A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

Elora decided to ignore this non-family member calling her by her first name since she was sort of a special case. Besides, this woman had a rare and powerful affinity: sun affinity. Thus, regardless of Erik's past with her, she really wanted Astrid to join them.

So instead of reprimanding her, she just smiled softly, "It's not like I didn't get anything out of it."

While Erik was looking fondly at Elora, he suddenly felt a hot stare from his side, so he chuckled and looked at Astrid next to him.

"I think it's about time you start talking about what happened to you in the last seven years now, Erik." She said with narrowed eyes, "Setting aside your resurrection from the dead, your personality changes, and your multiple wives, you've now also got fairy-like creatures, and I think I deserve some answers before my head explodes."

Hearing her demand caused Erik to chuckle. "Really? But I was just enjoying hearing you talk about how much you like my special look," he said while wiggling his eyebrows playfully.

Naturally, Astrid just narrowed her eyes even more and began to crack her knuckles, so Erik chuckled again, before momentarily falling silent and furrowing his brows.

The thing was, telling Astrid his story was somewhat of a risk. After all, he was sure Emma was entirely devoted to him, while Viljar was bound by a covenant, but Astrid was none of these things.

"It's entirely up to you," he heard the supportive voice of his beloved partner say in his head.

Finally, after a moment of silence, with Astrid staring daggers at him, he sighed and relented inwardly. This had already gone too far anyway, and if he wanted Astrid to be truly his in the future, he would need to be honest with her now.

'But no one else besides Mom will get to hear it in the future, not without some way to ensure their silence,' he promised himself.

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He turned to Astrid, "I'll tell you everything, but it can't leave this room, understand? You can't even tell your mother when we free her."

Having already expected his story to be pretty fantastical and secretive, Astrid lost her narrowed, angry gaze and nodded seriously. "It's been a few years, but you can still trust me, Erik."

So, he nodded, smiled, and began his story.

This was actually the first time for Emma to hear the entirety of Erik's story as well, so she listened with careful attention.

The story he told was similar to the one he told his uncle, though perhaps he included some more details about the relationship aspects of his little, recently expanded, three-person family.

Learning Erik was also sticking it to others, outside of his two wives, caused Astrid's eyelids to twitch a little, but she refrained from commenting about it.

Naturally, Astrid was utterly baffled from the very moment Erik explained how he had been teleported to an entirely different world.

Learning the universe was far larger than just their little blue marble was obviously quite the revelation.

Emma's reaction was far milder, however. At one point, she had already suspected something similar to this, largely due to her inhuman intuition. Even if she hadn't, however, she didn't care much. She gladly left these kinds of big-picture issues to Erik and Elora while she simply took care of Erik.

Eventually, Erik neared the end of his story and told Astrid how he encountered her in a ghoul patrol, subdued her, and took her with him, before feeding her his blood while Elora sealed her memories.

He even told her exactly what happened between them and Nora. After all, better she finds out about the kind of things he and Elora engage in now, rather than later.

Interestingly, after learning about his extra-marital relations, the fact they enslaved Nora didn't seem to faze Astrid much.

Although Erik really wasn't too surprised by that. Though not unkind, Astrid's nature leaned more towards pragmatism and loyalty, with a constant yearning for combat. Thus, the enslavement of an enemy who was basically asking for it did not raise her eyebrows.

Finally, he got to his marriage with Emma, and the way both of their bodies had been marked. When he got to this point, Emma wasn't really listening anymore, as she just caressed her tattoo while looking ahead with a dreamy expression.

At the end of it all, the room went quiet, and everyone had different expressions on their faces. Erik looked relaxed, although inwardly he was a little nervous, as this was the second big test of his possible future relationship with Astrid.

As for Astrid herself, she looked at him with narrowed eyes, and a thoughtful expression, clearly mulling over everything he had told her so far.

Meanwhile, Emma was still looking dreamily into nothingness, while Elora had a small, curious smile hanging on her lips.

At some point, Astrid lost her thoughtful expression but didn't seem ready to share her thoughts just yet. Instead, she turned to the dreamy-looking Emma with a strange expression. "This girl's got it bad for you, huh?"

Erik chuckled, but before he could answer, it seemed Emma shook herself free from her trance-like state to answer Astrid herself. She looked at the vampire with a bright smile, "I've decided to make Master my world." Then she giggled a little, "So yes, I suppose I've 'got it bad for him.'"

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"I see…" she mumbled as her voice trailed of a little, tinted with doubt. It was difficult for her to understand how someone could wholly devote themselves to another like Emma seemed to.

In fact, there was a tiny little part of her that suspected Erik, or perhaps that little fairy woman, had done something to Emma. She tried hard to suppress that suspicion as she hoped that Erik, at his core, was still the man she once knew.

But she realized only time would tell whether that was true or not.

Yet, despite Astrid's attempts at hiding her suspicion, Elora could still pick up on it and relayed it to Erik, who felt a pang of sadness at that news. He couldn't really blame her, though. After all, he had just told a story where he and Elora did not come off as particularly upstanding citizens.

He realized that all he could do was continue being himself, and showing Astrid he was still the person she once knew, at least at his core.