We do one more day of healing, though it is very slow by this point since most of the demons here in this town have already used our services who needed them. It is a slow day, but it will be our last day. I am a bit worried about the turning process later. Anton said it was going to be very painful. Though temporary pain in exchange for marriage that lasts for several millennia. I think the trade-off is worth it. I am still curious why he wants to turn me. I feel like there might be something he is keeping from me.
Since it is so slow today, Lysara takes it upon herself to buy our road supplies we will need in order to maximize time, and she takes Kenji with her. While we are chilling, waiting on more demons to come, Sky raises the alarm, "We got company! It looks like the crown prince's carriage! We need to get out of here!" As he was saying that I was scanning the surrounding area to make sure he isn't too close then respond as soon as he finishes speaking, I say in a loud whisper, "Fuck! Ok. You go get Lysara and bring her to me." Sky says, "Roger, that!" He flies off, and we immediately run out of sight and stick to the shadows while moving through town. While we are moving, I whisper to Leo, "We cannot be caught by that black and gold carriage or anybody in that entourage." Leo nods, and we continue moving through town.
Since Kenji is with Lysara, I have my hood pulled up while we move through town. I am heading in the direction of Anton's house. That is probably the safest place to be right now. Tristan will probably check the inns first. He might be an idiot, but he isn't THAT much of an idiot. We get to Anton's house and knock loudly. He grumpily comes to the door while wiping sleep away from his eyes, "Who in the goddess's name is coming at this h-?" He looks to see it is me and says with a furrowed brow, "Why are you here now? I told you to come later." He says as he is still wiping the sleep from his eyes. I urgently say, "I will tell you everything, but please just let us in." Anton shrugs, "Ok, on the condition you let me have another taste of your blood since you interrupted my sleep," I say with the same urgency, "Sure, whatever. Just please let us in."
He moves his body aside and waves us inside with his hand, and shuts the door behind us. Anton says, "I want to take my payment up front before we get interrupted by you know who." I tilt my head to the side and he giggles and comes in and bites and sucks for a while. He is being careful not to take too much, and then he stops and wipes his mouth, "Thank you so much for the snack, priestess. Now, what brings you here in a panic?" I heal myself, we sit down, and I tell him the whole story since he is now officially involved. He giggles with excitement, "Here I thought you were boring, and your whole life is a drama. To think that on that first day we met, you were attacked by the person you were trying to protect. Such a shame. No tact whatsoever. One should say thank you and give gifts instead."
I laugh at his words, "It is funny you say that because the first thing out of my mouth was something along those lines when I woke up in that carriage in mana-sealing handcuffs." Anton laughs with a mischievous glint in his eye, "I like your spunk. It has been a few centuries since I have been so entertained. I hope you decided to take my blood. I would love to continue to be entertained by you and Lysara." I nodded, blushing slightly at the thought of spending forever with my beloved, "That is what we agreed upon. Forever together." Anton says, smiling while still wearing that slightly mischievous look in his eyes, "Awww. How romantic. Since she will be here shortly, we will wait for her so she doesn't misunderstand anything when she arrives. Don't want her trying to kill me or anything. She can have a very short fuse." He grabs a bottle of wine and holds it up towards me, offering me some. I say in response while taking his offering, "I normally wouldn't, especially at this time of day, but I am very anxious right now."
He pours me a glass and I take a few sips to ease my nerves about Tristan's arrival. Just thinking about that day he kidnapped me turns my stomach in knots. Then Leo chimes in, "Can I have some wine, too?" I laugh, "No. Wait- You know? Sure, why not? A small taste won't hurt. Don't tell your mother I let you have a taste of alcohol this early. On the condition you will only have a sip." His tail is wagging, and he takes a sip from my glass. He sticks his tongue out, "Ewwww. That is gross." Anton and I laugh. I tell Leo, "I guess it is an acquired taste. Even if you don't grow into it, that is fine. Not everyone grows up to drink. Alcohol is like a drug, and too much is bad. Some people even get addicted to it. In such cases, it is much better to be without it completely, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that." I say, hoping that our laughing doesn't push him into drinking anyway, out of teen angst.
Though I seem to be worrying for nothing because his tail is wagging. I guess he is happy that he got a chance to try wine finally, even if it wasn't what he was expecting. Anton says, "I can't live without my wine, but would rather die than go without it. I do hope you don't grow up feeling the need to drink like I do, young one." Leo laughs, "Yeah, no offense, but you have a loser personality and I don't want to become you one bit." Leo and I laugh hard at Anton's expense.
A loud knocking (more like beating) on the front door interrupts us, "Anton, open up this door within 10 seconds or I will bust it down!" I hear Lysara's voice yell. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Si-" Anton moves quickly to the door with his vampiric agility and opens it while saying with that sly expression of his, "Do you hate me, or do you just enjoy breaking my things?" Lysara pushes Anton aside, walking in with Sky and Kenji while saying, "Maybe a bit of both. I'm not sure." Anton hisses dramatically, "Ow. I am hurt. Is that any way to treat your beloved's guardian savior and old flame? I pulled her into my home to save her from that pervy crown prince patrolling the streets."
Lysara sighs, "Yeah, I saw that dumb carriage and stuck to the shadows coming here. I just wanted to give you a hard time because it is fun." Anton says in a slight fake pout while still having that mischievous glint in his eyes, "Now you are just being mean. Why don't you come in, and we can get started early?" He waves Lysara to sit down on the sofa next to me. He then says to me, "You might want to finish drinking that." He gestures to my wine glass. I finish drinking it, and he takes the glass from me. He puts the glass down on the coffee table and grabs the same dagger he pulled on me that day, and cuts his hand deeply over the wine glass. He makes a fist and squeezes, making more blood come out to fill up the glass.
Once he is done, he hands me the glass while he wraps up his hand, "Warning. This is going to hurt.A LOT." I replied, looking at his bandaged hand, "Before I drink this, do you want me to heal you? It will only take a second." He shrugs, "Sure, I almost forgot you had healing magic." He holds out his hand and I heal it. I then take the blood-filled wine glass and raise it to Lysara in a cheers motion, then I start drinking it. It has a slightly weird metallic taste, and I just gulp it down to the best of my ability. I don't think it tastes good. AT ALL. It takes some time, but when I reach the bottom of the glass, pain starts shooting throughout my body. Like my body is on fire. I dropped and broke the wine glass by accident in response to this sudden pain. I am groaning, doubled over, and sweating. I almost feel like I am about to pass out from the intense pain, then everything goes black.
I woke up, and apparently I wasn't out that long, only a few minutes. I feel a lot better and am in no more pain. Anton then asks, "How do you feel?" While Lysara is tenderly touching my face in concern. I responded while licking my lips, "Hungry." Anton laughs, "I thought you would be. It works out great this way. I want you to feed off Lysara for your first time right now, and I will tell you when you need to stop. She is going to put her life in your hands while you feed from her from now on, so you need to know when exactly to stop for her safety." Lysara pulls me up and tilts her head in that sexy manner of hers, making her ponytail tilt and providing her neck for me. I go in and puncture her with my fangs. Ha. I have fangs now, I guess.
Blood starts coming into my mouth, and it is hitting the spot right now. It is just as satisfying as Lysara's juices from between her legs. Her blood is just as delicious. After several moments of sucking Lysara's neck Anton taps me, "Alright, let go now. Focus on the amount of fullness you have right now. Engrain that feeling into your mind. If you drink until you are fully full, then you will risk Lysara's health and possibly life. Bodies need a certain amount of blood to survive, and if you want to feed every day, this is the amount you will need to consume. You can consume more, but Lysara will become highly fatigued and will need a few days to recover. Her being a succubus makes her more durable than humans, so if you need to feed on a human in case of an emergency, be even more careful if you don't want to kill them. They will definitely die if you are not careful, and they take weeks to recover from blood loss. I have had a few mishaps over the years, especially times when I was starving. I recommend supplementing with animal blood or something like that." I nod, "I will remember. Though just in case, Lysara, if I by chance lose control, please stop me." Lysara pets my head while warmly smiling at me, "I will, boo boo."
I ask Anton, genuinely confused by him, "You say you supplement with animal blood, but I don't ever see you drinking it." Anton raises his glass of wine, "I personally like putting it in wine." Lysara is shocked because she drank wine too and yells, "Ewww! You served us blood wine?!" Anton shrugged, "There isn't enough blood in the wine to taste unless you are a vampire… Or maybe a wolf." He says, looking at Leo. Anton continues, "Too much blood ruins the taste and body of the wine. I am very particular about my wine." Now that he mentions the blood in the wine, I suddenly become aware that I am aware of nearby blood. I can smell blood. I take it upon myself to pour a little more so I can taste his wine after acquiring a taste of blood. I take a sip and my eyes light up, "Is this the same wine I had earlier?" Anton nods, "Yes, it is." I take another sip in astonishment, "Wow, it tastes completely different. Earlier, I thought it tasted good, but now it tastes fantastic." Anton giggles, "The power of blood. Isn't it fascinating?"
Anton continues with his tutorial spiel, "You still need nutrients from other food as well. Eating regular food also helps stave off hunger from a lack of blood. If you don't have food or blood, around the two-week mark is when vampires get delirious, feral, and dangerous. If you do eat food but don't have blood, it will take approximately a month to hit that state of hunger. Vampires may be demons, but they have stomachs, too. Just eat food like you normally would. Remember also that you are much stronger now, so be careful fighting weaker races and especially at night when you are at your strongest." I ask, "Did you hold back in our first encounter?" Anton laughs, "Of course not. I don't take risks on the job and always give 100 percent on my jobs, so if I fail, it has nothing to do with not trying hard enough. I am not as nice as you, though, so killing a few humans to me isn't that bad. Though, like I did in our encounter, hitting full strength in the stomach usually doesn't kill in daytime conditions. Chest hits and head hits are fatal spots to hit at full strength for humans. So if you want to knock out an enemy but you don't want to go easy, you can just hit them with everything in the stomach or maybe a full-strength flick of the finger. Don't take this as if I was saving your life back then, either. During that fight, that outcome came from the flow of the fight since that is where I was able to sneak an opening. If you had your vitals unguarded, I would have just gone for one of those."
I laugh, "I am glad you didn't hold back. I would have been utterly furious if you did. I may not live for violence, but I do have my pride. I would like to fight you again in the daytime for a rematch, but today is not the day." Anton replies wearing that sly and mischievous look, "Look forward to kicking your ass in the future as well." He says with a little spunky attitude. Leo is giving him the stank eye, and Kenji is growling at him. Anton puts his hands up, "Ah, come on, you guys. Competition is way more fun when you talk shit. To be honest, you will probably beat me in our next duel, miss priestess, since you are a lot stronger now. You were holding your own pretty well with me at only half strength in the day, which not many humans can do."
Kenji stops growling and hops into my lap while still keeping an eye on Anton as if on his own mission. I start to pet him out of habit, and he closes his eyes and forgets his personal mission and starts purring immediately. I replied, reminiscing, "I get what you mean about talking garbage. Growing up, I would compete in archery with the crown prince, and I would talk so much garbage. After I got the hang of it, I quickly surpassed him, and I wasn't a good enough person to be humble when competing against him." Lysara laughs hard, "That is right! I am so glad mini-you destroyed him. That makes me so happy." She continues laughing. Anton replies after yet another sip of wine, "I saw those polished skills first-hand. I lost some good men that day because of your skills, but they knew what they were signing up for when doing the kind of work we do. Assassins are prepared to die during every job. Hunters are hunted all the time. Right, little one?" He says, talking to Kenji. Kenji replies, "Yes, and if you call me a little one again, I will hunt you. The name is Kenji."
I relay the message, and Anton puts his hands up defensively, "Sorry, I forgot your name, Kenji, and you are little right now. I mean, I am not wrong, am I?" Kenji scoffs since he knows he technically isn't wrong, and I continue petting him to calm him down. I say, trying to de-escalate the tension, "To Anton's credit, I don't think he was trying to be disrespectful, but the opposite. He was acknowledging your strength with his statement. That was just how I understood his words." Anton points his arm in my direction as if to non-verbally say, 'Exactly!', and he says, "Precisely what I meant. Thank you for the translation, miss priestess. Oh, before I forget, this is very important. If you take off your disguise artifact, your hair will be platinum blonde like mine. This is a trademark of vampires, so I recommend always wearing some sort of disguise artifact like you are currently wearing to prevent people from finding out, especially in human territory." I say as I continue to pet Kenji, also inserting some scratches, "Keep my ring on. Got it." I take another sip of wine with my other hand that is not petting Kenji, since it is like crack cocaine. If I stay here too long in this house, I will turn into an alcoholic.
I say after I sip on my wine, "Since that pervert is out searching for me, I think it will be best to wait until nightfall. We can grab CoCo, and we can get out of town in the cover of night. Leo," I say, looking to Leo specifically, "I want you to stay out of sight. That pervert prince doesn't know you exist, and that can be to our advantage, and it also doubles as protecting you as well. If that pervert learns you exist, he will target you to get to me, most definitely." His ears droop a bit, and I continue, "Anton will love this next idea, but I say we take a nap so we can be rested when nightfall hits." Anton laughs while raising his glass in cheers, "You are right. I do love that idea. Let me guide you to my guest rooms." He gets up and waves us along to follow him. When I get to my guest room, I crack the window so Sky can leave and let CoCo know to try and take a nap as well and be ready for tonight.