Chapter 12: Tears of happiness.

There was no expression on Ilena’s face. Her lips were sealed shut by magic, her limbs pierced through by long nails. Her entire body was nailed to the cold inverted cross like a sacrificial offering.

Only her eyes remained.

Those eyes were speaking.

They spoke of something Sylvia had never seen before, and had never even imagined.

Sylvia froze.

Rose’s long, sharp nails explored Sylvia’s body without the slightest mercy.

Rose’s fangs were razor-sharp, yet she seemed completely unaware of it as she pierced Sylvia’s fragile skin and greedily drank her blood.

The surface of Rose’s tongue was covered in tiny, fine barbs. Every lick left Sylvia’s skin flushed red.

Sylvia was stunned. Were all blood clan this violent by nature? Was this their instinct? Did they become abnormally excited and lose control whenever they were feeding or engaging in such acts?

She suddenly recalled the first time she had met Ilena—the scene of Ilena, dressed in a high-end gown, choosing her as a blood slave from among a crowd.

The moment her small hand had been firmly grasped by Ilena’s large, cold, and resolute one. Then came the long years of her life as a blood slave.

Ilena had always been fierce when drinking blood. She was never gentle. When in a bad mood, she would deliberately bite deeper and suck longer, watching Sylvia grow dizzy from blood loss, tremble, and nearly collapse to her knees. Only then would she let out a light, ambiguous hum and release her hand as if granting a favor.

Occasionally, after feeding, Ilena would casually toss her a small bottle of hemostatic ointment.

There were also times during pouring rain when Ilena would allow Sylvia to stay in the side hall of her mansion to take shelter, and even order a servant to bring a cup of hot red tea sweetened with honey.

During their long periods of interaction, Ilena would sometimes speak in her usual lazy, slightly impatient tone and tell small stories.

Stories about the first patriarch of the blood clan family, about the birth of the Demon Realm, about interesting yet foolish knights encountered during an expedition to the human kingdoms.

Sylvia never knew how much of those stories was true and how much was fabricated. She only knew that in those brief moments, Ilena’s voice would become less cold, her speech slower, and her proud eyes would narrow slightly, like a cat.

Sylvia had always thought it was nothing more than the occasional, condescending mercy a superior showed to her pet.

But not until just now.

Not until Ilena, nailed to the cross and on the verge of death, had used her last bit of strength to say:

“The last one.”

Lover. She had called Sylvia her lover. Not a toy. Not a pet. Not something that could be replaced at will.

A lover.

Sylvia’s eyes could no longer hold back. Large tears instantly welled up and poured out.

The tears came fiercely, completely beyond her control. They rushed out of her eyes and rolled down the small face that Rose had just praised as much more appetizing.

Why?

Why was it like this?

She had clearly been exploited, drained, and hurt by Ilena all this time.

She had clearly never received any equal, sincere kindness from this relationship.

She clearly should hate Ilena, or at the very least, ignore her, forget her, and lump her together with all the beings in the Demon Realm who had ever harmed her.

But why—

Why did her heart hurt so much when she heard that “last one”?

Why, the moment she saw Ilena crying, could she no longer hold back her own tears?

Why, even in this moment—while being wantonly toyed with, humiliated, and claimed by Rose—could her peripheral vision not move away from Ilena’s tear-filled eyes?

Sylvia thought of Ilena’s recent changes.

The increasingly rough way of feeding, the increasingly stingy rewards, the increasingly impatient attitude.

She had thought it was boredom.

She had thought Ilena had finally grown tired of her and was using impatience and harsh treatment to force her to sensibly disappear on her own.

But now.

Now she suddenly understood.

It wasn’t boredom.

It was fear.

Fear of developing feelings for a human she should never have feelings for. Fear that such emotions would destroy their originally simple, mutually beneficial transactional relationship.

Fear of what kind of catastrophe would befall this human girl named Sylvia once her fiancée—Rose—discovered it.

So she had used roughness to distance herself, harshness to cool things down, and increasingly meager rewards to hint that Sylvia should leave.

Yet Ilena couldn’t bear to truly let go.

That was why she had still summoned Sylvia, still drunk her blood, and still, after long silences, occasionally told those small stories of uncertain truth.

Sylvia suddenly felt like laughing.

What was this?

She was a single mother who had lost her wife and was raising two daughters alone. A blood slave struggling to survive at the very bottom of the Demon Realm.

And yet, in this moment while being roughly toyed with by another blood clan, she had discovered that she truly, genuinely, had developed some feelings for the female vampire who had hurt her countless times and was now nailed to a cross, silently weeping for her sake.

This feeling was wrong. It had been wrong from the very beginning.

It was unequal, unhealthy, built upon a transactional relationship, and doomed from the start to have no good ending.

But she could not deny its existence.

Tears blurred Sylvia’s vision.

Those tears contained too many things.

Guilt toward her wife. Longing for her two daughters. Hatred for her own weakness and helplessness. The complicated emotions of resentment and reluctant tenderness toward Ilena.

And the boundless despair toward the ongoing, irresistible violation happening right now.

She didn’t know whether her tears came from pain, from humiliation, or from something else.

Because she had finally realized—when it was already far too late—that she and Ilena had actually developed mutual feelings for each other.

Sylvia wanted so badly to cry out loud, but Rose’s command was that she must not make any unnecessary sounds. So she could only endure it with all her strength.

Behind Sylvia, on the cross,

Ilena’s only remaining movable eye was staring straight at her.

Staring at Sylvia’s tears.

Staring at Sylvia’s slightly heated body, flushed with shameful pink, as Rose’s fingertips roamed freely across it.

Staring at Sylvia’s thin back, which, despite her body and mind being on the verge of collapse, still endured everything with gritted teeth for the sake of her daughters—the only belief she had left.

Large, heavy tears continued to pour from Ilena’s eyes.

Silently.

Endlessly.

Like a torrential rain that had arrived centuries too late.

Rose extended her tongue to lick away Sylvia’s tears and laughed.

“So sweet~ These are tears of happiness, right? You must be very happy right now, yes?”

Seeing that Sylvia did not speak, Rose added,

“I allow you to make sounds and answer.”

“Yes, Lady Rose… these are… tears of happiness. I am very happy right now…”