Chapter 15: Sylvia’s self-harm.

Sylvia heard Aelia’s cries and wanted to get up to comfort her, but the moment she thought of her craving for blood, she didn’t dare raise her head or look at the two figures she would risk her life to protect.

She was terrified that if she looked up, she would no longer be able to control herself from drinking her daughters’ blood.

The moment this thought surfaced, Sylvia felt her mouth go dry and her fangs seemed to stir restlessly.

She bit down on her lower lip with all her strength until it bled, using the pain to suppress that unfamiliar desire.

In this tense stalemate, a voice spoke up.

“Mom.”

It was Sophia. Her voice was soft, yet carried a steadiness that didn’t match her age. She didn’t try to approach like Aelia. Instead, she first reached out and gently pulled the stunned Aelia to her side.

While stroking Aelia’s back with her small hand to soothe her trembling sister, she looked at their mother.

Her gaze held worry and heartache, but no fear and no blame.

“Mom,” Sophia called again, her voice even softer.

“Are you okay?”

Sylvia closed her eyes and held her breath. She had no strength left to answer her daughter’s question.

Okay? How could she possibly be okay? She had almost drunk her daughters’ blood just now. She had even snapped at Aelia!

She had never once raised her voice at Aelia in her entire life, yet now she had shouted at her. It was all the blood clan’s fault. It was all the fault of this damned First Embrace.

“So this is the real punishment?” Sylvia couldn’t help thinking of Rose. So the previous violation wasn’t the punishment—this was the true punishment Rose had given her.

The punishment of never being able to go back, never being able to return to how things were with her daughters.

Sylvia hated herself. She hated this body that was mutating. She hated Rose for causing all of this. Yet the moment hatred toward Rose arose,

She seemed to see Rose’s golden pupils staring at her.

“Ah!”

Sylvia screamed in fright. Then she heard Rose’s signature lazy voice.

“If you want to drink blood, then just drink it. Open your eyes. Breathe!”

Sylvia was forced to open her eyes and stopped holding her breath. The scent coming from her two daughters rushed into her nose, stirring the desire to drink blood within her.

She couldn’t suppress it anymore.

She couldn’t suppress it anymore.

Under Rose’s temptation, Sylvia found herself unable to control this body of hers.

No. Absolutely not.

She had to… she had to do something.

[As long as I can’t see them, I won’t be tempted, right?]

An extremely crazy yet seemingly reasonable thought appeared in Sylvia’s mind at that moment.

Yes. If she couldn’t see them, and then closed her nose and breathed through her mouth, wouldn’t that solve it?

But right now she couldn’t even close her eyes. So if she just gouged out these eyes, wouldn’t that work?

That way she wouldn’t see the blood flowing beneath her daughters’ skin. She wouldn’t want to drink their blood anymore, right?

She wouldn’t hurt them anymore, right?

Yes.

That was it.

Just gouge out her eyes.

Why hadn’t she thought of something so simple earlier!

One of Sylvia’s hands left the ground and slowly rose. Her fingertips trembled as she reached toward her own eyes.

Her index and middle fingers curled into hooks, aiming straight at her eyeballs.

Just stab down. Gouge them out and she would be safe.

“Mom!!”

Sophia noticed Sylvia’s abnormality.

She had been watching the entire time. From the moment Mom pushed them away, from the moment Mom shouted at Aelia, from the moment Mom refused to look up at them—she had been observing.

So when Sylvia’s hand lifted from the ground, Sophia immediately sensed something was wrong.

When that hand began trembling toward her eyes, Sophia instantly understood what her mother was about to do.

Sophia released her arm from around Aelia and lunged toward Sylvia.

“Mom, don’t!!”

Sophia’s body crashed into Sylvia’s arms. She used her thin arms to desperately hug the raised arm, hanging her entire body on it and pressing down with all her strength.

But it didn’t have much effect.

After the First Embrace, even as a half-baked vampire, her strength was already far beyond what an ordinary little girl could match.

Sophia’s weight and strength didn’t do much against her.

That hand continued stubbornly moving toward her eyes.

“No… Mom… don’t…” For the first time, Sophia’s voice carried a sob. The rational and precocious girl rarely cried, but this time she could no longer hold it back.

Sophia gritted her teeth hard. Her small face turned bright red, her arms trembling violently from exertion, yet she refused to let go.

Just as that trembling hand was only an inch away from her eyes,

Another small body also threw itself forward.

It was Aelia.

She hadn’t even had time to wipe the tears from her face. She only saw her big sister rush over and saw Mom about to hurt herself, so she instinctively threw herself forward too.

Aelia hugged Sylvia’s arm, pressing her burning little face tightly against her mother’s cold hand, shouting incoherently.

“Mom don’t! Mom don’t! Mom don’t…”

Two small bodies, one on each side, clung to their crumbling mother like two fledgling birds protecting their nest.

Their combined strength finally managed to hold back Sylvia’s self-destructive hand.

“Mom…” Sophia’s voice trembled, yet she still tried to keep her last bit of calm.

“Mom… look at us… please look at us…”

Sylvia’s hand froze in mid-air, only a hair’s breadth from her eyes.

She heard it. She heard Sophia’s voice and Aelia’s tearful cries. She felt the two small bodies desperately clinging to her arm, using all their strength to stop her from hurting herself.

Tears poured out from Sylvia’s eyes that had not yet been gouged out.

She didn’t dare look at them. She still didn’t dare.

“Mom… please…”

Aelia’s voice had already gone hoarse from crying, yet she kept shouting.

“Mom… please don’t abandon us… we’ll be good… we won’t make you angry… please don’t hurt yourself… Mom…”

Sophia didn’t speak. She simply held onto Sylvia’s arm with all her might.

Sylvia could feel warm, wet liquid dripping one drop after another onto her torn collar.

The liquid burned her heart with pain.

Morning sunlight filtered through the cracks in the door and fell on Sylvia. The bloodthirsty desire was finally suppressed.

Sylvia’s hand finally lowered, little by little.

“I’m sorry…”

Sylvia’s voice squeezed out from the depths of her throat.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

Sylvia repeated these three words over and over, unsure whether she was saying them to her daughters or to the family she had nearly destroyed.

The two small bodies finally relaxed their grip a little, but they did not let go completely.

They continued holding their mother’s arm, staying pressed against her body, using their own warmth to warm their ice-cold mother.

Three small, thin figures of almost the same height huddled tightly together in this shabby, cold little house, in this chaotic Demon Realm.