After finally getting the fae lady to leave after giving her what she thought was super-impressive (but what he thought was mildly garbage) magic items and potions, checking Hugo's progress in sprinting around the demesne ("Slow down! You'll rattle apart!"), and adding a short, small room in a dark hallway of his apartment that housed his House and swearing in the fuzzy little cute mouse woman, Max finally got to sleep. He was exhausted, so he slipped into a dream state before he had fully covered up with his elf-woven blankets in his extremely soft bed. He slept for almost a full day. No notable dreams happened, or at least, none that he remembered. He hadn't woken up mid-scream in weeks.

Merrick said it was the Pack bond. Miles said that he was getting better now that he wasn’t killing himself all the time. Max didn't know and was just happy that his insanity wasn't also flavored with sleep deprivation spices.

The next morning, or morning for him anyway, he gathered into his storage what he would want if he were imprisoned. A small library of books (one with the promised [Cleanse] spell), basic and niche hygiene items, finger and snack foods, and different textured blankets. Drawing and painting supplies with both paper and canvases. Enchanting materials and a guide for the vamp dude so he could try to teach himself how to make his clothes less wrinkly. Seeds and a flower pot he could grow them in because the tower had excellent lighting. A music player with files attached that contained all the music that could be found on the internet.

Max had imprisoned him. He deserved it. But the state he was kept in said more about Max than it did about Max's prisoner. So Max would go for benevolent jailor over torturous tyrant any day.

Max realized that asking for blood donations for the vamp from the elves would be gauche, as they wanted his blood and didn't want to feed him theirs. Fair enough. He didn't have time to pay the less fortunate for donations, either. He had not checked on his guest for almost three days, so he assumed his need was approaching dire. He made a note for Puppy to set up a tent in a local slum to pay good money or small healing potions in exchange for pints for his next blood shipment.

He did what anyone would do who had an elder vampire locked up in his basement and didn't want to resort to starvation torture. He and Puppy bled into potion vials, their blood all mixed together, and then added iron supplements since that's probably why the other fanged fucks thought his elves were so tasty, and put the bottles in with the other stuff. He'd have to get human blood later just to fuck with Mr. Princess the Herald of Blood. Getting a primo taste of god and demigod juice and then being downgraded to what the vamp would consider willingly given slum rat blood in the next shipment was the kind of fuckery Max could get behind. A subtle torture, he was sure, because he just knew that the irony engine of this world would deem it so.

After all, whatever was in charge around here consistently gave Max a charisma score that was as high as a below-average college student and he didn't even know what to do with it most of the time. It made people really fuckin' weird around him. He was learning how to deal with it now that he finally figured out what was going on. Mostly, he just ignored it.

When he had gathered all he could think of, he used his puffy blue wings and flew to the tower from the hidden anchor in his spare room's closet. The sun in his inner demesne was shining bright and the few animals he had ushered in were prancing about. Birds, bees, and deer, mostly, but also Cyrus's foxes and a clutch of rabbits. Standard woodland fare, although the deer were doing a little too well and could really use a wolf or two to curb their numbers. Maybe the Pup would like to use this as his personal hunting ground? A little treat for him to let loose after exceeding all expectations set on him. He was still pretty scared of himself, so a private place where the rest of the mound wasn't able to enter, where he could just really let his little Devourer heart free to devour wasn't a bad thing. Everyone needs to blow off steam sometimes.

As Max approached the tower, he shifted into a sparrow to silently enter through one of the small windows and landed on the back of the comfy chair he had left behind. Mr. Fangface was asleep in the bed, spread out like a feast for any eyes that had the chance to land on him. His shirt had ridden up his abdomen, showing a taught belly with muscular lines, and his pillowy red lips parted with a soft, sleeping breath. His hair was artfully mussed and lay around his face like a stylist had been keeping him company in this empty demesne. Pretty as a picture. Delectable princess. As artful as a painting. Absolutely beautiful.

That's the trappiest trap I've ever seen, Max thought with a smile on his lips. I have those, too. Let's play.

After shifting back, Max began unloading his storage quietly. Every so often, he'd look over his shoulder to the bed, glimpsing the pretty monster asleep on top of it. He had just finished silently building the newly installed shelves and was loading them down with books when his vamp blinked his eyes awake.

"Ah, you've returned for me." The vampire breathed in deeply, blinked the sleep away, and stretched. "You are you, right? You are wearing a different body but you smell the same."

"Yup." Max kept his back to him and continued placing items on the shelves.

A deep breath. "You have wings."

"It appears so, yes." Max spread them out a little. Preened them a bit.

"They are blue."

"Yup."

The vampire's eyes left Max's wings and looked at the shelves. He stood up and walked toward the ward that bisected the room. "You brought me... books?"

Max nodded. "And art supplies." He pointed. "Food and a mini fridge to keep it." He pointed at the knee-high box. "And gardening materials, if you're counting the flower pot." He pointed and then waved at a pile of linens."Blankets and a couple of changes of clothes. I did my best to estimate your size. You know, stuff."

"Stuff."

"Yep, stuff."

The vampire licked his lips and his pupils got huge. He leaned dangerously close to the ward. "Did you bring blood?"

"Yup. Let me make you a shower and then you can suck it down after I make your room bigger."

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"Make me a shower?"

"Yup." Max turned to the wall and began casting while he chatted. "Hey, were you a vampire when the system was active, or did that come after?"

"What?" The vampire's head shook as if he was having trouble changing his thoughts. He watched the movement of Max's hands like a predator watched prey.

"You know, the System? Levels, stats, classes... killing in exchange for power. The System."

The vampire's head nodded. "We called it the Voice of the Gods, but yes, I know what the system is. And I was something else when the gods talked to us."

"Ah. So you don't know if vampirism is a curse, a status effect, or a species, huh?"

"I'm relatively sure being Mithran is a species, although being a Sanguina is a curse if you believe them when they whine about being bestowed the gift of the kiss."

"Ah, so it's both hereditary and I'm guessing, a blood-borne pathogen. And are there differences between the two?"

"Sunlight hurts them more than us. And they lose the ability to have children born of their bodies. They are hungrier and prone to bouts of rage. It's believed by most that they are a little more dead."

"Ah. So if I hit you with a de-cursing spell, nothing would happen?"

"I'm... I'm not sure?" The princess's eyebrows furrowed and he got a cute little confused look on his trap of a face.

"Well, we just won't chance it then. Good to know.” Max said, “You've now paid for four answers and now only owe two." Max smiled at the bloodsucker as charmingly as he could. "Don't wanna melt you if I should have to heal you."

Max made a rough shower across the ward from his prisoner near the sink in the other half of the room. He was lucky he'd spent almost a month perfecting water summoning and banishing runes to make the elves' treehouses state-of-the-art, so they came easily and quickly when making Fangface his bathing facility. After the rough build, he added sculpted little flourishes of flowers and vines—really leaning into the forest fairy look— carving by hand in the rock, moving it with his fingers like the solid rock was clay. He made sure to flex his wide shoulders and subtly spread his wings in the way that his make-out partner on the station always liked while he worked.

He could play oblivious sex siren, too.

When he was done, he used his bare hand to drag the ward to where he wanted it. A nonchalant, penis wave of power. The room filled with an aroma of sizzling flesh, but Max didn't react. The ward now encompassed the shower, the new shelves, and the comfy reading chair Max loved, covering three-fourths of the room's size and only restricting access to the workbench. A worthy sacrifice to the cause. So long, chair. I will miss you.

Max placed six bottles of blood on the floor and pushed them through the ward. "I'll hit the bed and sheets with a [Cleanse] while you eat. Drink? Whatever. You can shower when I'm gone."

Max cast at the bed while the vampire looked away from the bottled blood on the floor and over to the books. He ran a finger over the spines. "These are all newly bound."

"Yup." Max nodded and leaned against the workbench, watching his prisoner observe his changed room.

The vampire was still and was only breathing deeply with his eyes closed. "The art supplies and fabrics are unused."

"Yup."

"The shower uses nothing but magic."

"Yup."

The vampire hummed in thought as he opened his eyes. "I hesitate to ask questions that aren't important because of the cost, but I am curious. You don't think I am actually a princess, right? These are gifts worthy of wooing royalty in a capture-the-bride game."

Max snickered. "Sure, princess."

The vampire walked up to the ward, directly across from Max. The top of his head was level with Max's shoulder, even as Max was leaning. He tilted his head back, looked up into Max's eyes, and said, "When my progeny eventually figure out what happened to me and demand restitution, I will demand to be the only one who gets to taste you. You will be only mine."

Max snorted. "Sure, princess. If your army of little menaces shows up here, they'll end up on a different floor of this same tower and get the same treatment. If it's more than a handful, I'll knock down the forest to fill this entire realm with vampire-holding cells in towers stacked from horizon to horizon. Maybe," Max grinned evilly, "the entirety of your species will be only mine."

The vampire snarled and punched the ward. His beautiful eyes turned a sinister red. His fangs dropped. "No." He snarled a vicious sound and his face got pointier around the edges. His cheekbones were in stark relief when he said, “You’ll only bleed for me.”

Max laughed and disregarded Princess’s best threat. "You don't set the rules, princess. Drink your lunch. I'd like to monitor so I know if what I've provided is palatable."

Princess looked at the bottles on the floor and picked one up. "Is it your blood?"

"Mine and the devourer's. Surprisingly, the rest of my court would rather see you starved."

Princess gave a posh snort. His trap of a perfect nose bunched up. "Haughty creatures, elves. Always better than everyone else. Even when they are lesser than most."

"Ha, ha! Zing!" Max gave the vamp fingerguns. "That'll show them. I'm sure they're sad they don't have the favor of the Herald of Blood. The Conclave Head who oversaw the people who ate their families and children to a decimated state. They'll cry, I'm sure." Max grinned.

"They already have shed plenty of tears, I hear. Usually while gasping for mercy.”

Max sniggered. This bitch right here, my gods. Pockets of audacity.

Max stood up with a smile that could melt all of Hugo’s new metallic parts to slag and looked down through his eyelashes at the pretty-pretty princess. ”You’re probably right. I guess we’ll find out how your people stack against mine now they’re not cursed by a forgotten god. This is all a moot point, though.” His smile fell, “Drink your dog and alien milkshake, princess.” Max stood tall, threw his hands into the air, and did his best stereotypical vampire accent from a few of his past worlds that had stories of them in pop culture. “Drink and be mine. Mwhahaha!”

”Are you mocking our sacred rituals or really asking me to be yours?” Princess had a lost look on his face. Max wanted to breathe it in. Bottle it up. Roll around in his confusion. It was delicious.

”Yup. Definitely one of the two.”

The Princess tilted his head to the side in thought. Narrowed his eyes. Popped the lid off of the bottle and drank it down like it was a dare. And then ... he released the loudest, most pornographic groan Max had ever heard, and Max had spent lifetimes in brothels. In seconds, the bottle was empty and Princess used his fingers to swish around the interior sides and pulled them out to suck on them, to get every last drop. He just... kept groaning. It was weird in an extremely hot way. Or hot in an extremely weird way? Max was unsure if he wanted to recoil into a different dimension or if he wanted to hop through the ward and make carnal offerings.

What the ever-loving fuck? Has the [Charisma] battle turned?

The vampire kept sucking on his own fingers, rolling his eyes. His other hand was lightly pulling his own hair. It was as if he had abandoned the conversation, the tower, the demesne, and was in a world of overwhelming sensual gluttony.

Now, Max was the one who had a lost look on his face.

What is that? Am I grossed out or turned on? Did this awaken something in me? Oh, gods, I hope not. I'm fucked up enough, surely.

It took some time for the fanged prisoner to return to himself. He traced his lower lip, as if catching a stray drop, and blankly asked, "You added something to it. What was it?"

"Iron supplements."

"Ah." Princess looked at him as if floating back into his body. "I've never had an alien or devourer before. You are delicious. The dog is only slightly less so, but still delightful. The two of you are the best I've ever eaten. Definitely worthy brides. I look forward to eventually supping from the source and consummating our union."

Max gave a grinning fingerguns again. I'm not touching that. "Sure thing, princess. Now settle in, enjoy your new shower, and start reading, I guess? You have enough food and blood for three days. I'll be back by then if nothing comes up." Max knocked a knuckle on the bench, "Maybe sooner if any of your dudes show up."