Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride - Chapter 364

Chapter 364: A Sweet Recovery
The water was warm, but it didn’t help.

Leona wrung the cloth with slow, steady hands, wiping the last of his seed from her collarbone. The smell clung to her with a musky, primal and heavy scent. She didn’t look at herself in the mirror. She didn’t speak. Just washed until her knuckles turned pale and the water ran cloudy.

‘It’s so thick… No wonder they are all pregnant.’

Her uniform was stained. She folded it carefully and set it aside, slipping into a fresh one from the hall closet. Not a trace of hesitation. It wasn’t the first time she’d soiled her uniform doing her duty. Just the first time that it wasn’t blood.

She returned to the infirmary to find Seraphina gone. The room was dim, quiet — Nikolai’s breathing was low and deep on the cleaned couch. With bandages and medicine rubbed across his chest.

Leona stepped close, checking his pulse with two fingers. Steady.

Her eyes flicked to his face.

Even in sleep, he looked dangerous. Brow furrowed. Lips parted just slightly. The faint twitch of a fang beneath his breath.

“…Selene,” he’d murmured.

She pressed her palm lightly to his shoulder, then pulled it away.

“Well… It’s not my place,” she whispered, then turned and left. “Not that I disliked doing it.”

Before she left the room, Leona’s eyes lingered on Nikolai’s face, and his exposed crotch… still throbbing slightly, despite cleaning it several times.

The thick, cloudy essence still coated the tip.

“Forget it… I should wash these clothes.”

—

Meanwhile, deeper in the mansion, Selene stopped mid-step and curled her hand.

A sudden burst of warmth bloomed along her palm, up her wrist, down her abdomen, like a tether snapping taut.

Selene lost her breath for a moment before she felt something… no, someone. He was calling. He wanted and needed her.

It wasn’t like words, but a deep, carnal desire.

She turned toward the west wing, eyes sharp, the red thread pulsing beneath her skin.

Selene walked barefoot through the west wing, the crimson thread pulsing beneath her skin like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers. She didn’t rush. The Luna didn’t need to. He would still be there, tangled in his heat, tethered to her like always.

When she reached his door, she didn’t knock.

She entered.

The scent hit her first — blood, bandages, and something more carnal. Her pupils narrowed. The familiar musk of his semen, she realised he’d released already. Maybe not from pleasure. From instinct. A body starved for survival.

She stepped forward, quiet and graceful, and let her eyes fall on him.

Nikolai lay across the infirmary bed, chest wrapped, jaw slack, one hand loosely curled by his head. His body had already begun to recover — faint twitches of muscle across his abdomen, heat rising off his skin like a furnace under strain. But his shaft still lay exposed beneath the sheet, half-hard, the tip still wet with the last remnants of what hadn’t spilt earlier.

Selene pulled the sheet down without hesitation.

“What are you like, which lucky maid enjoyed this sight?” Selene extended her hand, rubbing along him with her delicate fingers, a sticky sound filling the silent room.

“This is what happens when I’m not here.”

Selene slipped onto the makeshift bed, studying his wounds, stroking his chest while her hand moved with measure strokes. “You’re not supposed to waste it,” she leaned down and sniffed his neck, her hand moving with slow, deliberate strokes. Once. Twice.

I felt you call for me…”

The remaining release bubbled as warmth spilt over her hand. Not like before, just thick globs… the thick remnants in the shaft which dripped down her palm.

Selene sighed with a satisfied smile.

“That’s better.”

She licked her fingers with a slow flick, lapping up the hot mess coating his hand. Then she folded the sheet back over him and smoothed down the cloth with care. Selene watched him quietly as she sat beside him, one hand resting over his forehead, waiting for him to wake.

——

Something warm with a sweet scent pressed against his chest.

Nikolai stirred.

It wasn’t the pain that broke his sleep, but a sensation… a strange feeling that lingered in his chest. The dull and blurry world vanished with each blink, and that’s when he noticed the familiar weight.

He could smell her scent, Selene’s familiar palm rubbing his chest, stroking his forehead. Nikolai slowly opened his eyes to see her.

The ceiling above him spun once, then righted itself. His lips were dry. His mouth tasted like iron.

“…Selene.”

The name came without thought. In reality, in his dreams, he saw all his beloved women, Selene, Nikita, Kumiko and Risa. He saw their worried faces—they scolded him, comforted him, and that wasn’t all. Even Lunaria and Amphitrite appeared in the strange dream…

She didn’t answer, but he could feel her smile.

He turned his head slightly. Her silhouette was sitting beside him, legs folded under her, eyes closed, as if meditating. But her hand hadn’t moved.

Nikolai wondered if she felt him through the bond, like he’d felt her and the others.

“I didn’t think… you’d come,” he rasped.

Selene finally opened her eyes.

“I didn’t come,” she said. “You called for me, but… to think you would make such a mess.”

Nikolai exhaled, slow and shallow. His body was heavy, but not tense. Not anymore. He glanced down at the sheet covering him.

Still warm. Still damp.

His lips twitched, and he suddenly remembered the hand felt different and a wry smirk formed.

“I made a mess again, didn’t I?”

Selene’s thumb brushed his chest, right over the heart.

“Leona cleaned most of it.”

He blinked.

“…She did?”

He was quiet for a moment. Then:

“How bad was it?”

“Bad enough that there was still a large amount even after she cleaned up.”

That silenced him for a long time.

Nikolai exhaled through his nose.

“They were waiting outside the Nexus.”

Selene’s eyes opened.

He kept talking, voice steady but low, like gravel dragged over stone.

“I finished the exchange. Came through the portal like always. Familiar air. Familiar stink of the Tower District. I didn’t make it ten steps before I felt it.”

His brow furrowed. “Three of them. No aura. No sound. Just… corpses.”

Selene’s hand didn’t move from his chest. But her posture shifted, the tension in her shoulders rising.

“Bone Saints.”

Nikolai gave a tight nod.

“Not normal ones. No aimless staggering. No chants. These moved like trained hounds. I am not sure how they managed to remove their sluggish movements.”

He lifted his hand slightly, grimacing as his shoulder pulled. He tried to sit up.

Selene stopped him with just a look.

He ignored it, pushed with his elbow until his back angled up against the headrest. Sweat beaded down his temple.

“They knew I’d come through there. That wasn’t luck. Someone planned it.”

Selene’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, they probably have hundreds of spies inside the Nexus, though there are countless worlds, the tower and arena share a common area.”

Nikolai gazed up at her and closed his eyes. “You’re right.”

Selene tilted her head, watching him with quiet amusement.

“You always push too hard,” she said.

Nikolai’s eyes opened again, half-lidded. “I’m still breathing.”

“Barely. And you reek.”

His lip curled. “You were too slow.”

“I was across the estate.”

“And I was inside a corpse’s ribcage.”

Selene didn’t answer. She stepped forward and took his hand without asking, gripping his wrist just below the bandage. Her fingers were cool. Steady. Nikolai didn’t resist, but his body tensed beneath the sheet.

“You don’t have to carry me.”

“I can drop you, stop acting tough and just trust me.”

Her other hand slid beneath his arm, around his back. The movement forced her closer. Her thigh brushed his bare under the sheet. Nikolai didn’t move.

He could feel the bond between them humming — not strong, not demanding, just present.

Selene’s breath tickled his ear.

“Do you know what it felt like?” she murmured.

“What.”

“When your cock pulsed through the thread. I thought you were fucking someone.”

“I was dying.”

“You can do both,” she whispered. “But next time, wait for me.”

She helped him sit fully upright. His face was pale. His ribs trembled with the effort.

But when she pulled him to his feet, he didn’t fall.

Their bodies pressed close, chest to chest, breath to breath.

His voice was rough. “You’re enjoying this.”

Selene’s lips brushed his jaw.

“I always enjoy you.”

The hallway stretched quiet and dim, evening shadows pooling against polished stone.

Nikolai walked with his weight pressed subtly into Selene’s side. He wouldn’t limp — not in front of the staff, not even when every step made his ribs grind like cracked stone. His pride walked ahead of him, shoulders square despite the tremor in his legs.

Selene said nothing. She matched his pace, her hand still around his waist. To anyone watching, it looked like she was escorting her king home from battle.

A servant passed at the corridor’s bend — a young beastkin girl with wide ears and bare feet. She paused, saw them, and quickly bowed her head, backing against the wall. Eyes lowered. Breathing held.

Selene didn’t acknowledge her.

Nikolai’s gaze lingered on the girl a second longer, then turned forward again.

“Do they all know I almost died?” he muttered.

Selene smirked.

“They know you walked back. That’s what matters.”

At the door to his chambers, she opened it without pause, guiding him inside.

He leaned briefly against the frame.

“Next time,” he said, voice low, “I want you there before I start bleeding.”

Selene looked back over her shoulder as she led him in.

“Then stop fighting without telling me.”