Thank you [MonsterGirlHarem] for your second MAGIC CASTLE
Thank you [UpUpDowndown] for your two gift: MAGIC CASTLE AND A CAR
Thank you [TsaoCao] for your gift: A CAR
Thank you [SudiYuri] for your gift: A Massage Chair
Really appreciate with your support (^_^)
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It was about half an hour before Erik left Felyn’s room. Before going, he called a nurse in to examine her. The results showed nothing serious; Felyn had simply been overwhelmed, and with her body still weakened, she had briefly passed out.
Hearing that conclusion, the nurse had to work very hard to maintain a professional expression. The look she gave Erik before leaving the room was noticeably stranger than when she’d first arrived, and Erik could only pretend not to notice.
The eastern treatment wing was far quieter than the general patient area. Every room had a soundproofing barrier along with mana monitoring equipment, most of them reserved for severely injured Awakened or people with Contract-related complications. Carmilla and Runi had been placed in the room at the end of the corridor.
Erik had barely stopped outside the door when he heard Runi’s voice from within.
"My lady, please lie down. The doctor just said you need rest."
"You’re weaker than I am." Carmilla’s voice was still calm, but far hoarser than usual. "Lie down first."
Erik raised an eyebrow slightly. Carmilla was in this condition and still trying to take care of someone else. He knocked twice, and the room immediately went quiet.
"Come in."
Erik pushed the door open. Both women’s gazes shifted to him at once, but Carmilla was the first to react. Her dark red eyes went wide, and she braced a hand against the bed as if to stand.
"Erik?"
"Wait-"
Before Erik could finish, Runi was climbing out of the neighboring bed in a fluster as well. The two of them looked at each other for a second, then seemed to arrive at the same decision.
Carmilla stepped down from the bed. Runi followed.
The next second, both of them knelt down in front of Erik.
He was silent.
His head immediately started aching.
"What are you doing?"
Carmilla bowed her head. Her long black hair fell on either side of her pale face, and her voice trembled faintly. "Thank you, my lord."
Runi bowed even lower. "Thank you, Lord Erik, for saving us."
"Get up."
Neither of them moved.
Erik frowned, his voice growing a little heavier. "I said get up."
Only then did Carmilla hesitantly lift her head. "But..."
"No buts." Erik stepped forward, took Carmilla’s arm, and pulled her to her feet. Her body was already weakened and had just suffered backlash, so she immediately lost her balance and tipped toward him on reflex. Erik steadied her shoulder and eased her back down onto the bed. "Sit."
Carmilla’s face flushed briefly. "Mm..."
Erik turned to Runi. The young Succubus, who had been about to keep kneeling, immediately straightened up on her own and quietly returned to her own bed.
He pulled a chair over and sat between the two beds, only now getting the chance to look them over. Carmilla still had the long black hair and dark red eyes that made her hard to forget, except the loose white patient gown made her look even paler. Her shoulder and arms were wrapped in bandages, her lips almost drained of color, but her back was still forced straight.
Runi sat beside her, her amber-orange eyes still faintly red. She was much younger than Carmilla, and the panic from having her Contract broken by Nathan hadn’t fully faded. Yet from the moment Erik walked in, she had kept her attention on Carmilla first, as though afraid the other woman would push herself until she collapsed.
"Meira told me a little about the situation." Erik began.
Carmilla immediately clasped her hands together. "I’m sorry for troubling you."
"There you go again."
She blinked, caught off guard.
Erik sighed. "I just told you not to kneel, and now you’re apologizing. If you keep this up, I’m going to start suspecting you’re giving me a headache on purpose."
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Carmilla’s face, then the corner of her mouth twitched. Even though it was only the faintest smile, it still softened the exhaustion on her face by a few degrees.
Erik leaned back in his chair and asked slowly: "So right now, both of you are free Succubi?"
Carmilla nodded. "Yes."
"My Contract with Nathan was destroyed too." Runi said quietly. When that name came up, a flash of pain still crossed her eyes. She had handed him her entire fortune and her future, and a few sentences later she’d been thrown out of his life like a useless object.
Erik was silent for a moment, then propped his elbows on his knees. "I have a proposal."
Both women looked up at once.
"I’ve just Awakened. Right now I have Elowen, Felyn, Meira, and Sarna at my side. There’s going to be a great deal to do in the future." Erik spoke very plainly. He thought of the Heaven Gate, the Myriad Realms Mirror, the weakening world, and the Council’s bizarre summons this afternoon. "I can’t keep handling all of it alone. Money can hire people, but some things can’t be built on money alone."
His gaze settled on Carmilla.
"I need people working for me. More importantly, they have to be people I can trust." Erik asked: "Can I trust the two of you?"
The room went suddenly silent.
Carmilla looked at him for a very long time, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend the question. She had braced herself for Meira letting them stay temporarily, covering their treatment, or lending them money to start over. Once she recovered, she would find work herself and rebuild what she’d lost step by step.
But Erik wasn’t handing out charity, and he showed no pity.
He simply asked whether he could trust her.
Carmilla’s dark red eyes gradually began to tremble. The man who had once taken her hand at the Transfer Center, the man whose warmth she’d remembered in the freezing rain, was now genuinely extending a hand toward her.
A drop of water fell onto the back of Carmilla’s hand.
She quickly turned her face away, but the tears kept slowly falling. When the whip struck her, she hadn’t cried. When Naron destroyed the Contract, she had forced it down. Driven out of the house she had built with her own hands, standing in the rain with nothing, Carmilla had still had the strength to hold Runi up.
But that one simple question shattered the last line of defense inside her.
"Yes." Carmilla drew a deep breath, her voice catching. "You can trust me. Whatever you want me to do, I will never betray you."
She raised a hand to her chest. A dark red light emerged, then separated from her body into a small orb no larger than a fingertip. Inside it were thin lines of light like blood vessels, pulsing at a very faint rhythm.
Runi’s expression changed instantly. "My lady!"
"This is a fragment of my Soul Origin." Carmilla lifted the orb toward Erik with both hands. Her red eyes looked straight at him through the tears. "I no longer have a Contract to prove my loyalty. As long as you hold it, my life will be in your hands."
Erik looked at the orb of light in her hands, then looked back at Carmilla.
He didn’t take it.
Unease immediately surfaced on her face. "You still don’t trust me?"
"No." Erik reached out. Carmilla thought he was about to accept the Soul Origin and immediately pushed it forward, but Erik’s hand only gently guided her wrist back.
The dark red orb touched Carmilla’s chest and slowly melted back into her body.
Carmilla stared blankly. "Erik?"
He looked her straight in the eye. "I asked whether I could trust you. You said yes. That’s enough."
Erik shrugged slightly, his voice calm but far from careless. "If I had to hold your life in my hands before I dared to use you, then I never really trusted you to begin with."
Carmilla’s eyes shook violently.
Erik laid his hand over the back of hers. That familiar warmth passed through her ice-cold skin, exactly like the first time he’d taken her hand at the Transfer Center. But this time, Carmilla had no Contract binding her, and no Naron standing behind her.
"Keep your Soul Origin." Erik squeezed her hand gently. "I trust you."
Carmilla couldn’t hold back any longer. She bowed her head, her shoulders trembling faintly, tears falling onto the hand Erik was holding. In the next bed, Runi turned away to wipe her eyes as well, though a very small smile bloomed at the corner of her lips.
The room stayed silent for a long while.
But for the first time since being thrown out of the estate in last night’s rain, Carmilla felt the road ahead was no longer entirely dark.
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