Chapter 507: Think of Blood as a chain (2)
"What?" Caius let out in confusion.
"A few weeks ago, Arlette told me she was worried about the stagnation of your Evolution," Anne said.
"Stagnation?" Caius said with a little chuckle, "It’s only been a few months."
He looked over at Arlette, realizing why she had decided to come along. She just wanted to see if her request was actually heeded. Arlette met his eyes and set her jaw as though to show she didn’t think she was wrong to worry.
Anne nodded to Caius’s words.
"That’s what I told her. It’s perfectly normal to spend decades to achieve a Circle the higher one gets, so, really, you’ve been improving at an extraordinary pace.
Still, Arlette made some good points about current dangers and how paramount a speedy evolution could prove.
After all, you’ve already been cheating your Evolution speed. Our Magical Advancements have also received staggering improvements in speed thanks to the Arcane Circle.
In short, we have precedence so why stop now? Shouldn’t we see how far we can push this cheat?"
"I’m not complaining," Caius said, "I welcome any cut corners I can get. I just didn’t think there was any more."
"Oh, there is," Anne said, a light in her black eyes.
Arlette shared that excitement.
"What was it?"
With a flick of her wrist, Anne retrieved something from her storage Ring. It looked like a canister—a lot like the ones Caius used to receive Beast blood in—but made of even better materials and etched with more powerful enchantments to preserve the integrity of its content.
"Is that...?" Arlette started.
"Yes, it’s my blood," Anne said with pride.
"Gods... When you asked for access to an ’Ophiuchus’ base, I didn’t think this was what you were going to be doing," Arlette said and a bit of worry slipped into her expression of excitement.
Caius understood what was happening quirky enough:
’Ophiuchus’ bases are fitted with tools for Blood siphoning. It’s how the Leopold Coven—especially the members of the Council—receive blood to sate their thirst and progress their Evolution without leaving the Underground Coven. Victims are captured and taken to the bases where they are either siphoned all at once or kept alive to provide blood more times if the blood is of... greater quality.
"Oh, it wasn’t terrible," Anne said, "It was actually quite nice. Sort of like giving a donation."
Caius looked at Arlette as though to question what terrible thing she had put Anne up to.
"Caius, I- I swear... I just instructed the base to treat her with respect. To treat her as they would treat me and provide all she needed."
Anne frowned lightly.
"Caius, relax, it was fine. A few minutes every couple of hours every day in a private and brilliantly furnished room was relaxing. And I got to keep the blood afterward," she said, shaking the canister at Caius as though to prove her words to be true.
"Alright. But why? Also, it’s not just blood I need," Caius pointed out.
"I know," Anne said and there was a slightly bashful smile on her face now,
"There (clears throat) should be an arousal charge in there. I was plenty aroused at the time.
That’s actually how I got the idea;
Only the first day away from you and the memories of our time together were far too prominent in my head— It filled me with need and longing. As you know, I was once no stranger to relieving my frustrations. Alas, you’ve changed that, and try as I might, the need and longing never went away.
My Blood was constantly tinged with arousal, and soon, it just seemed foolish to let that go to waste. Especially once Arlette told me of her concerns."
"This is very generous," Caius said and he meant that even with the dour tone his voice had taken,
"But, there is a reason touch is required. Arousal has stages and peaks. You’ve just admitted that peak is absent from here. The Arousal charge in that canister will barely be traces..."
"Oh, yes, absolutely," Anne agreed with him and then smiled shrewdly,
"And that’s where Allegra comes in.
In all the dreg and nonsense I sifted through, and all through my frustrations which my joy for linguistics could barely combat, I found something discussing the unique properties of Blood that has been affected by her Arcane Circle;
Think of Blood as a chain of interlocking links. Every drop is connected to the next drop and that drop to the next and so on. Whatever one drop carries—nutrients or Evolutionary charge—it passes on to the next drop. The next drop receives what it has been given and passes it on to the next drop while also sending it right back to the drop that came before, essentially doubling its content of whatever is being passed in the chain.
Do you understand?"
"I think so," Caius said, his hand on his chin and his tone musing.
"Good, ’cause I’ll admit it took me a while," Anne said with a little smile and continued,
"Anyway, at some point, the ends of the chain become connected so the process just goes on and on in a cycle. The quantity and quality of whatever is being carried—Nutrient or Evolutionary Charge—doesn’t grow infinitely stronger, of course. It has no source for that increase.
However, the drops of blood, by doing this pass-forward-and-backward thing, can supply what one drop in the chain lacks, bringing it up to the level of the others. An unintended but very welcome benefit of the Arcane Circle.
And so long as there is preservation, blood of the exact same genetic make-up—affected by the Arcane Circle—will always reconnect, forming the chain to supply what one lacks that the other has."
Arlette nodded along like it made perfect sense.
"Of course," she said, "So, if Caius drinks the blood in that canister and then drinks from you directly after you’ve been— properly motivated, the Stronger Arousal charge in your blood will increase the one in the canister even after it has gone down his throat."
"As long as they are ingested within a minute of each other. Before either is fully absorbed by his blood," Anne said, "Yes."
"Let’s do it," Arlette said, looking so driven by scientific curiosity that one might think she was going to be a participant in all this.
Was she?
Caius took the canister as Anne held it out. She kept her hand on it and used the pull to get up to her feet and close enough to him to press her breasts against his chest. Caius would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about this and he would be lying even more if he said the experiment was what was most on his mind as he pressed his lips to Anne’s neck.
It was hard not to get wrapped up in the feeling of closeness with this body that he had lacked for weeks just to focus on the fact that he only needed her arousal to spike a little.
It didn’t take long though. The moment Caius’s arm was around her, and her hard nipples pressed up against his chest, Anne felt herself shiver with more delight than she had been able to muster on her own for over three weeks. Yes, Arousal had stages but if this was the first stage, then she had been operating on a negative for weeks.
Oh, how much she longed to reach those delightful peaks again as she moaned and nuzzled her face against his. She barely noticed Caius popping open the canister to take a sip of her blood inside of it. And only the sharpness of his fangs in her neck reminded her of what they were doing...
... Only for pleasure to quickly rob her of that thought and she just longed for her vampire lover to siphon her dry. He deserved that much for making her feel so... fucking good!
