Chapter 447: Bitten by My Beautiful Vampire Wife

“I’m heading to the United States of America, state of Maine,” Luke said when his turn finally came to present his VIP card.

“We’ll escort you to a waiting room. Unfortunately, all teleportations are temporarily blocked. A noble is about to use the system with their entourage, and for safety reasons we don’t allow anyone else to use it during that time,” the attendant explained. “My apologies, but for some reason a lot of important figures decided to show up today.”

Luke sighed. “It’s fine…”

“But it will be available in one hour. Shall I reserve your spot?”

One hour? What kind of nonsense was that? Wasn’t teleportation supposed to be instant?

“Yes, reserve it,” he said.

***

Luke sat alone in the private waiting room, silently cursing the nobles for locking down the entire teleportation hub. Still, he hadn’t planned on leaving immediately anyway. Those twenty minutes he managed to secure were exactly what he needed. There was one thing he absolutely had to do before teleporting.

He summoned Charlie out of his soul. She stepped into the room as if materializing from the air, blinking in confusion at the unfamiliar space.

“What’s happening, Master Luke?” she asked.

He didn’t waste time. He wasn’t going to sugarcoat or circle around it.

“Charlie… I want you to do your vampire thing and feed on my blood.”

He had already prepared himself for this. His Dark Blood was under strict control, pulled inward, condensed near his heart. Only the normal red blood flowed through the rest of his body. He didn’t want her accidentally drinking the black blood and watching it leap back out of her mouth, returning to him on its own, or worse, plugging the bite wound and stopping the flow of red blood altogether.

So he had slowly commanded, mentally, not physically, the living Dark Blood to retreat. A bizarre process, but it worked. The blood listened.

“Master Luke…” she murmured. “You saw it yourself. I’m only losing one point of HP every few minutes. I could hold on for weeks before starving.”

He stepped closer. “I’ll be in Maine for a while, and you know that.”

“But I can wait inside your soul. I can sleep there and stay inactive,” she insisted.

“You told me you wanted to meet my family. Was that a lie?” he asked.

“It wasn’t. I do want to meet them, Master Luke.”

“Then let’s handle this now. Feed from me. The teleportation staff will call me in a few minutes.”

Charlie sat on the edge of the bed. “I can meet them a little, then go back to sleep in your soul.”

She wasn’t wrong. He’d considered that possibility himself.

“But I need you at your strongest. And what if I end up in danger?” he said.

She narrowed her eyes. “That’s not fair. You’re playing dirty.”

“Yep. After all this time with me, you should’ve figured out I always cheat to win,” he replied.

Charlie crossed her arms and turned her face away, lips forming a small pout. “No, Master Luke. I said no. Stop insisting.”

He recognized that expression. Skeleton Charlie used to do it too. Except now… she actually had a real pout.

He sat beside her and leaned in, close enough that she stiffened.

“Y you’re really close, Master Luke,” she whispered, stumbling over the words.

“Charlie… I care about you,” he said quietly.

“Y-you care?” Her voice was small, almost disbelieving.

“Of course I do. You matter to me. That’s why I’m giving you a choice. If you don’t want to do this, then I’ll just introduce only Angie to my family.”

‘Lord Luke… I do not mind being used by you, but this is unfair to her’, Angie’s voice murmured in his mind.

Charlie blinked at him, confused. Her mouth opened as if she wanted to speak, then closed again.

“You’re very mean, Master Luke…” she muttered.

“Being mean is fine if it’s for a good reason,” he replied. “So here’s the bonus: if you do this, I’ll let you hold my hand again.”

He would use every weapon he had against his enemies, apparently including emotional blackmail on his own servants.

“O-okay, Master Luke,” she agreed softly. “I want to meet your family, and… I want to hold your hand again. I’ll only take a little bit of your blood.”

He exhaled in relief. “Problem solved.”

There was no alternative anyway. If she didn’t feed, she would eventually wither and lose her sanity.

Luke began pulling off his shirt.

“W-w-what are you doing, Master Luke? We’re really going to do this now? I-I’m not even ready…” She covered her face with both hands.

“You’re embarrassed?” he asked, genuinely puzzled, pausing halfway through taking the shirt off.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Y-yes… you don’t have to take your shirt off…”

“Huh? But when you were naked you didn’t seem embarrassed. It’s just me without a shirt.”

“T-that’s different,” she mumbled.

Luke pulled the collar aside instead, exposing the side of his neck. Samael had explained that a vampire could draw blood from anywhere, wrist, shoulder, wherever, but the neck was the preferred spot. Something about flavor, tied to proximity to the brain. Like how some parts of a chicken were tastier than others.

Charlie’s cheeks were bright red as she glanced up at him.

“M-Master Luke… if I hurt you, just push me away so I stop,” she said.

Her canines lengthened, just a little.

Okay… that’s mildly terrifying, he thought. Not something he’d say out loud, of course.

Charlie leaned in. Her breath brushed his skin. Her lips hovered at his neck. Luke wasn’t sure why he was this tense. He’d been cut in half, stabbed, shot with arrows, bisected by swords, but needles? Needles he hated.

He braced for that sharp sting of a blood draw when Charlie bit down, but… nothing. He blinked, surprised, glancing at her to confirm she’d actually bitten him. She had, her mouth was on his neck. And then a warm, pleasant sensation spread through him, soft and almost euphoric.

Oh. So that’s the compatibility thing…

He’d read in Samael’s notes that a vampire’s bite could be either excruciating or strangely pleasurable. It depended entirely on the emotional bond between vampire and target. That was why vampires seduced. If they managed to win someone’s trust, the act of feeding became painless, even pleasant. Malicious, of course, since the whole point was to turn their victim into livestock.

There were also vampires who didn’t bother with seduction at all. Their bites hurt. Which left him with two explanations for why it wasn’t hurting. Either Charlie was somehow trying to seduce him… or they were simply that close.

Now he felt guilty for having lightly manipulated her earlier. She had feelings for him. Real ones.

After a moment, Charlie pulled back. She wiped the corner of her mouth, still stained with his blood.