V3Ch72-In the Blood

After the matter with the ogres was settled, the ladies of the royal household agreed that Tybalt should spend the afternoon on a romantic outing with Kistana.

“What will we do?” the catgirl asked a bit nervously after Tybalt told her to go and put on a dress. She had been dressed in her usual, combat-ready gear.

“Whatever we want,” he replied.

While he was waiting for Kistana, and Dero, Victoria, and Vidalia were with her, helping her pick out clothing and whatever items she might need to carry with her, Liora approached Tybalt.

“Good morning, husband,” she said quietly, her voice a bit subdued.

“We missed you at breakfast, Liora,” he said. “But I suppose your… dietary preferences are a bit different from ours.” He noticed her pensive expression and added, “I hope you’re feeling well.”

“That’s just it,” the vampire said, leaping on what Tybalt had said. “I’m not feeling quite like myself. Back home, I usually feed a few times a week. More often if I perform some strenuous activity.”

“I see.”

Liora looked, embarrassed, over at Mariella, who was sitting at the breakfast table sipping tea and reading some form of military logistical document that she had asked the officers in Tybalt’s army to prepare.

The fire mage looked up after a moment as she felt the vampire’s eyes on her.

“Oh, do you need the table? I’m willing to move if you’d like. The light here is very good, though.”

“It’s just, I was hoping for more of a private conversation,” Liora said, looking slightly embarrassed.

That won’t work, at least not as a starting place for her here.

Mariella started to rise, but Tybalt put a hand on her back and turned to face Liora.

“I know this is new to you, and it’s something we all have to get used to together, but we try not to keep many secrets from each other here.”

“Any secrets,” Mariella corrected quietly.

“Right, except from Mariella, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Tybalt said, winking at Liora.

Mariella elbowed him in the side but looked more amused than anything.

“Anyway, unless you have a good reason for needing to keep something private, I’m just suggesting that you think carefully about whether you want it to be private. Because trusting each other is easier than having to constantly keep something secret, having the others wondering what it is you’re up to, forcing me to pretend that I don’t know when they ask me… It’s likely to be a big mess. I know you said the high elves are usually monogamous, but the beastfolk and the human nobility aren’t, so we have a lot of customs and ways of acting with each other that are just a little different because of polygamy. We have to be closely bound together and all care for each other, or it can turn nasty.”

“Right, I think I’ve seen some of your… bonding activities.” Liora averted her gaze from Tybalt and Mariella, and the necromancer stifled a laugh.

“It was something I had to get used to, too,” Mariella said quietly. “But your bonds with your co-wives can be a source of great comfort, especially because our husband can be callous with our feelings at times. Like, keeping deadly secrets from us—”

“That was one time,” Tybalt began.

“—or rushing into deadly battle alone, forcing us to stay behind when we want to help him.”

That shut him up for a moment, since he had done that, at least to Mariella, more than once. And it wasn’t because she was incapable of helping. It was mainly because he wanted her to be safe.

“Right,” Liora said, her expression stiff. “I’ll just say it to both of you, then, and you can… tell everyone else, I guess, when it’s convenient for you.” She paused, sighed, and continued, “I need blood. Not as often as I’ve had it, I’m not starving now, but sometime soon - and regularly. I can’t abstain for long periods, or my body will go into a sort of dormancy.”

Oh, I know, I have a whole book about the creation, care, and feeding of undead, Tybalt thought.

“That’s fine,” he said aloud. “Why did you think that needed to be kept private?”

“Well, I didn’t know…” She trailed off, then looked at Mariella. “Does everyone else know I’m a vampire?”

“Yes,” Mariella said. “Tybalt wouldn’t keep something that big from us.”

“Oh, I’m glad I’m being transparent enough for you,” he said.

“Well, were you going to discuss feeding arrangements at some point?” Liora asked, sounding annoyed.

“You can just feed on me,” Tybalt said.

“Multiple times weekly?” the vampire said, raising an eyebrow.

“How did you do things in your homeland?” Mariella asked.

“Our family used to just feed on the servants,” Liora replied, shrugging. “They’re magically bound to silence, and they probably didn’t mind. Much.”

That… sounds consistent with what Dero said. The high elf royals abused the servants freely and apparently thought little of it.

“I figured that now that I was here, I would just feed on the prisoners that you execute in the regular course of your Kingdom’s business,” the vampire went on. “They’re slated for death anyway, and I’ve heard many stories about how much terrible crime there is in the human lands, so I assumed that would be plenty of sustenance. More than I could handle. But I haven’t seen any actual executions since I arrived.”

“Yeah, we don’t have much crime here,” Tybalt said. “Not that it’s perfect, but people don’t want to be disintegrated or turned into undead. We killed more or less all the bandits in the Salt Waste and made an example of them not long ago.”

“So, what do you recommend? I don’t want to become a public nuisance, attacking people in the streets at night like some feral beast…”

“Just take turns feeding on us,” Mariella said quietly. “Keep it within the family. Start with Tybalt, and then go to me. I’m sure everyone will agree to supply you. After all, you’re one of us now.”

“Yeah, if it’s just once or twice a week, I can probably be a regular supply,” Tybalt said. “I think my regeneration will probably keep pace with the quantity you’ll want to drink.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out for certain,” Liora said. She stepped closer to Tybalt, eyes wandering to his neck. “With your permission?”

“Go for it.”

She leaned in, so close that he smelled her hair. It carried an odor that reminded him of red wine, mingled fruit and spice. Then he felt her fangs sink into his skin. The feeling was sharp, hot, painful - and just a little bit pleasurable, which was a strange phenomenon for him.

Vampires have a sort of venom in their saliva, he recalled. It renders the victim more… malleable. Not like the semi-hallucinogenic, erection-inducing venom that the lamia produced. Just a little something to relax you and make everything seem all right… and help the wound close quickly after they stop feeding. And it is relaxing.

He smiled at Mariella, who was looking over at them carefully, watching as if deciding whether he needed her to intervene. She returned the expression weakly, probably imagining herself on the receiving end of that bite - which she had just volunteered for, without much hesitation.

He heard a loud gulp from Liora, and he turned his head just slightly - trying not to pull his neck off of her mouth - and awkwardly met her eyes. He could only barely look into hers, and they had turned red as she fed.

That was something that he knew happened when vampires were particularly hungry.

Is Esmerelda this hungry? he wondered. No, she drained a bandit completely when I created her. That should have been enough to hold her for weeks. I’ll feed her something soon, too, though. His mind went to the fighting to come in a matter of days or weeks. I’ll give her a feast.

Another loud swallow. Liora’s eyes rolled back slightly, as if she was enjoying this more than any meal Tybalt had ever experienced.

Maybe being a vampire wouldn’t be so bad. I’d leave bite marks all over Mariella… all over all of them.

He felt Liora’s tongue brush against his skin. She was licking his wound. Her arm wrapped around his neck, and he felt her applying suction, her lips and her tongue moving against his neck, her eyes closed now.

Liora’s other hand reached up and rubbed his chest, and that was when Tybalt realized he didn’t hear the sound of gulping or swallowing, nor did he feel liquid flowing out of his neck anymore. The vampire wasn’t sucking his blood now. She was just giving him a long kiss on the neck, with some degree of plausible deniability.

“That feels nice,” he muttered.

Her eyes popped open, and she instantly pulled back, her lips separating from his neck with a quiet, wet sound.

“Good,” she said quietly. She licked her lips and looked over the spot where she’d bitten him with a careful, appraising eye. “Good, I didn’t spill a drop. I can’t afford to be wasteful. And your blood is unusually tasty. I feel much stronger.”

Tybalt nodded and ran a hand over his neck. It was wet, but not the hot sticky wetness of fresh-spilled blood. The little bit of residue was just Liora’s saliva.

“I think I could get used to that,” he said, breathing deeply and trying to keep his voice steady.

Mariella stepped closer and turned her head sideways to give the site of the bite a closer look.

“I think she’s going to leave you a bruise,” the fire mage said.

“I might have gotten a little carried away,” Liora agreed. Her cheeks were slightly red now, and Tybalt couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or simply a symptom of a fresh feed.

“I don’t mind bruising,” the necromancer replied. “Let me check my status and see if I lost anything important.”

He opened it up.

“Yeah, I’m down about ten percent of my mana,” he said. “Also a little bit of my health and a lot of stamina.”

“Your mana is probably why it tasted so good,” Liora said quietly. “A necromancer’s mana. Perfect food…”

“I’ll have to make sure you drain someone else if we’re about to go into battle,” Tybalt said. “Or at least distribute that over multiple people. Ten percent of my mana could be the difference between life and death, if I have to fight some dangerous opponent.”

Like an ogre who refuses to accept defeat, for instance.

“I only took a pint or two!” the vampire said defensively. “Survivable… and I was very hungry.”

They heard the sounds of footsteps on the stairs, and Tybalt turned to see Dero, Victoria, Vidalia, and Kistana descending, all smiles. The catgirl was nervous, which he found adorable.

“We’ll work out a feeding schedule,” Mariella said quietly, looking at Liora.

Tybalt turned and saw the vampire nodding with obvious reluctance, clearly thinking she had already fed on the best, so why try the rest?

“I’ll see the two of you later,” he said. He gave Liora a kiss on the cheek and kissed Mariella quickly on the lips before turning back to Kistana.

The catgirl stood before him in a dress more modest than the one Tybalt had seen her in back in the dressmaker’s store, probably to avoid him ripping it off of her and cancelling their time out entirely. It was not very different from that dress other than that it didn’t have the openings in the sides and therefore didn’t seem to explicitly offer her body to him.

“Come on,” he said, extending his arm.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

He ignored the question, kissed his other wives goodbye, and led Kistana out of the house and finally out of town.

Once they were outside the Whadesgart gates, Tybalt teleported them far away.