Chapter 180: Strange Tingling

Chapter 180: 180: Strange Tingling

She pulled them as deep as she could, away from the entrance. Then she gathered the black fern and roots from outside and pushed them across the opening. It was not a real barrier. It was only a cover. But it made the cave darker, and darkness felt like safety for one small moment.

Then Elowen collapsed.

She sat on the cold stone floor and stared at her feet.

Her shoes were torn. Blood soaked through the cloth around her toes. Small cuts crossed her ankles and soles. Mud had dried over some wounds and cracked open again while she moved. She had not even noticed how bad it was until she stopped.

Now she felt everything.

The pain came all at once.

Her shoulder.

Her feet.

Her hands.

Her back.

Her chest, which hurt from breathing too hard.

Elowen covered her mouth with one hand, but the sound still came out.

At first, it was only a broken breath.

Then it became a sob.

Then she cried.

She cried so hard that her body shook. She had tried to be brave. She had tried to follow maps, endure danger, and act like she had chosen this road with her own will. But now, inside a dark cave with two dying men on the floor and a terrifying old mage somewhere in the forest, the strength she had been forcing into herself broke apart.

"I cannot do this," she whispered through tears. "I cannot do this. I cannot."

No one answered.

Lucard lay still. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

Cedric lay still.

Puff moved weakly.

Elowen saw the small white rabbit twitch against Cedric’s coat. She crawled over and pulled Puff into her lap with shaking hands. The puffer rabbit was warm, soft, and frightened. Its small body trembled against her stomach, and that tiny living warmth made her cry harder for some reason.

"You are alive," she whispered. "Good. At least you are alive."

Puff opened its eyes.

For a few breaths, it only stared at her. Then its ears moved.

One ear pointed toward Lucard.

The other pointed toward Elowen.

Elowen wiped her face with the back of her wrist. "What?"

Puff pushed itself up in her lap. It looked weak, but it forced its body to move. It hopped down, stumbled once, then went to Lucard. It sniffed the blood around his stomach and immediately jumped back with a scared squeak.

Elowen crawled after it. "Do not touch that. I do not know what his blood will do."

Puff ignored her warning.

It turned to her and opened its mouth pouch slightly, then closed it. After that, it tapped the cave floor with one paw.

Tap.

Tap.

Then it looked at Elowen’s hand.

She stared at it through swollen eyes. "I do not understand."

Puff became more urgent. It hopped to Lucard’s face and tapped near his mouth. Then it hopped back to Elowen and bit gently at the sleeve near her wrist. It did not break the skin. It only pulled the cloth, tugging again and again.

Elowen frowned through her tears. "What are you doing?"

Puff opened its mouth pouch again. It made a small swallowing motion. Then it pointed its nose toward Lucard’s mouth. After that, it pressed its tiny paw against Elowen’s wrist and made another swallowing motion.

Elowen froze.

Her heart beat once, hard.

"No," she whispered.

Puff tapped her wrist again.

Elowen looked at Lucard.

She remembered the way he had fought. She remembered the way blood moved around him like it was alive. She remembered his words, his coldness, his wounds closing faster than they should. She remembered the stories he had not fully told and the things she had seen with her own eyes.

He absorbed blood.

Blood made him recover.

Blood made him stronger.

Her stomach twisted with fear.

"If I give him blood..." she whispered.

Puff’s ears lifted slightly.

Elowen looked at Lucard’s face. His skin was pale. His breathing was almost gone. The hole in his stomach looked too terrible for a person to survive. Even now, tiny blood threads moved around the wound, but they were weak and broken, like dying worms trying to stitch a torn cloth.

She looked at Cedric too.

Cedric was not better. His chest rose and fell with difficulty. There was a hole through him, and his lips were turning pale.

Both of them would die.

If Lucard woke, he might heal himself.

If Lucard woke, he might save Cedric too.

Or he might drink too much and kill her.

Elowen held her shaking hand in front of her face.

She thought of Stoneford. She thought of her father letting her go. She thought of Alan asking her to give him the water. She thought of Lucard pulling her out of the mud and then saying everything had value until spent.

Her tears fell again.

"You are a terrible person," she whispered to Lucard. "You are cruel. You are frightening. You used me."

Lucard did not answer.

"But you also pulled me out."

Still no answer.

Elowen took the small knife from her belt.

Her fingers shook so badly that she almost dropped it. Puff watched her with wide black eyes. She placed the blade against her palm, then hesitated. Fear rose in her throat. She did not want to cut herself. She did not want to put blood into the mouth of someone who might drink her dry.

Then Cedric coughed.

A small amount of blood came from his mouth.

Elowen closed her eyes and cut her palm.

Pain flashed through her hand.

Blood welled out quickly.

She gasped, then pressed her bleeding palm against Lucard’s mouth.

At first, nothing happened.

Then Lucard moved.

His lips parted.

The moment her blood touched his tongue, his body reacted like a starving beast waking in the dark. His hand shot up and clamped around her wrist.

Elowen cried out.

His grip was terrifying.

Too strong.

His fingers dug into her skin. He pulled her hand harder against his mouth and drank. Not slowly. Not gently. He sucked blood from the cut like someone drowning had found air. Pain ran up Elowen’s arm. Her injured shoulder burned as he pulled her forward, and she nearly fell onto his chest.

"Lucard," she cried. "Lucard, stop. It hurts."

He did not stop.

His eyes were still closed. His body was moving by instinct. Blood Absorption took the blood and dragged it into him greedily. The wound in his stomach began to move faster. Blood threads thickened. Flesh pulled together. The earth mana inside the wound resisted, grinding and tearing, but Lucard’s blood started burning it away piece by piece.

Elowen’s vision blurred.

She tried to pull back.

He held her harder.

Puff squeaked and jumped around them in panic, but it could do nothing. Elowen’s knees shook. Her breath became weak. Too much blood was leaving her. The cave seemed to tilt.

"Please," she whispered. "Please wake up."

Lucard’s eyes opened.

They were not calm at first.

They were red, hungry, and empty.

For one terrifying moment, Elowen thought she had awakened something worse than Alan.

Lucard stared at her wrist in his hand.

Then he stared at her face.

The hunger in his eyes struggled against thought. His fingers tightened once more, and Elowen whimpered from pain. That small sound reached him more clearly than her words.

Lucard’s pupils changed.

Control returned.

He released her wrist at once and turned his mouth away.

Elowen fell back onto the cave floor, shaking and holding her bleeding hand against her chest.

Lucard took a slow breath.

Then another.

His body wanted more.

A lot more.

Her blood was warm, clean, and strangely bright. There was light mana in it, thin and weak, but pure. There was also something else. Not power. Not rank. Something that made his chest feel strange for one short moment, as if his body remembered being pulled back from death by someone he had planned to use.

Lucard hated that feeling immediately.

He pushed it down.

The wound in his stomach had not fully healed, but it had closed enough for him to move. Blood still leaked from it. Pain remained. Alan’s earth mana still scratched inside his flesh, but the worst of the hole was gone.

Lucard sat up slowly.

Elowen stared at him with fear, pain, and relief mixed together in a way he did not want to understand. Her face was pale. Her lips had lost color. Her cut palm still bled, and the marks from his fingers were already darkening around her wrist. Her feet were torn and bleeding. Her shoulder was swollen under the cloth.

She looked worse than he expected.

Lucard looked around.

Cedric lay nearby, chest still open, breath weak. Puff sat beside him with its ears drooping. The two vials of Deepwell water were still there. One near Lucard’s side. One half-hidden inside Cedric’s torn coat.

They had survived.

Barely.

Lucard remembered Alan’s hand rising.

The stone spike.

The hole in his stomach.

The way his blood had failed to answer properly.

A cold anger rose inside him.

Not loud.

Not wild.

Cold enough to cut.

He was angry at Alan.

But before that, he was angry at himself.

He had lost.

He had misjudged the gap. He had used traps, beasts, Cedric, Elowen, the forest, and still Alan had beaten him down like an adult stepping on young wolves. If the Maw Sovereign Beast had not arrived, Lucard would be dead or captured now.

That fact burned worse than the wound.

His hand tightened on the stone floor.

Blood spread under his fingers.

"Alan Gravenhart," Lucard said softly.

Elowen flinched at his voice.

Lucard looked at her again.

That strange feeling returned for one breath when he saw the blood on her palm and the tears on her face. She had dragged him here. She had fed him her blood. She had done it while injured and afraid.

A tool should not make his chest feel heavy.

A tool should only be useful.

Lucard’s eyes became colder because he did not know what else to do with that feeling.

Then Cedric coughed again.

Lucard turned his head.

The next problem was on the ground in front of him.

Cedric was dying.