The Crimson Reaper-Chapter 61: Get a Room

The group, along with the children, finally entered the minibus, which would transport them to the shelter in about twenty minutes. Luciel and Melisa were thankful that this bus wasn’t protected against vampires.

The bus was almost full, with Luciel sitting next to the window at the back, and lined up next to him were Helen and Melisa. Alex and Scarlet were following the minibus inside their own cars and while Alex wanted to join with Luciel, Scarlet didn’t share the same opinion.

There was an uncomfortable silence among the party members while the minibus was filled with children’s voices who were happy that they would finally reach a safe place.

For Luciel, who had his head leaned against the window with his eyes closed, this pure silence between Helen, him, and Melisa didn’t bother him. This was one more hard night and just being like this brought him some peace while trying to stay in control.

He was getting a bit worried about arriving at the shelter because he would be in a closed space, with at least thousands of people. The lingering smell of humans would surely be present and with him in a starved state, who knows what might happen.

"Luciel... How are you doing?" Helen placed her hand on his shoulder, shaking him a little. Ever since they sat down, he hadn’t said a word.

"Huh?" Luciel blinked with his eyes a few times, being a little dizzy and disoriented as he was about to fall asleep.

"He’s exhausted. Probably used too much of his Qi." Melisa crossed her arms and legs, not bothering to look at the two while she spoke.

"His Qi?" Helen tilted her head to the left before going to stare at Luciel. ’Just what did you do in this last month and a half?’ She couldn’t help herself but wonder. Not only was he acting slightly different when it came to his habits, but also tapped into something that even she didn’t hear about.

"Ever heard about the life force inside every human being?" Luciel asked her, not knowing how he should explain to her something that she never heard about.

"Um... Excuse me, what?" She laughed a little, thinking that those two were just joking with her, but Luciel’s look had told her otherwise.

"Sorry." Helen apologized, clearing her throat as she moved her fist in front of her lips, "So... Care to share more?"

"We will, but not now." Melisa pointed toward the hunters who didn’t take their eyes off them, carefully observing the vampires for any trouble.

"All you need to know for now is that we can’t live without it and while there are other ways, the most efficient way for us to gather it is by drinking human blood. We evolved in that way." She added, pointing at Luciel since she wanted to prompt Helen to give him some of her blood.

Melisa didn’t want to share this information at all, vampires were making sure to keep this a secret because this information could be devastating if humans would figure out what makes them tick, but unfortunately, she had no other choice if she wanted her twin brother to be saved.

"Blood, huh..." This life energy that Melisa had mentioned was hard to believe in, it sounded made up, like something taken from stories of old.

During her research, she was never faced with any kind of readings that would indicate that there was something else besides flesh and blood. Even when studying the vampire anatomy, there were no signs of some kind of organ that was responsible for life energy.

When it came to the unique abilities that vampires possessed, like divine arts that humans had, no one really thought how it actually worked since it didn’t seem too different from what humans were using.

The only weird thing that Helen had noticed was that vampires would start craving blood after an excessive use of their powers.

"Luciel..." Helen extended her arm, exposing her wrist to her husband, encouraging him to eat, just as she wanted to do so on the battlefield, but didn’t get the chance. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

He looked at her wrist once she called out his name, gulping some salvia that was quickly forming inside his mouth as he tried not to drool.

Seeing blue veins beneath her white skin, Luciel clenched his fist at the gnawing thirst inside his throat, a wild instinct whispering at the back of his head to take the bite.

While still trying to get used to this new nature, ever since meeting with Helen, trying to accept himself was slowly starting to get easier.

"Thank you..." He gave her a soft, reassuring smile before gently placing his hand against the back of hers.

With his other free hand, Luciel revealed his sharp, black claws, making her flinch at the sight before he made a small cut on her wrist. Just the smell of this sweet blood was making him want to go wild with his eyes giving off a slight glow at the pure excitement after a realization that he was finally able to feed.

"They are pretty useful, aren’t they?" He asked her, raising his hand into the air and rotating it a little so she could get a better look before he retracted them.

While not afraid of seeing the vampire’s claws, it was still shocking to see her loved one do something like that while the last time she had seen Luciel, he was still human.

Not wanting to inject his venom inside her body again, he was about to try a trick that Kai had attempted on Alex, but failed.

Retracting his fangs, Luciel brought closer Helen’s wrist before placing his warm lips on top of the wound he made.

He closed his eyes the moment his taste buds touched Helen’s blood and his mouth got filled with a flavor of hot chocolate mixed in with strawberry syrup.

Luciel had a chance to taste blood only from a small number of people, but so far, only Helen’s blood tasted almost angelic.

As Luciel was drinking, his salvia made sure to numb the pain and disinfect the wound, making this experience quite enjoyable for Helen. In fact, a vampire drinking someone’s blood was never described as painful. What people would usually report was fear.

While he was busy with feeding, Helen looked at the hunters who were already standing, ready to take action, but she quickly shook her head, symbolizing to the hunters to sit down before switching her focus back to her husband.

She moved her free hand towards him, placing it on his head as she started to play with his raven black hair until he was finally done with eating.

Before opening his eyes, Luciel made a small distance between himself and her wrist before slowly licking the wound and opening his red, crimson eyes to see that Helen’s cheeks were red.

He wanted to keep on drinking but managed to force himself to take only the necessary amount since it hadn’t been long since the last time he stabbed his fangs into her neck.

"Come to think of it, you hurt your hand the first time we met, didn’t you?" He asked her, releasing her wrist from his grip.

"So... You remembered about that just now?" She gave him a playful glare before placing her other hand on his wrist. Helen already wanted to ask him to do this for her, but so many things were happening that she didn’t get a chance to ask.

"Sorry about that." Luciel laughed nervously, feeling guilty. He gathered some salvia inside his mouth before spitting it on the palm so he could carefully rub it onto her burn marks, disinfecting the wound and to speed up the healing.

"You know, having a vampire by your side does have its benefits." She joked at the whole situation, but stood by her words as she stared at her hand, feeling how the pain was going away.

"Oh, get a room you two." Melisa rolled with her eyes, sticking out her tongue in disgust at hearing those two talk while being grateful that the minibus had stopped.

Looking through a window, Melisa could see a giant church with three towers raising up toward the sky while its painted, colorful windows were casting a warm glow from the lights that were within it.