The flames flowed over my skin, arcing with pain even worse than before. They burst through my skin without damaging anything, keeping the pain from straying out of my mind or numbing at all. I tried to stand up, but every movement just seems to make it worse.

It feels like the afternoon sun is shining down on me! This is much stronger than it was back at their estate. Could this be what it felt like when my family was getting murdered? Did they all want to peel their skin off like I do right now? The room is spinning around me and my head is getting lighter. No! Focus on staying awake, I can’t leave Leo alone with him!

“You’re putting on quite the brave face, considering this situation. Just fall down already and we can move on with this. It’s inevitable that you’re going to give in, so start planning on dealing with the aftermath once you wake up instead.” The grandfather taunted.

Forcing one eye open, I looked over to where Leo was, but I couldn’t see him. My vision was blurred from the flames, but I could hear something moving behind the grandfather. Slowly, I felt my brain starting to slow to crawl. My muscles relaxed sporadically as I fought to stay awake.

“Senna! Kick him down!” I heard Leo call out.

The weakness in my body before briefly fled. Just hearing him say my name made me feel stronger. I wasn’t able to stand on my feet yet, but I swept with my right arm. The forearm just barely connected with the back of his knee, but was fast enough to shake his stance and make him fall to the floor.

All of a sudden, the fires faded and I let out a shuddering groan while I collapsed onto one knee. I wasn’t able to gasp or pant to recover, and had to bear with the stiffness in my muscles. With some effort I was able to look over and watch Leo ready the silver sword into the air. There was still some blood on it from stabbing the grandfather, but I couldn’t see where he’d done that.

The old vampire groaned in pain, looking down at his chest. As Leo brought the sword down towards him, his hand suddenly shot up to try and catch the sword. He sported a smug grin up until the blade cleanly sliced through his palm and embedded itself into his neck. Leo struck it several more times until the head came off completely. My arms wobbled in weakness and I fell over onto my side, with Leo moving next to me and sitting down on the floor.

“Sorry... about that, Senna.” He panted out. “You okay? Take it easy, don’t try and rush or you might seize up again.”

“Just sore... can’t move...” I weakly replied.

The two of us rested for a while in silence. Even though I didn’t have to breathe, the sudden shift from agony to normalcy had left me numb in a few places. It didn’t take long for Leo to recover and stand up. He knelt down next to me and lifted me up into his arms and he brought both of us back to the bed. Even if I could have moved at that point, I didn’t want to.

His skin was even warmer than usual, and his heart was pounding in his chest. The dizziness was fading away bit by bit, and I managed to turn my head away from Leo’s face to see if the grandfather was dead. There was barely any blood coming out of his neck, like he had already been wrung dry. Ignoring him, I looked back to Leo and wrapped my arms tightly around his chest. He stroked my hair with one hand and held me close. It felt like the world was turning slower and slower with every touch.

“Ah, we should go get rid of the older brother and Simon...” I muttered, trying to predict what Leo would want to say.

“Yeah, but... not now, at least. I need some time to think about what to do with the body. Not to mention how to get rid of the both of them.” Leo replied, shaking his head and propping me up so that our eyes were at the same level. “In the meantime, you’ve had to deal with a lot of stuff tonight, and on top of that you’ve waited a while. You should... you know, feed yourself.”

I wanted to say thank you, or any words at all back at him. My mouth was too slack to form a sentence, so I rested it down on his neck. The muscle there was still thick, and his skin was warm in the spot that had been covered by his shirt. My fangs sunk in and I almost immediately clung tight against him. His heart was still beating faster than normal from earlier, and it felt like his blood was leaping into me.

Leo’s arms both wrapped around me now and helped keep me in place. Even with how many days it had been since I last tasted him, it was completely different this time around. Whether or not it was because of whatever the old man wanted was irrelevant, I was just happy to taste him again. Once I was done feeding, the stiffness and weakness were completely gone from my body. I slid out of his lap and onto my feet.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good! Leo, you’re incredible...” I said with a small giggle, flexing my hands to watch the fresh blood move inside of them. “Have you decided what we should do with the last of the Ainz?”

Leo was rubbing the spot I bit him, and I suddenly remembered how he looked after the first time I fed. Not wanting to rush him, I took the liberty of dragging the corpse to the other side of the room, kicking the head under the bed after it. Normally I wouldn’t have touched his corpse except to burn it, but Leo shouldn’t have to deal with that. I moved back towards him and knelt down on the ground next to him.

He shook his head and rubbed my scarred cheek with his thumb. “Senna, you can just sit on the bed next to me.”

“But these beds are really thin, and I want to be at eye-level with you. Don’t worry about me though, what are we going to do now? Do you need me to do anything for you? I know you’re tired and all but I’m completely awake!”

“Senna... I know you’re excited about drinking blood again, but you do realize we still have another powerful vampire downstairs to deal with?” He replied before shaking his head. “Nevermind, we just need to get rid of the last brother and we should be fine from now on. There’s also the issue of dealing with Simon, but with his grandfather gone that solves itself for the most part.”

“Alright, how do we kill the brother? I can do it right now if you let me lead him into the woods. It’ll be really easy with how good I feel right now!”

“No, if possible I just want him to leave here and hope he gets killed when the church hunters arrive. It’s bad enough that we killed the grandfather here. We should just go downstairs and tell him to leave, I don’t think he’s stupid enough to pick a fight with us if he thinks it’s true, and if he is... well, you can kill him then.”

“Hey, why don’t we just provoke him into attacking me? Then we could get rid of him right here, and it could drive off any suspicion about me being a vampire myself!”

“But you might get hurt.”

“Don’t be stupid, I’ve just fed. Even if I get cut up or anything like that, I’ll just regenerate it anyway.” I said, grabbing his hand and holding it tighter against me. “Besides, you already have done so much to protect and help me, can’t I return the favor just this once? I want to be useful to you.”

Leo let out a sigh and I loosened my grip on him. For a moment I thought he was upset with what I said, or that he didn’t believe in me. Instead, he moved the hand to my chin and tilted it up. We shared a quick kiss, which couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds at the most. It was the first one I’d ever had. There was nothing I could say back to him, but the warm blood flowed to my cheeks.

“Don’t try to think of how to be useful to me, just do your best to stay with me, alright? Even back when we first met, I just wanted you to be treated better than you were. I’m not going to blame all of it on you, but you can take care of the both of us without getting yourself hurt.”

I could only nod my head back. He smiled down at me and stood up, holding out a hand to help me to my feet. When I took it, I didn’t let go after he was done, but he didn’t seem to mind it. Even though I was fully fed, I had a weird urge to bite down on him again. After a few seconds I remembered it as the same feeling from the first night I saw him sleeping in his cabin.

This isn’t the same as hunger, but it feels just as intense. Maybe it’s just the blood, but my heart is racing. I thought to myself, following him to the door. It’s really intense though, I’m glad he’s here with me. Maybe when he goes back to sleep I can lay my head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat some more, that should calm me down.

Both of us made our way downstairs, only to find many of the patrons missing from just a few minutes prior. Lily was standing in front of the bar with her arms folded and her hair disheveled. Right away I noticed the smudge of blood across her apron. She spotted us by the time we got down and hurried over.

“Where have you guys been? Is that old man still in your room?” Lily asked quickly.

“It’s a bit... strange. What happened down here? Are you okay?” Leo asked her.

“Those two you left down here started bickering not long after you left. I think the one that came with the old man wanted the other one to leave with him. Either way, they ended up shouting at each other, and the crazy bastard pulls out a knife! He stabbed him in hand and tried to chase him down, but he ran into me. Before I could even ask what happened, he shoved me into one of the tables with his bleeding hand. Going to stain this apron, I’m betting...”

“Dammit, I didn’t think they’d try to pull a trick on us.” Leo muttered to me. “Well as long as nobody else was hurt in the fight. Sorry for all the trouble this caused, Lily. Assuming they went off where I’m thinking they did, we shouldn’t have a problem again. Just, um, let me know if you need to buy a new apron and I’ll pay for it.”

“Yeah, yeah. If they’re supposed to be heading somewhere, can you go and make sure they did at least? The way that guy handled being stabbed, and the look in his eyes... gave me the creeps. Don’t want those two doing anything weird to the townsfolk, alright?”

We both headed outside to follow Simon and his uncle. The moon was high, and the sky was clear. Autumn was coming to an end by now, and it was growing colder. With the blood in my body, I could feel the wind brushing against my cheek in an alien way. Leo wrapped an arm around my side and pulled me against him. All the cold seemed to vanish, but I just squeezed into him tighter.

“Do you think we’ll really find them out here? No telling where the uncle ran off to...” I asked.

“Not really, but I just want to be sure. Simon I can bet went to the church, wanting to tell them what happened. Without his grandfather chasing them, he probably felt they weren’t going to be in danger if he went there. The last Ainz, however... I don’t know where he’d run off to.”

We eventually found the church, and alone with it the dead body of Simon. They weren’t able to tell what I was since I was so freshly fed, and we were able to convince them to get rid of the grandfather’s body as well. Simon’s last words for us was letting us know that the brother had fled in the direction of the Godwin family home. I could only imagine that he might start asking them to help him get revenge, or to join their family now that his was destroyed.

“We’ll have to prepare for when those hunters arrive, maybe we should leave the inn and go somewhere else?” I asked him.

“Let’s save up money first, can’t just leave. It might take a while, but why don’t we try building another cabin? Took me a few months to build the first one, and it’s not really the right season to be working outside, but it’ll keep us out of the way.”

Living in a cabin away from the world, just Leo and me? I can’t imagine anything that would make me happier.