Hellsing Fan Fiction ❯ Spoils of War ❯ Part II ( Chapter 2 )

Part II



The blood was flowing back into her body in a backwards stream, always fascinating to watch. With infinite patience, Alucard sat in vigil, bearing witness to her final transformation. Flesh sealed up the wound and skin began to regenerate.

He wasn't sure when she would wake up again. It was different with every turning. Once he had waited nearly two hours for a woman to re-awaken; with Seras, it had only taken a half-hour.

Alucard noted with no small amount of satisfaction that Integra was healing her fatal wound quite quickly. Already the skin was shiny and whole beneath coagulating blood. He supposed it was to be expected considering he'd given her a small transfusion of his blood.

With a sigh he rubbed a thumb over a crusted streak of blood that strained the corner of her mouth. She was an awful mess; even he could see that. There was nothing appealing about dried blood.

Only in the heavy silence of death, did he begin to worry about the state of England and how wise it had been for him to turn her. As it was, they seemed to be the only survivors left in London.

He mentally berated his own impatience even knowing that he really didn't give a damn. Alucard chuckled ruefully, amused by his maudlin mood. They would be just fine; who could stop them really? All it meant was that Integra's tutelage would be a bit more hurried than he would have liked.

Ah well, he thought as his mind drifted to other things. Integra's connections would no doubt ease the transition, especially when it came time for them to leave England.

He called to Seras through their telepathic link, no less faded even if her servitude was ended. In his mind's eye he saw her, toiling over the burial of the useless dead. She looked up, into the empty space in front of her.

Master?

Come. Tend to Integra.. Old habit and lingering idealism prevented him from bathing her himself, even though he had held her nude in his arms and drunk her blood only moments before.

He smiled at the absurdity of it all and smoothed a lock of hair off her brow.

Alucard hoped that she would wake up soon.

*~*~*~*

Integra dreamed of a dark ocean. She floated in the water, not drowning, not swimming. The coolness felt good against her skin.

A voice was calling to her softly.

“…wish you'd wake up…really strange…I mean…Master didn't feel comfortable…So I…He's so weird sometimes, you know?”

Seras?

Integra felt her eyes fly open and she took a harsh, surprised breath. She sat up so suddenly and quickly that a small waterfall of bathwater streamed onto the floor.

“Oh!” Seras fell backward in surprise, landing gracelessly onto her hear-end. “Sir Integra!”

The water was rusty and smelled strongly metallic. She remembered her death and placed a hand over her mind-section. It was healed, of course. Integra shut her eyes and fought the overwhelming urge to vomit.

“Get him,” she growled softly, now, Seras. I need him here now!” Integra hated how harsh she sounded, especially toward Seras, but she needed Alucard during such a crucial time. She was afraid of the sensation of hunger tearing through her veins and ravaging her belly.

As she watched Seras hurry off to fetch Alucard, she felt a glimmer of admiration for the girl. Was this how she'd felt all the time until recently? If so, Seras had more self-control than Integra had originally attributed to her.

Vaguely disgusted by the filthy water that she was sitting in, she pulled out the rubber stopper and shivered as the bathwater began to drain away around her. Integra felt ill, starved, and wondered how and when relief would come.

She knew that she would drink blood. While there had been a certain nobility to Seras's fasting, Integra was not fond of weakness or personal suffering.

She was surprised when the door re-opened to reveal Alucard. Perhaps he felt that she was under enough strain.

He sighed softly, “I'll admit that perhaps these aren't the conditions that I would have preferred….” Alucard fell silent for a long time and it seemed to her that she could hear the silence between the passing seconds.

Integra looked up at him and suddenly found herself staring at him like she never had before. She could see the blood moving through his veins, swarming beneath pale skin. Before she realized that she was moving, Integra had him pinned against the wall. She heard his mocking laughter ringing throughout the room, too loud in her ears.

Her breath was ragged as she pressed her mouth along the side of his neck, where his pulse would have been had he been a living man. She felt his hand on the back of her head, gently stroking her hair, smoothing the damp tangles.

“Well?” He murmured, still somewhat laughing at her.

Anger bubbled to the surface and she began tugging at his hair, wrenching his head back violently. Though she was much stronger than she'd been as a mortal woman, she knew that Alucard was still stronger and could have resisted her advances had he truly wanted to.

Yet he offered himself willingly and a new emotion came over her. She had no expression for it other than lust, pure and primal. Through with hesitation, wearied with the stupid, mortal fear of the unknown, Integra bared her newly elongated eyeteeth and sank them into his cool flesh.

The first taste of blood left her senseless. Integra could find no comparison to the ecstasy, the contentment she felt as she drank Alucard's blood. It was oddly heady, tasted different from the coppery stuff she'd sampled as a human on the occasion that she'd accidentally bitten her tongue.

Alucard's arms went around her in a tender embrace. He caressed the nape of her neck and encouraged her with unspoken words.

Integra closed her eyes and truly began to feed.

*~*~*~*

It had long been his habit to take brides. This oft-repeated practice had been Alucard's downfall more than once, and he had been ready to accept that it would be his downfall once more.

Perhaps it was due to the difference in situation that things had ended up the way they presently were. Seras had never truly been a bride to him, and he had patiently waited for Integra rather than taking her, ravaging her, in a fit of violent passion.

Idle rumination passed through his mind as he was doing yet another thing that he'd never done. Alucard had never truly offered himself to progeny. Invited, perhaps, demanded, most certainly, but such intimacy and submission….

Ah but she had been his master for so very long that Alucard felt it fitting.

He could feel the hungry pull of her mouth against his neck, the starved need of a newborn. If one thing good could be said about the war, it had afforded him the ability to do this for her.

Alucard made a small sound of discomfort at the sensation of her gnashing her teeth and fangs against his flesh in a desperate, sloppy attempt to open the wound further.

Stop that, he chided her mentally as he tugged at her hair sharply, though not hard enough to dislodge her, There's no need to mutilate a victim, just bite. Remember Integra, you have fangs now.

She growled and he chuckled softly at her reply. Oh please. I saw some of the forensic reports on those officers you killed in Rio, and I don't recall you being so concerned with grace and subtlety. Alucard was pleased that she was not so overcome by bloodlust and that reason was still with her.

Time crawled forward and he allowed himself to enjoy the pleasure of having another vampire's fangs in his throat. Pain, true pain was such a rare sensation for him that he cherished it as some cherished a lover's tender caress.

Alucard did not have to push her away; eventually Integra released him on her own. Almost immediately after she withdrew her fangs, the bite mark healed, flesh sealing up and skin regenerating at an inhuman rate of speed. Yet she stayed in arms, panting softly against his neck.

“Do you regret it?” he asked her softly. Strange thing to ask, so very unlike him to care, but the words came, tumbling past his lips unbidden.

“No,” Integra murmured, and it was enough for him to feel her sincerity beyond the general ragged weariness that had nothing to do with physical exhaustion and everything to do with her mental state.

“How do you feel?”

She laughed very softly, pulled back slightly to look up into his face. “Honestly, I don't know,” Integra smiled faintly. “I suppose that I should feel differently, and I do, but…words fail me.”

Alucard felt a touch of arrogance twist his lips, “of course you have no understanding of your present condition.”

Integra scoffed, “Don't think that you can address me in such a manner. I understand a great lot more than you imagine. Lest you forget who and what I am to you.”

Her anger galvanized a spark of passion within him, “You think that you can still command me?”

A slow smile graced her lips, like none he'd even seen on her before. “Perhaps not as I used to,” she favoured him with narrow, scrutinizing eyes, “but I think we both know where we stand with each other.”

Equals yet not equals.

Master and servant and yet so much more.

Alucard laughed at her, laughed at himself, laughed at the whole goddamn world that he would lay at her feet if only she would ask. Her lips were still curled into that strange new smile, somehow both sadistic and seductive.

In that moment, he could imagine her asking for the world on fire.

*~*~*~*

Integra could see perfectly well in the dark. Of course that didn't impress her nearly as much as the fact that she could see perfectly well without the aid of glasses.

Once the fire of bloodlust had calmed considerably, she'd gone back to her room and lain in bed. The sheets were still sticky and stiff with dried blood. She watched the shadows shift around her, watched the light of the moon transform her large bedroom into some place that was vaguely sinister and surreal.

There was Alucard as well….

He stood at the side of her bed, watching her with a strangely unreadable expression. Integra found it disturbing. It was usually so easy for her to know what he was thinking and feeling.

With a frown, Integra sat up and studied him, trying in vain not to become distracted by his physical beauty. Now more than ever did her catch and dazzle her eyes. She watched with no small pleasure the way the moonlight could make his skin glow and ebony hair glitter.

“Alucard,” she spoke his name softly.

“What will be different, Integra?” He asked quietly, almost soberly. “Tell me what will change.”

She laughed and it sound strange to her, too rich with sensuality. “Are you afraid, my monster?” Integra taunted, “Perhaps the question should be is if you regret it?” She mocked him, wanted the passion back. To see him so suddenly tenetive and contemplative was unsettling.

Alucard snorted, shed his coat as he drew closer to the bed. “Don't patronize me,” he replied with a small smirk.

Integra favoured him with her own expression of amusement. “Are you waiting for my permission, then?” She asked softly. “You know the answer is yes. Do you think that I would have followed you so far only to deny you this last thing?”

There was no reply, only silent laughter as he joined her in bed.

to be continued….