Author's note: The drabble was a prompt from my 100 themes project. This particular one was inspired after having finished the anime series (so not a canon of the story in any form). I love writing these two!
Her neck swelled, the drumming beat matching the rhythm of her circling blood. It surged every so often, a constant reminder of the impurity that once coursed through her body. She'd cast it out before complete contamination, but the body still reacted, and the mind still reeled of disgust.
There was no understanding to it. She was a fool for having gotten in the line of political fire. A double fool for her loosened cravat at the end of the night. A decade of self-respect and caution thrown to the side on one single, politically matched dance and she fancied herself loose for at least that one moment.
And then the bite came.
It had happened quickly enough, almost too quickly for the beautiful woman to withstand. But she matched her adversary. There was something to be said about the fighting beauty of a woman scorned.
She pressed her palms onto the bandage that covered her neck. The wound was still fresh, its warmth pulsing at the pressure beneath her fingertips. The lady grimaced.
"It doesn't suit you," he appeared, walking through her balcony door without a single lift of a finger. He gazed at the bandage around her neck.
Of course it didn't. The thought of Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing with a festering vampire bite was an oxymoronic idea. Here she was, the quintessential warrior against the demons of the Church, a Protestant servant to Her Highness the Queen of England. Yet one bite was all it took to sully an upstanding reputation.
Which was why she'd done everything in her power to rid herself of the stain. She'd torn her neck open, allowing more blood to spill out.
And there she stood, the living miracle of what would have been instant death. Integra had clawed her way back to life and emerged the victor.
"My teeth in your neck would have been a better fit," he said with his wide, playful smile, the usual toothy grin flashing on his pale face.
Another oxymoronic idea. The vampire before her was the purest of the impurities. The ultimate fighting machine, set out to murder his own kind at the merest command from his human master. He was the beginning of the vampire, altered and evolved in such a way that he had become virtually indestructible. Alucard the Immortal, the Invincible, the once-feared Impaler, a mere servant to the Hellsing Organization.
"Don't trouble yourself, Alucard."
He would comply, of course. As he usually would, for as long as his contract sealed him to the Hellsing family. Not that servitude mattered to him. Even if freed, he would have given Integra The Choice.
And every time he did offer her The Choice, she refused. The more she said no, the more Alucard pressed her. The vampire's excitement grew whenever his master chose to fight. It was a cat-and-mouse game that she played with him. The more she ran, the harder he followed. She kept her pure mastery over him, and he got his occasional excitement.
But tonight...
"The moon tonight is even more beautiful," Alucard said, turning his face to stare at the red glow seeping out of the Earth's orbiting satellite.
Tonight her purity was outmatched by his. The master took a step back to let her servant gaze out the window. She waited for him to leave, knowing that he expected that. And he would do the exact opposite.
A mastered master. The contradictions began to pile around her.
Once more, her neck throbbed. Integra's eyes blurred from the pain. The moon glowed red for the merest few seconds. She could feel the sharp intake of breath and the cool fangs hovering over her throat. The sensation of the previous bite took over her once again, a poisonous force that left her feeling a mixture of euphoria and...
Resistance.
"Alucard." The implied command hung in the air, a heavy-handed barrier between them.
The sensations disappeared, and she breathed once more. At the window, the vampire chuckled.
"Admit it," he said as he began to disappear. "Tonight would have been more beautiful."
More beautiful than that dreadful night of mistakes.
There was no admission, as usual. But he already knew her answer. She kept her mind blank and looked at the moon instead, refusing to utter another word.
The swelling in her neck subsided.