Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Chapter 367: The reason for caution

Caius kept the Mana Lamp up with one hand while he wrapped his other arm around Aylin’s waist, not pulling her closer—because she had drawn herself as close to him as possible already—but holding her in place.

He had actually gotten quite good at keeping his fangs from causing injury while kissing in his shifted form but Aylin’s intense enthusiasm was rendering all that moot. So he just tried to keep his fangs from piercing her as well as he could and hoped for the best.

Feeling those large breasts—of a size that would compete with Lea’s—pressing against his chest, Caius couldn’t really be bothered with self-control. He had been expecting some period of Aylin just taking the reveal in. He had expected to have to calm her. Getting jumped like this hadn’t quite occurred to him.

And this could be seen as an oversight on his part. After all, who was this if not Aylin Khione? Her level of obsession would hardly be dampened by something like vampirism.

But Caius had considered that. And following the events of the past weekend, he had decided not to take things he knew from the original canon as gospel when dealing with people and events of the world.

These were not the characters he had spent years or his life reading and following their stories. Even the most minute changes in their lives could lead to the most drastic of changes to the point where their characters completely transform into something— someone else.

Just like how Belron the Fiend had risen from Hell rather than Tyron the Demon, Caius’s actions were causing changes that were creating ripples that made so much of his pre-held character studies useless.

For example; Aylin Khione.

In the original canon, she started as a friendless eighteen-year-old who moved with a posse of galpals she had repressed almost to regression. Outside of her relationship with her mother—which eventually strains—she had no real connections to call on. By the time she became leader of the Khione Family due to certain events, she had surrounded herself with ’yes-men’ that may or may not have had her best interests in mind.

This left her open to be manipulated by her brother, Baler, of all people who had at that point come into his own as a manipulator. He couldn’t go after Aylin directly—he never was a match for her—so he decided he didn’t need to rule. Not as a figurehead anyway. He just needed to manipulate Aylin to always do his bidding.

And through all this, Aylin’s obsession with Caius Von Helsing remained. She kept tabs on his life. On his adventures. On his experiences. She learned what he was but just salivated for him all the more.

But obsession, when left unmanaged, is dangerous and is hardly ever true affection.

The Aylin of canon regressed into a paranoid person who put her trust in the wrong places and suffered for it. Her psyche was definitely not balanced by the time she learned Caius’s secret. So the fact that she accepted it didn’t fill Caius with confidence here.

Aylin’s journey had changed in this new reality that was being carved out due to Caius’s actions. He had seen this and confirmed it during the weekend at the infirmary and every conversation he sat in with the ladies since then.

There was a lightness to Aylin now that was absent in [To Kill A Demon Lord...]. It was still only in the beginning stages and Caius wouldn’t assume it was ironclad, but Aylin was starting to know what it meant to have friends. She was finding out what it meant to have those who offer pushback but ultimately will stand by your side.

Those who, when they praise you, mean something. It means they truly witness something brilliant and cherish you and not because they wish to cozy up with you and kiss ass.

This was changing Aylin’s outlook on life in ways Caius couldn’t even truly comprehend because, of course, he wasn’t in her head. However, he knew this new outlook on life was going to affect how Aylin saw him.

What was an obsession and with very little substance besides an unexplainable feeling, might now fall under scrutiny. What Caius might have gotten away with a week ago because Aylin was head over heels for him, he might not be able to get away with now.

And that was the reason for his caution.

Quite frankly, whether she herself realized it or not, Aylin Khione was not the same person she had been before the Mid-Semester Tests within the Lochxen Forest. Actually, the change might have even started before then.

And because Aylin was a different person, Caius felt he couldn’t go in with his usual confidence when dealing with her.

Some part of his mind reasoned that this was all residual emotions from facing off against Belron. That maybe, the fact that things hadn’t gone exactly as he planned/hoped they would was making him second-guess himself in all manner of ways.

That could be a good thing.

Or it could be bad and lead him to overthink.

He wasn’t yet sure in which direction it would sway. Really, he was in flux at the moment, ebbing between self-improvement and self-destruction— If we decide to be melodramatic about it of course.

In any case, as cautious as it had forced him to be, the uncertainty also made Aylin’s acceptance of his true nature so much more satisfying. And probably nothing showed that satisfaction more than the hardening of his cock as it pressed against the insides of his pants.

Aylin gasped when she felt it. And then she groaned as she pressed her lower half even harder against it, pushing Caius back toward the wall. She soon became very aware that he only had one arm around her and that his other hand was holding up a Mana Lamp.

She reached out and snatched the lamp from Caius’s hand and tossed it at the wall, followed by a shot of ice that encased the Lamp and kept it right against the wall. The almost crystalline look of the ice caused refraction of the light being given off by the lamp and caused the glow to spread all about the storage closet with traces of multicolor. Like a rainbow.

It was dawning on Aylin that she hadn’t really taken in the space they were in. When she entered, it had been very dark beside the glow of Caius’s eyes. And then he shone a lamp that locked her into staring at his face.

Where exactly were they? She wondered.

When Caius had told her about this yesterday as to where they should meet, she had been far too heady on finally getting what she wanted—after working so hard for it—that she hadn’t even taken the time to pause and even scout out the place beforehand.

After thrusting her tongue as deep into Caius’s mouth as she could—without taking care for his fangs—Aylin pulled back and attacked his neck instead, suckling on his skin, marveling at his taste while she let her icy blue eyes rake all over to really take in the room;

The only real ’storage closet’ thing about it might have been its size and it wasn’t even all that small. It certainly had more space than anyone would need to store brooms and other cleaning supplies.

There were no shelves in the room and Aylin assumed they had been taken away to avoid it looking like a storage closet and more like a little hideaway for illicit activities. She believed she confirmed this when she saw vines all about. But not weed vines that had grown unwanted but rather vines placed with purpose. With a deliberate attempt at ’sprucing’ up the place.

The vines even grew flowers that released a nice scent all over the room. It just went a bit unnoticed on account of Caius’s sweeter and more prevailing scent.

And finally, shut into a corner but taking over more than a quarter of the space of the room was a bed. A bed of vines.

Thinking of who had undoubtedly created that bed as well as the rest of the vines all over the room, Aylin couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face.

And then Caius grabbed her by the ass and hoisted her even harder against himself.