Chapter 231: Am I more killable to you?
"A— what?" Eloise asked slowly as her eyes went wide.
Caius opened his mouth to speak more about the bombshell he had just dropped on this pretty songbird when Kaya chose to interject.
"A Vampire," she said, "You know, Creatures of the night. Masters of darkness. Beings of pure bloodsucking evil..."
Despite the terms and the almost macabre grandness to them, Kaya had a smile on her face to show—if it wasn’t already clear considering she had known about this and accepted it for so long—that she was mostly just having fun.
Caius rolled his eyes just as Eloise shook her head at Kaya.
"No, he’s not," she said and then looked at Caius, "No, you’re not."
At this point, Caius’s hand had dropped from her cheek and he directed his eyes towards it, causing Eloise to follow and stare at the back of his hand just as veins surfaced and his fingernails transformed into claws that glinted almost metallically. ’Threatening’ their ability to pierce through any skin no matter how thick.
Eloise became very aware that a little swipe from any one of those claws would rip through her soft skin as easily as a hot knife through butter and with that thought in mind, she looked up from Caius’s hand and back to his face.
His eyes were no longer their normal purple hue but a blood red color oozing with sanguine hunger. His canines were fangs glinting with the same level of sharpness as the claws she had just looked up from.
There was no denying it now.
It was true.
Caius was a Vampire.
Caius studied her expression. He knew Eloise quite well through [To Kill A Demon Lord...] but never had a secret of this magnitude been revealed to her in that narrative. At least not like this. Not with a desire for her to keep that secret. And although he felt he could guess what her reaction would be... You just can never be sure...
"This. Is. So... Fucking Cool!!!" Eloise yelled then. The shock of the revelation melted away in a second and was replaced with an ecstatic expression.
Plus, this might count as the first time Caius had ever heard her cuss.
"It is, isn’t it?" Kaya said then with a smile to match her friend’s.
"It so is!" Eloise agreed with multiple emphatic nods, "It’s like you know one thing, think it’s great, think it can never be better, and then, Bam!, you learn they’ve got something even more up their sleeve."
Caius was so taken by surprise with the level of joy(?) following this revelation that he could not help but be contrarian.
"My vampirism is not a party trick I’m pulling out of my hat, you know," he said.
"Oh, hush, it definitely is," Kaya said with a light slap to his shoulder while she kept her attention on Eloise,
"You just wait till he bites you. It starts off painful... then it just feels so good."
"Oh, sort of like losing your virginity," Eloise said.
Kaya clicked her fingers at her as she said emphatically,
"Exactly."
"Oh, I can’t wait," Eloise said with a bit of a moan and then she looked at Caius with a grin,
"Better yet, let’s get right to it. Come on, Caius, my Vampire hunk, hmmm, bite me..."
"Now hold on a second," Caius said then as he sat up completely. His eyes were back to normal and his fangs and claws had been retracted.
"What, you didn’t reveal this to me just not to bite me, did you?" Eloise asked and she looked disappointed now, "So help me gods, I’ll have your fangs in my body today no matter what."
"The point of this wasn’t to bite you..." Caius started.
"It wasn’t?" Kaya said then and laughed a bit, "Ha, come on Caius, it definitely was."
"You made this happen, not me," Caius said then turning around so he could wag a finger at Kaya.
Kaya shrugged.
"Well, of course I did. It’s been weeks. It was about time she knew," she said.
Caius opened his mouth but Eloise talked over him.
"Oh that’s right," she said pointing at Kaya, "You’ve known this all along."
"Yes, I have," Kaya said.
Eloise looked like she struggled between anger at being left out of this for any amount of time and gratitude for Kaya supposedly orchestrating the reveal.
Eventually, she shrugged.
"Well, that’s fine," she said, "I was guessing it already."
"No, you weren’t," Kaya said, "You believed all he could do was because of his talents."
"And is it not?" Eloise retorted, dodging admittance that she had indeed not guessed Caius’s true nature.
Kaya shrugged.
"Well, of course he has talent. It just gets to shine brighter since he’s not bogged down by the nuisances that plague us normal people."
"Hmm, I see," Eloise said, "And what are those advantages?"
Kaya opened her mouth to reveal all she had learned about Vampirism both in private research as well as what Caius had revealed to her, but Caius interrupted her.
Fed up with getting talked over, Caius pulled himself back into the conversation,
"Eloise, I didn’t think you’ve had the time to really process this," he said, "Kaya got to process it. You should too."
Kaya couldn’t really dispute that.
Really, she should have actually gotten to process it before her and Caius did the deed on that day but the circumstances at the time had made things happen in a different order. This time, there were no extenuating circumstances to force things down a certain path and so Caius felt he needed to let Eloise really take things in.
He wanted her to be accepting but there’s just so much acceptance a person can accept, apparently.
"I’ve processed it," Eloise said.
"I don’t think you have," Caius insisted.
"You’re a Vampire, and I think that’s awesome," Eloise said, "What more is there?"
"How about the fact that my nature drives me to siphon every blood in your body to evolve my strength?" Caius asked.
That was taking it too far and he’d never kill her so Caius had no idea why he said those words but they had been said and that was a reality of Vampires. Even if it wasn’t really Caius’s.
Eloise searched his eyes.
"Are you— are you trying to scare me off?" She asked, "Do you not want me here?"
"What, of course, I do," Caius answered.
"Then what’s with the doom and gloom?" Eloise asked and gestured at Kaya, "She’s known about this supposedly for weeks and you haven’t siphoned her of all she has so why would you do that to me?
Or am I just more... killable to you?"
"No," Caius said.
"Then just shut up and feed on me," Eloise said with a smile, "Take as much as you need to evolve. Just leave enough behind that I live so we can do it all again another day."
Caius paused and then he smiled.
For how long would he act like he wasn’t getting what he wanted? What tests would he devise to test Eloise’s words and conviction?
Did he even care to devise those tests?
The answer to that last question was no. There were no tests required and Caius felt comfortable in welcoming Eloise to the fold. It was a long time coming and should have happened a long time ago.
Eloose studied his smile and smiled as well before she cleared her throat and asked.
"So arm or neck?"
"Neck is definitely best," Kaya said, "Feels so much like a kiss from my experience."
"Then let’s do it," Eloise said and cocked her head to the side while moving her golden-brown hair to expose her smooth, creamy neck.
"Actually..." Caius started to say but Kaya, apparently taking on the role of his personal assistant for the day, interjected,
"It doesn’t really work that way."
"Then how does it work?"
Kaya launched into an explanation then,
"Well, there are two kinds of feeding. There’s the regular stuff that sates thirst but doesn’t taste as good or offer any real benefits. And there’s Evolutionary feeding where a Vampire elicits its Evolution trigger within you and then feeds on a sweeter tasting blood whose energy is used to fuel their Evolution."
She had learned that from Caius but somehow it sounded better than the explanation he had been planning to give.
"So what is his ’Evolution Trigger’?" Eloise asked with a gesture at Caius.
"Arousal," Kaya answered promptly.
"Oh," Eloise said as her cheeks went red and an amorous smile appeared on her lips.
Kaya nodded to that expression.
"Yeah, she said with a grin of her own,
"It’s so fucking good."