Content warning for later chapter. Heed mature content warnings. Once you read it, you cannot un-read it.
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Integra went into her bedroom and closed the door behind her. She went to her dresser and began to undress before the mirror.
She briefly examined her reflection as she slid off the skirt to her school uniform. Stress had caused her to lose her appetite. She eyed the bony protrusions in her hips rising above her skin. How much weight had she lost in the past few months? Even her face felt hollow, her youthful cheeks sunken in. This was not the time to be preoccupied about her appearance, however, and she took a plain cotton night-gown from the dresser. She slipped off her bra and tossed it aside and breathed a sigh of relief. Even at her young age, her breasts were full and well developed, and after twelve hours stuffed into a brassiere, her back and sides started to ache.
How odd Alucard had been, she thought dully.
She imagined him laying naked on an examination table, strapped down before her grandfather while the man performed cruel experiments on the vampire. Then she imagined herself laying naked in the same manner, except at Alucard's mercy.
She shook her head in disgust.
How terrible it must have been. Yet, she had to remind herself he was no innocent. He wasn't a victim of circumstance or a product of his era. He was a murderer. One of the great tyrants of all time. He had done so much worse to his victims than what Hellsing had done to him. He'd impaled well over forty thousand people, many the innocent family members of his enemies. He'd burned entire towns down. He killed indiscriminately. Women and children. A child-murderer. And those were just his human crimes. Once he'd become a vampire, his wickedness was truly unleashed. Wickedness unlike the world had ever seen.
It was her duty, above all others, to keep Alucard a prisoner. More important than wiping out all vampire kind, her first duty was to protect the world from Alucard. That was Hellsing's true function. Eradicating vampires for the glory of England was practically a front. Using him to wipe out all vampire kind was just enough to keep him occupied, entertained, while he sunk deeper and deeper into dependence and submission.
Yet, the fact that her father had sealed him away was proof that something had gone awry in that scheme.
She had to succeed where her father had failed.
Integra slid her glasses off the bridge of her nose and folded them in her hand. She looked at them.
She thought of how Alucard had retrieved them and brought them to her.
She rubbed her tender sides, then slipped her night-gown over her head. She reached down to her thigh and started to unlatch the holster strapped there.
Then she paused.
Something odd. Something out of place in the mirror.
She turned around.
The room wasn't entirely dark. Dawn was creeping over the horizon, and a diffused amber glow warmed the room.
Alucard was sound asleep on her bed, his hands neatly folded across his chest like a corpse at a wake. His legs were straight, the toes of his boots pointed towards the ceiling like a wooden toy. How unnaturally stiff a vampire slept. Not a hair was out of place. His clothes were impeccable, without a wrinkle. He lay on the left side of the king-sized bed instead of in the center-as if he expected her to join him.
Integra waited expressionlessly.
He must think he's terribly funny, Integra thought, but how foolish he is to sleep outside the protection of his coffin. In a bed, like a man–what mockery.
She folded her arms.
Even with his lips relaxed in sleep, he still had a handsome face.
There was hint of a wrinkle–no more than a thin smile line–down his cheek. Evidence he was always smirking.
She scowled.
Who was she fooling?
She hated him, yet he made her giddy with power. All that evil, all that power and rage and guiltless killing potential was hers to command. She could set him to any task and be confident he would see it through as if he were a machine, and she wouldn't have to be bothered with anything other than wait for his return. She could wipe out the Round Table, tonight.
But most of all…
Most of all.
She had grown fond of the way his hair fell into his foolish eyes.
Even when he was looking down at her, he always seemed to be looking up at her. There was a curious spark in those red eyes. An amusement. A merriment. Not that he was just happy, that he was happy to be with her. And when she spoke, his whole face lit up, and he hung on her every word. And she did not know why. She did not see in herself whatever he found so amusing. She was not a particularly pretty girl, or very commanding. Why did she absorb his attention so?
If anything, she thought she was incredibly plain, and she found herself intimidated by many things, and every task expected of her felt excruciating. She was embarrassed by everything she did. Even when calling a meeting to order, she was painfully aware of how young and short she was. When she wore her father's robes, she felt like she was playing dress-up. When she attended target practice, she felt like her gun's recoil would send her flying. When she spoke to her men, she felt them silently judging her; she sent them out to battle from her safe little castle, a little girl with no concept of their sacrifice. She could see their resentment in their eyes. When one of them died, how could she consol their grieving families? Her age made her a joke and their deaths pointless.
Alucard made her feel strong. He made her feel in control. He made her feel like she could kill the world for making her feel so small.
How the mind schemes such evil plots when there's no consequences for your actions, Integra thought. No Christian heart could resist unlimited power, not when you command the Devil himself to do your bidding. How quickly one could be seduced by evil. But God defeated the Devil and cast him into the lake of fire. Her battle was not with one man or with one monster. Her's was the eternal battle, and she need not look farther than Christ for strength.
"You look like a virginal bride in that slight little thing. Did you wear it for me?"
Integra realized the slumbering beast's eyes were slightly opened. She wasn't sure how long he had been awake.
"Come to consummate our vows?" The vampire reached up and unknotted his cravat. "Be gentle with me."
He relaxed his knees, letting his legs open a little.
The girl's expression did not change, but she fought to keep her eyes on his face.
It was God's will that he belonged to her. She hoped Hellsing was his own personal hell. "Remove yourself from my bed immediately," Integra commanded cooly. "You've been given a dark, musty corner of the house for your coffin where you won't be disturbed. But this bedroom is reserved for the master of this house."
"I used to believe I had a place in God's kingdom, too," Alucard said, tossing his cravat aside. "Be careful that you don't substitute your own dark lusts for God's will, or you will kill many innocents in the defense of your faith."
"Stop reading my thoughts," Integra said. "And you have no faith in Christ."
"Nor you," Alucard countered. "The trick of worshiping a benevolent but absent God is that we never really know what He wants. And when we rely on little voices in our souls and hearts to guide us, we find ourselves covered in blood as we stand on a field of battle littered with corpses."
Integra raised an eyebrow. "Don't try to tell me you murdered little children to please God."
"Little boys can carry the sword and the bow, just as men can." Alucard let his head loll to the side, his inky hair flowing with it. "And girls can command armies and lead men into doom or victory, as queens can." His glowing red eyes peered at her between locks of his black hair. "Children can become enslaved and sold as concubines, passed around to diseased men and die in a ditch with their bellies empty and their wombs full of filth. Don't think your enemies would spare your life just because of your age. They would kill you. Just as surely as I would kill them, or their children, to protect you and give glory to you."
Integra shuddered. "I would never ask you to kill children for any reason, even to preserve my life."
"You don't have to ask," Alucard said, unbuttoning the top button of his collar. "It's my pleasure."
"Leave my bed so I can sleep."
"There's enough room for us both, master." He undid the second button. "I promised you I would help you to sleep and I intended to keep that promise in person."
"Get out of my bed. You're dirtying it with your corpse-smells."
Alucard undid a third button, smiling wryly.
The girl angrily stepped forward, her arms stiff at her side, her fists clenched. "Get out this instant. I forbid you from entering my bedroom again."
"Tell me how I'm not good enough for you," Alucard requested, his eyes heavily lidded. "Tell me I'm your unworthy slave."
She sneered. "Of course a murderer like you, who relishes in torturing others, would be a pain slut himself. I won't be your dominatrix. Get out of my bed. I'm not going to tell you again…"
"'Pain slut.' I like that. Can that be our safe word?" He unbuttoned a forth. "I can't imagine you in leather. But I'll try." He unbuttoned the fifth, now more than halfway down his stomach, and the white flesh underneath began to peek out. "Did your father ever express regrets that he didn't have a son? Did he worry about you taking command?"
"My father taught me that my gender made no difference," Integra said firmly. "He told me I would be leader of the Hellsing Organization. He's said it since the beginning. He had no other plan than me."
"All fathers want a strong son to carry on for them." Alucard paused with his fingers touching the sixth button, low on his body near his hips. "Still. I would have liked to have a daughter like you. You were stronger than all my sons. They died, you understand. Inferior blood, like me. I always thought it was a miracle that I survived to adulthood." His fingers did not move. His eyes were locked on his master. "Sometimes I pretend that we are blood. That you are my sister, and we shared the same father. Or that you are my child. I don't know. I get mixed up in my dreams."
Integra turned away from him and went to the windows, feeling bile rise in her throat at the thought of being biologically related to Alucard. "Are there no depths your perversions won't sink to?"
Alucard pulled another button open, and at last his skin was bare. "I don't know. I haven't tried them all yet."
"You're filth." Integra flung open the drapes and the bedroom was bathed in sunlight.
To be continued…