"It’s quite a long, unfortunate tale about my past," Malakai murmured, his golden eyes staring flickers of light into the dim cave. "One that I don’t particularly like to talk about."
"Oh? The great, terrifying demon has a hidden history?" Carmilla asked, tilting her head as she leaned a few inches closer. "Do tell."
"I don’t think so, Princess," Malakai chuckled, the lazy smirk returning to his face. "A story like that comes at a incredibly heavy price."
Carmilla let out a heavy sigh, rolling her purple eyes. "Let me guess. My soul would be a fitting offer?"
"Ha!" Malakai chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I wouldn’t go quite that far. It’s just a contract."
"Yeah. A demonic contract that signs my soul away anyway."
"Well, if you want to put it like that..." Malakai’s voice dropped, slowing down deliberately as his golden eyes trailed over her figure. "...then yes. I want you."
Carmilla’s mind went completely blank for a microsecond. ’...So... does he want me to sit on his lap or something, you freaking idiot?!’ she screamed internally.
Her face burned, but her pureblood stubbornness kicked in. If this annoying stray thought he could manipulate her with cheap tension, he had another thing coming. With a defiant, annoyed expression, Carmilla marched straight over to where he was sitting against the cave wall. Before he could utter a single word, she turned around and sat right down on his lap, using his muscular thighs as her personal seat.
Malakai’s smirk completely froze, his breath hitching as her voluptuous frame pressed firmly against him.
"There you go," Carmilla stated coldly, crossing her arms and refusing to look back at him. "Something you always seem to want... my pride. Are you going to talk now?"
Malakai recovered instantly, a low, chuckle vibrating through his body. "My, my. Aren’t we being bold tonight, Princess?"
"If we are doing this, we are doing it my way," Carmilla interrupted sharply. She glanced down at his large arms. "Put your hands on my lap. And you are going to tell me the entire story—not just why you are trapped at Rank 2, but everything."
Accepting the terms of her little deal, Malakai chuckled softly. He didn’t pull her back just yet. Instead, he slowly rested his massive, dark-marked hands directly onto her lap, his long fingers casually splaying across her thighs. The heavy warmth of his palms seared through her combat clothes, making her tail twitch nervously in the dirt.
"Very well, my little master," Malakai murmured near her ear, his teasing tone finally beginning to fade into something much older, and much darker. "If you truly want to know about the ghost haunting your footsteps... listen closely."
"My race of demons aren’t like the typical ones you find roaming the lower realms," Malakai began, his voice dropping into a low, quiet tone that Carmilla had never heard from him before. "We are known as Shadow Slaves—those bound by faith. Or, by our original name, Shadow Spawn. Though... no one uses that name anymore."
"What do you mean, ’bound by faith’?" Carmilla asked, tilting her head slightly as she sat on his lap.
"We are born with a exceptionally powerful mastery over shadow sorcery, but we are severely limited in what we can actually do with it—unless our souls are bound to someone else."
"Your souls? Like a contract?"
"Yes. Without a binding anchor, our power is capped at a low rank, and we slowly begin to wither away. First goes our physical body, then our mana, and last..." Malakai stopped mid-sentence. Unknowingly, his long fingers began to anxiously tap against Carmilla’s thighs, a subconscious habit to calm the ancient tension rising in his chest. "The last thing to go is our minds."
Carmilla stayed perfectly still, listening intently.
"We are forced to give up everything that makes us who we are—our pride, our autonomy, our very bodies—to someone else, whether they are willing or unwilling. It was either that, or face a slow, agonizing death," Malakai sighed, before letting out a dry, humorless chuckle. "Of course, many of us didn’t like those terms. We wanted to choose our own masters. But it rarely worked out. Most of my people slowly died out, unable to find a single soul they could truly trust."
Carmilla tilted her head back up to look at Malakai. For the very first time since she had met him, he wasn’t smiling. His expression was completely somber, shadowed by the dim purple glow of her mana crystal.
"What about the ones who did find masters they could trust?" she asked softly.
"It worked out at first," Malakai murmured, his gaze drifting to the cave floor. "But when someone has absolute, total control over your life, eventually... they will use it to save themselves at your expense."
"I see..."
Carmilla paused, hesitating for a moment before pressing further. "What about you? How was the relationship between you and your master?"
Malakai’s expression instantly darkened, a dangerous, chilling aura radiating off him for a split second. "My former master was a coward. And a traitor. He promised me that he would help me find a legitimate way for my people to live without being forced into slavery. We spent years together, developing a forbidden magic that could permanently lift our racial curse. We were so close, Carmilla. So, so close... until he found May."
As he spoke the woman’s name, Malakai’s hands began to visibly tremble. Slowly, instinctively, his large palms slid up from her thighs, wrapping securely around her voluptuous waist and pulling her flush against his chest, as if anchoring himself to the present. Carmilla didn’t protest.
"May was the absolute love of his life," Malakai continued, his voice tight. "He would have burned the world down for her. But then she got sick. It was a strange, corrupting illness that none of our mages had ever seen before. We tried everything, but nothing worked. So, in his desperation, he made a secret deal with a Demon King—offering up all of our people’s souls as fuel to save her life."
Carmilla’s eyes widened slightly.
"But by that time, he was long past his prime," Malakai whispered, his grip on her waist tightening just a fraction. "And eventually, he fell to my blade. Using the forbidden magical knowledge I had gathered over those years, I managed to halt the withering process for myself. I wanted to grow stronger, to complete our original mission on my own... but the moment my master died, I was permanently locked out of the World System."
He let out a ragged breath against her hair. "Absorbing essence cores didn’t make me stronger anymore. I couldn’t even trigger the ascension trials. I’ve been traveling this world for two hundred years trying to regain access to the System, but nothing has worked. I’ve only managed to keep myself alive by forming temporary contracts and feeding on their mana."
"So... that’s the real reason you want to form a contract with me?" Carmilla asked, her voice quiet as the pieces finally clicked together. "Because I am a Pureblood Vampire, and my essence is incredibly potent?"
"Yes," Malakai confessed, the dark tension slowly draining from his broad shoulders. "That is the main reason... Are you finally changing your mind on my offer, Princess?"
Carmilla looked away, her expression returning to its stubborn, regal composure. "No, I’m not. It’s still a no."
"Sigh... still so stubborn," Malakai chuckled, his dark expression instantly melting away as his usual, mischievous personality returned.
He leaned down, purring smoothly as he lazily rested his heavy chin right on Carmilla’s shoulder. Nuzzling against her neck, he whispered softly, "One day, I’ll have you all to myself, my little master. And when that day comes... I am going to completely devour you."
Carmilla’s entire face flushed a violent, burning red. She stiffened in his lap, knowing with absolute certainty that his last statement wasn’t talking about her magical essence at all.
"We have been traveling together for over a year now, and yet you still say things like that..." she stammered, frantically elbowing his chest away. "You absolute pervert!"