The Demon Lord's Bride (BL)
Chapter 274: A Pledge for Eternity

Chapter 274: A Pledge for Eternity

"Alright, that’s it for the errand," Lesta cracked his neck and took a deep breath, before expelling in a long sigh.

After toiling for two days, running around the whole Capital to take care of his Lord’s business that should have taken a week if it was other people, Lesta thought he deserved a nice, relaxing vacation. Well, in the first place, the whole reason why he worked so efficiently was so he would be able to have free time, after all.

But this time, he didn’t finish his work faster for a vacation.

"Should I book the portal for tonight or tomorrow?" he heard Eruha ask him from the other side of the desk, tidying all the documents on the desk so they could leave anytime.

Lesta stared at the vampire, watching the expressionless face. There was a new yearning in his heart, to see the beastly, hungry gaze he received that night; the night of fervent kisses and carnal satisfaction.

"How long does it take for the mark of eternal to settle?" he asked, and it was like the time had stopped.

Eruha was frozen, as if the clock in his immortal body had stopped. For Lesta amusement--and to some extent, worry--it didn’t even seem like the vampire worked his lungs. Slowly, so slowly Lesta started to think he was part of a horror show the theaters loved to play in the summer.

But he did see it; the glint of a ferocious emotion locked beneath the cold countenance. The pale face shifted, red eyes locked into him, pupil dilating.

"Probably...the whole night," the voice that came out of Eruha sounded almost slurred, as if the vampire was in a daze. "Maybe more..."

Lesta felt himself tingling just from that; from the shift inside those eyes, from the thirst and the hunger that laid bare. Not for his blood, but for his soul. For the very essence of his being.

"Then forget about booking the portal for now," Lesta said, grabbing the armrest to stand up.

At least he tried to, before his body fell back into the chair. As if the desk between them was made of air, Eruha was already looming over him, eyes gleaming as if the vampire was ready to eat him whole.

Well, in a sense, binding one’s own life for eternity didn’t feel much different from being consumed.

"Are you saying you’ll do it?" this time, Eruha sounded firm. There was no longer that hazy, dazed look.

"You don’t usually have much difficulty reading between the lines," Lesta tilted his head, using cheekiness to mask the nervousness spreading from his heart.

Not that he could mask it, anyway, since it pounding so loudly that both of them could hear it clearly. And as if it wasn’t enough, Eruha placed his palm against the demon’s chest, above the wildly beating heart. It had been quite a while since he did it, feeling Lesta’s beating heart at the end of their session.

The heart he so longed to carve with a part of his soul.

"Hey, that’s embarrassing," Lesta frowned, grabbing the vampire’s hand to push it away from his chest.

"Get undressed," the vampire said instead, and Lesta blinked.

"...here?"

"Before you change your mind."

Eruha sounded impatient now, which almost made Lesta laugh. So much for saying he would wait for Lesta patiently.

Narrowing his eyes, Lesta pushed the vampire back. "Do I not deserve a better treatment than this? In this chair, really?" Lesta frowned slightly. "You’re going to technically marry me and you want to do it crudely like this?"

Those words created a battle inside the vampire’s mind, which was apparent in the slightly shaking eyes. It was like Eruha got afraid that the moment they moved even an inch, Lesta would immediately call it off. How silly.

"Take me to bed or something," Lesta huffed, and almost immediately, he felt himself getting yanked off the chair and led to the bedroom.

Again, how silly. Lesta almost felt so ridiculous to have all those senses of inferiority all this time. This vampire was obviously ready to follow him anywhere.

Lesta barely felt the sheet on his skin when Eruha already told him, for the second time, to undress. "All of it?"

Again, Eruha seemed to contemplate hard between rationality and lust. Lesta was now convinced that the serious, cold, studious appearance was only there to cover the wild, libidinous side. How else would he explain the spike in sexual drive whenever they were on the bed.

Was this vampire had always been like this? Honestly, Lesta kind of forgetting already how Eruha was at the start of their meeting. It wasn’t like the interest was right there from the start. No--he felt like he actually saw the vampire to be an annoying stuck-up, or something. How did they end up in this relationship again?

"Where’s your mind wandering to? Focus," Eruha pinched the demon’s chin. "I need to touch your bare chest."

Ah, so the rationality win.

Lesta hid his smile and unbuttoned his shirt. Eruha seemed to be dissatisfied somewhat, but he was also too preoccupied with preparing the spell for the bind. "Will it hurt?" Lesta asked, suddenly realizing he had no idea what the process would be like.

Eruha blinked once, before frowning--which meant bad news, generally. "...yeah, I think so," he said hesitatingly.

"Okay, I just need to know so I can prepare myself mentally," Lesta nodded. He had never planned to back off whatever the answer in the first place.

Eruha let out a held breath, looking relieved by the answer. And with that relief, he told the demon; "I need to stab your heart."

"...you need to what?!"

Lesta almost threw his determination out of the window, but Eruha shoved it back through his mouth. The ardent kiss was enough to make Lesta melt back into the sheet, but not enough to shed his sudden fear.

Well, getting ready for pain was quite different from getting ready to die.

"I have to carve the spell in your heart," Eruha explains.

"With your hand?"

"With my soul--but yes, our finger is the best tool."

Lesta had hoped the vampire was talking about carving his heart in a metaphorical sense, but it didn’t seem like it. Eruha had been opening the mana channel from the core of his heart to the tip of his finger, readying the way for a piece of his soul to be infused into the demon’s heart.

Hearing the demon swallowing in nervousness, Eruha leaned down and asked gently, almost in a whisper. "Should I give you the poison?"

Lesta bit his lips in contemplation, a habit that always made Eruha tempted for a kiss in the middle of work hours. And then those lips parted, and what Lesta said next truly shook the vampire’s soul.

"No," the demon said. "No, I want to know how it feels entirely."

There were three seconds passing by when Eruha felt as if his lungs stopped functioning and his mind lost in a strange sensation where his brain couldn’t think of anything but Lesta and Lesta and Lesta. It was weird. He had been weird for decades now.

Staring into the blinking dark eyes, Eruha hovered above the lips that were slightly trembling from dread. "If, by the end of your life, you still decide to not bind yourself to me, I had planned to follow you to the afterlife, even if I had to jump inside a volcano," Eruha said. It was dry, but also raw; words that came out of his heart and not his brain. As the dark eyes beneath him widened, he continued. "Do you think that counts as love?"

Grabbing the hand on top of his chest, Lesta replied with a bated breath. "Kiss me," he said. "Kiss me while you carve my heart."

And so he did, pressing his lips on Lesta’s lips while pressing his finger on the demon’s chest, past the dark skin, the lean flesh, and the hard bone.

The kiss ended with a loud scream and hard, violent grips on Eruha’s arms, leaving deep, bloody scratches along the pale skin.

It was painful. At first, it was just painful, although Lesta had gotten used to pain all his life. And then it burned. Oh, it burned, scorching his heart as another soul invaded him. He could feel it; the flow of Eruha’s soul crawling around his heart, forming runes and lines like a cage, seeping into his heart, his life, and the moment it touched his soul, it wasn’t just pain anymore.

Oh, it was still bloody painful, and Lesta was still screaming at the top of his lungs. But the moment he felt Eruha’s soul binding with his, there was an overwhelming sensation that he couldn’t explain alongside the pain. Even while he thought he was going crazy from the pain, Lesta didn’t think he could forget that overwhelming sensation flooding his mind.

He gasped, and the scream was replaced with a single word. "Eru--" the voice came out airless, sharp and almost inaudible. And yet it sounded like the loudest bell in Eruha’s ear.

No, the voice was in his mind, in his heart, in his soul. His soul that was now incomplete inside his body. His soul that now could only be completed with the demon’s existence.

His Lesta.

His Eternal.

"E-Eru!" Lesta gasped, no longer had air to scream, back arched and fingers reddened by the vampire’s blood. "Hold...hold me..."

It was hard to do it with his hand on the demon’s chest, but Eruha managed to embrace Lesta while continuing the process.

"A bit more, just a bit more," Eruha whispered with bated breath. Now that their soul had been bound, Lesta’s pain was his pain. And from then on, until the end of their life, he would continue to share any pain that Lesta would feel.

From then on, for eternity, so long as the mark of eternal still carved in their heart.