Trash Panda

~Bonsoir~

Great! I might add some CS's for a few of the other Hygrace members at some point. I'm waiting to see how involved they are in the story first though.

~Bonsoir~

Vail just lifted his good shoulder in a shrug when Victoria thanked him for walking with her. The Crest manor wasn’t terribly far from the Hygraces, so he didn’t feel like he was going that far out of his way to help her. Though he would have liked to go straight home after feeding, it didn’t seem to be particularly risky for him to accompany her either. No member of the Order would believe a vampire would walk his victim back to her front door. The idea of it was practically laughable. If anyone saw them together, they would probably assume the two were just getting to know each other or were perhaps even betrothed. The only thing that might give him away were the fresh punctures in her neck, although someone would have to get quite close to them to notice that.

He glanced down a nearby alleyway, keeping a halfhearted watch as they headed through the city. Given that Victoria’s blood had such a powerful scent to it, it was likely that there was at least one other vampire in the area, stalking her in the hopes that she would find herself alone before she reached safety. He wasn’t worried about running into any of them though. Every clan in London knew the Hygrace name. A rival of his kind would have to be quite bold to try and fight him over the Lady, especially after he’d fed on her just minutes before. His strength was at its peak now, and he could no longer feel the ache of his still-healing wounds.

Absently, Vail rolled his shoulders. It actually impressed him that he was feeling so good after drinking such a small amount of Victoria’s blood. Even when he had drained some of his past victims close to death, he hadn’t experienced a vitality like this. He wondered if it would speed up his recovery too. Though he didn’t plan to leave the Hygrace manor again for a while, it would be nice to wake up tomorrow without being in pain. Nursing wounds was a nuisance he preferred to avoid when possible.

Vail had gotten so used to the comfortable silence as they walked that the suddenness of Victoria’s voice was jarring to him. He turned to her, mildly surprised that she would be interested in striking up a conversation with the demon who had just used her for a meal. Then again, she had also been compliant when he’d subdued her and was now ambling down the street with her assailant by her side. He studied her curiously. The more he thought about it, there was hardly anything conventional about this Lady at all.

At her comment about “talkative vampires,” he nearly snorted. That was the last description he would have chosen for himself. While he had an active mind, he preferred to process everything internally, only speaking when he believed he had something necessary to communicate. It was a habit he had developed throughout the course of his life, since he had learned that men who carelessly ran their mouths often came across as fools. Though he would never call himself a skilled conversationalist—he spent far too much time away from company to practice that ability—he liked to think he was straightforward, at the very least.

Her question was an amusing one too. It was quite presuming of her to ask him his age. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been quizzed about that, since he rarely found himself chatting with humans, and it wasn’t a common subject for his kind to discuss. To the immortal, age was a rather unnecessary number to keep track of. Unless one had lived across the span of a millennia—and he doubted there were any millennial vampires left after the Order had begun hunting them down—there was no reason to be mindful of one’s exact age.

Despite this, he saw no reason to avoid sating her curiosity. It was an innocent enough question, and it had been quite a while since he’d last done the math. “It’s 1878, right?” he mused, letting his eyes wander up to the night sky as he mulled it over. “I believe that puts me at about two hundred and eleven this year.”

Though he knew he was quite a bit older than any living human, it wasn’t a very outstanding number in his opinion. The generation before his had been born in the middle ages and had seen twice as much of life as he had. The vast spans of their lives did cause for some interesting dynamics in their families though. Though his parents were twice as old as he was, they had all been around long enough to have gained invaluable experience and were all capable of taking care of themselves. The same went for every other vampire family he had met. Because of this, there was a sense of equality between the older and younger generations, and the former didn’t feel compelled to act as an authority over the latter. The only reason his own father was so involved in his life was because he was the leader of the entire Hygrace clan. His position was what gave him power, not his age.

At Victoria’s following question, Vail casted her a sidelong glance. That was something he’d been asked about even less than his age, and he found it brazen that she would be so willing to inquire about such a personal aspect of his life when they had only met three days prior. However, she clearly recognized her mistake, even going so far as to apologize for bringing it up. Her sudden bashfulness brought a hint of a smile to his lip. Knowing she meant no harm, he really didn’t mind her inquisitiveness. Besides, he hadn’t spoken about himself to anyone in decades. Although he had no intention of telling her everything, he could stand to give up some privacy. He supposed he owed her that much after she’d let him taste her sweet blood.

“I hunt alone,” he said simply, ignoring her apology as he let his gaze wander to another nearby alley. “Some prefer to travel in groups for safety, but I find it easier to be by myself.” Deciding the alley was clear, he turned back to the Lady with an amused expression. “Though… no… I’m unattached.”

As she gave him permission to ask her whatever he wanted, Vail took a moment to think. Overall, there wasn’t much he wanted to know about a member of the Crest family. He preferred to keep his nose out of human affairs as much as possible. However… there were some things about Victoria that piqued his curiosity. He snuck another glance at her. The way she spoke about her father, he got the impression that she had never been involved with the Order, yet she had quite the obsession with learning more about his kind. He couldn’t help but wonder why she was so intent on getting involved with the apex predators of London.

Unfortunately, he saw no good way to bring up the subject without pouring salt in the wound of Lord Alexander’s recent demise, so he elected to address a different query on his mind.

“Your… betrothed,” Vail started slowly, unable to prevent the hint of disgust that slipped into his voice at the mention of a Wynter. “What are your thoughts about him?” He had been curious since the Lady’s party just how much she knew about the man she was to marry. It seemed likely that she had no idea Lord Spencer wasn’t human, let alone that he was part of the most dangerous vampire clan in the city. Though he didn’t want to get involved in their relationship, he felt some pity for her dismal fate. He met her gaze quietly as he waited to hear her response.

~Bonsoir~

Vail wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he corrected Victoria, but a hostile confrontation certainly wasn’t it. As she stomped up to him so they were practically nose to nose, he tensed involuntarily. While he didn’t really think she was intimidating—perhaps under better circumstances, he might have even found the situation comical—her close proximity made him uncomfortable. He disliked the confusing sensations it caused him. Her words were frustrating, but her feminine smell and the subtle heat of her body were exciting. He found himself both drawn and repulsed at the same time, and he couldn’t decide which impulse to act on.

However, as the Lady continued to speak about her father, Vail was distracted from his conflicted emotions. He frowned, catching sight of a glimmer of tears in her eyes. Not paying much attention to the affairs of the Order, he’d forgotten about Lord Alexander’s recent passing—and that the Saint’s daughter was still grieving. He nearly winced at the realization. Even though he knew it was dangerous for him to sympathize with a victim, it was hard to ignore her pain when she was planted mere inches before his face. Perhaps it was the reason why she had been wandering late at night so often too; a morbid desire to escape the grief.

When Victoria brought up the Saint who had attacked him the night before, Vail had to bite his tongue to keep himself from pointing out that she was the one who had spoken his name out loud in the Black Bull tavern. He was sure that was how the man had found him, but, knowing there was no point in arguing with her over it, he kept his mouth shut. She obviously had more than enough going with her father’s recent death as it was. Fighting over something in the past that couldn’t be changed wouldn’t help either of them.

As she made one last doleful comment and turned around to walk away from him, Vail stared after her, suddenly unsure what to do. Just minutes before, he had been prepared to abandon the Lady and go back to his own family’s manor without a care as to what became of her. However, now that he had seen the kind of emotional state she was in, he felt quite certain she wouldn’t survive to see the dawn if he left her alone now. Any vampire who tracked her down while she was this distraught would have himself an easy meal.

He glanced wistfully over his shoulder, down the street that would carry him home. As much as he would have liked to forget about the Crest heiress and go to bed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he walked away now. He may not have been the kind of gentleman who help a Lady out of the goodness of his heart, but he had at least enough of a moral compass not to willingly throw her to the dogs.

Having come to a decision, Vail lifted his gaze briefly to the starry sky before jogging to catch up with Victoria. He casted her a sideways glance when he reached her side and then looked ahead to avoid her grief-stricken eyes. “I’ll walk you home,” he muttered, his words more of a statement than an invitation. It felt strange to him to accompany a woman he had just fed on, but he forced himself to endure the discomfort for the sake of making sure she returned to the Crest manor without any more trouble.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

Same cx
Crow doesn't put up as much of a front with peasants as he does with nobles, so she got to see his softer side pretty early on too

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

No longer as worried about the turn of events than he had been before, Crow leaned back against the wall by the front door while Letitia went on to question Penelope. It seemed the servant wasn’t very quick to trust him, though he couldn’t blame her for being suspicious. After hearing which details the knight’s uncle had chosen to share about him, he would have been skeptical too. It sounded like the head of the Vermillion family had tried to make him look like scum of the earth.

Of course, everything Edward had said was true, but he’d done much more than just sabotage the Brerratic battalion and attempt to kill Penelope’s brother. He’d also stolen from the Younisian frontlines plenty of times, and he’d been instrumental in the defeat of the thieves who had done far more damage to the knights than he ever had. In his opinion, the baron owed him some respect after everything he’d sacrificed on the battalion’s behalf—well, Penelope’s, really, but he had helped the other nobles too.

Crow folded his arms loosely over his chest, watching the two women converse from a slight distance. As Penelope attempted to get the Letitia’s mind off the negative things she had heard about him, he noticed the old woman hesitate a bit more. It seemed that they were finally getting through to her. He was relieved about that. Even though he doubted she would go running to the guards anymore, he didn’t want her to keep looking at him like he was a terrible man who was just going to abuse the knight or some other nonsense. He’d had more than enough of that treatment in the past few months.

As Penelope shifted closer to his side, the viceroy slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her to himself in a half embrace and casting her an affectionate smile of his own. Whether the servant supported them or not, it was too late to hide the fact that they were together. He saw no reason to pretend like he wasn’t proud to be with her as long as the old woman already knew about them.

Crow turned back to Letitia with an amused look as she mentioned that Penelope had taken after her father. He supposed she would have been around the Vermillion family long enough to find the current situation familiar. Offhandedly, he wondered if John’s past with Liliana would encourage or discourage the old woman from supporting the knight in her decision to be with a man who was once a wanted criminal.

It seemed the latter was true.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he grinned when the servant said she would be keeping an eye on him. At her following words, the viceroy turned back to Penelope, his features softening as he held her gaze. “Well, that’s good, because making her happy is everything I strive for.” He pressed a playful kiss to her cheek. “I must be doing a good job if you think so too.”

~Bonsoir~

Of course, Victoria would never let him get away so easily. Vail let out a long sigh as he heard her speak up behind him, reprimanding him for leaving her behind. What more did she want from him? He had already left her in a decent enough condition to get back to her own manor by herself. It was the same way he treated all his prey: businesslike, unemotional. He couldn’t afford to empathize with the humans he fed on, or else he would risk opening himself up to an attack from the Order. It was far safer for him to go about his hunt quickly and return home before any Saints had the time to stumble upon him while he was out.

He glanced back over his shoulder as the Lady got up from the ground, one hand pressed over her bleeding neck. Though the words she spat at him were obnoxious—she could never just be grateful for his efforts, could she?—he did have to wonder if she had a point. After all, she wasn’t like other humans. Despite the fact that he’d drunk his fill of her blood, the lingering scent of it in the air was practically intoxicating to him. If there were any other vampires in the area, they were probably already on their way to track down the source of the aroma.

His eyes flicked down to the weapons she had collected from the ground. Even though Victoria put up a confident front, he could tell she was inexperienced with using such tools. The Godding he had stopped from killing her earlier had disarmed her easily enough. It wasn’t a longshot to guess that she would go down just as quickly if she was attacked a second time that night.

At her final comment, Vail narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think someone like you has the right to come up with such lofty expectations for me,” he said with an irritable edge to his voice. Reaching into his coat pocket, he retrieved a black handkerchief, which he used to clean the blood from his face. “Despite what you might think, this is compassion,” he went on, gesturing vaguely to the scene. “You’re not delirious, are you? I broke no bones nor injured you in any way that would hinder you from returning to your home. All things considered, I think you should be grateful you didn’t come off worse. Most humans who’ve been chosen to be the prey of my kind are not as fortunate.”

~Bonsoir~

Vail was about to bury his fangs in Victoria’s neck when her whispery voice caught his attention. He wavered, the slight tremble in her timbre pulling him from his frenzy. She was scared, and rightfully so. He knew it wasn’t a pleasant thing for any human to be subdued and bitten by one of his kind. Though he had never experienced it for himself, he was sure some of his past victims wouldn’t have screamed and fought back if the feeding process didn’t hurt them. However, he also knew that there were ways by which he could make the ordeal less traumatizing for the Lady pinned beneath him now.

Calmer now—the urgency he’d felt before had since fled now that his victim was being cooperative—Vail’s eyes flicked up to Lady Victoria’s face. She was close enough to him that he could see the faint quiver in her red lips. “Just relax,” he murmured, turning back to her exposed neck. It was the only advice he knew to give, since the bite would be less painful if she could make her tense muscles unwind. Apart from that, all control over the experience fell upon his shoulders.

Instead of sinking his teeth into her right away as he had been intending to before, he leaned down and trailed his tongue lightly over her neck. The saliva he produced when hunting had a numbing quality to it that, while it wouldn’t take away most of the sting of his fangs below the surface, would cause a tingling sensation to spread over the area he planned to bite. The gesture wasn’t only for her sake though. As he primed her skin, he also took the time to feel for where her neck felt hottest, as that was where he was going to feed.

After a moment, Vail came to a stop just above Victoria’s collarbone. His heart raced excitedly. He was finally going to get a taste of the blood that had been tempting him for three days, and better yet, he was going to use it to satisfy his craving. A feral look returned to his eyes as he curled back his upper lip, baring the full length of his fangs just before he drove them into her tender flesh.

The control he’d regained was lost again as the taste and smell of the Lady’s unique essence flooded his senses. His fingers curled tighter around her wrists, and his breathing quickened with frenetic energy. Withdrawing his teeth from her neck, he lapped at the blood that flowed freely from the punctures he’d inflicted in her fair skin. It was like nothing he’d ever tasted before, filling him with vitality that he’d only felt once in the past when he’d accidentally drained a victim to death in an uncontrolled frenzy. The potency of it was simultaneously overwhelming and exhilarating to him. He wanted more.

Vail continued to feed on Lady Victoria for a while longer, coaxing small trickles of blood from the bite until he’d had his fill. When his craving had been sated, he pulled back from her, letting go of her wrists to free her as he sat up on his heels at her side. Scarlet spatters painted the skin around his mouth and chin, giving him a nearly demonic appearance in the darkness of the alleyway. However, unlike a demon, he’d never felt so alive. He probably wouldn’t need to feed again for weeks, not with this woman’s rich blood in his system.

Having finished what he came for, Lord Hygrace moved to get up from the ground, intending to leave his victim behind as he headed back to his family’s manor for the night.

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

She actually just got on his good side with that response xD
Crow really likes anyone who's willing to speak their mind to him like she just did

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

“Likewise,” Crow nodded to Letitia when she said it was lovely to meet him. There didn’t seem to be any familiarity in the servant’s eyes, so he relaxed, assuming his name must not have rung any bells to her. It seemed his choice to only give her his first name had been enough to keep her from figuring him out after all. However, his relief only lasted for a moment before something in the old woman’s face changed and she turned to Penelope with the start of a question.

At her words, Crow blanched, realizing she had recognized him even though it had taken her some time. Her reaction wasn’t quite what he expected though. As Letitia planted herself protectively in front of Penelope, the viceroy gawked at her. Aside from the fact that her gesture was innately pointless, he was surprised by her hostility. Until now, everyone he’d met who knew of his new status had treated him with at least some respect, even if they didn’t like him. Whether they were trying to get something from him or were afraid of the consequences of speaking out of turn to someone who outranked them, no one had truly spoken their minds to him in weeks.

Yet, here this servant was, calling him thief.

He snorted, biting his lip before he burst out in a laugh. “Oh, I like you,” he snickered, turning to Penelope with a grin. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a servant like her? I would have come with you here sooner.” Taking a moment to get his breath back, he shook his head. “I can assure you, there’s no ‘nonsense’ going on that you need to be concerned about. My intentions with Penelope are pure.” He casted the old woman an amused smile. “Although I’m sure you can gather that much by yourself if she’s spoken to you about me before.”

~Bonsoir~

Inside the White Hart, Vail picked out his target right away, a blonde woman this time who was sitting at the counter. He didn’t even bother searching the tavern for a more appetizing scent. At this point, he just wanted to feed and go home, so he could get some proper rest without feeling the constant drive to hunt. He rolled his shoulders, wincing faintly as his wound smarted at the motion. Though the pain had dulled considerably over the course of the day, it still irritated him, so he wanted to recover as quickly as he could. Having his fill of this Lady’s blood would certainly help speed up the process.

Eyeing her discreetly, he edged toward the bar, intending to strike up a conversation with her until she grew too dazed from his pheromones to resist being lured away. However, before he had a chance to say a word, he halted in his tracks as a new smell practically assaulted his senses, one that was both intoxicating and bewildering in its familiarity. The Crest heiress was somewhere nearby, and it wasn’t just her perfume he could perceive. It was that rich blood that seemed to always tempt him recently.

Already, he could feel his mouth beginning to water as he looked around the tavern for the Lady. It didn’t look like she was in the room though. Outside... She must be outside. His gaze wandered to the door. In the back of his head, an alarm went off, warning him that he shouldn’t chase after her again after she’d led him to that hunter yesterday. However, the overpowering aroma was more convincing. He couldn’t stand it. As dangerous as it was, he had to feed on that enticing blood.

The last of his willpower fled as he made his way back to the front of the building and out onto the street, where it was easier to track Victoria now that he was away from the tangle of other smells in the White Hart. Right away, he traced her to a nearby alley, but as he followed her trail, he picked up another scent that made him bristle. It seemed a vampire of the Godding family had found her first. Somehow, knowing that someone else was after the same prey that he was just enraged him even more. He wasn’t going to stand by and let another vampire feast on her blood before he did. He’d waited too long to lose his chance.

Rounding the corner into the alley, Vail saw that the Godding had already trapped Victoria and was about to make her into his meal. With no time to think, he rushed at the other vampire, landing a blow to his jaw that knocked him away from his prey. The Godding reeled back, turning on him with a glare and then faltering as he seemed to realize who he was up against. It was well known amongst their kind that the Hygraces were the ruling clan for a reason.

Vail matched him with a glower of his own. Though he had no intention of fighting the other vampire to the death—he was a protector of his own, not a murderer—he would certainly hold his ground if the Godding continued to pursue Victoria.

Fortunately, the rival seemed to have enough sense to back down. His eyes flicked to the Lady on the ground once more before he let out a frustrated scoff and fled.

Vail watched him go, waiting until he disappeared from sight before he turned back to Victoria. With his competition out of the way, there was nothing to stop him from preying on her now. The thought excited him, and he moved quickly as he got down to restrain her before she could get back up to her feet. Pinning her wrists to the ground, he leaned over her and rested his mouth against her neck. Her skin was warm with the alluring blood that was just beneath the surface. He couldn’t wait to have it.

“I think you still owe me a taste,” he whispered by her ear, his upper lip pulling back as he bared his fangs just before he moved to sink them into her neck.