"Don't worry, Autumn. Then I'll wait a little longer for Ethan to recover. Happy now?"
"No. Even then, Ethan still wouldn't survive with how often you drink blood. And you know the rules: Humans must never be allowed to die from blood loss when being fed on within our Vampire Community…"
"Ah. Then I'll recruit four more boyfriends and have them take turns donating blood to me each month. That way, my Queen will only have to donate blood to me once every three months. That's the same interval as donating blood to charity. Is that what you wanted?"
Ruby giggled again, making the twins Anya and Yara join in, even though there was nothing funny about the situation.
After going around in circles, this Queen Bee still couldn't give up on the idea of building a harem of her own.
So it turned out that she had announced the dissolution of her old harem - which had gradually become harder to manipulate - only to make room for a new one that was healthier, had more blood, and perhaps was easier to control as well.
"What I… What I meant wasn't…"
Autumn spoke softly. But Ruby quickly shouted over her voice - despite the words 'Please Keep Quiet' written on the sign hanging on the wall of the third-floor corridor of the Field Hospital.
"Why not? What exactly do you mean, then? Are you trying to fight me over BLOOD? What did you promise me before? What did you swear to me? Didn't we once swear that we would never fight over each other's BLOOD, first, and MEN, second? Didn't we?"
"Heyyyyy! According to BLOOD LAW, you're the one breaking the rules here, Ruby. Ethan is Autumn's Bloodbound. He belongs to Autumn. You're not allowed to take someone else's Bloodbound…"
All of a sudden, Royce started shouting too. His voice was every bit as loud as Ruby's, turning the third-floor corridor into a battlefield of sound.
"…Unless you defeat Autumn in a duel. But as far as I know, you couldn't even beat an Infected, let alone a C+ Vampire like Autumn, right?"
Royce stepped closer to Ruby. Then he held his phone out in front of her so she could see for herself the clause in Vampire BLOOD LAW that he was talking about.
"He he he. But has Autumn ever publicly declared to the Vampire Community of Harmony Town that Ethan is her Bloodbound? Has Autumn registered Ethan's identity on VampID? Have the two of them performed the bonding ritual and received permission from Autumn's family? No, no, and no. None of that has happened, right?"
Ruby remained completely unfazed as she argued about BLOOD LAW with Royce. In that respect, she was exactly like her biological father - Elder Richie.
"Hmm! Royce, why do you always have to butt into us girls' fights over BLOOD and Men? You've only known Ethan for 2.5 months. Why are you so determined to protect him? Could it be that…"
Before Ruby could finish drawing her conclusion, the twins Anya and Yara were already noisily gossiping with each other as though they were the only two people left in the entire corridor.
"Yara, I thought a tall, handsome eleventh-grade boy like Royce should've had a girlfriend ages ago."
"Well, that's because he's afraid of girls."
"But I heard a rumor that he's into some girl who absolutely hates his guts?"
"That girl's Camellia, right? That Vampire Hunter will never accept his love. And he knows that perfectly well, but he still keeps throwing himself at her…"
"Ohhhh. Then I guess that Camellia girl is actually just a… what do you call that word again?"
"A cover. That female Vampire Hunter is just a cover to hide that Vampire's weird preference. That's right, Anya! Royce actually likes fighting us girls over BLOOD and stealing MEN from us. A ha ha ha!"
While the twins Anya and Yara kept laughing hysterically, Ruby calmly delivered her verdict.
"So, basically, you want Ethan all to yourself too, don't you, Royce?"
And the entire Femme Fatale group shrieked with laughter at Royce's bright-red face.
"N… No. I told you, that's not it. Oh my God! Shut up. All of you, shut up right now. Stop laughing. Or I'll…"
"You'll what? You're going to hit us? Or are you going to scratch us with those sissy claws of yours? Come on, then!"
Crash!
The wall beside Royce collapsed under the force of his punch. Chunks of brick and mortar fell away, revealing a second wall made of steel.
Was it only the third-floor Laboratory of the Field Hospital that had double-layered walls like this, or did the entire Hospital share the same structure?
In the end, Royce chose to abandon his fight to reclaim freedom and independence for his human friend Ethan - by focusing his mind on trying to put the bricks back into the wall he had just destroyed.
Now it was Autumn's turn to step into the ring against the Femme Fatale group.
"Ethan is a free human being. Even if he has donated blood to me before, I still don't own him. I don't have that right. And I don't think anyone here has the right to bind him with those ancient, outdated customs of the Vampire world."
Autumn's voice became more resolute than ever.
But that wasn't what Ethan wanted to hear.
And that attitude of Autumn's was even less what Ethan wanted to see.
"So you're not going to fight me over Ethan anymore, right? And you agree that Ethan will be my boyfriend, don't you, Autumn?"
Still sitting in the wheelchair, Ruby turned to Autumn and asked in an incredibly gentle and sweet voice, as though they were sisters talking to each other.
"Please, all of you, just stop this nonsense already."
Ethan growled.
Autumn's silence and submissive attitude in response to Ruby's question only added fuel to the fire, making all the anger that had been building up inside Ethan threaten to erupt.
Didn't silence mean agreement?
Could Autumn really bear to let Ethan become Ruby's boyfriend under that contract?
Did he really mean nothing at all in her heart?
"What is wrong with all of you? The number of Infected in this town keeps growing. The Blood Giver is still out there roaming free. And all you ever care about is this pointless nonsense. What to wear for the Halloween Costume Contest. Petty little matters of love and romance. You're like narcissists. All you care about is yourselves."
Ethan kept questioning the entire group of Vampires - including his friends - even though Autumn's lustrous brown eyes and Royce's black, long-cornered eyes were already filled with guilt. Ethan could clearly see that both of his Vampire friends' tear glands were working overtime, especially Autumn's.
"You don't care about the humans in this town at all, do you? To you, are we humans nothing more than walking bags of FRESH BLOOD? You don't care what happens to us as long as it has nothing to do with you, do you?"
Although the main targets of Ethan's attack were Ruby and the twins, for some reason, Autumn and Royce were the ones wearing those wounded expressions, while the ones who were actually supposed to feel guilty remained completely unbothered.
"Ahem, Ethan, now that you mention it, I remember. The reason I came out here in the first place was to talk to you about the Blood Giver. You guys are looking for her, aren't you?"
Ruby cleared her throat. And she successfully made Ethan stop questioning the whole group.
"On the night when you forced Autumn - who used to be the sweet, adorable, obedient little sister of our Sisterhood - to drink your blood, I was there and witnessed everything from beginning to end. When the Blood Giver ran past me and realized that I had seen her true face, she attacked me. I was completely drunk, so I couldn't run away from her."
Ruby's shoulders trembled, and her face turned pale. For a brief moment, terror flashed through her usually icy eyes. Ruby's reaction showed that she had truly gone through a life-or-death moment.
"What did she look like?"
Ethan asked softly after Ruby had been silent for a while.
"No idea. I can't remember. My memories are like a fog. I only remember that someone suddenly appeared beside me, making that girl - with her hair all tangled up, her face smeared with fresh blood, wearing a Harmony High schoolgirl uniform - run away."
"And what happened after that?"
"I woke up and found myself lying in front of my house, with a Harmony High winter uniform jacket folded under my head. It seems the person who saved me took me home, left me at the gate, rang the doorbell, and then slipped away. The only people around me then were my parents and my older sister. They were all shedding tears over me. Serves them right for not giving me what I wanted. It had to come to that before they'd finally get scared. Ha ha ha."
"…About the person who saved you, can you tell me who that was?"
Suddenly, an idea occurred to Ethan - the person who had appeared just in time to save Ruby might have some clue about the identity of the bloodthirsty Vampire who had attacked Royce, him, and Autumn in the dark alley on the night of Friday, September 26.
"How am I supposed to remember? You guys know how bad my health has been lately after the Council had me injected with AntiVamp and my fangs broken."
Ethan's face fell again at Ruby's answer. The investigation had reached another dead end because of her poor memory and vagueness.
"But Ethan. Maybe all I need is a little FRESH BLOOD - the FRESH BLOOD of my boyfriend - and my memory will fully recover. And once you get information from me, who knows? Maybe you guys will catch that disgusting girl soon…"
Suddenly, a phone rang, and Ruby stopped talking to answer it.
After finishing the call, she snapped her fingers at her underlings. And the entire Femme Fatale group blew Ethan a thousand kisses as they made their way toward the elevator.
"Remember, Ethan. You'd better recover quickly so you can offer me your BLOOD. The peace of Harmony Town depends on your attitude."
The jingling bells on Autumn gradually faded into the distance, then disappeared completely as she pushed Ruby's wheelchair into the elevator. The third-floor corridor of the Field Hospital was now left with only two boys standing there, staring blankly at each other.
"Bro! Let me go. Where are you dragging me?"
Royce yelped as Ethan locked an arm around his neck and dragged him away, refusing to let him keep playing Tetris with the collapsed brick wall of the third-floor Laboratory.
"To the cafeteria."
Ethan replied curtly.
He still didn't let go of Royce. Even though if he let this guy drag him along instead of dragging Royce himself, the two of them could probably move three times faster than they were now.
"That's right, bro. An army marches on its stomach, huh? I'm gonna devour every last bit of food in the Field Hospital cafeteria and make Spring faint. After that…"
"After that, we're going to track him down."
"Him?"
"Yeah. Him… I'm guessing he's a boy whose looks are Ruby's type, judging by the way her cheeks suddenly flushed and her eyes turned dreamy when she told us what happened on the night of September 26."
That was right!
He - the one who had appeared beside Ruby when the Blood Giver tried to attack her - must know at least a few details about what that bloodthirsty female Vampire looked like in her human form.
He even knew exactly who Ruby was, where she lived, and took her all the way home. He had also been thoughtful enough to place a Harmony High winter uniform jacket under her head as a pillow.
Let's see!
Could that jacket still carry his scent or have any other clues that might reveal its owner's identity?
And if there was a security camera at the gate of Ruby's house, could footage of him still be stored somewhere?
Ethan couldn't ask Ruby these things directly. She would definitely hide all that information away, leaving Ethan with no choice but to trade his own BLOOD for her exclusive information.
Therefore, Ethan needed to come up with a new plan - a much more detailed and specific plan - to track HIM down and get information from him.
But first, he needed to eat a huge breakfast to make up for the days he had spent unconscious.
Because only after replenishing his energy could he think clearly enough to catch the Blood Giver - while still keeping his freedom and his heart.
Even though she didn't need his heart.
And she couldn't even be bothered to fight someone else for him, not even a little.
Oh!!!