Garden Of Poison-Chapter 222: Leader of Sheep

The reverberation of the thunder persisted in tandem with the relentless pelting of the hailstones, numbing and submerging all distant sounds into an unbroken cacophony of white noise. Lightning mercilessly flashed through the window, causing Emily to gaze uneasily at the tumultuous spectacle.

"Is it always like this here?" Emily inquired, her eyes still fixed on the view outside the window.

Raylen retrieved the first-aid box from one of the cupboards within the room and set it down on a small table positioned in front of the couch, where candles burned brightly. The surroundings glowed warmly from the light emanating from candle stands scattered around the room. He took a seat at one end of the couch, while Emily settled at the other.

"More or less, yes," Raylen replied to her, glancing at her face. One side was hidden in a subtle shadow, while the other was softly illuminated by the flickering radiance of the candlelight. "It is the first week of Winter, and the rain will soon be replaced by snow. It will be quieter than it is now. Your foot, Princess."

Emily turned away from the window, and her eyes fell on the first-aid box. She then said,

"I can do it."

Raylen stared at her, his head tilting slightly, and he nodded. "If you say so," he said, leaning back and keeping his gaze fixed on her.

Emily gently raised the hem of her off-white nightdress and lifted her injured left foot to rest it on top of her right knee. In the soft candlelight, she could discern the tip of the shard protruding only slightly from her sole, indicating that the piece had penetrated quite deeply. The redness surrounding the glass was quite visible, and from the side, the archdemon watched her in silence, as though observing and patiently waiting.

Her hand inched towards her foot, her heartbeat ringing in her ears as she pinched the glass shard, and she felt a sharp, brutal tear that made her grit her teeth.

"Still want to do it on your own?" Raylen asked, his blue eyes appearing patient, even though he wasn’t.

"I don’t want to be a damsel in distress," Emily replied, concentrating on her injured foot.

"It seems my joke was lost on you," Raylen murmured before continuing, "Your old habits are hard to let go of, aren’t they? But this will help you understand. You can suffer for hours with it stuck, or you—"

Emily’s agonised cry echoed through the room as she swiftly pulled out the glass shard from her foot. Tears welled up and spilled from her eyes due to the intense pain she experienced. A sharp gasp escaped her lips when Raylen caught her ankle, causing her body to turn towards him.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, startled, even though they were the only two people in the room.

"Here I have been careful about how much blood I take from you, and look what you’ve done," Raylen stated, his other hand collecting the blood that dripped from her foot into his palm. He brought it to his lips, licking it clean before locking his radiant blue eyes with hers. He continued, "We wouldn’t want precious blood to go to waste, and I believe every drop counts."

"Then perhaps we should ask Lauren to fetch a cup," Emily quipped before wincing slightly when Raylen lightly blew on her injured sole.

When she attempted to pull her foot away, his grip around her ankle only tightened, keeping her close, and she didn’t make another attempt to move away.

"Why use a cup when one can drink blood in its freshest form?" Raylen asked her. "You know I can help you, and you can help me." Having already taken blood from her earlier that afternoon, he had been craving more of it.

Just the mere touch of the air he had blown on her sole made Emily feel as if her soul had briefly departed from her body. She could only imagine how much worse it could be if he drank from it. She took a deep breath and confessed, "I won’t be able to handle the pain..."

"I will be careful. You know that, don’t you, Princess?" Raylen’s words were as soft as velvet, coaxing her gently. He added, "Who knows?" as his finger wiped the dripping blood, and he continued, "You might even enjoy it; pain can be pleasurable." His finger momentarily disappeared into his mouth.

"I don’t think we share the same interests," Emily replied, her observation causing the once-gentle look in his eyes to be replaced by a serious glint. An amused smile formed on his lips, now looking redder due to her blood.

Not to mention, this was highly inappropriate! Perhaps for higher demons like him, it didn’t matter, coming from the lower realm, but in the living realm, people didn’t latch their mouths onto others’ body parts, she thought to herself.

"I would like to disagree, Princess. I think we are more similar than you think," Raylen remarked before angling his face towards her foot.

"Aren’t you worried about it being a foot?" Emily asked, bracing herself for what might come next.

"You have clean feet," Raylen said, and his tongue ran from her heel to near the injury, collecting the blood along the way so as not to waste it.

Emily’s body stiffened in response to the sensation of his tongue. Her eyes clenched shut, and she felt his wet tongue tickle, causing her to instinctively pull her leg back towards her. The sudden movement caught Raylen’s attention, and he looked at her.

Her blood tasted as exquisite as it had from her neck, perhaps even more so, and he wanted to savour it for as long as he could. Was it the pain or the tumultuous night she feared that had added a unique intensity to her blood? He couldn’t tell, but he noticed her. Her heart leaped into her throat when his lips touched the wound, and her eyes flew open to meet his.

Raylen watched Emily’s chest rise and fall with each careful breath she took. Her hair was partially tied in a cream-coloured ribbon that matched her off-white nightdress, giving her the appearance of a beautiful doll that had come to life. His lips covered the wound, and their eyes remained locked as he continued to suck the delectable blood from her sole. When he sucked harder, he heard her heart skip a beat, and her eyebrows furrowed in response.

"Raylen!" Emily scolded him through gritted teeth. Was he planning to drain all her blood today?

"Need to make sure to remove any remnants of the glass in there," Raylen said from behind her sole.

Emily sucked in a deep breath as Raylen ran his tongue on the wound, and she asked, "Won’t it affect you?" Surely his staple meals didn’t involve consuming glass, she thought to herself.

"It does," Raylen replied, pulling away from her foot and taking note of her delicate ankle, which he had encircled with his fingers. "But I want to help. Aren’t I kind?"

Emily gazed at him, the pain from her wound now less agonising than before, and she replied with a hint of sarcasm, "So kind that you should be the leader of the sheep."

Raylen’s lips curled into a wicked smile, and he said, "I already am."

Of course, Emily thought to herself, breaking her gaze away from his and turning to look out the window. Even though her eyes weren’t on him, she could sense his gaze fixed on her. She felt his mouth on the sole of her foot, and the sensation turned gentle and slow, causing her to tremble for a moment. His tongue languidly stroked the wound, making her bite her bottom lip, and she heard him say,

"There. All disinfected now," Raylen announced.

"Thanks for your... work, Physician Raylen," Emily murmured, her foot still suspended in the air as Raylen hadn’t released his grip on her ankle.

When he finally let go of her foot, Emily swiftly lowered it to the ground, placing her weight on her toes and hastily adjusting her nightdress. It felt as though the longer she spent in this archdemon’s presence, the more it seemed like her chasteness was slowly evaporating, and it wasn’t like there was anything she could do to prevent it, given how the circumstances had unfolded.

She closed her eyes for a moment. At this rate, no one will take me as a wife if they come to know about this encounter! The thought crossed her mind, and she opened her eyes.

When Emily turned to look at Raylen, she caught sight of him picking up the glass shard that was earlier stuck in her foot and placing it in his mouth. Her eyes widened, and she asked in disbelief,

"W—what are you doing?" Emily watched him suck on it as if it were a piece of candy.

When the shard of glass emerged from Raylen’s mouth, it was clean of her blood. He remarked, "Wasting good food is a sin," erotically licking his finger from the base to the tip.