XVIII · The Chimera of Level 96

🎧 Woman by Doja Cat

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First he made me faint by strangling me, then he made me faint again in the same day, probably not even hours apart, by eating me out. That's a duality.

When I regained my consciousness, I felt deliciously sore in many places, and when I inhaled it, all I breathed was his scent, which told me he was right there with me. Then I felt him, beneath me, his right arm around my waist tight, keeping me on him, my right leg sliding between his as he stayed with his pants but I could still feel his size under it, my right arm was around his waist as I laid my head on his chest. Focusing, still with my eyes closed, I heard his heartbeat, quickening at each second, as his skin warmed more and more under my touch.

"Open your eyes, cherryling, I can't bite you," he said above me.

Slowly, I did as he told me, tilting my head up to meet his eyes, and they had gone back to crystalline, blackening veins gone, shining in lilac, his pupils widening softly as he met my gaze, "I'm cold," I pouted.

Giggling, he grabbed me closer, both of his arms surrounding me, and using some kind of magic, he covered us with the blanket, "Better?"

I inhaled his scent from his neck, nodding, "You're so warm. Ain't vampires supposed to be colder? Or was that just a legend in humanity?"

"Vampires are colder," he purred, bringing his left hand to my ass, caressing me, purposely or not, turning me on again, "but I'm not solely a vampire, I'm more than that, I'm partially a panther shifter and all shifters have a warmer body, I ain't as warm as if I were a wolf shifter, but I'm still a lot warmer than than any non-shifter race."

"You are warmer than me, that's for sure."

"I doubt anything feels warmer than your pussy, cherryling."

A gasp left my lips, "Dorian."

Grinning devilishly, he tightened his grip on my waist and ass, "I think void dwellers are part of the colder races, more than vampires even, as there's nothing on a void. Void is a synonym of emptiness, of nothing, of lack of life, hence lack of warmth," he caressed me, as if to spread his warmth to me, and I hugged him tighter for the same reason. "You feel cold, but only on the outside, cherryling."

"Can I ask you something… naughty?"

"You don't need to ask permission for that, cherryling, you can ask whatever you want, especially if it's naughty," he licked his lips, and I felt the urge to kiss him again. "Just speak your mind. I don't know how it was in the human realm, given how freaky humans are, but here, in Auradoom, you have no reason to hold back on anything. As an authorized researcher you are even more encouraged to voice your curiosity, on whatever it is."

My blood rushed to my cheekbones tainting them, and I nodded. "I was thinking that before, but did you feel it? As you were… sexing me?"

The bastard grinned amused with my embarrassment, "Yes. Every part of it, I feel everything I do with the shadows. I told you, cherryling, it was me, not my skin or my cock, but it was me. I felt it all too well."

Swallowing, I remembered something he had said before, "Earlier you said that this was a part of you, that you fought against. What did you mean by that? Was it about the shadow magic? Does it hurt you?"

For a second, I thought he wouldn't answer when he clenched his jaw, but then he sighed and met my eyes again. "The shadow magic comes from that part of me that I fight against, not because it hurts me, though it does sting my soul a bit, but because I hate the nature of it, and I hate it even more how much I like to use the power I have because of this part of me."

Because that ain't confusing at all, "What part of you?"

He leaned his head back on the pillow, "Only your dad and the very headmaster of the tower knows this, I never tell anybody because there's a big prejudice around it, but I'm not just partially vampire and shifter."

"Well, I don't mind it. Sure, I may be shocked when I see all of the difference races in this world, because, well, I'm used to humans and only humans, but my shock aside, I don't have prejudice over any of you. I've never liked that word, prejudice, and neither that comes with it. Humanity is infested with prejudice over countless of things, but I ain't human or the least like them," I traced my fingers on his chest under the blanket. "Who am I to hold prejudice over anyone when I'm what I am?"

"I know, cherryling," he said softly, eyes changing to pale green. "I can't feel any hostility from you. Even so, I know you wouldn't be like that as your father is the one who raised you." Finally, he met my eyes again, "I am partially a demon," and he stayed silent for almost a minute, watching me after a reaction, any at all, when he found none, he giggled in dismay, but clearly feeling more comfortable. "And I'm also partially serpent."

"What is that even called? A tetrahybrid? How is that possible?"

"Maybe it should, but in the tower they call us chimeras," he clicked his tongue bitterly. "It shouldn't be possible, but the tower made so."

I ain't feeling good about this, "They 'made' so?"

"The Nightcrawler Tower is into experimenting with races, that's a part of the field of research of Genetic Mutations, and partially of Female Interracial Fertility and consequently of Magical Awakening in Hybrids, well, hybrids and beyond, but that concept stays in the tower. Headmaster Morgan is the most successful being in the research of Genetic Mutations, he is technically the founder of level 96, the lowest level of the tower on the underground, and the hugest. It's nearly like a city down there."

I feel sick, "Level 96?" I frowned, already loathing the number. "I don't want to interrupt you, but if level 96 is for Genetic Mutations, what is in level 94?" I narrowed my eyes, suspicious, because fucking damn it, that number can't be a coincidence, not when dad worked there.

His eyes darkened, "HQ of the Artifact Creation's masters and high ranks, from level 300 and above," then he cursed. "It's a coincidence."

"I'm a non-believer when it comes to coincidences," I sighed. "Tell me what did they to you in level 96."

"They did me in there," he chuckled mockingly and I think I paled. "I'm nobody's son, cherryling, like all chimeras out there, I was made by a combination of genes with the use of the artifact of life, the only one that the headmaster owns, and one of the strongest, a primordial one just like the one in your pretty wrist. I just happened to be the most successful chimera of all his experiments, hence how I got some privileges."

"Such as headmaster Morgan calling your dad to meet me, and offer me to be his pupil, because he ambitiously envisioned the best for me, or at least what he believed to be the best, and at that time your father was already the most talented and the strongest researcher on the Nightcrawler Tower, he already had Sera with him and another two artifacts that you don't have it in you. I had been a secret experiment that the headmaster made on his own, so, I was his secret.

"When I and the Architect met, he took a look on me, thought I was outstandingly pretty, tall for 12 years old, smelled nice, and he accepted me as his apprentice. But he was the only one who knew what I am, aside from headmaster Morgan, and now you, and he was fine with my nature. In fact, he saw my mixed blood as cool, and said that he would train me, make me a strong one, so I would he extra useful to him, and his crazy adventures after all he needed for his experiments and researchs."

"For a matter of fact, he did use me a lot in his absurd ideas, and he was always putting me in life-threatening situations to force me to use the powers I did not want to use, as in really constantly, monthly even. But he taught me all that I know about nearly everything. Headmaster Morgan may have made me in a certain way, but your father was the closest I had to the concept of a father," he said that cringing. "It feels wrong to say that while having his naked daughter wrapped around me."

I couldn't help laughing, "Let's say he was like you uncle."

"Wouldn't that make us morally like cousins?" He scowled.

Slapping his chest, I cackled, "Oh, come on, don't make it weird. I think it's better to just say he's your master."

Smiling mischievously, he nodded, but then his smile began to fade and I felt… angry with whatever was making it fade.

"I may not act like it, or seem like it, but I'm struggling to digest the fact that he… died. I had the hope of meeting him again, I prayed the stars for that. And I confess that a part of me doesn't believe he died, a part of me wishes he is just barely alive and will come back to beat me up for claiming his daughter for myself."

Did he… did he just say he claimed me as his? "I'm hurting too."

He brought the hand that was on my waist to my hair, still with the gloves on, and as his slander fingers went through my long strings of hair, caressing the base of my scalp, I nearly moaned, "I can image. He was all you had, and you've been with him since you were a baby, more than I was, but I get it. But what makes me stay strong is what he used to say,"

"Grieve nothing, take everything," I breathed the words, closing my eyes. "He may have told me that a lot, but you went there and taught me it."

Dorian gasped, rolling his eyes, "You are an idiot, just like him."

"Seems like even if dad's is gone, a part of him is in me, and here to mess with you," I chuckled. "So, shadow magic is a demonic magic? In fact, how does magic works around here? I was never a believer in magic, so I'm very overwhelmed by the whole concept. But you made sure I ain't ever contesting the existence of it, at all."

This time he couldn't hold his laughter, "Oh, hell. Yes, cherryling, it's a demonic magic, it's dangerous and volatile if you can't control it or if you loose your shit, it's also hard to control and it takes more than a century to reach such feat. Thanks to your dad constantly putting my life on the line and forcing me to use it, for more than four hundred years, I can control ot pretty damn well, but I hate it."

"Oh, I knows how well you can control that," I chuckled naughtily.

To my delight, his tanned cheeks blushed, "You don't let one miss, do you? You really are his daughter. It's baffling, you don't look like him, but clearly the physical has nothing to do with what's inside."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said with a smug. "I'm not like this with other people, but I feel strangely comfortable with you, like I did with dad. But I've always been socially awkward, thankfully it ain't around now, but again, it's probably because I feel good with you, and also because I don't need to lie to you. You already read me."

"Do I make you feel comfortable?" He grinned.

"Overall?" I chuckled. "No. But I fell comfortable being myself."

"So, I make you uncomfortable?" His grin widened devilishly.

Well, now that grin makes a load of sense, he is partially devilish after all, it shows. "Not in a bad way. But you confuse me."

"How so?" Oh, he's enjoying this, bastard.

I bit my bottom lip, "I'm not used to feeling anything, not even lust, for anybody, so, all that I've been feeling since I felt you in the hallway, all that you've said about everything, and that you showed me, confused me. You make me feel anxious, confused, aroused, annoyed, angry, sad, happy, curious, calm, bothered, worried, and let's double on confused. Maybe we should triple on the aroused. But more than anything you feel… magnetic."

His eyes darkened going from ruby to black, pupils widening, "You feel all that about me?"

"All that and a bit more than I can't name, as I don't know what it is, because I'm confused, I've never felt this much all at once. To be honest, I have never really been this intimate with anyone either, back in the human realm it was just me and dad, he was strict, I barely went out of the house or saw anyone until I turned 21, when he let me wander the neighborhood and get a silly job. Even then, I felt… antisocial, apathic over others."

"I like being the first," he said, bringing my right leg to his hip and caressing my thigh with a possessive touch. "I like your honesty the most."

I felt my cheeks warming, "It's good to be honest for a change."

"Do you lie a lot?" He grinned amused.

"I am my father's daughter," I purred.