Her brow wrinkled. “But you aren’t going to leave me here with Her Highness. So what will you do?”
“Force you to face the demons at my side. And if you refuse or try to escape, I will kill you, using my right as a royal knight to kill a fugitive of justice if capture is not an option.”
She considered me for a bit, then asked, “Have you actually killed a human being before?”
“Yes,” I stated without hesitation. “I broke up the first attempt to kidnap Her Highness. I killed several of the raiders in the process.”
I had been running on automatic at the time, the process I had been calling ‘Tiana Full Battle Mode’ until Tiana became more integrated into my normal thought process. In retrospect, it was a little amazing I had been able to do that. But I felt I could do it again.
Staring her in the eyes, I continued. “Rest assured, My Lady, killing you will not trouble me in the least, after what you did to Amelia.”
Chiara’s eyes grew slightly, as she confronted the fact that I was her senior as a knight and as a warrior. She was a newbie, after all. She had received her accolade only weeks before Amelia’s kidnapping.
“So, what is the benefit of making me your blood slave?”
“I’m an Elder, so you would be slightly different than a blood slave, in a very important way. An Elder’s Servant bond makes the Servant much more powerful as mages or magic warriors. It also gains the Elder advantages, but those will come later. The important part is that the power up you will receive from me will make you far more effective against the demons.”
“And against you,” she noted, raising an eyebrow.
“Trust me, My Lady,” I said evenly. “Even with the bond, you can’t beat me. Don’t waste our time on trying.”
She pressed her lips together in defeat, the corners of her mouth forming dimples, and her shoulders fell. “And what happens once we get the princess to safety?”
“That will be up to His Majesty,” I told her. “If he doesn’t accept this as sufficient punishment, and orders your execution, I will agree to it. I’m the King’s loyal knight, after all.”
With a nod, she summarized, “So the idea is, if he doesn’t agree, it isn’t a loss, since I’m dead anyway?”
I nodded in return.
“What if I would rather accept my punishment?” she wondered, her eyes filling with tears again. “I’m not seeking to get out of it, you know? Why are you offering me a way out?”
“If, after Amelia is safe, you ask me to turn you over for execution, I will do so,” I stated. “In the meantime, I want to use you for her sake. Not using you would be a waste of a desperately needed resource.”
She swallowed, then nodded. “I understand. So, what do we do?”
“Is your underwater breathing automatic? If you have to concentrate on it, then it would be safer to move to land. You won’t be able to maintain a skill that you have to consciously maintain.”
She grew a little wary. “You’re just going to feed on me or something, right?”
I held her jaw and stroked her cheek with my thumb. With a slight smirk, I said, “Something like that, yes.”
Her eyes grew again, probably because my other hand was on her breast. “I think I told you once, I’m not really into girls.”
Considering my current frame of mind, the involuntary skill I was tentatively calling ‘Fairy Charm’ was probably already changing her position on that, but I turned on [Vampire Charm] anyhow.
I gave a chuckle. “You don’t need to be, My Lady. This isn’t a lover’s embrace.”
That was still as close as Tiana’s sensibilities allowed me to come to saying ‘This isn’t sex’. I know the Ostish word for sexual activity, but I don’t think it has ever passed these lips.
“Then why does it seem to be starting like one?” she wondered as I closed in and gave her cheek a kiss and nuzzled her with my nose.
“Answer the question I asked,” I breathed into her ear. “About your underwater breathing?”
“I… don’t need to concentrate,” she answered, her voice trembling a little. “It’s automatic.”
“Then we’re about to go under. Are you ready?”
Her answer was a very weak “… yes.”
I stopped sculling with my tail and allowed my weight to drag us under. Below us was a dozen paces of water. We sank through the first two or three of them as I let the air out of my lungs and started my water breathing, the act that seemed to involve mana rather than the literal breathing of water. It seemed to be considerably easier to do when I was in my nereid form. Probably, this was the default method in this form, and breathing air was the exception.
Pushing myself on top of Chiara, bending her back in the water, I observed her face first to make sure I saw no distress. Her lips were slightly parted as she stared back at me, looking a bit puzzled, as if she weren’t sure what I was planning. I kept my arms wrapped around her waist and closed in for a kiss on her lips.
I was sure there was no distress now. She was fine under water, and comfortable enough to simply respond to my mouth. Unlike Melione’s clumsy responses, she knew what she was doing. Our tongues were entangled in very little time. It tasted very different, with our mouths full of lake water.
Now that I was confident in her safety, I could concentrate on my fangs. We were getting a little deep, and the moonlight wasn’t penetrating very well. I could see her form with Vampire Sight, but it wasn’t the same as having clear vision. When I slid down her body to nuzzle her bosom, they just didn’t have the same appeal. I slowly swam up to just under the surface, where the moonlight gave me a proper view. There, I let my mouth languidly enjoy them until my fangs grew.
Slipping back up, I confirmed she was still okay with a look at her half closed eyes and gentle smile. Her lips parted, moving a bit as if looking for mine. I hadn’t held back with Charm, so I had her fully under the influence now. I went ahead and closed for another long kiss as the slow stroke of my flukes carried us through a school of tiny fish feeding in the moonlight.
The advantage of our underwater techniques was that they didn’t require air, so we could kiss longer than above water. But my hunger had grown well, so I finally broke the kiss and moved slowly down to her neck, giving her skin gentle touches as I made my way there.
She shuddered as my fangs sank in, then put her hand behind my head as if to keep me there while I fed.
The act of compressing and streaming the blood into my core had become almost automatic. I allowed it to flow while watching her pneuma carefully. I had to drink deeper this time, taking her down past that limit that I normally observed.
The need to drink more slowly had the same effect as it did with other donors. She began shuddering in my arms, her body undulating with pleasure, well before I reached that limit.
Her moment passed at last, and she was fondling the hair on my head as I finally went beyond the limit, into the territory for bonding. Suddenly the blood stopped streaming into my core. The mana began flowing directly into my bloodstream.
The reason came to me, probably out of Senhion’s memories. Chiara’s pneuma, that needed to bind with the mana in order to form the substance I called ‘compressed blood’, was instead splitting from the mana and merging with my pneuma, forming the bond. Naturally, the unbound mana was proceeding to go where it normally would, into my monster biology’s supply of mortal mana.
I could feel it happening now, the process by which Chiara became permanently connected to me. It was so clear that I was amazed it hadn’t been obvious when Melione and Ceria became part of me. No wonder blood slaves could not be freed. Part of their being lived inside their master from that moment onward.
Once the bond was complete, the blood again began compressing and flowing into my core. I took it in for another minute or so, then carefully withdrew from her neck.
Her lips were moving slightly again, begging for another kiss, so I granted her wish, using my flukes to push us along gently as our tongues played. I set my course for a beach on the island that I originally proposed as our destination as we continued.
Finally, I decided she needed to sleep. I don’t know if the negative reaction to feeding can happen after bonding, but I didn’t want to risk it in the middle of the water. I broke the kiss, keeping my arm around her waist as I turned my back toward the surface and powered us to shore.
We breached the surface when the water became too shallow, then I let her go so she could stand and walk to shore. I stayed in nereid form, crawling on my arms and tail onto the beach.
The ‘natural’ environment of the small world included enough variations of weather that there was ample wave action. This beach had a lot of pebbles, but also a reasonable amount of sand for about a pace from the water’s edge and reclined on my side.
“Lay down here,” I ordered, patting the ground in front of me, and she dutifully complied, a serene smile on her lips. She was in that same post-bonding high I had seen with Melione and Ceria at the moment.
“I wouldn’t mind doing it again, My Lady,” she told me with a coquettish smile.
“You’ll feed me again, but not tonight,” I told her. “Right now, I want you to sleep.”
A slight look of disappointment formed, but then, to my surprise, a slight look of consternation. “I’m not acting like myself right now.”
So she said, but she returned to a smile, so mostly she didn’t mind. But it was a positive, the fact that she could recognize it so quickly. She would stable under the bond without the bracelet. I was planning to make her go without it, if she could function that way.
“It’s a little like being drunk,” I told her, stroking her cheek. “Lay your head down. It’s important that you rest for a bit.”
She complied, resting her head on her folded arm. But she wondered, “Those alligators…”
“I’m keeping an eye out for them, My Lady,” I assured her. Then I put some Command into my voice and told her, “Don’t mind them. Clear your mind and sleep.”
