A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

"Hey, Astrid," Erik smiled calmly at his fiancé.

Yet, instead of greeting him, the young vampire looked at him with panic, anger, and pain. "Don't 'hey Astrid' me!" she exclaimed with frustration. "Quickly save my mother! I— I can't stand to see her like this!"

Erik noticed her fists were constantly clenching and releasing as she paced through the room. He realized Astrid was feeling a lot of things, and had no way to release her emotions.

So instead of walking up to Liv, he went up to Astrid and hugged her waist to stop her from pacing. His calm, amber gaze pierced into her panic stricken crimson eyes. "You mother will be fine, Astrid. We have her now. We just need a little time. All you need to do, is not implode from your own nerves before then, alright?"

"E— Easy for you to say!" she trembled, a tear appearing in her usually resolute eyes. "I— It hurts to see my mother reduced to this… She was always so powerful! During the fight I was able to focus on other things, and when we arrived she was still far away, but now…"

"I know…" Erik smiled calmly, wiping away her tears. "I would feel the same way if it was my mother instead. We both have mothers whose strength we've been looking up to from birth. But neither of us should break down if they ever falter a little, right?"

Erik smirked a little mischievously, "I mean, I fully intend on surpassing my mother. Don't you? Maybe by this time next year you'll be stronger than her, and she'll be forced to look up to you. But who is she going to look up to? A powerful woman, or a panicking daughter who breaks down when her mother has a boo-boo?"

Panic and pain were wiped from Astrid's gaze. Instead, fury flared. She cocked back her fist. "Fuck you!" she growled, before barely managing to punch his chest. Unfortunately, since Erik was so close to her, it was impossible for her to put any real strength behind her punch.

"There's the Astrid I know and love," Erik grinned, before leaning over and kissing her lips.

At first, Astrid was surprised and angry, but then she started leaning into it. Aggressively. For a full ten minutes, the two lovers kissed passionately. Saliva flying. Hands groping, pulling, slapping.

They almost ended up the floor, when Liv suddenly started growling more wildly and violently in the background.

Immediately, the two lovers separated and looked at each other with empty gazes. Then they started laughing.

"Hehehe," Astrid snickered playfully, no longer angry or frustrated. "Do you think she realized what's happening?"

Erik chuckled, amusement in his voice, "Maybe she's in there looking at us, wondering why I'm sucking her daughter's face, rather than helping her."

"You'd better get started than," Astrid grinned. "You don't want to start off on the wrong foot with my mother, right?"

There was still some worry in her eyes, but she was more relaxed now, having worked off some of her excess emotions by releasing them on Erik. So she continued, a little awkwardly, "And uhm, thank you… that helped."

"I wouldn't be your future husband if I didn't know you at least a little, right?" Erik chuckled, before turning his gaze to the struggling Liv encased in ice.

Meanwhile, Elora's small form fluttered over to Erik. Once there, she took a seat on his shoulder with a roll of her eyes, and casually revealed the real reason Liv had suddenly become more lively. "If you two lovebirds are done, I've just removed the control sigil, so all that's left is feeding her blood," she pouted a little.

Erik chuckled at the hint of jealousy he heard in the fairy's voice. Despite her own ambitions about wanting to create a harem of powerful women for Erik, she didn't actually have a fetish about seeing him with other women. So she still got a little jealous now and then.

"Thank you, my love," Erik smiled warmly at the fairy on his shoulder. At the same time, he caressed her small head with his finger while sending her feelings of love through their bond.

With that Elora seemed satisfied. She nuzzled against his finger, and released the pout on her face.

"Alright, let's get started," Erik than clapped his hands, before suddenly making a few tens of bags full of blood appear in the air.

Unlike with Astrid, where he directly fed her his blood, they had decided to be a little more careful this time. After all, they were dealing with a third-ranked ghoul now. Erik had been able to keep up with the rate ghoulified Astrid sucked away his blood back then, but there was no way to be sure it would be the same with Liv.

Thus, they had filled up a large number of these bags with Erik's blood before they even came to Kirkenes.

As soon as the bags appeared, ghoulified Liv sniffed the air, and swiveled her head in their direction. Her chaotic gaze now truly filled with greed and thirst driven madness.

Fortunately for her, they didn't make her wait long. With a solemn gaze, knowing this was still an important moment, even if the outcome was more or less assured, Erik picked up a bag and held it in front of the frozen ghoul's mouth.

With no hesitation, Liv's head lurched forward, and sank her teeth into the bag. All three of them looked in astonishment when the bag's contents were sucked away in nearly an instant.

Erik's eyelids switched a little as he thought about putting his own arm between those teeth. "Good thing we went with the bags…" he muttered to himself as visions of his dried-up corps came to mind.

Luckily, they had more than enough bags. He and Astrid both grabbed some blood, and started working together to feed Liv.

With every bag that disappeared between those teeth, some color returned to Liv's face; some wrinkles smoothed out; some hairs regrew; and some sanity returned to her eyes.

Finally, after nearly 40 liters of blood had disappeared into the black hole that was Liv's stomach, she blinked and looked at her daughter with less insanity, and more confused love, "A— Angel?"