•••

Caius wasn’t unaware of the danger of Vampires. He just never cared all that much about it in the pursuit of his goals. To be honest, if he now said he cared, it would be a lie because he still didn’t.

Really, even if Leonce Duval wasn’t clearly a lunatic and just a Vampire Hunter, Caius would still consider him the enemy. It wasn’t about who was the worst between the two sides but rather who he had already decided to ally with.

It was all about interests.

And while he hadn’t ever gone after innocent humans to quench his thirst like every other vampire, Caius felt he was as much a monster as they were.

Even now, as much as he understood Elenor’s fear and her pain, he wasn’t fueled with a desire to rid the world of vampires. He still shut his mind from the pain and agony and death the Leopold Coven was causing to feed and Evolve because he had use for them.

And that was why, he couldn’t even think of a word of comfort for Elenor. He decided the greatest favor he could do for her was to just let her walk away, rejoin her security detail, and go home to her daughter.

He didn’t try to change her mind. He didn’t start devising some plot to seduce her. He just let her go, hoping that, for her sake, he was the last vampire she ever came in contact with.

Before he left, Caius saw Leonce Duval again. He was on the highest floor of the building, standing and looking out the window as his guests left. The expression on his face was neutral, betraying no particular emotion. The only vibe he gave off was of a man with a mission.

Caius remembered how his main goal, heading to the Function, was to learn about the Task Force and about Leonce Duval but he didn’t feel at all enthusiastic about introducing himself to the man now.

Even without the introduction or an actual one-on-one conversation, he knew quite a bit about Leonce already;

He was cruel and a psychopath.

Leonce seemed to sense he was being stared at and looked in the direction of the stare but Caius had already looked away because Duncan was now standing in front of him.

"Your Lordship," Caius greeted.

"All those people..." Duncan said and sounded like he was out of it.

"Yeah," Caius said, "A real tragedy."

"And I couldn’t do anything about it," Duncan said.

"No one could," Caius said with a shrug, "Not anyone in that Hall, anyway."

"Goodbye Caius," Duncan eventually said heavily, "Maybe we can talk again... soon."

Duncan was so distraught that he couldn’t find the strength to even be bothersome. He just shuffled away with the Imperial Guards who were moving more like his babysitters than his personal security.

Caius walked up to his carriage then, with the Hellsingers standing by. In a few seconds, he was inside with Alexia as the carriage began pulling out of the courtyard to get on its way to the Von Helsing Estate.

At the Von Helsing Estate, Caius and Alexia walked side by side into the main building. They had spent the ride over in silence. Interestingly enough, unlike when they had headed off to the Function, they weren’t keeping quiet because they had nothing to talk about— if anything, they kept quiet because they might have too much to talk about now and couldn’t speak of it in front of their audience of Hellsingers.

They still said nothing as they walked through the corridor. Alexia said nothing when Caius missed his turn to head to his room. She didn’t say anything when he walked her to her door or when she pulled the door open and he followed her inside.

Caius looked around the room. Alexia had really made it her own in the past two weeks. There were blue and black motifs all over, with beautiful lotus flowers. She also had a training dummy just standing by the door and Caius smiled at the thought that she had a morning ritual to get out of bed and give the dummy a few whacks.

"This was never going to be a short visit, huh," Caius said regarding Alexia’s decorations being signs of her settling in.

"What, I shouldn’t be comfortable?" Alexia asked with a scoff and then she let out a sigh,

"We should probably wait till morning to tell Uncle... well, everything."

Caius managed a smile.

"Really?" He asked, "Everything?"

Alexia heard the implication in his tone and rolled her eyes.

"If you want to tell him about how you mauled me, go right ahead," she said.

"Mauled you?" Caius said, shaking his head.

"I’d much rather put it far behind me and never once think of it again," Alexia said.

"And how is that working out?" Caius asked.

"How is what working out?"

"Never thinking about it again," Caius clarified leaning his hand on the desk in her room, "How is that working out?"

Alexia sauntered closer to him.

"Perfectly if you must know," She said, "The sight of thousands dying really set my priorities straight."

"Please," Caius said with a scoff.

"It’s true," Alexia insisted, taking another two steps toward him.

"I fail to see what one has to do with the other," Caius said, "I saw the same thing and I know what matters more to me between a kiss and the death of strangers I never even knew."

"Well, I think it’s long been obvious how debauched you are and where your priorities lie," Alexia said,

"It’s one of the many ways we differ."

"Oh, really?" Caius asked, "Because I think our current priorities are exactly what we have in common.

I mean, it’s past midnight and I’m in your room."

"That’s right, you are," Alexia said with a mock look of shock before she rolled her eyes so hard, magical energy practically slapped Caius across the face,

"Get out. I need to sleep."

Alexia turned around then and made to walk away but stopped when Caius placed his hands on her shoulders. He pulled her closer until her back was pressed against his chest. He placed his lips to her ear and whispered,

"See how you just let me do that?"

"Do what?" Alexia asked.

"Pull you," Caius answered, "Or have I grown so strong I can move you against your will."

He didn’t wait for an answer as he nudged her hair aside so he could place his lips against her skin in a gentle kiss that drew a moan from Alexia’s lips. She arched her neck, raising her face toward the high ceiling of her room while working hard to stifle any more moans or groans.

"Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is," Alexia said in a surprisingly stable voice,

"We should be talking about why what happened at the Function should never happen again."

"The Kiss or the Execution?" Caius asked lightly as he now worked his teeth against her earlobe. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Alexia trembled.

"Don’t play coy," she said.

"Fine, fine," Caius said, "Let’s talk about it then."

"Yes..."

"Let’s talk about how needing reasons to not do something already reveals where your interests lie," Caius said in a low voice that caused thrills to tingle across Alexia’s spine,

"No one needs to be convinced not to do something if it’s something they don’t want to do."

Alexia turned her neck until she could get a look at his face. She pulled her earlobe away from his teeth in the process and for a second, she just glared at Caius. And then her eyes fell to his lips— memories of how they felt against hers surfaced and she became flushed with desire that drowned out the confusion in her head.