Euphoria Is Painful

ii. Beast

"Mikaaa~ where were you?" Nikolai yelled out as Mikhail walked into the room.

"Shouldn't his injury be your first concern, you fool?" "Aah!!" Nikolai rubbed his head as Felix punched him. "You're mean. Well, how's the wound?" Mikhail sighed. Nikolai would never change

"I'm fine. It..... It's healed."

"WHAT??!!" Nikolai and Felix exclaimed.

Mikhail sighed as he pulled his half buttoned shirt off, showing the wound where the silver had lost it's lustre. A mere pat from Mikhail made the blackened silver fall off.

"But Luca said that that silver was of the highest purity. Even fresh blood would take a large dosage and time to make it heal decently. How did this happen?"

Vampires had only one weakness. Silver. It was like poison to them and it was the only accurate prediction that humans had made. Any old silver was useless. But high-purity silver, which was extremely hard to obtain and was only produced naturally, could kill regular vampires and severely maim pure-bloods.

Mikhail was conflicted. He wanted to keep it a secret but knew all too well that lies would never work on the the three people who he had been with for as long as he could remember. Reluctantly, he recounted.

"A human girl thought I was a human and tried to dress my wounds. One thing led to another and I drank her blood." Nikolai's face relaxed a bit but Felix was as stiff as ever.

"So like, she dead?" Nikolai's question made Felix sigh. "Of course, she would be. How much blood do you think was needed for th-"

"She's alright."

At that moment, Mikhail really did think that Niko and Felix's eyes would pop right out of their sockets.

"Ayaya! Looks like we've got some suspicious shit going on. What say you, Sir Felixio~?" Felix rolled his eyes.

"Either Mika awakened or that girl has some phenomenal blood. I'm not well versed in medicine. We should approach Luciel about this."

"But I'm pretty sure that Luca is not even in the territory. He mentioned something about silver ores and said that he would be away for a bit."

Mikhail lifted his eyebrow as if asking Niko to elaborate.

"Oh right, you were busy getting stabbed. There were rumours that some Vampire Hunters found a pretty big silver vein in the South and were secretly extracting it or something. Luca wanted to make sure that we could keep them in check." Mikhail nodded.

"Anywho~ So like, was she cute?" Felix was done with Nikolai at this point. He made himself comfortable on a couch and proceeded to grab a book on Geology. Mikhail wondered.

'She was.' But there was no way in hell that he would admit that to Niko whose main hobby was to annoy people about their romantic interests. He had broken so many hearts for fun, it was absurd. But he too had the excuse of 'I'm flirty by nature. That's what I'm known for. They should've known.'

"I don't remember her face." Nikolai looked at him with his eyes gleaming suspiciously but he uttered not another word. It was starting to bore him already.

"Oh yeah, Mika, you should look into the ledgers and whatnot. Some of those fat fucks have been moving suspiciously. And you know how greedy humans can be with their feeble lifespan. I don't know where the fuck you keep that shit so I haven't made Lee check it."

That immediately reminded him of the condition the girl's room was in. He was a man who firmly believed in fair compensation and it was a rule that all the maids quarters were to be well maintained as well. It was a fund allocated to the human ministers who would hire workers to perform routine maintenance in every room in the castle, including the living quarters of the servants.

"I noticed. Some fucker is embezzling funds. He ought to be tortured. Let me see the ledgers."

His first was clenched tightly as he imagined Lily having to sleep under a ceiling that could collapse at any given moment.
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A few hours earlier~

Lily had woken up rather comfortably. Usually it would be so cold that she would shake and shiver as she woke up but today it was quite warm.

'Was that a dream?' She wondered, still in a daze. Her hand travelled to her neck but there were no injuries.

However she was quickly proven wrong when she felt a puff of air on her chest. The vampire man who she thought was a dream was sleeping with his face against her chest and his arms around her waist. She would've shrieked if she could but she could only let out a gasp.

"Looks like you're up....." The man said, clearly still tired. His usual voice was deeper than a lake but his morning voice sounded as if it was straight out of a bottomless abyss.

"I'm not going to hurt you. Now, I'm still tired. Go to sleep." She was scared of him but she also didn't want to be whipped for being late for work. So she tried to grab the paper she kept with her but he interrupted.

"Don't worry about the work shit. I- The uhh... King said that today would be a day of leisure." She blinked in surprise. This was the first she'd heard about this. 'But if he's a high ranking official, then he's probably right.... Besides, I don't think anyone would question him. So I should be fine, right?'

Even then she wasn't really tired anymore. She wanted to continue working on the coat she was making. She had recently learned to sew and wanted to improve her skills.

She tried getting up again but the man groaned, not letting her go. "Ngh.... Don't go. This is the best sleep I've had in a while...."

She reluctantly gestured him to move again and this time he did so with a sigh. She grabbed her sewing materials and then sat back on her small bed next to him.

"Huh?" She tapped his shoulder before gesturing him to lay down on her lap.

His heart started to race weirdly. He didn't know what this feeling was but it wasn't all that bad. He slowly crawled up and rested his head onto her lap.

For a moment, her small fingers cascaded down his messy hair. His breath hitched. This...... Was surprisingly pleasant.

His face betrayed his confusion however and she quickly withdrew her hand, wondering if she had accidentally overstepped her authority, her expression now worried

But then he gently guided her hand back to his hair. "Continue......"

A small smile was etched into her lips. Looks like she won't be sewing afterall.
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She woke up from her nap. Her hands were unoccupied.

The vampire man was nowhere to be seen and she was lying down.

She looked outside. It looked dark but the enormous clock tower to the north showed the time to be merely 4 in the evening. The rain was arriving, it seemed.

She wanted to meet him again.

He was gentle. Granted, he had taken her blood, but he was a vampire and she would find it strange if he hadn't done that.

'Besides it didn't hurt..... It felt....' A blush crept up her lovely cheeks and she shook her head, trying to rid herself of it.

She really wished to meet him again however.

She was gentle by nature and liked caring for others. He wasn't a man who needed any of that but he still let her do it. It really felt good to be able to do the one thing she really wanted to, albeit in a strange manner.

'I hope he recovers.....'

Lily soon stepped out into the hall and down to the enormous kitchen. It was quite lively.

Nay, not everyone was present. It was but a few maids and soldiers but everyone laughed and exchanged jokes as they sat around and drank what she thought was wine.

Suddenly, however, they felt her presence and turned to her. She gulped.

They too were vampires.

'If they were to decide to hurt me all together, I shall fail to stop them. I should return immediat-'

"Oi, you! Wanna hang out?" She froze.