Chapter 12
1544words
She had become the "canary" Elias wanted—a silent bird with all its feathers plucked out. She no longer resisted, no longer used that painting to provoke him. She simply carried out the contract, empty and mechanical. She ate meals on time, sat in front of the enormous canvas for entire days, painting lifeless landscapes. She would punctually accept the medical reports about Leo that Julian handed to her, then numbly say "thank you."
She was dead. Her soul was already dead.
And this kind of "numbness" was driving Elias Thorne to madness.
This wasn't what he wanted. What he wanted was "fire," was "vitality." He thought that by crushing her resistance, he would gain her "submission," but she had chosen a higher form of defiance—she had become a walking corpse.
The "hatred" in her blood had disappeared, but the "fire" had extinguished with it.
That night, Emma was in the bathroom.
She had just finished showering, wrapped in a silky bathrobe that wasn't hers and was too large for her. Looking at her pale, hollow self in the mirror, she felt so unfamiliar.
She turned on the faucet, repeatedly splashing cold water on her face, trying to recapture some sense of "being alive."
When she turned off the water, there was another figure in the steam-filled bathroom.
Elias was standing right behind her.
Emma didn't even bother to scream. Her heartbeat merely skipped heavily once, then resumed its deathly, slow rhythm. She just numbly turned around, leaning back against the cold marble sink.
"You look," Elias's voice was low, with a hint of irritation he himself hadn't noticed, "like that dead bird in your painting."
Emma didn't answer. She just kept her head down, looking at her toes.
"Look at me, Emma," he commanded.
She slowly raised her head, and there was nothing in those eyes. No hatred, no fear, nothing at all.
This emptiness thoroughly enraged Elias.
He had waited for six centuries. He had endured these weeks. He was tired of this "gaze" that barely scratched the surface, tired of this platonic "imprisonment."
That pull he felt from "destiny" was becoming restless due to her "numbness."
"I'm tired of waiting, Emma." He walked toward her, and that icy breath instantly filled the small bathroom.
Emma instinctively backed away until her back hit the cold tile wall.
"Elias... no..."
A faint trace of fear finally ignited in her empty eyes.
This was it.
Elias's golden eyes instantly darkened. This was what he wanted. If he couldn't obtain "submission," then he would rather taste her "fear."
"Do you think you have a choice?" He grabbed her shoulders, firmly pinning her against the wall.
That familiar, nauseating "pulling sensation" reached its peak in this moment. The blood in her body was screaming, craving his touch.
"No... please... let me go..." She began to struggle, her hands pushing against his ice-cold chest, but her strength was laughably weak.
Her resistance seemed to please him. He chuckled, his arm sliding under her knees as he effortlessly lifted her up.
"Ah!" The sudden sensation of weightlessness made Emma cry out, and she instinctively wrapped her arms around his neck.
Elias carried her, striding out of the bathroom, through the dim hallway, and into that luxurious bedroom, where he threw her onto the massive bed soft enough to swallow everything.
Emma tried to crawl away, but he had already covered her, trapping her between the bed and his body.
"I'm tired of waiting for your 'surrender'." He lowered his head, his ice-cold lips brushing against her ear, his voice terrifyingly hoarse, "If I can only have your fear... then I'll taste your fear first."
He buried his face in the crook of her neck.
Emma could feel his cold nose tip, could feel his burning breath. She trembled violently from fear and that strange sense of "destiny."
Then, she felt it.
A slight, needle-like sharp pain.
His fangs pierced the most tender skin on the side of her neck.
Emma's scream was caught in her throat by her own sharp intake of breath.
Pain.
But that pain lasted only a second, immediately replaced by an indescribable, dizzying wave of sensation.
This wasn't simply "pleasure." This was a kind of... sweet invasion.
A weak electrical current seemed to surge from where he was feeding, instantly spreading throughout her entire body. Her strength was rapidly drained away; her hands, which had been pushing against him, lost their power, sliding down limply and unconsciously grabbing the sheets beneath her.
Blood continued to flow out steadily, her body grew colder, yet strangely, her cheeks flushed red, and she even felt warmer.
An unfamiliar, tingling pleasure washed over her nerves in waves, following the rhythm of his sucking.
She didn't want to think... didn't want to contemplate why the feeling of having her life drained away wasn't so bad. She only wanted to immerse herself in this strange, forcibly bestowed pleasure.
Elias noticed the changes in her body.
She no longer struggled. Her once tense body became soft, even unconsciously trembling slightly beneath him—not trembling from fear, but as a sign of surrender.
He let out a satisfied sigh.
He finally tasted it.
In Emma's blood, there was a mixture of her freshly ignited fear, her deeply hidden despair, and from the depths of her soul... a certain compliance.
This taste... was a thousand times more delicious than he had imagined.
His feeding motion... changed.
No longer uncontrolled plundering, but deeper, slower, with an almost savoring, shiver-inducing gentleness.
The hand that had been restraining her wrist released, and instead slid into her hair, gently and soothingly stroking her head.
He was addicted.
He drank greedily, that power nearly making him lose control.
He should stop. He knew continuing would kill her.
But he couldn't stop. Even after she completely gave up resistance, he continued the shudder-inducing sucking while gently licking the skin around the wound with the tip of his tongue, bringing waves of even more intense tremors mixed with slight pain and extreme pleasure.
"Elias..." Emma let out a kitten-like whimper with a hint of tears in her voice. Her consciousness began to blur, but her body seemed not her own as it pressed closer to him.
This sound brought back his last trace of rationality.
Elias abruptly raised his head and released her.
The sudden loss of connection left Emma feeling empty. She collapsed onto the messy bed, breathing heavily, her gaze unfocused, her entire body weak with pleasure. On her neck, two small, delicate puncture wounds were slowly oozing droplets of blood, appearing particularly striking against her fair skin.
Elias propped himself up, breathing rapidly. His lips were crimson, and in his golden eyes burned a dark flame that felt foreign even to himself, the desire within not yet fully subsided.
He looked at her lying limp on the bed, her face flushed pink and eyes moist, then glanced at his own blood-stained fingers.
He extended his tongue and licked away the blood at the edge of his lips, the motion carrying a predatory elegance and cruelty.
"Now," his voice was terribly hoarse, "you understand your value."
Emma couldn't say a word. She just curled up there, her body still trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the physiological response to the lingering waves of pleasure.
A strange "connection" had been established.
She could...feel him. Not as clear thoughts, but as a vague emotional background noise. She could sense that fierce "hunger" in Elias that had just subsided, as well as a...mixture of extreme satisfaction and residual irritability stemming from his loss of control.
He had violated her body, and now, he was even beginning to invade her thoughts.
After a long while, Emma finally found her voice, with a hint of huskiness from being soaked in desire, and asked the question that made her feel ashamed: "Why...do I...feel..."
She couldn't even fully articulate words like "good" or "pleasure."
Elias understood instantly. His golden eyes darkened, and the corner of his mouth curved into a complex arc, mixing mockery with a deep sense of possession.
"My saliva," he answered her confusion, his voice low, "is a natural catalyst for those who are fed upon. It numbs pain, amplifies... pleasure. It's a hunting instinct, designed to make prey abandon resistance."
He paused, leaned closer, his fingertips almost touching the wound on her neck. Seeing Emma instinctively shrink back from his proximity yet revealing a hint of longing, he whispered with satisfaction.
"But such an intense reaction... perhaps it's not entirely due to the saliva, Emma."
Those words were like a needle, piercing through Emma's chaotic thoughts. Her eyes flew open as a chill mixed with deeper shame washed over her.
Was it because of her? Was it because of her shameful hidden Stockholm syndrome, or because of the so-called "destiny" that, in the moment their blood mingled, dragged her into an abyss of depravity?
She didn't know.
She only knew that after this blood-drinking, something had changed.
That boundary line between her and Elias had become blurred.
Toward him, besides hatred and fear, there was indeed mixed in a trace of strange emotion that she could not define and was even more unwilling to acknowledge.
