Chapter 461: I don’t want to be alone anymore.

"Your empire... what’s the total population?"

Ethan asked unhurriedly, both hands occupied.

Sitting on his lap with her back to him, the beautiful vampire empress let him play freely with her fat, heavy tits.

They were a pleasant weight in his palms, cold and smooth, far too large for his hands to cover. With each squeeze, the white flesh bulged out between his fingers and spilled over the edges of his hands.

"Hmm..." Carmilla shifted, the plump cheeks of her backside grinding lazily against his lap as she pressed her back even closer to his chest.

"The traitors are already dead, or very nearly so, so I shall count only the loyal ones... Four Ancestors, five hundred noble vampires, ten thousand purebloods, some two hundred thousand half-breeds, and perhaps a million humans, most of whom are kept rather like cattle in cold, isolated villages..."

She sighed, and the sound grew a little heavier when Ethan’s thumb brushed over one of her puffy nipples.

"I imagine my dear husband will wish to change that, won’t he?" There was a giggle in her voice. "The purebloods and the nobles wouldn’t dare refuse my orders... And should the Ancestors refuse, well, thinning their numbers a little further would be no trouble at all."

There wasn’t a shred of attachment in that voice. Carmilla spoke as if the empire itself were already part of Goldenveil, a wedding gift like any other.

Killing the Ancestors of her own race was something she would do as casually as one might crush an insect.

They were powerful, of course. Each of them was on par with Ysara.

But against Carmilla, a quasi-seventh-stage being, they were nothing more than ants.

"Your people won’t have to give up human blood, but they can no longer take it by force if you truly wish for them to be part of Goldenveil."

Ethan spoke calmly, his hands never stopping their work.

He gathered her two breasts together, squeezing them against each other until a deep valley formed between them and the soft flesh rose up in a plump swell above his hands.

Then he eased his grip, feeling them slide apart and drop back into place with a heavy bounce, the pale flesh wobbling a moment before it went still.

"I can revise Goldenveil’s laws. The state can provide a quota of donated blood to those who need it. Aside from that, the army may also maintain its own reserve for vampires who wish to join future special units."

Honestly, the issue of blood wasn’t all that complicated.

Noble and ancient vampires had immense fortunes and could simply buy whatever they needed.

In Goldenveil, where he decided what was moral and what wasn’t, it would be easy to create legal means for the safe and regulated sale of blood.

Everything would go through the duchy’s hospitals and healers, who would guarantee pure, disease-free blood that was safe for consumption.

Purebloods and half-breeds, on the other hand, could live as ordinary citizens, feeding on human food and wine, since they only needed blood for combat.

If they wanted blood, all they had to do was join the army. If they preferred a peaceful life, the green fairy’s wine was good enough, even if it didn’t completely replace blood.

"Vampires don’t lose control and go on killing sprees, do they?" Ethan gently pinched one of her nipples, rolling the stiff chubby bud between his thumb and forefinger. "That would be problematic."

"Certain bloodlines did suffer from that affliction." Carmilla tilted her head back, resting it on his shoulder, her long hair spilling down over his arm.

"But they all joined the ranks of the traitors and were duly exterminated. Among my own servants... No. Most are much like humans. They may suffer bouts of madness or illnesses of the mind, but it is hardly common."

"Good." Ethan smiled, his hands going still, cupped beneath her breasts and simply holding their weight, the cool undersides resting heavy in his palms as he thought.

In truth, he had feared that vampires might end up taking over Goldenveil completely, relentlessly turning the human population into vampires.

Fortunately, according to Carmilla, that wouldn’t be a problem.

Only she, the other four Ancestors, and the noble vampires were capable of turning humans into half-vampires, and the ritual left them quite weak, so they avoided doing it.

Beyond that, vampires could reproduce, but their fertility was far lower than that of humans.

All things considered, it shouldn’t be too difficult to bring an entire vampire population into Goldenveil.

Soon, Ethan broached the most delicate subject. It was what worried him the most, but he knew he couldn’t avoid addressing it.

His hands slid down from her breasts, trailing over the smooth, cool skin of her belly before coming to rest on her slender waist.

"I already have a principal wife. She bears my heir, and in the future, when I elevate my duchy to an empire, she will be the High Empress of Goldenveil."

"I am quite aware of that," Carmilla replied without hesitation. "Goldenveil, the Blood Rose Empire, my own dynasty... Frankly, my dear, I am far too old to trouble myself over such things."

She turned in Ethan’s lap until she was facing him.

Her heavy breasts swung with the movement, swaying once before they pressed into him and spread out softly, the cool flesh flattening between their bodies.

Carmilla wrapped her arms around him and rubbed her face against his chest.

"I wish only to be with my Emperor for all eternity. I don’t want to be alone anymore."

For a moment, Carmilla’s voice wavered.

"Do you know... while I slept, I was not truly sleeping. It was all darkness, yet I could feel, I could hear, I could think. I felt every second pass. Thousands of years... I screamed into the dark, I fought against time itself."

Her fingers dug a little deeper into his back.

"It was a death without eternal rest."

She lifted her face and looked into Ethan’s eyes, losing herself for a moment in his beauty.

"It was so terrible... But the ring set me free. It told me that someone had found my other half." She toyed with the ring on her finger as she spoke.

Her red eyes trembled, and her voice—usually so noble and grand—came out fragile.

"That is what gave me the strength to break free of my eternal slumber and kill every last one of those traitors."

She brought both hands to Ethan’s face. Her cold palms cupped his cheeks, and her thumbs lightly brushed his skin, as if to make sure he was real.

"I don’t want to be alone anymore."