Chapter 236: To offer herself up *

Eloise gulped and her heart began to race.

While shifted, Caius was especially aware of the spike in her blood as it pulsed through her veins with even more force.

He gave her a smile that appeared devilish with his fangs glinting. But of course, like everything with him, it was tagged with the ’handsome’ adjective and Eloise found herself even more mesmerized than she already was.

"Relax," Caius told her gently as he stroked his finger across her cheek, taking care not to scratch her skin with his claws.

"I’m relaxed," Eloise said.

"Are you?" Caius asked her, still with that dastardly smile of his.

Eloise nodded to assert her statement. She had sat up on the ground now and both her hands were thrust behind her bracing against the bed of vines beneath her as her chest rose and fell rhythmically to her breathing.

"I am," she said, deciding that nodding wasn’t doing the job of affirmation as her words would.

"Good," Caius said gently with a nod, "It’s a very run-of-the-mill thing. Very simple. Hardly ceremonial. Definitely not a big deal."

"He’s lying," Kaya said then and Caius looked to the side at her. She ignored him and focused her attention on Kaya who had looked at her as well,

"It’s actually a big deal."

"It is, isn’t it?" Eloise said with a little laugh.

Kaya nodded.

"Kaya—" Caius started to call but she brushed him aside with a casual wave of her hand and her attention still on Eloise’s face,

"It’s an important moment. Don’t let him tell you otherwise. It will only rob you of its true meaning," she said.

"What’s its true meaning?" Eloise asked.

Kaya smiled lightly.

"You’ll see," she said, "I like to think it might be different for you and I don’t want to influence that by speaking of my own experience with it. Not now. Not yet.

But I believe, when it’s over, you will understand..."

"Kaya," Caius cautioned, "You’re scaring her."

"No, I’m not," Kaya answered easily.

"No, she’s not," Eloise chimed in then and Caius looked at her.

"You’re getting worried," he noted.

Eloise shook her head,

"No," she answered, "I’m getting excited and you’re hashing my mellow with all the calming shit. Please, just get to it already."

Caius paused.

Why was he being so careful?

Well, he liked to think he didn’t ever just sink fangs into his lovers willy nilly and always took their feelings into account but still, today—this—was just different. Maybe it was because he had an audience in Kaya. It was certainly the first time he was experiencing something like this. Maybe that was why he was being more self-conscious.

Eloise was right though.

He could smell it in her blood that the longer he dawdled, the more her excitement waned.

Arousal would always be present in her as long as he was close but its intensity was starting to lower and soon, it would not be at the optimal point he had deliberately driven it to be.

The finger he still had on Eloise’s cheek was joined by others until the entire palm was cradling the side of her head as he leaned in close to the other side. To the creamy skin of her neck which Eloise made especially appealing by leaning against the hand he had on the side of her head.

Caius opened his mouth and in a second, he had his fangs pressing against Eloise’s skin, breaking through and drawing his first taste of her blood.

It tasted... like music.

That hardly made any sense but when the first drops of Eloise’s arousal-charged blood touched his tongue and lit up his taste receptors, Caius felt like it was singing to him.

It drove his urge to have more and with a hard suction, he drew more drops out of the tiny holes he had made in her neck and his Vampiric nature rejoiced as it always did when it was being sated by Evolutionary-charged blood.

At first, when Caius’s fangs pierced her, Eloise was braced for the pain. She and Kaya had discussed it earlier and she was very much open to it and confident that she could take it. But—maybe because she had built it up so much in her head and expected much worse—it was so mild. It was a tiny sting and then just a wave of satisfaction.

It’s insane to even think that losing something as important as blood should feel this... good. But it did.

As Caius siphoned from her, Eloise felt her racing heart calm and settle into a comfortable rhythm. The most comfortable rhythm it had ever been in, as far as she was aware.

Eloise remembered Kaya’s words and confirmed them to be true already. This indeed didn’t feel as casual as Caius had tried to make it seem with his ’run-of-the-mill’ comment. Maybe he had done that to put her at ease but she was glad Kaya had cut in to set the record straight because she didn’t need to be coddled. Certainly not when what she was about to experience would feel this fucking good.

It almost felt ironic to use ’fucking’ for emphasis because Eloise could feel her juices flowing even faster and harder than they ever had which was saying something because she would have sworn—before today, of course—that the previous record set by her first time with Caius, could not be beaten.

She could feel her body getting weaker as she lost blood. Caius hadn’t taken all that much from her but she felt a difference. But she was all too happy to accept that weakness when the exchange gave her a connection to Caius she had never thought possible.

Sure, he had entered her caverns before. Spread her walls with his brilliant tool and introduced her to the wonders of climax and that was all beyond fantastic, but this... To offer herself up to sate a desire arguably more primal—at least to a creature like him—than sex itself, was even better.

’So this is what she meant,’ Eloise said in reference to Kaya’s words.

She wondered if this was different from how Kaya felt about Caius’s feeding and then decided that it couldn’t be. Not to a great degree anyway. Sure, some details may have been different for her half-elf best friend but Eloise was sure the connection she felt from having Caius’s fangs inside her siphoning her blood to sate his thirst and drive his evolution forward had not been lost on Kaya.

Her eyes moved in their sockets and she looked at Kaya.

There was a knowing look in Kaya’s eyes as she and Eloise locked stares— Like she could tell what Eloise was feeling at the moment.

Knowing how close to a religious experience it had been for her when she really came to terms with the true meanings and significance of Caius feeding on her, Kaya had been convinced that Eloise was capable of seeing it as such as well. Especially if it got hinted at beforehand and Eloise was prodded to be even more open-minded to the experience and see it as more than just a thing to be done and forgotten.

Eloise blinked to express what her words were not quite able to express at the moment; Gratitude for Kaya’s guidance. And then she began to sing a tune that roused the Mana within her.

The mana exited her body and took the form of musical notes that vibrated at a frequency and seized control of her and Caius’s bodies to spin them around, changing their positions so Eloise was somewhat on top of Caius rather than it being the other way around.